Discussion - LEW 4th Edition

Dargon said:

I have a question about the job system.
Can a character on job be in the RDI? (As to pick up adventures).

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I certainly hope so. That's where Tarag goes to advertise his wares periodically.

Let's face it - it's really the only place where it makes sense to be, if you're looking to advertise what you're crafting ... and if you're working as a day labourer, what better place to hang out? After all, the other adventurers know what it's like to look for work, your stories are more likely to receive a sympathetic and willing ear ... and besides, the food and drink is free!

B4cchus said:

How where the judges/decision makers positions filled at the dawn of LEW? or better even, at LEB?

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LS is probably a better example than LEB

Basicly, a bunch of people had the idea to do a living supers game, and LS resulted in wanting a game that had an ovious way to bring players togeather, and set the tone to have some continuity, so you end up with a UN sponsored super force, No aliens allowed, and a very specific spot where RL and that universe diverges.

Once we had a fairly agreeable background, we had votes for judges, and kicked it off. It was myself, another judge who left, and a third person (Velmont?) initialy, and we expanded it.

LEB already had the background/starting point, so we sorta voted for judges (RA and myself joined KO), and then we stole most of the initial rules from LEB.

For a new LEW 4E, I'd suggest starting it off by getting a general consensus on the initial town, getting some votes for some initial judges, and then start content approval for fluff just like rules approval. if you start in January, by the time you get to approval of fluff, should be March or April, and you should have the book when it's time to flesh things out rules wise.

I would suggest however waiting to start any actual games till all 3 books have been out at least a month. Otherwise, things like treasure awards, XP awards, and monsters will be somewhat inconsistant, which is ok in a home campaign, but could kill a living/joint campaign.

Things that are easy to do before the full rules are out:
General world history (The Enworldphant for example)
a few Major gods (fluff for the world history) (Creation gods or elemental gods are a good starting point and can be fitted for rules later)
The starting location setup (non-rules portions at least) (The basics of Orussis)
Nations, Organizations, or other fluff stuff (Freefolk, Earling, the Accademy of the Chromatic Order, things like that)

What isn't good before rules come out:
Rules restrictions on the starting city
Racial histories
Houserules
Character creation and advancement rules
Large Deity lists (the need for the list depends on how deities are dealth with in game)
A detailed history (which could be effected by race, item, deity, or monster rules, just to name a few)

Remember, there will be some default assumption changes in 4E, such as cosmology and some monsters may be redone (again). So rushing into this while in the dark about a lot of this won't help anyone. And if the SRD isn't available immedately, or quickly in a usable format (I'm sure someone will HTML it soon after it's released though) , it could slow down potential players quite a bit.

Waiting till things have been out for a bit gives you time to read, prepare, and hopefully not have to do major fixed.

Bront said:

For a new LEW 4E, I'd suggest starting it off by getting a general consensus on the initial town, getting some votes for some initial judges, and then start content approval for fluff just like rules approval. if you start in January, by the time you get to approval of fluff, should be March or April, and you should have the book when it's time to flesh things out rules wise.

I would suggest however waiting to start any actual games till all 3 books have been out at least a month. Otherwise, things like treasure awards, XP awards, and monsters will be somewhat inconsistant, which is ok in a home campaign, but could kill a living/joint campaign.

Things that are easy to do before the full rules are out:
General world history (The Enworldphant for example)
a few Major gods (fluff for the world history) (Creation gods or elemental gods are a good starting point and can be fitted for rules later)
The starting location setup (non-rules portions at least) (The basics of Orussis)
Nations, Organizations, or other fluff stuff (Freefolk, Earling, the Accademy of the Chromatic Order, things like that)

What isn't good before rules come out:
Rules restrictions on the starting city
Racial histories
Houserules
Character creation and advancement rules
Large Deity lists (the need for the list depends on how deities are dealth with in game)
A detailed history (which could be effected by race, item, deity, or monster rules, just to name a few)

Remember, there will be some default assumption changes in 4E, such as cosmology and some monsters may be redone (again). So rushing into this while in the dark about a lot of this won't help anyone. And if the SRD isn't available immedately, or quickly in a usable format (I'm sure someone will HTML it soon after it's released though) , it could slow down potential players quite a bit.

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I still think an early start would be better. We run a vote for judges, and do a general vote for world design (I suggest we have a few broad submissions). And basically, start the discussion rolling about things like Gods, terrain, history, nations, and whatnot.

By the time february and march come along, we could really start the developing of "fluff". When the rules start to release, we can set up the actual boards, figure out how the rules would fit, and start approving characters and have them interact in the RDI (but agree not to run any adventures until all three books are out). Then, after all three books are released, we take in adventure proposals, and start things up.

Ideally, a schedule would look something like this

October- Set up a board for discussion of L4W development, talking about the main elements (a very rough world outline, judging format, and whatnot)

November - Votes on Judges, the main idea for the starting town (size, location, power groups, etc...), and the general continent. And maybe a vote on some stuff that deviates a bit from "core" D&D (for example, if we decided to set the world in a Romaneque world... just using an example).

December - Work begins on setting up the basics of the world. Naming things, laying out the main deities, getting a map drawn up, etc... also, I party until Christmas, and then start pre-drinking for New Year's. I pass out early December 31st and don't wake up till January 3rd.

January - April - Work carries on, with some discussions about things that we "know" will be in the core books (from early released products). This is the "how do we fit class X into the world?" phase, and the figuring out how/if we include "non-core" materials or houserules.

May - Books start to release. We start character approvals right away, and let PCs interact in our version of the RDI. And then, when all three books are released, we have a "cooling off" period of at least two weeks, where adventures can be approved, but not run (so that Gms can get a feel for the rules).

And then we go nuts.

I agree with others that the start on that plan is way too early, and it has, I think, way too much development in the world at release, by which I mean, I think we should do as LEW and have a world with minimal detail at release, allowing GMs and players to really make their mark in the world by adding in new things--I mean, think about how many years it took before LEW had an adequate pantheon that filled in several critical roles, but yet we still did fine. Anyway, let's not clutter up LEW with this though.

Rystil Arden said:

I agree with others that the start on that plan is way too early, and it has, I think, way too much development in the world at release, by which I mean, I think we should do as LEW and have a world with minimal detail at release, allowing GMs and players to really make their mark in the world by adding in new things--I mean, think about how many years it took before LEW had an adequate pantheon that filled in several critical roles, but yet we still did fine. Anyway, let's not clutter up LEW with this though.

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Fair enough. But then where do we move it to?

And while I may have an early start on things, what's the problem with that? "always be prepared", and all that jazz.

Wik said:

Fair enough. But then where do we move it to?

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Ask and you shall recieve

Here's a big reason not to rush it. It's quite possable you could elect judges who will look through 4E, say "this is junk", and walk away. If you wait till the books are out, you'll probably get better retention of initial players and judges. Or worse, judges who can't get their hands on the actual book.

RA is right as well. LEW managed to spring up with little more than a tavern, and grew from there. I don't see how we couldn't do something similar.

October is too early, and while I can ask PK if you want, you're not likely to get a forum untill you're ready to actualy start. LS didn't get one till we opened for character creation.

Since this is now a seperate thread I feel a bit free to throw more thoughts out there that I was holding back before because of the tangent nature of the topic. This isn't to say that I want to solve any of these problems right now. Rather, I simply want to raise the questions so people can consider and look forward. I'll get into it later I think.

So now it's already decided that L4W will be a completely separate world?

There was a talk about waiting to actually see the rules and having the community decide about converting at the beginning but it seems like that is ruled out now.

That might be the direction people want to lean, but nobody has a right to have ruled out anything yet.

For now, I believe it is best for there to be a functioning Fourth Edition Living World "shortly" after the 4E rulebooks are released. A Living Enworld converted to 4E from 3.5 cannot provide that due to the conversion process - at that time, few people will be equipped to, say, convert the races, the custom spells, or the prestige classes, whatever form they take (or even weapons! Remember that fighters get some powers from weapon choice). We need to understand certain aspects of the rules first, resulting in a lengthy conversion process.
A new Living World might be able to provide gaming almost right off the release of the DMG (the third book this time around), even adventures (We'll have at least Keep of the Shadowfell, and D&DI subscribers probably will have a few Dungeon adventures to run for the characters).

That said - Once 4E is released, the Living Enworld community may well decide that we should make the switch as well, even if at this time it seems that more people resist that step than embrace it. That is something we shouldn't forget, and isn't something that is at odds with a seperate 4E Living World. Maybe some people should look at how some aspects of LEW could be translated to 4E early (and I'm sure some people will, if only out of curiosity). But it isn't something that needs to, or even can, be decided now.