4e = Shattered Empires?

Hey gang:

First post go lightly on me.

I do not have any of the 4e books, but from what I've seen here it appears that some of 4e looks a lot like my Player's Guide to Arcanis(sorry about the spelling, book not with me):

War-like lizard men as a core race - check

Demon blood misfits as core - check

Elves more nature/element oriented - check

Evil Holy Warrior as PC option - check

Don't get me wrong - I like this stuff - it just seems very similar. Were any of the designers from the 3d Party company working on 4e? Just time proven fun ideas? Or am I totally off base and they are not really so alike?

Thanks

Sam

I think just going by the races offered and extrapolating that to the whole system is a stretch. Msot gmae systems use similar racial options, and stereotypes because they work and are expected and familiar to players.

If there are vast mechanical similarities, I would be more supportinve of the idea they were similar.

A

Sam Lowery said:

Hey gang:

First post go lightly on me.

I do not have any of the 4e books, but from what I've seen here it appears that some of 4e looks a lot like my Player's Guide to Arcanis(sorry about the spelling, book not with me):

War-like lizard men as a core race - check

Demon blood misfits as core - check

Elves more nature/element oriented - check

Evil Holy Warrior as PC option - check

Don't get me wrong - I like this stuff - it just seems very similar. Were any of the designers from the 3d Party company working on 4e? Just time proven fun ideas? Or am I totally off base and they are not really so alike?

Thanks

Sam

Click to expand...

I don't believe they worked on it.

In fact they seem pretty hostile to 4e, and have said they would not convert the campaign to 4e, which suits me just fine.

Designers in the RPG industry are usually not half as creative as they claim to, and I always saw of lot of cut-and paste from one game / setting to another.

Elemental elves have also been done by Green ronin for instance.
Lizard man PCs have been availaible as early as 1e.
Evil Holy Warriors and Anti-Paladins : 1e

My opinion is that the design of the Arcanis world is far superior to anything WOTC has ever done, and while adapting Arcanis to 4e is certainly possible, it will hurt the immersive approach of the setting, and lower its outstanding quality.

I just hope their new system will top 3.5 when it comes out.

Stereofm said:

I don't believe they worked on it.

In fact they seem pretty hostile to 4e, and have said they would not convert the campaign to 4e, which suits me just fine.

Designers in the RPG industry are usually not half as creative as they claim to, and I always saw of lot of cut-and paste from one game / setting to another.

Elemental elves have also been done by Green ronin for instance.

Click to expand...

First, I just want to point out that we are not at all hostile to 4E, we just don't think it is a good choice for Arcanis.

Second, Eldest Sons is not a Green Ronin product, if that is what you are thinking about. The chapter about elemental elves is set in Arcanis.

A lot of those things are pretty popular thematic elements -- I certainly don't think anyone's saying "Draconic humans? Why didn't WEEEEEE think of that?" What matters is the execution of it.

Arcanis is not Norrath is not Points of Light is not anywhere else this stuff has showed up in varying flavors.

That said, you probably could do worse than to take your Arcanis 3E books and run them with 4E, since the core rules, as noted, does have some crossover.