Living 4th Edition Discussion Thread

Graf · Aug 7, 2008

There's some really good stuff hanging around the old thread that we should pick up on. I like a lot of the feel of this. But I haven't digested it properly.

ata said:
I wrote some more. Feedback is appreciated.

Here's an attempt at a mythology of origins for the setting:

The first Aeon was Darkness.

The secon Aeon, Light blossomed out in darkness, and Light outlined the Chaos from the Dark, and Chaos was all, and all was in Chaos.

The third Aeon, love was born, and separation was born. For from Chaos, Ge, the Mother, and Ouranos the Shining too, and one laid herself under all things, and the other embraced her lovingly. And the Chaos that remained was alone and furious, and stabbed Ge, and shattered her. And Ouranos embraced her and soaked in her blood and they were closer and farther than before.

The fourth Aeon, children were born from Ge and Ouranos, and they were mighty and beautiful, and walked on the womb of their mother and looked up at their father. But Chaos was cast aside and jealous and also gave birth, but though mighty his children were, ugly and angry they were, too. And while the children of Ge and Ouranos gave life and beauty to the soil that was their Mother, the children of Chaos brought darkness, and sharp mountains, and scorching fires, and chilling cold, and they excavated the interior of Ge with caves and rifts. And the Mother was in pain and cried and shook, and remembered whe she was one. And from her memory a light was born that was fair and full of life and her children called it Elysium and inhabited it, but then it cast a long shadow on the opposite side, and the children looked at it and it was gloomy and deserted, and they called it Herebos, and few of them ever walked on it.
And then Ge was tired and fell asleep, and sad was Ouranos and followed her in her slumber to dream outside all that was, and they have not awakened since. And from their stillness the Cosmos was born, and the shifting Seas.

Then came the first age of Mortals, first of many to come. The world was blossoming with life, and the young Gods helped it grow, each in its way. The dragons were the first to awaken in the Cosmos, and they grew great and mighty, closest to gods than any other mortal being. The Elysium shone like a glowing star, and its children soon walked the world, and even the darkes corners of the world were stirring, and the gods walked on the same grounds of mortals.
But again, the Primordials, children of chaos, were jealous and moved to the Cosmos to bring ruin with them, and built fortresses and created servants to kill and imprison mortals, made of raw matter and pure life force. They dared not enter Elysium and Herebos, for mysterious were their lands, but Titans, and Giants their children, and Archons and Elementals were in Cosmos. At first, the Gods were pushed away, for no army they had, nor had they battled before, save for play. They established fortresses too, in Ouranos, Elysium, in the Shifting Seas, and even in Herebos. They started to gather allies among the most powerful mortal creatures, and even powerful immortal spirits. They eternal forged bonds of loyalty with Angels, and created fearsome Abominations to send against those spawned by the Primordials, desperate to take back the Cosmos. The war was the longest the World has since seen, and forever will be. In the end, the gods prevailed as the majority of the Primordials were destroyed, or retired in the eternal elemental storms of Chaos. The most powerful of the Primordials and their rulers, Arges, Gya, Kotto, Bryareus, Stheropes and Bronthes were cast down with all the divine might to the deepest abyss of Chaos, and there chained and sealed. There, their malice corrupted all around them and made their own prison far worse than ever would it had been. That was called Thartharus.

Well obviously shattered Ge is the Earth, and the Cosmos in this case, while Ouranos is the Astral Sea, and thefting seas are made of Ge's "blood" soaking Ouranos (to represent their "transitiveness"). Chaos is the elemental Chaos. the children of Ge and Ouranos the Gods, the children of Chaos the Primordials. Herebos is the Shadowfell and Elysium the Feywild. The "excavated interior"of Ge may well be the Underdark. Thartharus is the Abyss.
This was a first Myth of creation. I'll write more later (like something to introduce the Far Realms. Maybe they were spawned by the mighty dreams of Ouranos and Ge, eternally asleep?) and update the pantheon itself.

Graf · Aug 7, 2008

Erekose13 said:
Note that in the poll run by Graf, the results indicated that people prefer core (phb, mm) + fan material. I believe that was for the opening round of characters and not for the future of L4W

I think you mean core + MM.
Fan created had 2 votes.

Graf · Aug 7, 2008

Added the five and fixed Bacarte

[d]==[/d]

I wanted to propose something else. I think that long online games are the gold standard. But they're hard to run.
A lot of DMs either burn out or get frustrated. They're used to writing for a difference sort of game (pure table top, where you can do a lot in a few intense hours), etc.

So I wanted to think about accepting that and trying to create a space for people to DM some shorter things, or to introduce plots or stories that don' t necessarily involve 4~6 rl months in a dungeon.
(not that I don't love that, but I'm seeing some stuttering around the board (and, honestly, with three games going myself I'm definitely feeling it a bit))

Adventure types said:
Three adventure tiers
* Full adventure - typical pbp
:* recommended length up to 1 level and 3 months | normally an adventure should be planned to complete within six months (this is to encourage rotation of players and dms).
* Mini campaign
:* rewards - achievements cash (normally no magic items) and normally 250 xp
:* lasts up to one month real life / 2 - 4 scenes
* Vignette - [character can't die in vignette]
:* rewards - achievements / plot hooks (no magic items) normally 100xp
:* usually one week real life / one scene

Achievements -- usually no combat impact / less useful than a feat
Magic items -- refer to items in phb. So an item that doesn't do as much as an item (no combat effect basically a plot/rp device) can pass muster. An small reddish chunk of meteorite that glows when it's near another piece of the same meteorite

Obviously as the setting progresses we may want to encourage longer games, but especially at the start, if there are few DMs we don't want to get people too locked up... I think anyway.

As you can see I've introduced something called an Achievement, which comes from some online game (can't remember which one). And achievement would be something like

Friends in Low Places -- one of the merchants of Bacarte thinks positively of you. Once a month you can call upon his influence to positive effect. Reroll any one streetwise roll made by you or an ally in your presence when on the island of Bacarte or dealing directly with merchants allied with your friend.

Achievements should, to my mind, be pretty rare, the result of some combination of superior roleplaying and quick thinking or else as the primary reward for a significant and challenging mini-adventure.

there could also be achievements that are more negative

Displeasure in low places -- You've upset one of the merchants. No so much that he or she would take action against you but enough that he's made his irritation clear. You and anyone with you suffer a -5 to streetwise rolls made in Bacarte. You and anyone allied with you also suffer a -5 on any social roll you make involving that merchant or their allies.
Of course that merchant almost certainly has people who dislike them and you may find yourself receiving help from unexpected quarters

negative achievements could be temporary (lasting 3 months), something that might happen in place of character death perhaps?

In our character application I think each character should also include

a kicker
and at least one hook (something specific that would allow you to connect specifically to an adventure)

Bront · Aug 7, 2008

covaithe said:
My personal preference is to get things rolling with as simple a ruleset as possible, and allow more content in a bit down the road. This is at least partly due to the fact that I'm still struggling to grasp the contents of the PHB, though. Someone (Velmont? Stonegod? not sure...) mentioned in the old discussion thread the idea of a moratorium on newly released content until it had been out for six months, to allow for balance issues and errata to be addressed. That seems sensible to me.

The 6 month rule was generated for LEB for several reasons.

1) It gave players and judges time to acquire and digest the content.

2) It gave time to possibly see it used in a game.

3) It gave it time to be errataed.

Here's problems without a 6 month rule:
Player A wants something in the new Complete masseuse that came out earlier today. None of the judges have seen the book, so can't approve it, Player A gets upset.

Player B wants to use a power in the new Complete Overkill that came out a week ago. Judge A has it, so can vouge for it, and the other judges approve it (having read it or not).

GM A has a player in a game who is using a new power from a book that hasn't been released in his area yet, or was sold out and is on backorder.

Basicly, the 6 month rule prevents a lot of initial problems, and is mostly a default "Got to wait 6 months rule" to give judges, players, and GMs time to buy, learn, and adapt to new rules. Obviously, the core books you're not nessessarily waiting on (though those may end up being out 6 months before you actualy start).

I might suggest using this rule instead:
Wait 3 Months on Core products (PHBs, DMGs, and MMs). However, content is automatically approved unless otherwise proposed.

Wait 6 Months on Complimentary products (Complete books, Power Books, New power sources not introduced via the core books, etc). Products from these books need to be approved specifically

This will give you some flexability, keep all the core stuff in the game, and allow a controlled influx of suplimentary stuff. I would also recommend limiting it to WOTC stuff. It removes some potentialy good stuff from inclusion, but it also limits the scope of things.

This worked well enough for us in LEB.

covaithe · Aug 7, 2008

There is support for vignettes and short adventures in LEW and LEB, though without rigid guidelines on how much xp/treasure/time span represents a vignette vs. short adventure. Halford has just gotten approval for such a small adventure in LEW. But you know how it is; people want to run long and glorious adventures, not little tidy ones.

Bront · Aug 7, 2008

Atanatotatos said:
seems a good idea to me. I also propose a different treatment in general for playtesting material. If we allow it faster we can actually contribute to its development.

I'm going to make a suggestion here.

I don't think you should allow "Playtesting" material. In some ways, you'll be playtesting any new/created player content anyway, so allowing other material already labled playtesting seems like a bad idea.

Here's the issue. Balance.

It's is something that in a home game, you can deal with fairly quickly and easily. The GM has total autonomy, and players usually know each other enough that Balance can be found among a group fairly easily.

However, in a group game, where the players and GM will change, you don't have that luxury. The GM can't handwave something or tweek it on the fly with a houserule, as there are judges and other rules in place.

Playtesting material often is quite often broken one way or the other, and with a persistant world, it's effects are much harder to handwave or retcon. I just think it's a bad idea.

Bront · Aug 7, 2008

renau1g said:
What are LEW's restrictions on things from other campaign settings... i.e does it allow things like FRCS, EBCS, Dragonlance...etc. into it (all of these had official 3e releases from WOTC).

I'm wondering how they could manage to work those into the game...

LEW was it's own world, and only allowed in user created stuff outside of the core. It was fairly self contained, and any new content had to be created specificly for it. No outside sources were allowed unless they were OGL (and hense, you could strip and redo it publicly)

You have 2 possible problems. Limit non-core material too much, and people can't use their nifty new sourcebooks in L4W (This hasn't stoped LEW from expanding fairly consistantly though, so this isn't nessessarily a bad thing). Don't limit it enough, and everyone gets their cool toys, but not everyone knows what everyone elses toys do (Again, not always a bad thing, breeds a bit more difference between characters, but can make GMing tougher).

If you go kitchen sink with the setting, you lose some of the unique flavor of the setting. This isn't Dragonlance, Eberron, or Forgotten Realms, it's L4W. How unique you want it will effect what you do or don't let in.

Bront · Aug 7, 2008

Erekose13 said:
LEB allows core + Eberron material (where core includes all non-setting based material, ie the Complete and Race lines).

Actualy, LEB allows for anything WotC if apporved, but it initialy only allowed Core and ECS only. It has expanded in a somewhat limited fashion.

covaithe · Aug 7, 2008

I think that one of the really nice things about LEW is that you don't need to own any books to play or DM in it. All of the rules, content, and sources are freely available online.

We won't be able to do that in L4W; to play you'll at least need a PHB, and to DM you'll need probably a DMG and MM as well. I'm not sure it will be possible, but it would be really nice if the PHB were all you needed to own in order to participate fully in L4W.

On the other hand, it's certainly true that people who buy the PHB2 are going to want to use it, too. I'm not sure what to do about this.

renau1g · Aug 7, 2008

covaithe said:
I think that one of the really nice things about LEW is that you don't need to own any books to play or DM in it. All of the rules, content, and sources are freely available online.

We won't be able to do that in L4W; to play you'll at least need a PHB, and to DM you'll need probably a DMG and MM as well. I'm not sure it will be possible, but it would be really nice if the PHB were all you needed to own in order to participate fully in L4W.

On the other hand, it's certainly true that people who buy the PHB2 are going to want to use it, too. I'm not sure what to do about this.

Well, with the PHB everyone can fully participate in L4W, they just can only use the information they have. Just like in LEB, I only had EBCS, while there were quite a few more approved sources out there that I wasn't able to make my character with.