Living 4th Edition Discussion Thread

renau1g · Aug 7, 2008

Bront said:
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.

Agreed, this isn't one of those settings, but I was wondering if there was any thoughts to potentially allowing material from them (if & only if) the group can develop a way for them to be in the setting in a constructive way.

i.e. if someone wants to play a Red Wizard of Thay, they'll need to propose all the fluff that goes along with it, in the setting....and it needs to be approved.

I'm sure if people really want their new toys they can head over to the regular PbP pages and try it out there.

garyh · Aug 7, 2008

Bront said:
The 6 month rule was generated for LEB for several reasons....

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 worked well enough for us in LEB.

These are great points, and I'm pretty much convinced.

Bront said:
I'm going to make a suggestion here.

I don't think you should allow "Playtesting" material...

Bront, you're on a roll. You've madea good case for this too. Plus, if someone's itching to playtest something, a regular PbP game is a lot easier to accomdate that.

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.

renau1g said:
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.

I agree with Renau1g. There's nothing stopping anyone from playing with just the PHB1, and if the judges are doing their job, they won't be underpowered from not having the new stuff. If someone wants to DM, chances are they probably already have the DMG/MM.

covaithe · Aug 7, 2008

Ok, I'm convinced enough that players -- and probably DMs -- won't be hampered by lack of access to new stuff. But what about judges? Will judges still be able to do their thing if they don't have access to all the rulebooks? How does that work in LEB? If not -- that is, if judges would be unable to do their jobs without all the rulebooks -- would we be okay with the idea of effectively requiring judges to own all the rulebooks that are allowed or under consideration? I hope we wouldn't do the latter. Judges already carry enough responsibility in living worlds without imposing a financial requirement on them as well.

garyh · Aug 7, 2008

covaithe said:
Ok, I'm convinced enough that players -- and probably DMs -- won't be hampered by lack of access to new stuff. But what about judges? Will judges still be able to do their thing if they don't have access to all the rulebooks? How does that work in LEB? If not -- that is, if judges would be unable to do their jobs without all the rulebooks -- would we be okay with the idea of effectively requiring judges to own all the rulebooks that are allowed or under consideration? I hope we wouldn't do the latter. Judges already carry enough responsibility in living worlds without imposing a financial requirement on them as well.

Maybe just require that a quorom of judges possess the new book being evaluated? With the added caveat that if (for example) 3 of the 5 judges have a book, they have to unanimouosly agree (no rules sliding in on a 2 yes / 1 no / 2 abstain vote).

renau1g · Aug 7, 2008

I think that if we have 5 judges, odds are decent that 3 of them have it. We can't require them to own the material in question. The other option is that the proposed rule could be e-mailed from one judge to the other (offline) for the purposed of adjudicating things. That way the full # of judges could review the rules (even if they don't own the book), but I'd be interested in how LEB does it.

Graf · Aug 7, 2008

I think what we should or shouldn't allow has already been voted on.

Its decided for now. It will probably be revisited in the future. It's very good for Bront to have weighed in with the historical background but thrashing a sensitive issue over and over again is not the best thing for us to be completely focused upon.

If people aren't happy with the poll (how it was structured or written or what have you) we can re-poll. Otherwise? There is a lot of other substantive work to be done.

renau1g · Aug 8, 2008

Ok, we'll shelve it for now. I don't think we're discussing what to allow in, but rather how to allow it in the most effective manner possible.

Would you like me to put together a standard character sheet that the player's will submit for review? I'll post it and you can critique it...

garyh · Aug 8, 2008

renau1g said:
Would you like me to put together a standard character sheet that the player's will submit for review? I'll post it and you can critique it...

Sounds good to me!

What's next on our road plan? Setting info? Or maybe finalizing/formalizing facilitators?

Graf · Aug 8, 2008

> Would you like me to put together a standard character sheet
> that the player's will submit for review? I'll post it and you can
> critique it...

GK made one, why don't you look at that and then see if you can add/improve. Its on the wiki you can edit it freely and we can see all the different versions.

Per the roadmap we should get facilitators before we get settings up.

And I think that Wilds will be serious contender, but it needs, I think, a bit more polishing. And we need to have a good think about how to poll it out. Do we just want to do pick-a-setting? Do we want to try to poll certain issues (the whole map thing comes to mind)?

I have a good poll idea actually. On attribute generation. Coming soon.

Graf · Aug 8, 2008

renau1g said:
Ok, we'll shelve it for now. I don't think we're discussing what to allow in, but rather how to allow it in the most effective manner possible.

Would you like me to put together a standard character sheet that the player's will submit for review? I'll post it and you can critique it...

It's a fine discussion. Now that we have a whole forum to ourselves it's worth of an entire thread. Because right now the conversation is happening on like three different levels and, incidentally, completely dominating this thread.

In an ideal world I think we would move the invididual posts (many of which are well thought out) and excellent, to a new thread.

Especially since people coming to this thread for the first time will probably miss the poll.