Goodman Games solicits input

[TheNovaLord]

tricky

i dont know if a 4e and PF/3.5 should even be written the same way

they do play quite differently before you even get down to minutae of treasure, encounter types and such

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I think that two separate lines would be better than trying to convert back and forth - or maybe just give store credit or something to folks doing conversions, rather than putting a staffer on it.

That said - 4e needs the support, going by the two (2) adventures* from WotC that I looked over as possible conversion material. So, keep on making adventures for it. (For what it is worth, I was not overly impressed with their 3.X adventures either, they needed the help back then too. WotC had good rules, but the adventures... not so much. They needed more meat, some gravy, a touch of garlic, or something. The 4e adventures felt much the same - more a series of encounters than a cohesive whole.)

Pathfinder has better adventures than 4e, Paizo does an excellent job of involved adventure paths, but the simple dungeon crawl is less well represented, so there is room there as well.

But I do not think that either stat free or official downloadable conversion is the answer. I wish that the current PDF market was more robust - shortish dungeon crawl adventures appeal to me much more as PDFs than print. Heck, I buy the Paizo adventures as PDFs, and they are not all that short. Lower risk than a print run, but if the PDF market is still depressed, not likely worth it. But I would love to be wrong.

The Auld Grump

*Translation: My experience of WotC 4e adventures is extremely limited, there may be some worth converting, but the two I looked at were cold pancakes without syrup or butter. Nevertheless, I will give you my opinion.

*EDIT* Two food analogies in a single post? Maybe I should have eaten before typing.

 

[Wayside]

Actually they do. It's just not called DDI. It's called DM tools, redblade, mythweavers, etc. Those are also open btw.

None of those tools has anywhere near the scope of the Character Builder or the Rules Compendium, unfortunately.

 

[aboyd]

HeroForge has "enough" scope (most of the official splatbooks) that it works fine as a near-DDI tool for 3.5 edition (for me). And PCGen works great for core-only 3.5 games, and is super-friendly for 3PP -- just tons & tons of stuff from third party publishers, most of it official & blessed. I think Chrono22's point is well-made.

 

[Wayside]

HeroForge has "enough" scope (most of the official splatbooks) that it works fine as a near-DDI tool for 3.5 edition (for me). And PCGen works great for core-only 3.5 games, and is super-friendly for 3PP -- just tons & tons of stuff from third party publishers, most of it official & blessed. I think Chrono22's point is well-made.

I don't. WotC's tools have all the options (including previews and exclusive content), balance fixes, errata, etc. Other tools do not.

I look forward to seeing something similar from Paizo eventually, but right now there's nothing out there comparable to the DDI.

 

[aboyd]

The good news is, the rest of the world doesn't seem to need to meet your standards. I'm just fine with the stuff you don't feel is good enough, and I've got a crowd of people coming with me. So even if you opt out, there's traction there from the rest of us.

 

[Mark]

As far as tools go, legos are better than funnels, IMO.

 

[Wayside]

The good news is, the rest of the world doesn't seem to need to meet your standards. I'm just fine with the stuff you don't feel is good enough, and I've got a crowd of people coming with me. So even if you opt out, there's traction there from the rest of us.

a) I'm sure this is why the Character Builder is seen as indispensable by so many 4e players while those other tools are not seen as indispensable by their respective player bases.

b) It's interesting that you would try to make this personal (my "standards" and "stuff [ I ] don't feel is good enough") or even steer it toward edition warring ("I've got a crowd of people"), seeing as how I neither play 4e nor subscribe to the DDI.

 

[Mark]

a) I'm sure this is why the Character Builder is seen as indispensable by so many 4e players while those other tools are not seen as indispensable by their respective player bases.

Thought of as indispensible to play 4E says more about 4E than the DDI. I certainly wouldn't play 4E as I have if the DDI did not exist.

 

[Dannager]

Thought of as indispensible to play 4E says more about 4E than the DDI. I certainly wouldn't play 4E as I have if the DDI did not exist.

Say what you will, but the reality is that the Character Builder makes creating the character you want to play so much easier than it would otherwise be without the digital aid that a lot of people will be very reluctant to go back to the "old way" of doing things. It really is a phenomenally useful tool. When 5e (or whatever) eventually rolls around, I think it's going to be absolutely critical that WotC provide a comparable Character Builder application from the get-go. People are going to expect it of them.