Discussion - LEW 4th Edition

[Bront]

Alright, I'll just keep chugging along with my current stuff till it's somewhat presentable then. No chance you have access to a microphone and ventrillo either?

I'm at work, so no.

 

[Bront]

On your L4W settings, those happened seperately, and are run by a seperate group of people (who happen to have many crossover judges). So looking to expand the living base like that is probably best left to others.

More in particular, we have several worldbuilders here, so making an L4W unique to Enworld and non-generic is part of the point of making it.

 

[Knight Otu]

My opinions:

1) is it just going to be SRD, or will it incorporate wotc products? (ie do we do what LEW does, or LEB?)

SRD of Core Rules 1 only, perhaps Core Rules 1 only if there are significant omissions (remembering that character creation rules most likely won't enter the SRD).

2) how many judges?

Three's pretty much a minimum, so that it is less likely that all judges are in one adventure. One or two character judges, which may or may not be adventure/proposal judges.

3) Is it just going to be a PbP, or will we incorporate D&D Insider somehow? (the table idea, for example)

PbP only. DDI seems to have some tools that will be useful for PbP as well, so I if someone wants to use them, I see no reason to disallow that. No to the GameTable.

4) World Shape is a big one that informs much of the setting

I believe I gave one possibility already, others can also chime in.

 

[Wik]

I'm with Bront in that we should have our own setting. That, to me, is a big one. It also means that Players (and many of us are GMs in our home games) don't know all the secrets about the starting location.

As for expanding worlds - I'm all for it. Actually, an FR PbP would be pretty cool - I'm sort of amazed we don't have one already. Not that I like FR *At all*, but it's pretty much core D&D, after all.

Regarding PC death - I didn't know there were PC deaths. Simply looking at the PC lists, I think only one PC died. So I was basing things off that. I generally don't read PbPs for games I'm not involved in.

Personally, I'd love to get started on worldbuilding right now, but I see the wisdom in waiting.

 

[Wik]

Now, this also adds yet ANOTHER level of complexity to the set of tiers of content we have. New players can always join in the Core game with little to no confusion, following the rules as they can read them in their books. Then we have the more advanced setting based games. But not only that, every year a "new" setting based game gets added, so players can get in on the ground floor. One thing this helps with is it will space out "generations" of characters. A new player 2 years from now might be a bit behind if they were to join the FR game, but since Eberron just came out they can be one of the first player's to cut their teeth and potentially be one of the movers and shakers in the living game down the line.

I don't know that we have "movers and shakers" in any living campaign. I mean, we have higher-level PCs in LEW (And those don't even exist in LEB), but I wouldn't consider them higher-ups in any sense of the word.

 

[Creamsteak]

Going along the line of what I've got up above, I think Bront is misinterpretting the concept. There's no closed gate on world building, just on content (mechanical) changes to the game. This really isn't any different from the current LEW's building mechanic except for the pantheon.

I don't think restricting things to the core rules would restrict things insofar as world-building goes. Similar to how in LEW we allow DMs the freedom to use mechanics outside the SRD if they want, I don't think there would be an actual limitation on world building.

 

[Creamsteak]

I don't know that we have "movers and shakers" in any living campaign. I mean, we have higher-level PCs in LEW (And those don't even exist in LEB), but I wouldn't consider them higher-ups in any sense of the word.

If you go back to the original posts drafting up the setting, one of the primary motivations is to make the players the primary motivation for action in the setting.

 

[Bront]

Going along the line of what I've got up above, I think Bront is misinterpretting the concept. There's no closed gate on world building, just on content (mechanical) changes to the game. This really isn't any different from the current LEW's building mechanic except for the pantheon.

I don't think restricting things to the core rules would restrict things insofar as world-building goes. Similar to how in LEW we allow DMs the freedom to use mechanics outside the SRD if they want, I don't think there would be an actual limitation on world building.

Pantheon has a HUGE impact on the setting, and given we have a few people interested in the setting that have done a lot of work fleshing out the Pantheon intellegently in LEW, I don't think the Pantheon will be an issue. It wasn't a huge issue in LEW when I joined up other than being a mish mash of minor gods and missing most of the truely important gods (Fertility, love, death)

 

[Rystil Arden]

I don't know that we have "movers and shakers" in any living campaign. I mean, we have higher-level PCs in LEW (And those don't even exist in LEB), but I wouldn't consider them higher-ups in any sense of the word.

I think we do in LEW. And if we don't, we will by the time the Mega Adventure is done. That's one of my goals, actually.

 

[Wik]

I really, really, REALLY think that L4W should have a gazeteer-type Player's guide, available as a free download, that outlines the basic geography and the general rules of playing in an open PbP.

Creamsteak: I like the idea of players being the movers and shakers of the world; I just haven't seen it happen. Until we can set up a system where experienced PCs can send inexperienced PCs on quests, where the PCs can have a role in deciding whether or not a nation should go to war, and everything else, PCs won't be movers and shakers.

Which gives me an idea, which I will post in a minute.