D&D 4E Is 4E the designers homebrew coming to my gaming table?

[Rechan]

You may have like it and others may not. I happen to be in the not camp. One of the things I am trying to get at with my post is did you think there was a problem to begin with or is it more of a reaction along the line, "Yeah, I like what you're doing here"?

What do you mean by "a problem"? As in, "Oh god, this must be fixed because it just doesn't make sense!"?

I thought the Elemental planes were boring. Just vast, endless seas and unending fire. (For that matter, Most of the planes bored me). I thought the Demon/Devil Blood Feud was... meh. It just didn't jazz me up at all. And I hate the alignment system. So in truth it's never come up in my games because I never had an Interest in it.

But with some of the changes they are making, creating adventure sites in the Planes, I might send the PCs there. I definitely am jazzed about this direction with the Demons/Devils. I might now want to use this stuff!

Granted, both of my campaigns are set in Eberron, and while I like Eberron's planes a lot more, neither the Planes or the Demons cosmology really matters; they just aren't the focus of the games. So I won't be able to use them really.

But for a homebrew, by gum I'll make use.

I mean, what sort of fluff causes problems, exactly?

 

[Glyfair]

One of the things I am trying to get at with my post is did you think there was a problem to begin with or is it more of a reaction along the line, "Yeah, I like what you're doing here"?

First, I don't think starting the discussion from the point of "did it need fixing" is a good sound spot. The assumption seems to be "if it didn't then it shouldn't have been changed" and I disagree with that assumption.

Second, just because it didn't need fixing from your point of view, doesn't mean it might not from theirs. Take the "Great Wheel." It has a HUGE baggage from previous editions. Perhaps WotC discovered that was a stumbling block to new players or to future plans.

Right now if you want to design something dealing with the outer plans you better have encyclopedic knowledge of the D&D products. Make a single mistake and you have loud cries from a small portion of fans "but the aardvark demon was actually a servant of Sim and there is no way that he would be serving his archrival Groth." Just on that I wouldn't object to them abandoning all the great wheel stuff for the core.*

* I am not saying they are doing this. It's just an example of a reason why something might be broken from their point-of-view and not yours.

 

[broghammerj]

Point 1: Saying "there are bigger fish to fry" is meaningless in this context. It wasn't like the designers said, "Gee, we can only change 17 things about D&D. If we have a new cosmology, we're going to have to keep grapple the way it was. Quick, someone flip a coin!"

I'm quite sure that, as far as the designers are concerned, they have fried the bigger fish, and they're also going after some of the smaller ones.

I threw out several lines and apparently everyone bit on cosmology (to keep the fish jokes coming). I was looking for reaction to the overall fluff. I find it a bit frustrating that in the recent playtest report:

"Bonecrusher zombies and a zombie hulk go into the reliquary. That’s a bit different than the Blood of Vol clerics I’d slotted in there, but I wanted to put the new monsters through their paces. (And a robust NPC creation system is something we don’t have… yet."

This is where changes to fluff have me scratching my head yet the NPC creation system isn't complete???

What I want is a super generic DnD core books. I thought the Greyhawk gods were too much in 3.0. They should have had generic gods without names and basically left their portfolio such as healing, justice, etc. If they want they could throw in example names form GH, greek mythology, etc.

 

[Mouseferatu]

What I want is a super generic DnD core books. I thought the Greyhawk gods were too much in 3.0. They should have had generic gods without names and basically left their portfolio such as healing, justice, etc. If they want they could throw in example names form GH, greek mythology, etc.

Ah. And right there is a reason that we'll never see eye-to-eye on this. I though the Greyhawkisms of 3E were just barely enough. I can't think of anything that would be more boring, or worse for the game as a whole, than completely flavorless/generic rulebooks. As I said in another thread:

RPG books must be evocative and interesting, at least to an extent, or they're going to turn off a fair number of potential players. Similarly, even the core rules should inspire adventure ideas in DMs, and character ideas in players. As long as the flavor is sufficiently separate that the book can serve as a quick reference during play, the additional flavor is not only not harmful, but I'd argue absolutely necessary.

The last thing I want, and the last thing D&D needs, is a core book that is nothing but mechanics. An insufficiency of flavor is more stifling to the imagination, IMO, than an excess of it, even if that flavor runs contrary to the tastes and intentions of the players.

 

[Branduil]

I threw out several lines and apparently everyone bit on cosmology (to keep the fish jokes coming). I was looking for reaction to the overall fluff. I find it a bit frustrating that in the recent playtest report:

"Bonecrusher zombies and a zombie hulk go into the reliquary. That’s a bit different than the Blood of Vol clerics I’d slotted in there, but I wanted to put the new monsters through their paces. (And a robust NPC creation system is something we don’t have… yet."

This is where changes to fluff have me scratching my head yet the NPC creation system isn't complete???

What I want is a super generic DnD core books. I thought the Greyhawk gods were too much in 3.0. They should have had generic gods without names and basically left their portfolio such as healing, justice, etc. If they want they could throw in example names form GH, greek mythology, etc.

I don't think writing fluff is taking resources away from writing crunch.

Also, I would say the new setting is fairly generic, as far as fantasy fare goes. However, generic need not mean uninteresting, which is what I think was the default 3.x setting's problem.

 

[Rechan]

What I want is a super generic DnD core books. I thought the Greyhawk gods were too much in 3.0. They should have had generic gods without names and basically left their portfolio such as healing, justice, etc. If they want they could throw in example names form GH, greek mythology, etc.

Sorry, you're not going to get that. The PHB is not the SRD. You may just need the bare bones "Tell me how the classes work and the spells function", but the thirteen year old picking up the PHB for the first time needs this stuff. And the guy who's DMing for the first time needs something to sink his teeth into. Just "This is the god of fire and his domain is fire" isn't going to be that exciting for the people getting together to play D&D for the very first time.

I don't understand why, if the fluff doesn't matter to you, that you just can't ignore it? I never look at the Description chapter of the PHB. But I don't scorn the fact it's there.

 

[Glyfair]

This is where changes to fluff have me scratching my head yet the NPC creation system isn't complete???

There is a story design team (with James Wyatt leading) that deals with the fluff issues. There is a mechanical team who works on things like the NPC creation system. Each team has their own responsibilities.

That doesn't mean that each group is off in their own corner working alone. It's clear they aren't from the blog entries, playtest discussions, etc.

Think of it like building a house. You don't walk up to the plumber and complain that he's not helping the electrician wire the house. His responsibility isn't the wiring except when the plumbing he's working on intersects with the wiring.

 

[broghammerj]

What do you mean by "a problem"? As in, "Oh god, this must be fixed because it just doesn't make sense!"?

I thought the Elemental planes were boring. Just vast, endless seas and unending fire. (For that matter, Most of the planes bored me). I thought the Demon/Devil Blood Feud was... meh. It just didn't jazz me up at all. And I hate the alignment system. So in truth it's never come up in my games because I never had an Interest in it.

I mean, what sort of fluff causes problems, exactly?

By problem I mean something that effects your gameplay and prevents you from having fun. Alignment is something I don't enjoy and have essentially done away with or marginalized when I DM. It becomes a problem in that it is intertwined in spells, magic items, etc. In regards to gameplay it seems that there are always threads popping up about the paladin doing this or that and should he atone etc. It seems like a difficult rule to adjudicate at times and confusing to new players. I don't know if the DnD community as a whole agrees with me but it's something I had on my wishlist to fix.

The elemental planes on the other hand may not seem sexy or fun but I would guess like many gamers they have little relative impact on your game. They do however provide a historical point of reference that many of us older players can refer to on a common level. If their not core than they are certainly canon. I would argue they are both.

 

[Rechan]

By problem I mean something that effects your gameplay and prevents you from having fun.

If that's your criteria, then I say aside from alignment (and its restrictions), and certain class fluff (Bards=Musical and/or Vocal, paladins and monks can't multi-class), there is no fluff that has prevented me from having fun or effected my game play.

Hell, I say the only fluff that I passionately dislike out of taste is that white dragons are brutish and savage and demi-human races, aside from their subraces, have no cultural variations. And the only change in fluff that would make me mad would be any changes to kobolds. Arguments on why it's a travesty the art of the Blue Dragon has a spike on its nose is just beyond me. (Yes, that argument is over on the WotC boards).

Otherwise, burn it to the ground and rebuild if you want. I don't care.

 

[broghammerj]

Second, just because it didn't need fixing from your point of view, doesn't mean it might not from theirs. Take the "Great Wheel." It has a HUGE baggage from previous editions. Perhaps WotC discovered that was a stumbling block to new players or to future plans.

Right now if you want to design something dealing with the outer plans you better have encyclopedic knowledge of the D&D products. Make a single mistake and you have loud cries from a small portion of fans "but the aardvark demon was actually a servant of Sim and there is no way that he would be serving his archrival Groth." Just on that I wouldn't object to them abandoning all the great wheel stuff for the core

The great wheel is at least a point of reference for those of us who played. It does come with baggage but that helps everyone see things from a relatively common point of view. I would have no objections to changing the GW but describe why it happened....Asmodeus staged a coup d'etat and took over the nine hells. Don't just suddenly appear with statements about cosmology as if it never existed. We shouldn't have revisionist history with 3 generations of the game preceding this one

The core books use of the outer planes should be written in a generic enough fashion to avoid upsetting Planescape fans. I just don't think that level of detail should be entered into.