Ok, just tell me Why

[Brilbadr]

First I need to preface this by saying.. I was pro-4th ed.
Fairly strongly pro until I heard about the OGL type changes.
Then I was friendly and optimistic even if I thought the bean counters at wizards had their head screwed on the wrong way.
And the death of Dragon to be replaced by the same sub-par digital content that had been freely doled out made me sad but all things come to an end and that didn't mean 4th edition would be poo right?
*cough*
Well
It seems the whole boat is infected. The whole coast-line even..
I have just read Monster Manual. Cover to cover. Skimmed PHB and DMG to get the rules to interpret it.
Now I'm one of those beardy old gits who remember MM when it was a semi-amature production with a pegasus on the front. Black and white pen drawings. Spelling errors. Bizarre stats. Incongruous numbers. Poor un-even, un-intuitive system.
Well it's better than what I read today.
All I can articulate is "WHY!"
You may critisise "but you haven't played it"-
well I build my campains from monster books and art- have done so for 20 years. They are my juice, my creative muse. They inspire the bizarre plots and convoluted machinations that I imagine. Then (unless Paizo is doing the honors) the campain springs forth. And I say..
..WHY..

Why would you play this bizarre hybrid of magic the gathering and talisman…

Why would you make it?

Why would you produce such art? No offense to the artists. Not my style AT ALL. I prefer Errol Otus to this stuff. Style is art, art is style. Take a look at early John Blanche. Reasonable execution, middling even but such emotion, such raw vision. This is superbly executed and flat as a pancake. Ok, maybe the balrog was ok but it looked like it had broken with the program.

Why would you populate a world with monsters that have no meaning?
Where's the complex socio/anthro hooks. The social reasons for great evil (or good)or great dispair (or hatred). That's what makes villans rock. Pathos.

A couple of monsters that I hated in 3rd ed actually come off ok in 4th, and some really old “niche” monsters that didn’t fit anywhere from the original fiend folio now have stuff that makes sense.. Tick

but things that weren’t broken- unbalanced perhaps, crazy maybe but that was their shtick- like the death-knight… now.. bleh. Monsters with powers that are just there “Earthbinding” on the Tarrasque- your flying height is reduced to 20ft and your flyspeed is reduced to 1.. …sigh… yes it is disadvantaged at level 30 because it can’t fly.. my brain..

Anyway. I think not 4th ed DnD. I got a tiny urge to try it. And then I read the MM. And I’m cured.
Well done Wizards, it took you over a decade but you finally got me to lay down the DnD books.

this rant isn't finished btw, I'll be back, I have a few more Texas steak sized bones to pick, but first I'm going to check some facts and identify the game designers I think are personally at fault..

 

[theredrobedwizard]

If you were the divine agent of entropy and destruction, but couldn't fly around; wouldn't you find a way to make it so things around you that *could* fly would be less able to do so?

Evolution.

You argue for incongruous monsters and stats and whatnot, but then berate the Tarrasque for the same thing?

-TRRW

 

[Brilbadr]

not that I'm trolling... honest... but I was saying that 1st ed wasn't that great but it still was better than bland art and magic the gathering powers. I won't call them MMORPG powers because those are extremely granular and so complex in their interplay that no table-top is going to attempt to emulate them. If you don't believe me spend 2 days reading mechanics on wowiki.

Evolution. If it was the old school tarrasque yeh.. but the new one doesn't die just sleep- thus bypassing Darwin's entire mechanism for improvement.

I think what you mean is now he's a divine agent so the gods gave him the power. Personally I thought the shell reflection/spell resistance/regen with burrowing and jumping worked fine.
I've DMed 2 x Tarrasque encounters in different campains- one where he was in the background as a threat- actually really effective. The other one he got done in by magic + smites. Bit anticlimatic perhaps. But high level 3rd ed could be like that sometimes. No what I'm thinking is "what is the essence of the Tarrasque" and auto-function-ground-sucking-magic isn't what springs to mind..

 

[PeelSeel2]

Just posting so I can subscribe to this thread. I like rants. They are great entertainment.

 

[Brilbadr]

last one before bed.. a bit more on 4th ed having MMO-like flavoring.
The style of "power this" "power that" .. is MMORPG.
But MMO's have one major advantage- they can use powerful computers to do on-the-fly calculations, so their mechanics are very fine, very granular- hence you can have 70 levels in WoW, because no poor GM is keeping track of Murmur's hit points- "ok you crit for 1430 damage followed by 60% over 12 seconds increased by 12% because at this very second the druid is in feral form, that takes Murmurs hits down to 46,802, now I'll make an attack on everybody for the sonic boom for 10,000 hitpoints adjusted by your nature resistance, of course the rogue take s 10% less damage after resistance rolls due to deadend nerves talent and the hunters pet takes 15% less damage before resistance, which reminds me your heal over time on the pet heals 475 damage taking him back up to 8341 hitpoints plus 280hp for the pet bond talent and has a 35% chance this turn of removing the slow effect" etc etc etc etc. that's literally a split second of a solo boss fight.

Now some of the boss abilites from molten core might make interesting new monsters but that would have nothing to do with scale, just fresh ideas on keeping players on their toes.

So table top RPGs need to get their shtick from something else. Player to player interaction. Suspense. The mind-bending un-limits of imagination. Stuff that is really hard to do in an MMO. Table top can't beat MMO's at their own game of levelling addiction and shiny loot. Mony-Haul might have shone the way but World of Warcraft has taken it to a whole new level.
And they still haven't fixed magic items in 4th ed. "Items of these levels have these bonuses". Stacking bonuses for mechanical benefit not mystery or mystique. Yech. Hate-mundane-magic. Make it dangerous. Make it un-knowable.
Iron heroes went further on magical items. That was one of it's good points. Mr Mearls, are you listening? With a not-compatible new edition there was no need to build in bonus bracket creep. None.

I don't hate 4th ed. I still might give a spin- and feel dirty afterwards

 

[Testament]

Why would you produce such art? No offense to the artists. Not my style AT ALL. I prefer Errol Otus to this stuff. Style is art, art is style. Take a look at early John Blanche. Reasonable execution, middling even but such emotion, such raw vision. This is superbly executed and flat as a pancake. Ok, maybe the balrog was ok but it looked like it had broken with the program.

Well, you lost me there, but I kept reading anyway. If you're gonna praise Erol Otus but slag off talents like William O'Connor and Wayne Reynolds...

Why would you populate a world with monsters that have no meaning?
Where's the complex socio/anthro hooks. The social reasons for great evil (or good)or great dispair (or hatred). That's what makes villans rock. Pathos.

Funny, I thought that was the GM's job, since 100 GMs are going to have 100 different ideas about what to do with a monster. In a setting neutral book like the MM, I want as few inbuilt assumptions about my ecology thank you very much.

but things that weren’t broken- unbalanced perhaps, crazy maybe but that was their shtick- like the death-knight… now.. bleh. Monsters with powers that are just there “Earthbinding” on the Tarrasque- your flying height is reduced to 20ft and your flyspeed is reduced to 1.. …sigh… yes it is disadvantaged at level 30 because it can’t fly.. my brain..

Correction. With players with ANY degree of rules mastery, at least in 3.X, any melee monster without a fly speed from level 12 onwards isn't a monster, its meat covered XP candy. At best. This is an inelegant solution, sure, but at least it means that the Tarrasque isn't a joke anymore.

 

[Buttercup]

Well done Wizards, it took you over a decade but you finally got me to lay down the DnD books.

This confuses me, honestly.

I mean, I haven't read the MM, since our copy hasn't arrived yet. I'm nearly positive I won't like it. But lay down my D&D books? Not until you pry my cold, dead fingers off my dice.

So you don't like 4E. Don't play it. You have several earlier editions to choose from. Why take your ball & bat & go home, just because you don't like the current edition.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Why would you populate a world with monsters that have no meaning?
Where's the complex socio/anthro hooks. The social reasons for great evil (or good)or great dispair (or hatred). That's what makes villans rock. Pathos..

I hate books that give lots of social or racial backgrouns, because then the writeups reflect that, and maybe I don't want the Orcs in my world to behave that way, and have that background.

I love 4th for giving that stuff back to the GM.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This confuses me, honestly.

I mean, I haven't read the MM, since our copy hasn't arrived yet. I'm nearly positive I won't like it. But lay down my D&D books? Not until you pry my cold, dead fingers off my dice.

So you don't like 4E. Don't play it. You have several earlier editions to choose from. Why take your ball & bat & go home, just because you don't like the current edition.

Well, considering there are people that consider something like the Star Wars prequels like raping their childhood and stuff like that, well, just say that fans can act a bit... over-emotional and irrational.

Hey, think about it - you've ordered the books despite expecting you wouldn't like it?! I was a f4nboi before I saw any solid rules at all! (It could just be an accident that we might both end up right )

 

[Nifft]

I hate books that give lots of social or racial backgrouns, because then the writeups reflect that, and maybe I don't want the Orcs in my world to behave that way, and have that background.

I love 4th for giving that stuff back to the GM.

Same here. I hate it when a player assumes the book's flavor text is valid when it's something I've changed (and something I hope the players discover). "Flavor lawyers" exist, and they can be frustrating.

Cheers, -- N