What Blizzard Teaches Us About Games

[Mirtek]

If you need to stop the dread ritual of the cult of Erythnull before they complete it during full moon, it just doesn't cut it if you need 2 weeks just to get through the entry hall of their temple because you go home to sleep after every fight

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If you need to stop the dread ritual of the cult of Erythnull before they complete it during full moon, it just doesn't cut it if you need 2 weeks just to get through the entry hall of their temple because you go home to sleep after every fight

Nor does it help if you die in the 4th combat because each combat took his "expected" toll in resources (25 %) and the only way to regain this resources would have been sleeping, which you couldn't.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

I recently saw some slides Blizzard Entertainment used for a presentation on games...[/sblock]

I look forwards to the mechanical changes that make it 4E. Its the setting changes I dislike.

 

[Zelc]

I look forwards to the mechanical changes that make it 4E. Its the setting changes I dislike.

Well, the good news is fluff is easy to change, while crunch is much more difficult to change without ripple effects. It might not make sense from a continuity POV if suddenly everyone in the Forgotten Realms used the new magic system, but if you and your players are OK with it, a simple retcon or just ignoring the NPCs' previous powers will let you play with the new mechanics in the old setting.

 

[FadedC]

Well, that's precisely the point. If they insist on the 15-minute-day strategy ("full auto" spell usage), they'll be leaving the dungeon before they get anywhere rewarding. So the only fruitful strategy then is to conserve spells, avoid the wanderers, use the max firepower in the interesting terminal areas, and commit to coming back through the weaker wanderers with your top spells reduced or out.

.

This can be a bit boring too at times, as the fights have to be pretty easy if you can handle the entire module (usually 10+ encounters) in one day. Having played a spellcaster in crawls like this, I find there is little more boring then having fights where your entire goal is to do absolutely nothing because you don't want to waste spells. Often you end up with a whole bunch of really boring fights and then one big exciting one at the end which is either really easy if you sufficiently saved your resources or really hard if you haven't. Figuring out how to use your spells to best effect is fun......spending whole fights saying "I pass" or "I shoot with my crossbow....whoops I missed" is not fun.

With all that being said, I do like a certain amount of attrition and resource management on adventures. I just don't like ti at the expense of interesting fights. As a previous poster said a time limit doesn't help if the players are not actually capable of suriviving more then 3-4 encounters in a day.

 

[Harlath]

Fewer! Fewer buckets is better!

Say it with me. "I have fewer dollars. I have less money."

Thank god someone else noticed this and spared me the shame. I always liked: "Fewer children, less bad at grammar."

 

[Wolfspider]

Well, the good news is fluff is easy to change

Oh really?

 

[Wormwood]

Oh really?

Really.

 

[The Ubbergeek]

Oh really?

 

[arscott]

Fewer! Fewer buckets is better!

Say it with me. "I have fewer dollars. I have less money."

No, fewer buckets are better.

If you're going to correct (probably intentionally) bad grammar, do it right

-ly. ​