D&D 5E cancelled 5e announcement at Gencon??? Anyone know anything about this?

[Lanefan]

Wait, if he undoes what happened, does that reset time so that he never wished it and they get the valuables back?

He'd have liked that, but no; he got everyone back and considered that a success.

Er, no not at all. Not every adventure will be time sensitive, because not all are. The world will keep moving forward though. It makes less sense for it not to. In some cases, the world moving forward will have no effect and the group can rest as much as they want. In other cases it means the group will fail to accomplish the task they set out to do because the world moved on.

This is not being dictated by whether or not there are casters in the party. This is being dictated because the game is more fun (in my opinion as player or as GM) if you are playing in a world that is in motion around you and not static. Doesn't matter if a caster is present or not.

Seems to me like a sensible take on it. There's also the question of red herring adventures, where something that seems important calls the party away from doing what really is important, and there have to be consequences.

There are those out there, however, who take the view that if it does not directly involve the PCs it does not really exist; that the world *does* revolve around the PCs, and that only the PCs can make a difference within said world. Doesn't float my boat, but as JamesonCourage always says, "play what you like".

Lan-"I like having clerics around, it means I can get in more fights"-efan

 

[Wicht]

/edit - BTW, how many times did you see the party pressing on when the cleric said he was out of spells?

I've seen that - groups pressing on until it is clear they are completely out of options: beat up really badly, and likely to die if they encounter an enraged mouse.

 

[Wicht]

[MENTION=6668292]JamesonCourage[/MENTION]

Oh, look, another non-existent example of saying that the issue is playstyle and not systemic.

If it is a nonexistent example then it seems silly to point to it as evidence.

However, assuming you mean its an example which relies on a nonexistent scenario, I can only shake my head sadly for you. The "kidnapped maiden" is a classic trope and the "kidnapped maiden about to be sacrificed" is a popular sub-trope. I'm surprised its never come up for you. I don't use it all the time (so many stories, so little time) but I have used it.

I merely used it as an example because its so cliche and I assumed most people were familiar with the idea.

But there are plenty of ways to create a sense of urgency for the players. And again, you don't have to do it all the time. If you, as the DM, do it occassionally, the players very often will create tensions on their own in scenarios where you know its not.

Let's use a popular adventure (low level - but you should start early), "Burnt Offerings" to show some good ways to create this tension.

1 - Goblins attack the town, setting fire to the buildings. Characters who go for a lie down are going to end up sleeping in a burning building.

2 - Kidnapped maiden. Characters who don't pursue fast enough may lose her to a group of goblins. Characters who wait too long may end up losing her to an evil sacrifice.

3 - Imminent Goblin invasion. Here is a good example of a scenario where the PCs will likely create their own tension as they imagine a goblin army being massed somewhere. Of course, if the PCs do not act fast enough, it would be quite easy to go back to #1 and repeat the cycle till they get the point.

Now, while this is a low-level scenario, the same setup can be used for almost any level.

 

[Bedrockgames]

So, pretty much the only way to keep the wizard in check is to force every adventure to be time based. Or, to put it another way, the entire campaign is being dictated by the casters. If casters weren't a problem, then you don't need to force strict time based adventures.

And this isn't a problem?

/edit - BTW, how many times did you see the party pressing on when the cleric said he was out of spells?

It doesnt have to be a time crunch issue but in 3e resource mananagement is an important consideration if you are scaling the challenge. You can use time, realistic consequences, etc to put some pressure to keep things moving. Ultimately providing an environment with moving parts and characters always did the trick for me.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've seen that - groups pressing on until it is clear they are completely out of options: beat up really badly, and likely to die if they encounter an enraged mouse.

This happened all the time in our games. If we were trying to take out the big bad guy by sneaking into his fortress or lair we couldn't just set up camp or retreat when we ran out of spells. If we left you could bet the bad guy would send out a search party and double up his defenses. When the characters rest and regroup so can the villains.

 

[technoextreme]

If it will make you feel better I will agree with you. You have won. COngratulations.

Meanwhile you might note that I never claimed your logical fallacy.

What I claimed was I did not feel it needed the drastic fix.

Starting to go through the Pathfinder material I'm coming to the conclusion that it wasn't at all a drastic fix. So far I've actually seen the origins of the AWED format. And yeah you were arguing from a fallacious position. The problem is that you were arguing that it didn't need any drastic fixes because you never had a problem with it. That is a logical fallacy.

 

[Wicht]

Starting to go through the Pathfinder material I'm coming to the conclusion that it wasn't at all a drastic fix. So far I've actually seen the origins of the AWED format. And yeah you were arguing from a fallacious position. The problem is that you were arguing that it didn't need any drastic fixes because you never had a problem with it. That is a logical fallacy.

No more fallacious than arguing that if you were having problems you must have been using it as intended.

 

[wrecan]

I actually have no idea what point people who say "Well I had no problem with it" are trying to make. To use an analogy, which I usually try to avoid, it's like people who say "Well my grandfather smoked for 70 years and he never got cancer."

Is the person saying he doesn't think smoking causes cancer? He isn't saying it directly, but it sure does sound like that's what he wants people to conclude. But if that's not the conclusion he wants you to make, why make the announcement at all? Is he concerned people might wrongly think smoking causes cancer all of the time? Is that a concern anybody should really care about?

Similarly, when people talk about linear fighters/quadratic wizards (LFQW), what is the point of saying "Well I never experienced that problem"? If it's not to get people to conclude that LFQW is a myth, then why? Are you concerned that people might think LFQW was a problem in every D&D game every played before 2008? Really?

The appearance that such a statement gives off is that the person does want to counter the idea of LFQW, but with enough plausible deniability so that if someone accuses him of doing that, he can say "I never said it wasn't a problem. I only said I never saw it."

 

[Wicht]

I actually have no idea what point people who say "Well I had no problem with it" are trying to make.

The point, generally speaking, is to try and explain why there is dissatisfaction among a segment of the gamer population with the 4e "fix" to fighters. As it was not a problem to us, we saw no need for the changes. Those who had the problem were happier to change the underlying assumptions about how the classes worked, mechanically.

When I make the points I make, it is to try and explain why, perhaps, the fighter wizard balance is not, and will not, be a problem in my games. I actually perceive the wizard to have quite a few weaknesses which, when understood and utilized by the GM, provide the necessary balance. I truly think the problem is not with the system design (which works just fine for me) but to be with the way people use the system. That is not to say their playstyle is wrong, I would guess they are genuinely happier with 4e. But I think that before declaring the older system to be "broken" it perhaps behooves people to look at how their style interacts with the rules and how other styles might interact better before declaring the problem to be with the engine.

 

[technoextreme]

The point, generally speaking, is to try and explain why there is dissatisfaction among a segment of the gamer population with the 4e "fix" to fighters. As it was not a problem to us, we saw no need for the changes

You mean that they gave them powers just like a bunch of the other classes in 3.5E?