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    D&D 4E My First 4E Game: Disappointing. Yours? (UPDATED with player feedback)

    I gotta agree that the issue lies with a disinterested group, more than anything else. Sometimes it only takes one or two cranky players to bring a game crashing down. In the past, I've had players sabotage HeroQuest, MURPG, Mutants & Masterminds, Feng Shui and virtually anything I've presented...
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    D&D 4E Converting Iron Heroes to 4E

    One aspect that I think would be more difficult regarding 4e IH is the Backgrounds. IH's background traits allowed players to select from a menu of talents for their character to essentially create their own races on the fly. I think it would be more of a challenge to implement this in 4e. As...
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    Help me out. PoL. Why don't small towns get overrun?

    It could also be a question of geography. The Hopi Indians survived primarily because they were living on top of a big mesa and were hard to reach. They also had a client tribe to help protect them. So maybe the small village is on a similar plateau or something that is hard for monsters to...
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    Here's a list of published settings. Which are good for the PoL style?

    Shadar-Kai are a race of (sorta) humans in D&D. In 4e, they allied themselves to the Shadowfell and can do lots of nifty tricks like become incorporeal. Clerics or Paladins would probably do fine for Legates. But I was thinking of a way to use something in the Monster Manual that wouldn't...
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    Here's a list of published settings. Which are good for the PoL style?

    I owned this previously. I didn't care for it. You might be able to tie some of it into a 4e setting. But I wouldn't recommend it. Seems like it would be more work than it's worth -- to me at least. I owned this one as well. Not sure how it would work in 4e. Seems like it would be okay with...
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    D&D 4E The Search for a 4E Campaign Setting (Or the Creation there of...)

    I've recently ordered a copy of the Wilderlands of High Fantasy. That's what I'll be using. With some minor modifications, of course.
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    Mearls is your hostage!

    All of the above. Then I'd have him redo 'Darkness & Dread' for 4e. And maybe convert some Iron Heroes classes too. And I'd want him to show me the Druid they've been working on. And the Bard. Honestly, though, I don't think we'd need to take Mearls hostage to do all this. All we would need...
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    Skill Challenge: Getting support from Town

    Ouch! Man, that's a tough setting. The worst townspeople have in my campaigns is lice. But Kobolds!!! :eek: ;) Maybe if they succeed well enough a town elder can give them a handy magic item, map or scroll. There's also the possibility that the townsfolk could warn them about some traps...
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    4e rules will make some games much harder to run

    Also, because in many regions there's no alternative to not playing D&D. In some places I've lived, there really were two choices: play D&D or not play at all. I don't mean to invalidate Dave's point. But I don't find statements like "play something else" all that helpful. I seriously doubt...
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    Boardless combat rules

    Well said. This is the biggest difference, IMO, in the approach to running with/without a mapgrid. With a mapgrid, a DM can be more adversarial. If the DM wants to hit the players with a tactical "gotcha", that's fine because it was all laid out on the grid to begin with. Without a mapgrid...
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    WoTC Rodney: Economy of actions

    You could do what HeroQuest does with followers. And that is, give the PC a +2 to attack if his follower is helping out -- the equivalent of the follower always being an "Aid Another". Having the follower do anything on his own, would require the PC to spend an action. Moreover, you could use...
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    R. Thompson : D&D still a sim/gamist RPG

    John Wick... Practically the King of Sim Game Design, right there! Dude totally nailed the physics of being a cat in... well... "Cat". That logarithmic table for climbing out of a tree was brutal! (Just kidding in the event that both John and Rodney are reading this. There's no logtable for...
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    R. Thompson : D&D still a sim/gamist RPG

    :lol: Fair enough. Sorry about that. I hope no offense was taken. We all know your middle name is "Hastur". But I'm limited in the number of times I can say/post/type that name in a given time period. I'm sure you understand... ;)
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    R. Thompson : D&D still a sim/gamist RPG

    I see your point. But my point is that we won't know what is going to be presented in the DMG until it's here. The point being made about Sim in 4e is speculation based on one developer's casual comment in his blog. I hardly find that a reason to be up in arms. And about the only thing I've...
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    R. Thompson : D&D still a sim/gamist RPG

    :) Nah, I mean Egri. I doubt the poor guy is even aware of the flamewars Ron Edwards' adoption of his writing has caused over the years. Edwards was clearly intending to use Egri's writing on plot and premise in a roleplaying context. So I consider that Edwards' baby, not Egri's. Any confusion...
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    R. Thompson : D&D still a sim/gamist RPG

    Please, let's not bring Egri into this. The poor guy's taken enough abuse already. Having added degrees of success and failure would give us more options to assign Authorial control in D&D. Take Mountain Witch as an example... Double Success: Player says what happens and something else too...
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    R. Thompson : D&D still a sim/gamist RPG

    Not really. First, the actual attack roll is tangential to the effect (unless of course the player rolls a crit or a fumble). You could roll a 12 and then follow with max damage. Or roll an 18 and only roll a 1 on damage. Second, this still doesn't help with skill checks. And, more than...
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    R. Thompson : D&D still a sim/gamist RPG

    So, help me to understand. You're choosing to ignore rule changes in 4e that I've gone over exhaustively that show 4e is the first edition of D&D to throw a bone to the Narr playstyle and instead latch on to the opinion of one WotC developer to support an opinion that 4e will not support Narr...
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    R. Thompson : D&D still a sim/gamist RPG

    But it's not an error to say that such a mechanic facilitates Narr play. And what you're stating as a fact, clearly is not. Hit points are more abstract than ever. Resource Management has been tweaked to the Gamist Facilitation Equivalent of 11. And there's been a seismic shift in how classes...
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