WayneLigon
Adventurer
Celebrim said:
No, I'd say it's about a 2.5 or 3.0 when there are 5.0 systems out there. We still have several sacred cows that pull the game down.
I am much more in favor of moving further along 3E's 'toolbox' track; give me the elements I need to create the game I want. Give me options. Part of where 3E falls down (and it's far from alone in this) is that it then fails to give the GM the expert guidence he needs to effectively use that toolbox.* It needs to be option-rich, but also give the GM the tools he needs to use those options without getting bogged down in a hideous amount of detail.
*(The thing that keeps most RPGs from becoming 'sixth generation' games is a lack of in-the-box training for the GM. The holy grail of any design is that you can hand it to Grandma at Borders on Friday and tell her 'we'll be over for gaming on Sunday; have something ready for us'. I'm eager to see the designer notes in the 3.5 rules compendium and hope that we'll see something like that in the main 4E books; people like having rules explained to them, even if it's 'there's no good or fair way to simulate this, so this is what we went with'. People need and deserve reasons for why things are the way they are.)
We still have the magic system. I think the time for specific spells for specific uses is coming to a close save in very genre-specific games (say, where I am directly modeling a book which portrays a very static magic system, or a purposefully limited system). Thankfully, 4E seems to be moving away from that. There's still a resouce management aspect to the game but there are hints it's no longer so onerous on the magic-using character.
We still have alignment, which almost everyone else has ditched for years. Something like the Allegiance system is at least different enough to be useful.
Classes I'm still ambivilant on. I think they do a much better job of doing them in 3E than in other editions but they could be better. They provide guidance for new players and novice GMs but also can become too constricting. Ideally I'd like to see an archetype situation like in True20, where you have broad basic archetypes that can then be customized with feats and talents. You would present the basic classes in the PHB but have the tool box to build them in the DMG. Whatever system they did for that should not the pale imitations they had in Skills and Powers or the 2E DMG's 'custom class' designer where you could not use the system given to derive a PHB class.
We still have a 'default D&D' that doesn't scale all that well. A good modern game should not be hampered if I want to run a very low magic game or an out-the-wazoo magic game or if I want to introduce guns or put everyone in loincloths and spears. The system should be robust enough to handle this and not expect that once you reach a certain level of ability that you will be augmented by X and Y items. Scaling power levels is a major modern gaming step that D&D still does not handle all that well without some custom modification and player/gm buy-in. A game that robustly scales well usually also solves the 'power curve' problems and the 'arms race' problems.
Celebrim said:
Change purely for changes sake is not good, but change is always better than stagnation. I'm way over on the Chaos side.
