D&D 4E 4e Monster Manual excerpt

[ShockMeSane]

........ ::hides in shame:: .........

 

[Primal]

That's a premature assessment. We have no reason to believe that these seemingly gaping holes aren't fully covered by rules we haven't seen yet. In fact, given that these are basically the same game designers that worked on 3e, we have good reason to believe that they are. I say, chill out, and wait until the full ruleset is released before judging it a dismal failure (or the greatest thing evah).

Except that for the most part, they're not, unless you mean 3rd party publishers who worked on 3E stuff.

 

[D'karr]

Except that for the most part, they're not, unless you mean 3rd party publishers who worked on 3E stuff.

Andy Collins and his team are directly involved in the making of 4e. James Wyatt and his team are directly involved in the making of 4e. Bill Slavicsek is directly involved in 4e.

Bill Slavicsek was the Director of RPG R&D for 3.0.

Interestingly enough Andy Collins was pretty much the "architect" for the larger part of the changes in 3.5. In some "hater" references I've even seen 3.5 be called the House Rules for Andy Collins game.

James Wyatt was heavily involved in the development of Eberron, which was an exclusively 3.X world.

So it seems like a lot of the developers and designers for 3.5 are still working in 4e.

If you mean people like Monte Cook, and Skip Williams you are right. They don't work at WotC anymore.

However, a lot of the people that have been developing and designing for the game for the last 5 years are the ones working on 4e.


[Edit] Tweet is still at WotC.

 

[hong]

Jonathan Tweet is still at WotC, isn't he?

 

[D'karr]

Jonathan Tweet is still at WotC, isn't he?

Yes he is. My mistake. I was looking at the "writers" for each of the 3x core books.

 

[Primal]

Well, "exception-based design" seems to do the same thing to the rules as "points of light" does to the setting...

You have a few well-lit, well-defined areas, the points of light. They basically tell "when player A plays card B effect C happens", and not much more. All the wilderness around - the "why?":s, the "how?":s, how everything is connected by cause and effect, what happens with non-standard play, is an unknown dark that the DM has to populate as necessary.

I guess that wilderness is something that some DMs will ignore, some will thrive in, and some will flounder in.

I agree. I know the designers seem to take a lot of pride in having been able to "minimize" the power descriptions/stats, but the simulationist in me seems to be lost with most of them... I understand how the power functions mechanically, but not how it happens in the story. And I've never had this kind of confusion with any previous edition of D&D. I can only imagine how it feels to "newbies". I get the same feeling from other excerpts as well, since those 'monster customization' rules make sense to 3E veterans, surely, but if I think back to my teen years, I'm not sure I would have understood how they work (especially as english is not my native language). I hope that the rulebooks will have more concrete examples, because now it feels to me (on the basis of these 'excerpts') like the books are written for people who're intimately familiar with the 3E rules.

I can understand that using those keywords/"tags" must make a lot of sense to the designers, and they're probably so "into" the system that it all makes sense to them in the story as well. I'd say, however, that it takes an exceptionally good DM to convey this same kind of "understanding" to the players -- at least to my group (and we're all "veterans" with some 20 years of gaming experience under our belts). Or maybe the new generation is better in handling the combat as an "abstraction" from the story, concentrating on the mechanical effects and thinking about the story only after the combat is over?

As for the 'exception-based' design... some DMs will shine with it, while others will struggle to master it even moderately. I probably belong to the latter group, because it's a "hybrid" system which is not completely 'trait-based' -- I just don't like the way it combines so much 'crunch' with those freely-determined "powers". Not to mention how differently the system treats the PCs. If it were a completely 'descriptor/trait-based' system (like many Indie RPGs I've run), I think it would work far better, at least for me and other DMs like me. Or, if your players, as I mentioned above, do not care about the mechanics (i.e. they are not cynical 'simulationists' who always ask for logical explanations for every rule in every situation or want to imitate/learn "monster powers") but focus on the story and come up with the explanations in their own heads.

This actually leads me to what I think will be a major issue with 4E. When every DM starts developing their own "variants" (say, Bugbear Shurikenmasters or Orc Shaman Firebreathers) I think there will be a lot of arguments over the choice of "powers". Comments like: "No, you should have used Range 4 Fire Attack that causes 2D10+CON damage... take a loot at Drgaonblood Flamebrother" or "That's a stupid power for a city guard captain... he should have something like 'Aura of Loyalty' instead of that stupid pseudo-magical 'Summon the Troops'-ability. And it should recharge whenever an opponent is bloodied, *not* on 5 and 6!" or "That's how you stat an experience NPC cleric? Change that 'Heal like Hell' ability into something more appropriate like 'Lead the Masses'!". And so on. I hope there will be a list (and a lot of examples) of "logical" ability choices for different types of your own variants, because otherwise I can see a lot of arguing taking place (especially on the forums) over how DM X or Designer Y should have given NPC/Monster Z ability W and Q instead of O and P. And try running a game to another DM, and I'm quite sure that he can't resist commenting on some of your NPCs and monsters, and even though he did it in private, I'm sure it is as annoying nonetheless ("You know, that elven scout we encountered... I think you should have based him on the Human Deathbow Archer in DMG, and not Elven Skirmisher. And I would have given him a rechargeable encounter power like 'Triple Shot' instead of 'Unlimited Energy Arrows'.").

 

[Primal]

Andy Collins and his team are directly involved in the making of 4e. James Wyatt and his team are directly involved in the making of 4e. Bill Slavicsek is directly involved in 4e.

Bill Slavicsek was the Director of RPG R&D for 3.0.

Interestingly enough Andy Collins was pretty much the "architect" for the larger part of the changes in 3.5. In some "hater" references I've even seen 3.5 be called the House Rules for Andy Collins game.

James Wyatt was heavily involved in the development of Eberron, which was an exclusively 3.X world.

So it seems like a lot of the developers and designers for 3.5 are still working in 4e.

If you mean people like Monte Cook, and Skip Williams you are right. They don't work at WotC anymore.

However, a lot of the people that have been developing and designing for the game for the last 5 years are the ones working on 4e.


[Edit] Tweet is still at WotC.

Indeed, I was referring to the designers who worked on 3.0 Core Rules, and IIRC only Jonathan Tweet still works at WoTC. So it's a whole new crowd working on 4E.

 

[D'karr]

Indeed, I was referring to the designers who worked on 3.0 Core Rules, and IIRC only Jonathan Tweet still works at WoTC. So it's a whole new crowd working on 4E.

Well since 3.5 is the current edition of the game, and has been for the past 5 years, and the majority of the team that worked on 3.5 is still working in 4e, do you mind revising what you alluded to?

 

[Ashardalon]

Indeed, I was referring to the designers who worked on 3.0 Core Rules, and IIRC only Jonathan Tweet still works at WoTC. So it's a whole new crowd working on 4E.

I have a 3.0 DMG, first printing, right here in front of me. Richard Baker, Andy Collins, and David Noonan are credited with Additional Design. Rob Heinsoo and James Wyatt are credited with "Other Wizards of the Coast RPG R&D Contributors." All those names also turn up in the 3.0 PHB credits in some places (David Noonan under Editorial Assistance, Rich Baker under Additional Design, otherwise "Other Contributors"), and several names in the 3.0 Monster Manual.

 

[hong]

This actually leads me to what I think will be a major issue with 4E. When every DM starts developing their own "variants" (say, Bugbear Shurikenmasters or Orc Shaman Firebreathers) I think there will be a lot of arguments over the choice of "powers". Comments like: "No, you should have used Range 4 Fire Attack that causes 2D10+CON damage... take a loot at Drgaonblood Flamebrother" or "That's a stupid power for a city guard captain... he should have something like 'Aura of Loyalty' instead of that stupid pseudo-magical 'Summon the Troops'-ability. And it should recharge whenever an opponent is bloodied, *not* on 5 and 6!" or "That's how you stat an experience NPC cleric? Change that 'Heal like Hell' ability into something more appropriate like 'Lead the Masses'!". And so on. I hope there will be a list (and a lot of examples) of "logical" ability choices for different types of your own variants, because otherwise I can see a lot of arguing taking place (especially on the forums) over how DM X or Designer Y should have given NPC/Monster Z ability W and Q instead of O and P. And try running a game to another DM, and I'm quite sure that he can't resist commenting on some of your NPCs and monsters, and even though he did it in private, I'm sure it is as annoying nonetheless ("You know, that elven scout we encountered... I think you should have based him on the Human Deathbow Archer in DMG, and not Elven Skirmisher. And I would have given him a rechargeable encounter power like 'Triple Shot' instead of 'Unlimited Energy Arrows'.").

The job of the ruleset is to resolve conflicts within the game, not resolve conflicts about the ruleset.