D&D 4E Another 4E Pregen playtest by fans.

[Gorrstagg]

Thanks for writing up your playtest report. I enjoyed reading it. It seems running a fight won't be too bad given that we've seen quite a few rules for that, but we have less info to use for the social encounters and skill checks.

So are your players convinced that 4E is the way to go or do you have holdouts who like the current system they've spent years in mastering? With our group I know I'm going to have issues with one player comparing it to WoW. He's already made that comparison, and we haven't playtested it yet.

My pleasure. My players are all excited to go to 4th edition as well. We all joked about having to wait so long until it begins, that they are even talking about playing the pregens for a while. That's definitely interested.

As far as WoW comparisons. We've all been playing MMO's since they were MUD's. So we've gotten used to their general conventions and things of that perspective. And maybe because they play MMO's it's easier to pick up the base ideas of striker, tanker, controller, and healer. So it's easy to do.

I would say to those who have questions about it being WoW influenced in that you've got specific powers with names. Fine, consider it a compliment and that those things are done in MMO's that make it easy to understand and have an effect. Which is basically like having different feats for the attacks. Which they understood as well.

I'm not to concerned about the WoW references, as it's impossible to not see some references that make sense. The idea of marking targets, its not revolutionary, but it does have an impact in that they are actively engaging in an action that compels the opponents to stay and fight them, or getting targeted by that person is a bad thing, kill them quick.

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And about someones experience with the Oakhurst adventure please post that as well, I would like to read your interactions.

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And to the Warlock issue. It can be a touchy subject for some people. But the easy way to get past it is to change the name of the class to something less offensive.

Beyond that, I'm a pagan myself and I know that the term Warlock to Wiccan's can be a touchy subject.

But I seperate my fantasy games away from my religious personal beliefs. Except in how they can enhance a game worlds various religions. And the associated impacts.

 

[Zinovia]

We make WoW and EQ comparisons all the time when we play 3.5, which is funny, since only two of us ever played EQ, yet all the others go "I am going to pull those trolls now, wait here". Maybe I talk too much about my old online adventures.

Of our current D&D group, 4 out of 6 of us have played WoW and other MMORPG's. We do find ourselves sometimes using basic MMO terms like "tanking", "mobs" and even "DPS". I describe my melee-oriented highly maneuverable rogue/psychic warrior as "melee DPS" sometimes (I also call her my psycho-rogue). I remember one time we went down some stairs in a creepy abandoned temple and the DM told us, "As you descend the stairs into the darkness letters of fire appear in the air before you. They read, 'Loading, please wait.'.". We threw dice at him.

It does seem like 4E is utilizing some of the concepts developed for MMO's. I'm okay with that personally, but am hoping the rest of the group can accept it as well. If a concept works, I'm not worried about where it came from. Now if 4E can get our bard's player to actually enjoy combat, then we'll have a win. She's all about the roleplaying and would prefer a story-telling game. As fun as roleplaying might be at times, I'd be bored to tears if I never got to roll some dice and hit things every now and then.

 

[HP Dreadnought]

I now have a problem in that one of my players is Really Offended by 4th Edition, because of the warlock class (like, personally offended on a religious level).

If he finds it that offensive nobody is forcing him to play a warlock or play at all.

He should either play the game but avoid playing a warlock and shut up about it.

. . . or avoid playing the game at all if necessary and find a new hobby.

What he should NOT do and what you should not put up with is him playing in the game and constantly making a big deal over the fact that there is a warlock. Him constantly pushing his religious position on the rest of the group - even just by complaining about it regularly - is not acceptable.

 

[Zinovia]

As far as WoW comparisons. We've all been playing MMO's since they were MUD's. So we've gotten used to their general conventions and things of that perspective. And maybe because they play MMO's it's easier to pick up the base ideas of striker, tanker, controller, and healer. So it's easy to do.

One of our players (the one who's already drawing parallels between 4E and MMO's) is the developer of what may be the most popular MUD client out there (zMUD). So he knows just a bit about MUDs and MMO's. Our group has agreed to play test the game after our current campaign finishes up, but that's likely to be 2-3 months. I'm not sure if I could persuade them to give it a try with a fan-designed adventure and the pre-gens from D&DXP. I may just need to bully my family into trying it out.

Marking foes is very much in-line with MMO's, as are the class roles. The class roles always did sort of exist in prior editions of D&D; everyone knew you needed a fighter, wizard, cleric and rogue, or their equivalents. It got murky with all the expansions adding new classes and PrC's, so it wasn't always clear what role some of those classes would be filling in the party. I think labeling the roles clearly may help newer players understand how to build an effective party and may help define the class in terms of what they should be doing in combat. I don't know if they will wind up pigeon-holing the classes too much and not allowing as much diversity. Are all strikers going to feel more or less the same? That would be a shame if so.

 

[Larrin]

I now have a problem in that one of my players is Really Offended by 4th Edition, because of the warlock class (like, personally offended on a religious level). Now, I hate using the "you're the only one" card because it's really insensitive to the person's feelings you're telling it to, but he is literally the only person I have ever talked to who has that problem. And I have talked to many gamers of multiple religious persuasions - Christians of many flavors, atheists, pagans and others. So what am I supposed to do here?

There isn't much you can do, if something doesn't sit right with a person religously, they have to figure it out on their own, or risk violating their beliefs. Give him time, and make sure if he is around, soften and downplay whatever aspect of 'Warlock' offends him. He may just needs to see that it isn't a condoning/belittling (depending on which direction he's taking offense from) of real warlocks, but just a name like any other in D&D and really isn't trying to capture any aspect of reality. But if he can't, then maybe it would be wrong for him to accept it, even if he is the only one that has a problem with it. Violating ones consience is not something you should do for the sake of a game.

Chances are though, he'll come around to some level of acceptance, just don't rub the things he doesn't like in his face and hopefully he can ignore things thats still bug him a little.

 

[keterys]

Could change their name to Pactmage, Invoker, Hexer, Thaumaturge, etc...

 

[Gorrstagg]

Could change their name to Pactmage, Invoker, Hexer, Thaumaturge, etc...

Aye, could take that Hexer and call it an Hexian.

Same thing but with a different flavor.