D&D 5E "But Wizards Can Fly, Teleport and Turn People Into Frogs!"

[pemerton]

I do think there is also a worse case scenario where they lose the 4E players and ail to regain lapsed players. In that instant, they will be longing for the loyal 4E fanbase again. But I have to ask, if this happened, how willing would you be to go back to wotc after they dropped 4E so quickly?

In my own case, I buy RPG material that seems interesting and/or useable. If WotC publishes stuff that looks like it fits those critieria, I'll buy it. If not, I won't. From my point of view they're a product vendor, not a friend.

Robin Laws (Feng Shui, Hillfolk, a lot of good guidance - and he's written for WotC before but his skills are more on the advice than the design/development side)

A contentious judgement! The Dying Earth, and even moreso HeroWars/Quest, are pretty strong RPG designs!

 

[Ratskinner]

Case in point: 2e PHB suggests modelling your Fighter after Hercules, among others. Hercules. Mr. Twelve Ridiculous Labours himself. Not all that mundane if you ask me. Granted, holding up planets and sundering mountains may not be for everyone, but this type of thing should be supported, by default, for those who do find it to their liking.

As much as I love 2e the 2e PHB and DMG are rife with advice to do things that they utterly fail to support in any way.

Not that wanting to play Hercules is wrong or bad, but the game needs to support playing Hercules and say Ned Stark at least at different tables. The 3e/4e solution of making it a matter of levels isn't totally adequate, IMO. However, the game is at least as bad at portraying Wizards effectively, so ::shrug::.

Now, you can try to balance the muggles by hindering spellcasters in some way, as was the case in AD&D, or by deciding to simply not care about caster vs. mundane balance in any way, as was the case in 3.x, but neither of those things feel all that satisfying to either camp in the end, and they don't work well for folks who like playing martial heroes.

The other option is to get abstract; really, really abstract and flexible like FATE or some of the other more narrative games. (Which seems to be a recurring theme around here.) Then you can balance all the characters axiomatically.

Of course, that's a far cry from traditional D&D. However, I gotta add my voice to the others here. D&D design suffers a lot by trying to stick too close to its roots.

 

[Guest 85555]

It has storygame-ish mechanics, but those mechanics are pretty much hard-coded to produce an Old-School D&D-ish story. It is certainly not as open-ended as other prominent story-centered games like FATE or BW. Its highly variable whether or not that actually trips any given individual's "this feels like D&D" button.

I don't really have an opinion on it, not having played it, but the old school scene I am plugged to has a somewhat hostile reaction to this game in particular. So I have a feeling the sort of response this sort of design would get among old school players were it part of next might be negative. But not having played it or read it yet I am just going by some of the threads I have seen.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't really have an opinion on it, not having played it, but the old school scene I am plugged to has a somewhat hostile reaction to this game in particular. So I have a feeling the sort of response this sort of design would get among old school players were it part of next might be negative. But not having played it or read it yet I am just going by some of the threads I have seen.

Is that an online scene? I'm always curious to see how the other half lives.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

As much as I love 2e the 2e PHB and DMG are rife with advice to do things that they utterly fail to support in any way.

I fully agree. I think the idea was, back then, for the DM to "make it happen."

Not that wanting to play Hercules is wrong or bad, but the game needs to support playing Hercules and say Ned Stark at least at different tables. The 3e/4e solution of making it a matter of levels isn't totally adequate, IMO. However, the game is at least as bad at portraying Wizards effectively, so ::shrug::.

Hercules was just an example plucked from the description of 'Fighter' in the book. I have not read/watched GoT, but I'll assume that Ned Stark is about as mundane as it gets, which, as I gather, suits the fiction of that world very well.

I will also agree that the game does need to support both possibilities, and I will further suggest that it probably needs to do both as both a function of level, and as a function of tone/thematics/mechanics in order to make all camps happy. Some groups will want martial heroes that feel 'mythic' all the way up (or at least starting earlier), while others may want to delay that until later in level, for some kind of apotheosis effect, while others still may never want it.

All valid, and all must be supported in order to meet the 'inclusive' goals. It's a tall order to be sure; probably impossible. WotC probably won't be able to make it a reality. If they can pull this off, I will eat my hat and post a picture for the entire internet to see.

 

[Guest 85555]

Is that an online scene? I'm always curious to see how the other half lives.

Online and offline. I am just one person one part of the net, so take it with a grain of salt of course. But our next product is an OSR game and my business partner very into OSR games (I like old school games but also like stuff like doctor who and savage worlds).

 

[JamesonCourage]

I think it would be illuminating to see more detractors of CaGI break down their reasoning on this post. Its hard for me to get my head around holding these positions simultaneously:
[sblock]1) It makes sense for a legendary warrior who spends his entire professional life on the razor's edge of life and death to flee in terror when faced with a very scary manifestation of a life vs death moment when he fails a Will save or an attack overcomes his Will defense. Regardless of the fact that his two homes are "in the thick of melee" and "facing down the promise of death", the brave, battle-hardened warrior being forced to move in a straight line away from the target on a fear effect that is greater than his will is ok. Forget the fact that thousands of men who had no combat experience, facing the sure death of artillery barrage and machine gun fire...while ruthlessly seasick...soaking wet...lacking leadership...and limited/lost supplies...stormed the beaches of Normandy. They were all terrified and some cowered, but the vast majority carried on and won the day.

2) It makes no sense for a hardened melee combatant to be provoked into accepting a physical challenge, or to foolishly mistake a ruse for an opening and charge a melee opponent when they fail a Will save or an attack overcomes their Will defense. It REALLY makes no sense for the archer or the wizard whose home is "away from the melee" to move 10 feet toward a warrior who feigns retreat or weakness, even when that ruse/feint overcomes the archer/wizards Will save (which shouldn't happen often given that is the wizard's strength) or the attack overcomes his Will defense. Moving those 3-5 steps forward makes no sense under any circumstances.[/sblock]

How are those two positions compatible;

I think the problem may be that you've made a caricature out of the arguments.

Fear vs Will and run away = good

Ruse/challenge vs Will and engage = bad

Especially given the context. Cowardice > Bravery (for hardened warriors) is more plausible than Egocentrism/Miscalculation > Cool-Headed/Guile?

Yeah, I'd go with caricature. But hey, it's going both ways, so it's only fair, right? Even if it's not productive? As always, play what you like

But I'm personally quite happy to defend 4e on the terrain of CaGI. Because I'm sick of post after post, year after year, that asserts or implies that the game is inimical to serious roleplaying because it has this sort of stuff in it.

I just get sick of them saying that because my preferred fantasy RPG has got metagame abilities, uses karma rather than fortune resolution for fighters imposition of will (pre-errata, at least), involves stances other than actor stance, etc, then it must (to paraphrase Justin Alexandar) really be a tactical skirmish game linked by more-or-less meaningless freeform roleplaying.

Can I ask where you see this? I see you post this a couple of times per month, maybe. But honestly, while a see a couple of posters do this, you seem to extrapolate that dismissal to everyone who agrees with that person to any degree. You have someone like ForeverSlayer who makes some really rude and dismissive remarks, and says why he thinks 4e is terrible, including certain aspects. People argue against his posts. New people say "this is why those mechanics don't work for me", and then it's "you're just as unreasonable as he is." That's not really how this should work. Can you please point me towards this plethora of attacks you feel you've sustained? Because I'd bet it's down to a handful of posters, most of whom aren't currently active in this thread. As always, play what you like

The entire CAGI issue revolves around "People might play a fighter with an ability that I don't personally like and because I personally have a dislike of something there is literally no reason for me to use that makes the whole game badwrongfun, never mind that half of these abilities are epic and the only heroic tier one is a single option out of a total of about four options for that level in the PHB (and another eight in other books)."

Oh, my bad, manbearcat, this is a caricature of an argument. Not productive or accurate at all for the conversation being had by most in this thread. As always, play what you like

As soon as we start talking about the "believability" of martial abilities and what that should be "allowed" to represent, it becomes a "Fighters Can't Have Nice Things" argument. There's really no way around it.

Pretty much another caricature argument. If you think that I can't talk about "believability" while still wanting my warriors type to rock, that's your problem, not mine. As I've mentioned before, pure warriors do rock in my game, and I paid a lot of attention to "believability" during design, including not using overt narrative control mechanics or "plot coupons" or whatever we want to call them (as long as it gets the idea across). Mundane characters in my RPG can do a massive amount without what a lot of people here might thing of as "magical" or "supernatural" effects. And I did that with "believability" in mind. As always, play what you like

 

[Neonchameleon]

In my own case, I buy RPG material that seems interesting and/or useable. If WotC publishes stuff that looks like it fits those critieria, I'll buy it. If not, I won't. From my point of view they're a product vendor, not a friend.

I'm in the same boat. I don't buy WotC material because they are WotC. I buy it when I think it'll be good.

A contentious judgement! The Dying Earth, and even moreso HeroWars/Quest, are pretty strong RPG designs!

I've not seen HeroWars/Quest. But The Dying Earth as RPG design leaves me cold. It's meant to be about dashing actions in a twisted world, but the entire skill system is about resource management (succeeding on a skill check without a boon costs a consistent average of one skill point). This about works in GUMSHOE where you're intended to go round picking up the clues - but doesn't at all match the way I see The Dying Earth. "I'm Cugel the Rogue and today I'm going to hide from these guards rather than trade bon mots with them because I think I'll need to persuade more important people later." Um... no.

 

[Guest 85555]

In my own case, I buy RPG material that seems interesting and/or useable. If WotC publishes stuff that looks like it fits those critieria, I'll buy it. If not, I won't. From my point of view they're a product vendor, not a friend.
!

Then you are less emotional in your purchases than me. Maybe it is because my father was a salesman, but I do like bing treated well as a customer and vote with my dollar if I feel company isn't listening (and I reward companies who listen and treat customers well by being loyal).

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

Can I ask where you see this? I see you post this a couple of times per month, maybe. But honestly, while a see a couple of posters do this, you seem to extrapolate that dismissal to everyone who agrees with that person to any degree. You have someone like ForeverSlayer who makes some really rude and dismissive remarks, and says why he thinks 4e is terrible, including certain aspects. People argue against his posts. New people say "this is why those mechanics don't work for me", and then it's "you're just as unreasonable as he is." That's not really how this should work. Can you please point me towards this plethora of attacks you feel you've sustained? Because I'd bet it's down to a handful of posters, most of whom aren't currently active in this thread. As always, play what you like

I've seen, and experienced this as well, on many threads, on this very forum. One of the key reasons I've been largely inactive for the better part of 2012. I just couldn't handle the shrieking and harping about "allowing" the designers to put any "4e ideas" in "MY D&D" - all paraphrased and fully caricatured arguments. Except, oh wait, they're not. Those things have been said, both to me and others, on these very forums. No, I'm not going to go back the better part of a year and dig them up, you'll just have to take me at my word.

Pretty much another caricature argument. If you think that I can't talk about "believability" while still wanting my warriors type to rock, that's your problem, not mine. As I've mentioned before, pure warriors do rock in my game, and I paid a lot of attention to "believability" during design, including not using overt narrative control mechanics or "plot coupons" or whatever we want to call them (as long as it gets the idea across). Mundane characters in my RPG can do a massive amount without what a lot of people here might thing of as "magical" or "supernatural" effects. And I did that with "believability" in mind. As always, play what you like

No, what MY problem is, is folk trying to tell me, or WotC, what they can and can't, should or shouldn't, support or put in 'Next' and a lot of it really does boil down to Muggles Can't Have Nice Things, in some folks' eyes. You know what? Fine. To those gamers, I say, "play what you like" - but don't try to dictate what others are allowed to like, and in this context, advocate for - at least as a core OPTION. I don't think that's asking much.

I wouldn't even be bringing this up if it weren't such a deep and obvious divide between which side makes judgements about what is or should be "allowed," and which side just pushes for its preference to be represented and supported. Just my personal experience with this forum, perhaps, or perhaps not representative, but clearly not an outlying extreme POV.