Castle Smoulderthorn, Part 3

[zoroaster100]

I don't have a problem with Eberron or even weirder campaigns being featured at some point in the Playtest reports. I just wish they had led off with playtest reports with a standard vanilla campaign before featuring other kinds. It's not that I think only standard D&D is good. It's just that the standard is the easiest for everyone to relate to, whereas the stranger the campaign, the more niche and the less it tells us about how the game will play in 4e.

 

[GAAAHHH]

Playtesting is supposed to check to make sure the core rules (and races and classes) work as intended. Using non-standard races and classes in this playtest makes it not terribly useful for its intended purpose.

 

[mhacdebhandia]

I don't have a problem with Eberron or even weirder campaigns being featured at some point in the Playtest reports. I just wish they had led off with playtest reports with a standard vanilla campaign before featuring other kinds. It's not that I think only standard D&D is good. It's just that the standard is the easiest for everyone to relate to, whereas the stranger the campaign, the more niche and the less it tells us about how the game will play in 4e.

You're still missing my point: they aren't playing playtest games at the moment. There are no "vanilla" campaigns about which to report - yet. They'll be starting soon.

 

[GAAAHHH]

You're still missing my point: they aren't playing playtest games at the moment. There are no "vanilla" campaigns about which to report - yet. They'll be starting soon.

If they aren't playing playtest games, then how do they know that the rules work properly? They only have until next may...

 

[Glyfair]

Playtesting is supposed to check to make sure the core rules (and races and classes) work as intended. Using non-standard races and classes in this playtest makes it not terribly useful for its intended purpose.

I disagree. RPGs have always been about open options and choices. That's what differentiates RPGs from other games. Testing how customizable the basic rules are is an important thing to do in playtesting. It's not the only thing you want to test, but it is an important thing.

 

[zoroaster100]

My sense from the blogs is that they are already testing core campaigns in several playtests, but just haven't chosen to feature those in the playtest report articles. I could be wrong. If they haven't even started any playtest groups with the the core races and classes this late into the design and development process, I would be extremely worried about what kind of rules we are getting with 4e in May.

 

[ThirdWizard]

My sense from the blogs is that they are already testing core campaigns in several playtests, but just haven't chosen to feature those in the playtest report articles. process, I would be extremely worried about what kind of rules we are getting with 4e in May.

Yeah, they've said they've done lots of playtesting with just the 3 books' stuff.

My guess is that the sessions they've shown us just make for better reading.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

After a dozen splatbooks and multiple campaign settings, I defy you to define a *normal* D&D game.

Given that there will at first only be the PHB, MM, & DMG, how about just those? Those are the ones we'll be using for the first year.

 

[Scholar & Brutalman]

Well, we also can't help but note that he doesn't mention the warlord aspect of his character actually providing any active benefits.

Which is annoying, because that's the thing I want to hear about.

Rich doesn't but Bruce Cordell's report does:

Before we begin play, another player is giving Rich grief about one of Rich’s character’s abilities that grants the rest of us a blanket +2 to saves; it just ain’t sexy. Rich says something like, “I don’t know, I doubt I’ll use it that much, but who knows, maybe everyone in the party will get entangled.”

Not much, but it's there.

One thing I just noticed was the Bruce's entry gives the date this took place: June 28th. Since Mike Mearls' latest blog entry says:

Really, we're at the point where we are focused on cleaning up stuff that the past four rounds of playtesting have revealed as problematic.

There may have been a whole playtest round since then. Certainly they must have already taken the feedback from this session.