D&D 4E Classless D&D 4e: A game designer's ramblings

[Fallen Seraph]

I never thought *I* would sound like many of the hardcore 4E fanboys around here (no offense to those who are), but the new quote/article from Mr. Mearls on the homepage REALLY hit home with me. This just sounds like excellent news to me.

hell...I'll even admit to actually being EXCITED for 4E to arrive. Quite funny considering that after the first couple weeks and info started trickling in, what I was hearing I absolutely *hated*

Hope it lives up to the hype

Lol, I think with that one post Mearls has added more 4e supporters then all the preview-posts combined.

 

[JeffB]

Lol, I think with that one post Mearls has added more 4e supporters then all the preview-posts combined.

You may be right.

However I've been "on board" (more or less) for the past coupla months. I was def looking for things to hate the first coupla months after the announcement, but got sick of my own negativity and started taking a breath and thinking things through with every bit of new info we got. I finally realized that while it may not be the D&D game I grew up with, I'm hearing and seeing alot of things I like about 4E.

I'm not a 3.X fan and I didn't feel like I had ANYTHING in common with the WOTC 3E designers: they wanted to make the game more complex, revolve around the crunch and only paid lip-service to flavor/fluff. I'm (so far) seeing the exact opposite from the 4E crew, and its about damn time AFAIC.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Slow down, Billy.

The guy's just rattling random designer thots.

It does, however, look like exactly the sort of thing that could go into a 4E Unearthed Arcana.

 

[ForumFerret]

Yes, as Darkwolf71 said, this is a bit of an overreaction to what I said in the other thread. That was speculation, which perhaps wasn't clear in my first post.

So, while it's sort of cool to have like 15 threads with my name on them on EN World there's some overreaction going on.

Mike,

This being said, I think the groundswell of reaction is pretty indicative of our favoring some kind of official thoughts along this line. What would you think of maybe passing it along as an idea for a Dragon article? I'd love to see an official guideline for running classless D&D, or a "running no magic D&D" etc.

I'd eat that up, and I think many of my peers would, too.

Edit: Or put it in Unearthed Arcana like Dr. Ackward suggests - or even the DMG.

 

[Lizard]

I've said that in the other thread, but from this (and other hints), I get the suspicion that 4E is basically the end-user front of a more generic RPG engine, made for "cinematic action", where the fantasy flavour is a possible dressing.
.

If this is true, and I am far from convinced it is, it removes one of my primary objections to 4e -- that it's focused obsessively on dungeon crawls to the minimization of all other activities, and lacks the flexibility of the 3x D20 engine (which was used for science fiction, spies, superheroes, and sword&sorcery, and possibly even some genres that don't begin with 's'.)

I don't think I'll ever be sold on the 4e fluff or the rather soulless way it was created, but if there's a definition of "Encounter" that makes sense in the context of a living world, I think I could be sold on the mechanics.

 

[StarFyre]

!!!

WOW.

you know...after posting a long thread in the post about house rules, this is very exciting. A built in, and not house ruled system for further class customizations.

It won't help with what we want for our classes since our house rules are much more extreme, but this is great news and for other classes that I may not want to change at all, if any friends want to have some changes...they will be happy

Sanjay

 

[Kzach]

Classless D&D... a dream come true.

 

[helium3]

That said, I think that 4e is going to be a lot of fun for gearheads. We've taken systematic, standardized approach to the underlying numbers and design. That sort of structure really pays off when you start bending, folding, and mutilating.

Which is funny, because I get the general impression that the gearheads on the boards are none too keen on the amount of simplification the system seems to be undergoing in order to allow what you're talking about to happen.

I'm fairly optimistic, as long as said tinkering doesn't simply entail putting new "skins" on old powers. You know, something like "wizard power X does Y fire damage and can be used Z times per encounter. But the new "elemental savant" power I've devised for my home-brewed class is different. It does 2*Y cold damage and can be used Z/2 times per encounter." That would get old pretty quickly.

So, it'll be interesting to see what you guys've cooked up.

 

[Darkwolf71]

Classless D&D... a dream come true.

Actually, at that point I think you could honestly say it's no longer D&D.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Well some may not consider it D&D but I do, and I plan to use a classless system for my first-game of 4e. Which will benefit my game style greatly and I can finally more easily add the elements of WoD I like into it.