Defining its own Mythology

[Raven Crowking]

This convo is more than making strange bedfellows, it's practically lion-laying-down-with-the-lamb kind of stuff. Though I suppose that's in season.

GREAT post, KM! But....I hope you know that my birthday is 4 August, so you're the lamb.

 

[Raven Crowking]

What's more weirding me out is not the new races (more options are better!), but the fact that they are so inextricably wed to the cosmology that it hurts to disentangle them. Take Eladrin Teleporting for instance. The claim is that they step into the Feywild to move. But if I don't use the Feywild in my game, I either nerf them or think of a different fluff. And if the fluff is more appropriate to another setting (Eladrin teleport because of cybernetic technology imbedded in their pancreas), it might interfere with the mechanics, giving me a worse cascade than 3e's ability damage!

This is exactly the example I was thinking of.


RC

 

[Simon Marks]

However, one can say the same of Shadowdancers, Clerics, almost all the teleportation spells and a large chunk of monsters who all require a very specific setup of planes in 3.5.

Specifically the ethereal, postivie and negative energy planes. Oh, and the plane of Shadow.

3.5 wed the cosmology and the system as tightly as 4e is planning to do. The elemental Planes, the astral, ethereal and shadow planes are all vital for how 3.5 works. Removing them requires re imagining a very very large chunk of even just the PHB.

So... what?

 

[Odhanan]

Great post indeed, KM.

To put it another way, I'm starting to feel like 4E will be to 3E what 2E was to 1E.

Framing imaginations "to help the newbie", branding, nerfing stuff because "it doesn't make sense" or "it's bothersome" (Assassins, Monks... isn't that the job of developers/designers to make things work for everyone's sake instead of nerfing them because they wouldn't fit "their" vision of the game or its players for that matter?). I feel like there's some massive amount of condescension going on towards both people already playing the game AND people who would be interested in playing it. I never got that kind of feeling from Gary's writing.

 

[Simia Saturnalia]

However, one can say the same of Shadowdancers, Clerics, almost all the teleportation spells and a large chunk of monsters who all require a very specific setup of planes in 3.5.

Specifically the ethereal, postivie and negative energy planes. Oh, and the plane of Shadow.

3.5 wed the cosmology and the system as tightly as 4e is planning to do. The elemental Planes, the astral, ethereal and shadow planes are all vital for how 3.5 works. Removing them requires re imagining a very very large chunk of even just the PHB.

So... what?

The only flavor that's acceptable when being crammed down the throat of a D&D group (somehow ignoring the fact the idea is ABJECT LUNACY) is 'Gygax Brand Cream of All The We Talked About In Mythological Studies 102'.

It's okay to force it on us -again- because we've been swallowing it for 30 years. New things are inherently bad, but since "I hate new things" sounds stupid, it gets cast as "forcing flavor on what should be generic rules" - ignoring the rules have never been generic and people love to answer calls for more generic D&D with "Maybe you should play GURPS".

 

[Raven Crowking]

The only flavor that's acceptable when being crammed down the throat of a D&D group (somehow ignoring the fact the idea is ABJECT LUNACY) is 'Gygax Brand Cream of All The We Talked About In Mythological Studies 102'.

Straw man much?

Once more, with feeling:

I'm happy with adding flavours. I'm not seeing anyone say that they are not. "This is the melting pot; take what you need to create the flavour you want" is good. "This is the flavour; don't like it? Sucks to be you." is bad.

RC

 

[The Little Raven]

How is it different?

Because it wasn't made by a balding wargaming fan whose time of prominence was over 20 years ago?

 

[The Little Raven]

"This is the flavour; don't like it? Sucks to be you."

A very apt description of the flavor given in 3e.

"If you don't like Greyhawk, too bad, you paid for it."

 

[Kesh]

The ability to select from a decent range of diverse races and classes is. No thanks. Why wait? It's quite playable now without waiting for the folks with the machetes to stop their hacking and without spending another dime.

They're adding in more, new races to the PHB. You'll still have selection there, plus the MM will have notes for playing certain "monsters" as PCs, including gnomes. Where is your machete?

 

[Remathilis]

I'm happy with adding flavours. I'm not seeing anyone say that they are not. "This is the melting pot; take what you need to create the flavour you want" is good. "This is the flavour; don't like it? Sucks to be you." is bad.

Anyone can make poor man's stew (add one cup of everything edible in your cabinet, season to taste) but pretty soon, you've mixed too many flavors and the stew becomes a brownish gloppy mess that doesn't taste like anything recognizable, let alone edible. Sure, its nourishing and it probably won't kill you, but adding chocolate sauce, mushroom soup, sour cream, curry, wasabi, cayenne pepper, blackberry jam, and fruit cocktail together makes a meal less than the sum of its parts.

D&D's mythos are getting like that. Its a collection of a lot of good things that kinda mix into a brownish mess. Better that D&D start with a honestly fresh recipe using some familiar and some new ingredients that blend well (even if some of us will need to or never will adjust to the new taste) and then let us add or subtract (via home rules and supplements) than to pour everything into the melting pot and serve hot.

Dangit, now I'm hungry.