Discussion - LEW 4th Edition

[Bront]

I think KO is right in that a functioning world released just before the final book is out would be a good idea. That being said, I also think it's great to discuss this subject long before we actually put pen to paper.

He actualy said shortly after the final book, not before

It's an important difference, and one I fully support.

With the PHB, you can build a very vague basis. The DMG can help you design the initial starting area (an important but medium sized trade city is a good start, much like Orussus). And once the Monster Manual is out, you can flesh out some finishing touches and start her up.

A good reason to wait that long is to allow PHB circulation. Especialy if there's a delay in getting them out (like the Mutants and Masterminds 2.0 books, which sold out so fast many weren't able to get them till 4 months later). With WotC, it's less likely to happen, but I know I might not get a book myself the first week it's out.

 

[Bront]

Ok, reading the actual ideas...

I like the idea of a city that's got a few "transportation gates" available to it, but you have to be careful. It would likely become a HUGE city itself, since economicly more trade would come through it. You have to either limit it in a way, or make it non-exclusive.

For example, if there were 25 gates around the world, 2 gates were only connected for a short time and only once a day, it makes them useful, and would attract a large crowd, but certaintly woldn't change the dynamics of what makes a mideval metropolis.

Say, gates work for 30 min, off for 30 min, then on to the next city. Could make a chart to say which one is which, leave some of the towns open to be written by a GM or writer who wants to, and you've shrunk your world a little bit (which is good sometimes, as travel can realy kill a few far off adventure ideas) but not forgotten about ship and road travel, which is also better for transporting large things (due to the size of the portals perhaps?

You could even start out with a couple of "dead" portals, to allow GMs to uncover them or for later world expansion.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Ok, reading the actual ideas...

I like the idea of a city that's got a few "transportation gates" available to it, but you have to be careful. It would likely become a HUGE city itself, since economicly more trade would come through it. You have to either limit it in a way, or make it non-exclusive.

For example, if there were 25 gates around the world, 2 gates were only connected for a short time and only once a day, it makes them useful, and would attract a large crowd, but certaintly woldn't change the dynamics of what makes a mideval metropolis.

Say, gates work for 30 min, off for 30 min, then on to the next city. Could make a chart to say which one is which, leave some of the towns open to be written by a GM or writer who wants to, and you've shrunk your world a little bit (which is good sometimes, as travel can realy kill a few far off adventure ideas) but not forgotten about ship and road travel, which is also better for transporting large things (due to the size of the portals perhaps?

You could even start out with a couple of "dead" portals, to allow GMs to uncover them or for later world expansion.

Meh, that makes it much much harder to do a traveling adventure and keep a straight face.

"Okay, you leave the city by horse, and--"

"Wait! We're just going to wait til the right time tomorrow for the gate."

"But...uhmm...urrr...it's time sensitive and you can't wait."

"Time sensitive? But if we wait until tomorrow, then we'll be there tomorrow. By horse it is two weeks."

"Uhhmm....urrr...uhhh....THAT'S IT I'VE HAD IT! SUDDENLY YOU ARE ALL TELEPORTED INTO A DUNGEON!"

 

[Bront]

Meh, that makes it much much harder to do a traveling adventure and keep a straight face.

"Okay, you leave the city by horse, and--"

"Wait! We're just going to wait til the right time tomorrow for the gate."

"But...uhmm...urrr...it's time sensitive and you can't wait."

"Time sensitive? But if we wait until tomorrow, then we'll be there tomorrow. By horse it is two weeks."

"Uhhmm....urrr...uhhh....THAT'S IT I'VE HAD IT! SUDDENLY YOU ARE ALL TELEPORTED INTO A DUNGEON!"

Depends on how spread out the gates are. Some cities are STILL going to be 2 weeks by horse, if the world is immense enough. But 2 MONTHS by horse? not as likely.

 

[Creamsteak]

Honestly, I'm less interested in the lore and setting right this second. I'm more interested in the meta-mechanics.

Do we do like LEW and have everyone start at 1st level? Or do we do like LEB and have multiple starting levels?

Do we want to drop the idea of a Red Dragon Inn mechanic? Change it? Keep it?

How do we want to treat people that propose running a published module? This has a lot of sub questions. I expect the first published module to be something everyone wants to "Try out."

Do we need to look into how we deal with proposals? I certainly think restricting "crunch" proposals at first would help, since we won't really intimately "know" the mechanics until we've played them fairly well.

Do we want to make a stronger mechanic for grounding DM concepts to the game world? I know that the Interface and Tracking thread was originally intended to be the place to reference for "Oh, so there's a city over there, and a swamp over there" from a previous adventures.

Are there any changes to the character records and methods we use? I'm fairly satisfied with this, but we might be able to make some improvements or tweaks to how we list/update characters. One idea I have is to add a Sub-forum to the L4W, and record each character in a thread rather than a post. Then one sticky thread that acts as the "list of characters" with links. Then have the DMs of games post to the characters threads with their recieved rewards. Thus keeping all updates visible to everyone. This has advantages and disadvantages obviously. I'm not sure which is best.

 

[Rystil Arden]

Now this meta-stuff: That I can get behind!

I don't know about starting levels, but it looks like they're buffing up level 1, which suggests to me that we should DEFINITELY not have characters above level 1 starting off the world, particularly since it will take time for GMs to build mastery to handle the high levels, and with the blasted linear XP scaling, we could have high-level troubles quickly if we start too high.

I'm really of two minds about the RDI mechanic. I *love* having a way to roleplay with other characters between adventures. But I *HATE* the way the RDI mechanic channels adventure hooks.

Published modules should be fine if they file away the serial numbers to work with our setting, at least they have been in the past, and I don't see why not now.

Agreed--I'd like to have no crunchy proposal for at least 6 months. By then, I should have achieved a nearly fluent level of system mastery and can make good judgments, at least if previous editions are any indication.

I think the strongest mechanic that we ever had for grounding concepts in the game world in LEW wa El Jefe. He was a machine, reading threads and posting all the location info...at least until he disappeared.

I like our current record system. Particularly, I like putting the onus on the player to update things. As the GM, it would be a pain in the arse for me to have to do accounting. It would make me much less inclined to run an adventure (then again, sometimes even if there are official rules or guidelines on accounting, hopefully they can be ignored for expediency).

 

[Creamsteak]

I'll just state my opinions as opinions here regarding the questions I detailed above. I kinda just read that and realized I put so much effort into not leaning on an opinion that I didn't actually state mine.

1) I still like "all characters start at 1st level." The one thing I'm not positive on is the limit to the number of characters. It was built because we had people with 3 different characters on the 1st day, and approving that was a pain. However, long-term the limit doesn't mean much, if the characters are introduced sufficiently far apart. There could, alternatively, be a meta-mechanic that "you can have only one level 1 character at a time." Though to me, even that sounds a bit odd.

2) I think the RDI is a good idea for the role-playing aspect. I agree that the introduction of adventures was annoying at times with the RDI. However, note that when I ran Heroes of Vesper Peaks, they didn't start at the RDI. Instead, they started at a bar in the far south. A distinct but different Tavern thread. It wasn't really meant to be a YOU MUST GO HERE thing, but rather a hang-out.

If we made the hang-out threads just "RP" zones, that could work. Then the question becomes "can anyone make one at any time?" Or do we just set up one or a few "normal" ones? I do think we should limit the number so we can get people to play with a large variety.

The way I kinda want to see it right now is: maybe 3 major Tavern-type threads like the RDI. Each from a distinct location in the game-world. These would be part adventure-pick-ups and just a place to RP in-between. Then allow player created "temp RP zones" that pop up out of curiosity. For example, someone in the RDI kinda wants to move his team to a more private place, so in character he suggests going to the "Totally secret Tavern" down the street. A new thread spawns. It does what it's needed for. Then goes.

This way we keep most of the pleasent mechanics that currently exist, spread out the RP a bit when wanted (I've felt crowded there many times, which kinda was both IC and OOC). However, it frees everyone up to DM as needed.

3) The published modules question I'm not so much thinking of conversion problems. Obviously we can take the Eberron fluff out of an Eberron adventure at the end of the day. What MIGHT irk me though is having 15 odd adventures "THE DOOMGATE OF DOOM." Maybe this will never be a problem. However I could see it being a slight problem if Wizards publishes an adventure path when they bring out the core books. It's not a bad problem to have, it means we have a lot of games obviously. I would maybe like a pacing mechanic though, like "we only let 1 adventure set in a particular module to start per 2 weeks." That would satisfy me possibly.

4) I think everyone will probably agree on this one, seems common sense.

5) I'm still short on ideas here.

6) Well my specific solution is more complicated that the current system but here's how it would be layed out.

L4W forum would have a "L4W Characters" Subforum.

Sticky thread at the top is equivelent to our current character threads first couple posts in that it details rules, and lists the characters and lists their approval. This is the only thread the L4W staff would need to update.

Then each character is actually a 1 post thread. The first post is the character sheet. Additional posts might include character background and information.

If LEW judges have problems with approval, they need only post here, or send the emails as they currently do.

When a player COMPLETES an adventure, the DM posts xp and treasure rewards to the thread (and perhaps any items that were used up or destroyed).

 

[Rystil Arden]

Ah. For (3)--I didn't understand what you meant. Obviously, of course we would never ever have two of the exact same adventure. That would just be silly.

For (6)--Ewwwwwwwww. I don't even want to think about trying to find all the various XP and treasure awards in any of my adventures. In fact, especially since ENWorld Search function won't search for two-letter words like XP, I'd sooner give up my adventure and quite GMing than have to do that! It would take, literally, hours. Then again, I may be the only GM with thousands and thousands of posts through which to crawl per adventure, and several adventures.

 

[Creamsteak]

You don't have to summarize xp at the end of your adventures? I've always done that, if for no other reason than to clarify things for the judges.

 

[Rystil Arden]

You don't have to summarize xp at the end of your adventures? I've always done that, if for no other reason than to clarify things for the judges.

Not that I know of. I certainly hope not, and if so, I haven't heard of it and have been ignoring it.