DMG to include a "starter town".

[A'koss]

I'm hoping they flesh it out enough that we can see how a town is supposed to tick in 4e. In addition to the usual NPC stating and plot points...

- The new economics rules in practice.
- PC class/NPC class demographics.
- The town militia and how it would react to lawbreakers (eg. unruly PCs) and attacks from the outside. It'll be especially important if what I suspect is true and that groups of LL soldiers can act as a "swarm/group tactics", presenting a more credible threat to higher level problems.

 

[Pale]

C'mon folks, we all know it's going to be Sigil!

 

[RigaMortus2]

From Christopher Perkins' latest

We tried something similar in the 3rd Edition DMG II with Saltmarsh, and we learned a lot from that experiment.

That sounds a little disheartning to me. I wonder what other 3.5 "experiments" they did. How do you feel about being a lab rat for 4E?

 

[Mouseferatu]

That sounds a little disheartning to me. I wonder what other 3.5 "experiments" they did. How do you feel about being a lab rat for 4E?

When did you start channeling Razz?

It's the nature of the game. Companies print what they know works at first, and then they try new stuff. Every new effort--whether it's the entire Bo9S, or the new aura mechanic for marshals and dragon shamans, or the inclusion of a full town in DMG2--is an experiment, whether it's for a new edition or simply a new direction for a current one.

 

[Reynard]

I wonder what other 3.5 "experiments" they did.

All of them?

I mean, I am not much of a 4E supporter, but game designers have to experiment all the time, to see what's working and isn't working and what might work better. there's the obvious ones like Magic of the Incarnum and Book of Nine Swords, but every time a new thing -- layout, type of content, feat category, etc... -- appeared, it was an experiment. They say they have been working on 4E for 2 years now, and if you track releases, it actually makes a lot of sense given all the new things that have appeared in the Complete books and the like. Of course, these are things that make me not particularly pleased about 4E, but YMMV and really it isn't germain to the point.

Which is:

Every new idea is an experiment. We only get mad when it turns out a way we don't like, or a way we do and no one else likes it.

 

[the Jester]

That sounds a little disheartning to me. I wonder what other 3.5 "experiments" they did. How do you feel about being a lab rat for 4E?

I don't mind at all, if it improves my game.

 

[KB9JMQ]

Another vote for Threshold. I used it as a starting point/homebase for years.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

That sounds a little disheartning to me. I wonder what other 3.5 "experiments" they did. How do you feel about being a lab rat for 4E?

I think any time a designer creates something and then sees how it works, it's something of an experiment.

As for how I feel about it, given the choice of designers who learn from how well things worked in the past and those who don't, I prefer the former to the latter.

 

[Dave Turner]

That sounds a little disheartning to me. I wonder what other 3.5 "experiments" they did. How do you feel about being a lab rat for 4E?

Talk about bending over backwards to take offense. What if Perkins had said "innovation" instead of "experiment"? Would you be similarly aggrieved about WotC "innovating" on you? :\

 

[The Little Raven]

How do you feel about being a lab rat for 4E?

About the same as I felt being a lab rat for 2e and 3e: marvelous, because my favorite game is still going strong.