Eric Noah's Info

[Koewn]

Combat is not only the most popular part of the game, it's also the most marketable.

Makes sense, really. Heck, I've got a professional miniaturist and a budding amateur in my group, they buy the plastic minis and often redo them to great effect for custom PC/NPC jobs. (green stuff? some sort of putty.) We also tend to err towards kick-in-the-door, so we use them a lot. (we're the A-Team, and we're all either Hannibal or B.A. (unless it's a wizard, then he's Murdock)

And it's not so much that we need the minis; we didn't use *any* till these came out - they're toys, nothing more. That's why they're popular. They're the fantasy equivalent of the green army men.

They'd be keeping the core setup roughly the same, they'd just be offering more specialized and fluff material.

Again, makes sense, what with all the Tome of * and Magic of * and MonsterType books.

Had they done this from the beginning, I have no doubt there would be a product called Magic of Slots with the default Vancian system in it.


Koewn

 

[jgbrowning]

And shapes. Fish, worms...

What we really need is a regenerating gummi troll.

I'd never have to buy a new piece of food again.

joe b.

 

[Kae'Yoss]

4E already in the works? Check.

Well, As people were saying: 4e was in the works the day 3e was sent off to the printers. Some designers even said that some changes they had in store for the game were too big to do in one edition. They had to be done in several steps.

Even more miniatures-centric? Check.

I don't know about that one. It can't be much more than making minis more obvious in battle. They might make measurement in squares primary (but I even doubt they'd get rid of feet). They might make the minis more visible in the core books. They might show minis for the races and classes. They might bundle the core book with those minis even.

Much smaller bundles of game info, packaged and sold separately? Check.

I'm not sure about that one, either. It could be a good thing, provided the price per page won't go up. Say there's a Regional book coming up? You'd get 3 books for 10 bucks each instead of one for 30 bucks: One, with the rules info (classes, races, feats, and so on), one with the regional and setting info, and another with a tie-in adventure. That way, they could sell the crunch to those not into the setting, sell the fluff to those not interested in more rules, and could sell those parts to DMs not interested in running the adventure.

A plan to possibly sell off RPGs entirely? Check. (Apparently only miniatures and Magic are making any money for WotC)

No way. Without D&D, there is no DDM. They have to keep the RPG in order to keep the D&D minis. I don't have any hard evidence, but I think DDM is the leader of their line, going before SWM and AAM, and of course Dreamblade.

Sure, they could sell the rights to make the RPG to others while keeping the minis for themselves, but I think that the minis would suffer from that - right now, the rpg department and the minis department have a good rapport going, but how would communication be if they were different companies?

 

[morbiczer]

The fears seem to be that a) we won't be warned of the approach of a new edition in a timely manner ...

I'm pretty sure that I have read here on EnWorld a post from some WotC official that we would get at a "warning" at least a year before 4E is released.

This was at least a year ago, and I don't remember any more details, but am sure about the one year's notice part.

Much smaller bundles of game info, packaged and sold separately? Check.

I'm not sure about that one, either. It could be a good thing, provided the price per page won't go up. Say there's a Regional book coming up? You'd get 3 books for 10 bucks each instead of one for 30 bucks

The problem with this is that I would be very surprised if the production, transport, etc. cost for three small books wouldn't be higher than for one big. So if they decide to relase more but smaller books, and you want to buy all, you most likely would have to pay more.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

But the market has already shown that you're in the minority. Remember the ooos and ahhhs over M&M's "production values"?

A lot of that was knockout art, in full color on glossy paper.


Chuck

I often browse through books and ooh and ah over the pretty pictures and then go buy a paperback. I do the same thing at clubs. Ooh and ah over the 10s in the bikini contest, then go home with a 2 who can cook.

 

[Mark CMG]

If you choose to stop roleplaying and treat combat as a skirmish mini-game then that is a choice you have made. Heck, you could toss out the role-playing completely and use the D&D combat system as a mini wargame and nothing more if you so selected.

But, that would be a choice. And individual selection, as I said, is purely a function of what goes on between the ears of the person making that selection.
You CAN choose to NOT roleplay D&D combat. That does not make it not a roleplaying game. You can choose TO roleplay Descent (or even Monopoly) and that does not make these games BE roleplaying games.

In my experience there is nothing to inhibit roleplaying during D&D combat. The players each have characters who, unlike, say Desecnt characters, have larger motivations and goals. Sometimes it doesn't matter. But frequently the players make much different choices during RP combat contained within a larger roleplaying campaign than they would in one where it is simply a matter of "winning" such as Descent or Warhammer. So their tactical actions are readily influenced by their roleplaying in ways that a non-roleplaying game lacks. Further, even non-tactical role play often continues throughout combat. Interparty relationships and exchanges persist. If these things are cast aside in your game, then I would suggest you are missing out.

Bottom line remains that nothing in a piece of plastic or between the covers of any D&D book has the slightest ability to prevent a dedicated player from roleplaying their experiences both in and out of combat. And that is not an IME comment. That is purely a rational observation. I'm not disputing that other people have different experience. I am disputing that it is rational to claim these alternate experiences result from the game itself, as opposed to the people playing it.

This needs to be its own thread, I think. Would you mind starting one?

 

[EricNoah]

As a theoretical discussion...

One problem with the same info spread out over more (and smaller) books is that it makes the DM's job harder. The DM already has to fold/shuffle in every new feat, class, race, spell, monster, rule etc. that he chooses to add to his game. That's a lot of significant information storage and retrieval going on. It is hard enough to truly and fully integrate a new sourcebook like Lords of Madness into the core rules as it is.

Another related problem is the publisher managing that info and doing a good job of testing each new rule against each other existing rule. The more it's chopped up, the easier I think it would be to make some major mistakes.

 

[genshou]

*catches up from his last post on page 7, takes a deep breath, and plunges back in*

Ok

But are you actually claiming this is inherent to the game?

If you choose to stop roleplaying and treat combat as a skirmish mini-game then that is a choice you have made. Heck, you could toss out the role-playing completely and use the D&D combat system as a mini wargame and nothing more if you so selected.

But, that would be a choice. And individual selection, as I said, is purely a function of what goes on between the ears of the person making that selection.
You CAN choose to NOT roleplay D&D combat. That does not make it not a roleplaying game. You can choose TO roleplay Descent (or even Monopoly) and that does not make these games BE roleplaying games.

In my experience there is nothing to inhibit roleplaying during D&D combat. The players each have characters who, unlike, say Desecnt characters, have larger motivations and goals. Sometimes it doesn't matter. But frequently the players make much different choices during RP combat contained within a larger roleplaying campaign than they would in one where it is simply a matter of "winning" such as Descent or Warhammer. So their tactical actions are readily influenced by their roleplaying in ways that a non-roleplaying game lacks. Further, even non-tactical role play often continues throughout combat. Interparty relationships and exchanges persist. If these things are cast aside in your game, then I would suggest you are missing out.

Bottom line remains that nothing in a piece of plastic or between the covers of any D&D book has the slightest ability to prevent a dedicated player from roleplaying their experiences both in and out of combat. And that is not an IME comment. That is purely a rational observation. I'm not disputing that other people have different experience. I am disputing that it is rational to claim these alternate experiences result from the game itself, as opposed to the people playing it.

*claps*
It's so much fun for PCs to interact with their world like real people. Then when a combat starts and the players start thinking like... *gasp* people in a combat, suddenly people are up in arms about miniatures making the role-playing get out of combat? I would argue with said people that thinking tactically is role-playing in combat.

 

[Greg K]

If 4e were to go three core books and then smaller supplements, I might not object depending on the approach. Personally, I really dislike the WOTC class and race supplements for 3.x and 3.5. I would have preferred an approach similar to that of Green Ronin's Master Class books and Mongoose's Quintessential line- individual books dedicated to examining and expanding a single existing or new class or race.

 

[Knight Otu]

Nyah, you just get the big gummi bears, bite off the right arm and leg from one, and the left arm and leg from the other, and you've got an Ettin mini.

Forget mini's, Gummi Bears come in all sizes!

That's it! Collectable Customizable Dual Creatures!

That a gold mine!