Mike Mearls comments on design

[Hussar]

Again, the comparison that crops up in my head is that the original 3e rules were locked up and transplanted anywhere from Africa to the Wild West to Rome to the biblical era to the age of pirates to colonial America without, largely, changing the words around.

You keep saying this like it should be a given.

350 pages of rules which strip out every class, spell, and monster, add in new mechanics for alignment, honor, damage reduction, feats, and several other changes gives me Oriental Adventures. That's not minor changes, that's HUGE. The only similarities here is the d20 mechanics.

Even Scarred Lands, which is far more generic fantasy than Oriental Adventures, rewrites all the races, rewrites clerics and druids, completely changes the spells, adds in Ritual Magic, completely replaces magic items (and adds in the mechanic for magic items to be randomly cursed on creation), changes wizards, and I'm sure there's stuff I'm missing.

That's not minor changes, that's very, very large changes.

To play low magic (as in low powered, rare magic) D&D is very difficult, claims otherwise notwithstanding. To play in an African campaign, which I assume you're pointing to Nyambe, requires several hundred pages of rules changes.

Your definition of minor changes to handle a broad range of themes differs greatly from mine.

No, it's a misnomer, and IMO it's an overblown lame one. An adventuring party is not an army, and the name isn't generic, it has a specific meaning that doesn't apply in a D&D party context. "Champion" is an example of a generic name, and lacks all the implications and baggage that don't apply of the term "warlord". They really need to go back to the thesaurus on this one, IMO.

Again, and this has been mentioned numerous times, the terminology of D&D will always be seen through the lense of D&D. A Barbarian is a misnomer too. Barbarians certainly don't have to be berserker's - yet mechanically, we're locked into that. What exactly does an Invoker do? What mythic traditions is that pulling from?

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

If you learn and use Fourier transformations, does that imply that you've been taught by Fourier Adepts?

No, but you might wonder: Who was this Fourier guy anyway? Why did he come up with such a transformation? I am pretty sure that many "classical" concepts of math and sciences are also taught with the context (especially the famous experiments).

Most of the time when you use the Fourier Transformation, you don't care about the background of M.Fourier. But if you learn it the first time, you might want to know more.

And this is even more so appropriate for a role playing game. Because you know so little about the world (since it's entirely made up!), such things give you some starting points what to ask first about.

 

[Remathilis]

No, it's a misnomer, and IMO it's an overblown lame one. An adventuring party is not an army, and the name isn't generic, it has a specific meaning that doesn't apply in a D&D party context. "Champion" is an example of a generic name, and lacks all the implications and baggage that don't apply of the term "warlord". They really need to go back to the thesaurus on this one, IMO.

Except the champion is so generic, its non-informative.

cham·pi·on /ˈtʃæmpiən/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[cham-pee-uhn] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a person who has defeated all opponents in a competition or series of competitions, so as to hold first place: the heavyweight boxing champion.
2. anything that takes first place in competition: the champion of a cattle show.
3. an animal that has won a certain number of points in officially recognized shows: This dog is a champion.
4. a person who fights for or defends any person or cause: a champion of the oppressed.
5. a fighter or warrior.
–verb (used with object)
6. to act as champion of; defend; support: to champion a cause.
7. Obsolete. to defy.
–adjective
8. first among all contestants or competitors.
9. Informal. first-rate.

By that definition, a champion implies a winner, a fighter, a cleric or a paladin. It certainly doesn't imply "a guy who leads, inspires, or direct his allies to victory".

war·lord /ˈwɔrˌlɔrd/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[wawr-lawrd] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–noun
1. a military leader, esp. of a warlike nation.
2. a military commander who has seized power, esp. in one section of a country.
3. tuchun.

Sounds like a good fit for me, especially in a world constantly under siege under the forces of darkness...

 

[jasin]

No, [warlord]'s a misnomer, and IMO it's an overblown lame one. An adventuring party is not an army, and the name isn't generic, it has a specific meaning that doesn't apply in a D&D party context. "Champion" is an example of a generic name, and lacks all the implications and baggage that don't apply of the term "warlord". They really need to go back to the thesaurus on this one, IMO.

From what we know of the class' abilities, a member-of-the-class-WotC-calls-warlord could easily be a guy with no convictions other than that his four allies and himself need to win whatever fight they're currently in, and that they'll be doing it through teamwork and certainly not by him stepping forward as a sole representative.

How is "champion" an more appropriate name for that?

 

[jasin]

If you learn and use Fourier transformations, does that imply that you've been taught by Fourier Adepts?

No, but if you learn to manipulate and enhance digital photos, you might very well be called a Photoshop expert... even if you learned on and use some other application.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

My basic question is this: does it add anything for the minor annoyances it causes?

Right now, in the preview stage, it doesn't. As I illustrated above, no one WANTS a Golden Wyvern thing.

But that's mostly because no one knows what it is in context yet. That might change.

Basically, they have to prove to me that it's worth it. They haven't. Ergo, at the moment, I'm kind of critical of it, because from where I'm standing, it's a hassle without a hook, just a problem, not a benefit.

When I see everything in context, it's entirely likely that, given new insight, I will change this tune. I hope I will.

To say that right now all we have to do is "gloss over it" is ignoring the fact that, as far as we know, there's no REASON for it to be there in the first place.

So it basically boils down to faith. If you have faith in WotC to make it worthwhile, you're cool with it. You'll gloss over it for the promise that it might provide something. If you lack that faith, if you're more agnostic about the whole affair, you probably don't see the value in it yet.

Given the response to and subsequent backpedalling from Dragon's Tail Cut, I get the impression that a lot of these fluff names are just whatever throwaway fluff they felt they had time to come up with, in order to pack the book with fluff based a perceived need to fluffify things. I doubt that they've got much invested in these names, except that they're attempting to finalize the book, but they don't expect the particular names for things to be a deal-breaker.

As much faith that I have that the game itself will be solid, I've seen nothing to convince me that this stock of writers has the ability to put together a charismatic colour for the new edition. I sort of wish they had hired it out to the Paizo guys, or another company known for their great fluff. Of course, I've always thought that the fluff in WotC books was kind of gorpy. Just look at Races of Destiny. Tome of Magic is a notable exception, but most of the time I feel like the flavour text is just filler.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

And having to gloss over it is a little bump. It's not a game-breaker per se, but if this is representative of many of the feats in the PH, then there will be many more little bumps, and those will be much more annoying en masse.

It's the question of whether we're making a mountain out of a molehill, or whether we're seeing the tip of an iceberg. Remains to be seen, but I'd hate to fail to convey our concerns and then run into something unpleasant that could have been avoided.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No, but if you learn to manipulate and enhance digital photos, you might very well be called a Photoshop expert... even if you learned on and use some other application.

Reminds me of something: http://xkcd.com/331/

 

[LostSoul]

Perhaps that's part of the intent, but from where I'm sitting, making it harder to disentangle 4e from 4e's implied setting works against one of the major strengths of tabletop gaming: that is, the ability of the gaming group to OWN how they play the game.

Is it a strength for the introductory game to the hobby?

 

[Reynard]

Is it a strength for the introductory game to the hobby?

It is when the method of introduction is still to be taught by existing players. Let's face it, so long as WotC holds on to the 3-book model, getting new players is going to be largely depoendent upon induction.