Minor 5th Edition Updates for Monday, 16 January, 2012

[thzero]

I agree with you, though when we played 1e/2e, there was a lot of implied DM fiat.......

You make some good points. I suppose that maybe I have just never saw the additional "codified" (although as a software engineer that word in reference to 3e makes me cringe) rules as real hindrance to DM fiat, rather except for more outlier cases I didn't have to use as much DM fiat to keep the game interesting. But I can see where you are coming from.

I suspect that 'D&D.next' may be a rules heavy game. But I suppose that as long as you are able to raid the dungeon, slay the dragon, steal the gold, and get the girl, the rules don't matter as much.

 

[Vyvyan Basterd]

Unfortunately that's all plain marketing speak.

I prefer to wait and see. If it is all puff and no substance, then they wil obviously fail. But the liason from ENWorld who was invited to play mentioned what I've mentally dubbed an 'elegant solution' here:

[MENTION=54846]Rechan[/MENTION] I had a great time. I can't talk mechanics but I will say these things. I loved it. It felt a lot like my favorite edition of D&D (go read my blogs and figure it out) with knowledge gathered from what works in the other editions. It played quick with your turn coming around in short order because you aren't waiting 10 minutes for a player to decide what to do with an insignificant actiion. The characters were easy to use. I did get to play a cleric but I guess I spilled the beans on that somewhere so I will say it here. The cleric was also my favorite (race) and that was a blast. I picked randomly from a pile of character sheets on the table. I can role-play anything, haha. There was one new mechanic that I hadn't seen before in any edition that was absolutely brilliant to clear up some of the things that didn't work. So I did have a blast. Mike is a great DM and the rest of the group were a blast to play with.

That being said, because of the GSL, as opposed to the OGL, it does seem like if the various editions game play aren't supported in vary close proximity to the current incarnations, that 4e players may seem to get the shaft.

The parts of 4E that vary too greatly from previous editions are not a deal-breaker for me. I don't feel like getting into the details of where I believe the differences are, but they lay towards the realm of encounter design more than specifics.

So who knows, I'm interested enough in what they come up with to be posting about it, but I'm not necessarily holding my breath either.

I'm optimistic, but I won't be holding my breath either. I hope they succeed and (being optimistic) believe they can, but the outcome of their endeavor has little personal effect on me.

 

[Lwaxy]

Yeah, that's the biggest question mark for me:
How am I as a DM supposed to deal with this mess?

I don't see how this is supposed to work at all.

No, I'm telling the players what is going on, or what they need to watch out for (i.e "Does anyone notice something?" "The dragon breathes acid at you") and the player then tells me what they do and what they need to roll or save for. This makes the players a lot more responsible for the game process.

It might open up room for cheating though if you do not have a group mostly interested in the story.

 

[migo]

I see what you mean. One is an RPG. The other is a tactical minis wargame with a few RPG elements thrown in. They seem to be very incompatible.

Mod Note: While you've a right to an opinion, "Game X is not an RPG," is a well-known inflammatory statement. We no longer have patience for edition warring - anyone wishing to continue in conversation should learn to speak their minds without resorting to things known to cheese folks off. You are talking to people - those people are more important than edition divides. ~Umbran

D&D started out as a tactical minis wargame with a few RPG elements thrown in, and those RPG elements were usually player dependent more than rules dependent. I've also found playing AD&D that following the rules by the book works fairly well when doing a dungeon crawl (which is sometimes quite similar to a tactical minis wargame without the minis) and generally requires throwing the rules out the window the more RPGy and less wargamey you go.

1e has tables to roll on to see how someone reacts to meeting you or what happens as a result of actions you take. 4e has skill challenges. Sometimes they work well, other times you have to DM fiat them out to make things more fun for everyone. Anything with the D&D name has never deviated that far from the tactical minis wargame origin, and I'd guess the furthest the game has ever been from it was in the mid to late 90s.

4e is very much D&D. I've played through a 2e module using 4e, and it felt exactly like 2e. Playing a 4e LFR module felt very different, but that speaks more to the module design than the ruleset (and to LFR being excessively rigid - that has made me wonder how I'd feel about 2e had I been introduced to it through the RPGA and having to follow those rules tightly).