Monte Cook at it again (Will this be his take on 4e fighters?)

[dm4hire]

Found this on Monte's journal written today.

At It Again

So one month ago, we released Book of Experimental Might. You'll remember that it was basically just my new campaign houserules, the latest results of my endless tinkering. Well, the response was pretty overwhelming for our little ebook (although now you can get your print copy from Lulu, and I must say it looks pretty good). So much so that I thought it would be fun to do another one. A smaller one. The idea came from a few people who liked BoXM but wondered why there was so little in there for non-spellcasters, particularly fighters. Well, while there is some stuff in there it's true that at the time I though spellcasters needed more work. (Now to be clear, by that I don't mean that I thought--or currently think--that there's anything wrong with the core magic system as is. It's just that for my home game I felt like it would be fun to give something different a try for a while. I'd been toying around with the ideas for some time.)

But I'd been kicking around ideas for scalable feats for quite a while too, and so I thought I'd play around with some fighter-focused ideas and after a couple of weeks, on and off, I've come up with some interesting ideas. Interesting to me, anyway. I've already started incorporating them into my games, and next week will probably put that in high gear.

As anyone who's really tinkered with the system knows, playing around with fighters and maneuvers and feats is actually much harder than clerics and wizards and spells. The web of interconnectedness is actually far more complex. The details are all the more important. So it's been challenging, and a lot of mental work. I actually haven't done this kind of game design in quite a while. But maybe that's why I've come into it with what feels like a fresh perspective.

I'll be discussing some of the material that will go into Book of Experimental Might 2, or whatever we'll call it, a bit later.

For good or for ill, however, this really will be the last bit of game design I get to do for a long while. Other deadlines and projects are piling up. It's almost been like a vacation working on the game stuff, to be honest. I hope to be able to share some more cool fiction and comics news with you soon as well.

So it looks like we'll see how Monte would do the fighter types differently now. It will be interesting to see how different he does them from what WotC has done already.

Seems like 4e is really bringing out the variety people always wanted.

 

[Sqwonk]

double post friday

 

[Sqwonk]

I don't think 4e has that much impact on Monte. He is "out of the game design" business. I know that his 2 current campaigns will not switch to 4e. He states, quite often that he likes the 3.X rules. BoXM was just him rules tinkering for his home campaign. I think BoXM2 is coming out of the good sales of BoXM and messageboard folks wishing for some "love for the fighters". He explains that he has been thinking about scaling feats for quite a while. So at no point has he said that BoXM is his 4e or even 3.75 - it is just a good game designer tinkering with the base rules he helped design. I am happy he did/is.

 

[Wiman]

As a strong supporter of 4e, I only hope that Monte Cook gets back into the design end of things and brings Malhavoc into the fray of 4e (no matter how unlikely this is). The man is a gifted tinkerer and I think for everyone to have a good time with 4e we need some good tinkerers working on it. No disrespect intended of current WOTC employees.

 

[Mistwell]

If Monte Cook says one more time that he is out of the gaming business I'm gonna find him and smack him upside the head.

He's not out. He's put out about half as much stuff in the last two years, since he announces he was done with D&D, than he did when he was full-time publishing D&D! Come on man, admit it already, you're still a part time game designer, and have no real intention of leaving it.

You watch. Ptolus 4e will be announced in a couple of years. Bet on it.

 

[Piratecat]

I'll move this, since it isn't about 4e.

 

[Wiman]

I agree, I think that Monte was doomed to publish material for D&D as soon as he rolled his first 20 sider and got a 1....."Man I'm sure I can improve on that...."

 

[Fobok]

You watch. Ptolus 4e will be announced in a couple of years. Bet on it.

I hope so. I missed out on getting Ptolus the first time around. I know I can still get the PDF but while I wouldn't mind paying $119 on a nice, huge book, paying $60 for a PDF which might get lost in a hard drive failure or something I just can't bring myself to do.

 

[BiggusGeekus]

For good or for ill, however, this really will be the last bit of game design I get to do for a long while.

Sure, Monte. Sure.




I have this image in my mind of Monte waking up in a cold sweat at 3am whispering, "skill resolution tables ... must ... not ... write them down!"

 

[Angel Tarragon]

You watch. Ptolus 4e will be announced in a couple of years. Bet on it.

Hmm.