Monte Cook back at wizards

[Rechan]

Well. From a Dev standpoint, if they are making 5e I hope they take their dear sweet time. 4e was 2 years from conception to printing. And we saw the glaring bugs right out of the gate.

So I hope they iron this crap out well in advance.

 

[Droogie128]

But if you look at 3rd edition, no matter how problematic parts of it was, it was a great game that revived D&D.

I also had more fun with 3.0, because even though some things were less balanced, it was closer to ADnD and didn´t encourage the use of minis.
All in all, it was more DMcentric, as figuring out the amount of cover e.g. was more or less a decision of the DM...

More fiddly, yes.
More imbalanced,yes

but it was a lot closer to its roots, and the worst offenders, druids, were not that imbalanced...

And i guess, people who believed D&D 3.5 is all bad are no longer actually working on 4E. And this was a mistake!
3.x really had flaws. But it also had very very great parts. And not all of them were retained in the pathfinder conversion.

I would really like to read what monte cook´s design principles were.

@ 5e:
In no way will 5e come out, before character builder, adventure tools etc have been released fully functional.
It is very very important for their credibility that they bring out a good working program as promised, no matter how ling it takes.
It is also important for them to have such tools for 5e.
And if you ask me, they need to fully support 4e tools for those who like to stay with 4e. There is no reasons for them to withdraw them, as no matter if you play 4e or 5e, you give them money.

So in a perfect world, we have 5e sooner than later, best if we all can take part in some kind of beta test.

3e relied on minis just as much as 4e. They're both very similar in combat mechanics. Both use minis for the same purposes. 3e needs them for range, movement, AoO's, AoE's, zones, terrain, flanking, size, etc. The same reasons that 4e uses them. The main difference is that 4e utilizes forced movement a lot more. Otherwise, they're identical in their need for minis to track combat.

 

[mudlock]

Callin it...

Optional games kind of like Gamma World, that can be slotted into a normal D&D game to change the play experience.

Players can take elements from standard 4e and use them (like monsters in Gamma World) or use elements from the other products.

Agreed. There won't be a "5e", but there'll be a 4e-based "D&D, 2013 edition", which will be fully compatible with the Rules Compendium but feature its own races, classes, monsters, etc., and be the only thing usable in official play, but you're of course welcome to do whatever you want at home.

 

[Henry]

Well, this does explain why Mearls and Cook were palling around at Gencon a good bit (according to a couple of comments on podcasts I listened to).

 

[UngeheuerLich]

3e relied on minis just as much as 4e. They're both very similar in combat mechanics. Both use minis for the same purposes. 3e needs them for range, movement, AoO's, AoE's, zones, terrain, flanking, size, etc. The same reasons that 4e uses them. The main difference is that 4e utilizes forced movement a lot more. Otherwise, they're identical in their need for minis to track combat.

Did you ever play 3.0?

The focus on minis was really introduced in 3.5... 3.0 just presented it as an option...

 

[Mithreinmaethor]

Did you ever play 3.0?

The focus on minis was really introduced in 3.5... 3.0 just presented it as an option...

I know I did and I started buying minis when I started playing 3.0 as did a ton of other people I played with locally and at conventions.

Or was this a rhetorical question?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No, it was not.

It may be splitting hairs, but I was perfectly fine never touching a mini when playing 3.0 and just started to pay a bit more attention to the grid, when feet were converted to squares...

So in this case, splitting hairs is ok, as it was a response to a different post...

IMHO 3.0 was not more reliant on a battle grid than ADnD. It started 3 years later...

and this happened in the transition to 3.5 and as far as I remember it was when monte cook already quit.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

The push toward minis began long before 3.0. Not counting 2e's Battlesystem supplement, which was just that -- a supplement for tactical wargaming, the push toward minis as the standard began in Player's Option: Combat & Tactics. It was still optional, as the name implies, but it was something that came out post-TSR, and was probably released with the business plan of selling piles of minis with an eventual (at the time) third edition of the game.

 

[Scribble]

No, it was not.

It may be splitting hairs, but I was perfectly fine never touching a mini when playing 3.0 and just started to pay a bit more attention to the grid, when feet were converted to squares...

So in this case, splitting hairs is ok, as it was a response to a different post...

IMHO 3.0 was not more reliant on a battle grid than ADnD. It started 3 years later...

and this happened in the transition to 3.5 and as far as I remember it was when monte cook already quit.

I know 3.5 emphasized it more with the pictures and stuff, but I think maybe tht just solidified it in some people's minds?

3.0 relied on minis just as much, but like any other game if you were ok with some abstraction it worked ok without minis.

When I first started, I was in the ugh minis mindset... I didn't use them, but after a while all the little bonuses and abilities that needed more spacial awareness started attracting my group and I, so we went to the minis...

Maybe the same thing happened with you, so you have the idea that 3.5 added more of a minis push?

3.5 seemed to simply acknowledge that, yeah... you probably were using minis so why hide the fact.

These days I'm leaning more and more away from them.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

No actually I don´t own any minis and I am still not too comfortable with them... i know about the benefits, when to use them, and I absolutely do think, that having mini rules is a good thing. But in 3.0 they were clearly intended as optional, in 3.5 they were the default.

I am more liking a game that presents some options and tools for the DM to use, and I will add some famebait:
The players handbook should not have all combat rules. Only the basics. All the options should be in the DM´s hand. As much as I adore the intention of the 4e system. As much as I personally like to move and to slide around... the overemphasize of the movement aspects make abstracter combats hard to run...