Monte Cook's first Legends and Lore is up

[Greg K]

They've got the best combat rules of any RPG I've ever seen. That's what we pay them for.

No darkwing, that is what *you* pay them for. Not everyone feels the same way. I and the people with whom I play (and 90%+ of the people with whom I have ever gamed) don't. There are times we may go a session or two with no combat or only one fight.

We don't even have problems with disparity of skill levels that some people say makes 3e skills broken. We don't feel that sacrificing combat efficiency for non-combat is a bad thing if it fits the character and they can contribute elsewhere.

And as others, have stated, I would not want a game where non-combat is entirely personal interaction and hand waved just as I would not want something, entirely, die rolled. I like exactly, the example I gave of how to use the 3e skill system with the addition of degrees of success (3.0 DMG) and Extended Skill Checks (Unearthed Arcana)/Skill Challenges (4e) when applicable.

 

[darkwing]

We don't feel that sacrificing combat efficiency for non-combat is a bad thing if it fits the character and they can contribute elsewhere.

That's where you're wrong. It's a terrible game design that makes some characters sacrifice their combat ability for non-combat things.

Do you even play 4e?

 

[Greg K]

That's where you're wrong. It's a terrible game design that makes some characters sacrifice their combat ability for non-combat things.

No, that is your opinion. It is not fact. There are a lot of ways to enjoy the game. Your way is just one and that is fine.

Do you even play 4e?

Nope. One of the reasons is the skill system. I don't like the broad skills or +1/2 level bonus- neither do my gamer friends with one exception.

However, I am not above admiring and stealing certain elements (e.g., splitting the elf between elf and eladrin, the warlord, making the 4e ranger a non-spell caster (pre-essentiasl), removing most non-biological aspects of race and making them feats, removing level drain and XP costs) and admiring the balancing of spellcasters against other classes and giving martial classes cool things to do.

I am also not above keeping track of the game to see what changes and new options/variants get introduced. If they appeal to me, I could always be lured back. It is one reason that I am following Mearls in his new position and Monte's return.

 

[darkwing]

Nope. I am also not above keeping track of the game to see what changes and new options/variants get introduced. If they appeal to me, I could always be lured back. It is one reason that I am following Mearls in his new position and Monte's return.

My fear is its people like you that will encourage the game designers to break D&D for us who actually like 4e.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

My fear is its people like you that will encourage the game designers to break D&D for us who actually like 4e.

I'm no moderator, and no offence, but it's comments like these that will get you red text and a one-way ticket out of a thread.

To address your point though, I think the designers "get" finally, that making absolute one-way changes to rules only serves to alienate player base and cause division. To that end, I think what you will see more of is, as the L&L columns have been saying for quite some time now, is options, rather than absolutes. They are going to try, to the best of their ability, to please as many different playstyles as possible.

It is my hope, and belief that whatever they do from here one out, whether it's called 5e or just D&D 4e 2013 edition, or whathaveyou, will not leave either of you out in the cold.

 

[mudlock]

Then you can never have a secret door. You can never have a riddle. You can never have a mystery.

Have you never actually RUN a mystery adventure? The worst thing in the world would be to prepare a complex intricate mystery, and have the players miss the first few clues; half an hour in and they're standing around going "What the hell are we suppose to do? THIS SUCKS."

If there is a mystery they must solve in order to resolve the adventure then YES, you guarantee, somehow, that the players WILL solve it. If the secret door leads to something they MUST do, or have, or know, then you guarantee that they WILL find it. If the players NEED to figure it out in order to move forward, than failure to figure it out means the game is over, just as surely as if you TPKd them.

Now, of course, there's always a chance, however small, of a bad run on the dice that leads to a TPK. If you're not doing a story-based campaign, hey, fine; whatever, the party fails, they pay their penalty gold or roll new characters, and see you next week. That won't fly in my game though. Don't tell my players, but they're the heroes in a story, and they WILL make it to the final climactic engagement, even if I have to re-write 3/4ths of the story on the fly to do it. But my job is to make them believe there is no such guarantee. My job as a DM is to make them believe me when I lie.

Now, I have tools to help me lie, much more powerful than fudged dice. If they fail to find the secret door that gives them the required item or the crucial clue that leads them to the truth, then they'll find it some other way; a helpful NPC will lead them back, or the item or clue will actually be carried by some enemy they encounter later, or I'll just decide that that "required" item wasn't so required after all or that the secret truth was something different than I originally wrote in my notes (or, honestly, I'd never make the whole story hinge on finding one secret door in the first place.) But whatever I do, the PCs will never know. All they'll remember is that they made it through by the skin of their teeth or figured the mystery out all by themselves, because of their own cleverness and skill.

And I'll never tell.

 

[mudlock]

When you rolled for a skill (or attack, or anything but damage tbh) you rolled 3 dice and used the middle one - though you could get percs or flaws that meant you took the highest or lowest. Assuming no perks or flaws you got the exact same average as normal for the dice you were using, but you got a much tighter spread around that average.

more dice = sharper peak

It doesn't matter much how you use those dice (add them, take the middle, take the highest, count a "success" for each die above a certain value) but the more of them you roll at once, the more likely you are to get a moderate result. But the entire "Core Mechanic" of d20 is built around a single large, flat distribution. And yes, if you chance that, you can make the mean value more common and the exceptions truly exceptional... that's why GURPS is based on a 3d6, which has the same average result as a d20. 4e skill DCs would translate pretty much perfectly to use in GURPS; it would only change things at the very high and very low ends. (The only big change would be crits for attacks; 16+ on 3d6 is less likely than a 20 on a d20.)

If you wanted to play GURPS though, you could just... play GURPS.

 

[mudlock]

why bother using dice and playing the game at all? Why not just have everyone sit around and make up a group story? Kumbaya. Everyone wins that way.

I let my players roll dice for three reasons:

So that they'll believe I'm not playing favorites.

Because it helps me avoid playing favorites.

And because I couldn't purposefully plan to have half the crazy/funny/awesome stuff happen that just falls out at random from the dice.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm no moderator, and no offence, but it's comments like these that will get you red text and a one-way ticket out of a thread.

To address your point though, I think the designers "get" finally, that making absolute one-way changes to rules only serves to alienate player base and cause division. To that end, I think what you will see more of is, as the L&L columns have been saying for quite some time now, is options, rather than absolutes. They are going to try, to the best of their ability, to please as many different playstyles as possible.

It is my hope, and belief that whatever they do from here one out, whether it's called 5e or just D&D 4e 2013 edition, or whathaveyou, will not leave either of you out in the cold.

I don't think he's trying to be offensive. I think he's simply voicing the concern that some people can yell loud enough and all of a sudden things change in ways that other people don't enjoy. I can distinctly sympathize as I can see many ways the game could take a turn for what I would deem to be the worse.

Yes, at least IN THEORY, options for everyone sounds great. I'm not really convinced it is so however. More different variant games divides the attention of the developers. It is like some people's complaints about Essentials distracting WotC from simply providing some fairly basic updates to existing classes and builds, or making other interesting things instead of revisiting the fighter and the wizard all over again. It is a valid point of view. You can do one thing really well or 3 different things not so well. It is pretty much established that WotC doesn't have the bandwidth to do EVERYTHING as well as it might deserve.

Beyond that multiple variants aren't actually all that feasible. How do you write adventures for them all? How do you deal with the inevitable dependencies and interactions between various subsystems? Do you create a whole set of feats that deals with the 'classic' skill system and ANOTHER set that muck with the 'Monte' skill system? How do you write an adventure, or even just any other ordinary supplement unless you assume that certain rules are being used? Provide alternatives for all the possible myriad permutations?

One of 2 things will happen there. Either the developers will essentially kick whatever subsystems don't happen to be their favorite ones to the curb and not really support them, or they'll simply stop putting out material that uses that type of subsystem at all (or for instance simply not put out more adventures, or only ones that don't bother to reference the skill system at all because there are 3 of them).

I'm entirely unconvinced that options are a viable road forward. A couple of very limited minor variations or tacked on extras like AD&D had could be OK, but those are hardly going to revolutionize the game for anyone in a profound way.

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I don't think he's trying to be offensive. I think he's simply voicing the concern that some people can yell loud enough and all of a sudden things change in ways that other people don't enjoy. I can distinctly sympathize as I can see many ways the game could take a turn for what I would deem to be the worse.

Yes, at least IN THEORY, options for everyone sounds great. I'm not really convinced it is so however. More different variant games divides the attention of the developers. It is like some people's complaints about Essentials distracting WotC from simply providing some fairly basic updates to existing classes and builds, or making other interesting things instead of revisiting the fighter and the wizard all over again. It is a valid point of view. You can do one thing really well or 3 different things not so well. It is pretty much established that WotC doesn't have the bandwidth to do EVERYTHING as well as it might deserve.

Beyond that multiple variants aren't actually all that feasible. How do you write adventures for them all? How do you deal with the inevitable dependencies and interactions between various subsystems? Do you create a whole set of feats that deals with the 'classic' skill system and ANOTHER set that muck with the 'Monte' skill system? How do you write an adventure, or even just any other ordinary supplement unless you assume that certain rules are being used? Provide alternatives for all the possible myriad permutations?

One of 2 things will happen there. Either the developers will essentially kick whatever subsystems don't happen to be their favorite ones to the curb and not really support them, or they'll simply stop putting out material that uses that type of subsystem at all (or for instance simply not put out more adventures, or only ones that don't bother to reference the skill system at all because there are 3 of them).

I'm entirely unconvinced that options are a viable road forward. A couple of very limited minor variations or tacked on extras like AD&D had could be OK, but those are hardly going to revolutionize the game for anyone in a profound way.

I see what you're saying, and I agree that if it happens they way you suggest, it wouldn't work so well.

However, there is clearly room for them to do things a little more like Magic, and a bit like they've been doing Encounters - where this year, everything is assuming (or mandating) you use the Option Series X books (like Essentials), while next "season" it will be Option Series Y. There can always be "official" versions in play, but for home games, you can combine as you like.

And I don't think that some of the materials would be so drastically different that, say, adventures published would be unusable. At worst, I could see there being a "conversion" sidebar to help smooth over oddball interactions when mixing options.