Monte's 3.75? (A sequal is on its way)

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Which statement is true:

(A) Monte read the updates and previews of 4E, liked them, and has decided to package them as his own "house-ruled" version of 3E in the hopes of paying the rent while he dips in his toes in the realm of writing fiction.

Or:

(B) The 4E design team perused Monte's boards and spoke to the good man at one time or another and based many of their changes on Monte's original concepts as espoused on those same boards or within certain Malhavok products.

Or:

(C) Doesn't matter if Monte came before Mearls, or Mearls before Monte, the concepts both are mentioning are extremely similar.



If (C) is correct - and I tend to personally think (A) is "more right" - then where's the dang love between self-styled 3E grognards and the progressive 4E group? I fail to see a chasm between the two groups that inspires the negative rhetoric around here (and, more often and less intelligently, on Paizo's boards).

W.P.

I don't believe it's (A), because Monte created a few "One Thing Before I go" articles on his sight, in which he is discussing a few tweaks or general things he noticed in 3.x gameplay which I was reminded of reading the 4E comments (they definitely came before the first 4E announcement.

I think it is most a matter of showing that game designers (at least those that work or worked at WotC) think alike. There are certain design concepts that will always present themselves to an experienced designer. It certainly also helped that Mike & Mearls worked together at Malhavoc, and some of the designers at WotC also worked on 3E products together with him. They will bounce a lot of ideas off of each other, and this naturally creates similar thinking minds.

What does it say us about Grognards and 4E fanboys? We have neither seen 4E nor Montes house rules yet. It's possible that while the basic idea is similar, the implementations are different enough to attract different groups.

But I reserve my doubts on that. I really believe that there are a lot of aspects that will be similar. A few things:
- Monte himself stated that it's important to give DM good tools and not constraint him too much by rules. A few 4E design concepts seem to fit this idea - exception based monster design (don't use "NPC" classes, use guidelines to create and change monsters!)
- Monte likes magic and magic classes. Adding powers to non-spellcaster classes seems like something that Monte would do (and judging from the Arcana Evolved Ritual Warrior, he even did. And even the other AE classes seem hardly "mundane", most have some supernatural or spell-like abilities, or abilities that come close.)

 

[TerraDave]

Which statement is true:

(A) Monte read the updates and previews of 4E, liked them, and has decided to package them as his own "house-ruled" version of 3E in the hopes of paying the rent while he dips in his toes in the realm of writing fiction.

He had been alluding to these in various posts on his webpage before 4th ed was announced.

 

[Alzrius]

Yet another reason not to go to 4E!

I haven't liked a lot of what I've seen about 4E so far, but this sounds like it'll take the elements of it that aren't so bad, isolate each of them nicely as modular rules so I can pick and choose what I want, and let me plug them into my 3.5E game as needed. Happy happy happy!

I really hope most, if not all, of this book is OGC, since that'll let people reverse-engineer the OGL to a 4E-lookalike system even easier.

 

[Demigonis]

I love how naysayers like 4th Ed content when it still looks like 3E, people are so afraid of change it's hilarious.

 

[Firevalkyrie]

I might check it out, but it's not going to stop me from buying into 4th Ed. I was pretty much underwhelmed by Monte's half-hearted attempt to provide powers for fighters in Arcana Evolved (the very lame Ritual Warrior class and the associated Combat Rituals), and even if he includes the parts I like most about 4th Edition, I'd still rather have it in a fully-integrated system than figure out how these patch bits play well or play poorly with D&D 3.5.

 

[EricNoah]

For some of us, 4th edition isn't the reason we're not switching to 4th edition. For me it's a) the timing (there's a lot of life left in 3e for me, and I have tons of material I haven't had a chance to use), and b) I don't trust WotC to be able to provide adequate electronic support (i.e. the character generator) based on past experience. I'm certainly interested in seeing the direction of the game and trying a bit of this and that in my own game to see how it goes.

 

[Lackhand]

Good stuff is good stuff no matter the wrapper -- I'll buy Monte's stuff at $9.00, even if I'll never use it, because he's probably worth $9.00 of entertainment just to read.

Does that make me sick?

 

[WhatGravitas]

Good stuff is good stuff no matter the wrapper -- I'll buy Monte's stuff at $9.00, even if I'll never use it, because he's probably worth $9.00 of entertainment just to read.

Does that make me sick?

No, it just justifies my bahaviour. *buys*

And for "Monte ripping off 4E" - not true. He started with the ritual warrior, though he didn't let go of the "powers per day" paradigm. But after the Bo9S came out, I've sometimes heard "Ritual Warrior on speed" or "done right".

And the ritual warrior was Monte's own brainchild, while Bo9S was the product of 4E. And Monte's imprint started selling Mearls stuff soon. Go figure.

Cheers, LT.

 

[mmu1]

I love how naysayers like 4th Ed content when it still looks like 3E, people are so afraid of change it's hilarious.

Maybe people like the idea of it because it changes things they don't like about 3E, without also getting rid of / making changes to everything they do enjoy... Or because it costs almost nothing and can be used with all their existing books. Or because some prefer Monte Cook to Mike Mearls.

For that matter, while the goal of these changes might be similar to some of the goals of 4E, there's no indication that the way these new mechanics work will have much in common with 4E - in fact, since they're keeping a lot of 3E rules intact, it seems pretty unlikely.

But go ahead, call it fear if it makes you feel better about being a lemming...

 

[Grimstaff]

call it fear if it makes you feel better about being a lemming...

*sigh*

Only 39 posts until the name-calling began. :\