D&D 4E Mouseferatu weighs in on 4e

[BryonD]

But that isn't true. Several other people have said that it is invaluable for them, whether as busy DMs or DMs with writers block. I'd bet it does more good than harm for new DMs too.

But IMO everyone is better served if a stand alone cookbook is provided and support material is also provided separately.

It isn't a matter of saying they should be denied something because I don't need it. It is more a matter of having the best of both world when it is so easy to provide.

Not to mention that new DMs will be better served in the long run if they are shown an open ended system along with one good way to work with it. As opposed to having those starting aids bolted on to the system and still there when those DMs are not new anymore.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I hate them because they're wasted space. Unlike a Big Book O'Crunch, where I might use some in one game and some in another, I can be pretty sure I'll never use a lair. And I am not sure they help new DMs. They're too complete. Too plug&play. They teach newbie DMs that their goal is to take the pieces WOTC hands them and string them together. Compare&contrast the 'sample dungeon' in AD&D 1e -- it had, what, THREE rooms documented out of the whole map? They showed the DM what to do and then said, "Go for it. You're a big boy. Take it from here."

They also tend to undermine creativity and worldbuilding by making new DMs feel beholden to use the fluff and flavor text as-written.

Do you let yourself be constrained by flavor and fluff written in source books?

Balancing rules is much harder than worldbuilding; space in a book should be focused on useful rules (and meta-rules to help make up new crunch in a balanced way), with worldbuilding being in the form of advice, guidelines, and "Ten questions to answer about your world" kind of things, with a few brief examples mostly to show format and structure.

I think both are hard, but different kinds of hards. For balancing, you need a good grasp of game design concepts, possibly a good sense of math and things.
For world design, you need to have a lot of creativity.
For both things, to make a consistent system or world, you need to keep a lot of things in mind. "Oops, I forget to make rules for what happens if someone picks up the greatsword of a giant... Oops, I forgot the delta where the river of this city is supposed to end!"

In either case, both takes a lot of time. And that didn't account the time you need to create an actual adventure or describing the specific locale the PCs are in.

Good rules and some fluff helps people that are short on time or experience (or merely competence?) to get a sensible starting point.
Anyone that has the time and the experience throws everything away he doesn't need/like.

 

[Lizard]

The *ridiculous* amount of prep-time necessary to run 3.5 is the reason I no longer do it.

I'll take any help 4e can provide.

If I spend more than an hour prepping for a 3-4 session, I'm way more prepared than I usually am. I whip out some NPCs using PCGen, I scrawl some notes, I pluck some items from my list of 'stuff I want the PCs to have between level X and level Y', and if I'm feeling really hard-working, I draw a map somewhere other than my head. Been doing it this way since 3e came out (hell, I do it this way in every game...D&D or otherwise...) and players keep coming back to my table, so I must be doing something right...

Fight too hard? Oh look, that dragon just lost 20 hit points. Too easy? The reverse. The biggest problem I have is controlling magic once the PCs start getting money, and that's something 4e will help with, and I'm glad for it. (If I run 4e...)

Most of my prep-time is front-loaded -- build the setting. The current PCs are in a town I did spend a good 4-5 hours on, with all the major NPCs statted out, the plot hooks for each PC in place (everyone has a designated 'pet' NPC to help or harass them) and 3-4 basic adventure ideas. Most of the time, I plot the next game based entirely on what happened in the prior one. Do the PCs suspect NPC Y of being evil? Well, turns out he is! What smart players! Did the PCs NOT investigate the Clue, but instead charged in to battle? Fine, the Clue becomes part of the NEXT adventure. And so on.

3e gives me all the mechanics I need to handle anything the PCs might want to do or try, and that's what I want from a system. The huge mountain of 3x compatible material means any monster I might need or want probably already exists -- and I've got several computer tools to use to customize them as I wish.

It's much easier to ignore rules which exist than to create (good!) rules which don't, so I prefer the books be full of tools I can use -- even if I never do.

 

[Plane Sailing]

But IMO everyone is better served if a stand alone cookbook is provided and support material is also provided separately.

It isn't a matter of saying they should be denied something because I don't need it. It is more a matter of having the best of both world when it is so easy to provide.

Not to mention that new DMs will be better served in the long run if they are shown an open ended system along with one good way to work with it. As opposed to having those starting aids bolted on to the system and still there when those DMs are not new anymore.

I compare my early RPG'ing in the 1970s, and D&D had pretty much no implied setting at that point (although I gather that eventually supplements about Greyhawk appeared?). When Runequest appeared with its built-in setting and lots of implicit plot hooks my friends and I migrated to it with joy. We thought that RQ was a stronger system anyway, but the excellent implied setting gave us *more* spurs to create adventures than we had with the OD&D/AD&D.

The kind of people who are likely to become DM's are, in my experience, the kind of creative people who are going to create new stuff anyway - but having a good foundation to work from provides more springboards for their imagination.

Cheers

 

[Lizard]

Do you let yourself be constrained by flavor and fluff written in source books?

No, but I learned in an era when it was practically non-existent. Hell, the 1e DMG wouldn't be out for a year -- we cobbled together rules from the 'Blue Book' game, the three OD&D supplements, and the PHB/MM. Settings? We didn't even have RULES!

I don't know what I'd be like if I started today as a 14 year old. I think growing up on a diet of pre-generated fantasy, computer games, and the like, I'd be a lot more hesitant to go my own way and much more rule-bound.

 

[Charwoman Gene]

Sorry. I assume there's an implied "IMO" when discussing things which can't be put on a lab bench and dissected.

Well, your wrong.

 

[Lizard]

I compare my early RPG'ing in the 1970s, and D&D had pretty much no implied setting at that point (although I gather that eventually supplements about Greyhawk appeared?). When Runequest appeared with its built-in setting and lots of implicit plot hooks my friends and I migrated to it with joy. We thought that RQ was a stronger system anyway, but the excellent implied setting gave us *more* spurs to create adventures than we had with the OD&D/AD&D.

Cheers

See, I like the RQ rules -- I could tell they were better than D&D rules, since everything had the same stats, for example -- but I *loathed* Glorantha and how tightly woven it was with the rules. I didn't like that everyone could use magic, or that the 'rune magic' was tied to Gloranthan cults, and so on. So I never got 'into' RQ, because I wanted to build my own world, and the bronze-age, duck-laden RQ world didn't do it for me as a base for my own modification. About the same time, I got into Traveller and Champions, two games which were pure crunch/zero fluff. (This was well before 'The Imperium' and the like.)

 

[Wormwood]

It's much easier to ignore rules which exist than to create (good!) rules which don't, so I prefer the books be full of tools I can use -- even if I never do.

And I believe the same can be said about fluff.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

No, but I learned in an era when it was practically non-existent. Hell, the 1e DMG wouldn't be out for a year -- we cobbled together rules from the 'Blue Book' game, the three OD&D supplements, and the PHB/MM. Settings? We didn't even have RULES!

I don't know what I'd be like if I started today as a 14 year old. I think growing up on a diet of pre-generated fantasy, computer games, and the like, I'd be a lot more hesitant to go my own way and much more rule-bound.

Well, I started ... 8 years ago and grew up with pre-generated fantasy, computer games and the like. Others of my group started probably nearly a decade earlier...

I am the one creating his own homebrew. I am currently the only one that is actually not running a bought adventure module/path.
But it got a little less in the past. My times as student are over, I have a full day job now, and I don't get to play as often as I used to (once a week changed more to once every 2 weeks). I actually ran a bought module (my second one, I think) for an Iron Heroes campaign, but that part is over and my self-made adventures are starting again. But I am using the IH implied setting fluff and the Dark Harbor adventure module fluff as my starting point.

I don't think it has much to do how you grew up. As long as you got into RPGs, and you began starting to be the DM, you will like to create your own settings and world. But you don't always have the time for it, unfortunately.

 

[AZRogue]

If worldbuilding is your cup of tea, more power to you. Build away. That is the moment when you are probably at your most creative. My best friend is like that (was like that?) and will spend months detailing a campaign area only for us to go through it in two weeks and not see any of it ... and move on to the next area. But it's what he likes to do, so that's what he does. He's never forced us to visit every shrine to whomever, because we won't do it, but he wants to know it exists out there somewhere. I think it's great.

I'm at the other end, though, as a DM. My time is limited, usually, and I hate prepping too far in advance because I would hate it myself if the players don't see everything that I've worked hard on. So I only design what I know will directly impact the players in the next session or two, and no more. My entire campaign world is two pages long and mostly vague descriptions that I know will mean something to me and give me room to work. I like when small maps and lairs are included in the books I buy because I can honestly use them. I won't use it as is---I may put an witch in that owlbear lair---but it still saved me time.

Anything that teaches a new DM to focus on creating solid encounters is a good move in my opinion. A new DM learns how to do that, and how to adjucate his players' actions, and he can decide for himself what aspect of DMing he enjoys most later on and do more of it. Some will enjoy focusing on the encounters, some on their story arcs, and some on their world building.