New Essentials Builds!

[AbdulAlhazred]

I personally like lots of options. They should however remove, errata, or upgrade all the crap items/powers/feats though. Especially the obsolete ones. You know, where the new feat has everything the old feat had but an extra +2 to bla? Or the new feat is better in every way and has less restrictions? These types of things, trap feats are fit for the garbage heap. Stop wasting people's time with that crap.

But there will always be a spread of usefulness and power. That's fine. Part of the fun of this edition is chosing the optimal way to run your character. If the player has no time or motivation to do this, why would they have any to do it in earlier editions? Do you think 3.5 has less clutter? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn't. But I haven't seen any other free or commercial builder as clean and easy to use as Wizard's.

That doesn't mean it doesn't have glaring flaws though, e.g. a blind monkey these days could write a scripting language plugin to let you add customized feats that actually do something to the rest of your sheet. Otherwise you might as well just mark any house rule stuff manually anyway after you print it.

I don't think 3.x has less clutter, no, but 3.x was out for 8 years before it got to that point. I mean at the end of 1e it was ALMOST at that point after 12 years. 2e got there as well in about the same time period. I expect ANY edition will get there, but my point is that if you really have to publish a book a month then how is any system going to last even 3 years? People I game with ALREADY think 4e is bloated. What happens when there simply isn't enough interest in more books? Well, Essentials happened basically. You can't keep playing THAT game forever though. So what, in 2 more years we get a whole new edition? No thanks.

OH, and being a guy that recently incorporated Javascript support into a complex user facing application.... No, a monkey can't do it. If the program you're starting with is VERY VERY WELL designed you MIGHT be able to do it without scrapping the host application and starting over, maybe. If it is a design goal from the start, then it shouldn't be a giant problem to support scripting. The thing is if you look at CB it is a giant mass of complex rules and exceptions to rules and variations of rules operating on structured data. I doubt it would be SIMPLE. It MIGHT be possible.

Battletech.

In 1984, FASA released an innocuous little board game called BattleDroids, that was quickly re-named Battletech (because Lucas figured they owned 'droids). The premise of the game was, "hey we can pick up the rights to a few illustrations of Anime robots, lets make a game outta that." It exploded.

I had one friend who got into it, and by 1987 he had six feet of bookshelf devoted to suplements. It was a pace of publication the broader gaming industry had never seen before. It became the standard everyone apired to.

White Wolf was the first RPG-focused company to succeed, like Battletech, by focsusing on setting over 'crunch,' managing a book-a-month publishing pace as it slowly detailed its 'World of Darkness.' Once the 'World of Darkness' expanded beyond the original Vampire, it became a book per month per line. TSR tried to immitate that success in the 90s, and, with the name recognition of D&D, and a flurry of settings (Darksun, Spelljammer, Planescape, etc), succeeded.

D&D may have changed hands, and WW may or may not be doing so well these days (I've stopped paying attention), and the focus (for D&D at least) may have shifted from fluff to crunch, but the standard set by Battletech remains. Sell /lots/ of books very fast or your game has failed.

Publish or perish.

Meh, there are a very large number of counterexamples to that. I might also point out that FASA basically went out of business. WW has LONG since dropped the book a month thing as well. I understand the temptation and for some sorts of games that enjoy a surge in popularity but don't have infinite staying power yes, but I don't think D&D is that game. I'm not real convinced that WE AS THE FANS are best served by a relentlessly commercial approach to the game either. Sure, it probably needs to be a money-making venture, but I'd much rather have a slimmer, better designed, and more cohesive system than "OMG we gotta make a new Fighter subclass this month so we can have MOAR $$$$", feh.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

The thing is that abook a month seems to be that WoTC requires to generate the revenue they require. So if not that what else do they do. It wouild appear to me that tools and online and social networking based options thatr would generate the interest in subscription based services are the only other alternative.

Then they could turn out good fluff base stuff on a quarterly basis for those that do not want/need the online stuff.

I think with right online model they could support all editions of D&D ~ Nirvanna

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The thing is that abook a month seems to be that WoTC requires to generate the revenue they require. So if not that what else do they do. It wouild appear to me that tools and online and social networking based options thatr would generate the interest in subscription based services are the only other alternative.

Then they could turn out good fluff base stuff on a quarterly basis for those that do not want/need the online stuff.

I think with right online model they could support all editions of D&D ~ Nirvanna

Yeah, it IS a conundrum, but I guess we've probably done enough threadjacking here, lol. It is what it is and we're best off just being happy with some good build support for whatever WotC does. I mean I'm torn anyway. I LIKE reading new stuff etc. Just concerned that we have a crunch glut going here. The more fluff books we can get, the better! I don't buy ALL of them, but the generic ones have all been pretty good. I'd rather have say a Feywild book than more classes/builds/etc.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Yeah, it IS a conundrum, but I guess we've probably done enough threadjacking here, lol. It is what it is and we're best off just being happy with some good build support for whatever WotC does. I mean I'm torn anyway. I LIKE reading new stuff etc. Just concerned that we have a crunch glut going here. The more fluff books we can get, the better! I don't buy ALL of them, but the generic ones have all been pretty good. I'd rather have say a Feywild book than more classes/builds/etc.

Actually I would really love a good Feywild book.
I have plans for the Feywild but not enough information.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually I would really love a good Feywild book.
I have plans for the Feywild but not enough information.

Yeah, I've been doing a bit with the Feywild lately. Going to run a party through that Mithrendain adventure (with a few hacks) this week. Should be fun. The info they DO have on the Feywild is pretty good, but it does kind of beg for more. The Shadowfell could probably use one too, though again there IS already a good bit of info on it. Those 2 and a book on Devils would all be pretty cool. Beyond that who knows? The PoL location stuff seems fairly cool too, though I have my own homebrew world things like Hammerfast are pretty easy to drop in. A bit of refluffing here and there and you can save a lot of time. I know there's this theory that setting/adventure type stuff doesn't sell as well as crunch, but OTOH it seems like it should be easier to produce, usually cheaper, and there is really no limit to how much of it people can use.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Meh, there are a very large number of counterexamples to that. I might also point out that FASA basically went out of business. WW has LONG since dropped the book a month thing as well.

Really, were there there other games in that niche that started publishing yards of setting books before 1984? I came into the hobby in 1980, so I could have missed it, but the impression I got was that RPGs (and to a lesser extent miniatures games) were virtually a cotage industry in the 70s.

Yeah, I know FASA didn't 'win' in the long run, but they had a good run, and now the industry thinks that anything less good than that is failure. Well, at least the bigger guns in the industry seem to think that way. WotC is a big fish in the RPG industry, but a small fry subsidiary of Hasbro in the broader toy&game market, they'd probably have to market like this even if the precedent hadn't been set 25 years ago, just to reach the kind of revenue it takes to justify their continued existance.

I understand the temptation and for some sorts of games that enjoy a surge in popularity but don't have infinite staying power yes, but I don't think D&D is that game. I'm not real convinced that WE AS THE FANS are best served by a relentlessly commercial approach to the game either.

Sure. I was just speculating about 'how' we got here, not whether it was a good thing in any sense.

I guess the bottom line is that WotC needs to sell a lotta books. As a community, their fans would probably be better served if they released relatively few books a year - but sold a lot of each book. That doesn't happen, instead, they publish lots of different books, and sell each of them to a fairly small, fanatical-completist, market until they choke it - then start again with a new revision/direction/edition/whatever.

 

[Truename]

I think I see what Al is getting at. So there is a problem with 4e that it's getting too complicated and confusing. There are too many feats, too many powers - classes that were relatively simple when you picked 2 of 5 at-wills and 1 of 4 each encounter & dailies have become almost nightmarish, with alternative class features, 5 or 6 'builds,' a dozen powers at each decision point, and litterally thousands (OK, only 2 thousands) of feats.

I agree, and I think Wizards is aware of it, too. Take a look at the recent discussion of "not just lots of choices, but clearly defined choices that make a real difference" and their move to grouping feats into clear sets of flavorful options.

I strongly suspect the next character builder release will have some sort of ability to control the sprawl--maybe an Essentials-only option, for example, or hopefully something more sophisticated.

 

[Klaus]

One way to help would be if the CB pointed to powers that have additional benefits if you possess X class feature. For instance, if you're a BattleRager fighter, the CB could have a "Recommended" header with all the invigorating powers. If you're an Artful Dodger, that header could include all powers with an "Artful Dodger" entry, etc.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

One way to help would be if the CB pointed to powers that have additional benefits if you possess X class feature. For instance, if you're a BattleRager fighter, the CB could have a "Recommended" header with all the invigorating powers. If you're an Artful Dodger, that header could include all powers with an "Artful Dodger" entry, etc.

There actually IS such a grouping. It is the first one at the top of the list. The thing is I suspect it is pretty hard for the designers of the CB to really get very sophisticated with this 'advice'. They could burn a lot of brain cells trying to come up with a vast engine of logic to try to determine what might be best for your build. What they do have gives you generally 4-5 choices. Usually those aren't bad choices and it isn't uncommon to select one of them, but they're just generally useful feats most of the time (IE they'll flag Weapon Expertise as a good feat pick for pretty much any weapon user, etc).

Where I have problems is just with the sheer number of feats in general. I spent 20 minutes the other day finding a feat in the list when I ALREADY KNEW ITS NAME.

 

[Klaus]

There actually IS such a grouping. It is the first one at the top of the list. The thing is I suspect it is pretty hard for the designers of the CB to really get very sophisticated with this 'advice'. They could burn a lot of brain cells trying to come up with a vast engine of logic to try to determine what might be best for your build. What they do have gives you generally 4-5 choices. Usually those aren't bad choices and it isn't uncommon to select one of them, but they're just generally useful feats most of the time (IE they'll flag Weapon Expertise as a good feat pick for pretty much any weapon user, etc).

Where I have problems is just with the sheer number of feats in general. I spent 20 minutes the other day finding a feat in the list when I ALREADY KNEW ITS NAME.

I know this happens for feats, but it doesn't happen for powers.