Pathfinder 1E Paizo Annoucement!

[xechnao]

And I'm still waiting for you to point out why this is impossible with 4e.

It is rather much more complex. With stuff like slide, push, pull etch along with encounter design based on more enemies it is much more akin to a Blood Bowl game.

 

[The Little Raven]

It is rather much more complex. With stuff like slide, push, pull etch along with encounter design based on more enemies it is much more akin to Blood Bowl.

Oh, so it's no problem to hand-wave the complexity of a multi-target Magic Missile in 3e, but a huge problem to handwave things like push/pull/slide ("Dave, you get moved 10 feet to the south.")?

Yeah, not buying that. And just saying "much more akin to Blood Bowl" doesn't mean anything to those of us who neither know nor care what Blood Bowl is.

 

[xechnao]

Oh, so it's no problem to hand-wave the complexity of a multi-target Magic Missile in 3e, but a huge problem to handwave things like push/pull/slide ("Dave, you get moved 10 feet to the south.")?

Yeah, not buying that.

Well it is about how these things work out in melee along with its other things.

And just saying "much more akin to Blood Bowl" doesn't mean anything to those of us who neither know nor care what Blood Bowl is.

It is another game that plays in a way that was well suited IMO to give an example-actually rather the best example I can think of. It is a game about fantasy football and its rules are free to download I think.
Wait an edit for the link

EDIT: http://www.specialist-games.com/bloodbowl/default.asp

 

[Orcus]

xechnao

Not trying to be critical, but perhaps you should start a "4E is a boardgame" thread. I think we have gotten off course on this thread, which is about Paizo's annoucement. I know, big threads tend to get off course. And I'm not a mod. I cant make you. But I can see you feel passionately about your position. Maybe a specific thread would attract more people who are interested in that topic, instead of adding post count and clogging up a thread that is about a different topic that is really really important to gaming right now--paizo's announcement. Just a friendly suggestion. And I'm asking as politely as I can. Not trying to be a weenie.

Clark

 

[Pour]

Great news with this bold step.

Now all I'm waiting for is the Paizo/Green Ronin merger announcement. Seriously. It'd be awesome.

 

[BryonD]

I am with you. When I read that stuff I say "huh? who are these people and how do they play D&D?"

The rules have NOTHING to do with roleplaying for me. My groups have always roleplayed hard in every edition I have played and 4E will be no different and that fact that players have daily powers has zero effect on that.

Maybe I have been doing something wrong for the last 31 years.

Clark

A lot of people keep turning this issue backward and it doesn't work that way.
You don't need rules FOR roleplaying, but it can be much better to keep the rules out of the way.

If the rules have "NOTHING" to do with roleplaying then chess or monopoly would be every bit as good an RPG as D&D. That said, nothing can stop me from roleplaying hard when I play chess or monopoly. I can remember times when I really did roleplay through games of MTG. But those games all suck as RPGs because the rules prevent the roleplaying from fitting with the game itself. You can haggle the rent of Park Place and threaten to stay elsewhere, but the abstract rules of Monopoly make that fail because in the end you must stay a Park Place and pay the rent. The rules get in the way.

Is 4e like Monopoly? Hell no. But the point is, you can roleplay anything hard, but how frequently the rules work with you is important to the final experience. And that gets back to the gamist/simulation thing. If someone wants more simulation, then more abstract systems are going to be less appealing.

It isn't a question of 4e won't work for roleplaying. Let's just say that for what I want 3E is only 1% better than 4e. Then I've got stacks of books for a game that is 1% better. Why in the world would I switch? I'm good where I'm at. 4E must make me want to switch. It has failed at that. And a big reason (not all, but significant) is that while I can roleplay just as much in any system, I'm convinced by what I have seen so far that 4e would resonate much less with the roleplaying I want.

 

[BryonD]

But when people--maybe not all of them, but I'd hazard most--use the term "board game," they're not saying "a game that happens to use a board." They're referring to a particular type of game, anywhere from Monopoly to Chutes and Ladders.

I have to say that it is pretty much always a bad sign when you feel that you need to explain to the other side what they meant by what they said. If both sides have different views of what side "B" meant, odds are side "B" understood it correctly.

 

[xechnao]

xechnao
But I can see you feel passionately about your position...
a thread that is about a different topic that is really really important to gaming right now--paizo's announcement. Just a friendly suggestion.
Clark

You are right

and so back on topic I would like to better point out that IMO Paizo's decision was the best one for the hobby overall and I am 100% glad things have gone the way they have and of course I wish Paizo not to fail in this path. Market share better always be divided than monopolized either by a game system, either by a company. It is in the best interest of the hobby -even for Wotc. Some people on this thread have pointed out that Paizo's decision was ill suited for the future of rpgs. Couldn't they have been further from the truth IMO. Wotc's D&D has been perceived as the very big one hobby leader not due to limitations of the hobby's nature, but rather due to the OGL experiment -and I dare say that I am glad to believe that things seem to be evolving to a point that there might be a chance for this model to change -even if only slightly. I am not talking only about Paizo's decision here, but rather Wotc's passage past the OGL. Of course Paizo has its indispensable role to take -for this to make sense the way I put it here.
And my very personal preference among Pathfinder and 4e -from what I have seen so far, till now- goes to the first.

 

[catsclaw227]

It's more like Chipotle changing their menu, having a couple bad quarters, and McDonalds selling them off to Qdoba*. Which is somewhat more plausible.

* I know, McDonalds sold off their investment in Chipotle in 2006. It's the metaphor that's important.

I am pretty sure it's a lot different than that. The D&D RPG division is dwarfed by their M:tG and possibly their Mini's line. Hasbro would not sell of WOTC if 4e D&D had a hiccup in sales after a couple of years. Even so, I really doubt this is going to happen anyway.

 

[catsclaw227]

As I have stated before, when we play D&D, about 60%-70% of the game is roleplaying and about 30-40% of the game is tactical combat. When we are in tactical combat, we often try to RP the gamist parts of the game so that we can stay in character. 4e D&D is not going to change this at all. When we play D&D, it's far more than a boardgame.

Also, I agree with other posters that state that its difficult to find RP rules in any edition of D&D. How you "roleplay" comes out in the many paragraphs that will be dedicated to classes and races and what their roles are in relation to one another -- not class roles in the 4e sense, but roles in the "how do they get along with..." sense.

There's some of this in the PHB, DMG, Complete xxx, ToM, Bo9S, and PHB 2 -- and I imagine that 4e will have some of this too.