Reasons for Fluff etc. (Perkins' blog)

[Chris_Nightwing]

New update: http://forums.gleemax.com/showthread.php?p=13837483#post13837483

Going back to 3rd Edition for a moment, I don't think the warmage class was negatively impacted by the inclusion of Tarth Moorda, a warmage academy, in the class description (see Complete Arcane, page 12). In fact, I've used Tarth Moorda in my games because it's a cool adventure site. The 4th Edition "points of light" concept (discussed here) inspires adventures in a different way, by giving DMs the flexibility to build their campaigns on the fly and make sure that the heroes don't know what awaits them at the end of every road.

Which would appear to suggest that we'll see more of such fluff in the PHB.

We have new stuff in the core rules. For example, as many of you know, the tiefling now appears as a core race in the Player's Handbook. Tieflings have a dark edge to them, and they have some fun new game mechanics as well. Their story is a particularly interesting one, involving diabolical pacts and ancient tyrannical empires. Of course, whether you choose to adopt that story or create a different origin story for your campaign is entirely up to you.

The tiefling's inclusion in the core rules compelled us to imagine what the D&D world would be like with tieflings around in greater numbers. It also gave us added incentive to include the warlock class in the Player's Handbook, since tieflings and warlocks are an excellent match story-wise and flavor-wise. (Just so we're clear, tieflings can belong to any class in 4th Edition, not just warlocks. I'm playing a tiefling cleric in a current 4E playtest. His name is Zade Shadowhorn, and he worships Erathis, the goddess of civilization.)

So, like we didn't know there were Tieflings, but Warlock would make the 8th class on the most-mentioned list. Erathis, I've not seen before.

 

[Jib]

I'm happy with this news. Makes me look forward to 4.0 a little more.

 

[Malhost Zormaeril]

So Tieflings and Warlocks are confirmed in. I think we can be pretty sure Aasimars are ruled out, as well? Otherwise he'd probably have mentioned them -- heck, there's mention of Warforged but there is no Aasimar

Well, I guess I'll just steer right clear of the implied setting

EDIT: Has anyone warned Morrus?

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I'm still really undecided about all this fluff. I think I prefer neutral class descriptions, race origins that can be used easily in a generic setting and such. In fact, I sort of got used to the title-less spells from the SRD too.

However, given time, maybe I'll live with it. You can always change stuff after all. We'll see.

I'm sure someone will have poked Morrus

 

[GreatLemur]

Fluff is generally a waste of column inches, as far as I'm concerned. But I'm getting the feeling that 4e is going to be more fluff-adorned than 3e due to a concerted effort to spiff the game up for the benefit of wholly new and inexperienced customers. They can't just tell those folks "wizards can do this"; they have to say "wizards can do this because they know this, which they learned over here".

 

[Celebrim]

In 4e, there will be a dozen orcs, a lava pit, and the pie will have been baked by demonic bakers. Using the new streamlined format, it will take 32 pages to describe the encounter, and how the Orcs of the Shreeching Puce Battleaxe came to gaurd the demon pie.

Coming to you in 'Expedition to Orc and Pie', second quarter 2008.

 

[marune]

In 4e, there will be a dozen orcs, a lava pit, and the pie will have been baked by demonic bakers. Using the new streamlined format, it will take 32 pages to describe the encounter, and how the Orcs of the Shreeching Puce Battleaxe came to gaurd the demon pie.

Coming to you in 'Expedition to Orc and Pie', second quarter 2008.

No, you completly missed the 4E idea here.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

Well it made me laugh

 

[Mercule]

Erathis, I've not seen before.

Well, I'm taking it as indication that WotC is in agreement with me that the best way to present some default gods and clerical configurations is to make whole cloth samples rather than draw from existing sources. Kind of like Gygax did all over the place (at least in terms of published settings).

 

[mhacdebhandia]

Given what they have said about using deities like Thor in the core rules, I imagine Erathis is most likely a goddess from his DM's own setting - not something which will be published.