Sell the fluff, pimp the crunch

[Dannyalcatraz]

I think that's the way it's BEEN, but I'd be interested to see how it actually IS now. Do the crunch books outsell the DDI? Unfortunately I doubt WoTC is going to give us any numbers.

Speaking for myself, I will never buy a RPG I can't at least scan the mechanics of before buying. If I see recycling of mechanics I never liked before, I probably won't buy. If I see mechanics I've always liked, or if I see true innovation, then those are potential selling points.

That doesn't mean crunch is my primary or sole concern. I bought lots of RIFTS and Space:1889- 2 games noted more for the quality of their fluff tuan their crunch.

But I still got to look at the gears and not just the bodywork.

 

[Gronin]

From Legends and Lore column (by Mike Mearls) on the WOTC website (dated 8/9/2011)

"Earlier this year, we launched a set of weekly columns (including this one) to reach out to the D&D player community and to give you all a greater voice. Our approach to the skirmish game mirrors that goal, and it will be an important consideration going forward with new D&D games. When we can manage an open playtest, we will do so. If we can’t do an open test, we owe it to you to conduct closed playtests that are as large as possible."

So obviously they recognize that the current model doesn't work and are, hopefully, moving in the right direction.

 

[Gargoyle]

I like some fluff with my crunch, both online and offline, both rented and bought.

The best Dragon articles, Dungeon articles, modules, campaign settings and rulebooks are the ones that have both. I don't want a fantastic description of a Bladesinger class without the crunch to back it up, and I don't want a set of mechanics without an idea of how this type of character fits into the campaign world.

Splitting up fluff and crunch between online and offline distribution seems like a marketing ploy more than a serious attempt to give customers what they want: content that we can't wait to use in our games. I can't imagine that the best RPG content completely lacks one or the other.

 

[SSquirrel]

Not because of price, these people are paying their DDI fees, but because it supports more game rules than the official siverlight builder, has fewer bugs, the bugs that appear are fixed more quickly and new material is added faster than into the official silverlight CB.

I take it by "material" here you mean new features. I started gaming w/a new group earlier this year and the offline CB still didn't support Dark Sun or Essentials. We were playing a Dark Sun group and half our group could not be made in the official CB, altho a month in they added the Dark Sun button.

How do you get material into the offline CB faster than the day a new product hits the street? I've never used the offline loader and have no real reason to. DDI isn't that expensive and I can afford to have it and upkeep most of our group's characters easily. While the compiled Dungeon and Dragon would be nice to have again, I can understand why they stopped compiling them since they were just getting uploaded to torrents in a convenient single file package. Nothing stops you from zipping and uploading a folder of articles now, but people are usually more suspicious of zipped torrents.

 

[Quickleaf]

How do you get material into the offline CB faster than the day a new product hits the street? I've never used the offline loader and have no real reason to. DDI isn't that expensive and I can afford to have it and upkeep most of our group's characters easily.

As an aside, I showed up to the start of our new campaign with a pencil filled in character sheet complete with a sketch I did.

I think the rest o the group looked at me like I was a dinosaur. "You didn't use the CB? What's wrong with you??"

Then when they realized that I had my entire character on one page and didn't need power cards, and knew my powers better than the rest of the group....actually their tune didn't change then. I was still a pencil lead dinosaur.

 

[Lalato]

It's been a while since I did any playtesting, but it looks like if you want to be in the playtesting pool for WotC it's as simple as joining this group in their community...

Whoops! Browser Settings Incompatible

Enjoy!
--sam

 

[TwoSix]

Considering the thread title contained both "pimp" and "fluff", I'm terribly disappointed at the direction this thread took.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Then you should check out the "Unfortunate Name" thead in General.

 

[Pickles JG]

I am mind boggled that people think 4e is a badly playtested game as evidence complain about the quantity of errata. Without the errata 4e is a more robust & balanced game than any other I have come across. Part of the reason some of the errata is "needed" is because the maths is so tight in the first place (eg the maths feats like expertise). There are some "broken" aspects that got fixed like the infinite attacks from that Ranger power whose name escapes me but these stand out amongst the tuning up.

I will not defend skill challenges which still do not really work but the core skill system is much the same as any target based skill system in any RPG. It works as well as they do (ie better than "fixed" skill systems like CoC, Runequest or 1e thieves)

Errata (or updates as they call it as a bunch is of course evolution) shows they are working to make the game better not that they did a shoddy job in the first place. If you do not like it that's fine - as I said the game will stand up much better than any other rules heavy system.

Meanwhile back at the topic. I am really unsure. I like crunch more than fluff but with the online stuff I find its a hard sell - especially things like Monster Vault which comes packaged with lots of stuff I do not want like maps & tokens, as well as stuff I do - like fluff. OK I like my crunch but I thought the Monster manuals were reallly light as I have no idea what half of those things even look like.

I thought the Neverwinter Campaign book was probably excellent. I disagree with Kzach that it is not at least mainly a DM book & in case I end up playing there I have not read all of it

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I am mind boggled that people think 4e is a badly playtested game as evidence complain about the quantity of errata

Not just quantity, but also the nature of.