Should 4th ed be point and level based?

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Buisness history is littered with firms that "couldn't possibly loose all that market share" and then proceded to do so. Not that I'm saying that would happen with D&D but you can't assume that they are invincible. Based on what I've seen of how WOTC runs the D&D brand with surveys and market studies and whatnot I can only assume that they kept levels due to thier place in D&D success and the way they help make it easy for new blood to pick up the game and make a character. I don't find toolkit games to be nearly as easy to get going in for new people. Not that I don't like GURPS and other games like that, but I'm a 20 year gamer.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Just out of curiousity, why do people keep talking about levels being dropped? My thread titlee is point AND level based.

 

[swrushing]

If you're definition of "data" is unsubstantiated internet forum posting, then yeah his data is awesome.

Also to add in, i own a lot of gurps stuff... mostly their very useful source books, but this has NOTHING to do with their systems, which i never use.

So if you want to equate sales to systems/mechanics preference... given how different companies favor rules over supplements over setting over broad appeal source books... you need to get some sales figures on things like CORE BOOKS as opposed to overall.

I know plenty of people who have more than a few gurps sourcebooks... but no one who has actaully run gurps or expressed a preference for its chargen.

 

[glass]

Just as a point of fact (insofar as facts can be applied here) - if sales figures are any indication, then you're dead wrong. White Wolf and SJG both come in consistently at #2 and #3 for their game sales, which comprise a good 40-60% of the remaining game market behind WotC for D&D. Both are point-based systems. While D&D has the majority (and likely will for quite some time), dismissing those who prefer point buy is misinformed at best.

Every WW system with which I am familiar is class based. They might call them traditions, or aspects, or clans, but they are all still classes AFAIAC.


glass.

 

[glass]

Well, I think we're kidding ourself that if 4th ed comes out with the official brand and it does use some type of point system that it will all of the sudden fail and some other Heartbreaker system will come in. The market goes with D&D.

Some of the market will go with the D&D brand regardless. The question is how much. IMO, if 4e is point based, it will be less than if it is not.


glass.

 

[Jim Hague]

Did I say point-buy systems are awful and no one played them and that they should be expunged from market? I ran GURPs and Hero for over a decade and have run and played M&M. They are good games. I never dismissed them, stop putting words in my mouth.

You keep insinuating (here and in the d20 Supers thread) that because I state a preference for classes that means I'm saying point-buy systems are teh suck. I'm not. Those are good games.

I said classes and levels are strengths of the D&D system are part of its appeal with its core audience, not a hindrance to it.

This is my opinion, but not only mine. Its shared by the majority of gamers that I meet, which is obviously subjective, but I have been gaming for 20+ years and writing RPGs professionally for almost 4.

Chuck

Might want to remove that chip on your shoulder there, Chuck. You seem dismissive of point buy systems, for whatever reasons you have - personally preference and all that, I'd think. You've also got a marked tendency to get defensive when someone makes that observation or disagrees with you. Relax, ok?

As for my data - no, it wasn't a posting from an internet message board, it was from the July issue of Game Trader magazine and from a Diamond publication posted on the wall at Steve Jackson Games' office. Given that the only sales data anyone gets comes from store polls (hence my statement about 'insofar as the data is concerned'), it can only be looked at as trending, instead of hard numbers.

 

[MerricB]

Just out of curiousity, why do people keep talking about levels being dropped? My thread titlee is point AND level based.

Their prejudices are showing, Joe. Some want a purely point-based system (or don't want it just as badly) and cast all such queries in that light regardless of what they actually say.

Just a note: I enjoyed using Skills & Powers tremendously, which used much more of a point-based system than we have now for character generation. One of my better campaigns was run using it.

However, I don't really support it for 4e. As I've mentioned before, I think you lose too much versatility in design by restricting things to point-based.

Consider Magic of Incarnum and think about how that might be implemented as a point-based system. It's not easy. That's true for all magic-using classes, I feel.

At this point, you have the Sorcerer who gets spontaneous casting and no points to customise...

Cheers!

 

[JoeGKushner]

Magic of Incarnum would've been tremendously easy to customize as a point system in Hero, GURPS ot Tristat where the effect is what you're paying for no?

With all the options D&D is providing, it moves very close to a level and point based system now, especially if you have all the official books as we have things like planar feats, substiution levels (racial, organization, etc...), feats for unique spells, thousands of different spells, feats, skills, etc...

The only thing stopping it from being a point and level based system is the automatic advancement of hit dice (based on class no race), skill points based on class, and saving throw advancements. And some of the subsitution levels play with those factors too.

 

[MerricB]

It's a far cry from point based at present, Joe, because a substitution level is a package! It relies on information a point-based system doesn't have - like what the other points are being spent on, and what type of character the PC already is.

D&D is a cross between classic class/level based and a menu-based system. It is not, however, point based.

Cheers!

 

[Vigilance]

3E is close to being a point-based system now, Id agree with that.

Archetypes are also much less important in 3E than previous editions, since feats can customize your character and multi-classing is so easy.

But being CLOSE to a point-based system and BEING one is a huge step imo, and would be a bad one for D&D.

I think 3E did a masterful job of making archetypes not be a straightjacket (like they were in earlier editions of the game) while maintaining what makes classes and levels great.

And when I talk about levels, Joe, I realize you think getting points every level is "keeping levels". I disagree. A level is having certain things improve at certain rates based on your archetype.

Chuck