So what's gold gonna be for?

[Irda Ranger]

I hope my 3-day time-out is OK ...

Every single preview we have seen has gone to extremes to remind the reader how much more awesome D&D combat is going to be in 4E, often to the detriment of other aspects of the game.

Actually, I'm not sure this has been shown by the 4E previews. The "more awesome" has been shoveled by the ton, but I'm not sure it's really "to the detriment of other aspects of the game." As a simple for instance, the racial choices are almost a non-issue, because gnomes are in the MM as a playable race and you can always ban tieflings and eladrin; so no big whoop.

As for the "pure role-playing" aspects of the game, those have always been fairly "rules independent." There's never been a rule for how many favors you can ask the local Baron for, or whether he not he'll grant them, or whether there will be a rude courtier who will insult your dress and call your PC's "peasant simpletons." That's just as easy/hard in 4e as any other edition.

So where's this "detriment" you speak of?

And isn't this a "what to do with gold" thread? Sorry if I've lost the 'thread' of the conversation...

Dungeon crawling happens to have nothing to do with role playing;

I'm pretty sure that's not true, but even if it were, having rules that allow a DM to adjudicate a dungeon crawl is not inherently harmful to the DM's ability to role-play time spent at the Castellan's dinner table.

if the system makes dungeon crawling -- actual dungeon crawling, with all that implies -- difficult or impossible, then the game isn't D&D anymore, any more than it would be if they took dragons out of the MM.

Agreed; though I'm running a PC through the Caves of Chaos right now using a Book-of-Nine-Swords/SWSE/D&D 3.75 hybrid, and I can assure you, the dungeon crawl works perfectly. I have seen ZERO evidence that 4E would suddenly make it impossible.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I'm pretty sure that's not true, but even if it were, having rules that allow a DM to adjudicate a dungeon crawl is not inherently harmful to the DM's ability to role-play time spent at the Castellan's dinner table.

Well, I think that someone else squashed role-playing into the equation. He's saying, if I read him correctly, that he's afraid that 4E will suddenly make dungeon crawling impossible because it'll turn D&D into this elaborate, extended game of whack-a-mole, with giants and dragons taking the place of the moles. He thinks that the proposed changes to resource management will make it so that you can't carefully explore an ancient ruin. I don't understand why he's saying this, but it's what I've got out of his end of the thread. He's not talking about role-playing.

Agreed; though I'm running a PC through the Caves of Chaos right now using a Book-of-Nine-Swords/SWSE/D&D 3.75 hybrid, and I can assure you, the dungeon crawl works perfectly. I have seen ZERO evidence that 4E would suddenly make it impossible.

This, I like to see: People actually jury-rigging their games to try out some of the new stuff. Very cool.

 

[AllisterH]

Birthright's fate was sealed by its release timing...2e and the hobby in general was already in steep decline when BR came out (1995, according to the (c) date on mine) so no wonder it didn't sell: nobody cared. Whcih is a shame, because it's one of the few really good releases to come out of the whole 2e era as far as I'm concerned.

I tend to disagree. Planescape came out 1 year before and it pretty much CRUSHED Birthright in terms of popularity. Seriously, am I the only one here that honestly believes that D&D players, by and large, just aren't interested in Fief-building and ruling?

Birthright was GOOD, real good IMO. Yet it just didn't ring any bells for a lot of people. Hell, of the people I do know who liked Birthright actually prefer it not because of the Kingdom-running rules but for the low-magic feel of the setting and the history of the races.

 

[hong]

True. But it isn't like there is no downside to choosing to play an "outdated" version of the game. Finding players, for example.

Well, life wasn't meant to be easy.

 

[hong]

I beg to differ. Conan spends quite a bit of time in the dungeon.

He also spends a lot of time out of the dungeon. As does every character in every book or movie I know. And those times out of the dungeon are generally not just downtime to be handwaved away either.

Every single preview we have seen has gone to extremes to remind the reader how much more awesome D&D combat is going to be in 4E, often to the detriment of other aspects of the game.

As in, to the detriment of one other aspect of the game, namely dungeon crawling?

Dungeon crawling happens to have nothing to do with role playing; dungeon crawls have to do with a great number of elements that D&D does well. It is not that if you are not dungeon crawling you aren't playin D&D, it is that if the system makes dungeon crawling -- actual dungeon crawling, with all that implies -- difficult or impossible, then the game isn't D&D anymore, any more than it would be if they took dragons out of the MM.

I am not sure when we suddenly found that "dungeon crawling" == "dungeon without fighting", which is basically what you're implying. Maybe it's related to that whole "social rules == combat" thing.

 

[hong]

I tend to disagree. Planescape came out 1 year before and it pretty much CRUSHED Birthright in terms of popularity. Seriously, am I the only one here that honestly believes that D&D players, by and large, just aren't interested in Fief-building and ruling?

Don't think I've ever met any player who was interested in that, in the last ~20 years or so. Getting rid of that cruft was one of the great decisions in 3E. Now whether they found an adequate replacement for it, is another issue....

 

[Nifft]

Brevity is the soul of.

On a side note, that used to be my answering machine message. "Brevity is the soul of -- *BEEP*"

You know, back when there were answering machines.

Old, -- N

 

[Irda Ranger]

Seriously, am I the only one here that honestly believes that D&D players, by and large, just aren't interested in Fief-building and ruling?

No. I am interested in Fief-building, but I realize I'm in the minority in that regard.

Birthright was GOOD, real good IMO. Yet it just didn't ring any bells for a lot of people.

It didn't do anything for me, that's for sure. Which is funny, because as a Civ4 aficionado and general fied-builder, you'd think it would; but nope. The world itself just didn't do anything for me. I built my fiefs in Dark Sun, Dragonlance, etc.

 

[A'koss]

I tend to disagree. Planescape came out 1 year before and it pretty much CRUSHED Birthright in terms of popularity. Seriously, am I the only one here that honestly believes that D&D players, by and large, just aren't interested in Fief-building and ruling?

Birthright was GOOD, real good IMO. Yet it just didn't ring any bells for a lot of people. Hell, of the people I do know who liked Birthright actually prefer it not because of the Kingdom-running rules but for the low-magic feel of the setting and the history of the races.

Yeah, I don't belive Birthright is by any means a measure of the popularity in fief-building. You have to like the setting first, and it has to be more appealing than the one you're already running (and likely heavily invested).

In my games fief-building was common but our group had been running around in Greyhawk (and later a Planescape-Greyhawk hybrid game) for years and years and nothing in Birthright (as a setting) seemed interesting enough to want to switch. I remember one of my players bought it and I gave it a once-over and didn't think much of it other than some of the montrous rulers to steal. Planescape was a much bigger departure from typical D&D settings and Monte hit that one right out of the park for outright coolness. Birthright was just too similar to other more established settings to really gain a toe-hold IMO.

 

[Irda Ranger]

On a side note, that used to be my answering machine message. "Brevity is the soul of -- *BEEP*"

You know, back when there were answering machines.

Old, -- N

Grand Central

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