What do you want to see from 4E Publishers?

[Klaus]

What's the difference there? I consider them practically the same thing.

Sword & Sorcery, as we know it, is low fantasy. It doesn't deal as much with ideals, or good vs. evil. It is gritty, as opposed to epic. More shades of gray. Magic is pretty much in the purview of the villains. Civilization is sinonymous with decadence.

Tolkien is, mostly, high fantasy. It's good vs. evil. It's epic struggles for the sake of the world. It's more black and white. Heroes may wield mighty magic. There can be beacons of civilization that are utterly good.

Sword and sorcery is Conan, Fafhrd & Gray Mouser, Elric, Greyhawk, Song of Ice & Fire.

High Fantasy is Tolkien, Dragonlance, Eragon, Forgotten Realms.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Mosnter books.

With the new "skinning" method for 4e, I think WoTC did a huge diservice to the gaming community with their Monster Manual and left out a lot of... useful monsters and haven't been quick enough in filling those ranks.

Hell, I'm hoping that since the guys doing Avandu are going 4e, that we'll see a monster book for 4e from them immediately.

Looking forward to the Goodman Games stuff coming out too the monsters.

 

[Simon Atavax]

Sword and sorcery is Conan, Fafhrd & Gray Mouser, Elric, Greyhawk, Song of Ice & Fire.

High Fantasy is Tolkien, Dragonlance, Eragon, Forgotten Realms.

As has been said earlier, big difference perhaps in literary criticism (though even that might be debatable) but in actual RPG play terms, pretty similar.

 

[Qualidar]

Sword & Sorcery, as we know it, is low fantasy. It doesn't deal as much with ideals, or good vs. evil. It is gritty, as opposed to epic. More shades of gray. Magic is pretty much in the purview of the villains. Civilization is sinonymous with decadence.

Tolkien is, mostly, high fantasy. It's good vs. evil. It's epic struggles for the sake of the world. It's more black and white. Heroes may wield mighty magic. There can be beacons of civilization that are utterly good.

Sword and sorcery is Conan, Fafhrd & Gray Mouser, Elric, Greyhawk, Song of Ice & Fire.

High Fantasy is Tolkien, Dragonlance, Eragon, Forgotten Realms.

I would have understood if the comment was Low- vs High-magic. I just don't classify Tolkien as "high-magic" It's got like 3 magic items and 1 wizard, who most likely would have been a DM NPC. (Excepting villains).

I that were the case I would have classified it as:

Low-magic is Conan, Fafhrd & Gray Mouser, Elric, Tolkien, Song of Ice & Fire.

High-Magic is Dragonlance, Eragon, Forgotten Realms and Greyhawk.

But I see I'm completely derailing the thread here. Sorry.

 

[The Little Raven]

Monsters
Adventures
Campaign Settings

Good to hear.

A question for everyone... would you be interested in "two sides of the same coin" adventures, where the first series of adventures presents the events of a war from the perspective of good being victorious, then a second series of adventures takes you through the same basic events, but redone for evil characters being victorious?

 

[JVisgaitis]

Hell, I'm hoping that since the guys doing Avandu are going 4e, that we'll see a monster book for 4e from them immediately.

We tried that approach last time and it didn't quite work the way we had intended. We are going to convert all of the monsters that made into Monte Cook's best and post them as free downloads though. Good chance you'll see a monster book from us eventually, but not right out of the gate.

 

[JoeGKushner]

We tried that approach last time and it didn't quite work the way we had intended. We are going to convert all of the monsters that made into Monte Cook's best and post them as free downloads though. Good chance you'll see a monster book from us eventually, but not right out of the gate.

I had thought the previous issue was more to do with massive overflow for 3.0/3.5 support and the whole 3.5 switch.

Ah well, looking forward to seeing it eventually then.

 

[JVisgaitis]

I had thought the previous issue was more to do with massive overflow for 3.0/3.5 support and the whole 3.5 switch.

Well, it was mostly with the 3.5 switch and Distributors cutting back on their numbers. We just wanted to start differently this time and focus on something other than monsters. What do you find lacking with the current crop of 4e monsters?

 

[JoeGKushner]

Well, it was mostly with the 3.5 switch and Distributors cutting back on their numbers. We just wanted to start differently this time and focus on something other than monsters. What do you find lacking with the current crop of 4e monsters?

1. Not enough named beasties. In looking at the 1st ed Monster Manual, we have demon princes and devil lords.

2. Not enough unique qualities at the demon/demonic end of things. THis is where the old "void" monsters would shine.

3. The different roles make for some "generic" bits but the massive lack of background/details make them... boring and generic.

4. Not enough variety to cover the full 30 levels without running into the same beasties over and over again. In the printed adventurers I've seen and looked at it's been a plethora of kobolds, goblins, hobgoblins and the other old traditional so and sos. Very boring.

 

[Zaukrie]

Low to medium level monsters - with fluff and descriptions and art.

Pre-made encounters - give me a list of lots of encounters and what monsters make them up.