Why is it so important?

[Dacileva]

Uh, so in the EN World threads you linked to there. . . maybe three (four, tops?) individuals, out of the thousands of regular posters here. . .

You asked for evidence that there were objections.

I provided that evidence.

I also didn't feel like sifting through several thousand pages of posts, so I grabbed a few standout posts I saw, just from skimming, jumping by ten to a hundred pages at a time.

OK. And yeah, some were just talking about warlocks, in the sense that they are cool, but not necessarily any more cool than say, wizards. Er.

The warlock exists as an alternative to Vancian spellcasting. Did you read how many of those posts said things like "I hate the Vancian spellcasting system, so the warlock is great!"?

I don't generally regard Usenet and the WotC boards very highly. It's a bias, I know. But still. If there's anything really noteworthy there, let me know, OK? I will listen (i.e., read).

If they weren't noteworthy, I wouldn't have posted them as evidence.

And you'd be surprised how many well-regarded posters here are just as well-regarded on USENET.

No, they were created specifically for the reason of catering to those DMs who might like to try those particular house rules / rules variants / call them what you will.

Why does ANY variant exist? Because the original is either too limited, or too restrictive.

From the introduction to Recharge Magic, the phrase "players... no longer have to face the disappointment of a retreat to town just when they’re on the cusp of the adventure’s climax" jumps out at me.

Most D&D DMs and players probably don't even own or have access to UA.

Everyone who can access a computer has access to UA. It's OGL.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm

So, a few posters in EN World's Rules forum, and a few more in this thread, possibly a smallish (but not doubt LOUD) bunch on *cough* Usenet, and uh, Gleemax or whatever. . . hm. . .

It still looks like the "upshot" according to a rather vocal minority.

I expected this, when I considered whether to post or not.

You said:

Anyway, regarding these masses of long-suffering arcane-class players, would you be so kind as to provide some sort of evidence (e.g., links) to back those claims of yours up with?

I'm even open to some anecdotal. . . "evidence". Anything, really.

I've provided what you asked for (some sort of evidence (e.g. links)). How you deal with that information is entirely your choice.

This is entirely subjective. Many D&D players and DMs would completely disagree, as it so happens.

Explain how Vancian spellcasting does not cause either:
1) Attrition encounters; or
2) The 15-minute adventuring day.

 

[Raven Crowking]

I think fiddly resource management and such is and should be part of the game. I realize that no modern RPG book would be written like the 1st edition DMG with its talk of the 'superior player' being the one that is faced with severe resource management challenges and overcomes them and all that sort of talk is out of fashion right now, but I really think that fiddly resource management produces not only a superior player but, in the right doses, produces superior play.

Seconded.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Having limited power does not equal "I made a deal with a demon, got knowledge man was not meant to know, risked my soul and sanity to cast that spell-which took me years to get ready for, and the spell would only work on the winter solstice, then went into hybernation for a year to recover".

No, but then again that's not an adequate description of Conan magic, where in many cases recovery doesn't require years of hibernation either. You are using the specifics of example characters, then extrapolating their problems as weaknesses as being part of the overall usage of magic in the Hyborian age. However, if you read the Howard stories, you will know that this is simply not so. Instead, some sorcerers gain additional powers through extraordinary means, which exact prices.

This is actually something that can be modelled fairly easily with the 3.X Vancian magic and feat system, if you just write a few extra feats. You can do it under earlier editions by making special rulings to represent the "deal with demons" required (and, if you look at the Gygaxian demon lore, one gets the impression that this was part of his campaigns). Of course, earlier editions included spells that imposed far greater penalties on the caster as well. Let us, for example, discuss how Haste has changed through the editions......

And btw, Call of Cthulhu. THERE is a magic system that does a fair job of emuting Hyborian magic.

Sooooo... if 4e was adopting that, you'd be fine right?

Yes. Yes, I would. My house rules for magic borrow heavily from Cthulhu d20. The UA incantations seem to me to be a step in that direction as well, and I think they're a brilliant addition to the game.

I'm just confused as to why people feel the need to try and place their preferences on a higher plane than others because they've appealed to some authority, whether it be realism or genre emulation.

You miss the point, and thus your confusion. I don't appeal to authority to place my preferences "on a higher plane"; I am attempting to create a world that feels as though it could be a fictional world, and thus desire rules that aid me in doing so.

By accusing me (and others?) of attempting to "appeal to authority" you are dismissing the actual reasoning behind my (our?) statements. A system that rewards players for using their characters in such a way as to more closely resemble their classical fictional counterparts is better, IMHO, than one in which they are rewarded for more closely resembling their Hogwarts counterparts, because (and only because) I am interested in a game that emulates classical fiction rather than Harry Potter (or whathaveyou).

I know, from long experience, that I can make the game fun. Hence, my question is no longer "What will make the game fun?" The question for me is only, what system does this better?

It is also a tangential concern of mine that any system that focuses primarily on what you can do during combat (i.e., all your cool class powers are combat powers), is going to, per force, reward players for engaging in more combat. Older editions (including 3.x, especially if you include 3rd party sources) included many powers whose primary use occurred outside of combat, meaning that an adventure designed to allow everyone to "shine" had to include a wider variety of activities. I do not want this to disappear because every class is optomized for combat.

In my home campaign, I run a sandbox, which means that each player is allowed to seek out whatever it is that he or she optomized his or her character for. If every character is combat-oriented, then, as the players realize this, the depth of game play would shrink to the size of a battlefield.

Of course, I know that we don't know enough about 4e yet to know whether or not such speculation is even close to the mark. What I also know, however, is that the 4e design staff reads these boards, and that by airing my concerns before 4e is launched I stand the best chance of seeing those concerned addressed within the released system itself.

Hence, my posting on this topic.


RC

 

[Raven Crowking]

But again, of the two scenarios you suggest, "dragons being real" and "eating nails for breakfast", since neither has the slightest thing to do with verisimilitude, why use the word at all?

Why not just say "fighters eating nails for breakfast doesn't appeal to me"?

Apparently, "verisimilitude" is the new wrongbadfun term, since pokemounts and MagicMarts apparently won't be part of the 4e experience.....

 

[Raven Crowking]

In which case, please post evidence for the existence of the majority.

If Aus-Snow had said "The majority have always supported Vancian magic" then asking for evidence of the existence of said majority would be worthwhile. However, he said that, prior to the announcement of 4e, there had been no massive call for the end of Vancian magic.

This is exactly the same as my saying "unicorns don't exist".

If you can demonstrate that such a call had existed, then you can prove him wrong. Just as, if you could show me a unicorn, you could prove me wrong.

However, asking me to post evidence for the non-existence of unicorns.........


RC


(EDIT: Of course, if you believed that unicorns don't exist, and I was trying to change your belief, rather than merely stating mine, you would be right to ask for evidence.)

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Apparently, "verisimilitude" is the new wrongbadfun term, since pokemounts and MagicMarts apparently won't be part of the 4e experience.....

I don't see any problem with the verisimilitude of PokeMounts and Magic Marts. Both seem likely in a world with magic. I'd want to protect my horse from danger and summon him whenever I needed him and to sell any magic items I find on adventures and buy new ones.

I just don't like the verisimilitude of "I cast my fireballs for today. Let's wait until tomorrow to rescue the princess. I'm sure she'll hold on. Better to do that then have to face the evil wizard without them."

 

[gizmo33]

(3E encounter without power attrition -> boring 3E encounter) !-> (4E encounter without power attrition -> boring 4E encounter)

At first I thought this was really deep, but now I think I understand what the symbols mean and I think I was wrong. In any case, I think I have the general idea. Something like this:

use of symbols !-> reasoning

I think what 3E and 4E would have in common is that they're both FRPGs and as far as I could tell they would have the same scope of things being interesting. A 20th level character (or the 4E equivalent) fighting a kobold (or the 4E equivalent) would be a boring battle in either system. The thing that makes such a battle boring (no impact on resources, no chance of death/harm to the PC) wouldn't change in 4E. Of course we're missing the complete information, but this is what it seems like so far with what they've said.

I'll assume a response of "No. You -> Wrong" but will look forward to any speculation/insights about 4E that would address what I'm saying.

 

[hong]

If Aus-Snow had said "The majority have always supported Vancian magic" then asking for evidence of the existence of said majority would be worthwhile. However, he said that, prior to the announcement of 4e, there had been no massive call for the end of Vancian magic.

This is exactly the same as my saying "unicorns don't exist".

If you can demonstrate that such a call had existed, then you can prove him wrong. Just as, if you could show me a unicorn, you could prove me wrong.

However, asking me to post evidence for the non-existence of unicorns.........

Tell me why I should care about the bald statement "I believe in X", shorn of any overall context of the discussion of X.

(EDIT: Of course, if you believed that unicorns don't exist, and I was trying to change your belief, rather than merely stating mine, you would be right to ask for evidence.)

In which case, I would like to state my belief that my left big toe hurts from where I just stubbed it.

 

[hong]

At first I thought this was really deep, but now I think I understand what the symbols mean and I think I was wrong. In any case, I think I have the general idea. Something like this:

use of symbols !-> reasoning

No. Use of symbols != polysyllabication.

I think what 3E and 4E would have in common is that they're both FRPGs and as far as I could tell they would have the same scope of things being interesting. A 20th level character (or the 4E equivalent) fighting a kobold (or the 4E equivalent) would be a boring battle in either system.

Extrapolation to extremes -> strawman

The thing that makes such a battle boring (no impact on resources, no chance of death/harm to the PC) wouldn't change in 4E.

Insertion of previously unseen clause.

Of course we're missing the complete information, but this is what it seems like so far with what they've said.

Equivocation.

I'll assume a response of "No. You -> Wrong" but will look forward to any speculation/insights about 4E that would address what I'm saying.

No. You -> wrong.

 

[Aus_Snow]

You asked for evidence that there were objections.

No, I asked (someone else) specifically for evidence of the "masses" of people professing such objections. It seemed to me, from your last post, that you (who decided to attempt to provide evidence on behalf of another) could not provide this.

I provided that evidence.

I also didn't feel like sifting through several thousand pages of posts, so I grabbed a few standout posts I saw, just from skimming, jumping by ten to a hundred pages at a time.

This is not something you mentioned (that you were "sifting through several thousand pages of posts") before - presumably, you mean "thousands of completely relevant posts". . .? You presented it as evidence, I assumed it was such - as in, without any reason to assume that you were picking from among so *many* possible posts. Now I know that, I'll have to do some searching myself, just to try and gauge what these numbers are like, as best I am able.

And you'd be surprised how many well-regarded posters here are just as well-regarded on USENET.

Fair enough. What suits one might not suit another. I get that.

Why does ANY variant exist? Because the original is either too limited, or too restrictive.

Not really. It exists because someone made it. And someone made it because. . . well, there is an infinite variety of reasons why someone might choose to do that. Or just astoundingly many reasons, perhaps. Either way.

From the introduction to Recharge Magic, the phrase "players... no longer have to face the disappointment of a retreat to town just when they’re on the cusp of the adventure’s climax" jumps out at me.

Well, why wouldn't an RPG writer put whatever it is they're presenting in a positive light? I've seen writers do that, from just about any game company, for just about any book. It doesn't always mean a great deal. OK, it might. But yeah, it equally might not.

Everyone who can access a computer has access to UA. It's OGL.

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/magic/rechargeMagic.htm

Oh, quite true. It's amazing how often regular web-visitors (and forum-posters) ask for some d20 answers, and I (or someone else) points them to that very site, which they have - clearly - never heard of. And that is among those who bother to spend their time on online forums and so on.

I expected this, when I considered whether to post or not.

Your prescience was foreseen.

I've provided what you asked for (some sort of evidence (e.g. links)). How you deal with that information is entirely your choice.

Well, that's true. Thanks for providing those links, either way.

Explain how Vancian spellcasting does not cause either:
1) Attrition encounters; or
2) The 15-minute adventuring day.

Not all people play the game the same way. Simple as that.

I haven't seen (or encouraged/discouraged) those things - well, apart from the odd attrition encounter, actually - in games I've run, featuring at least some Vancian spellcasting.

And as a player, it ain't that way, either. Not IME.

I would be ah. . . very surprised, to say the least, if someone could "prove" that Vancian magic *does* cause those things. Because my experiences IRL directly contradict that claim.

OTOH, if some proportion of players and/or DMs has experienced gameplay in line with your theory, whatever that might be, that's cool: styles of play differ. Perhaps for them, a solution to their problem might be in order. That would make perfect sense to me.