Wire Fu Demonic Magical Superheroes

[Rechan]

Eberron...so new I'd be better to reset than say 'oh yeah, this is how it's always been' without even a courtesy timeline advancement. The Blog post (by Wyatt, I think) that already states they will be doing something along the lines of 'Well, yeah, Eberron did have Tielfling warlocks, you just didn't see them'...I found that insulting.

Eberron has Tieflings. Among other things, they're in the Demon Wastes as being "Blessed by the Rajah".

But I actually posed this question as soon as I heard that tieflings might be in Core. I posed this question to Keith. Keith actually offered an interesting option: Tieflings are tied to the planes.

Regular people in the Prime who are born when Plane X is continemous with the Material become tieflings. And they are tied to Plane X. So a tiefling born when Fernia is aligned with the stars will be hot-blooded, and drawn to fire, like an arsonist. A tiefling born when Shavarath is in connection will lean towards glorifying violence, trying to pick fights, etc etc. They have that planar influence tied to their personality, in a sense.

Wyatt promised that Tieflings, with their own country, just wouldn't pop up.

 

[Dr. Strangemonkey]

All right, under protest but with regard to the OP, here's why I want 4E to be 'Exalted with DnD on the cover':

A.) The things you mention as porting over from Exalted are the only things I like about the Exalted setting.

1. Giving Players and DMs both a role in description, particularly in terms of stunts and social challenges
2. Settings where the laws of excellence are more important than the laws of physics
3. An understanding right from the start that no player will be sub-optimal or useless and that each character should have multiple dimensions even if they have a specialty
4. A setting where the cosmology bleeds into the world and its history
5. Teh Awesome

B.) Aside from those things DnD does everything better.

1. DnD encompasses a range of heroic experiences, and each point in the range always carries risk for both success and failure
2. Classes, races, and levels are a wondeful and evocative mechanic, capable of both great simplicity and great complexity
3. DnD is tools based, sure there are settings, but you as the DM are the world builder, the tools and materials provide suggestions, whereas in Exalted its very hard to see how you would take the tools out of the plan
4. DnD is tactical as well as character driven, strategic as well as descriptive
5. DnD gives you all that and the kitchen sink and tells you to throw it in, Exalted puts you in a room with all that and a specific kitchen sink and invites you to throw it out.
6. It's freakin Dungeons and Dragons, there's thirty years of fluff you can use with almost any version of the DnDisms, or not, and there's plenty of support you can use or not
7. Exalted is artistic capable of being complex, DnD is complex capable of being artistic
8. 5 foot steps
9. Beholders
10. Boots of Elvenkind
11. And DnD needs the good parts of Exalted, and those good points really don't need the bad parts of Exalted.

 

[DSPaul]

Unless of course you're Eberron fans who don't want the time line advancement.

Funny thing about that....

 

[jasin]

Exalted is not tactical or crunchy enough.

Whoah. Have you actually played Exalted and found it that way?

My experience with it is very limited, but one of the strongest impressions was "wow, how weird for White Wolf to make something as tactical and crunchy as D&D!".

 

[jasin]

This of course has its own problems, but it has been discussed to death elsewhere. So rather than go into it, I would suggest everyone who can track down a copy of Best of dragon Vol II and read EGG's "From The Sorcerer's Scroll" on why D&D had Vancian Magic in the first place. it was hardly the only magic system he was familiar with from myth and literature. He chose it for a reason.

Please do go into it, at least in broad terms. I don't think I'd be able to track down the article easily, and as someone who loves Vance, likes Vancian magic, but also likes most of the things I've been hearing about 4E, I'm very interested in the subject.

 

[Gloombunny]

Why do (general) you -- though I would like an answer directly from Doug -- want D&D to be Exalted when you already have Exalted. More to the point, why do you want to take D&D from me so you can have Exalted with D&D on the cover?

a) Because Exalted sucks. Well, I shouldn't try to make a statement like that sound objective. Because I hate Exalted's mechanics and wouldn't play it if you paid me. (Well, ok, then I would, but it would have to be a substantial payment, not just covering my share of the pizza or something.)

b) Because I don't want Exalted, with or without its crappy mechanics. I want D&D. What you are failing to understand here is that your opinion of what makes D&D D&D is not objective immutable fact. To me, stuff like warlocks and warblades capture the essence of D&D but do it in a way that's much more fun to play than anything AD&D had to offer.

edit: Of course, my opinion of what constitutes the essence of D&D isn't objective fact either. But just because the current trademark holders are leaning more towards my opinion than yours doesn't mean they're missing the point of the game or selling out to get new customers or anything like that. It just means that they don't happen to agree with you on this issue.

 

[jasin]

The thing is, this has little to do with the rules as written and a lot to do with the DM -- or it should, as the Dm is the guy adjudicating the rules.

It amazes me that you would claim this has little to with the rules as written.

If rules make grappling ogres and throwing them off cliffs difficult (as they do in 3E), you won't see many people (succesfully!) grapple ogres and throw them off cliffs. If they make it easy, you will.

Of course, it has to do with the DM in the sense that the DM can change the rules from difficult to easy and back, as appropriate for the game, or even a single situation. But isn't it better to have the rules written as you want them, rather than having to change them to get there?

 

[Rechan]

Funny thing about that....

That's... what I was referring to.

 

[Reynard]

I think I adequately addressed that. There's a lot that's good about D&D. There's some bad. You seem devoted to preserving the bad.

The "bad" has been a part of the game, defining it even, for 30 years. That has to say something about how "bad" it is. inertia alone isn't that powerful.

If you honestly think that WOTC is going to lose half their customers over this, your view of the issue is so myopic its frightening. The dissatisfaction rate is vastly lower than 50%. Even on these forums its lower than 50%. Of those who are dissatisfied, a lot of people will play 4e anyways because their gaming group will play 4e. Those that hold out will mostly be DMs who can choose their own edition, and even they will have significant pressure to change once their players change over time, and new players are familiar with 4e but not 3e.

Hyperbole on my part, obviously, but I do think 4E will lose current fans and players, and not an insignificant percentage. Whereas, if 4E was just a rules change with the vast majority of sacred cows and "D&D flavor" intact -- as 3E was -- the attrition rate would be much lower. It wouldn't even cost WotC the opportunity to "Exaltify" the game either, because the very second book that came out could be "The Complete Wire-Fu Demonic Magical Ninja Monkey".

 

[Reynard]

It amazes me that you would claim this has little to with the rules as written.

If rules make grappling ogres and throwing them off cliffs difficult (as they do in 3E), you won't see many people (succesfully!) grapple ogres and throw them off cliffs. If they make it easy, you will.

Of course, it has to do with the DM in the sense that the DM can change the rules from difficult to easy and back, as appropriate for the game, or even a single situation. But isn't it better to have the rules written as you want them, rather than having to change them to get there?

I am not talking about changing rules. that's why I cited all the editions. It is the tone at he table and the flavor in the campaign that determines whether the character struggles, breathing hard, pushing himself to the limit to get that ogre over the edge, or he does a double flip kick to the head Beowulf lift and arm-rending throw. Both were a successful attack/grapple check. If you assume the latter in the game, inherently, however, you negate the former.