WotC Blogs II

[Glyfair]

Stephen Schubert has updated his blog with an overview of his weekend. Within it he discusses the issues with determining the D&D Miniatures' All-Stars.

In the back of my mind, I'm deliberating the best way to get input on the minis for inclusion in the All-Stars set (for those not aware, we're updating quite a few minis from earlier D&D Minis sets so they can be used in our relaunch of the game next year). Having a big list of 692 minis in a poll doesn't seem particularly good -- I think we need to somehow break it up into smaller chunks, otherwise we'd only have about 50 meaningful responses. I'm reading all the various threads on the subject, so feel free to offer your own suggestions.

 

[Scribble]

Was anyone else a little surprised by the portion I bolded? Development is two years in, release is eight months away, and there was/is doubt about whether or not something like multiclassing is going to work?

Hrmm, interesting question... When I read that I didn't really take it to mean the entire multiclassing system... I took it to mean he was worried that a multiclass remake of the character, as opposed to recreating the class for 4e, wasn't going to work out well, but was then relieved to find that i was more in line with what the player originally envisioned...

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

...And this is also why you're not going to be able to play as wide a range of characters in 4e for quite some time.

That's to be expected though, considering 3.x has 7 years worth of material.

That said, with PC race/monster design diverging, I think (hope) I will feel less constrained when I sit down to put together a orc, minotaur, or something really bizarre.

PC races in Star Wars Saga are great examples of streamlined race design. They typically include a few of the following:

Ability score adjustments
Conditional Bonus Feats
Opportunities to reroll skills
Adjustments to Defense

Plus you might throw in something like Breathe Underwater for a species from a particular environment. Those are very basic and simple examples, but I've found it really easy to create different species for Saga whenever I feel inclined.

Hrmm, interesting question... When I read that I didn't really take it to mean the entire multiclassing system... I took it to mean he was worried that a multiclass remake of the character, as opposed to recreating the class for 4e, wasn't going to work out well, but was then relieved to find that i was more in line with what the player originally envisioned...

That's exactly how I read it.

 

[Glyfair]

Rich Baker has updated his blog. In it he touches on how they developed the story for the monsters.

On the D&D front, I'm still working on knocking out writing passes on our monsters. We have mechanical skeletons and very brief "story statements" in place for pretty much everything that will eventually be in the Monster Manual, but many of the monsters are just now getting those rough story notes expanded out into full monster entries.

You might wonder where those "story statements" came from. Basically, the process started better than two years ago when Rob Heinsoo, Andy Collins, and James Wyatt produced the first draft of the new edition and started reconcepting the role and purpose of some critters we felt needed help. In the spring of '06, we divided the design effort into a mechanical team ("Flywheel") and a story team ("Scramjet"). Over the course of about four months, the Scramjet team (myself, James Wyatt, Michele Carter, Ed Stark, Matt Sernett, Chris Perkins, and Stacy Longstreet) produced a "world document" touching on a variety of topics, including a brief look at each monster's story. Not all of the ideas we generated at that time will survive to see the next edition, and many of those ideas have evolved several times since as new designers have come along and pushed, pulled, or tugged at the Scramjet statements.

 

[Glyfair]

David Noonan's latest post discusses "siloing" a bit more.

Rereading what I said last week on silos (scroll up a little to see it), I should have mentioned that there's a old D&D heritage at work there, too. Remember the 1st edition magic-user? His spellbook started with one offensive spell, one defensive spell, and one miscellaneous spell. That's siloing! Now the silo walls weren't maintained once the game actually started, and randomly generating your starting spells could be an unbelievable screw job...and it's not like 1st-level magic-users had it easy in AD&D. But the concept is actually an old one, and I bet Gygax's motivation was pretty basic: make sure those beginning magic-users were well-rounded. Seems like a solid design principle to me.

 

[king_ghidorah]

Market research on young gamers, eh? I guess they don't give a crap about the gamers who have been loyal DnD customers for over 20 years. Another reason to skip 4e.

How is doing market research to expand the hobby an insult to current gamers? Doing market research on young gamers and building the brand, hobby, and industry is a good thing for everyone. And, you know, the job of a company that sells stuff.

Marketing only to long-time gamers is not even a zero-sum game. It's a negative-sum game -- gamers will decrease in numbers due to age, attrition, or even the sense that they're good with what they've bought already. It's true that ignoring them is bad business, but so is catering only to them.

And for long-term gamers to be disgruntled that a company sees that seems... very, very short-sighted.

 

[Jer]

(Bolding mine)

Was anyone else a little surprised by the portion I bolded? Development is two years in, release is eight months away, and there was/is doubt about whether or not something like multiclassing is going to work?

Nope, doesn't surprise me at all. Because, frankly, multiclassing spellcasters with anything has been a bear in 3e and anything that they're doing to fix it for 4e is going to necessarily be a radical change with lots of things to tweak. It's quite likely that these particular multiclass rules a fairly new change (they keep insisting that things are changing all the time still), and also quite likely that Wyatt has either never seen it in action for himself (remember, he's on the story team not the mechanics team) or has only seen it in the controlled environment of the Wizard's playtests (where they're looking for specific interacations and problems). Any of us who have even tweaked a system know that rules that seem perfectly reasonable in your head can collapse spectacularly when you're actually playing at the table.

 

[Mercule]

Nope, doesn't surprise me at all. Because, frankly, multiclassing spellcasters with anything has been a bear in 3e and anything that they're doing to fix it for 4e is going to necessarily be a radical change with lots of things to tweak.

Multiclassing spellcasters has always been a bit of a bear, even in 1E/2E. At least, in terms of keeping them roughly balanced with their companions.

 

[Glyfair]

Peter Schaefer has posted a bit on feats:

We are busy beating feats into shape. Too many feats just don't fit. A feat should personalize your character, not simply procure a mini-power or minor rule exception. A feat may utilize the latter to do the former, but the latter alone? No. Boring. Annoying to remember and to execute.

It was also taken for granted that an adjacent system would allow feats whose effects overlap without inconveniencing anyone. But the system isn't for this, and it's not good at it. I strongly resisted the overlapping feats until we realized we could use them - by creating a new method for accomplishing the same effect we had been abusing in the old system.

This is one of the dangers of working in a system, whether it's five years old or born from scratch: You get so used to how things work, or how you think they work, that you stop thinking about how they would work better. A fresh pair of eyes is always good.

 

[Mouseferatu]

Peter Schaefer has posted a bit on feats:

Well, that's...

Huh. I have absolutely no idea what that means.