WotC Blogs II

[Umbran]

Another reason to skip 4e.

You know, if you dislike 4e that much that you'll skip it, you should consider skipping the 4e forum as well. All this area is going to do is bring you grief, dude, so you might as well save yourself the aggravation.

 

[Glyfair]

There are a few blog updates today, but nothing really new about 4E. Lots of interesting bits, such as Didier Monin discussing the staff changes in order to launch the D&D Insider. There have been lots of comments about the Penny Arcade Expo that a number of WotC designers went to this past weekend in the last couple of days.

The closest to a 4E "scoop" was here:

This week, though, it's back to work. I'm diving back into classes and monsters, to help get them in to a presentable form for upcoming playtests. I've made some adjustments to our system math, addressing issues like how accurate PCs and monsters should be against each other with their attacks, and how attacks vs AC might be different than other attacks/powers. I'm looking forward to the playtests, to help validate (or correct) some assumptions that we made about how PCs will be built. Things like what armor will PCs pick up and use? will players spread stats around or try to specialize their build? stuff like that.

 

[Glyfair]

While on the subject of Didier Monin, I recommend doing a search and looking at some of his most recent posts on the D&D Insider. There isn't a lot of new information there (at least as I write it), but there might be some bits that will give a slightly new light on things.

He has had to answer that D&D Insider won't be necessary to play D&D, and that the game table will not adjudicate rules over and over, though. I'm sure he must get getting tired of those questions.

 

[Jer]

Oh, they are great for making PCs feel incompetent. Little else says "You Suck!" as much as a baby dragon stomping the party at low level.

I don't think I ever had a group of players feel as silly as the group I had who tried (emphasis on TRIED) to fight the baby white dragon in The Sunless Citadel - that sucker cleaned their clock. They were glad to fight off a horde of goblins just to wipe the embarrasment of getting beat by a "cute widdle dwagon" off their minds...

 

[DaveMage]

I think your trying to be difficult . I think what they mean that this is the first MM that every dragon printed is ready to go right out of book.

Not trying to be difficult - just trying to correct inaccuracies that seem to me might be "spin".

I'm sticking with 3.5, but there are a number of things about 4e I find interesting. The things that are interesting I will use in my 3.5 game.

If a designer points out what they believe to be a "flaw" of the current edition, I think they should be sure that they have the facts correct. In this case, James seems (to me) to be a bit off. YMMV and all that, but James says there aren't any "ready-to-play" dragons in the MM. I count 10 ready-to-play dragons in there....

 

[Dinkeldog]

He has had to answer that D&D Insider won't be necessary to play D&D, and that the game table will not adjudicate rules over and over, though. I'm sure he must get getting tired of those questions.

I'd hope that the game table wouldn't adjudicate rules. I really like Rule 0 too much to be tied to automagically adjudicated rules.

All I really want is basically a communication device--visual (common and private) and audio chat channels, virtual map that's easy to use and manipulate, and a way to share rule snippets so that if there's some question with how a rule works (especially early on), we can all look at the text and come to consensus. Give me that and I'll be a happy camper. Scratch that. Give me that and I'll be an ecstatic camper.

 

[Glyfair]

James Wyatt follows up on Mike Mearls' article on encounter design. We even get a bit of a peek at how certain projects grew out of the 4E design process.

One of the things I said a lot at GenCon (usually in response to a question about whether Star Wars Saga Edition was a glimpse of things to come) was that we've been working on 4e for two and a half years, and just about everything we've produced in that time has been influenced by that work in its various stages. Tome of Battle reflects the state of 4e design as of last summer, when we didn't have the balance between daily and renewable resources figured out yet. PH2 reflects some of our philosophy on class design. SWSE uses a number of mechanics from a much more recent stage of 4e design and melds them with the prior edition of Star Wars and makes unique twists suited to the Star Wars universe. Secrets of Xen'drik was influenced by an early discussion about traps in 4e.

A less obvious influence than even some of those is some of our thinking about encounter design (as well as adventure presentation) that appears in recent adventures, and Mike's discussion about combining multiple rooms into a single encounter area is part of that. Expedition to Castle Ravenloft is a good example, because Bruce and I had to do exactly what Mike was doing—build a new adventure into a pre-defined map. Take a look at the Rooms of Weeping on pages 142-143. In the original adventure, those were like five different encounters. Now they're one.

There's a wonderful nod to verisimilitude that comes along with this philosophy: now it doesn't ruin the encounter when the monsters in the next room actually hear the sounds of fighting and come to help out!

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

I'd hope that the game table wouldn't adjudicate rules. I really like Rule 0 too much to be tied to automagically adjudicated rules.

All I really want is basically a communication device--visual (common and private) and audio chat channels, virtual map that's easy to use and manipulate, and a way to share rule snippets so that if there's some question with how a rule works (especially early on), we can all look at the text and come to consensus. Give me that and I'll be a happy camper. Scratch that. Give me that and I'll be an ecstatic camper.

Actually, it kills me that there hasn't been anything of this sort already. All the virtual tabletops I've seen lack such important features as a map editor. I can do without figures if there are at least tokens to use, but map-making software like Dundjinni is usually a pain in the butt to use for simple schematic dungeon and outdoor maps. Also, once you start adding on a program for map-making, a token pdf, a chat module, etc. it starts to become expensive.

Is it so hard to make a simple virtual tabletop? I really hope WotC gets it right this time.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Is it so hard to make a simple virtual tabletop? I really hope WotC gets it right this time.

That one thing would sell me on 4E and DDI. And I'm not just the only one. My friends from Chicago leaped at this same thing. Given that I was playing in 2 groups and both of them had at least one laptop at the table, it's definitely our big hope.

Then any group that I end up finding in the new locale (first year of teaching last year curtailed way too much of the social work, and it's work to find a new group) can only be an added benefit.

 

[Mercule]

These blogs are great. I'm feeling much better about the monster design, now.