WoTC Interview with Rob Heinsoo

[Branduil]

I don't really get the point of your parody. D&D would suck if it used CoC rules. CoC would suck if it used D&D rules. The games appeal to different tastes.

 

[Wormwood]

If Wizards Did Call of Cthulhu

Unfair.

But I do like your summary of Spirit of the Century.

 

[darjr]

There are plenty of tournament style modules that did not allow for this. When the cleric and wizard were done, and the rest of the party was good, we would often push on. You cannot say that once the cleric or wizard is done it is over.

There are plenty of adventures in 4e, RPGA especially, that are entirely of this sort. Out of surges? Out of dailies? To bad. Go on or run away.

 

[catsclaw227]

In our group, no one played the fighter, or a single class. It was blatently apparent they sucked compared to a MC'd spellcaster, given how poorly the rules were designed. You'd be a level behind, in exchange for a massive powerup. Why be a fighter, when you could be a fighter/cleric, tossing around what amounted to save or die effects at 3rd level (hold person)?

If your group consists of minmaxers I can see this. Otherwise I have never seen this problem.

Oh come on.... just because a player doesn't like the fact that they are a less effective doesn't make them a min-maxer.

I have DMed many groups of VERY good roleplayers that have, on more than one occasion mentioned how much they felt behind the other players in the group (in 1e, 2e and 3e). Even if I counter it with "Well, just think of all the roleplaying opportunities it will open up", they say "I would rather have some great roleplaying opportunities and also feel like I am contributing with my class abilities like the other guys."

Perfect balance may not be what some people like. Maybe some like the major imbalances of class and race in 1e, but very, very few of the players I DMed in HS, college and afterwards were OK with it.

As stated before, why play a fighter when you can play a fighter-cleric? Oh yea... because in 1e only non-humans can be multiclassed. And a dwarf fighter cleric can be no higher than Ftr9/Cle8. Oh wait, in 1e only NPC dwarves can be a cleric.

Most players I games with, without question, preferred balanced PCs over unbalanced ones. Yes, its only my experience, but I've been DMing since 1978, so that's a lot of players.

Your insight is astounding. CLearly you are someone that has played with many groups of so called old schoolers to understand their secret.

Why would someone want to play the fighter? Because they did in fact NOT 'suck'. Most of my cahracters have been a fighting class mostly ranger. This nonsense of the fighters being the weakest class comes from people that did not understand the balance factour of the wizard was his spells per day. If you allowed rest periods like the 4e does, the wizard is never power downed. But a wizard USED to require strategy. You had to pick your spells carefully, and use them carefully or you would... uh oh! Run out of spells!

The fighter very often carried the party through these times. But you would have to assume an actual 8 hour day instead of 10 minute days. I never worried about that as a fighter.

OK, so at 3rd level, when the magic user in 1e used up his two 1st and one 2nd level spell, he was bonking with his quarterstaff and no armor for the rest of the game session until the part rested. In 1e, we rested a lot too. often 3-4 times a "day". He/She didn't trundle along with the fighter and stand back hoping to roll a 19 or 20 to hit. That did suck, and I had a few new players stop and ask to play a different character (or stop playing altogether) because they didn't quite grok the roleplaying part but felt useless as a character.

 

[catsclaw227]

There are plenty of adventures in 4e, RPGA especially, that are entirely of this sort. Out of surges? Out of dailies? To bad. Go on or run away.

Yep. There are also plenty of 4e DMs that do this with their home games as well.

 

[DaveMage]

Now, now DaveMage. You know as well as I do that in 1e there were level limitations. Racial and Class level limitations.

How did a dwarf become an 10th level fighter? Or what level of Druid did I take after 14th level?

You might counter with "Then dual class!!" or "Multiclass!". If I am not mistaken, multiclass was something you could only do at first level, and you had to be a non-human and there were only specific combinations available, and these were based upon your race.

With dual classing (humans only), you were denied the use of all your abilities and benefits when you changed classes (except HD and HP). So, I spend 3 years of gaming and 14 levels to become the greatest druid in the gameworld and then (because if course, I didn't want to be saddled with level limitations. I only have 1,500,001 XP and the M-U can get 3,000,000+ and be 18th level!) I became a magic user. I now couldn't use ANY of the abilities of the Druid and if I did, all the XP for the adventure would be lost.

So how are these rules good? My 9th level dwarven fighter is the best he can be. Ever. I would much rather be able to be 20th level or 30th level.

I played and DMed 1st edition for a long time. These rules always sucked. And almost every table I played at dropped the racial level limits not because we wanted the ceiling opened up to infinity, but because we wanted to ceiling raised to the same level for everyone.

Oh, I agree, demihuman level limitations sucked, which is why I always ignored them in 1E. Humans, of course, had no level limits.

Thinking about it more though, even if epic rules were something simple, it would be better than a cap. It could be like once you pass level 30, your class changes to "epic". So a 31st level character could be a Fighter 30/Epic 1, but not a Fighter 31.

A possible idea is that an epic character (in 3E terms) gains 5 hit points (modified by Con), an epic (or normal, if desired) feat, +1 to BAB and +1 to all saves. The key is the feat, of course, which can allow a character to gain some abilities that they might otherwise do with a class. Creative energy is now focused on available feats rather than available classes. While going up a level at that point may not be as exciting as getting a level in a particular class, at least it doesn't put a cap on things, and yet still allows for some customability.

 

[Shemeska]

If Wizards Did Call of Cthulhu

It's no fair that cultists of the Great Old Ones get all the best magic. Add "good guy" Elder Gods.

So... what you're saying is that 4e is the August Derleth of D&D?

 

[Treebore]

Just because WOTC capped the game at 30th level doesn't mean innovative DM's and their player groups won't be able to go beyond 30th level. It just means don't expect any company support for such games. Much like such support stopped at 20th level in 1E, 30th level in 2E, and 40th level in OD&D.

You could go beyond those levels, but you had to make up your own rules to do so. Same thing for 4E.

Besides, no one has unlimited potential, and certainly not the potential to become quasi deific, unless the DM wants their game to go there. So in 4E if you wish to go beyond 30th level you will have to make or adapt rules to run "god level" games.

Thats all the 30th level cap means, don't expect WOTC to support play past 30th level. 3 pp's will have to do that.

 

[billd91]

I don't really get the point of your parody. D&D would suck if it used CoC rules. CoC would suck if it used D&D rules. The games appeal to different tastes.

d20 Call of Cthulhu was a pretty good game. I prefer the BRP version, but the d20 version was well-received.

 

[Ariosto]

The games appeal to different tastes.

Precisely. D&D appealed to certain tastes, and 4E appeals to different ones. The trouble comes from slapping the "D&D" name on it. Spirit of the Century is (from what little I've seen) a splendid game, but so is CoC -- and SotC is not CoC (or Daredevils, or Justice Inc., or anything but itself).