The Glade 4.0

Starts today! Waiting on my email...

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

???

What is this?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You hadn't heard that Wizards is working on the successor to 4th Edition?

Well, they are. They announced it back in January. In addition, they are performing an open playtest -- anybody who registers on their site can participate.

It's my understanding that the first portion of the public playtest will focus on fighters, theives (err, rogues? Don't remember what they're calling 'em), wizards, and clerics. Feedback will factor into tweaks on these classes, as well as influence the design and order of release of the next batch of classes. (For instance, I think I saw that if fighters seem pretty solid, they'll go ahead and release paladins, but if they need to rework fighters, they'll hold off on paladins and release something else until they've got the fighter settled as a baseline)

The design goals behind the new system center around capturing the D&D feel (something that they admit they may not have stressed enough in 4th Edition) while building a modular system that has a lot of optional components built into the core rules.

To editorialize, I think it's an interesting (and ambitious) approach. If they succeed with the modularity, it will "end" edition wars -- from a sales perspective. If they can create a coherent design philosophy for supplemental and sourcebook material that plays equally well with the range of variance the modularity and invitation to DMs to "build the style of game that's right for you and your group", as it were, it'll be quite a coup for everybody involved. Fans of older styles will continue to get new material appropriate for them, fans of newer styles will continue to get support without being abandoned due to the (perceived or real) backlash against the progressive design tenets, and Wizards gets to sell to everybody instead of further fragmenting their market.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I heard about the new edition. I had heard nothing of this public playtest.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

You can sign up on Wizards' website.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

An interesting point about game design. Humanity routinely and habitually finds hacks and exploits in the laws of physics which, if you believe any of the special stories, were designed by a mind that is not only immeasurably superior to our own, but also fundamentally incapable of making mistakes. The lunar landing. The atomic bomb. Sheep cloning. OMG hax!

Yet we have a community that was righteously incensed that their favorite game possesses rules inconsistencies, possesses mechanics that can be exploited, and isn't perfectly balanced. However, should you point out that nobody in their right mind would play with such a broken monstrosity, the same community will cry foul and invent new buzzwords to make themselves sound more official. The GM, after all, is supposed to run a game as though he were a computer with strict programming that he can not deviate from. Of course, most gamers today are not tabletop gamers, they are computer gamers. Although they will complain about broken power combos and how they illustrate total incompetence on the part of the game designers, they will ***** endlessly about a nerf. To them, the broken combo is not actually a problem. It's their reward for what they perceive as having outsmarted the developers.

I actually don't have high hopes for fifth edition. The community has already developed a game. Fourth edition is the game that the community told WotC they wanted. That is what the community asked for on rpg.net, EN World, OOTS, and every other gaming forum throughout the entire lifespan of third edition. The community raved about Iron Heroes, and how fantastic it was that you didn't have wizards and clerics doing everybody's job for them. So WotC brought Mike Mearls in to write fourth edition like Iron Heroes. When the community got what they'd been asking for, they found out it wasn't what they wanted after all.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

On the topic of edition wars - why is this a bad thing?

D&D has gotten too big for one set of rules. Maybe it needs to go back to the old days of Basic D&D and Advanced D&D. Maybe we need a rules light version for hardcore role-players that don't really want to pick up their dice very often. Maybe we need a version that's strictly miniatures combat rules. Maybe we need a stripped-down beginner's version, and then another with all the bells and whistles. Maybe we need a version that doesn't use the d20 as the sole arbiter of outcomes.

The more people you have sticking their dicks in the pudding, the more likely someone's going to bust a nut, and nobody wants to eat that pudding afterwards.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I generally agree with both posts you've made here, Coro.

Personally, I don't mind 4th Edition. It's a nuisance to tweak, because creating power sets are more of a chore than most DMs really want to go through to tweak something or house rule new classes, etc. But if you're a player who plays stock WotC material, it's pretty adequate.

As for edition wars -- what you describe isn't a bad thing. It's a bad thing for whomever owns the IP of Dungeons and Dragons, to be sure -- because what you describe would require generating content for 5 different systems, which is resource-intensive for smaller shares of the market than if they could "unify" the brand and get edition peace to break out.

That said, I think having multiple systems is a good thing, it just doesn't make sense for one company to go after them all.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

The problem with 4e, kaffis, isn't that it wasn't any good. In fact, I suspect it's very good at what it was trying to be.

However, what it was trying to be, was NOT Dungeons & Dragons. Despite edition purists raving about their preferred version and against all others, 1e, 2e, 3e, and 3.5 all had the same D&D feel to them. There were certain common elements that have remained the same throughout, conventions that players came to view as core to the entire concept.

4e abandoned half of those conventions, in favor of being a miniatures combat game instead of a true spiritual successor to 3rd edition. It may be a very good miniatures combat game. It may be a great gaming system. But despite its label, it is not D&D.

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Well Ali Baba had them forty thieves, Scheherezade had a thousand tales
But master you in luck 'cause up your sleeves you got a brand of magic never fails...
...Mister Aladdin, sir, What will your pleasure be?
Let me take your order, Jot it down -You ain't never had a friend like me
█ ♣ █

That isn't entirely true. As a platform for the next D&D video game, it is an excellent edition. Putting aside setting butchery, dragonborn and other PC race shenanigans, fourth edition does have its strengths.

Fourth edition resolves the issue of being able to cheese your way around the limitations of spell-slots by replacing them with encounter and daily powers. This can be very easily modeled in a computer environment with a cooldown timer.

It also addresses concerns such as skill-based characters like rogues and bards not being terribly useful in a single-player game, by giving them something else to be the bailiwick of their class. Whereas before, the rogue was either absolutely vital or totally useless, with no area in between, now the rogue is a heavy damage dealer. The bard likewise is no longer crippled by the computer not being able to simulate social interaction by being a buffer and healer.

These solutions are not particularly appealing for a tabletop game, and that's where WotC ran into problems. They are a tabletop gaming company, not a computer gaming company. However, those were the players that WotC was trying to attract. This is evident in the later design of third edition, and is crystallized in the fourth edition Player's Handbook. Look at the races and classes that were introduced, and how the setting and mythology was shaping up.

Instead of being based off of various European mythologies, Lord of the Rings, Arthurian Legend, and other such tales, fourth edition draws heavily from World of Warcraft. Today's new gamers do not read books, they play games. WotC designed the system to be familiar to them. The setting elements can be reskinned. You can go through and turn everything back into the Lord of the Rings inspired D&D that we all know and love.

But it will still feel like a computer game.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I've signed up for the playtest packet. Not that I can retrieve it.

Therefore, to quote Ice-T when welcoming everyone to the 9th Annual International Player Haters Ball "Hate hate, hate hate hate hate, hate hate hate hate hate hate hate".

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Next nigga that says something while I'm talking is gettin' shot.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

I'm going to be honest and say that the thing I disliked about 4th edition is how it killed my favorite campaign world. Maybe we can pretend nothing in the 4th edition actually happened in the Forgotten Realms and it's back to normal with 5th edition.

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Los Angeles Kings 2014 Stanley Cup Champions

"I love this **** team right here."
-Jonathan Quick

You can always do that, you just have to adapt 3E or earlier FR material.

I must say, Coro sums up how 4E came about quite nicely. 4E was largely a product of internet discussion of theoretical problems under 3E that could happen - if the DM and the people you played with were willing to put up with a lot of cheese and an incredible amount of rules-lawyering. The problems, however, of what a 17th-level wizard might theoretically be able to do with access to every spell in the game and extensive preparation based on heavy use of divination spells (for example) weren't what most, or even more than a small minority of campaigns dealt with. We played at 16th-17th level in Coro's campaign and we never felt we could just curbstomp all comers, (not even Talya and I, playing full casters) mainly because no one was a cheesed-out *******, and Coro imposed reasonable limits as DM.

As to FR, I long for the days of the 1E boxed set. The FR world was far more, for lack of a better term, misty back then. The book left a great deal unclear. That's part of why my current campaign is in the South; it's never been as developed as anywhere else. It's got enough resources that I'm not relying only on my own creativity for new and different ideas, but its vague enough that I can do my own thing, and if it violates whats written on some FR wiki somewhere, so be it.

One thing Coro doesn't touch on (and may not be old enough to remember) is another type of baggage associated with the D&D/AD&D brand, and I think is obscured by the "MMO" effect he touches on: D&D is the founder and big kid on the block of RPGs. It's the original, the name people associate first with the concept of an RPG and the game that probably the vast majority of us still first get introduced to RPGs with.

Because of this, there's a certain elitism towards D&D in the "nerd community" that's been around a long time. It was pervasive when I was in college. Back at that time, TSR was first starting to struggle, and 2E was getting more and more encumbered with books of wildly varying quality. If you have access to them, compare the Complete Thief's Handbook to the Complete Cleric's Handbook.. you'll see what I mean.

At any rate, in the community of RPG and wargamers at Virginia Tech (and I have no reason to think they were unique in this respect) TSR-bashing was simply expected. Discussing D&D was very much like the worst of the WOW community forums - you couldn't say anything productive, but like WOW, everyone still played it. You'd hear constant raving about the wonders of Earthdawn, Vampire, Werewolf, Shadowrun, and a few others (never mind that only one of the above is a fantasy RPG) and people would play those.. but D&D was still the staple at the yearly convention and the weekly gaming meetings - well, except for Magic and WH40K, but they aren't RPGs.

The point is, knocking D&D is what people do becuase in the back of a lot of people's minds, it's the "beginner" game, and they're "advanced" players that play.. well, anything else, that's better, better meaning not available in Barnes and Noble. 4E is the product of a lot of that; the internet meant the bashing happened where the publishers could see it. They took it seriously, produced a game based on it.. and got one the community doesn't universally get behind as they did the previous times because a lot of it is really just the product of people ***** on the internet to sound cool. The sort of people that actually take GNS seriously and play things like Dogs in the Vinyard, or at least own a copy (I find it very hard to believe anyone has ever actually assembled a group to play a game about enforcing Mormon moral codes) and have a lot of time to sit there, optimize characters, and "hack" the system as Coro put it.

Most players aren't in that category, and if they acted that way at a real gaming table would get punched in the face, just like the players that would really try to render the rest of the party irrelevant by trying to rules-lawyer the monk's gauntlets away. The unfortunate fact, however, is that a sufficiently vocal minority can appear to be the community quite often.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

I don't game enough anymore to care. It's not like they are gonna seize all the 3.5 content at some point. They can do whatever they wish. If that makes me as bad as the generation who cant part with THACO, I just don't care anymore.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I received my email. haven't looked at it yet though.

I was able to retrieve the playtest packet this morning. It seems encouraging on first examination.

For this first open playtest, skills and saves are extremely basic. All checks are made against an attribute, as determined by the nature of the activity or detrimental effect. Combat is the only subsystem with any detail.

Characters are all pre-generated, but we can draw some conclusions. We're looking at a package creation system, it looks like. Aside from the expected race and class, backgrounds (which seem to provide skill bonuses and an occasional other benefit) and themes (benefits to combat or healing or casting, etc.) are included, although with the caveat that a "more old-school experience" will want to ignore them. Some classes (in this first playtest, only the rogue) choose a scheme. Hard to say what all might be available, as all there is to judge by is Scheme: Thief, with certain skill checks granted bonuses, and a couple of special abilities, as you might expect.

We've returned to a Vancian magic system. The only real change is that cantrips are at-will.

The included module is a modified version of Keep on the Borderlands. It contains just the Caves of Chaos, and I haven't really looked at it much to ascertain whether it's the entire cave complex.

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It appears to be the entire cave complex. Check the last page, Shuyung, for the map of the complex; I've leafed through to confirm that everything represented there has entries.

I like the notion of breaking "non-combat" skills out into background packages. It's a nice way to get some flavor in while also making sure that your fighters have some non-combat skills and utility, and an angle to "play" in social settings.

It also opens up some nice notions that would otherwise have required (or, at least, invited) prestige class shenanigans to justify (which would then have been ignored entirely in favor of purely analyzing and playing based on the combat potential of the prestige class levels) -- any class can, for instance, be a "priest" based on their background. Thus you can have assassin-priests of a death god who look more like rogues than clerics, or perhaps militant orders of fighterly crusaders in service of a god of war...

Finally, I think I really like the notion of replacing the assorted +2/-2 modifiers (many coming from feats) with advantage and disadvantage, which then grant roll-twice-and-choose-the-highest/lowest mechanics. It's a novel way to approach the issue of stacking without either creating big lists of sources that can/can't stack or letting the bonuses get stacked high enough to break the system.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

I'm not sure that the background packages are the only skill influence. This is only the first open playtest, and I'm sure things will change fairly wildly. I suspect that skills, at least, will get added in at some point, although I wouldn't mind saving throws to remain attribute by attribute. If you'll note all of the character sheets, they've all got the tag "For a more old-school experience, don't use background and theme". Still, being able to select/purchase different packages will streamline things, and I'm sure there'll still be ways to (for those who want to) individually select things.

There is some merit in the proposed advantage/disadvantage system, but I doubt it will replace the bonus/penalty system. I suspect it's intended to be an additional method to try to smooth out the curve.

-edit: Nice, the map is the original.

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Bleh to Vancian magic. The whole concept makes playing a caster irritating for me.

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Holy shitsnacks!

Mus, Magic Missile is a cantrip, now -- and cantrips are at-will. So that at least addresses the rationing combat magic to the point where the wizard casts a spell a fight and then sits around twiddling thumbs or forcing rests.

Shuyung -- I honestly think that they appear to be moving away from free-bought skills. And I think that's a good thing. Skill point distribution takes up a LOT of character creation time, without really adding a lot to the play experience, IMO. You're right, backgrounds and themes won't be the only source of skills; the Rogue Thief has skills as part of the package. That's more what I expect; some classes that have strongly linked skills, thematically, will come with those skills.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Biggest change that I like is that fights are streamlined. Have yet to see a D&D edition do that very well, including everyone's precious 3.5.

We did a quick playtest with two mock fights. 4 players and a DM. The first was against a gelatinous cube. The second was against 4 separate baddies (with each individual spots in the initiative order, instead of going in groups). Despite that, we got through them both in less than an hour (which also included a bit of RP in between). And this was at the end of the night when most of us were falling asleep at the table, and yet each combat still only took maybe 15 - 20 minutes each. The advantage/disadvantage system is pretty elegant and speeds things up quite a bit. Having quick access to the spell list would have made things go by even faster.

As a DM, being able to move your story along in large chunks in one night while still having several combat sessions happen is a very good thing. This edition should lend itself to that very well.

Reliance on the grid is gone, which will make a lot of people happy as well. I like the grid, but not necessarily always.

The only downside is that this system will make mediocre and poor DMs worse than they already are. It says right in the rules that the DM pretty much determines advantage/disadvantage at their whim and that most/all arbitrary things are left to the DM to make the call. Rules Lawyers are basically left with nothing to argue over (which can be good, to an extent). To a great DM, this will allow them to shine even brighter. But it will widen the gap between them and the others, making it more daunting to newer DMs and giving potential problems to a gaming group who has had to rely more on the rules than the DM in the past.

My only concern is that ugly thing called balance becoming an issue again, as well as reliance on healbots. It's too early and hard to say at this point. But I disliked (in older editions) the fact that playing a class that was "fun" sometimes meant playing a class that was far, far, FAR underpowered compared to others in the group. Which meant you were relegated to being a back-up dancer to the other characters' spotlight and being the shining star. 4th Ed did a very good job at class balance, and gave everyone a sense of feeling powerful. I hope this edition continues in that vein.

I did not like the magic system going back to the old ways, until I saw that Magic Missile, Shocking Grasp (which gives you advantage against metal creatures and npcs wearing a lot of metal), and Ray of Frost were all cantrips. That at least eased my anger of wizards blowing their load (and missing with everything) and then having to use nothing but a sling for the rest of the day. Lame, lame, lame, LAME LAME. Super lame. I've seen new players quit over that ****. And I don't blame them.

Some of the spells may need some tweaking. There are some that if a target has less than 10hp (total or remaining) then they automatically succeed. Absolutely no save is required. While that's nice for a player wizard when they go off (me being able to CC two dark priests with sleep made a big difference in our fight), it also means that it will work that way against PCs. So it's bringing back Ye Olde Gygaxian cheap spells that you could not do anything about, no matter how cool you are. And a mean DM who lets his metagaming creep in will use that every chance he/she can. Which again goes back to my widening the gap between mediocre/bad DMs and "good" ones.

Overall I have high hopes. I like it so far. I like the promise of being able to advance a story along much faster in a single night, along with several good combat sessions. I like being able to split up your movement before and after your attacks. I just hope the class balance is there. I hope it's still not as healer reliant, and that it is actually fun to play a healer supporting role. I hope power creep doesn't destroy it.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

Found out last night that intoxication might be a little overpowered. I made a split-second decision that my high elf wizard was going to be drunk all the time (like Dudley Moore's Arthur), figuring it would be fun to role-play against type a little bit even if there were downsides, which I figured there would be. Realized afterward what the effects of intoxication were. All rolls you make have a disadvantage, but you also gain 1d6 resist damage. Since wizards have a lot of spells that don't require them to make rolls themselves, this seems a bit powerful.

So I suggested that all enemies who have to make a saving throw do so with an advantage.

Still, even at a disadvantage a fighter could easily stay drunk all the time and soak up even more damage. This kind of encourages drunkenness a little much. Probably needs to be a few more downsides to it, maybe in the longer term.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

New packets of playtests went out. This time with races and classes and the info to create your own and level them all the way to 5.

Fairly interesting stuff so far, I am digging it. My biggest concern was the dumbing down of the martial classes back to pre 4.0 days - I swing my axe. I swing my axe again. Guess what I'll do this round? Swing my axe.

It is a simpler system than 4.0, but it's definitely not as simplified as the previous versions. Fighters still get to pick what style of fighter they want to play and they gain combat maneuvers pertaining to that role as they level. These maneuvers can be executed by spending an "expertise die." An expertise die or dice is basically a means of keeping track of extra "oomph" powers you can use per turn.

A fighter starts off with a 1d6 that he can set aside and on his turn he can use a power like "cleave" when he reduces a creature to 0 hitpoints. Cleave requires an unspent dice to activate, so he takes the die to signify he's using the power. After doing so, he can attack another melee attack against another creature within his reach. The size of the dice also factors into other powers like "deadly strike," where not only do you spend the die, but you add it's roll to the damage. You get more dice, and the dice get larger, as you level. This "expertise die" system is unique to the fighter, so the other classes still play differently.

Rogues go back to doing crazy sneak attack damage (6d6 at level 5), so that will make some folks happy. And like all the other classes, you can pick from several different styles of rogue to play and gain abilities as you level pertaining to your build. For example a Thug can do sneak attack damage without having to flank, as long as two other friendly party members are within reach of the creature. Or a Thief at level 2 can gain low light vision after spending one minute in darkness or shadows (super handy for a class scheme that spends the majority of its time in darkness).

I am thinking this has some serious potential here. And combat still appears to be pretty streamlined. There is going to be a lot more hit and run tactics since OA's are gone, I'm still on the fence about that. But I don't think it will be a big issue with me.

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Les Zombis et les Loups-Garous!

The new survey just came out, I think it's for the playtest packet released 10/29. This concerns me, as I don't remember seeing a survey for the playtest packet from 10/8. Haven't played with the newest stuff, yet, but I read through the changelog.

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