e on 4e D&D: If you build it, they will come. If you tear it down and rebuild it, they’ll be pissed for a while, but eventually they’ll get over it and come.
Dave over at Critical Hits had a great post on Friday about tearing down a game and recreating it in hopes of making it stronger.
This reminded me about when I was doing my Senior Project for my Creative Writing Major. (I was a double major in Music and Creative Writing….. would you like fries with that?)
I had written about 12 pages of the 5th and last short story for my portfolio and it just wasn’t going where I wanted it to go. It had started strong but just lost its flow (and frankly, a couple characters were annoying me.) I had showed my professor the draft a few times and he was liking most of it, but it just wasn’t working for me.
I deleted all but the opening paragraph and started over.
Three days before the portfolio was due.
I gave him four completed stories and the new beginning of the fifth (about 3 pages), with a note saying that I was sorry, but I had to start it over because I wasn’t satisfied with it.
When we met for a conference, I was ready to keep apologizing for the lack of a 5th story, but he raved about how gutsy it was for me to have axed 12 pages of writing instead of trying to salvage it.
Sure, sometimes you create something and it’s pretty cool. But sometimes you need to cut that thing down to it’s bare bones and rebuild it. It’s risky. The people who loved the original might be furious with you for changing it. It might not come out better than its predecessor.
But you have faith. Faith that if you build it, they will come. Faith that yes, it may be different, it may be a tough transition for some, but in the end, it will be better, stronger, faster and 25% more fun than a barrel of inebriated monkeys.
Let’s hope that’s what WotC did with 4e. I have faith. Do you?
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Glad you liked the article. I assumed that all the creative writing majors out there (at least, the talented ones) would get what I was talking about.
Of course, I was only thinking about it because I’m working on revising my projects for finals now (or more specifically, I’m procrastinating working on my finals by commenting on blogs.)
It is indeed the season of procrastination, even for those of us on the other side of the desk.
Do I have faith about 4e D&D? Simply, no. I think this is about the 5th ‘rewrite’ from the ground up - but the fundamentals are much the same and every new edition ends up with something people don’t like about it.
I haven’t seen any good arguments that say 3.5e is so totally broken that a new edition is needed for me to have fun roleplaying. We generally paper over the bits we don’t like (crits) with house-rules anyway and there’ll be something else that gets broken in 4e I’m sure.
I’m still unsure. I’m going to look over the SRD when it comes out, but already there’s a lot from previews I know I don’t like, but I’m still hoping. I have to agree with a lot of the common complaints though, as well as a few of my own complaints.
1. I think gnomes should stay. People say they’re forced in because they go into the Elves love of magic and the Dwarves underground type characters. But, that’s why they’re tinkerers in every setting, because they have access to materials, mundane and magical, to build stuff. To make them a fey seems even like they’re stepping on more shoes, given every fey is basically the same in terms of what it does (protecting a natural area and playing tricks).
2. Tieflings as a PC-race seems out of place. Fiends don’t breed mindlessly with humans, so how are hundreds of fiendish people everywhere.
3. Making Eladrin so that there are 4 PC-races of Elves (Eladrin, Elves, Drow, Half-Elves) seems like it contradicts the fact of the gnomes that they didn’t want a race which is too similar to another race.
4. Saves are one of the most iconic things from DnD, that even non-nerds seem to usually get the reference to. Now you have a Fortitude AC, Reflex AC, and Will AC. Meaning there are no area effects, taking away the difference between a monster made for spell casters to fight and a tank to fight (High AC vs. High Saves), which will make it a hell of a lot harder to tailor a campaign to your players.
@Gynexl
Simply, no. I think this is about the 5th ‘rewrite’ from the ground up
Actually, while 3e changed a lot, it and every iteration before it was merely a reworking of the same old thing. 4e is really the first time they went back to the ground and rebuilt it. I agree, however, that there will always be something that at last some group of people don’t like. Can I ask just what you dislike about crits?
@Mystrich
But, that’s why they’re tinkerers in every setting
From my recollection, they’re only tinkerers in Dragonlance and World of Warcraft. Now, being a Dragonlance fan, I like this role for them. But in other settings, such as FR, they’re mostly shoved out of the way and ignored, or given a different role (like “trickster”).
Tieflings as a PC-race seems out of place. Fiends don’t breed mindlessly with humans, so how are hundreds of fiendish people everywhere.
For that, Tieflings have been changed somewhat. Instead of necessarily having fiend blood (though some might), they are the descendants of a kingdom that made infernal pacts. Through these pacts, they were given power, but were cursed in their physical appearance. They are still human, but the curse also dictates that all of their children will bear the mark that they chose, in the form of the twisted physical appearance as well.
So they did think that through.
4 PC-races of Elves (Eladrin, Elves, Drow, Half-Elves)
While I agree, I want to point out that Drow are no more PC races than Gnomes. Both will have rules in the Monster Manual, and both will likely be fleshed out in the PHB2 (where we’ve just recently been told that the PHB2’s races start with the letters D, G, G, H, and S, and I bet the D and one G are Drow and Gnome).
4. Saves are one of the most iconic things from DnD, that even non-nerds seem to usually get the reference to. Now you have a Fortitude AC, Reflex AC, and Will AC. Meaning there are no area effects, taking away the difference between a monster made for spell casters to fight and a tank to fight (High AC vs. High Saves), which will make it a hell of a lot harder to tailor a campaign to your players.
Interesting opinion, but from what I’ve player, ill-informed.
For one, there most definitely are area attacks. The difference is that now, when the mage shoots off a fireball, instead of every enemy making a save against it, the mage makes an int-based attack roll against each of their reflex defenses. Same number of rolls, but keeps the attacker doing the rolling. Also, easy to change and house-rule back to normal.
But how does a mage hit that reflex defense with a low BAB? What BAB? Your bonus on attack rolls is (1/2 level + ability score + bonus from magic weapon). Melee types will get bonuses on melee attacks, of course, and mage types will bet bonuses on magic attacks, so it’s not like the mage will be as good in melee as the fighter, though.
As for tailoring the campaign to your players? This will actually make it easier, since you won’t need to worry about the High AC vs High Saves. You won’t come across the situation where the monster has a manageable AC to let your fighters shine, but saves so high that your casters have no chance, or vice versa. You will no longer have to worry about a monster’s stats nerfing half your group, just to get a decent challenge for the other half.
And saving throws do still exist, if in a different form. They are used to throw off ongoing effects now.
(By the way, to house rule is back from Fort/Ref/Will Defense to Fort/Ref/Will Saves, just do the following:
Save DC = 10 + mage’s attack roll.
Saving throw = 1d20 + (target’s defense score - 10)
Easy, and keeps the same balance.)
Go Graham, go Graham…
I think that comment probably wins the longest comment award. If I had such an award, that is…
@Graham - granted yes, not all that many complete rewrites from the ground up, but certainly each new edition is substantively different.
Regarding crits, 3.5e system isn’t too bad but it is confusing and slows down gameplay since we play every 3 months at best. Ironically the house rule we use is what I believe they’ve done in 4e - 20 on attack roll. A crit is a crit is a crit.
I generally don’t like house rules as I think the more vanilla the gaming system the more tested it should be. Everybody changes things they don’t like though to suit themselves - by way of example our latest campaign proffered the following house rules (which were howled down by all the players - we thought through the potential impact on gameplay and didn’t like it):
1) 0 hp or less - unconscious and dying. Further damage is applied normally and might kill you (see #2).
2) Death is when negative hit point total reaches the lower of -10 or (-1 x one-quarter of full normal hit points).
3) If you are dying, roll 1d20. < 10: You get worse. If you get this result three times before you are healed or stabilized (as per the Heal skill), you die. 10-19: No change. 20: You wake up with 1/4 of full normal hit points. You don’t roll if you are stabilised & not dying.
4) If a character with negative hit points receives healing, he returns to 0 hp before any more healing is applied.
From my recollection, they’re only tinkerers in Dragonlance and World of Warcraft. Now, being a Dragonlance fan, I like this role for them. But in other settings, such as FR, they’re mostly shoved out of the way and ignored, or given a different role (like “trickster”).
Eberron as well (they’re better known for Houuse Sivis and their spying network, but the gnomes are the best elemental binders on Khorvaire, only surpased in the world by the Drow and Dragons), and I think there’s another one I’m forgetting.
Also, (sorry to double post) I didn’t realize that the Attack Bonuses was changing like that (I was under the impression touch spells would still be a Str mod and ranged spells were still Dex, along with a bad BaB). I suppose that makes it slightly better, although as much as I don’t like using the Tradition should stay argument, I still thinks saves are one of the most iconic DnD things and one of the things that even people who haven’t played at least get the reference to.
Ah, yes, I forgot about the Eberron elemental binding. But even with that, they gain yet another role in Eberron as the spies.
Personally, I think that shifting them to trickster fey (which is their real-world roots after all) is probably for the best. Individual settings can always deviate, and it’s nice to have a baseline.
As for saves, yeah, I agree that the term is immediately recognizable. But that person probably wouldn’t be able to tell you what it is. For instance, most of my players are new to the game. One of them decides to play a caster, and casts a spell. The first thing out of their mouth (every time, from every first-time caster I’ve seen) is “Okay, I roll an 18, do I hit?”
At which point, I need to explain to them that they don’t roll. Instead the other person rolls a save. Essentially, though they know the term, and they roll their own saves already, they still aren’t familiar with exactly what a saving throw is.
Even after many levels playing that character, they are only now starting to get the feel of whether something requires a roll from them or not.
But not only is in not intuitive to them to not have to roll when they attack (after all, the fighter does, and their Ray of Frost does), it seems unfair to them. They no longer have control of their spells.
This has been my experiences over the past 2 years, with new players coming in occasionally throughout that time.
As such, it’s obvious to me that the system needs to be changed. If you’ve played with it for years, you know it, but it just doesn’t make sense to newbies. And that’s a problem.
Bringing up Ray of Frost…actually, I’m going to go put that in the inside jokes post.
I’m cautiously optimistic. Not for me, honestly. I discovered a few years ago that I’d slid into grognard territory and I find the gaming is quite pleasant there. But my own gaming desires are moving away from D&D right now and into terra incognita.
The danger with starting over, what makes it a “gutsy” choice is that it might not work. You could very well end up with something that was worse than what you had before. I consider this extremely unlikely, but after the fumble that was the first version of Star Wars d20, I don’t think it’s impossible. My nightmare scenario is people figuring out that the optimal party build is a pair of warlords and everyone else playing warlocks and rogues. :/
Still, I think that’s rather unlikely, and I know there are some folks that are going to love 4e. I’m really looking forward to seeing what sort of adventures people make with it.
- Brian