The Gaming Den

why call it a death blow, if it doesnt outright kill?

fuck it treat it like a magic card... this loss of HP cannot be prevented if successful. so if a CdG goes through.

why should something made to kill (since people want some sort of assassin class), deal damage through the HP system?

its like old called shots, you jsut got so damn lucky to hit a vital spot that even magic will be too slow to save them. magic can bring them back, but for now, they are dead.

Why should low levels be able to kill high levels by slitting their throat in the first place?

Isn't the point of having levels the fact that low levels become push overs?
If you dislike that, why not remove the concept of levels completely?

Because Shadzar thinks 2E is best, and 2E was full of "Fuck you, you just die" things instead of having actual solid rules and sticking to them.

So an ant/unarmed starving peasant, instead of doing 0 or 2 damage respectively when trying to kill a sleeping archmage/Conan/mountain giant/polar bear, just instantly kills them, bam. Likewise, no matter how tough and awesome and fire resistant/immune you are, you fall in lava? Bam, dead.

If you find yourself saying "That's fucking stupid", then welcome to Shadzarland.

The other extreme would be a 4e kobold rolling a boulder down a hill; damage dealt is entirely dependant on the level of the attacking creature and not the actual mode of attack. Sounds reasonable until you have different level monsters in an encounter, all rolling identical boulders.

Personally, I think if the players have access to instant kill effects or effects that can similarly remove an enemy from play, then they should expect to encounter that shit in a game. Be it an annoying death trap or a Hold Person spell.

The elimination of risk does not equate to happy fun times for all. Hitting a bubble-wrapped pinata until treasure and magical items fall out is incredibly fucking tedious. Sure, noone likes to have their character die in an ignoble fashion, but some of those experiences are pretty memorable, especially when they happen to other people. I can honestly say that I would rather have a sadistic arsehole of a DM than some ingratiating wanker wearing kid-gloves. At least with the sadist my characters continued existence would come with a sense of accomplishment, however fleeting that may be.

Winnah wrote:The other extreme would be a 4e kobold rolling a boulder down a hill; damage dealt is entirely dependant on the level of the attacking creature and not the actual mode of attack. Sounds reasonable until you have different level monsters in an encounter, all rolling identical boulders.

But that is because your example is retarded. You'd expect if a 8 strength goblin rolls down a boulder at you it would deal less damage than if a 500 strength giant threw one at you, or whatever.

Model Citizen wrote:If you're worried about environmental damage and assassinations, why not just have those scale with the target's level? Like CDGing someone deals weapon damage + 75% of the target's maximum HP. Then for the most part humans never outlevel having their throats slit, and you still get results that interact correctly with healing and damage reduction.

This is a good post. Why is it so hard for people to just figure out a compromise?

Beyond Class and Race
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... s_and_race

For a player like Chris, who just wants to get in and out of character creation as fast as possible, these big decisions are the only ones he wants to make.

But we don’t want to require our more casual players, such as Chris, to have to make these decisions.

oh fuck face...calling someone that wants simple character creation, and to create the character ONE time, BEFORE play, casual is a complete fucking insult, not just to the players you dont know, but to a playstyle. you insinuate these are beer-and-pretzels players. while YOU may be a fucking drunkard, whoever you are Evil_Reverend, but i dont condone drinking you fucking cum stain.

But Laura loves to tinker with her characters, wants to choose her skills, feats, and other mechanical options to create the character she sees in her head. Two choices for her are not enough. Since 3rd Edition, players customized their characters by choosing skills and feats. We want to preserve the option to make these choices so that players such as Laura are happy.

So how can we do this?

front-load character creation so it is done ONCE, BEFORE you begin to play.

note your own words, "character creation", not "character recreation at every level".

sure you mention the expanding OPTIONS under 2nd edition and so on,...

As the game evolved, players gained more choices to help create the character they wanted to play. Second Edition expanded the proficiency system and introduced kits. Third Edition replaced proficiencies with skills and feats, and it added prestige classes. Fourth Edition ditched prestige classes but brought in paragon paths, epic destinies, backgrounds, and themes.

...but what you fail to understand is with 2nd they were still OPTIONAL, and 3rd made all those things REQUIRED. the few OPTIONS 3rd had then...4th made REQUIRED.

this is NOT how to build a better game. this is not evolving of a game, just forcing more crap that people dont want. evolving would have made more OPTIONS, but understand they are STILL OPTIONS.

did you think maybe Chris just doesnt give two shits about NWPS, skills, feats, epic destinies? epic destinies ofr one has a name of something that doesnt belong in the game.. DESTINY implies NO CHOICE.

and backgrounds were always in the game and made an impact on the story, just not the math on the character sheet.

more shit from designers who dont even understand the game to begin with and are supposedly trying to end edition wars and bring the game under one big umbrella for all editions. you cannot design for what you do not understand, and it seems NOBODY at WotC understand the old-school style play or anything behind it, let alone the rules of it; so how can they design anything that will "feel" like it?

but lets read on...

Our current plan is to condense skill and feat choices into two choices: background and theme. Background tells you where you came from, who you were, and what you are trained to do.

you used a dictionary to find out what a word really means rather than to make up a meaning contrary to its real meaning jsut for the game?

Where background speaks to the skills you possess, your theme describes how you do the things you do. All fighters, for example, kick ass in combat because they are fighters.

im reading gibberish in here...

so background has a group of mechanics with it like 2nd secondary skills, so you dont have to choose those things, just a background package?

theme is a package of abilities you gain over a set of levels but pick before you begin to play? so it is a class?



so basically the article is saying, 3rd/4th edition shit that people didnt want or like about those editions are in the game and here to stay. if you dont like it suck a dick, cause they are part of your background and theme.

well that really captures the "feel" of earlier editions that didnt have all that nonsense on the character sheet right? because you didnt have to pick but two things and still have to track the 30 or 40 little packets those 2 things go along with.

Here is the stock version of the car we can sell. this space in the dashboard can had a radio or AC, but has to have one or the other, you cant buy without either.

So if you’re like Chris and just want to play D&D, our system is for you.

really? where is the place to play where i dont have to choose the background mechanics or thematic mechanics, and can play a game without them even form other players?

the one where the race and class give me the things background and theme do in your example?

No poll from me today,

well at least someone there realizes they suck at making polls, now if only you would understand that means you such at working with information, either gathering it or using it.

5e will be 3.9e (saying PF is 3.75)...there will be no pre-WotC D&D play options or "feel". they just want the PF players back, but probably wont get them because they would have to learn a new game with less support than an OGL version of "D&D".

ishy wrote: But that is because your example is retarded. You'd expect if a 8 strength goblin rolls down a boulder at you it would deal less damage than if a 500 strength giant threw one at you, or whatever.

Retarded? That's how improvised attacks work in 4e. It does not really matter if the rolling boulder is set in motion by a kobold with a crow-bar or an ogre using brute strength. Damage is determined by the the level of the attacker.

A feeble, but high level creature will do more damage than a strong, low level creature.

Substitute the attack for something that does not rely on strength and it can become even more ridiculous.

Why should low levels be able to kill high levels by slitting their throat in the first place?

For one thing, player characters may want to slit an enemies throat while they are sleeping. Unconscious opponents, enemies that are magically sleeping, held, petrified, whatever. Sometimes they may just want to put a jar of alchemists fire between an incapacitated trolls jaws and curbstomp the fucker into oblivion. Some of those opponents are going to be higher level than the player characters.

Having to use a different set of rules to adjudicate the result of a fatal attack, depending on the relative power of the target and attacker, on whether the target is a PC or not, is not a consistant rule set. It's moronic and adds far too much needless complexity to an otherwise intuitive resolution of an action.

You want to make a set of rules whereby high level characters get Plot Armour or can cheat death a few times per adventure, then go ahead. It would be far preferable to altering the basic applications of a combat system according to who is attacking who.

Winnah wrote:

Why should low levels be able to kill high levels by slitting their throat in the first place?

For one thing, player characters may want to slit an enemies throat while they are sleeping.

pretty much why sleep or hold-X spells are on most wizards spell lists. the combat is over in the blink of an eye. i thought this is why people hated wizards stealing spotlight form fighters or some nonsense.

undefendable enemy means dead with NO effort or rules needed. (see Trojan War)

The Trojan War is a shit example. In D&D challenge rating or power level or whatever you feel like calling it means crossing off stupid mortal shit from your list of things that bother you. A high-level cleric or something is supposed to have erased "throat being slit by guy whose superpowers are 'bad diet' and 'blunt sword'" just like he's eliminated "breathing" and "hot things." If your advancement just means more +1's to your stupid fucking attack roll, why have levels at all? If you want the goblins' nightly raid with knives to be an actual thing in your campaign, stick below level 6.

You can't have a story where it's of equal relevance to shift to the plane of the King of The Bleeding Suns the Efreet and turn his plane into a ball of iron, dominate everyone and everything there and use these two as a wrecking ball and an army, respectively, to beat the Lesser Gods of Death over their barebone heads (in a single round, of course,) and at the same time treat a "trojan warrior" is like a real threat.

EDIT: I clicked "ignore." Why on Satan's green earth would I then click "view this user's post anyway." I knew it's going to be idiotic. I have no learning curve.

Winnah, I'm pretty sure most people here aren't proposing the 4E method, they're proposing what has worked totally fine in 3E (until now, apparently). Observe:

Ant tries to CdG a bear: it deals 0*2 = 0 damage, and does not force a save. The bear doesn't even roll over in its sleep.

Commoner (unarmed) attempts to CdG a bear: he gets his crit for 4 damage, the bear needs to make a DC 14 Fort Save, and usually passes - but there's still a small chance (20%) that he actually managed to kick its windpipe in and kill it.

Goblin with a dagger attempts to CdG some kind of character with DR 5/magic. It goes "RAAA!" and rolls 2d3-2, for 2-10 = zero damage, he can't affect them. If they're not enjoying their DR and it is a hobgoblin though, then even with the dagger it's 2d4+2 = 7, and that's a DC 17 save. Many humanoid characters can still be killed even when they're big and tough. But if they're a Titan or something, they shrug it off. Likewise Conan literally doesn't give a shit about it and goes back to sleep.

Now the hobgoblin is a level 3 warrior/fighter with the elite array (so 17 Strength) and Power Attack, and uses a scythe. 8d4+60 = 80 damage. Many people will die just from the damage, but even so, enjoy your DC 90 Fort Save if you aren't immune to critical hits.

And that's fine. It very quickly gets to a point where we say "If you aren't specifically immune, normal people can kill you in your sleep (or when fully paralyzed or whatever)". And then people can just go about becoming immune. But things that literally cannot hurt them still can't kill them (this is important), and things that can barely hurt them might not actually be able to manage the task.

I am fine with the "Killing a defenceless target" rules of 3E. We do not have to entertain thoughts of how to fix them, or whether the 2E or 4E way would be better.

Winnah wrote:

ishy wrote: But that is because your example is retarded. You'd expect if a 8 strength goblin rolls down a boulder at you it would deal less damage than if a 500 strength giant threw one at you, or whatever.

Retarded? That's how improvised attacks work in 4e. It does not really matter if the rolling boulder is set in motion by a kobold with a crow-bar or an ogre using brute strength. Damage is determined by the the level of the attacker.

Improvised weapons in 4e are things you pick up and hit stuff with. A boulder is thus not an improvised weapon.

Winnah wrote:

Why should low levels be able to kill high levels by slitting their throat in the first place?

For one thing, player characters may want to slit an enemies throat while they are sleeping. Unconscious opponents, enemies that are magically sleeping, held, petrified, whatever. Sometimes they may just want to put a jar of alchemists fire between an incapacitated trolls jaws and curbstomp the fucker into oblivion. Some of those opponents are going to be higher level than the player characters.

Having to use a different set of rules to adjudicate the result of a fatal attack, depending on the relative power of the target and attacker, on whether the target is a PC or not, is not a consistant rule set. It's moronic and adds far too much needless complexity to an otherwise intuitive resolution of an action.

You want to make a set of rules whereby high level characters get Plot Armour or can cheat death a few times per adventure, then go ahead. It would be far preferable to altering the basic applications of a combat system according to who is attacking who.

WTF are you talking about?
I'm just advocating keeping it in the hp system. Why would you build a completly confusing and different system if you can just use the one you have?

@Koumei The fort save for Coup de grâce is 10+ dmg dealt, not 15

ishy wrote: @Koumei The fort save for Coup de grâce is 10+ dmg dealt, not 15

Fixed.

Damage scales a fuck tonne faster than save bonuses do. While the goblin/bear examples seem fine, the 7th level rogue/ancient dragon example is more problematic. The 7th level Rogue's CdG does like 31 points of damage, which is a DC go-fuck-yourself for a monster of almost any level.

So I'm not super pleased with how CdG scales. But at low levels it works exactly as intended.

-Username17

At mid/high levels I'd start adding HD based-bonuses, perhaps. Clean immunity after a certain level of DR, maybe. Something like that.

Red Archon wrote:At mid/high levels I'd start adding HD based-bonuses, perhaps. Clean immunity after a certain level of DR, maybe. Something like that.

I was thinking more along the lines of possibly adding size modifier(s).

What if a CdG took a target down to half HP, then dealt damage, rather than killing outright?

Damage would have to scale massively to take down something like a dragon. You could maim it severely, but usually not kill it right away. Little beings would still outright die though.

FrankTrollman wrote:But at low levels it works exactly as intended.

-Username17

That tends to be 3.x in a handbasket.

Ishy wrote:Improvised weapons in 4e are things you pick up and hit stuff with. A boulder is thus not an improvised weapon.

No. That is not the table he is referring to. There is a table with a big pile of dice by level, and those piles of dice gradually get larger, and they are used for environmental/miscellaneous attacks. That table is not referring to improvised weapons, because if so past a certain level the best weapon in the game becomes "table leg" because its base 1W is higher than anything else due to your level.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizo ... ost5874234

WotC_Trevor wrote:

WheresMyD20 wrote:I don't like this idea. Even if you have pre-gen builds, casual players still need to deal with a multitude of skills, feats, etc.

How about if the DM doesn't want to deal with the micro-management of all the different skills, feats, etc.? Can the DM still run a simple game?

I thought the point of 5e was to have a simple core and then layer on complexity. This article makes it seem like 5e has a complex core and then is trying to layer on simplicity. It's backwards and I doubt it will accomplish what they want it to.

With this idea, I don't see why backgrounds and themes couldn't be optional. If that's the case (Rob didn't say one way or the other, but it makes sense to me that it's optional) then you could easily run a game without themes and backgrounds which would leave out feats and skills.

oh?

This approach does many things for us. It speeds up character creation. A player such as Chris can just take the background and theme listed in the class’s starting package. And Laura can customize her character by choosing a background and theme to create something unique.

Laura might balk at having these micro-decisions made for her. As evocative and flavorful as backgrounds and themes will be, there’s nothing stopping Laura from constructing her own background (by picking some skills) and determining her own theme (by picking some feats).

So if you’re like Chris and just want to play D&D, our system is for you. And if you’re like Laura, you can tinker to your heart’s content and customize your character in whatever way you want. And if you’re somewhere between the two, then we’ve got you covered.

sure as fuck reads like Chris is forced to have feats and skills in the game no matter if he wants them or not, if Laura is allowed to take them, then Chris is stuck with them, and he HAD to choose them, even if the ones int he "starting package".

as i said, these feats and such are being forced unto Chris whether he likes them or not in most cases, or Laura will bitch because the book has them but she cant use them for some reason she cannot fathom because the makers of D&D (at WotC) dont have the balls to tell players you can only use what your DM allows. They would rather obfuscate the meaning of core, or the DMs right to choose what they are willing to work with, even if for the majority of players.

a good DM will always pick the lesser amount of work during the game, to make the game play better.

Chris and Laura cannot play in the same game, if Chris wants nothing to do with feats, and Laura wants them. there is no umbrella D&D edition in this manner.

and like was mentioned, if Chris is a brand new player, the amount of crap to learn is unwieldy compared to BD&D; no matter what Mearls' "Expanding Gamer Brain" nonsense L&L article said, because Mearls is a fucking idiot like Monte.

but i dont expect payment center tech for Digital River, turned Community Manager, to understand anything about D&D, or the design process. i would expect one living in the USA to understand English(American) though.

so yeah Chris is fucked, or Laura is fucked; in the case where Chris doesnt want to deal with feats/skills for whatever reason.

have you had this situation of peasants slitting dragon throats come up before

If it actually came up in your game before, how did you resolve it.

5e... 3.x CdG rules really have nothing to do with D&D Next, except prove that an assassin class isnt needed and anyone should be able to do that even a wizard that can sleep and then insta-death an enemy.

D&D Next Design Considerations
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20120409

Goal #1: Reunification through Common Understanding

Anyone who has ever played any version of D&D must recognize and understand its most important elements.

so it will be BD&D for next, because some people ONLY played that version and never moved to AD&D.

also it must be only 4th edition, as there are some people that have only played that version.

there is NO way to combine those into a single feel or group of most important elements if ANY fluff is included or crunch, as they are vastly different. your 1st goal already is a failure.

the only thing you can distill it down to is "killing shit and taking its stuff"..and that is NOT what D&D is about contrary to what James Wyatt claims.

Goal #2: Reunification through Diversity

Traditionally, D&D editions have focused on specific play styles. This approach has fragmented the community over time.

this is a boldfaced lie. BD&D and AD&D both had people complaining with Gary over "thespianism" which gained the famous angst form Gary that the game wasnt about thespianism. While Gary played dungeon-crawls heavily because he designed it, other people oddly played more story driven or roleplay driven games such that Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance exist outside of a collection of dungeon-crawls set in Greyhawk.

ONLY 4th edition directly focuses on a singular playstyle, combat grinds; and 3.x focuses heavily on building dream characters more than playing them. I would not consider 3.x focuses on a playstyle, since building an optimized character has nothing to do with a playstyle, but a character building method, of which there has ALWAYS been different options and methods.

ALL TSR editions and 3.x had open playstyle to an extent (when you dismiss 3.x WBL and that other nonsense that removes ability to play a merchant playstyle and others)

what fragmented the community was the fact that when WotC took over it had no balls to tell people "No", and tried to remove the DM ability to say "No" because someone bought a book, and therefore WotC declared they had a right to use it in all games. League play, and then Living and Encounter play programs further this; but fail to admit, that a DM owes the players nothing, and WotC cannot provide anything for a purchased book, rather than the contents of a book.

Also constantly making incompatible content since WotC put its hands on the D&D property has fragmented the community.

Demons and Devils, is a trivial thing to the most hardcore whiners about 2nd edition. Likewise those 1st edition Gary worshipers crying because Gary was gone form TSR. Yes, he left, he failed as a business man running a company and choosing partners, but he helped develop a great game, and 2nd is only really minor changes from 1st.

AD&D ALWAYS was intended to change the game, and make a SECOND game, not compatible with D&D.

then WotC comes along and drops the (A)dvanced and claim an add-on set of rules changes to AD&D was D&D, while they were incompatible by far as far as 3.x and BD&D are concerned.

incompetency at WotC has done FAR worse to fragment the community with its "you are doing it wrong and always were" ads from 4th edition, as well the 3.0 hype claiming similar about "things in 2nd broken have finally been fixed". (will dig out a Dragon from that time to find a quote from an ad from 3rd if/when i can)

once again Mearls blaming people that created something that has lasted this long that he should feel lucky enough to be riding their coattails, rather than himself and WotC who caused the fucking problems.

cause WotC cannot admit it has faults, just like Monte and Mearls.

Goal #3: Reunification through Accessibility

However, our standard goal is to remove minimum group sizes, allow for a complete adventure in one hour of play, and satisfying campaigns in 50 hours of play.

"50 hours of play"...this is a video game philosophy created at the time a game cost $50 (49.95) so that the game beat out the arcade for all but the elite arcade players. an hour only costed 4 quarters...$1. so if the video game you play at home, can be played for 50 hours without boring you to not play it, then at $1 per hour, the price of the $50 game can be a justified expense in those early days.

also the other drizzle in that part is just laughable.

D&D has traditionally required large amounts of time, a large play group, and a sustained commitment.

*buying an adventure...that takes SOOO much time
*people have been playing single-player or even solo-D&D sicne the beginning. it doesnt require larger groups, it can be done by yourself, or with one other person.
*commitment? so every convention game and LGS game has been wasted time, since those short term one-shots havent met the D&D standards?

how many fucking people do you intend to insult with your horseshit and misunderstandings claiming your spew actually has any bearing on reality?

Game Design

The new system must create a mechanical and mathematical framework that the play experience of all editions of D&D can rest within.

this sounds like someone not liking 4th edition must still use it because someone else does, even though they prefer BD&D. an amalgam edition will NOT work. i better see THAC0 and descending AC, in if you intend to give the "play experience" of 2nd edition.

One player can create a 4th-Edition style character while another can build a 1st-Edition one.

are you so fucking stupid to not understand?

D&D and AD&D are TWO different sets of games to get TWO different types of games from.

*AD&D was created in part to have a legal divorce from D&D. (see Gygax v Arneson)
*AD&D was also supposed to be more complex and further distanced from the wargames that D&D was created from.
*4th edition is closer to OD&D since it is a tactical miniature wargame at its core and therefore cannot support ANYTHING dealing with AD&D.

because you are too stupid to not buy into the hype of 3rd D&D, you better goddamn learn the truth now. 3.x was a continuation along the path taken by AD&D 2nd Edition Revised + Player's Options, ergo 3rd edition AD&D.

why dont you try to combine another similar game like you are trying to do with D&D and AD&D since you are owned by HASBRO?

combine Parchisi, Sorry, and Trouble as they ALL have the same base game. put 2d6 inside the bubble, with little pegs and cards.

will that work for everyone that plays either of those games?

how about "The Game of Candyland Life"? those two games are so damn close why havent they been combined yet? you just go around the board where the spinner tells you to go based on the number of spaces and draw random cards that tell you what to do or where to go?

Trump Hotels Monopoly? both of those games have a similar ruleset and objective. go around the board buying property and charging the other players rent when they land on that properties space. ok maybe HASBRO doesnt have the rights to Trump, but its the same damn real-estate buying game.

shall i go on or do you get it now Mearls? two similar games, even if they share a name; dont work when combined. ever heard of a giant chocolate chip cookie desert pizza with tomato sauce and cheese on it? no, because just because they are both pizzas combining them doesnt fucking work.

In other words, if the math works but the game doesn't feel like D&D, we've failed.

you finally admit WotC failed with everything they put the D&D name on! about damn time someone there did! nothing WotC made has felt like D&D, and only the TSR products that has the TSR logo replaced with a WotC logo (Drow of the Underdark, AD&D Core Rules 2.0, Forgotten Realms Interactive Atlas, Dragon Magazine Archive, and other products coming out after WotC bought TSR) even felt like AD&D. if it still felt like AD&D, 3rd edition wouldnt have taken off as it did, thus all the claims that it brought people back because it didnt "feel like AD&D". (aka most of the people that started this very forum.)

Wrapping Up

When you feel that you know a game very well, it's easy to get lost in the details of what makes it work.

only if you are senile....

One of our aims for the next iteration is to call into question everything that R&D thought it knew about what makes D&D tick.

yet you ignore people more experienced with pre-WotC editions thinking you are capable of it all, when just admitting you are senile. you are like the idiot mods on ENWorld that think they know everything about D&D but have kept themselves to various small sample sizes and dont know what other people are doing. there is 20 years worth of digital information that you can view and see what it was since it was yourself that said when making 4th (in a podcast i think) "i dont even remember how X worked in 3rd because i have been working on 4th so long"

there is NO way in the course of the 4 years since 4th has come out, you have had enough time to play older editions to evaluate how they played and what made them tick, let alone the past single year or so assuming you didnt start working on 5e right after Essentials came out.

you sound more like a chicken with its head cut off, because all you are doing is rushing around trying to keep your job. Mearls its in the air. Remember your podcast partner Dave Noonan, and how long his job lasted after 4th edition was released. the same writing is on the wall for you. you wont last as long as Bill S did in his position that you took over, your job security is such that you will get the same treatment that Noonan got after the release of 5th. I would advise you keep your job as long as possible by dragging out the development of 5th no matter how bad you suck at design, because it will be your last game design and then you will have to grow up and get a real job, where they expect REAL work, not just sitting around with your thumb up your as coming up with bad ideas.

Doing that means we need to take into account the entire, diverse range of people who enjoy the game.

sadly you fail to do that as i see NOBODY from WotC on this forum, unless you count Zherog because of his work with DDM continuation after WotC canceled it. if yourself cannot frequent forums and take in info, then your WotC VCLs like mudbunny, and the rest should be sitting looking through and responding to threads like this one to see what people are saying. Likewise it is RARE to see a WotC employee participate in forums outside of those that kiss their asses.

those forums not generous to WotC would include:
The Gaming Den
Dragonsfoot
RPGNet
Something Awful

hiring the RPGPundit and Zak S (from playing D&D with prostitutes) as consultants on D&DNext, isnt a very broad sample...unless you want more books like Book of Erotic Fantasy from 3rd.

as mentioned on ENworld, yourself or someone from WotC should have been at GaryCon back in March rather than worrying about PAX East so much, then you would have had a chance to see a BIG population of pre-WotC editions players.

you arent just rocking the D&D boat, but going to end up with just a keel that is similar in all (A)D&D, with a bunch of things added on without considering its buoyancy, and the final product just wont float. (still have those ships on my mind MGuy is trying to figure out as you can tell by this last analogy....)

shadzar wrote:
combine Parchisi, Sorry, and Trouble as they ALL have the same base game. put 2d6 inside the bubble, with little pegs and cards.

will that work for everyone that plays either of those games?

how about "The Game of Candyland Life"? those two games are so damn close why havent they been combined yet? you just go around the board where the spinner tells you to go based on the number of spaces and draw random cards that tell you what to do or where to go?

I think this is how Aussie Rules Football got invented

OgreBattle wrote:I think this is how Aussie Rules Football got invented

If you're going to quote shadzar, please quote the important part (i.e. the hyperlink):

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20120409

"One player can create a 4th-Edition style character while another can build a 1st-Edition one." --> Yeah, right.

"More importantly, we must look beyond the mechanics of the game to focus on the archetypes, literary tropes, and cultural elements that built D&D. We must build a fighter that resonates as a warrior, not one simply cobbled together with mechanics pilfered from D&D's past." --> A noble goal, which I suspect has roughly 0% chance of being realised.