The Gaming Den

And now, I'm suddenly glad I did not look at this article. It's a 'cure for virus' all over again.

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

and probably why it is ONLY played or MOSTLY played in Oz, because nobody else likes it enough to adopt it, such as the proposed 5e seems to be shaping up and like 4th turned out.

"Cure for virus", Mister Sinister?

ENWorld and Dragons....

http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/32121 ... -17-a.html

WotC_Trevor wrote:A quick message from WotC, which is reaching out to the EN World community this week for its pool of "Rule of Three" questions.

about the most interesting thing today about D&D... wonder if they have the balls to reach out to TGD the following week?

shadzar wrote:wonder if they have the balls to reach out to TGD the following week?

Lets hope not, bigger chance of something useful if they stay with EN world than bother with well whatever crazy things you'd be asking.

Imagination, the Grid, and Points Between
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... ts_between

When I first started playing D&D oh so many years ago, fights with monsters played out entirely in the Theater of the Mind (TotM). A typical fight went something like so:

Me: “Well, I guess we shouldn’t look a gift horse in—”

DM: “Around the corner of the room come four orcs! ~The first two catch you by surprise and attack. [The DM rolls dice.] One misses. One rolls a 17

Me: so the orc wasted his surprise attack rolling dice in front of me?

i have to ask, did Bruce distrust his DM so much that the DM needed to state a 17 was rolled? that would instantly break me from the game into the metagame...4th wall.

i am wondering if this story being told is for new players with this "transparency" to prevent DM v players, or if this REALLY happened and the DM stated the die roll, and why the DM did so?

in an article talking about the imagination factor v grid and such (as i presume by the title, since i havent read beyond this portion), then you shouldnt break the imagination, at at the point of reading i seriously envisioned an orc rolling dice as described in the story. the portion where the DM rolled dice was easily separated to switch imagination from seeing the game world, to seeing a DM rolling dice in some fashion, then the "orc rolled a 17" i see an orc rolling dice.

in order to DM or design a game, you msut be able to tell the story in a way than it conveys correctly the ideas you are trying to present. i only fear for the rest of the story as it will be an lesser engaging knowing this part, as well fear for the ideas presented in the blog entry since it already fails to convey the ideas properly.

i would suggest Bruce to go read the story about Eric and the Dread Gazebo as it was published, or maybe ask a screenwriter for help to keep the stage directions out of the story.

reading on....

EDIT:

With the launch of 3rd Edition, miniatures became a more expected part of the D&D game experience.

again research failure or understanding the game itself and TSR edition failure...and supposedly Bruce is talking about older editions with his story?

WotC Motto wrote:lets spread as many lies as we can and offer no truths!

OD&D built from a miniature game.. things are measured in inches.

AD&D 1st edition wrote:DMG pg 165

Sword of Dancing

When "dancing", the sword will leave its owner's hand and may be up to 3" distant

yes you could easily convert things to feet because the grid assumed would be in scale of 5 feet or 10 feet squares or X feet/yards hexes per inch on a map, but it still focused on miniature play design because Gary was a wargamer. it wasnt until 2nd that mental distances were made standard and measurement were written in things NOT intended for miniatures to simplify that imagination v grid play.

3rd has positioning not unlike C&T or OD&D where flanking and exact positioning was again important, but 4th REQUIRED and WAS BUILT for use with miniatures.

if you are going to state something, please provide facts, not lies. 3.x and under could ignore miniatures except for OD&D (the Chainmail supplements), OD&D 4th required miniatures, people just preferred to use them with 3.x because they were available as was the marketing ploy behind the combat positioning rules such as to create the miniatures markets increased sales.

other people went without using miniatures (peanuts, M&Ms, erasers, etc) in ALL editions.

This experience was only solidified in 4th Edition, where every fight was assumed to occur on a battle grid, and where tracking every space a character could move and every kind of action a character could take was important in determining success or failure in a fight.

AD&D 2.5 Combat and Tactics, expected the use of miniatures and a grid like i mentioned in your remark about 3rd, so please state the truth, not a half truth.

4th edition rules were designed with grid-based terminology. this is a TRUE statement, not that 4th solidified it, again see OD&D. as grid/ruler play is pretty much the same thing. with a ruler you just have an invisible moving 1"-square grid that can be placed over the miniatures when needed, the same as all GW miniature wargames, Clix games, etc.

But here’s the thing: is it important that every fight in an ongoing D&D game use exactly the same format for every encounter?

YES, it should be imagination first and foremost, with the grid applicable only when needed, even the invisible grid of just setting up minis to show rank and file in a 2 abreast marching pattern or single file, etc.

IF you are going grid based, then ALL grids should be hex for fights, and squares for general depiction or places. (easier to draw squared corner buildings on a square grid by just outlining those squares making up the building.)

the normal articles need a MUCH better editor, but im thinking these blogs need an editor as well so all the designers dont look more stupid than they already do.

who wants someone to design a game based on ALL editions, that dont understand ALL editions and fail to properly research them? unqualified for the job seems about right...and what do employers do with unqualified people?

shadzar wrote:Imagination, the Grid, and Points Between
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... ts_between

FYI that's the only actual content in Shadzar's post.

And the inches notation didn't just mean inches. Underground, 1" was 10 feet, above ground, it was 10 yards.

Even the Paladin's Protection from Evil was 1", not 10 foot, radius.

Doom wrote:Even the Paladin's Protection from Evil was 1", not 10 foot, radius.

it really is why i like 2nd better, the organization... but was 1st really 1" and 2nd converted to feet incorrectly? been so long having to look at a 1st paladin info, and dont want to dig out the books jsut for that.

2e PHB wrote:A paladin is surrounded by an aura of protection with a 10-foot radius. Within this radius, all summoned and specifically evil creatures suffer a -1 penalty to their attack rolls, regardless of whom they attack. Creatures affected by this aura can spot its source easily, even if the paladin is disguised.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

it really does get confusing using grid-math for breaking back out into imagination. 4th's "squares" at least tells you its 10 feet since each square is 10 feet.

if you list everything in inches on a scale...then you assume even things within inches are on that same scale.

Previn wrote:

shadzar wrote:Imagination, the Grid, and Points Between
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... ts_between

FYI that's the only actual content in Shadzar's post.

Thanks for taking a hit for the team.

At least it was a fairly balanced column, with Mr. Cordell willing to concede that mapless combat "can be confusing, and sometimes the players and DM have different views on the positions of all those involved, which isn’t ideal". Usually I have to suffer through people saying "In my group, we never use a map and nobody is ever confused about room shapes or positioning because we're awesome!!"

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/22647.html

wonder if this could affect RPG e-book pricing so that 5e doesnt get dead-tree stock e-book pricing? of it will only be for those companies with books on Apple's store?

By Robert Schwalb: http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... 3/run_away! (copy+paste it yourself, I can't get the link to work with that ! there)

I found this to be a fairly honest article on the nature of the morale system. Several of the comments were fairly accurate; even IF you included rules for morale, there stands a very high chance it will be completely ignored.

We've discussed such rules here as well. But more often than not, they're forgotten as even an option. Reaction rolls suffer the same fate and serve a very similar purpose to morale.

I liked and used the morale rules back in 2e -- and 3e deleting that from the monster entries is one of the 1st things that I noticed when I picked up the MM. I did kinda make me a little sad. So I did cobble together my own little morale system for my games ... but it would be nice to have it coded in to the system.


Oh -- you gotta put the "!" inside the tag (you have it outside)

There is no tag, that's just me typing out the address and the board linking itself. Putting it between [ url ] tags, with that exclamation point, will make the entire post empty. Making a URL link will just cause the entire thing to write itself out without any hotlink created. Like this

Here you go virgil

http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/bl ... un_away%21

- Edit: about the article, whenever I ran some goblins vs player chars, I had them run away if they were clearly losing leading mostly to that the players would chase them down and kill them.
Because fleeing rules suck in d&d and I hadn't looked at any better / made any better myself yet.

Mostly none of the players really liked this, because the standard fleeing rules really suck. So I made retreating rarer and more special and began experimenting with little changes.

a skilled DM can portray monsters as we think they behave in the world

this makes more sense. some monsters or even peoples would run away when their leader is slain, so why should they now stick around to die in the game world?

I can’t tell you how many times fights I’ve run have been brutal contests and battles fought to the bitter end.

your problem is the same as many because you do not know how to answer this one question: How much XP do you give for the ones that ran away?

oversize these monsters that have a tendency to run away if you are trying to design FOR THE PARTY, so that they can run away after half have died if you want. figure up a % of XP for running away, or when you create the encounter figure its XP value upon successful overcoming it.

But what do you do with awards for dead monsters if all arent dead? individual awards should really not be a part of the rules. fighter getting bonus XP for each monster killed goes back into the idea of "roles" as 4th created and was ALWAYS wrong to me. likewise why did a thief get XP per gold stolen? didnt he already get his reward...the gold itself!

so dont get in that rut of "kill em all" as a DM, but become a better DM and learn other ways to use the system that makes more sense from the world perspective, the player perspective, and the play perspective.

Even when fleeing seems like a good thing to do, I’m reluctant to have that happen since I know my players will chase down the offending humanoids and put them to the sword. Or, worse, the retreating goblins will go get help and turn what was a manageable fight into a TPK. Often, I just err on caution’s side and let the battle play out.

if payers are always chasing the fleeing enemy to prolong the fight they have already won, sooner or later they deserve the TPK. suppose the goblins were a trap al along to lure victims to the main hoard to become meat and treasure.

also did your "monsters", those with intelligence rather than gluttony, always go for the TPK? is this practice something you have taught your players through your own actions as a DM? how much chase do your monsters give PCs when the PCs run away? the room, the corridor, the cavern, the forest, the country? do your monsters intend to protect their fortification, or jsut kill the PCs, since the PCs could bring back reinforcements. are those reinforcements going to be enough to penetrate the defenses of those monsters now? so many things to consider, each situation will and should be different.

again maybe you just got into a rut and taught the players to "kill em all" since you never had monsters run away and always appeared to be going for the TPK.

Now that I’m pounding out the words and thinking about it, I kind of feel like I’ve done a disservice to my players and the game.

In fact, I can imagine most monsters, once they’ve lost about half their numbers, will say screw it and run away. It just makes sense. Evil doesn’t usually place a lot of stock in honor and fighting to protect their fellows.

see you did play it wrong. at least now you know, and can apologize to your former players, and hopefully they dont play by your bad teachings now and have themselves learned a better way to play and haven't spread your faulty DMing out to other people to infest the hobby.

Evil =/= stupid.

Sure, I ignored the morale rules when I wanted the fight to go on

but when they were there it even told players it existed so was not really ignored by all.

2e PHB wrote:Charisma

Loyalty Base shows the subtraction from or addition to the henchmen's and other servitors' loyalty scores (in the DMG). This is crucial during battles, when morale becomes important.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

The other cool thing morale gives us is an impartial way to decide if the PCs’ followers and henchmen stick around in a tough fight.

A-yup.

This is why we’ve been exploring morale rules. The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to give it a go. What do you think?

Since i never purposefully played a WotC edition of D&D, i have still been using morale this past decade, even when i was begged to run 3.5, or play in it; much to other players dismay or confusion.

a lot better than your previous blog-o-shit about class and race and how you do NOT understand the reason for players preferring one method of play over another.

D&D podcast
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... d/20120416
Michael Roblist w/ Mike Mearls, Jeremy Crawford

1100 non wizard employees playtesting

biggest thing we found is that people's tastes, don't generally follow the edition they say they prefer.

the DM is more like the guy in charge of the rules, free to make rulings, and isnt forced to obey the rules.

some feedback: people want to feel threatened but they dont want their character to die

try not to respond quickly to feedback, but read between the lines. because it isnt what people are saying, but HOW they are saying it. its more important to us to see what their emotional response is.

WTF? maybe it is EXACTLY what people are saying....but you guys have proven time and again you have no idea to collect or utilize collected data. just look at the WotC polls attached to articles and blogs....

interviewer in response to the last bit: ye...uh...right!....

Q:any feedback surprises?

A: 18 strength doesnt need a roll, just bashes down the door kind of stuff.

A2: surprise to me was how much many people like to play without miniatures. so anyone listening who haven't had a chance to playtest, we have done our design to not need miniatures. you CAN, but dont have to use them.

this is surprising to you that people would want or like this? arent you trying to capture the "feel" of the older editions? are you SURE you even tried PLAYING pre-WotC editions? and did you have someone run that edition you tried that knows it well enough to play based on the edition, not on nostalgia?

Jeremy Crawford (oversees development and editing for D&D): i actually started [D&D] with 4th edition and James Wyatt was my DM....

holy fuck! how in the world is a total newb going to be able to capture ANY "feel" of D&D, when he has the worst possible DM and only played the miniature skirmish battle (DDM) expanded rules?

Races and Monsters: James Wyatt wrote:D&D isn't about traipsing through fairy rings and talking to the little people, its about killing things and taking their stuff.

5e is DOOOOMED!

JC: i want to see how it will work without miniatures.

Themes: (similar to 4th, set of background story hooks, set of skills {things you do or learned in training})
Noble: heraldry, diplomacy, "you have a title and authority", "you are an important figure and might begin play with a servant or your family is providing thigns to you"

2e DMG wrote:Background as Background

A character's background is a role-playing tool. It provides the player with more information about his character, more beginning personality on which to build. It should complement your campaign and spur it forward. Background details should stay there--in the background. What your characters are doing now and will do in the future is more important than what they were and what they did.

Problem Backgrounds

Certain points of background can and do create problems in campaigns, however. First and foremost of these is nobility, followed closely by great wealth.

Problems of Nobility: Some players like the idea of their character being Prince So-and-So or the son of Duke Dunderhead. All too often this leads to an abuse of power.

Problems of Wealth: Another problem you might have to deal with is characters from wealthy, upper-class families. (This is often associated with the problem of titles since the nobility normally is the upper class.) Such characters, being wealthy, lack one of the basic reasons to adventure--the desire to make a fortune.

Copyright 1999 TSR Inc.

you just FAILED to capture the feel of an edition. please begin again with 5e.

wanted to do with themes if you:
*dont want to customize your character
*lets us approach a framework to customize your character

instead of saying hey lets keep feats because feats have always been in the game, or lets get rid of feats because of, you know whatever...

we are saying more, hey what is are audience like, why do they like playing D&D, what do they want D&D to deliver as a starting point. not doing things blindly.

this is aimed at the old-school, this is aimed at the story, this is aimed at the mathematical player....

WTF? feats haven't always been in the game.. you REALLY are proving you are NOT looking at old-school, but claiming you know what they want.

Jeremy: themes have been fave part...4th they were compelling but optional add-on. now we can see what they do form the start. there is also something VERY old-school about them.

WTF? didn't you say you started with 4th and James Wyatt as your DM? wtf do you know about old-school?

JC: its [theme] a part of the game that's always been there, but not fleshed out. 2nd edition had secondary skills. re-emerged in kits somewhat

SHUT up talking about older editions when you have no fucking clue about them you fucking newb! go back and play with your Fisher Price toys and MEGA-blocks.

Q: basic foundation of D&DNext look like?

A: probably look a lot like Basic D&D.

Holmes Basic? Moldvay/Cook Basic? Mentzer Basic? Rules Cyclopedia Basic?

there were 4 unique versions of Basic D&D AFTER OD&D (w/Chainmail) created by TSR, before WotC tried to claim creating something called 3rd edition D&D.

0e D&D: OD&D
1e D&D: Holmes
2e D&D: Moldvay/Cook
3e D&D: Mentzer (not WotC)
4e D&D: Rules Compendium (not WotC)

ergo the WotC products with D&D name can NOT exist.

Q: in one word describe D&DNext

A: stressful
A2: multi-faceted

26:00

Rodney Thompson...Lords of Waterdeep...

who cares?

A Walk Down Monster Lane
Legends and Lore
Greg Bilsland

http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20120416

Mike's out on vacation, so I'm taking over Legends & Lore this week to talk about monsters.

permanent vacation? isnt it about that time of year again?

The original 1974 "white box"

while historically accurate and good for noting for archives, can we stop acting like this was an RPG? can you roleplay Warhammer 40,000? yes, but that doesnt make it a roleplaying game.

OD&D required not only the miniature game Chainmail, as it was a miniature wargame enhancement; but it also required some other board game which i dont currently recall its name.

also the fact that it didnt contain all the rules, just tidbits, as the wargaming era was when games were learned through playing with people who already knew how to play. so what you see in there is the MOST outdated idea of gaming there is, similar to MtG not even including rulebooks anymore.

D&D needs a firm set of rules, not copyright infringement from Tolkien which OD&D had, another reason to let it sleep and rest in piece as the ancestor of D&D, not to revisit.

mining it for anything in todays gaming world, will be futile unless you are trying to rebuild Chainmail, and that has been tried 3 times and failed, as well its incarnation as 4 versions of DDM, and 2 versions of Battlefield Skirmishes.

RPG players want an RPG, not a tactical miniature wargame, so just dont even look at OD&D for anything. anyone who has seen the books that came in that white box can tell you it isnt much to play an RPG off of.

The basic set in 1977 provided a much more robust creature selection, adding to the core of the game many creatures that had appeared in supplements, including such iconic specimens as the mind flayer, the umber hulk, the beholder, and the rust monster.

likewise why are we really looking at the Holmes (1st) edition of D&D? it was all of a 48-page book..

is there something new in it? yes but obviously not very much with that size of the book.

The AD&D Monster Manual consolidated hundreds of monsters into a single book, delivering to Dungeon Masters a seemingly endless supply of threats.

no mention of Moldvay/Cook or Mentzer editions (2e and 3e respectively) of D&D?

Gary consolidated all of the ideas in OD&D into AD&D in 1977. he was tired of people having to flip through all the little books (7+ the board game) to find things. so far you arent saying much yet...not unlike Mike when he writes the articles...

the Monstrous Manual from 2nd Edition was the first D&D book I ever bought, even before I knew how to play D&D

AD&D, say it with me ADVANCED D&D. it was a different game. just because it shares the name component of "D&D" doesnt make it the same game. i can understand your confusion since you first touched (A)D&D in 1993. but please learn that they were 2 games, and D&D was really 4 depending on the version. (not counting mutations via BECMI components)

So why the trip down monster memory lane? For me, the playtesting process is as much about figuring out the best D&D product offerings as it is about getting feedback on the rules and mechanics of the game. We aim to meet the desires of the D&D community.

which community? there is NOT a single D&D comunity. for one your ignoring the name and individual game AD&D and calling it D&D all the time is pretty much shitting on that community, and probably why they shit back upon you all the time. i would wager to guess the community you speak of are those on the forums (community) on WotC website and ENWorld. i really doubt you give a shit about any other part of the (A)D&D community. i haven't seen a single thread requesting input form Dragonsfoot from WotC, but you sure visit ENWorld a lot. i also see nobody here, save for Zherog, but oddly he doesnt post here.

Please help us out by taking this survey.

like all others it will probably tell me i fdont qualify because i havent bought any WotC D&D products in the last 12 years, but ok.

how about jsut a list of the "iconic monsters"?

dragons (there are in the games' names)
elves
dwarves
orcs
trolls
gnolls
goblin
kobold

anything else is pretty much a product of Greyhawk or Blackmoor, OD&D's creators campaigns, and have been there, but not exactly D&D. the mind-flayer (due to psionics never working for players to use in ANY edition) does NOT belong as a monster, nor ANY monster with psionics.

too shadzar; didn't read

Podcast with Mike Mearls, et al
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20120416

A content-less article pointing to a survey about Monster Manuals
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... d/20120416

The survey
http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/894254/D- ... ual-Survey

Yeah, we could use someone coherent to 'dissect' these things. No volunteers? Guess I'm not the only one that just doesn't see the need to care much right now.

If all they're going to do is crap out contentless articles, have meaningless polls, and not tell us new stuff, who cares?

I'll take a thrash at this new 'rule of three' article which briefly deals with weapons:
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx ... 3/20120417

Point 1:
They don't yet have the rules figured out:

Rodney Thompson wrote:The work we're doing right now D&D Next isn't what you would call product development; we are not working on books, we're trying to create the game system that is going to be featured and expanded in various products.

To meet the expected shipping dates, they must be running late, or Rodney's telling porkies. Given the choice between malice and incompetence, I going to go with incompetence. They're shipping later rather than sooner.

Point 2:
Weapons are going to use the standard Dice+X, so nothing new there. They will give weapons type damage, though.

Also, yes, right now we're looking at typing weapon damage, just like we do with spell damage. So, a mace might do 1d8 bludgeoning damage, for example.

Could go either way. If there are enough weaknesses and melee classes can choose between a sufficient variety of weapons without being penalised, then it could be a boon.

What I think will actually happen is that the Fighter will pull out his Big Sword +3, only to find out that the skelington can only be hurt by a Big Mace. The fighter lacks a Big Mace, or doesn't have a proficiency or feat with Big Mace, so has to sit this one out. Fighter's can't have nice things.

Point 3:
You're going to have to choose between combat and non-combat ability. I predict that trap options will be plentiful and PCs with interesting non-combat options will fail in combat.

If I could trade in some of my attack powers for more uses of utility powers, I totally would. So, when it comes to customization points, we want to let people choose what they want to focus on (be that combat, diplomacy, being the best liar ever, being a super stealthy thief, or whatever) and trust the baseline competence we've built into all characters to make sure everyone feels like they can participate.

If I could say that I trust Rodney and the team with any level of baseline competence, I'd be the best liar ever.

#1 and #2 are typical "answer cloudy, ask again later" answers.

#3 is just stupid. I would argue that there's no room for a character who's focused on "being the best liar ever" at the expense of being useful in combat in any version of D&D.

hogarth wrote:Podcast with Mike Mearls, et al
http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20120416

I actually listened to this while I made supper. I have a few observations. Mearls is aware there is such a thing a linear warriors and quadratic wizards. One person had a particularly salient observation that characters with more complex options tended to be more powerful, Mearls states that they are looking for ways to decouple complexity and power. Mearls prefers fireball over charm monster, so he will improve fireball to make it on par with charm. He knows enough to state that while a fireball can do 50 damage a successful charm does 'infinity' damage.

He states that he is having the most difficulty with the skill system, which would be obvious to anyone who has followed skill challenges in 4e. He states that the most difficult systems to design are the ones that have been inconsistent through editions, like skills. He made the ominous promise that while skill challenges won't be a part of core they could be coming in a later book.

Part of their design philosophy is to split rules up into modules. Some modules will be campaign specific, he cited the example of Eberron having a module for action points and one for dragon marks. He thinks that instead of bringing out a 5.5 edition they would just gradually replace or update the modules that need replacing. This strikes me like how they handled things in the old Starfleet Command, one rule book came on single sheet 3-hole paper so it could be taken apart and put in a binder. When new supplements came out you could replace that part of the book. It actually turned out to be a logistical nightmare because after a while no two people's rule books where a like, so there was no index or table of contents. Hopefully 5e does things a bit smarter than that.