Tag Archives: 4e

Wizards Presents: Worlds and Monsters Review

Posted on April 3, 2008 | 2 comments

My review of the second 4e preview book is up at RPG.net. As a work unto itself, it’s fine; as for what it reveals about 4e, it sucks.

I’ve been letting this 4e stuff, especially the fiasco where Wizards is trying to renege on open gaming while FUDding the masses for spin control (see many of my recent posts), get to me too much. The novel openness of 3e had briefly distracted me from the truth, which is that D&D is the ghetto in which the uninspired of roleplaying languish. So no more going on about 4e from me. I’ll definitely follow the variants like Pathfinder inasmuch as they’re creative, but now I’m remembering why I had previously moved away from D&D towards other RPGs.

Maybe some of the other posters on ENWorld are right – maybe D&D being open brought designers whose creative talent would be better spent on other games into the fold. When I think Ray Winninger I think Underworld; when I think Robin Laws I think Feng Shui, when I think Jonathan Tweet I think Over the Edge, all of which stand head and shoulders above the battle-matted abortion that D&D has been transforming into especially with 3.5 and what we hear about 4e.

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D&D 4e In Mainstream Press!

Posted on April 2, 2008 | Leave a comment

There’s a very well written MSNBC article on the new version. It’s actually full of non-distorted facts, which is unusual for media reporting on RPGs. It talks about the MMO flavor of 4e, the rift in the community, and quotes Chris Pramas! What more could you want.

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Why 4e Doesn’t Feel Like D&D

Posted on April 1, 2008 | 1 comment

Don’t take my word for it – read what JD Wiker has to say.   In the comments there’s some good points from other notable game designers – Sean K. Reynolds, Stan!, Monte Cook – who have basically been kept away from the 4e rules.  Why is this?  Wiker wrote Sandstorm and contributed to the 3e PH, MM, and DMG.  So did Stan!, as well as developing Ghostwalk, Player’s Guide to Eberron, etc.  Sean did lots of 3e FR stuff, and the Big Three too.  Monte did the 3.5e Big Three. 

Why is WotC keeping them out of 4e?  Morons.

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WotC Rethinking Open Gaming Update

Posted on March 31, 2008 | 1 comment

So it’s the work week now.  Discussion rages on ENWorld, the Wizards forum, and other places (e.g. Chris Pramas’ blog).  Response from WotC?  Jack!  I guess their attitude is “you can suck it!”

If any of the links go bad it’s because the ENworld mods are trying to bury the discussion by moving them to disused forums.  (Vote here to ask them to quit it.)  Update: 90% of voters say they should move the discussion back into the main forums, but no action has been taken yet.  I assume it’ll just get delayed until WotC finally puts the nails in the coffin of the GSL to save them some embarassment.

Go and let your opinion be known, pro or con!  In this day and age, companies ignore their customers at their own risk.

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WotC Rethinking Open Gaming

Posted on March 29, 2008 | 3 comments

In a post on the ENWorld boards, a WotC rep says that they’re still reviewing the basic premises behind the GSL.  Has Paizo’s Pathfinder RPG play scared them into thinking that any degree of openness isn’t the way to go?

To me, this is one of the largest decisions that Wizards could make regarding D&D 4e.  The prior OGL was a huge moment in gaming and helped catapult D&D back to the top from being a bankrupt and irrelevant little thing.  In my opinion, any decision to go back on it would be both stupid and ultimately harmful to D&D/WotC.  I’ve played D&D a long time and would love to keep playing it.  Even if 4e has retarded stuff in it, I can houserule it, heck, publish my own “nonretarded” variant, and keep going.  If they choose to make it not open however – then I won’t bother, I’ll go with Pathfinder or something else exclusively.

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D&D 4e – A Board Game?

Posted on March 27, 2008 | 5 comments

In a post on his blog, John Wick makes some very good points about the differing goals of a board game (victory) and a roleplaying game (character development) and argues that D&D, especially 4e as it’s cast, is more of a board game than anything else.

Now, a lot of the people in my gaming group hate John Wick with the fury of a thousand suns, because he is an asshole.  I concede this point; however, he’s an asshole who frequently makes good points.  I see their point too, however – his anecdote about his thief named Rav seems to be an example of people who “roleplay” as a thinly veiled excuse to make the other gamers’ lives more difficult.  Although perhaps he would have stuck by his ideals and, if the rest of the party had caught him stealing and decided to lynch him for it, applauded the resulting story.

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The Good Old Days (?)

Posted on March 25, 2008 | Leave a comment
Thanks to Grogtard for this – someone on the ENWorld forums found this little gem about the WOTC purchase of TSR.  It’s Ryan Dancey talking about what he found and the new tack of Wizards of the Coast – “listening to the customer.”  It’s ironic in that the new Hasbro WotC seems to be falling back into the error tht caused TSR to fail.  Everyone keeps saying “Oh, it’s D&D, the 900 pound gorilla – they’ll always dominate the market.”  These people must be less than 14 years old, because D&D nearly hit the shitter once before, and could do it again.
Dancey commented on 4e last year – his comments about a open variant of 4e seem to predict the Pathfinder RPG – note he even assumes it would “crush” the official pretender. 

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4e Compilation PDF

Posted on March 22, 2008 | 2 comments

“Verys Arkon” has compiled all the info about 4e revealed so far into a preview “Lite Edition” PDF.  Check it out here.  It appears to only include the stuff from DDXP, not the various things designers have revealed on blogs or whatnot (marking, etc.).

 As I read it I get back to my familiar ambivalence with 4e.  The initial changes in terms of simplification and encounter powers – basically all the stuff they showcased in Star Wars Saga Edition and Book of Nine Swords – I love.  All the other crap they piled on top of it – I hate.  Alas. 

The Stinky Cheese:

  • Teleporting elves
  • All point buy stats
  • Dumping half-orc and gnome for tiefling and dragonborn
  • Shoehorning “roles” for PCs and monsters
  • Movement in “squares”

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Paizo Forks D&D!

Posted on March 18, 2008 | 1 comment

It’s official!  Paizo Publishing is the gaming company that was publishing Dragon Magazine and Dungeon Magazine for  years until WotC pulled their license.  Since then they’ve been publishing the best D&D adventures on the market (and Dragon and Dungeon are languishing in low-content electronic-only hell on wizards.com). 

Well, Wizards screwed around and screwed around; even after announcing that they’d get the license and rules to third party publishers (for $5k a head) they never executed on it.  So now Paizo has decided to fork D&D by creating a RPG called the Pathfinder RPG based on 3.5e via the OGL.  The “alpha” version of it is freely available – in fact, they say once they start selling the beta sometime around Gen Con it’ll still be available freely as a PDF.  The beta will be an open beta for a year and the “final” version will launch in August of 2009.  They are also launching the Pathfinder Society, which sounds like a competitor to the RPGA.

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Chris Pramas Reviews D&D 4e

Posted on March 4, 2008 | Leave a comment

One of the game designers I respect the most reviews D&D 4e.  His short summary – “It’s an interesting system that didn’t so much feel like D&D in play; nonetheless, the brand power of D&D all but ensures this will be a success and it may even redefine what D&D means for the next generation.”  Yeah, I think that’s about what I figured.  He compares the game play to more akin to a CCG than the “sounds like an MMO” critiques. 

And, of course, WotC is still screwing around and hasn’t made the GSL or new rules available to third party publishers yet, even those waving $5k in the air, despite their announcing it on January 9th…

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D&D 4e Reviewed In Depth by AICN

Posted on March 1, 2008 | 1 comment

Massawyrm, one of the reviewers on Ain’t It Cool News, the premier geek media review site, was a playtester for 4e.  Now that “D&D Experience” has happened, there’s huge amounts of 4e rules info available out there and also the playtesters are released to speak. 

The review is maniacally positive.  I hate to be negative, but I worry about the subtext in a lot of the bits he talks about.  From flavor (is it appropriate to call one of the monster roles “artillery” in a medieval fantasy game?) to too-obvious WoWisms (“elite” monsters?) to game mechanics (at epic levels you rez all the time and have powers like “once per day when you die, you…”)?  Well, I hope he’s right I reckon.

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D&D Insider – Ugly As Expected

Posted on February 27, 2008 | Leave a comment

Now, no one would be happier than I if Wizards of the Coast put out a piece of D&D software that wasn’t plug-ugly.  However, the new screen shots of the D&D 4e character builder, virtual tabletop, etc. indicate that, in the words of Aragorn at the gates of Mordor, “But it is not this day!!!”

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