I would think there have been enough L&L columns for us to begin to speculate on what Monte's influence on 4th edition will be, but for the life of me I can not get handle on what direction he would take 4th edition? Perhaps I am not reading carefully enough. I admit that I actually stopped reading the columns for a while, but I am thinking of starting up. So my general question is, what does the D&D community think? Where will he take R&D for the game? Or is it too early to tell? Is he really just gathering intel and speculating on stuff?
- Legends and Lore - Maintaining the Machine
- Legends and Lore - The Temperature of the Rules
- Legends and Lore - What Can You Do?
- Legends and Lore - A Different Way to Slice the Pie
- Legends and Lore - Out of Bounds
- Legends and Lore - Customized Complexity
- Legends and Lore - Rules, Rules, Rules
What would be boring about it? A dragon might be a level 15 creature. It has loads of hit points and does nasty damage. It still has attack bonus and defense b">Legends and Lore - Preserving the Past- Legends and Lore - Magic and Mystery
- Legends and Lore - Live Together, Die Alone
- Legends and Lore - Very Perceptive
I would think there have been enough L&L columns for us to begin to speculate on what Monte's influence on 4th edition will be, but for the life of me I can not get handle on what direction he would take 4th edition? Perhaps I am not reading carefully enough. I admit that I actually stopped reading the columns for a while, but I am thinking of starting up. So my general question is, what does the D&D community think? Where will he take R&D for the game? Or is it too early to tell? Is he really just gathering intel and speculating on stuff?
To answer your question... I am not convinced he'll have any significant influence at all. At this point a lot of his opinions seem to be so far at variance with the product line it is hard to see their relevance. Sometimes he doesn't come across as really familiar with where a lot of people are at now in gaming prefs, at least WRT D&D. I think in the end what he's contemplating is impossible within one single product. Thus it won't happen. It will turn into something else if it continues (and may really never have been envisaged as what people imagine anyway).
I think whatever he does will attach to the 4e system somehow. Some people will inevitably decry it as junk and others will hail it as the greatest thing ever. It won't magically reunite a community that has rarely ever actually BEEN united in the first place.
Everyone will continue to scream loudly in hopes that their pet vision of D&D will be front and center.
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I would imagine he is just gathering information, reviewing editions, coming up with concepts and bringing those to the table. Whether the team act upon it in any significant capacity is completely unknown.
RE: Cassan
No offense, but that seems a bit unrealistic (for lack of a better word). I do not think companies hire people for such vague agendas. I have never seen that occur anywhere I have worked or anywhere that I have been involved in hiring decisions.
I mean WOTC just fired some pretty high level people, so bottom line is important enough to them that they are willing to let go of talent that does produce. I do not think that Monte Cook was hired to come up with stuff that that may use. I think he was hired to produce material that WOITC plans on using.
The question that I am posing is do we have idea of what that material will play like?
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Guess I am guilty of a bit of entrapment there.
He is sharing that exploration with us and we are basically a makeshift playtester pool. He isn't looking for concrete answers, but is trying to get a feel for the general response to some very thought provoking approaches to some game design elements that have become, admittedly unchanging over time.
Is every idea good? No. That is how any design process works. You explore bad options as well as good options. If you are designing well, you spend less time with the bad options and occasionally mine the bad options for a few good ideas hidden in them.
-SYB
But that's also partially me really hoping these aren't active design elements making their way into a 5th edition. My hopeful vision of a 5th edition would be quite squandered, for the most part.
My problem with his ideas is that they are mostly from previous editions. Why would we need to go back there, when anyone can already pick up a copy of Pathfinder, Castles and Crusades or Osric and play in the old style. Indeed, with the power of the internet, we can pick up copies of almost everything from OD&D to 3.5.
Far better for the Wizards of the Coast to continue to refine and revise Fourth Edition to smooth out its bumps and fill in its cracks. Fix the math, eliminate feat taxes, strengthen weak and neglected classes and races, publish more adventures, wrestle with the epic tier, perhaps redo skills, republish the first Players' Handbook with all present revisions and many needed corrections.
A fifth edition will just split the market even further than it already is, especially if Cook's ideas about rules, skills, actions and character generation happen.
Interestingly, 4e is the first edition that I have made it more than a year in without houeruling entire swatchs of the ruleset away or wishing entire sections were different. So it is also the first time I have no "wishes" for specific changes in the next edition.
With the recent firings (Rich and Steve) and hirings (Monte), I find myself not caring what 5e looks like or when it releases. I'll give it a quick kick of the tires, and if it is somehow better than 4e, I'll play it. If not, I have 4e forever.
Interestingly, 4e is the first edition that I have made it more than a year in without houeruling entire swatchs of the ruleset away or wishing entire sections were different. So it is also the first time I have no "wishes" for specific changes in the next edition.
That is exactly how I feel. First time d&d has worked fo rme without the need for fixes. Also first time it goes smoothly. I have played in games with three players and games with 12. It works. Somethings may not be ideal...but it works.
I would think there have been enough L&L columns for us to begin to speculate on what Monte's influence on 4th edition will be, but for the life of me I can not get handle on what direction he would take 4th edition? ... So my general question is, what does the D&D community think? Where will he take R&D for the game? Or is it too early to tell? Is he really just gathering intel and speculating on stuff?
It seems from his L&L's that Mr. Cook isn't too interested in 4e, or that his new job at WotC (including L&L) really doesn't have anything to do with 4e. He talks fluently and at length about earlier eds, and speculates about the future, but when he mentions 4e at all, gets it wrong as often as not.
The only thing I can think of that makes sense is that he's been brought on to work on 5e from a 'fresh perspective' untainted by working on 4e since 2008 (unlike Mr. Mearls).
The obvious conclusion to jump to is that 5e thus will not be a continuing evolution of 4e, but rather will be built upon the open-source SRD, like 3.0, 3.5, Pathfinder, d20 Modern, and many other games. Of course, that's a leap. It might also be that his untainted perspective is just being tapped as one of many contributing sources of ideas. It might even be that his just pulling our legs, and feigning ignorance of 4e.
It could have nothing to do with an upcoming 5E. They could have just gotten sick of all the flame wars this line of articles was causing, and brought in Monte for the simple purpose of continuing these articles but putting a buffer between 4E and the articles, by bringing in an outsider who has had nothing to do with 4E.
No sure there is a consensus, but I have seen a number of posts stating that there will probably be no influence. Either: he is just writing a kind of general editorial column (why the polls then?) and/or that he will be working on fifth edition, and that in all probability his influence 5th edition will to take it towards a retro or at least non 4th edition direction.
Is that a fair summation?
4e has some obvious elements that are closer to 2e than 3e: it's more solidly a class-based system than the mix-and-match by level that 3e had, and the binary options of trained/untrained in a skill hearkens back to non-weapon proficiencies as opposed to level-by-level skill points.
E4e tacked backwards as well, with martial classes regressing toward the pure at-will 'I do one thing, and do it all day long' non-caster archetypes from previous editions. One of the jokes right after HoFL was released was that we were all worried that Essentials would be 4.5e, but it turned out to be 3.9e instead.
Going retro isn't the problem, it's picking the right direction to go backwards while keeping the genuine improvements.
Sadly, Monte Cook basically lost me from his very first article, in which he talks about this fascinating idea he has for something he calls 'passive perception'. That he seemed unfamiliar with such a basic 4e concept didn't fill me with much confidence.
Nor did I find much encouragement in a recent article musing on what the game would be like if every PC only had one action per turn. (The basic premise already tells us exactly would happen: the game would be overwhelmingly biased in favor of ranged classes for whom positioning didn't matter, and combats would be even more static set-pieces. Next?)
To be honest, the only non-terrifying purpose I can see for Monte's articles would be the desire to boil down D&D into its essential components, in order to create a starter version to lure in new players. Unfortunately, WOTC already squandered that opportunity with the Red Box, an ill-timed creation that should have waited until after R&D had finalized HoFL; it would surprise me to see them try again so soon.
Excellent post. I agree with everything you said. You raise a good point about ill-timing. I suppose there is a lot of pressure on them to keep changing or releasing, and I do like seeing new stuff come out, but when you think about it most of the things that WOTC had done wrong has mostly been just rushing too much. Not enough initial play-testing/redesign lead to some scaling issues and some problems with monster power levels. Essentials should have taken more time, etc.
It get a lot of pluses and minuses at times, and in action... May have forgotten details, but meh.
TYpical superiority feeling from grognards who feel the game have to be 'protected' from ignorants and 'norms'.
"OH NO, NORMAL NON-A+ ON MATHS AND SCIENCES PEOPLES, PLAYING OUR *HOLY* GAME? NEVER!"
This current edition has many more cicumstantial bonuses or penalities applied to it's to-hit rolls every turn in action then 2nd ever did.
Also, if it only took knowledge of substraction and addition to get an A+ in math... oh never mind. You're just ranting for the sake of ranting and making wild claims at this point in the conversation.
I have then much better debaters than me to crush silly rants, like Salla by example, who would mercylessly destroy nostalgia for such things.
I wouldn't call salla's incessant bitterness and short statements of unarguable opinion "better debate" but his ability to kill a convo with such nastiness works, if that's what you mean.
Beyond game design they need to address organized events, writing adventures, third party support, a new game world to fuel the imagination, and consistency.
I am more concerned about the vision, or mission statement in regards to 4E and future editions, versus Monte being the face to discuss anything new. It is very hard to tell at this point if there is any definitive direction, vision, or leadership. That may be partly due to the coporate side of WOTC in regards to Hasbro, and some of the arbitrary decisions that were made in the past. Adding someone completely foreign to 4E, such as Monte, makes the future less certain. Until confidence is re-established with the community, supporters and the player base, it appears to be a ship lost at sea.
Beyond game design they need to address organized events, writing adventures, third party support, a new game world to fuel the imagination, and consistency.
Well, since Monte has come aboard I haven't seen any changes in the tone or content of 4E as it has been being released, granted these things have a significant lead-in time which I believe is greater than Monte's current tenure. I haven't heard any chatter of him being involved in anything beyond these articles, however.
Which leaves Monte's theoretical impact on a hypothetical 5E. The significance of this varies based upon how far out 5E is. If 5E is in the pipeline, than his presence and the data mining from these articles is more significant than if 5E is a ways off, particularly if it isn't even being worked on at this time.
I am more concerned about the vision, or mission statement in regards to 4E and future editions, versus Monte being the face to discuss anything new. It is very hard to tell at this point if there is any definitive direction, vision, or leadership. That may be partly due to the coporate side of WOTC in regards to Hasbro, and some of the arbitrary decisions that were made in the past. Adding someone completely foreign to 4E, such as Monte, makes the future less certain. Until confidence is re-established with the community, supporters and the player base, it appears to be a ship lost at sea.
Beyond game design they need to address organized events, writing adventures, third party support, a new game world to fuel the imagination, and consistency.
Well, since Monte has come aboard I haven't seen any changes in the tone or content of 4E as it has been being released, granted these things have a significant lead-in time which I believe is greater than Monte's current tenure. I haven't heard any chatter of him being involved in anything beyond these articles, however.
Which leaves Monte's theoretical impact on a hypothetical 5E. The significance of this varies based upon how far out 5E is. If 5E is in the pipeline, than his presence and the data mining from these articles is more significant than if 5E is a ways off, particularly if it isn't even being worked on at this time.
My personal assumption is that Monte's influence is less on editions, and more on lack of edition. By which I mean that I see him as being outside the scope of edition design, and that his research, cogitation and such is really just the kind of open-ended public thinking that gathers information, and even ideas for any new addition to the game, be they a new edition, a new supplement, a new direction etc.
All this without actually specifically soliciting specific ideas, so they have no need to ask our permission to use our ideas. ;) Instead, our feedback feeds the machine of the game, whatever might come out of that machine.
I would think there have been enough L&L columns for us to begin to speculate on what Monte's influence on 4th edition will be, but for the life of me I can not get handle on what direction he would take 4th edition? Perhaps I am not reading carefully enough. I admit that I actually stopped reading the columns for a while, but I am thinking of starting up. So my general question is, what does the D&D community think? Where will he take R&D for the game? Or is it too early to tell? Is he really just gathering intel and speculating on stuff?
To answer your question... I am not convinced he'll have any significant influence at all. At this point a lot of his opinions seem to be so far at variance with the product line it is hard to see their relevance. Sometimes he doesn't come across as really familiar with where a lot of people are at now in gaming prefs, at least WRT D&D. I think in the end what he's contemplating is impossible within one single product. Thus it won't happen. It will turn into something else if it continues (and may really never have been envisaged as what people imagine anyway).
I think whatever he does will attach to the 4e system somehow. Some people will inevitably decry it as junk and others will hail it as the greatest thing ever. It won't magically reunite a community that has rarely ever actually BEEN united in the first place.
Everyone will continue to scream loudly in hopes that their pet vision of D&D will be front and center.
I agree with most of your post...
But I disagree with the statement about "Where a lot of people are at now in gaming prefs..."
You're making the huge assumption that there are alot of people who are happy with 4e, and that there are not alot of people who prefer alternate systems. From everything I've seen, everything I've heard from premiere shops and insiders, this is a problematic assumption at best.
From there, we have to get into a discussion on why this is problematic, and I learned along time ago that if you don't praise 4e like it's the second coming, the mods just let people post flame after flame that would make 4chan stare in shock.
I would think there have been enough L&L columns for us to begin to speculate on what Monte's influence on 4th edition will be, but for the life of me I can not get handle on what direction he would take 4th edition? Perhaps I am not reading carefully enough. I admit that I actually stopped reading the columns for a while, but I am thinking of starting up. So my general question is, what does the D&D community think? Where will he take R&D for the game? Or is it too early to tell? Is he really just gathering intel and speculating on stuff?
To answer your question... I am not convinced he'll have any significant influence at all. At this point a lot of his opinions seem to be so far at variance with the product line it is hard to see their relevance. Sometimes he doesn't come across as really familiar with where a lot of people are at now in gaming prefs, at least WRT D&D. I think in the end what he's contemplating is impossible within one single product. Thus it won't happen. It will turn into something else if it continues (and may really never have been envisaged as what people imagine anyway).
I think whatever he does will attach to the 4e system somehow. Some people will inevitably decry it as junk and others will hail it as the greatest thing ever. It won't magically reunite a community that has rarely ever actually BEEN united in the first place.
Everyone will continue to scream loudly in hopes that their pet vision of D&D will be front and center.
I agree with most of your post...
But I disagree with the statement about "Where a lot of people are at now in gaming prefs..."
You're making the huge assumption that there are alot of people who are happy with 4e, and that there are not alot of people who prefer alternate systems. From everything I've seen, everything I've heard from premiere shops and insiders, this is a problematic assumption at best.
From there, we have to get into a discussion on why this is problematic, and I learned along time ago that if you don't praise 4e like it's the second coming, the mods just let people post flame after flame that would make 4chan stare in shock.
Strawman. Again, 4th ed fans are made like they are wrong and all that.
DARE praising 4th ed with logical points, or pointing there is no solid stats on sales and all, and you are branded as a blind fanboy.
If the next edition has his design stamped all over it, I probably won't buy it. I'm not interested in resurrecting sacred cows.
I honestly think he's never played a single game of 4e.
I agree with most of your post...
But I disagree with the statement about "Where a lot of people are at now in gaming prefs..."
You're making the huge assumption that there are alot of people who are happy with 4e, and that there are not alot of people who prefer alternate systems. From everything I've seen, everything I've heard from premiere shops and insiders, this is a problematic assumption at best.
From there, we have to get into a discussion on why this is problematic, and I learned along time ago that if you don't praise 4e like it's the second coming, the mods just let people post flame after flame that would make 4chan stare in shock.
4E was by far the most played game at Gencon this year, and if people weren't happy with 4E we'd be seeing WotC in panic mode right now. Whiners are over-represented on the internet, unless you are one of them. As long as D&D(currently 4E) as a core audience that can meet WotC's expectations, it doesn't really matter if other people can't stand it, and those people would be best served by getting over it as opposed to years and years of endless complaining. The title of this forum is "4E General Discussion" not "4E Concerns and Criticism".
I would think there have been enough L&L columns for us to begin to speculate on what Monte's influence on 4th edition will be, but for the life of me I can not get handle on what direction he would take 4th edition? Perhaps I am not reading carefully enough. I admit that I actually stopped reading the columns for a while, but I am thinking of starting up. So my general question is, what does the D&D community think? Where will he take R&D for the game? Or is it too early to tell? Is he really just gathering intel and speculating on stuff?
its going to be a retro clone
I'm not a fan of Monte's work at all. His ideas so far have all been pretty bad IMO. It just seems that he wants to bring back "ye good olde days" and ignore all the progress in RPG industry.
If the next edition has his design stamped all over it, I probably won't buy it. I'm not interested in resurrecting sacred cows.
MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Yes, I can see it now! Greyhawk overrun by an army of dead rotting cows. The COWPOCALYPSE IS UPON YOU!
I agree with most of your post...
But I disagree with the statement about "Where a lot of people are at now in gaming prefs..."
You're making the huge assumption that there are alot of people who are happy with 4e, and that there are not alot of people who prefer alternate systems. From everything I've seen, everything I've heard from premiere shops and insiders, this is a problematic assumption at best.
From there, we have to get into a discussion on why this is problematic, and I learned along time ago that if you don't praise 4e like it's the second coming, the mods just let people post flame after flame that would make 4chan stare in shock.
4E was by far the most played game at Gencon this year, and if people weren't happy with 4E we'd be seeing WotC in panic mode right now. Whiners are over-represented on the internet, unless you are one of them. As long as D&D(currently 4E) as a core audience that can meet WotC's expectations, it doesn't really matter if other people can't stand it, and those people would be best served by getting over it as opposed to years and years of endless complaining. The title of this forum is "4E General Discussion" not "4E Concerns and Criticism".
Yeah, basically.
Lets look at it this way though. There's no advantage to WotC to maintaining a large split in the D&D fanbase. So, they go out and they find a guy that is idolized by a large part of the 3.5 fanbase and they loudly announce that he is 'hired'. He writes a column. Well, what is his purpose? It isn't to represent us, the 4e fans. It is to represent the previous edition fans, or at least the 'voice' of the game that was present in the post-TSR era up to 2008. If it isn't fundamentally his job to speak for anyone that is a fan of 4e then don't complain if he doesn't. It would be kind of nice if WotC would realize that telling us all that would be much better than making everyone guess.
Nobody is going to be able to say what the influence of Monte Cook is on the game going forward until WotC decides what they're going to do and tells us about it. Maybe he's a token voice for the past there to look at things and comment on how to give better lip service to the past. Maybe his job is really to just help make more interesting and exciting stories and fluff for 4e. Nobody has a clue. Maybe WotC doesn't have a clue. They have the guy, that doesn't mean they really know what they're doing with him.
Some thinking about what's going on is worthwhile too. If there was anything even vaguely approaching a design concept for a '5th edition' of the game then L&L would be a pointless exercise. So clearly there's no 5th edition. Maybe there's a concept that there will be a 5th edition, maybe not. Lets assume WotC is just putting it all out there as it is, they're not HAPPY that there's a split in the fanbase (especially since that split clearly costs them sales, they probably cared a lot less about a 2e->3e split because it didn't hit them in the pocket book). There are a whole lot of approaches they could take to addressing that, and they could take more than one of them at a time, and in any of them a guy that speaks for previous editions is a handy guy to have around, especially when he's idolized. So, think about it. It takes several years to make a new edition, and requires added people vs less people they have now, so its minimally 2+ years off (first must come up with design concept, then hire staff, then design and playtest, then final production, 4e was a concept as far back as 2005 or even earlier). So, what do you do FIRST before you do that? The very first thing you do is put different racing stripes on your game, which was Essentials. The next thing you're going to do is repaint the whole car, which I think would be more in the way of just writing a lot better stories and adventures. Then you create a concept book, say a "play 4e retro book" kind of thing. Maybe that's as far as you need to go, and even that is a year off. THEN maybe you are in a spot to sort out exactly what 5e would be if you need to go that far. No reason to believe Monte or any other specific person is even going to be around that long. Who's going to actually lay out such a design in its final form? I wouldn't be surprised if it is people we haven't ever even heard of.
Of course, hey, companies have done equally stupid things as ditch their product line and bring back some guy to turn the clock back 10 years. I can guarantee you we won't know squat for another year though.
4E was by far the most played game at Gencon this year
4E also has a much, much larger pool of resources and crew to draw from. I didn't go to Gencon, but at PAX the D&D gaming area was an entire floor of the Halo building, with ~50 tables, posters, tons of volunteers, and plenty of resources for DMs. The Pathfinder gaming area was a tiny conference room with a weird hallway attached to it, maybe a dozen tables, and crappy handouts printed from an onsite printer. WotC simply has more money to throw at D&D, and event organizers who are not serious gamers will give 4E the space because they recognize the names WotC and D&D.
4E was by far the most played game at Gencon this year
4E also has a much, much larger pool of resources and crew to draw from. I didn't go to Gencon, but at PAX the D&D gaming area was an entire floor of the Halo building, with ~50 tables, posters, tons of volunteers, and plenty of resources for DMs. The Pathfinder gaming area was a tiny conference room with a weird hallway attached to it, maybe a dozen tables, and crappy handouts printed from an onsite printer. WotC simply has more money to throw at D&D, and event organizers who are not serious gamers will give 4E the space because they recognize the names WotC and D&D.
I attend about 2-3 small regional conventions per year, and typically 1/2 to 2/3 of the tables are devoted to 4E/Living Forgotten Realms. I have a hard time accepting people stating that 4E isn't doing well. What I do believe is that gaming trends are uneven, and that some areas skew Pathfinder heavily, while others(more others) skew heavily 4E.
I attend about 2-3 small regional conventions per year, and typically 1/2 to 2/3 of the tables are devoted to 4E/Living Forgotten Realms.
That's been my experience, and I've heard as much from others. But it's difficult to say whether that is due to the popularity of 4E, or the availability of tables. We *do* know that 4E has alot more support from its parent company than any other RPG, which means they can afford more table space, and more supplies for DMs.
Lets say my base thac0 is 16, but I have a +3 sword, and +2 str and +1 weapon spec, and +1 bless. what do I need to roll to hit AC -4?
well I subtract my pluses (yea real intuative) bringing my adjusted thac0 to 9, so to hit a -4 I need a 13...
I would make the following charts for this player
Long sword (spec) 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 auto miss
-10 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
then when the cleric cast 'bless' I would remind him every round, add +1
4E was by far the most played game at Gencon this year
4E also has a much, much larger pool of resources and crew to draw from. I didn't go to Gencon, but at PAX the D&D gaming area was an entire floor of the Halo building, with ~50 tables, posters, tons of volunteers, and plenty of resources for DMs. The Pathfinder gaming area was a tiny conference room with a weird hallway attached to it, maybe a dozen tables, and crappy handouts printed from an onsite printer. WotC simply has more money to throw at D&D, and event organizers who are not serious gamers will give 4E the space because they recognize the names WotC and D&D.
The point at issue here is the trend line. If in 2010, the D&D room was packed to the wall, with players turned away, a 2011 turnout that was merely massive and larger than all others combined, but which still left some chairs unoccupied wound be cause for concern [and maybe panic,] not joy, at WOTC. So does anybody have any comparisons?
4E was by far the most played game at Gencon this year
4E also has a much, much larger pool of resources and crew to draw from. I didn't go to Gencon, but at PAX the D&D gaming area was an entire floor of the Halo building, with ~50 tables, posters, tons of volunteers, and plenty of resources for DMs. The Pathfinder gaming area was a tiny conference room with a weird hallway attached to it, maybe a dozen tables, and crappy handouts printed from an onsite printer. WotC simply has more money to throw at D&D, and event organizers who are not serious gamers will give 4E the space because they recognize the names WotC and D&D.
The point at issue here is the trend line. If in 2010, the D&D room was packed to the wall, with players turned away, a 2011 turnout that was merely massive and larger than all others combined, but which still left some chairs unoccupied wound be cause for concern [and maybe panic,] not joy, at WOTC. So does anybody have any comparisons?
2011 4E filled all chairs from the reports I read. There were flame wars about GenCon attendance on EnWorld and TheRPGSite that I was knee deep in, and the reports were that all 4E seats were filled. In addition, LFR tends to be about 90%+ of 4E convention play, and the LFR organizers said GenCon LFR play was up 15% this year.
I agree with most of your post...
But I disagree with the statement about "Where a lot of people are at now in gaming prefs..."
You're making the huge assumption that there are alot of people who are happy with 4e, and that there are not alot of people who prefer alternate systems. From everything I've seen, everything I've heard from premiere shops and insiders, this is a problematic assumption at best.
From there, we have to get into a discussion on why this is problematic, and I learned along time ago that if you don't praise 4e like it's the second coming, the mods just let people post flame after flame that would make 4chan stare in shock.
4E was by far the most played game at Gencon this year, and if people weren't happy with 4E we'd be seeing WotC in panic mode right now. Whiners are over-represented on the internet, unless you are one of them. As long as D&D(currently 4E) as a core audience that can meet WotC's expectations, it doesn't really matter if other people can't stand it, and those people would be best served by getting over it as opposed to years and years of endless complaining. The title of this forum is "4E General Discussion" not "4E Concerns and Criticism".
You make a very good point about the 4E Concerns and Criticism forum. Heck, truth be told I didn't think it existed until I found it at the very bottom of the forums page. The last post on there was from 2 years ago. I've gone through the Wizards.com website looking for any area where they allow a person who doesn't want to do a whole lot of digging to find the L&L polls or any other easy to find a place where one could make their, well, concerns and criticisms to provide Wizards with their point of view in regards to 4E. Obviously I would not want it in a forums format where all too see and reply and see it degenerate into what some of the flaming on these threads have. It could be something as simple as placing the L&L polls on the D&D page brought up right after clicking on the D&D brand link. I can understand why they put the Concerns and Criticism forum at the very bottom, at least from my reasoning they don't want to alienate people from the brand by having people find it easily and be able to read the critisms. I think at the very least perhaps placing the polls on the main page would make it more available to more players. Now I can see critism from some people saying that such a system could be easily abused. I'm just throwing this idea out there off the top of my head.
So my general question is, what does the D&D community think? Where will he take R&D for the game? Or is it too early to tell? Is he really just gathering intel and speculating on stuff?
I think it's way too early to tell.
Frankly, it will always be too early to tell until WotC announces the next edition or whatever major new thing they plan on releasing next.
I'm not all that worried about Monte's 4E knowledge. I think concluding that he doesn't know some major 4E concept based off of the content of one or more of the articles he's writing is misplaced at best, snobbish at worst.
As I understand it he gets to correspond and work with Mike Mearls (himself no stranger to 4E) and already has a record of major collaboration under his belt, owing to the one entire edition of the D&D game he helped to produce with several other game designers.
The man has experience, what he doesn't know, he'll learn and he's exceptionally creative and innovative.
Whatever his contribution is, I'm sure it will be positive.
It get a lot of pluses and minuses at times, and in action... May have forgotten details, but meh.
TYpical superiority feeling from grognards who feel the game have to be 'protected' from ignorants and 'norms'.
"OH NO, NORMAL NON-A+ ON MATHS AND SCIENCES PEOPLES, PLAYING OUR *HOLY* GAME? NEVER!"
Not really... I think a lot of misconceptons about THAC0 being a PITA come from people not understanding how it was supposed to work... You had plus' and minus' for strength and a plus (or occasionally minus) from magic weapons... Add plus's to your die roll, subtract the total from your THAC0. That's the AC you hit.
For example, a fighter with a THAC0 of 19, +1 for strength. he rolls a 12. He gets +1 for 13. 19-13=6
In the 3.X and beyond system you'll have a fighter with a fighter with a BAB of 1 and a +1 for strength. He rolls a 12. You add 1 for his BAB and 1 for strength for a total of 14. He hits AC 14.
The big difference I've noticed is that 3.X and beyond has a whole slew of other modifiers that come into the equation. Even the basic modifiers are pretty extensive. Flanking, blindfighting, higher ground. Plus feats, skills, . In 1st ed you had a handful of other modifiers. There was a modifier if you couldn't see the target, and spells like Bless, Curse, Prayer and Holy Chant... but that was about it.
Skills and Powers introduced some wierdness to the equation, but those were optional splatbooks that fundamentally changed how the game was played in alot of ways.
And of course 1st ed was wierd in that it didn't even have THAC0. I'd agree that the attack matrix's were pretty counterintuitive.
The issue with THAC0 wasn't that it was a problem, but that it was an inelegant way to handle the situation. It was a translation of a table, without changing the table. The table was eventually forgotten, but THAC0 lived on.
4E was by far the most played game at Gencon this year, and if people weren't happy with 4E we'd be seeing WotC in panic mode right now. Whiners are over-represented on the internet, unless you are one of them. As long as D&D(currently 4E) as a core audience that can meet WotC's expectations, it doesn't really matter if other people can't stand it, and those people would be best served by getting over it as opposed to years and years of endless complaining. The title of this forum is "4E General Discussion" not "4E Concerns and Criticism".
Emphasis for truth.
Conventions are only a small portion of the gaming audience, but they are a portion of the audience spending real world money to travel to an event that only lasts a few days and is using some of that very limited resource to play the game. Being the most-played game at an event like that is still a nice feather in the cap and shows they must be doing something right.
Also, taking a site poll as some sort of "gospel" is beyond ridiculous as only a very small portion of the market actually posts on message boards.
PS: THAC0 was easy with logic skills but hard with using intuition. It never slowed me for a moment, but I did make tables for some I played with.
It get a lot of pluses and minuses at times, and in action... May have forgotten details, but meh.
TYpical superiority feeling from grognards who feel the game have to be 'protected' from ignorants and 'norms'.
"OH NO, NORMAL NON-A+ ON MATHS AND SCIENCES PEOPLES, PLAYING OUR *HOLY* GAME? NEVER!"
Not really... I think a lot of misconceptons about THAC0 being a PITA come from people not understanding how it was supposed to work... You had plus' and minus' for strength and a plus (or occasionally minus) from magic weapons... Add plus's to your die roll, subtract the total from your THAC0. That's the AC you hit.
For example, a fighter with a THAC0 of 19, +1 for strength. he rolls a 12. He gets +1 for 13. 19-13=6
In the 3.X and beyond system you'll have a fighter with a fighter with a BAB of 1 and a +1 for strength. He rolls a 12. You add 1 for his BAB and 1 for strength for a total of 14. He hits AC 14.
The big difference I've noticed is that 3.X and beyond has a whole slew of other modifiers that come into the equation. Even the basic modifiers are pretty extensive. Flanking, blindfighting, higher ground. Plus feats, skills, . In 1st ed you had a handful of other modifiers. There was a modifier if you couldn't see the target, and spells like Bless, Curse, Prayer and Holy Chant... but that was about it.
Skills and Powers introduced some wierdness to the equation, but those were optional splatbooks that fundamentally changed how the game was played in alot of ways.
And of course 1st ed was wierd in that it didn't even have THAC0. I'd agree that the attack matrix's were pretty counterintuitive.
My eyes glazed over reading how THAC0 works.
Then again I find trying to hit a bigger number as just more . . . natural feeling. Less is worse, more is better.
Unless you happen to be one of those people that likes golf. ;)
It seems to me, Montes lack of enthusiasm for 4e may alienate the 4e fanbase to some degree, whatever way the future unfolds.
On an interesting side note, somebody elsewhere suggested that the L&L articles are merely a distraction, to create false rumors and speculation to either distract from something or dispel the rumors and speculation that was occuring on its own.
Heh, I never believe in conspiracy theories. To pull one off, the people involved would have to be so incredibly competent, and I feel that prerequisite is virtually never in play.