FEBRUARY:
Genasi racial options, 1 paragon path, and 4 feats
Unearthed Arcana article on encounter resolution, should be Dungeon content
Class Acts, Druid: 1 epic destiny and 2 daily powers
Class Acts, Bard: 4 encounter powers, 3 feats
Guilds & Groups: 5 feats
Bazaar of the Bizarre: Six set items
Column about crunch-vs-fluff
Column about Shelly's game being over
Column about past editions
MARCH:
Essentials Warlord Errata
1 Paragon Path for worshipers of Ioun
1 fluff ritual giving a narrative event a mechanical cost
Ability Score Bonuses (should have been released a month after PH3, but whatever)
Henchmen rules, bordering on DM-only content
Athasian familiars
Column about past editions
Column about upcoming products
Column about D&D being on Community
APRIL:
Essentials Fighter Errata
6 Channel Divinity powers
List of rituals available only to people who could already see a list of rituals via the Compendium
6 ki focuses reproduced from published content
1 paragon path for worshipers of Avandra
Article on including gambling in your games, should be Dungeon content
Feat list/errata contributing nothing new
Column about past editions
Column about how awesome they're doing
Column about... Christ, I don't even know. Shelly used to be refreshingly irreverent, now she just feels gratingly irrelevant.
Again, this isn't even speaking to whether or not the new content in the given articles was any good, merely that it was original mechanical content. Last month we got 1 divine PP and 6 Channel Divinity powers. That's it. Is this really the salvation of 4e content people are trying to pass it off as? I'm not even sure that it's worth the subscription fee any more.
Though, the Ki Focuses article wasn't reproduced from anywhere - it's only appeared in Dragon. It was, however, cut from HoS.
You're definitely not the only one.
Though, the Ki Focuses article wasn't reproduced from anywhere - it's only appeared in Dragon. It was, however, cut from HoS.
Those ki focuses didn't appear in HoS? The Compendium says that they did. *shrugs*
You're definitely not the only one.
Though, the Ki Focuses article wasn't reproduced from anywhere - it's only appeared in Dragon. It was, however, cut from HoS.
Those ki focuses didn't appear in HoS? The Compendium says that they did. *shrugs*
No, they didn't. They were cut in order, presumably, to flesh out Dragon - it wasn't for lack of space IMO, there was plenty of other material they could have got rid of instead. Which makes the Compendium's definition of their source a bit of a slap in the face to those who bought the book.
Articles that don't get strikethroughs are acknowledged to bring new mechanical content regardless of quality. Underlined articles are new mechanical content that I feel contributed meaningfully to everyone's games.
Don't use strikethroughs and underlines next to each other. It's hard to read. In fact, strikethroughs are hard to read at all. Use color variations, or bold and italics, or something.
FEBRUARY:
Unearthed Arcana article on encounter resolution, should be Dungeon content
You said you weren't striking through mechanical content regardless of quality. This is mechanical content. Whether it should have been in the other magazine is irrelevent. If you're counting up content vs. non-content articles, that's fine. If you're counting articles you personally liked vs. articles you personally don't care for, then what's the point?
MARCH:
Essentials Warlord Errata
I don't object to you not counting it, but the main issue is that it isn't behind the paywall, and thus isn't dragon content that we're paying for. I also agree that errata that doesn't bring new content shouldn't be counted. However, you're use of the term 'essentials' in describing this, especially when theres nothing 'essentialsish' about the errata other then the format its written in (which is the format for everything these days, regardless), implies a reactionary rejection of anything you percieve as essentials-related that is going to completely undermine any objective review you attempt.
Ability Score Bonuses (should have been released a month after PH3, but whatever)
This is errata, and not behind the paywall, and thus doesn't count towards dragon content that we're paying extra for.
Henchmen rules, bordering on DM-only content
Doesn't matter. Still content.
APRIL:
Essentials Fighter Errata
see warlord comments above.
List of rituals available only to people who could already see a list of rituals via the Compendium
It's a list of rituals sorted by categories with easy summaries. I find it immensely more convenient then trying to browse rituals with the compendium. But there isn't new content, so if you want to disregard it on that count I can't object.
6 ki focuses reproduced from published content
They should have been in that published content. But they weren't.
Article on including gambling in your games, should be Dungeon content
Still content. You never said you were counting only player-only content, frankly.
Feat list/errata contributing nothing new
Apparently you didn't read the article, because there were a number of feats in there, and while several where utter trash, others contributed significantly to a number of classes and subclasses. However, it wasn't paid for content, and shouldn't be counted for that reason.
Again, this isn't even speaking to whether or not the new content in the given articles was any good, merely that it was original mechanical content.
Yoiu also seem to be sorting based on whether you personally feel the material is 'dm' or 'player' content, and you also seem to be rejecting things just because you don't like them. You're also failing to take into account whether the articles are themselves part of the paid-for subscriptions or not, because if you're going to complain about free articles you're just being silly.
Despite disagreeing with several of your individual points, I don't disagree with your overall assessment. DDI content has been far below expectations of late.
May's issue will be problematic to compare. Are the Themes base 4E material or E-material? That's an argument that'll have two sides with no real way to settle.
There's no difference. It's all 4e material.
I guess if you keep saying it eventually it will come true, but at this rate when it happens my grandkids will be very sad.
Folk in another thread told me that the 4e I love is getting plenty of great support in DDI...
Hi!
...so I've strolled back through the past few Dragon issues to see if it compares to the (doubtless rose-tinted view of the) glory days I remember. Articles which I consider to be the virtually ignorable 'junk mail' of Dragon get strikethroughs. Articles that don't get strikethroughs are acknowledged to bring new mechanical content regardless of quality. Underlined articles are new mechanical content that I feel contributed meaningfully to everyone's games.
The particulars of your list involve making a lot of judgment calls. However, I think it's important to note that even in your summary, there have been 1-2 articles a month that you consider to bring new mechanical content to D&D.
I didn't mean to make the argument, in the other thread, that Dragon is churning out dozens of articles every month full of quality crunch. But again, even accepting your judgments of only three months' worth of content, there's a significant portion of a new book's worth of material: updates to a dozen races, significant new racial features, new familiars, 12 feats, 3 paragon paths, 1 epic destiny, and 6 new items.
So I suppose the major difference between us is that, by my standards, that's actually a lot of material for three months. (It's certainly more than I can play through in the same amount of time, and I game twice a week.) What would be a satisfactory rate of production for you?
I think we were all accustomed to the bloat of 3.5E and even those of us who welcomed 4E with open arms missed that bloat. I know I did.
Probably true. Here's the thing. 3.5 had five years to build that bloat. In 5 years, for example, we got 3,340 feats in 3.5. The Compendium lists 3,066 feats in 4e, and that's only after 2.5 years. 3.5 has 782 prestige classes. 4e has 547 Paragon Paths and 107 Epic Destinies, for 654 equivalent classes in about half the time. 4e had been pumping out mechanics at about twice the rate of 3.5. That's astounding and unsustainable.
So what you are saying is that a new edition is needed to sustain the production of new material.
No. I'm saying the rate of bloat from 2008-2010 was unsustainable and we should all get used to a drastically reduced rate of mechanical releases. That would be true even with a new edition, as I don't think WotC would want to repeat the bloat rate of 4e with a new edition either.
My gift to this thread. <3
So what you are saying is that a new edition is needed to sustain the production of new material.
No. I'm saying the rate of bloat from 2008-2010 was unsustainable and we should all get used to a drastically reduced rate of mechanical releases. That would be true even with a new edition, as I don't think WotC would want to repeat the bloat rate of 4e with a new edition either.
Yeah, I entirely agree.
I think when they started with 4e they were looking at 3.5 as a system that was HUGE. Not only was their all the WotC material from 5 years of 3.5 plus 3 years of 3.0, there was also the vast quantity of 3PP stuff floating around out there, 8 years of magazine material, etc etc etc. If 4e was going to be successful it was obvious it would need to cover a lot of that ground ASAP. The 4e PHB1 for instance covers more than any previous PHB in one shot in many areas. They obviously felt that 4e should boot up and be a very well supported system FAST, and the rise of PF as an alternative only made that necessity even stronger.
In the long run it was probably harmful to the edition. A lot of stuff was designed and thrown out there with only a very limited understanding of how the system would work out in actual play and what player preferences would be. Now we see them slowing down, taking a deep breath, and trying to go back and solidify and improve things. This is why we see a lot of material that goes over territory already covered once (Essentials in-toto really falls into this category).
I think if you take a bit more of a broad perspective on D&D down the years and look at what we're getting now vs what historically has been the norm and what is probably sustainable in the longer term the current situation isn't particularly alarming or appalling. Honestly, I have boxes full of Dragon Magazine going back all the way to issue #11 (and a few earlier than that, Snit Smashing was in #11, hehe). Most issues, even in the heyday of TSR Dragon contained only a fairly small amount of crunch. Maybe some article on some obscure subsystem, a new spell or three, a few magic items or traps. Often there'd be one crunch article in the entire magazine. In fact crunch wasn't REALLY the main emphasis of Dragon (or Dungeon either). It is only more recent times when that has come to the fore. Probably because we have online communities now and so the magazine HAS changed. The point is, it was always a good read and it still is for the most part. I actually find the current Dragons to have much more actual utility for play than the old time ones did.
Do keep in perspective that 4th edition has a lot more ROOM for material than 3rd edition did, due to every class having many options (and not just spellcasters), non-modular magic item rules, everyone having access to many feats, the introduction of paragon paths and hybrid classes, and so on.
There is some truth to that, although 3.5 was certainly pretty much infinitely extensible in one way or another. For that matter so were earlier editions in principle. You just needed to create a new class to do something REALLY different in say AD&D. Actually the odd thing is not that many new classes were produced for AD&D. The 1e PHB was in fact to a large extent just all the classes that had been presented in Dragon and various supplements from 74-78. After the 1e PHB came out, there really weren't many added. The Barbarian and the Cavalier were the main ones actually, and that covers a LOT of years from 78-89. 2e didn't add ANY new classes at all, reworked a few, and dropped a couple. TBH there were a very few experimental classes that did come out in Dragon that never went anywhere, but they were few and far between.
TSR Dragon really wasn't all that crunch heavy. The vast majority of crunch that showed up in it was new magic items in Bazaar of the Bizarre from what I recall. There were often articles detailing some small stuff, but it was largely DM-side stuff like a new poison, a monster, or some fairly peripheral thing. Dungeon obviously became the place for adventures and some of the DM crunch later on, but there wasn't a flood of that kind of stuff. AD&D really didn't emphasize new crunch all that much. It stayed a pretty small system by today's standards. When they did start up with tons of crunchy stuff it was later 2e and it all came out in supplements, very little of it showed up in magazine format.
For me, that alone just about invalidates the list in terms of it's potential as a marker for whether or not Dragon is in a quality decline.
2nd edition had kits, a method of designining your own classes in the DMG
The Hybrids could almost be seen as a 4th edition flavor of this.
I am too disheartened to retype it...
I think we were all accustomed to the bloat of 3.5E and even those of us who welcomed 4E with open arms missed that bloat. I know I did.
Probably true. Here's the thing. 3.5 had five years to build that bloat. In 5 years, for example, we got 3,340 feats in 3.5. The Compendium lists 3,066 feats in 4e, and that's only after 2.5 years. 3.5 has 782 prestige classes. 4e has 547 Paragon Paths and 107 Epic Destinies, for 654 equivalent classes in about half the time. 4e had been pumping out mechanics at about twice the rate of 3.5. That's astounding and unsustainable.
Wrecan, as usual you post something that makes sense and has actual research to back it up.
So I think what this means is that for people wanting support for the less popular choices, you will just have to be patient. And everyone needs to realize that we have an enormous amount of material for such a short time span.
Regarding the reprint of old classes in the new format: I honestly don't understand why anyone could be mad about this. Even if you hate every single thing about the new material (and I mean everything, right down to the font), the fact is that WotC is giving away material for free. These articles were not Subscriber only content. This is a fantastic thing, considering how often I see people accuse WotC of doing things as a "cash grab". The PHB, while a fantastic book (my current party uses many things from it), it also out of date. The Rules Compendium replaces the rules content from the book, but the Classes have all been changed by Errata. So now new players have two options: they can decide to still buy the book even though it needs to be manually updated (because many of us just like the feel of an actual book in our hands) or they can download a free article with all the updated info for the class in one place (because many of us love computers). More options. Free options. What is bad about that?
So yes, it was absolutely cut for space.
Agreed. Of course, they could have easily trimmed that many pages of the extraneous, unnecessary fluff out of the rest of the book ...
Again, no they could not. One, it is part of the Essetials design system, so until that changes it's not going to get cut, and two, fluff sells.
Actually, fluff sells to some, not all. I, for example, would rather they cut all but the barest flavour and give me more mechanical goodies in its place. So justifying the stance by saying "fluff sells" seems to indicate that I am in the "minority". While this does not seem accurate, I could definitely be wrong.
That exact process has been my posting method on every forum I've posted in for as long as I've been posting in forums. That is, at least ten years. I'm not sure why it's causing problems now, but I just can't bring myself to rehash that entire post. Especially not when it's the second one tonight, in the same thread.
The tl;dr was basically, "I make very good use of fluff articles, as a player and DM. If the mags had no fluff, or even a bare minimum amount of fluff, I would consider them a complete waste of time, outside of free articles, since if I have a ddi sub, I can just check out new mechanical options in the CB."
I know someone like this. They can delve down into a system and break it down to the nuts and bolts and build anything, but when it comes to story and fluff, he's an old timer, and relies on published materials to give him the setting and the story. This edition has been murder on him because of the lack of settings and modules (he won't use DDI). He's managed to convert some, but they don't come off as well as published materials mainly because older editions were murderously ruthless when it came to what you were expected to survive. So if there is more fluff coming, then it helps people like him. Just stating a case here.
@"Fluff vs. Crunch": I tend to look at it this way.
Good Crunch is hard to write, and hard to find.
Good Fluff is hard to write, but incredibly easy to find.
By which I mean: books, internet, films, whathaveyou. All are sources of "fluff". Especially with the internet, and various wiki/wikia sites, finding a setting one likes and stealing from it wholesale is incredibly bloody easy.
Just a personal position. I can find fluff really easily. I don't need WotC to provide me with a ton of it.
I can still appreciate it, though, when it's not in the form of a short story or, as has been the case with some material, "totally not a short story (though it clearly is)".
I don't appreciate the large amount of padding in the new essentials "format", that is purported to be "fluff". Things like the feat, feature, and power descriptions aren't "fluff" - they're repetitive padding that winds up making less content look like more.
Fluff and crunch don't really exisit independently of each other. Alot of the greatest D&D sourcebooks were heavy on the fluff.
Fluff and crunch don't really exisit independently of each other. Alot of the greatest D&D sourcebooks were heavy on the fluff.
I disagree with the former sentence and point out that the latter does not logically support it. One could just as easily say that internal combustion engines and rubber tires don't really exist independently of each other because a (SPAAAAAACE) lot of the greatest motor vehicles had rubber tires.
To expand upon my disagreement, WotC could release a class designated 'Class-Role Model 114' with a host of powers and features with absolutely no fluff whatsoever. This one pushes, that one stuns, it gets to punish this particular enemy action, whatever, but at no point does it say why or how. I would treasure this new class (assuming good design, of course). I would, simply in the course of reading it, imagine a half-dozen different fluffs for those abilities, for the class features, for the class as a whole. If WotC can bring one half of the crunch-fluff equation and I another, that would indicate to me that the two elements do exist independently of one another.
Mind you, I'm not saying that the above scenario is my ideal: I like a garnish of fluff to nudge me in a particular direction, but it's far from vital. I'm the guy who looks at a Warforged Druid and sees an Elan Soulknife.
@Original Topic: Dragon has had a "downward trend" for a long long time now. Now that it has a buffer of "Books we were writing, but decided not to publish" material, maybe it can turn that around.
I admit that I'm not this optimistic. Since I estimate that the reason the new books got scrapped is because they were falling behind on publishing at the promised rate, I don't expect that they had much queued up for release when they gave it the axe. I think that they killed development farther back than we realize, published what they actually did have queued up (I don't see any sense in deliberately choosing to not profit maximally from content already made (especially with rough times clearly ahead) and 'get full cover price' beats 'fold it into a subscription we're already getting paid for' hands-down), and only told us that they'd cut the schedule once the larder was empty. I think they're running on fumes, not reserves.
Fluff got me into D&D a long time ago, not the rules.
Great for you. That's not the case with me. I got into D&D because it looked like a fun game. In fact, I got into D&D in spite of the unimaginative, tired, regurgitated medieval fantasy crap that was Greyhawk circa 3.5. When I discovered Dark Sun and Eberron it made the situation more bearable, but the fact of the matter is that it was the game itself, the interaction born of the rules, that drew me to D&D, so I can't empathise with your primary attraction to the fluff.
No new campaign world has been released since 2004, theres nothing to tie 4th ed to
I don't see how simultaneity of a new setting and 4e would somehow reflect on 4e in the slightest; it seems an illogical commingling of the system and the fluff featured therein to me. Still, I've heard it said a few times (and I agree) that Eberron found its ideological mate in 4e, that this system better expresses the dynamic, egalitarian, players-first design of the setting.
Reading 4th ed books is kinda like reading the 3.5 Spell Compendium. Its good for the die hard players I suppose but uninspiring to anyone looking at playing 4th ed. Hell some of my 4th ed players have been reading 2nd Ed material and enjoying it because it doesn't exist for the most part in 4th.
I can't argue with this because you're complaining about something which simply isn't a factor for me. I don't pick up rule books to become inspired; I find inspiration on my own and pick up the rule books for rules. I have no problem with fluff, I just think that it should be in its own books that people can turn to for inspiration (the campaign setting books are an excellent example of this) without cluttering my book of rules with fluff I don't particularly need.
We each have different priorities and that's all right. Just as you lament the (beautiful glorious) rapid release of crunch-heavy content for 4e's first couple of years, allow me to lament the (horrible awful) clogging of the beautiful system I love with what I view as only occasionally-relevant filler for what I expect will be its last couple of years.
I hope they won't throw the baby out with the bath water though. Lack of fluff is probably only one reason. I doubt the AEDU structure will make it to 5th ed.
Put it this way. I'm expecting around 2 more years outta 4th ed and then its all over. If that happens 4th ed by default becomes the worst version of D&D. If they can drag it out for another 6 years 3rd ed gets that honour. Basically when an edition stagnates and sales are down= new shiny edition.
I hope they won't throw the baby out with the bath water though. Lack of fluff is probably only one reason. I doubt the AEDU structure will make it to 5th ed.
ummm...4th is the best by a country mile. lack of fluff? lol
Put it this way. I'm expecting around 2 more years outta 4th ed and then its all over. If that happens 4th ed by default becomes the worst version of D&D.
Why does shortest = worst?
TSR effectively stopped producing 2d edition in 1995. They just sort of coasted for a while in limbo until Wizards bought them. I wouldn't count the dead years of 1995-2000 in 2nd edition's favor. 2d edition had an effective run of 6 years, followed by four years of bankruptcy. If any edition is in the running for worst edition ever, it should be the edition that almost killed D&D altogether. (And I like 2d edition!)
I think (and I have no inside info, mind you), that they are just starting to ruminate on a 5th edition now, with a three year plan to rollout. That would mean 5e would be announced at GenCon 2014, on the 40th anniversary of the game. It would also mean 4e probably has another three years in it, at least, giving it a seven year run.
I hope they won't throw the baby out with the bath water though. Lack of fluff is probably only one reason. I doubt the AEDU structure will make it to 5th ed.
AEDU sucks. Lack of "Wormy" comic and "Ecology Of" articles sucks even more. Heck, even the advertising added something. I WANT ADVERTISING BACK!
AEDU sucks.
In a word: why?
AEDU sucks. Lack of "Wormy" comic and "Ecology Of" articles sucks even more. Heck, even the advertising added something. I WANT ADVERTISING BACK!
I gotta ask, FFSAA, given that I'm used to this kind of negativity on these fora lately (and mostly not as jokes): was this serious or sarcasm?
Fluff got me into D&D a long time ago, not the rules.
I liked the concepts/creatures/ideas behind previous editions, but I started with 4th edition because of the rules. Flavour is not the deal maker or breaker for me in any game; if I can't enjoy the mechanical way I'm going to interact with the world, then the game is not worth my time, effort or energy.
AEDU sucks. Lack of "Wormy" comic and "Ecology Of" articles sucks even more. Heck, even the advertising added something. I WANT ADVERTISING BACK!
I gotta ask, FFSAA, given that I'm used to this kind of negativity on these fora lately (and mostly not as jokes): was this serious or sarcasm?
I'm kind of curious as well. AEDU was one of the top things that won me over to D&D. I literally can see nothing bad about it.
Put it this way. I'm expecting around 2 more years outta 4th ed and then its all over. If that happens 4th ed by default becomes the worst version of D&D.
Why does shortest = worst?
TSR effectively stopped producing 2d edition in 1995. They just sort of coasted for a while in limbo until Wizards bought them. I wouldn't count the dead years of 1995-2000 in 2nd edition's favor. 2d edition had an effective run of 6 years, followed by four years of bankruptcy. If any edition is in the running for worst edition ever, it should be the edition that almost killed D&D altogether. (And I like 2d edition!)
I think (and I have no inside info, mind you), that they are just starting to ruminate on a 5th edition now, with a three year plan to rollout. That would mean 5e would be announced at GenCon 2014, on the 40th anniversary of the game. It would also mean 4e probably has another three years in it, at least, giving it a seven year run.
Becase people will see it as a failure if it doesn't outlast 3.5 at least. 2nd ed lasted 11 years even if one doesn't like 1996-2000. Hell if they announced 5th ed tomorrow these boards would go to hell in a handbasket. You would have the 3.5 holdouts saying "I told you so" while the 4th ed players would be moaning about everything. Replace tomorrow with 2 years or so and it is much the same. Like it or not 4th ed lacks fluff compared to previous editions and 4th ed probably isn't selling that well and dress it up how you like it has very few books coming out to support it. Thats not a good thing despite PR saying they will focus on quality and not quantity. Pathfinder isn't my kettle of fish but it is doing reasonably well by most accounts and most people online who are familiar with it seem to like the PF fluff if they are familiar with it even if they don't like PF being a retro clone of 3.5.
Think of the great adventures and campaigns. People liked them because of the fluff as some of them haven't aged that well. The Isle of Dread, Drow, the Realms or Dragonlance etc. Hell alot of the fluff in 4th ed is recycled from previous editions and that Githyanki city in MotP s more or less a direct conversion of the fluff Dragon and Dungeon had around 3.5's launch and their Githyanki invasion crossover plotline. Not saying fluff is more important than mechanics but it is important. 4th ed is a tactical minis RPG and you can't buy the miniis, not much in the way of fluff and not much in the way of crunch either but I'm sure the future looks bright for 4th ed. What fluff their is is quite good and I like some of it better than the old fluff (Elemental Chaos, Arkhosia, hints of Spelljamming) and there has been more than a few threads about the PoL setting being developed into a gameworld. 4th ed at this rate won't have much of a legacy as 3.5 gave us Eberron for example, 2nd ed various campagn worlds (to many I admit), 1st ed DL and the Realms. If the mechanics change in 5th ed not alot of 4th ed will survive in the future.
Fluff got me into D&D a long time ago, not the rules.
I liked the concepts/creatures/ideas behind previous editions, but I started with 4th edition because of the rules. Flavour is not the deal maker or breaker for me in any game; if I can't enjoy the mechanical way I'm going to interact with the world, then the game is not worth my time, effort or energy.
AEDU sucks. Lack of "Wormy" comic and "Ecology Of" articles sucks even more. Heck, even the advertising added something. I WANT ADVERTISING BACK!
I gotta ask, FFSAA, given that I'm used to this kind of negativity on these fora lately (and mostly not as jokes): was this serious or sarcasm?
I'm kind of curious as well. AEDU was one of the top things that won me over to D&D. I literally can see nothing bad about it.
Alot of people don't like AEDU hence the edition wars hate. I'm somewhere in the middle on it and I suspect long term it is kinda restrictive to class design. Fine for the existing classes. I hope some version of powers makes it to 5th ed but I'm not to worried if it is AEDU, something similar to it, or elements of it. If 4th ed tanks I hope WoTC doesn't ditch it entirely if 3.5 holdouts are screaming for blood. I like racial powers alot for example, AEDU 6/10 sorta thing. If AEDU was so great 4th ed would be selling more, instead of being in the doldrums.
Hell if they announced 5th ed tomorrow these boards would go to hell in a handbasket. You would have the 3.5 holdouts saying "I told you so" while the 4th ed players would be moaning about everything.
Yeah... To quote Hoban 'Wash' Washburn: "That part'll happen pretty definitely. " It won't matter if it's tomorrow or 10 years from now. As to the boards going to hell in a handbasket, that happened a couple years back. Now we're in a "Handbasket: Still in motion" phase.
if they announced 5th ed tomorrow these boards would go to hell in a handbasket.
If they did, I'd be cautiously optimizistic whereas now I am cautious and pessimistic.
Fluff got me into D&D a long time ago, not the rules. I wanted to know more about these creatures known as Kobolds adn Dragons. Why do you think 4th ed probably isn't doing so well or why did it bloat almost to the same extent 3.5 but managed it in 3 years instead of 8. Why do you think Paizo is doing reasonably well? No new campaign world has been released since 2004, theres nothing to tie 4th ed to and more than a few people on this board like Paizo stuff even if they don't like Pathfinder mechanically. Reading 4th ed books is kinda like reading the 3.5 Spell Compendium. Its good for the die hard players I suppose but uninspiring to anyone looking at playing 4th ed. Hell some of my 4th ed players have been reading 2nd Ed material and enjoying it because it doesn't exist for the most part in 4th.
Same here! The mechanics of a game are second to me when it comes to a game that I like. The fluff and how it is presented is what attracts me to a game. Ever notice how most video games don't really show you actually game play on their commercials? They show you these cool cinematic effects and the storyline.
This is why so many people like Paizo because the fluff of their campaign world and the way it is presented is what attracts people. I believe this is what has really hurt Wizard's with their lack of fluff philosophy. I know there are some out there that just want mechanics, but if the fluffers out weigh the people who just like mechanics then you have a problem with sales.
Fluff got me into D&D a long time ago, not the rules.
I liked the concepts/creatures/ideas behind previous editions, but I started with 4th edition because of the rules. Flavour is not the deal maker or breaker for me in any game; if I can't enjoy the mechanical way I'm going to interact with the world, then the game is not worth my time, effort or energy.
AEDU sucks. Lack of "Wormy" comic and "Ecology Of" articles sucks even more. Heck, even the advertising added something. I WANT ADVERTISING BACK!
I gotta ask, FFSAA, given that I'm used to this kind of negativity on these fora lately (and mostly not as jokes): was this serious or sarcasm?
I'm kind of curious as well. AEDU was one of the top things that won me over to D&D. I literally can see nothing bad about it.
Alot of people don't like AEDU hence the edition wars hate. I'm somewhere in the middle on it and I suspect long term it is kinda restrictive to class design. Fine for the existing classes. I hope some version of powers makes it to 5th ed but I'm not to worried if it is AEDU, something similar to it, or elements of it. If 4th ed tanks I hope WoTC doesn't ditch it entirely if 3.5 holdouts are screaming for blood. I like racial powers alot for example, AEDU 6/10 sorta thing. If AEDU was so great 4th ed would be selling more, instead of being in the doldrums.
And this again blows my mind. What's not to like about a few powers for each class that help define how you work? And then, looking at the mechanics (what you want to do) and giving it the flavour of your character (who you are), you can totally define different characters even if they use the same powers and abilities. That to me is grand, because in the end, the amount of powers with one or more riders, or that are simply damage? The amount you can make is huge, and slight alterations in a power (targets a different defense, only an effect, only a hit, results on a miss, combinations of status effects, aftereffects, etc) makes each new power just that much more interesting.
I'm kind of curious as well. AEDU was one of the top things that won me over to D&D. I literally can see nothing bad about it.
It's the "D" part, for me. It's about, hm ...
*1/10 fluff problems with it - especially for martial, but for about any source - the fluff of daily powers just seems kind of wonky and contrived. It's an extra-overt example of where the mechanical bones of the game poke through the narrative and break the illusion of sense.
*1/10th I don't like the precise lock in to 1/day/daily - to elaborate, I vastly preferred 3e's approach (gasp! and shock), which under 4e would be more like "okay, you have 3 dailies, A, B, and C, and you can use them in any mix you want, and just use three 'dailies' today" ... it could be ABC, AAA, ABA, whatever.
*4/5th I don't like how, for all the buzz about 4e killing many sacred cows, it kept one of the worst: ADEU perpetuates, via daily powers, "encounter day" balance, which I find to be just awful. Yes there's ways to handle it, but they're forced or contrived and limit the DM's ability to design encounters by needing to either fit within this paradigm, or handwave/contrive fluff explanations to fit in the paradigm. It insists itself upon either encounter design, story design, or both. Or for it to not, it must be entirely divorced from the actual roleplaying, and then requires metagaming to ignore it.
ToB and XPH both were two vastly superior systems.
Becase people will see it as a failure if it doesn't outlast 3.5 at least.
People will see it as a failure based on what their prejudices are. It could last 12 years and people will abel it as a failure if they are so inclined. You're inventing an arbitrary yardstick for non-failure and then decreeign that everyone will agree with it. That's a bit bizarre.
4th ed probably isn't selling that well
Pathfinder isn't my kettle of fish but it is doing reasonably well by most accounts
See where I told you people will believe what they want to believe? You just did that right there. You have no idea how well 4e is selling. You also have no idea how well 3e sold. You have no idea how well PF is selling. And all those "accounts" you're relying on? They have no idea either.
This is called confirmation bias. You remember and credit the people who agree with you and discredit and ignroe the people who do not.
4th ed is a tactical minis RPG and you can't buy the miniis, not much in the way of fluff
I disagree. Open Grave, Manual of the Planes, The Plane Above, The Plane Below, Underdark, Draconomicon 1 and 2, and Demonomicon are all 4e releases that are mostly flavor. And they have pretty great flavor to boot. That's eight releases I named off the top of my head.
4th ed at this rate won't have much of a legacy as 3.5 gave us Eberron
I'm pretty sure the PoL cosmology will continue into the next edition. I'm pretty sure characters like the Raven Queen will continue into the next edition. I think you'll be surprised how much flavor was introduced in 4e and will continue to 5e.
If the mechanics change in 5th ed not alot of 4th ed will survive in the future.
See above about confirmation bias.
No, they didn't. They were cut in order, presumably, to flesh out Dragon - it wasn't for lack of space IMO, there was plenty of other material they could have got rid of instead. Which makes the Compendium's definition of their source a bit of a slap in the face to those who bought the book.
No, it was definitely for a lack of space. The fluff text wasn't going anywhere because that's an inherent, if annoying, part of Essentials design. The only other thing that could have been cut were the feats, and out of those feats at least 4 - 6 were absolutely necessary to stay in, which would have left a page and a half for Ki Foci at most, when there is a good 2.5 - 3 pages worth of Ki Foci material.
So yes, it was absolutely cut for space.
As for all of you complaining about fluff, get used to it. Fluff sells more than mechanics.
Six Ki Foci, in total, are sourced in the compendium either from Heroes of Shadow, or from multiple sources (and I presume those would have been reprinted in HoS as I gather they were in Dragon). One page in this format. Two, if we're being very generous. Cut the full-page reprint of the Revenant image, and a couple of the other reprints. Plenty of space. And that's without being facetious about cutting the useless mechanical content, or the fluff.
Not to mention the fact that I challenge your premise that fluff sells more than mechanics based, if nothing else, on the number of people making the point I heartily agree with:
I make up my own flavour, build my own worlds, figure out my own character histories. I can't make up my own mechanics (doubly so because I play LFR, and therefore can't houserule at all). I don't give a rat's derrierre about the derivative cliched GRIMDARK fluff this book spouts. I do care about the mechanical content I can't get elsewhere.
If I want flavour, I'll read a novel (and, let me add, it would be far, far better to read a good fantasy novel than the fluff in D&D books). If I want background material for my character, I'll make it up around the barest of setting-based bones, primarily geopolitical, and run with it by myself from there. If I want mechanics for D&D, I HAVE to come to WotC. When they bump the mechanical content for generic, cliched fluff and reprinted artwork, it annoys me. I'm not alone in that.
I'm kind of curious as well. AEDU was one of the top things that won me over to D&D. I literally can see nothing bad about it.
It's the "D" part, for me. It's about, hm ...
*1/10 fluff problems with it - especially for martial, but for about any source - the fluff of daily powers just seems kind of wonky and contrived. It's an extra-overt example of where the mechanical bones of the game poke through the narrative and break the illusion of sense.
*1/10th I don't like the precise lock in to 1/day/daily - to elaborate, I vastly preferred 3e's approach (gasp! and shock), which under 4e would be more like "okay, you have 3 dailies, A, B, and C, and you can use them in any mix you want, and just use three 'dailies' today" ... it could be ABC, AAA, ABA, whatever.
*4/5th I don't like how, for all the buzz about 4e killing many sacred cows, it kept one of the worst: ADEU perpetuates, via daily powers, "encounter day" balance, which I find to be just awful. Yes there's ways to handle it, but they're forced or contrived and limit the DM's ability to design encounters by needing to either fit within this paradigm, or handwave/contrive fluff explanations to fit in the paradigm. It insists itself upon either encounter design, story design, or both. Or for it to not, it must be entirely divorced from the actual roleplaying, and then requires metagaming to ignore it.
ToB and XPH both were two vastly superior systems.
I like the daily thing, and think it totally fits into the "watch this trick" thought, even for Martial characters. To be fair though, I do think the daily power is cool but that a slightly changed mechanic where one could recharge that power similar to how monsters can recharge their big scary powers would be spiffy cool. I also think of everything, from battles to story as encounters. I also totally let players use powers outside of battle for common sense uses, and am glad that the system left it up to me to deliberate those out-of-battle uses.
Becase people will see it as a failure if it doesn't outlast 3.5 at least.
People will see it as a failure based on what their prejudices are. It could last 12 years and people will abel it as a failure if they are so inclined. You're inventing an arbitrary yardstick for non-failure and then decreeign that everyone will agree with it. That's a bit bizarre.4th ed probably isn't selling that wellPathfinder isn't my kettle of fish but it is doing reasonably well by most accounts
See where I told you people will believe what they want to believe? You just did that right there. You have no idea how well 4e is selling. You also have no idea how well 3e sold. You have no idea how well PF is selling. And all those "accounts" you're relying on? They have no idea either.
This is called confirmation bias. You remember and credit the people who agree with you and discredit and ignroe the people who do not.4th ed is a tactical minis RPG and you can't buy the miniis, not much in the way of fluff
I disagree. Open Grave, Manual of the Planes, The Plane Above, The Plane Below, Underdark, Draconomicon 1 and 2, and Demonomicon are all 4e releases that are mostly flavor. And they have pretty great flavor to boot. That's eight releases I named off the top of my head.4th ed at this rate won't have much of a legacy as 3.5 gave us Eberron
I'm pretty sure the PoL cosmology will continue into the next edition. I'm pretty sure characters like the Raven Queen will continue into the next edition. I think you'll be surprised how much flavor was introduced in 4e and will continue to 5e.If the mechanics change in 5th ed not alot of 4th ed will survive in the future.
See above about confirmation bias.
True I don't know what the sales numbers are and enither do you but 3.5 had regular releases right up to the end of the product line and it supported a minis line as well. 4th ed has lost the minis line and has its release schedule cut drastically and Pathfinder seems to have more releases planned this year than 4th ed hence my comment about PF doing reasonably well. I never claimed 4th ed had no fluff, just less of it. 4th ed has churned out almost as much crunch in 3 years as 3.5 managed in 8 in terms of feats, classes and paragon paths/PrCs. I'm nbot exactly a raging Paizo fanboy either- tried PF kinda liked it, had the same problems as 3.5 at higher levels and I only bought the Paizo core book PDF and beastiary PDFs which are essentially the PHB, DMG and MM. I don't think you will find to many people here claiming that Paizo era Dungeon was worse than 4th ed era Dungeon ignoring things like PDF vs dead tree or 3.5 vs 4th. Paizo fluff and production values are higher than WoTC even though I have no strong desire to run their system.
Dragon and Dungeon are in the worse shape I have ever seen them and that includes 96 or so when TSR went under. Dragon has always been hit and miss usually being good when a new edition launches and sucking towards the end of that edtion. 2000,2003 and 2008 were good years for Dragon all things being relative (IMHO). I'll admit I'm no raging 4th ed fanboy either but I've been enjoying running it for the most part and the players seem to like it even the 3.5 holdouts but it isn't perfect, could have been better and fanboyism aside seems to have trouble selling with very few products coming out. I don't want 4th ed to tank but I don't really care if they released 5th ed tomorrow either. My main problem is when I play 3.5 I miss elements of 4th ed and when I run 4th ed I miss parts of 3.5 and Star Wars Saga. For the most part my group will play whatever I'll run and out of the 5 players 4 of them seem to have their favourite parts of each edition/game. I don't really see myself running 3.5/PF anytime soon except maybe as a one off but yeah I think 4thed ed has some problems that raving fanboys either don't want to admit (4th ed is sacrosanct) or they are to selfish and want their preferred parts of 4th ed supported and everyone else can go to hell. With 30+ classes, and only 12 issues of Dragon a year you would need 3 classes supported each month and IDK how many 4th ed books are coming out each year but its less than 12 hence why you're going to get threads about lemon chicken and the decline of D&D or essentials suck etc. WoTC spam spam spam policy is to blame along with the limitations of the AEDU class structure which more or less forced them to change the way the classes were designed as otherwise you would be getting clone classes of each other. Reading a whole book of XYZ powers is boring and is only going to appeal to the hard core players. The "casual" players of D&D (and Magic) are actually the biggest customers of WoTC. Hence if they want essentials type stuff and fluff and it sells WoTC will cater to them as they would be stupid not to.
Encounter powers they broke in PHB1 with the healing abilities being once per encounter you can use twice per encounter. I mean, wow, the designers had to have their heads shoved pretty far up their ass to miss the great big neon sign pointing to the fact the core system doesn't support what they want to do with it in their very first book.
Daily powers, if you don't see whats wrong with dailys I doubt I can explain it to you without a hammer, but in brief. Novas. One-fight-per-day. Impossible to balance. Breaks any hope of using the same rules for character construction to make monsters.
Utilities, sharing combat ability and non-combat ability in the same pool is a stupidity that has been discussed to death for years and years.
In general, filling books with thousands of special little rules packets was a problem with earlier editions, in 3E the last half of the book was spells for casters, in 4E it's powers for every class. Turning every character into a 3E wizard who has to juggle 15, 20 even 30 or more special little rules packets, in other words spells, in other words power cards, at higher levels, is dumb.
AEDU was a bloody stupid idea and here are a few of the many many reasons why.
Encounter powers they broke in PHB1 with the healing abilities being once per encounter you can use twice per encounter. I mean, wow, the designers had to have their heads shoved pretty far up their ass to miss the great big neon sign pointing to the fact the core system doesn't support what they want to do with it in their very first book.
Daily powers, if you don't see whats wrong with dailys I doubt I can explain it to you without a hammer, but in brief. Novas. One-fight-per-day. Impossible to balance. Breaks any hope of using the same rules for character construction to make monsters.
Utilities, sharing combat ability and non-combat ability in the same pool is a stupidity that has been discussed to death for years and years.
In general, filling books with thousands of special little rules packets was a problem with earlier editions, in 3E the last half of the book was spells for casters, in 4E it's powers for every class. Turning every character into a 3E wizard who has to juggle 15, 20 even 30 or more special little rules packets, in other words spells, in other words power cards, at higher levels, is dumb.
You make accusations in this post, but at no point do you actually attempt to say why you think they are bad ideas. Would you care to try again?
I have, for the record, had little trouble balancing encounters and having one fight per game day is standard procedure, by design (rather than 'we blew all our big guns, let's go rest). What you seem to be confusing there is a player issue with a game system issue.
AEDU was a bloody stupid idea and here are a few of the many many reasons why.
Encounter powers they broke in PHB1 with the healing abilities being once per encounter you can use twice per encounter. I mean, wow, the designers had to have their heads shoved pretty far up their ass to miss the great big neon sign pointing to the fact the core system doesn't support what they want to do with it in their very first book.
Daily powers, if you don't see whats wrong with dailys I doubt I can explain it to you without a hammer, but in brief. Novas. One-fight-per-day. Impossible to balance. Breaks any hope of using the same rules for character construction to make monsters.
Utilities, sharing combat ability and non-combat ability in the same pool is a stupidity that has been discussed to death for years and years.
In general, filling books with thousands of special little rules packets was a problem with earlier editions, in 3E the last half of the book was spells for casters, in 4E it's powers for every class. Turning every character into a 3E wizard who has to juggle 15, 20 even 30 or more special little rules packets, in other words spells, in other words power cards, at higher levels, is dumb.
Translation I hate 4th ed. I personally don't like dailes so AEU would be fine by me or if they even ditched AEDU altogather. I would like them to retain powers in some form though but I can live with AEDU for now.
AEDU was a bloody stupid idea and here are a few of the many many reasons why.
Encounter powers they broke in PHB1 with the healing abilities being once per encounter you can use twice per encounter. I mean, wow, the designers had to have their heads shoved pretty far up their ass to miss the great big neon sign pointing to the fact the core system doesn't support what they want to do with it in their very first book.
Daily powers, if you don't see whats wrong with dailys I doubt I can explain it to you without a hammer, but in brief. Novas. One-fight-per-day. Impossible to balance. Breaks any hope of using the same rules for character construction to make monsters.
Utilities, sharing combat ability and non-combat ability in the same pool is a stupidity that has been discussed to death for years and years.
In general, filling books with thousands of special little rules packets was a problem with earlier editions, in 3E the last half of the book was spells for casters, in 4E it's powers for every class. Turning every character into a 3E wizard who has to juggle 15, 20 even 30 or more special little rules packets, in other words spells, in other words power cards, at higher levels, is dumb.
Everything you hate is everything I love, and everything you hate you claim worst case scenario for. Good to know.
In general, filling books with thousands of special little rules packets was a problem with earlier editions, in 3E the last half of the book was spells for casters, in 4E it's powers for every class. Turning every character into a 3E wizard who has to juggle 15, 20 even 30 or more special little rules packets, in other words spells, in other words power cards, at higher levels, is dumb.
How else do you have options, especially in combat, and differentiate characters in what they can do, if they don't have "rules packets"?
True I don't know what the sales numbers are and enither do you
Here's the thing: I never made an assertion about 4e, 3e, or Pathfinder sales.
3.5 had regular releases right up to the end of the product line and it supported a minis line as well. 4th ed has lost the minis line and has its release schedule cut drastically
None of that has anything to do with what you're discussing. Your grabbing at factoids and then declaring they support the conclusion you already assume is appropriate.
You have a habit of making blanket statements based on nothing but your own emotions. For example:
"Dragon and Dungeon are in the worse shape I have ever seen them and that includes 96 or so when TSR went under."
Having recently spent some time perusing my old collection of Dragon and Dungeon mags, I am going to suggest you are looking at things through bottlecap glasses of nostalgia. Most of the contents of the magazines are stuff we now expect for free, like product release schedules, forum, letters, and errata. In addition, the quality of the articles was incredibly amateurish for much of its run. Which is to be expected as the folks at TSR were barely more than amateurs at the time -- they had no base from which to draw.
Dragon has always been hit and miss usually being good when a new edition launches and sucking towards the end of that edtion. 2000,2003 and 2008 were good years for Dragon all things being relative (IMHO). I'll admit I'm no raging 4th ed fanboy either but I've been enjoying running it for the most part and the players seem to like it even the 3.5 holdouts but it isn't perfect, could have been better and fanboyism aside seems to have trouble selling with very few products coming out. I don't want 4th ed to tank but I don't really care if they released 5th ed tomorrow either. My main problem is when I play 3.5 I miss elements of 4th ed and when I run 4th ed I miss parts of 3.5 and Star Wars Saga. For the most part my group will play whatever I'll run and out of the 5 players 4 of them seem to have their favourite parts of each edition/game. I don't really see myself running 3.5/PF anytime soon except maybe as a one off but yeah I think 4thed ed has some problems that raving fanboys either don't want to admit (4th ed is sacrosanct) or they are to selfish and want their preferred parts of 4th ed supported and everyone else can go to hell. With 30+ classes, and only 12 issues of Dragon a year you would need 3 classes supported each month and IDK how many 4th ed books are coming out each year but its less than 12 hence why you're going to get threads about lemon chicken and the decline of D&D or essentials suck etc. WoTC spam spam spam policy is to blame along with the limitations of the AEDU class structure which more or less forced them to change the way the classes were designed as otherwise you would be getting clone classes of each other. Reading a whole book of XYZ powers is boring and is only going to appeal to the hard core players. The "casual" players of D&D (and Magic) are actually the biggest customers of WoTC. Hence if they want essentials type stuff and fluff and it sells WoTC will cater to them as they would be stupid not to.
Please stop the rambling walls of text. It doesn't convey your point and makes you look a bit unhinged. I tried to parse the above, but as far as I can tell, you're just talking about your personal experience with 4e, and extrapolating universal truths from them. That's nto going to go very far around here.
1. Do you honestly believe 4th ed has outsold 3.5 (in equivilent timeframe)?
2. Do you think it is good that 4th ed has very little material coming out this year compared to 2008/2009 (or even 3.5 in its dying days).
And if you don't believe in the above if you were WoTC would you be concerned with falling sales? WoTC doesn't care about quality if they can spam out books that sell. 4th ed books not selling doesn't seem to be an unreasonable conclusion to draw when comapared to 3..5 and early 4th ed.
I admit that I'm not this optimistic. Since I estimate that the reason the new books got scrapped is because they were falling behind on publishing at the promised rate, I don't expect that they had much queued up for release when they gave it the axe. I think that they killed development farther back than we realize, published what they actually did have queued up (I don't see any sense in deliberately choosing to not profit maximally from content already made (especially with rough times clearly ahead) and 'get full cover price' beats 'fold it into a subscription we're already getting paid for' hands-down), and only told us that they'd cut the schedule once the larder was empty. I think they're running on fumes, not reserves.
All the current evidence points this way. Why else are they pushing back content because they have to spend resources "polishing up" the themes?
1. Do you honestly believe 4th ed has outsold 3.5 (in equivilent timeframe)?
I have no idea. Neither do you. neither does anybody else, except the folks who actually work there. See? A question doesn't have to have a yes or no answer/ "We don't know" is perfectly valid, but what it means is that any attempt to assume an answer is going to be based on what you want or fear to be true and absolutely nothing to do with what is true, except perhaps accidentally.
Do you think it is good that 4th ed has very little material coming out this year compared to 2008/2009 (or even 3.5 in its dying days).
I take Wizards at their word that they reevaluated the profitability of these books and pulled them for that reason. As far as we know, Wizards in 3.5 may have released books that sold abysmally, that they lost money on, but they just plowed ahead regardless. Or everything they touched was made of gold.
We don't know. And making any conclusion at all is folly.
if you were WoTC would you be concerned with falling sales?
This question assumes falling sales. We don't know.
WoTC doesn't care about quality if they can spam out books that sell. 4th ed books not selling doesn't seem to be an unreasonable conclusion to draw when comapared to 3..5 and early 4th ed.
It's an entirely unreasonable conclusion. Any conclusion is an entirely unreasonable conclusion.
4th ed comes out, alienates a large chunk of its customer base, has a competing system with Pathfinder and 3 years in it can't support a minis line or a regular book each month, and DDi is a big screwup (online CB unusable here, no essentials classes in compendium, Dragon and Dungeon not even a compiled PDFF), and a large % of 4th eds customer base also seems to reject essentials and IRL I'm the only local 4th ed DM I know of compared to several groups in 3.5 back in the day and even now come to think of it.
I don't know anything but I'm sure 4th ed is doing great with its (1?) whole book released this year.
Yeah 3.5 lost so much money that WoTC supported it for 5 years with a regular schedule and it was popular enough to support a minatures line as well along with in print Dragon and Dungeon.
4th ed comes out, alienates a large chunk of its customer base, has a competing system with Pathfinder and 3 years in it can't support a minis line or a regular book each month, and DDi is a big screwup (online CB unusable here, no essentials classes in compendium, Dragon and Dungeon not even a compiled PDFF), and a large % of 4th eds customer base also seems to reject essentials and IRL I'm the only local 4th ed DM I know of compared to several groups in 3.5 back in the day and even now come to think of it.
I don't know anything but I'm sure 4th ed is doing great with its (1?) whole book released this year.
Economical climate counts for a lot. 3.0/3.5 was released in very good years. 4.0, not so much.
Fluff got me into D&D a long time ago, not the rules.
Great for you. That's not the case with me. I got into D&D because it looked like a fun game. In fact, I got into D&D in spite of the unimaginative, tired, regurgitated medieval fantasy crap that was Greyhawk circa 3.5. When I discovered Dark Sun and Eberron it made the situation more bearable, but the fact of the matter is that it was the game itself, the interaction born of the rules, that drew me to D&D, so I can't empathise with your primary attraction to the fluff.
[snip]
Still, I've heard it said a few times (and I agree) that Eberron found its ideological mate in 4e, that this system better expresses the dynamic, egalitarian, players-first design of the setting.
I definately agree with the last part. Keith has even said that he prefers the way 4e handles alignment (at least in terms of representing what he felt Eberron should have been from the start. I don't remember what he said about alignment in general). Eberron is, IMO a setting that was simply waiting for a system like 4e dnd.
Which brings me to the first part.
Really? You looked at 3.5 and thought, "Hey, that's a good system! I'd like to play with those rules." ?
Yeah?
No offense intended, but were you high at the time? :P
Because I can't imagine seeing 3.5 and 4e next to eachother, without having heard of dnd or anything related to it beforehand, and even considering 3.5. Not even briefly.
I'd rather play GURPS.
here i get a bit off track, talking about my dnd journey
Show
The only reason I'm a DnD gamer is that back before my first dnd group switched over to 3.5 (they skipped 3e) from 2e, I hadn't heard of any other game that could do what we were doing. Eventually I heard of other systems, and for a while I played them instead of DnD. GURPS, a bastardized (read: less absurdly depressing) version of WoD, Star Wars Revised Core with a momentary detour into the old West End game, Hero System and even Shadowrun. I played in the occasional 3.5 game, but mostly I'd resigned myself to getting my fantasy role playing fix from games with good mechanics.
Then Star Wars Saga came out, and it was better than revised core. Just flat out better. And I had hope for this "4e DnD" I was hearing about. Then I read the previews, and I was excited. Halflings were irrevocably seperated from Hobbits, and I rejoiced. Dwarven women had no beards, and I clapped my hands with irreverent glee. Gnomes had no place in the PHB...and I took a step back and reminded myself of the good things, and that they would be in a later book.
Then the PHB came out, and I saw rangers, fighters and rogues that were just as relevant to a combat encounter (often more than) as the wizard. And I loved the new roles and the mechanics behind them.
The game made sense. The fluff was succinct, logical and relatively compelling. (Definately more enjoyable than greyhawk. then again, my groups never played in greyhawk, because it was bloody boring/uninspired) I had found a game that combined the classic fantasy roleplaying genre with mechanics that weren't ass backwards.
lol That felt good. I haven't been that frank about my thoughts on 3.5 dnd in a long time. Gods it wasn't good. I mean, it was better than 2e, which probably also contributed to me continuing to play it for a while, but it wasn't that good...
Then Star Wars Saga came out, and it was better than revised core. Just flat out better. And I had hope for this "4e DnD" I was hearing about. Then I read the previews, and I was excited. Halflings were irrevocably seperated from Hobbits, and I rejoiced. Dwarven women had no beards, and I clapped my hands with irreverent glee. Gnomes had no place in the PHB...and I took a step back and reminded myself of the good things, and that they would be in a later book.
Then the PHB came out, and I saw rangers, fighters and rogues that were just as relevant to a combat encounter (often more than) as the wizard. And I loved the new roles and the mechanics behind them.
The game made sense. The fluff was succinct, logical and relatively compelling. (Definately more enjoyable than greyhawk. then again, my groups never played in greyhawk, because it was bloody boring/uninspired) I had found a game that combined the classic fantasy roleplaying genre with mechanics that weren't ass backwards.
lol That felt good. I haven't been that frank about my thoughts on 3.5 dnd in a long time. Gods it wasn't good. I mean, it was better than 2e, which probably also contributed to me continuing to play it for a while, but it wasn't that good...
Yeah 3.5 lost so much money that WoTC supported it for 5 years with a regular schedule and it was popular enough to support a minatures line as well along with in print Dragon and Dungeon.
4th ed comes out, alienates a large chunk of its customer base, has a competing system with Pathfinder and 3 years in it can't support a minis line or a regular book each month, and DDi is a big screwup (online CB unusable here, no essentials classes in compendium, Dragon and Dungeon not even a compiled PDFF), and a large % of 4th eds customer base also seems to reject essentials and IRL I'm the only local 4th ed DM I know of compared to several groups in 3.5 back in the day and even now come to think of it.
I don't know anything but I'm sure 4th ed is doing great with its (1?) whole book released this year.
Economical climate counts for a lot. 3.0/3.5 was released in very good years. 4.0, not so much.
In theory this would hurt PF as well and they are releasing more stuff than 4th ed this year AFAIK.
Doctor Bad Wolf theres also been more than a few Amazon posts here with Pathfinder making up 7/10 for Amazon sales lists as I understand it the Amazon lists are moment by moment so you can find data that way to support PF or 4th ed. I suspect 4th ed is outselling PF at least 2-1 and probably more. However I have severe doubts that 4th ed has managed to outsell 3.5 in an equivilent time frame and 3.5 (and PF for that matter) had/have more support than 4th ed currently has. Even if I wanted to buy new 4th ed material I can't although my next 4th ed purchase will likely be the Darksun material $$$ permitting and maybe the monster vault.
Yeah 3.5 lost so much money that WoTC supported it for 5 years with a regular schedule and it was popular enough to support a minatures line as well along with in print Dragon and Dungeon.
4th ed comes out, alienates a large chunk of its customer base, has a competing system with Pathfinder and 3 years in it can't support a minis line or a regular book each month, and DDi is a big screwup (online CB unusable here, no essentials classes in compendium, Dragon and Dungeon not even a compiled PDFF), and a large % of 4th eds customer base also seems to reject essentials and IRL I'm the only local 4th ed DM I know of compared to several groups in 3.5 back in the day and even now come to think of it.
I don't know anything but I'm sure 4th ed is doing great with its (1?) whole book released this year.
See, this is nothing but your prejudices written in statement form. Here would be your statement in reverse and with just as much utility...
Yeah 4 lost so much money that WoTC supported it for 3 years running and it was popular enough to support several board games, and a Gamma World spinoff, as well as the first ever digital tool suite getting tens of thousands of consumers to buy monthly or annual subscriptions. /sarcasm
When 3rd ed comes out, it alienated a large chunk of its customer base. Three years into it, it was so broken they had to do a reboot, and spent several years simply republishing material that they had already written and released. (But, hey, it let them keep up that all so important 1 book a month release schedule!) The edition lasted five years, and the releases in the last year consistently garnered poor reviews on many independent sites. The minis game was a huge screw up and was cancelled before 3rd edition was even over. They were so incapable of handling the game, they had to farm out their IP to third parties to even produce magazines. A large % of 3.0 eds customer base also seems to reject 3.5 and IRL I was the only local 3rd ed DM I know of compared to several groups in 3.0 and 2nd back in the day and even now come to think of it.
But here's the thing: I don't believe what either you or I just wrote above is anything credible. For some reason, you do think all these random anecdotal statements should be given more than an iota of credibility.
I don't know anything but I'm sure 4th ed is doing great with its (1?) whole book released this year.
Well, I agree you don't know anything. In the last twelve months, they have released gaming supplements, including 16 books, not including the board games, card decks, and not including Gamma World.
Since January 1, they have produced two books (Gloomwrought just came out) and other gaming supplements. The release is light because they pulled three supplements rather than produce something that they felt was crap. In 3rd edition, they would have (and often did) just produced the crap, and, apparently, you'd be happy with that as long as it met your arbitrary 1 book a month benchmark. The schedule has five more books going forward for the remaining six months of the year, as well as more board games and other accessories.
So, no, I think it's pretty apparent that your arguments are based more on emotion than any semblance of logic. Whether you hope or fear 4e is failing, it doesn't seem to be based on anything but that hope and fear.
I have severe doubts that 4th ed has managed to outsell 3.5 in an equivilent time frame
Your doubts are baseless. It's like looking for omens in tea leaves or cloud formations.
4E is dying thread #1738
I guess if you keep saying it eventually it will come true, but at this rate when it happens my grandkids will be very sad.
No one is saying 4E is dying in this thread. They are pointing out the shift in direction for Dragon magazine away from useful options for players, and instead replacing it with either background material or content outright designed for DMs.
While a scattering of such info in the magazines is fine, having it as the default is something that many folks are not a fan of. In this thread, MrCelsius is not using this to predict the downfall of D&D, but instead analyzing the magazine content over the last several months to confirm that this is an actual trend.
Seriously, this sort of dismissive response - to a thread that actual works to start a reasonable and civil discussion - does no one any good.
I didn't mean to make the argument, in the other thread, that Dragon is churning out dozens of articles every month full of quality crunch. But again, even accepting your judgments of only three months' worth of content, there's a significant portion of a new book's worth of material: updates to a dozen races, significant new racial features, new familiars, 12 feats, 3 paragon paths, 1 epic destiny, and 6 new items.
That is hardly the "significant portion of a new book's worth of material". And, more than that - note that part of the point of the analysis was to show this was a developing trend. Of the player content, most of it was in February. In March and April combined, we had 2 paragon paths, 9 familiars, 6 ki foci, 1 ritual, and 6 new powers. Maybe a dozen pages of content? And of those, the new powers are part of an optional article and the ritual is something normally handled by plot or DM fiat in the first place.
Wrecan, earlier, talks about the "Era of Bloat"... but people seem to be assigning that to the first few years of DDI. That's not really true. In November 2009, Dragon shifted to the 'option bloat' format of presenting 15-20 short articles a month that were filled with new feats, powers, etc. And, yes, that overload of content was not the best idea. That's the thing - neither extreme is good for the magazine or the game. Finding a balance should be the goal of the current staff... and isn't one that seem concerned about. Partially due to backlash over that period, but also presumably due to lack of staff resources as well.
As it is, though, that overload period burned out after about six months, and then slowly diminished into the current state. But prior to that we had a year and a half of DDI being pretty much right in the sweet spot - a solid amount of content each month, usually in longer, interesting articles.
That's really what I want to get back to. I think there is room for interesting and new mechanical content that can be released at a pace that satisfies customers without overloading the game.
Prior to DDI, I subscribed to Dragon magazine for probably over a decade. And I enjoyed reading it, but I almost never actually got to use it. The comics were the highlight! Never the actual articles.
And DDI came along, and suddenly I had a magazine with genuinely useful content for my game. That was huge! And that's what I want it to return to. But we have folks like DoctorBadWolf who are implying that there is something wrong with that - that wanting to pay for useful content is a bad thing.
And I don't get that. I'm not clamoring for a magazine that cranks out 20 articles, each 2 pages long and filled with feats and powers. I agree that was a bad approach. But asking for a return to even half the content we got in the first year of the magazine? Asking for content that is actually useful to players? I mean, I think it is great the magazine has so much DM-centric material in it the last few months, but is it really a problem to want material for players as well?
No one is saying 4E is dying in this thread.
Zaardnar seems to be saying that. He hypothesizes 4e will end within the next two years, making it last shorter than 3.5.
Wrecan, earlier, talks about the "Era of Bloat"... but people seem to be assigning that to the first few years of DDI. That's not really true. In November 2009, Dragon shifted to the 'option bloat' format of presenting 15-20 short articles a month that were filled with new feats, powers, etc.
That's a good point. Of the 7,791 powers, 1,453 (19%) are from Dragon. Of the 3,066 feats, 1,225 (40%) come from Dragon. Of the 547 Paragon Paths, 130 (24%) come from Dragon. Of the 107 epic destinies, 27 (25%) come from Dragon. That's a huge percentage. I can see how the developers might not have initially realized what a bloat machine Dragon was going to become, as the magazine had never really been considered "official" before.
There have been 33 magazines to date put into the Compendium. The median numbers of powers and feats in an issue is 44 and 37, respectively. Almost all of the magazines that exceeded the median (for both) were issues 376 (June 2009) through 388 (June 2010). I hereby decree that to be the "Year of Bloat"! (It should be noted that issue 388 was Chris Youngs' last issue as editor of Dragon. Steve Winters replaces him in the next issue.)
But ff you look at the median number of powers and feats released between 364 (June 2008) and 375 (May 2009), you get 18 powers and 20 feats. The median from 389 (July 2010) to 396 (February 2011) is 23 powers and 16 feats. So I actually think we are back to where we were prior to the Year of Bloat.
As it is, though, that overload period burned out after about six months, and then slowly diminished into the current state. But prior to that we had a year and a half of DDI being pretty much right in the sweet spot - a solid amount of content each month, usually in longer, interesting articles.
It was a steady 13 months of bloat. There were eight months before that and ten months since then, and those periods are comparable in number of mechanics being released. The only difference between then and now was back in May 2009, only PHB, PHB2 and FRPG had been released. So there were only 17 classes. Now there are 39 classes (not including hybrids).
If Dragon had been limited to 20 powers and 20 feats each issue, it would have produced 660 of the 6,998 powers and 660 of the 2,501 feats. That would mean only 10% of all powers and 25% of feats. At that rate, it would have taken about two and half more years until we had as many powers and feats as we have today.
Agreed. I think 2008-10 will be known as the Era of Bloat. I've never seen so much crunch released for any edition of D&D in so short a time. I doubt we'll ever see the likes of it again.
It was pretty crazy to expect your PC to gain something new practically every other month. As an LFR player with a few PCs, I was reviewing my options every month for several PCs at a time. It was unsustainable bloat and power creep and a nightmare for proper editorial review.
I do not see a downward trend in terms of what I want. I see some really good articles. I see some really good options for me as a player and DM. I'm really excited about what is coming.
Zaardnar seems to be saying that. He hypothesizes 4e will end within the next two years, making it last shorter than 3.5.
Ok, fair enough. No one had made that claim at the time thecasualoblivion complained about it. His accusation seemed aimed at the creator of the thread and was, as far as I can tell, undeserved.
That's a good point. Of the 7,791 powers, 1,453 (19%) are from Dragon. Of the 3,066 feats, 1,225 (40%) come from Dragon. Of the 547 Paragon Paths, 130 (24%) come from Dragon. Of the 107 epic destinies, 27 (25%) come from Dragon. That's a huge percentage. I can see how the developers might not have initially realized what a bloat machine Dragon was going to become, as the magazine had never really been considered "official" before.
There have been 33 magazines to date put into the Compendium. The median numbers of powers and feats in an issue is 44 and 37, respectively. Almost all of the magazines that exceeded the median (for both) were issues 376 (June 2009) through 388 (June 2010). I hereby decree that to be the "Year of Bloat"! (It should be noted that issue 388 was Chris Youngs' last issue as editor of Dragon. Steve Winters replaces him in the next issue.)
But ff you look at the median number of powers and feats released between 364 (June 2008) and 375 (May 2009), you get 18 powers and 20 feats. The median from 389 (July 2010) to 396 (February 2011) is 23 powers and 16 feats. So I actually think we are back to where we were prior to the Year of Bloat.
Right, there was a huge shift to focus on those crunch-heavy articles. And that eventually wore off when people realized how much bloat was happening - and I think the shift back was starting to find a good balance. The concern is aimed at the last few months, in which that 15-20 powers/feats average suddenly drops to 0-5 or so. Now, this might just be a temporary blip before the balance of content renormalizes - but if not, that seems cause for concern. I don't think doubling the content output was a good thing, but I'm not sure if the answer is to shut it down entirely.
Now, the argument does go that since we did have double output previously, the game is better off with no output now to compensate. Thing is, the previous bloat was not evenly distributed. We have room for new feats and powers - not just for the under-supported classes (Runepriest, Seeker) that that outright need them, but also in other areas as well. Especially compared to classes like the Fighter and the Wizard.
Do people really believe that there is no room for any more feats, powers or other player options in the game, and/or that Dragon is well-served by not providing any such content?
It was a steady 13 months of bloat. There were eight months before that and ten months since then, and those periods are comparable in number of mechanics being released.
I'm not sure about that. While we started seeing more content from Dragon 376 through 379, a good deal of that came from releases like the Revenant (and the ton of racial feats necessitated by its design) and the Assassin (a full-fledged class).
Even in an issue like Dragon 380, where we had about 60 feats and powers... they were relatively focused in nature. We basically had 6 articles here - Vistani, Barbarians, Wizards, Raven Queen, Abyssal Genasi, Bazaar of the Bizarre. And of those, I think thematic options like those presented by the Vistani, Raven Queen, and Genasi articles are the sort of thing that make the game more robust, rather than more bloated.
But skip forward one month, to Dragon 381. Where we have fifteen articles with new content. Over 80 feats and over 120 new powers - admittedly, some of these coming from the new Artificer build, but still over 90 new powers outside of that, many of them from very brief articles that just toss the options out there.
And there is some good content among it all, but it also feels like here is where things start to get excessive. We continue to see 12-16 articles a month for the next 6 or 7 issues, until things start to simmer off in Dragon 388, and within a few issues we are back down to the prior pace... only we've kept decelerating from there, as seen in the last two months.
Dragon 380 through 387 was the real heart of the bloat, I think.
If Dragon had been limited to 20 powers and 20 feats each issue, it would have produced 660 of the 6,998 powers and 660 of the 2,501 feats. That would mean only 10% of all powers and 25% of feats. At that rate, it would have taken about two and half more years until we had as many powers and feats as we have today.
Again, I'm not sure all feats and powers should be weighted equally - that doesn't seem to acknowledge things like the Revenant or the Assassin. I don't think limiting a strict number of feats/powers for its own sake would have been the right answer. I think the key would have been to avoid the opposite - releasing more content just for the sake of doing so. The problem was in the individual articles that cranked out 5, 10 feats/powers at a time, without much of a theme or need for it. Especially the ones that kept doing so for the same classes, or that repeated areas where we already had relevant content.
Avoid that. Avoid the content that isn't needed. But there are plenty of areas in the game where more content could be added without unbalancing the system. Avoid feats and powers on an individual and well-released basis, rather than avoiding them just for the sake of doing so. That's what I really think needs to be done.
Yeah 3.5 lost so much money that WoTC supported it for 5 years with a regular schedule and it was popular enough to support a minatures line as well along with in print Dragon and Dungeon.
4th ed comes out, alienates a large chunk of its customer base, has a competing system with Pathfinder and 3 years in it can't support a minis line or a regular book each month, and DDi is a big screwup (online CB unusable here, no essentials classes in compendium, Dragon and Dungeon not even a compiled PDFF), and a large % of 4th eds customer base also seems to reject essentials and IRL I'm the only local 4th ed DM I know of compared to several groups in 3.5 back in the day and even now come to think of it.
I don't know anything but I'm sure 4th ed is doing great with its (1?) whole book released this year.
See, this is nothing but your prejudices written in statement form. Here would be your statement in reverse and with just as much utility...
Yeah 4 lost so much money that WoTC supported it for 3 years running and it was popular enough to support several board games, and a Gamma World spinoff, as well as the first ever digital tool suite getting tens of thousands of consumers to buy monthly or annual subscriptions. /sarcasm
When 3rd ed comes out, it alienated a large chunk of its customer base. Three years into it, it was so broken they had to do a reboot, and spent several years simply republishing material that they had already written and released. (But, hey, it let them keep up that all so important 1 book a month release schedule!) The edition lasted five years, and the releases in the last year consistently garnered poor reviews on many independent sites. The minis game was a huge screw up and was cancelled before 3rd edition was even over. They were so incapable of handling the game, they had to farm out their IP to third parties to even produce magazines. A large % of 3.0 eds customer base also seems to reject 3.5 and IRL I was the only local 3rd ed DM I know of compared to several groups in 3.0 and 2nd back in the day and even now come to think of it.
But here's the thing: I don't believe what either you or I just wrote above is anything credible. For some reason, you do think all these random anecdotal statements should be given more than an iota of credibility.I don't know anything but I'm sure 4th ed is doing great with its (1?) whole book released this year.
Well, I agree you don't know anything. In the last twelve months, they have released gaming supplements, including 16 books, not including the board games, card decks, and not including Gamma World.
Since January 1, they have produced two books (Gloomwrought just came out) and other gaming supplements. The release is light because they pulled three supplements rather than produce something that they felt was crap. In 3rd edition, they would have (and often did) just produced the crap, and, apparently, you'd be happy with that as long as it met your arbitrary 1 book a month benchmark. The schedule has five more books going forward for the remaining six months of the year, as well as more board games and other accessories.
So, no, I think it's pretty apparent that your arguments are based more on emotion than any semblance of logic. Whether you hope or fear 4e is failing, it doesn't seem to be based on anything but that hope and fear.
Sorry I was wrong. 4th ed has managed to put out 2 books this year which is only marginally better than 1. If you're so sure 4th ed is doing great would you put money on it? If 5th ed hasn't been announced (or 4th ed gets canned) in 2 years I'll shout you a new 4th ed book ($30 or less). If you're wrong you can shout me a 5th ed book (or RPG book if theres no 5th ed) to the value of $30.
I'm no ragin 3.5 fan but the system sold alot by most accounts and managed to spam out a book each month and support a minis line and tie in products as I own the old D&D boardgame as well. I don't count tie in products because they are edition neutral for the most part. You get to count gamma world and I get to count all the 3.5 derivitives as well (heres a hint 4th ed loses even worse).
WoTC is peddling a tactical RPG game that almost requires minis they are no longer selling and minis at one point were very popular but WoTC kept changing the rules for the skirmish game (killed it) and then changed the packaging and random elements while jacking up the price and delivering less minis. I also wouldn't throw out to many insults about 3.0-3.5 as the 4th ed PHB has been errated heavily the difference between the editions is 3rd ed didn't have online support or a compendium like 4th ed has. The PHB, MM and DMG are almost obsolete to the point you can avoid buying them and get the monster vault, rules compendium and a DDI subscription instead. I'll agree that alot of the final 3.5 books sucked. 4th ed doesn't even have the books to suck though as they are hardly making any.
I don't want 4th ed to die in the next 2 years BTW but I really don't think it looks good ATM for the system. No more 4th ed DDI for starters which is what we're using to play 4th ed so I wouldn't really be able to play if 5th ed came out as I don't have that many 4th ed books. Basically I refused to buy 4th ed material because I knew WoTC was going to spam it out a'la 3.5 ed. Towards the end of 3.5 before 4th ed came out we kinda limited the players options to the 1st 4 complete books, spell compendium, magic item compendium, PHB2 and bits and pieces from other books.
Character creation was taking to long as people were reading options and I own around 60 3.5 books. IN 4th since I'm the only one in the group with DDI creation at least is quicker as they can't spend ages reading through stuff.
If I'm wrong you could have a nice shiny new book.
It was a steady 13 months of bloat. There were eight months before that and ten months since then, and those periods are comparable in number of mechanics being released.
I'm not sure about that. While we started seeing more content from Dragon 376 through 379, a good deal of that came from releases like the Revenant (and the ton of racial feats necessitated by its design) and the Assassin (a full-fledged class).
Those were one-issue anomalies. The Assassin was in Dragon 379, which was right in the beginning of the Year of Bloat. No new powers of feats showed up for the assassin until Dragon 386, and then only a handful of feats and powers. The Revenant showed up in 376, right, the very first issue in the Year of Bloat. Revenant feats after than made a nominal contribution to the Year of Bloat, certainly no more than any non-DDi-exclusive race.
Even in an issue like Dragon 380, where we had about 60 feats and powers... they were relatively focused in nature.
So what? It's still bloat. It may be focused bloat, but it's bloat. (By the way, Dragon 380 had more than 60 powers and more than 60 feats.)
I think thematic options like those presented by the Vistani, Raven Queen, and Genasi articles are the sort of thing that make the game more robust, rather than more bloated.
It's both. You can't add 120 new mechanical elements in a single magazine and deny that bloat is occuring. That one issue is responsible for 5% of the magazine's new feats and powers!
And there is some good content among it all, but it also feels like here is where things start to get excessive.
I disagree. Your "feel" doesnt' seem to have any meat behind it. It's just appears to be based on what new mechanics you like and what you didn't.
Dragon 380 through 387 was the real heart of the bloat, I think.
Those issues did have twice as many as 376-379 and 388, but 376-79 and 388 had twice as many as all the other issues. There was a ramp-up towards the "heart" and there was a ramp-down as it ended. I don't think you can parse out the ramping-up and ramping-down periods and say that's the sweet spot. Those issues only existed because Wizards was calling for an enormous number of power and feat articles -- the ones published during the "heart".
Avoid the content that isn't needed.
"Need" is subjective.
But there are plenty of areas in the game where more content could be added without unbalancing the system.
Balance and bloat are different considerations. Bloat is a problem because it overwhelms players with too many choices and no good way to discern their relative merits. It bogs down the time it takes to level up a character. It can be exhausting to see the Character Builder list thousands of feats available to your character, and a dozen powers at every level where you get a new power. Even if every one of those options were perfectly balanced, the bloat problem would prominently remain.
Sorry I was wrong. 4th ed has managed to put out 2 books this year which is only marginally better than 1.
Except the conclusion you get from it is arbitrary and based on what you want to conclude.
Let me give you two alternate explanations:
Zardnaar's version: Pulling three titles shows that 4e is floundering. They changed design parameters and the three books no longer fit that design, so they pulled it. In contrast, 3rd edition never had to pull a book.
Alternate version: Pulling three titles shows that 4e is strong. Wizards decided they could afford to forego the revenues from those books, even though all the work had already been put into the books, and the freelancers had been paid, the staff's time on those projects spent, and the art commissioned. If 4e was hurting for revenue, they'd have had to release it just to try to recoup osomethign for all that investment. The fact that they held it back shows that 4e has enough power that it can choose to give up those revenues in order to ensure quality.
Now, I don't know which one is true. Maybe neither. But5 the fact that you refuse to acknowledge any possibiliity other than the first says more about you than it does about reality.
If you're so sure 4th ed is doing great would you put money on it? If 5th ed hasn't been announced (or 4th ed gets canned) in 2 years I'll shout you a new 4th ed book ($30 or less). If you're wrong you can shout me a 5th ed book (or RPG book if theres no 5th ed) to the value of $30.
Gambling is a violation of the Terms of Use. Don't try to bait me into violating the Code of Conduct or Terms of Use. You could get us both banned.
I also wouldn't throw out to many insults about 3.0-3.5 as the 4th ed PHB
I played 3.5 Don't you understand what I wrote was not to be taken any more seriously than what you wrote?! Are you seriously thinking that I am a 3.5 hater?! Do you understand what my position is at all?! Because the fact that you wrote the quoted sentence indicates to me that you have no idea what I've been saying to you.
I really don't think it looks good ATM for the system.
Yeah, what you think is qute obvious, since you repeat it ad nauseum. But your thoughts are no better founded now than they were when you first starteds spouting it.
Those were one-issue anomalies. The Assassin was in Dragon 379, which was right in the beginning of the Year of Bloat. No new powers of feats showed up for the assassin until Dragon 386, and then only a handful of feats and powers. The Revenant showed up in 376, right, the very first issue in the Year of Bloat. Revenant feats after than made a nominal contribution to the Year of Bloat, certainly no more than any non-DDi-exclusive race.
That's kinda my point - you are counting issues 376 - 379 as part of the Year of Bloat. I don't think they are. Compare how many feats/powers/etc are in those issues vs issues 380 - 387, and it is substantially different, with the only exceptions being due to, again, the Revenant and the Assassin.
Even in an issue like Dragon 380, where we had about 60 feats and powers... they were relatively focused in nature.
So what? It's still bloat. It may be focused bloat, but it's bloat. (By the way, Dragon 380 had more than 60 powers and more than 60 feats.)
(Well, yes. 63 and 65. I... don't think that substantially changes my point.)
Anyway, it gets back to the idea of not all feats being created equal. Does every new option add equal bloat?
I'm assuming that the definition of bloat, here, is related to introducing new options that only clutter up the game due to the abundance of existing options in the same vein. And to that end, I think that adding a single new Fighter power would cause more bloat than adding 4 new Seeker powers.
In my mind, an issue with a dozen articles that adds 5-10 powers/feats each for most of the standard classes is vastly more bloat than an issue with a single new class, like the Assassin - even if they add the same number of powers to the game. Or, in this case, compared to the dozens of Vistani feats - feats focused as specific options for a unique bloodline/background, as opposed to being more generic options for fighters and rogues.
You dismiss this as simply connecting with what mechanics I like and which I don't, but that isn't the case. I might like the Wizards Essentials article in Dragon 380, which adds some interesting new feats and powers - and yet still feel that it isn't necessary, given how many options the class already has.
While, meanwhile, adding a bunch of new Vistani feats - of which a character playing a Vistani who wants to be defined by that part of their concept can take several in order to fully flesh out their character - genuinely widens what the game can provide, rather than stacking up more spells only slightly different from existing ones.
It's both. You can't add 120 new mechanical elements in a single magazine and deny that bloat is occuring. That one issue is responsible for 5% of the magazine's new feats and powers!
So, 3% of the magazine's issue has provided 5% of its feats and 4.5% of its powers. That... really doesn't seem all that overwhelming. While the most recent issue provided 0.5% of its powers. One of these discrepencies seems more significant.
Again, I don't think that defining bloat as simply 'all new content' is particularly helpful. Adding more content where it overlaps with existing content is closer to the problem, and is much more visible starting in issue 381.
And there is some good content among it all, but it also feels like here is where things start to get excessive.
I disagree. Your "feel" doesnt' seem to have any meat behind it. It's just appears to be based on what new mechanics you like and what you didn't.
Those issues did have twice as many as 376-379 and 388, but 376-79 and 388 had twice as many as all the other issues.
No, they didn't. 377 and 378 certainly didn't, 376 only had it in the feat department and only due to the Revenant, and 379 only did due to the Assassin. Again, I don't think you are painting an accurate picture of that period.
Avoid the content that isn't needed.
"Need" is subjective.
Balance and bloat are different considerations. Bloat is a problem because it overwhelms players with too many choices and no good way to discern their relative merits. It bogs down the time it takes to level up a character. It can be exhausting to see the Character Builder list thousands of feats available to your character, and a dozen powers at every level where you get a new power. Even if every one of those options were perfectly balanced, the bloat problem would prominently remain.
I referred to the system being unbalanced to represent it having a problem, namely the one you describe, not to tie this into a debate in terms of options being balanced against each other - apologies for the confusion.
But that's my point, really. Adding a new feat that all characters can take is the sort of bloat that becomes overwhelming. Adding new powers for fighters and wizards, who already have so many, causes this issue.
Is the same true of adding new powers for Seekers? Heck, I'm playing a caster druid and recently went looking for a druid specific feat, and I think exactly one exists that doesn't deal with Wild Shape.
Those are the areas where options can be expended, and there are many others. As noted before, bloodlines and similar concepts that expand the directions your character can go in - rather than just providing more of what it already in the game - are areas that can be supported without causing more needless bloat.
Now, none of that fixes the existing bloat in the system, and there have been a lot of needless material that has cropped up. Ideally, better filters in the character builder would help with that, but... that isn't quite there yet.
That's kinda my point - you are counting issues 376 - 379 as part of the Year of Bloat. I don't think they are. Compare how many feats/powers/etc are in those issues vs issues 380 - 387, and it is substantially different, with the only exceptions being due to, again, the Revenant and the Assassin.
The thing is thatyou're comparing it to the worst of the bloat, and I'm comparing it to everything else. Compared to the worst of the blost, it's at about half the bloat. Compared to everything else, it's more than double bloat. The way I see it, this si the beginning of the bloat, as freelancers and staff started getting the articles through the editing process, these were the ones that got through first (or for 388, the ones that got through last). But all these articles were solicited as part of the editorial decision that led to the bloat. 376 is clear departure from what cam before and 389 onward is a clear departure from what came before.
I'm looking at from an analysis of the editorial standards. I am seeing a ramp up in mechanics and a ramp down, representing a shift to and from a specific editorial slant. You wouldn't have had 376-79 and 388 without the editorial decision that led to 380-387.
Asking Dragon to go back to the ramp up is not feasible. The only reason those issues had the amount of bloat they did is because they were gearing up for (or down from) a marge larger amount of bloat. The amount of bloat in those issues was entirely accidental, in my opinion, a result of the vagaries of the editorial process.
Does every new option add equal bloat?
Yes, for that mechanic.
adding a single new Fighter power would cause more bloat than adding 4 new Seeker powers.
Well, sure. I'm not saying there's no room for more powers. The fighter is more bloated than the Seeker. But that doesn't mean we should have 60 powers a month, simply because we have a handful of undersupported classes. All that means is we'll bloat the Seeker up almost as quickly as we bloated the fighter, and that's simply not learning from past mistakes.
But I'm not discussing bloat within classes. I'm discussing the overall rate of bloat. When the Year of Bloat began, the fighter wasn't particularly bloated, but within a year, it was. That's because of the rate of overall bloat. The Seeker and Runepriest are undersupported now, but if you put out 60 powers every month, it won't take long for you to run out of design space, even if you try to limit these powers to the least supported classes.
Let's take a class thsat I think represents a good medium: barbarian, which has 213 powers, which is a bit less than 11 powers per level in which you get powers. I think that's already a bit bloated, but I'll accept that as the maximum point before bloat. I don't see many people calling for more support for the barbarian. Nor do I see many people claiming the barbrian is bloated. So to get the classes to, say, 220 powers (11/level), you would need to add the following:
Ardent: 51
Artificer: 98
Assassin: 106
Barbarian: 7
Bard: 17
Battlemind: 36
Invoker: 11
Monk: 54
Psion: 62
Runepriest: 140
Seeker: 114
Swordmage: 23
Warden: 12
TOTAL: 731 powers
If we went with 60 powers an issue, we'd be fully sated in 13 months (June 2012). If we go with an average of 20 powers an issue, it would take us 37 months (June 2014). Not coincidentally, I expect 5e to be announced at GenCon 2014.
On the one hand, this analysis assumes no additional splatbooks with powers are coming out. On the other hand, it also assumes no more classes that need support will be coming out. (I suppose we might see more support for the vampire, and new powers for already bloated classes as their Essentials versions are released.) This might give us a few more months. That would get me to GenCon 2014 easily. It would get you only to GenCon 2012.
I'm also going to take issue with your position that feats like the Vistani feats don't add bloat. They may not add bloat in the way that yet more eladrin feats add bloat. But they add a different type of bloat by adding a new option: Vistani, which just adds more confusion and bloat at character generation. Now, you have a new subrace/background to decide. How many of those are we going to add to the game? One every month? So we'd have the Vistani, and Blooded from Birthright, and Half-Dragons, and Lycanthopic carriers, and godblooded, and whatever other bloodlines we devise, and that's just as bad as throwing another eight eladrin feats into the mix.
Prior to DDI, I subscribed to Dragon magazine for probably over a decade. And I enjoyed reading it, but I almost never actually got to use it. The comics were the highlight! Never the actual articles.
And DDI came along, and suddenly I had a magazine with genuinely useful content for my game. That was huge! And that's what I want it to return to. But we have folks like DoctorBadWolf who are implying that there is something wrong with that - that wanting to pay for useful content is a bad thing.
And I don't get that. I'm not clamoring for a magazine that cranks out 20 articles, each 2 pages long and filled with feats and powers. I agree that was a bad approach. But asking for a return to even half the content we got in the first year of the magazine? Asking for content that is actually useful to players? I mean, I think it is great the magazine has so much DM-centric material in it the last few months, but is it really a problem to want material for players as well?
In the future, please refrain from misrepresting my position, or accusing me of doing things that I have not done. If you're going to call someone out on something, make sure you are correct.
I have implied no such thing.
I have simply rejected the idea that the fluff articles are wasted or useless page space, and spoken about how much I appreciate the fluff.
Perhaps you skimmed through my posts without paying attention, and saw that I would rather them not bother with dragon at all than see it put out with no fluff at all.
Clearly, that does not mean that I do not want to see crunch in Dragon. I even directly stated that I want to see both crunch and fluff in Dragon.
Yeah 3.5 lost so much money that WoTC supported it for 5 years with a regular schedule and it was popular enough to support a minatures line as well along with in print Dragon and Dungeon.
4th ed comes out, alienates a large chunk of its customer base, has a competing system with Pathfinder and 3 years in it can't support a minis line or a regular book each month, and DDi is a big screwup (online CB unusable here, no essentials classes in compendium, Dragon and Dungeon not even a compiled PDFF), and a large % of 4th eds customer base also seems to reject essentials and IRL I'm the only local 4th ed DM I know of compared to several groups in 3.5 back in the day and even now come to think of it.
I don't know anything but I'm sure 4th ed is doing great with its (1?) whole book released this year.
Economical climate counts for a lot. 3.0/3.5 was released in very good years. 4.0, not so much.
In theory this would hurt PF as well and they are releasing more stuff than 4th ed this year AFAIK.
Doctor Bad Wolf theres also been more than a few Amazon posts here with Pathfinder making up 7/10 for Amazon sales lists as I understand it the Amazon lists are moment by moment so you can find data that way to support PF or 4th ed. I suspect 4th ed is outselling PF at least 2-1 and probably more. However I have severe doubts that 4th ed has managed to outsell 3.5 in an equivilent time frame and 3.5 (and PF for that matter) had/have more support than 4th ed currently has. Even if I wanted to buy new 4th ed material I can't although my next 4th ed purchase will likely be the Darksun material $$$ permitting and maybe the monster vault.
My point was simply that we could go back and forth throwing evidence around for both products outselling the other, but we don't know for sure. From what I've seen, I get the strong impression that both 4e in general, and e/e+ have been selling quite well, and continue to do so.
But that's just my impression. For all I know, PF and DnD could both be circling the drain in terms of sales, or they could both be super profitable right now.
The thing is thatyou're comparing it to the worst of the bloat, and I'm comparing it to everything else. Compared to the worst of the bloat, it's at about half the bloat. Compared to everything else, it's more than double bloat. The way I see it, this si the beginning of the bloat, as freelancers and staff started getting the articles through the editing process, these were the ones that got through first (or for 388, the ones that got through last). But all these articles were solicited as part of the editorial decision that led to the bloat. 376 is clear departure from what cam before and 389 onward is a clear departure from what came before.
Look, all I'm doing is comparing to the numbers you yourself gave. You said that the previous average was 18 powers and 20 feats, or later, 23 powers and 16 feats.
Dragon 376: 17 powers, 39 feats (31 tied to the Revenant)
Dragon 377: 24 powers, 23 feats
Dragon 378: 23 powers, 52 feats
Dragon 379: 154 powers (83 from the assassin), 74 feats (31 for the assassin)
Dragon 380: 65 powers, 63 feats
Dragon 381: 126 powers, 84 feats
I'd say by 379, yes, the bloat has probably begun - even outside of the Assasin, we've got 70+ new powers, as we start seeing these mechanic heavy class articles - cleric, warden, fighter in 379, and barbarian and wizard in 380. And about 7 classes, 1 power source, 2 races, 2 channel divinities and 1 role in 381, hence why I feel that is where the Year of Bloat has fully hit.
But 376 through 378? Don't seem that far from the earlier standard. We see a decent number of feats in both 376 and 378, in both cases tied strongly to articles on new playable PC races.
I'm looking at from an analysis of the editorial standards. I am seeing a ramp up in mechanics and a ramp down, representing a shift to and from a specific editorial slant. You wouldn't have had 376-79 and 388 without the editorial decision that led to 380-387.
Perhaps a bit... starting in 378, we see the first of the "Class Essentials" articles. (Not to be confused with the current Essentials classes, of course!) But 381 is undeniably where we actually see a shift in the magazine content.
Asking Dragon to go back to the ramp up is not feasible. The only reason those issues had the amount of bloat they did is because they were gearing up for (or down from) a marge larger amount of bloat. The amount of bloat in those issues was entirely accidental, in my opinion, a result of the vagaries of the editorial process.
I think attributing any of the content of issues 376 through 380 to the future content of 381 is... positively silly. And I think I can point to many articles in those issues as the sort of content I'd still like to see in the magazine.
I think there remains room in the game for more races, for example - fleshing out Goblins, Kobolds, etc. I don't feel any particular need for new classes, but if they come up with something interesting, they might surprise me.
I don't see a need for more "Class Acts" or "Class Essentials" articles for many classes, but I think there is certainly room for others - Seeker, Runepriest, caster Druids, Assassins, and other less supported classes or builds.
I think there remains room for Channel Divinity articles for gods that have not yet been featured, for organizations/bloodlines/heritages like the Vistani, and for racial options like they presented with Abyssal Genasi.
Returning to that sort of content is, I think, a perfectly viable option, and is not connected in any way to the onslaught of material we started seeing in Dragon 381.
Well, sure. I'm not saying there's no room for more powers. The fighter is more bloated than the Seeker. But that doesn't mean we should have 60 powers a month, simply because we have a handful of undersupported classes. All that means is we'll bloat the Seeker up almost as quickly as we bloated the fighter, and that's simply not learning from past mistakes.
Sure, if all those powers are for the one class. And if we crank it out at 60 powers a month, which I don't think anyone is arguing for.
But I can see 30 or so powers a month building up those classes, or delving into new design space. I can see new feats to support racial options, bloodlines, or other specific character concepts, rather than just producing more feats for all fighters or all wizards.
I'm confident there is room for several years worth of material along those lines, and by then, one imagines there will be more content within the game to support, and by the time that runs out, we are likely closing in on the next edition.
As it is, I'm certainly not asking for 60+ new powers/feats every month. What I'm asking for is more than 0, which is what we've been pretty close to for March through May.
I'm also going to take issue with your position that feats like the Vistani feats don't add bloat. They may not add bloat in the way that yet more eladrin feats add bloat. But they add a different type of bloat by adding a new option: Vistani, which just adds more confusion and bloat at character generation. Now, you have a new subrace/background to decide. How many of those are we going to add to the game? One every month? So we'd have the Vistani, and Blooded from Birthright, and Half-Dragons, and Lycanthopic carriers, and godblooded, and whatever other bloodlines we devise, and that's just as bad as throwing another eight eladrin feats into the mix.
I definitely disagree. This idea that 'all new options are bad' is just kinda scary. You seem to really want to portray this as a all or nothing scenario - if we allow the possibility of any new options, it means they will be cranked out at dangerous rates for the game, and so you instead don't want any new options at all. Which I think is a pretty bad approach to design, and not particularly health for the magazines or the game, or particularly useful to the customers.
As it is, I think there is plenty of room in the design space for concept specific options along these lines. I'm not advocating we crank them out every month just for the sake of doing so, or that we produce options that no one wants or needs. But saying the only other option is to avoid them entirely just strikes me as even more problematic. I don't even think that is what you truly believe, but are simply presenting that as your argument for the sake of supporting your position.
If I go into the CB, and say, "Hey, I want a new feat." And I see 2000 heroic feats to scroll through, that is trouble.
If I say, "Hey, I wonder what bloodline options we have," and see 20 of them... I can look through and figure out if any of them work for the character. I might not even have to pay attention to half of them if they are for other settings or don't fit in the campaign.
And once I choose one of them, maybe that opens up a half dozen new feats there, depending on how much I want to support that part of my concept. But either way, it is a lot less intrusive than a dozen new feats showing up on every character's list.
Even with the CB out of the picture... if I want a new fighter feat or power, I can go prowl through dozens of issues and 4 books to try and find what it is I want. If I want to look at a specific bloodline for the character, I can find the appropriate issue or book and make use of it. Again, the normal difficulties of bloat - overwhelming the player with options - are much less of a problem.
In the future, please refrain from misrepresting my position, or accusing me of doing things that I have not done. If you're going to call someone out on something, make sure you are correct.
I have implied no such thing.
I have simply rejected the idea that the fluff articles are wasted or useless page space, and spoken about how much I appreciate the fluff.
Perhaps you skimmed through my posts without paying attention, and saw that I would rather them not bother with dragon at all than see it put out with no fluff at all.
Clearly, that does not mean that I do not want to see crunch in Dragon. I even directly stated that I want to see both crunch and fluff in Dragon.
In the future, if you don't want people to feel you are advocating a specific position, I recommend not advocating that position. ;)
You said: "Why does the OP list only care about mechanical additions to the game?
For me, that alone just about invalidates the list in terms of it's potential as a marker for whether or not Dragon is in a quality decline."
That is absolutely saying that his desire for mechanical content in the magazine is not only not one you disagree with, but one you think so poorly of that you feel it lets you completely dismiss anything he has to say.
He says outright that he wants mechanical content in the magazine. You say that this means his opinion isn't worth considering. I characterize this as "implying that there is something wrong with (wanting a magazine with useful content) - that wanting to pay for useful content is a bad thing."
If it wasn't your desire to simply dismiss his position because he cared about mechanical content, then I recommend addressing his actual points rather than dismissing his entire concern outright.
For myself, I'm in the camp that a balanced magazine is the ideal, one that has something to offer for both sides. That why I didn't like the "Year of Bloat" - not for the bloat itself, but because a dozen articles with nothing but a few powers or feats in it was largely devoid of flavor. While articles that include both excellent flavor and concepts alongside mechanical support are, for me, the ideal. And if they exist, I'm cool with the occasional article that is all crunch or all fluff.
But, as it is, March and April saw almost no mechanical content for players at all. I don't think that was a good thing, either. Neither did the OP, and he set out to compile data to outright show this problem - to which your response was to simply dismiss his opinion and his work. If that wasn't your goal, I'd be curious to hear what you actually intended by your initial remarks.
I know you are usually a reasonable poster (and have been so in other posts in this thread and, as you have said, advocated for a mix of both crunch and fluff). But that doesn't change the fact that your initial response was to dismiss his work on the sole basis that he cared primarily about mechanical content.
The thing that saddens me is that they've largely abandoned what brought myself and many others into the 4E fold: the excellent mechanical support early on. That's not to say that all of what they released was good. A lot of the early articles, particularly many of the racial ones, had terrible mechanics. They were mechanical bloating with fluff attached. But there was still a lot of good mechanical support in the mix.
The new approach has reduced mechanical support to near nil (excepting this month's themes... <3 themes, both in the DS format and the new format!). What mechanical support there is isn't for that original 4E mechanic that defined the system; it's for a new set of mechanics, Essentials. It's perfectly compatible with pre-essentials mechanics, but it isn't pre-essentials mechanics. It lost what made 4E so unique on release.
Tacking flavor text onto every single game element is also a terrible design idea that, as far as I can tell, is purely filler. That's what the italics descriptions were for. Now, you've got overarching fluff (which is often quite high quality), then you've got basically repetitious crap for each individual element. Not a fan.
There has been a decline. It's a decline in what makes 4E great. Yes, there's enough material to 4E indefinitely, so it's certainly not the death of the system. It does seem to be an end to the progress of the system, though.
Edit: forgot to make my other point: the fluff is a completely separate issue. You can have fantastic fluff with mechanical content. It can be integrated into it! It has been done many times throughout 4E's history. I love support for different settings, for generic locations, groups, etc. But--and I know this is crazy talk--I'd love to see them give that support alongside meaningful FOURTH EDITION DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS CONTENT. Settings are universal, and when you do exclusively fluff, or fluff with a couple of trivial game elements (like most item articles recently), it is not support for the 4E system. It's support that works with the 4E system, which is great; it's just not actually 4E support.
The thing is thatyou're comparing it to the worst of the bloat, and I'm comparing it to everything else.
Look, all I'm doing is comparing to the numbers you yourself gave.
Yeah, that's what I said.
I'd say by 379, yes, the bloat has probably begun
And I say its 376. You choose 379 because you are comparing it to the nine issues you have already decided should represent the bloat. I'm comparing it to the entire run of Dragon in the 4e era. You're arguing from your conclusion.
I think attributing any of the content of issues 376 through 380 to the future content of 381 is... positively silly.
And I think it's absolutely consistent with what I know about magazine publishing. You're a priori announcement that something is silly isn't likely to convince me otherwise, just as my blanket pronouncement that I have experience in the area is unlikely to sway you.
As it is, I'm certainly not asking for 60+ new powers/feats every month.
Crap, I got confused about what the rates were. I am sorry.
But, yeah, we got zero in the last three months... because those are the months that they have been releasing Class Compendium articles!
This idea that 'all new options are bad' is just kinda scary. You seem to really want to portray this as a all or nothing scenario - if we allow the possibility of any new options, it means they will be cranked out at dangerous rates for the game
No. I'm sayign that any new option adds some bloat. The question is when is it too much. You seem to think there are magic mechanics that can be added without contributing to bloat. That's what I take issue with.
Vistani feats add bloat. They add a different type of bloat than eladrin feats.
you instead don't want any new options at all.
In what world does 20 new options a month means I "don't want any new options at all"?
Look, you're at 30/month, and I'm at 20/month. I don't think we disagree all that much.
I think there is plenty of room in the design space for concept specific options along these lines.
I agree.
I don't even think that is what you truly believe, but are simply presenting that as your argument for the sake of supporting your position.
But I didn't present "no options at all" as my position!
If I say, "Hey, I wonder what bloodline options we have," and see 20 of them...
Except you leapfrogged the crucial step-- the one where you decide you want a bloodline. That too is a new option and a new source of bloat.
It used to be you chose a race, class, and some feats and powers. Then you could also pick a Background. Then you could also pick a bloodline. And then a Theme. That too is a form of bloat and has all the problems associated with other forms of bloat.
Bloat is inevitable. The only question is what is an acceptable level that will allow the game to maintain a semblance of manageability for what remains of its run (which I hope is about 3 years).
I'd say by 379, yes, the bloat has probably begun
And I say its 376. You choose 379 because you are comparing it to the nine issues you have already decided should represent the bloat. I'm comparing it to the entire run of Dragon in the 4e era. You're arguing from your conclusion.
No, it's... sigh. Let me try this one more time. You yourself said that the average prior to the "Year of Bloat" was 18 powers and 20 feats, and after that period, 23 powers and 16 feats. And that the overall median was 44 powers and 37 feats. And you then declared that the period in which the issues regularly went past that amount was what you considered the Year of Bloat, and that you considered issues 376 on to be part of this period.
Issue 376 had 17 powers - less than the prior standard - and 39 feats - only just above the overall median. Issue 377 had 24 powers and 23 feats, which certainly seems to belong in the prior period. Issue 378 had 23 powers and 52 feats, and while it did go past the median in terms of feats, it was below the median in terms of powers by a larger amount.
Based on your own numbers, I don't see how you can classify those as part of the period of bloat. I am genuinely confused here. Your original claim was that those were issues that went above the median amount of content, which does not seem to be the case - what exactly am I missing here?
I think attributing any of the content of issues 376 through 380 to the future content of 381 is... positively silly.
And I think it's absolutely consistent with what I know about magazine publishing. You're a priori announcement that something is silly isn't likely to convince me otherwise, just as my blanket pronouncement that I have experience in the area is unlikely to sway you.
Based on your prior experience with magazine publishing, do you feel that the DDI magazines operate in advance in the same fashion that most magazines do?
As it is, we can see tangible signs of the shift in direction in Issue 381 and on. Making guess about edotirial shifts prior to that, without being able to actually point to anything representative of it, just seems like a hollow argument to me.
But, yeah, we got zero in the last three months... because those are the months that they have been releasing Class Compendium articles!
Wait, what?
You mean the Class Compendium articles that:
1) Are free;
2) Are entirely errata;
3) Are previously written content taken from a cancelled book.
Your argument for why it is ok for DDI subscribers to not be receiving content in recent months is that non-subscribers are receiving free errata that has already been previously written???
No. I'm saying that any new option adds some bloat. The question is when is it too much. You seem to think there are magic mechanics that can be added without contributing to bloat. That's what I take issue with.
Rather, I think that some types of bloat are a lot more of a problem than others. Or to rephrase it, I think I'm working from a different definition of bloat than you are, where adding new options is potentially different from adding bloat. Bloat occurs where options are already provided, and new and redundant content just gets in the way. Adding content in areas where it does not already exist may provide more options that don't have any such negative impact.
In what world does 20 new options a month means I "don't want any new options at all"?
Like I said, I don't think that is actually what you want, but it is what you seem to be arguing for when you define any new content as harmful to the game. Which seems to be what you are saying by arguing that all new content adds bloat. I think, again, this may come from a difference in terminology - I'm saying, "Hey, we have some areas where content adds new options to the game, and other areas where it causes bloat." You seem to be saying that, "Hey, all new content adds bloat to the game, but some bloat is ok and some is not." It's that last part that wasn't really coming across until now.
If I say, "Hey, I wonder what bloodline options we have," and see 20 of them...
Except you leapfrogged the crucial step-- the one where you decide you want a bloodline. That too is a new option and a new source of bloat.
Is it?
The background/theme area is definitely one where you are correct, as those are direct mechanical additions to the options PCs have available.
But bloodlines work within an existing system. You don't have an extra step added in. You have, perhaps, added a single extra feat for the character to choose from when they create their character. One that is more easily sorted by the character builder, quite notably. And if the character chooses that feat, it will open up other options at later levels, but it is much less bloat than having six new feats to choose from right at the start.
Bloat is inevitable. The only question is what is an acceptable level that will allow the game to maintain a semblance of manageability for what remains of its run (which I hope is about 3 years).
2015 was my original prediction when 4E came out, and I'm still about where my expectations lie. And I do see plenty of room for new content to continue coming out and filling in gaps in the game. I do kinda wish some of the existing clutter could get cleared out, since there is material out there that wasn't too well thought out at start. And I'm hoping the next edition has a cleaner system in general, which they seemed to be aiming for at the start of 4E and since moved away from.
But yeah, I agree that you will always continue to accumulate more options. But I think a lot of the problems with bloat came more from specific areas they focused on more than quantity alone.
I don't see how you can classify those as part of the period of bloat. I am genuinely confused here.
Because those were the issues that began to show a marked increase in mechanics. If you were to remove the issues you dientify as "bloat" the median would drop even farther and highlight how far above the norm the issues I include were.
Based on your prior experience with magazine publishing, do you feel that the DDI magazines operate in advance in the same fashion that most magazines do?
Based no my prior experience with magazine publishing as well as specifically with these magazines -- absolutely.
But, yeah, we got zero in the last three months... because those are the months that they have been releasing Class Compendium articles!
Wait, what?
You mean the Class Compendium articles that:
1) Are free;
2) Are entirely errata;
3) Are previously written content taken from a cancelled book.
Yes.
Your argument for why it is ok
I didn't say it was "ok". But it is understandable. That's a lot of mechanical content and I can understand the editorial decision to concentrate on other content during the months this content is being produced.
I think I'm working from a different definition of bloat than you are, where adding new options is potentially different from adding bloat. Bloat occurs where options are already provided, and new and redundant content just gets in the way. Adding content in areas where it does not already exist may provide more options that don't have any such negative impact.
Yes, that would indeed be a peculiar definition of "bloat". Bloat just means to "swell". Whether you add new conent in a preexisting option or adding a new option, the number of mechanics in the game is swelling. That's bloat.
In what world does 20 new options a month means I "don't want any new options at all"?
Like I said, I don't think that is actually what you want, but it is what you seem to be arguing for
No, it's what you're recharacterizing my argument as. And I'm going to ask you to stop doing that.
I'm saying, "Hey, we have some areas where content adds new options to the game, and other areas where it causes bloat." You seem to be saying that, "Hey, all new content adds bloat to the game, but some bloat is ok and some is not." It's that last part that wasn't really coming across until now.
Except I'm not saying what you attribute to me here either. I've been very clear about what I'm saying.
All new content adds bloat to the game. Bloat is inevitable. However, there is a theshhold of bloat inside of which the game remains manageable. I think there are areas that can still be bloated while keeping the game manageable, and many areas where it cannot, or has already become umanageable.
Manageability is key. Too many feats in a categiry is unmanageable. To many powers for one class' level gets unmanageable. Too many options at character creation becomes unmanageable.
But bloodlines work within an existing system. You don't have an extra step added in. You have, perhaps, added a single extra feat for the character to choose from when they create their character.
It's a feat related to a concept. You're adding concepts to the game. In fact, you're also reintroducing threshold feats and feat chains, something from 3e that 4e had originally discarded specifically because it added to the game's manageability and complexity.
Bloodline is a concept, just like Background or Theme. If you want to be a bloodline, it's yet another thing you have to examine at character creation. And to do so, you also need to anticipate how many of those feats you may take at later levels, which requires you to consider all those feats you're not going to take at higher levels.
One that is more easily sorted by the character builder, quite notably.
It has little to do with the character builder and everything to do with the manageability fo concepts a player has to consider at creation.
I don't see how you can classify those as part of the period of bloat. I am genuinely confused here.
Because those were the issues that began to show a marked increase in mechanics. If you were to remove the issues you dientify as "bloat" the median would drop even farther and highlight how far above the norm the issues I include were.
364: 6 Powers, 1 Feat
365: 7 Powers, 5 Feats
366: 39 Powers, 8 Feats
367: 17 Powers, 21 Feats
368: 3 Powers, 54 Feats
369: 39 Powers, 6 Feats
370: 13 Powers, 6 Feats
371: 7 Powers, 25 Feats
372: 47 Powers, 27 Feats
373: 6 Powers, 53 Feats
374: 16 Powers, 30 Feats
375: 17 Powers, 0 Feats
376: 17 Powers, 39 Feats
377: 24 Powers, 23 Feats
378: 23 Powers, 52 Feats
379: 154 Powers, 74 Feats
380: 65 Powers, 63 Feats
381: 126 Powers, 84 Feats
382: 80 Powers, 83 Feats
383: 125 Powers, 42 Feats
384: 147 Powers, 60 Feats
385: 104 Powers, 99 Feats
Dragon 366 through 368 shows 17-24 powers in them, an increase of, at most, 6-7 over the previous few months, and overall less than in over a quarter of the previous issues. As compared to the sudden jump to 100+ powers. 366 through 368 did have a substantial number of feats, but we had also seen that in several previous issues as well, and often due to similar sources (race articles, for example) - as compared to the following months, where that 60-80+ became constant.
I just don't see any significant bloat happening in those issues as compared to the ones that followed. Ones where we had an outright acknowledged change in direction to point to, as opposed issues that still resemble the ones before them. Issues that largely mirror the design of the ones before them rather than the ones after them.
But, yeah, we got zero in the last three months... because those are the months that they have been releasing Class Compendium articles!
Wait, what?
You mean the Class Compendium articles that:
1) Are free;
2) Are entirely errata;
3) Are previously written content taken from a cancelled book.
Yes.
I didn't say it was "ok". But it is understandable. That's a lot of mechanical content and I can understand the editorial decision to concentrate on other content during the months this content is being produced.
I'm really not sure how to respond to this. I mean, to be honest, I don't think there is any connection here, since that isn't a substantial amount of mechanical content, being largely errata for pre-existing material of which the primary work was already complete. Certainly less of an impact than, say, the preview articles for PHB3 that were showing up in Dragon for a while.
But even assuming it was a burden, I really don't think it is understandable to say that it is an acceptable decision to avoid producing subscriber content in order to work on non-subscriber material.
Yes, that would indeed be a peculiar definition of "bloat". Bloat just means to "swell". Whether you add new conent in a preexisting option or adding a new option, the number of mechanics in the game is swelling. That's bloat.
I... don't think that is the standard use of it. The standard use of bloat doesn't simply mean "to stretch", but "to become overstretched". That seems to be how it is typically used in these discussions. Saying that every single option in the game - including in the PHB itself - is bloat... seems to devalue the word. Typically, it is used to refer to the point at which an option is more of a burden on the system, when it begins to stretch the system past a reasonable point.
Typically, it means to swell beyond the norm. Sure, a man's stomach may be more full after eating a slice of bread, but that doesn't mean it is swollen. Only once a certain amount has accumulated would it become swollen or bloated.
Every option added to the game does not automatically cause that same degree of swelling - those that do are what is, in my experience, typically considered the cause of 'option bloat'.
I'm saying, "Hey, we have some areas where content adds new options to the game, and other areas where it causes bloat." You seem to be saying that, "Hey, all new content adds bloat to the game, but some bloat is ok and some is not." It's that last part that wasn't really coming across until now.
Except I'm not saying what you attribute to me here either. I've been very clear about what I'm saying.
Ok, you have... very specifically said that you feel every single new option adds some degree of bloat. And, at the end of your last post, you said that the issue was finding the "acceptable level that will allow the game to maintain a semblance of manageability", which certainly seemed to indicate some bloat was acceptable and some was not.
So... I'm not sure how I'm mischaracterizing your argument, here.
I've got to wrap this post up so I unfortunately can't respond too much to your other points. To summarize, though, I don't think that adding more support for character concepts that already exist is going to cause the same burden of options as the bloat to existing builds and classes. But you seem to feel differently, and it doesn't sound like either of us will change the other's mind at this point.
I just don't see any significant bloat happening in those issues as compared to the ones that followed.
And I do, based on that same analysis. I'm not sure what more you're trying to get from me. We;ve both looked at the numbers and come to different conclusions.
even assuming it was a burden, I really don't think it is understandable
And I do. Are you expecting that once we understand one another's points we'll magically arrive at the same conclusion?
I... don't think that is the standard use of it.
And I do.
Sure, a man's stomach may be more full after eating a slice of bread, but that doesn't mean it is swollen.
Because the stomach didn't actually swell. But game mechanics always swell the total number of mechanics by definition.
But that's neither here nor there, since you just shifted the goalposts. Your original definition of bloat was "Bloat occurs where options are already provided, and new and redundant content just gets in the way. Adding content in areas where it does not already exist may provide more options that don't have any such negative impact."
Here, you are positing that adding new options to the game doesn't "swell" the game, or even "overswell" the game, but that's simply wrong on its face.
Third Edition kept adding subsystems on top of subsystems. Psionics, incarna, Book of nine Swords, all of them had new subsystems to learn. Are you saying that because incarna added a new set of options, it didn't increase the bloat of 3e?! I think it's clear that adding new options does not let you freely add mechanics without bloat.
which certainly seemed to indicate some bloat was acceptable and some was not.
No. It means that bloat in certain areas is acceptable, not that certain types of bloat were acceptable. Remember that my statement was in response to your statement that Vistani feats did not cause bloat while general feats would. That's what I meant when discussing "different bloat." You seem to think that there's some mechanics that are weirdly resistant to bloat and it's not true. Once you hit the threshold, you get overbloated, and it doesn't matter what type of mechanic it is.
Bloat is bloat. The issue is not what it is but where it is.
it doesn't sound like either of us will change the other's mind at this point.
Which I said back in post 104.
In the future, please refrain from misrepresting my position, or accusing me of doing things that I have not done. If you're going to call someone out on something, make sure you are correct.
I have implied no such thing.
I have simply rejected the idea that the fluff articles are wasted or useless page space, and spoken about how much I appreciate the fluff.
Perhaps you skimmed through my posts without paying attention, and saw that I would rather them not bother with dragon at all than see it put out with no fluff at all.
Clearly, that does not mean that I do not want to see crunch in Dragon. I even directly stated that I want to see both crunch and fluff in Dragon.
In the future, if you don't want people to feel you are advocating a specific position, I recommend not advocating that position. ;)
You said: "Why does the OP list only care about mechanical additions to the game?
For me, that alone just about invalidates the list in terms of it's potential as a marker for whether or not Dragon is in a quality decline."
That is absolutely saying that his desire for mechanical content in the magazine is not only not one you disagree with, but one you think so poorly of that you feel it lets you completely dismiss anything he has to say.
He says outright that he wants mechanical content in the magazine. You say that this means his opinion isn't worth considering. I characterize this as "implying that there is something wrong with (wanting a magazine with useful content) - that wanting to pay for useful content is a bad thing."
If it wasn't your desire to simply dismiss his position because he cared about mechanical content, then I recommend addressing his actual points rather than dismissing his entire concern outright.
For myself, I'm in the camp that a balanced magazine is the ideal, one that has something to offer for both sides. That why I didn't like the "Year of Bloat" - not for the bloat itself, but because a dozen articles with nothing but a few powers or feats in it was largely devoid of flavor. While articles that include both excellent flavor and concepts alongside mechanical support are, for me, the ideal. And if they exist, I'm cool with the occasional article that is all crunch or all fluff.
But, as it is, March and April saw almost no mechanical content for players at all. I don't think that was a good thing, either. Neither did the OP, and he set out to compile data to outright show this problem - to which your response was to simply dismiss his opinion and his work. If that wasn't your goal, I'd be curious to hear what you actually intended by your initial remarks.
I know you are usually a reasonable poster (and have been so in other posts in this thread and, as you have said, advocated for a mix of both crunch and fluff). But that doesn't change the fact that your initial response was to dismiss his work on the sole basis that he cared primarily about mechanical content.
That is absolutely not saying that his call for more mechanical options is unreasonable or otherwise dismissable. I at no time dismissed his desire for more mechanical options.
What I dismiss is the idea that mechanical options are the only thing worth considering in a review of the relative quality of dragon magazine issues.
I stated that quite clearly.
Seriously. I never advocated the position that you claim I did. I would never advocate the position you accuse me of advocating. I have, in fact, repeatedly called out those who have advocated similar positions. That is, positions which boil down to a "What I want is more important than what you want, shut up." position.
In fact, that's precisely what I've been doing in this thread. Calling out those who don't think that the desires of people like me, who want both mechanics and fluff in Dragon magazine, should be listened to, or even considered at all.
In other words, you've accused me of doing the opposite of what I have, in fact, done.
Nice one.
Again, I dismissed his original post because he was discounting entirely the value of flavour articles, and I can't take seriously an arguement that essentially says that only new mechanical options have any relevance to the quality of Dragon magazine, and by implication the game as a whole.
He asked for people's opinions. When you ask for the opinions of others, you have to accept that people are going to call you out if they think that your opinion lacks objectivity, or fairness, or any other important factor in determining the validity of an argument. The OP is a smart guy. I know this because I've read many of his posts in other threads. I am sure that he understands this.
I'm willing to accept the idea that you genuinely thought that my position was that the OP's desire for more mechanical options was silly and not worth caring about. But I hope that you can now see that what I actually said was not that at all.
WotC (I assume marketing dept) is telling Dragon that customers want more fluff and less crunch. So you should never ever again see an article where there is more crunch than fluff. And this desire for more fluff seems to be increasing, so if you are analyzing the magazine based on how many mechanical elements you are getting, you are indeed going to notice a decrease.
You may not be able to answer this, and if not, I understand but: where are WotC getting their information?
Gadren assumes the marketing department and I agree with his assumption. Wizards' has a pretty significant marketing department that does a lot of customer surveys and data collection.
People have to understand that these forums are a skewed and tiny subset of the customer base. they are skewed because they tend to be more focused on mechanics than the general consumership -- because mechanics is one of those things you can really sink your teeth into in online forums. They tend to be more sensitive to change. They tend to be more focused on the negative than the positive. (These are general traits of most product-oriented discussion forums, not just this one.)
You may not be able to answer this, and if not, I understand but: where are WotC getting their information?
Gadren assumes the marketing department and I agree with his assumption. Wizards' has a pretty significant marketing department that does a lot of customer surveys and data collection.
People have to understand that these forums are a skewed and tiny subset of the customer base. they are skewed because they tend to be more focused on mechanics than the general consumership -- because mechanics is one of those things you can really sink your teeth into in online forums. They tend to be more sensitive to change. They tend to be more focused on the negative than the positive. (These are general traits of most product-oriented discussion forums, not just this one.)
...Except that these forums, and others, are largely where the call for more fluff originated.
I'm willing to believe that WotC is responding to feedback of both the online community and from what data they can collect, but I get the sense they've either asked the wrong questions with their surveys or done a poor job interpreting the answers.
Previously, we had a very crunch-heavy magazine, and a period where that was almost all that we had. Of course people asked for more fluff! And, unfortunately, WotC seems to have regarded that as meaning the magazines need to be almost entirely fluff instead - rather than finding a balance between the two.
Gadren's confirmation above, that WotC is specifically discouraging any article that isn't more fluff than crunch... well, that's the exact sort of thing I'm worried about.
I can't pretend to speak for other customers, though from the presence of this thread, my opinion clearly isn't alone. And WotC has to do what they think is best. I just think that finding a good balance would have been a far better answer. Switching tracks from one extreme to the next is never going to be the best solution.
...Except that these forums, and others, are largely where the call for more fluff originated.
I don't know if that's entirely true. There were some calls for more flavor, but a lot of that came after developers started mentioning flavor in editorials and in discussions. I question whether the forum was being led or was following.
At any rate, the forums could simply have been reflecting what the marketing department was already telling people.
Gadren's confirmation above, that WotC is specifically discouraging any article that isn't more fluff than crunch... well, that's the exact sort of thing I'm worried about.
I can't pretend to speak for other customers, though from the presence of this thread, my opinion clearly isn't alone. And WotC has to do what they think is best. I just think that finding a good balance would have been a far better answer. Switching tracks from one extreme to the next is never going to be the best solution.
We don't know if more fluff than crunch is an extreme, or if it is the "good balance". After all, they could have gone to no crunch -- only flavor. a 60-40 flavor-crunch split may be just the right level, even if you and some others wish the scale were tipped more towards crunch.
Steve
...Except that these forums, and others, are largely where the call for more fluff originated.
I don't know if that's entirely true. There were some calls for more flavor, but a lot of that came after developers started mentioning flavor in editorials and in discussions. I question whether the forum was being led or was following.
No way, dude. After the initial success of the online magazines, there was a long period where the primary complaint was that it was moving towards too crunch-heavy material, especially when Dragon shifted to a heavy focus on short articles filled with feats or powers.
Look, you've got a good point in that whatever the current game format or magazine format is, there will always be complaints, and thus inevitably those complaints will likely involve whatever the magazine currently is not. And that's a reason why all comments - including my own - need to be taken with a grain of doubt by WotC. But trying to pretend that current complaints are less valid because they involve mechanics, and the forums are somehow mechanics biased - when, previously, the complaints were just as focused in the other direction... sorry, not seeing a reasonable argument there.
Anyway, as I said... WotC will usually be in a situation where they simply can't win. At least, not entirely - they can never please anyone, and they certainly shouldn't try to. I've tossed out my own opinions and concerned, but don't expect them to be the end-all and be-all, and I readily acknowledge there may be plenty out there who feel quite differently, who want all fluff or all crunch instead of a good balance of content. And if WotC feels there are enough of them, it is entirely their prerogative to cater to them. If that means the magazines are no longer what I'm looking for, that isn't a result of them doing anything morally wrong - just a difference between the content they produce and what I'm interesting in buying.
These types of decisions never get made on the basis of one information stream. Impressions are collected from as many sources as possible -- the forum, surveys, conventions, focus groups, sales trends, email, Customer Service contacts, retailer feedback, and R&D's projections of what will best benefit the game. All of it gets weighed and considered. Last year, those considerations led to a decision that it was time to slow down the crunch feed and ramp up the flavor and story elements. The success of that move is also judged on a multitude of inputs, including -- but not limited to -- reactions in the forums.
Steve
Thank you for the contribution, Steve!
I just wanted to make sure it was clear that I was not saying that Dragon has decreased in quality because of the fluff/crunch ratio change. I was just stating the facts that the ratio had changed and that if you are analyzing things based solely on how many crunch elements you get per issue (the basis of the OP), you are going to note a declining amount of crunch per issue because of that.
Even if you take the fluff/crunch out of the question we still have the decrease on pages, lack of the callendar, constant missed deadlines etc.
The fluff or crunch is in fact a subjective compass but all the others are pretty hard evidence of quality decay.
I just wanted to make sure it was clear that I was not saying that Dragon has decreased in quality because of the fluff/crunch ratio change. I was just stating the facts that the ratio had changed and that if you are analyzing things based solely on how many crunch elements you get per issue (the basis of the OP), you are going to note a declining amount of crunch per issue because of that.
Even if you take the fluff/crunch out of the question we still have the decrease on pages, lack of the callendar, constant missed deadlines etc.
The fluff or crunch is in fact a subjective compass but all the others are pretty hard evidence of quality decay.
One other issue I can mention is that I've been told that WotC (again I assume marketing dept) is telling Dragon that customers are complaining about the quality of material in the context of "broken" material. Dragon is supposed to be just as "core" as the books you buy off the shelf, so feats and powers, etc. that don't work as intended or that can skew game balance and require errata is not really acceptable. So, around the end of 2010/ beginning of 2011, the number of people who have to check and re-check each article increased (tripled, if I remember correctly). This means a lot more work for Steve Winter to coordinate, which in turn would lead to less material while the new system gets "ironed-out," I assume.
Keep in mind that I'm just a freelance writer, and these are just things I've gleaned from emails with Dragon editors during the editing process of my works. I am by no means a WotC spokesperson with an ear to the pulse of the company's activities.
But I am still not convinced by this explanation. At the same time that we had a massive decrease in crunch, dragon also had its page count terrible reduced so there are not much "possible broken material" for anyone to take so long checking
For fluff vs crunch. I like my fluff in 1 nice big spot at the front, maybe a short paragraph for a feature here and there, but thats it.
I don't want an entire column describing why the Order Adept gets +2 Will and a total of +4 arcana. I dont care what the fluff says, its overpowered.
I don't want fluff to describe powers. Powers already HAVE a fluff section. You also get junk like "The earth gods give their servents power to strike down their foes with earthquakes" and the power then says "Your deity fills your weapon with the strength to create an earthquake". No one benefits from that.
I dont see any quality increase with the quantity decline. Before when youd get a ton of powers, you'd get a ton of good, and a ton of bad. Now you get a few powers...if your lucky...and the number of elements your likely to use ever is much smaller. I think WoTC may have been "dumb lucking" themselves into quality due to spewing out so many powers. Now that they have less powers, and choice, your likely to get less good powers.
These types of decisions never get made on the basis of one information stream. Impressions are collected from as many sources as possible -- the forum, surveys, conventions, focus groups, sales trends, email, Customer Service contacts, retailer feedback, and R&D's projections of what will best benefit the game. All of it gets weighed and considered. Last year, those considerations led to a decision that it was time to slow down the crunch feed and ramp up the flavor and story elements. The success of that move is also judged on a multitude of inputs, including -- but not limited to -- reactions in the forums.
Steve
Thanks very much for letting us know.
I think there;s still a little rebalancing to do before you really find the sweet spot.
The early 4e Dragon article about star pact warlocks is my all-time favourite article. I wish that was the golden standard of all articles. It had both great fluff and a good amount of useful crunch.
I always thought that was a great article too, though that was before the move to shorter articles.
I don't want to sound like an egotist (even though I totally am), but I think my Channel Divinity: Moradin article did pretty dang good (as far as short articles go) with regard to crunch/fluff balance and providing crunch that was useable and fluff that was relevant in the 1800 words I was aloted. That article was ~800 words of fluff and ~1000 words of crunch. And it hasn't required errata yet ^_^
Actually, overall, I think Dragon 385 was the best issue of Dragon yet since the move to shorter articles. That issue was packed with awesome sauce.
I don't want to sound like an egotist (even though I totally am), but I think my Channel Divinity: Moradin article did pretty dang good (as far as short articles go) with regard to crunch/fluff balance and providing crunch that was useable and fluff that was relevant in the 1800 words I was aloted. That article was ~800 words of fluff and ~1000 words of crunch. And it hasn't required errata yet ^_^
Going to agree, that was a really well done article.
The early 4e Dragon article about star pact warlocks is my all-time favourite article. I wish that was the golden standard of all articles. It had both great fluff and a good amount of useful crunch.
I always thought that was a great article too, though that was before the move to shorter articles.
I don't want to sound like an egotist (even though I totally am), but I think my Channel Divinity: Moradin article did pretty dang good (as far as short articles go) with regard to crunch/fluff balance and providing crunch that was useable and fluff that was relevant in the 1800 words I was aloted. That article was ~800 words of fluff and ~1000 words of crunch. And it hasn't required errata yet ^_^
Actually, overall, I think Dragon 385 was the best issue of Dragon yet since the move to shorter articles. That issue was packed with awesome sauce.
That was good stuff and a great issue, now what about that last year or so?
looks like a MAJOR upward trend, last issues have been good but junes toc takes the cake
Just because the magazine revived some articles from hundreds of issues ago doesn't mean the current/future articles are trending upward.
im not talking about the old articles, all of the new ones so far have been good. which of them do you not like? wait dont answer that, i dont really care
So far this month we've got two playtests and two themes. The one playtest is a barely altered PHB warlock. The other is a mess, bordering on unplayable.
Coming up we've got another playtest, likely a barely altered PHB rogue, and two "Class Acts" type articles.
Since the PHB errata articles are not new content, this means this month we're getting exactly four articles worth of player content, one of which contains only two themes, and the another is content which is either imbalanced or unusable.
Last month was a better month.
Personally, I hope that any clarification to the executioner confirms what seems to the be RAW interpretation right now. That is, at any level wherein you don't have to pick a daily or encounter from your other class, you can pick either a poison/strike dice or an assassin daily/encounter power. Does that give an advantage to hybrid executioners? Sort of. But assassin daily and encounter powers mostly suck, so it's not much of an advantage. Sure, I'd rather have shadow darts and shadow jack than 2d10 AS damage, but that's as much because I really like encounter powers as it is to gain a mechanical benefit. :P
And, I suppose it would be a good thing to close the loophole that allows for executioner|[other striker that has mba at-wills] to double up on striker damage boosts...:D