The End of 4e D&D.

[ggroy]

[shadzar]

@Zinegata:

I think the things themselves take many more pages than instructions on how to make your own. How many pages of powers are in the PHB? Like 50% of the book?

Take the CB with its 3 levels free to people, and take a look at the original Basic set.

Can you break the game down to something small enough to give the rules?

Individual powers are rules for THAT power, so you don't need them. The power will have the rules for it within it such as the 4th system provides.

Spells, equipment for the most part are the same. Martial weapons work one way. You don't need all in the initial in order for people to play, just some and how to work in others. Since all powers are spells, see the above on powers...

The SRD already does much of this and sets up the guidelines for what each thing can possess, it just needs the rules to tell how to use the stuff like healing surges under normal use, and not when activated by a power.

You also don't need all levels of play, since they really are the same thing as it goes up and the progression is easily predicted.

Here is Heroic Tier play for free with Fighter, Wizard, Cleric, and Thief (a defender, a controller, a striker, a the other one).

This gets people hooked, and if they only ever want to use that then you were really gonna make much off them anyway, such as people who play for over 30 years and never bought a book to play and just borrow. This gives a chance for more people to get interested and want more, and they will be likely to spend more on new things like those books of powers, equipment, etc.

[shadzar]

1- Free advertising. Your game is out there, and people can use parts of it for free and get you some advertising. They eat some cost of R&D, and WotC could take and use what it wanted form the Open Content that each thing had to include.

Did WotC actually take Open Content stuff from 3PP titles, for use in their later 3E/3.5E books at all? Or was most of the taking largely one way from WotC -> 3PP?

You will have to ask someone into 3.x and willing to spend money or or read the books that one, but it was available for them to do so.

I was tempted to, if I could figure it (OGL) out, collect a bunch of open content and add a bit of my own, and just resale other people's open content...

[ggroy]

[Windjammer]

You will have to ask someone into 3.x and willing to spend money or or read the books that one, but it was available for them to do so.

A list of titles with Open Gaming Content.

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/3.5e_Open_Game_Content

The only WotC title in that list, is the 3.5E Unearthed Arcana.

Let's not forget the two pages in MM 2 or MM 3. Yes, two pages.

@Frank: I'll get back to the points you raised later when I checked my 4E PHB.

[Surgo]

Lots of OGL material can be found at...

http://grandwiki.wikidot.com/

[RobbyPants]

Let's not forget the two pages in MM 2 or MM 3. Yes, two pages.

MM2 does. It's something stupid like a warbeast template and a tauric template. Just in case centaurs, wemics, and driders aren't enough, you can make hobgoblin-scorpions!

Why did they make those pages OGL, anyway? I never understood that.

[ggroy]

[shadzar]

I somewhat recall Dancey mentioned it but don't recall why.

An old Ryan Dancey interview from March 2000 (several months before the 3E PHB was released), talking about the OGL in analogy to the open software licenses.

http://web.archive.org/web/200012042248 ... d-0300.htm

Well if you done knew why for they went and done it, what you go asking me fur?

[ggroy]

[Windjammer]

As promised, I'm getting back to this point.

The primary resolution mechanics (roughly 35 pages in 4E) would be a free PDF, and then players buy cards for their powers and character gear.

There are limits here, obviously. 4E would need to reduce the bloated quantity of material on races, paragon paths, and (especially) feats before such a model could work. Either that, or offer basically card sets for these. I'd really be happy if they did, especially for rituals.

You need to have an incredibly... unique... definition of "primary resolution mechanics" to make it fit into 35 pages. The combat chapter alone is 31 pages. The "How to Play" section is 8, Character Creation is 18, Power management and time gets 17, the skill system - skeletal as it is - takes 14 pages, and we still haven't gotten to the rule that tells you how much damage you do with a longsword.

Agreed. I checked and you're right. So the rest is really just minor nitpicking.

1. On the analogy with M:tG which I used earlier, "How to Play" and "Character Creation" are mostly not part of the Core Rules, and to the extent that they are (which in part they undeniable are) can be compressed into something smaller. E.g., just looking at chapter 2, I'd kick out all that pointless verbiage on what stuff like the tiers actually mean and go for the cold number tables. Ditto for 'roleplaying' and 'deities'. That leaves us with pp. 14-18 (left half of 18 only), 25-28, table on p.29, pp.30-31. = 11 pages

2. Races - as I said, I think one could condense the strict rules bit a lot. Let's say 4 pages, and that's generous.

3. Chapter 4. PP. 52-59 are essential, rest goes on power cards. 9 pages

4. Chapter 5. All of it, pp. 178-189. 12 pages

5. Chapter 6, feats. Strictly, you need all of it but on my envisaged version I'd either get rid of feats as part of the Core Rules OR (if players feel strongly about them) have cards for them. Partly, some feats will have to made into power cards anyway (see 4.), e.g. Channel Divinity. 0 pages, but that's a cop out on my part.

6. Equipment aka the info 'how much damage does a longsword do'. As I said in my first posting on the subject, I think like powers this info needs to go onto cards. Even then, you'll need at least 3 pages explaining the terminology that goes onto that card. The hatesome "[W]" which no one found when first leafing through the PHB would need go get explained up front, as would the basic terms on the magic item cards (pp224-226). 5 pages

7. Chapter 8 - "Exploration", "Rest and Recovery" (260-263). 4 pages

8. Chapter 9 - Combat. All of it. It's 31 pages.

9. Chapter 10 - Rituals. 1 page of explanation of "How to Read a Ritual" etc. Remainder of the chapter goes on a separate stash of cards please.

So in total that's 77 pages. Wow! Now that's a lot more than my envisaged 35 pages. Sorry for that. I picked that number up in an Enworld discussion some time ago, and at a purely subjective level stuck to that number whenever I leaved through the 4E PH 1 and thought to myself 'wow, they've really condensed the core rules to a minimum number of pages'. Turns out I should have double checked.

[ggroy]

[Username17]

How much of the writing in these relevant sections was just extraneous, and could be edited out without affecting clarity?

A tremendous amount. Windjammer does a pretty decent drive by on compressing the PHB, for example dropping all of the discussions of quests and rewards and just getting to the good stuff in the chapter: HOW DO I SHOT WEB? How often can I use my powers and when can I get my used up powers back? That takes a 17 page chapter and dumps 13 pages of it as garbage. That's a pretty extreme example (that chapter has a lot of dead weight), but you'll note that Windjammer's back-of-the-envelope calculation has him jettisoning 76% of the book. Which isn't enough to fit the target size. Isn't half way enough to fit the target size. I mean, even then he's missing this little gem:

Milestones
You gain certain benefits when you reach a milestone—when you complete two encounters without stopping for an extended rest (see page 263).

Action Points
Your character starts with 1 action point. No more than once per encounter, you can spend an action point to take an extra action (see page 286), use certain feats, or use paragon path powers.
When you spend an action point, it’s gone, but you can gain more in two ways: by reaching a milestone or by taking an extended rest. Each time you reach a milestone, you gain an action point. After you take an extended rest, you lose any action points you haven’t spent, but you start fresh with 1 action point.

And yeah, you can probably see how that's more verbose than it needs to be. And a lot of the book is. But making something dense in meaning is actually pretty hard. It simply takes more writing talent than I actually believe that they have. I'll give it a shot:

Action Points
After every extended rest (see p. 263), your character will have one and only one Action Point, whether they had more or less than that beforehand. Once per encounter, you may use up an action point (likely your only action point at the time) to take an extra action (see page 286).

Milestones
When you complete two encounters without stopping for an extended rest, you "complete a milestone." When you complete a milestone, you gain (or regain) one Action Point.

By using more economical language, I was able to reduce that cumbersome 119 word document to a meaning identical 82 word document. That's a space savings of 31%! And giving it the once over with my own admittedly greatly inflated ego, I would say that it is more clear.

But I think it's blatantly obvious that there is just no way to condense that 320 page document into 32 pages without deleting and changing meanings. It's just not even possible.

Further, I note that they announced that the Dungeon Master's Kit box-set would come with the Rules Compendium back in D&D XP. Or at least, that's what a lot of 4rry fanbois thought they said. But this is evidently not true. Firstly, because the "Rules Compendium" is a "D&D Rules Supplement" while the Dungeon Master's Kit is an "Essential D&D Game Supplement." But also because the book in the DM's Kit box is 256 pages long and the Rules Compendium is 320 pages long. It may well be a compendium of rules, but it sure as heck isn't the 4e Rules Compendium.

-Username17

[ggroy]

[老子]

Milestones
You gain certain benefits when you reach a milestone—when you complete two encounters without stopping for an extended rest (see page 263).

Action Points
Your character starts with 1 action point. No more than once per encounter, you can spend an action point to take an extra action (see page 286), use certain feats, or use paragon path powers.
When you spend an action point, it’s gone, but you can gain more in two ways: by reaching a milestone or by taking an extended rest. Each time you reach a milestone, you gain an action point. After you take an extended rest, you lose any action points you haven’t spent, but you start fresh with 1 action point.

This is bad

Action Points
After every extended rest (see p. 263), your character will have one and only one Action Point, whether they had more or less than that beforehand. Once per encounter, you may use up an action point (likely your only action point at the time) to take an extra action (see page 286).

Milestones
When you complete two encounters without stopping for an extended rest, you "complete a milestone." When you complete a milestone, you gain (or regain) one Action Point.

But this isn't much better, and is not meaning identical. It omits the fact that you start with 1 action point after character creation, for example.

Milestones
You gain certain benefits [which benefits?] when you reach a milestone—when you complete two encounters without stopping for an extended rest (see page 263). [sentence serves only as a definition]

Action Points
Your character starts with 1 action point. No more than once per encounter, you can [may] spend an action point to take an extra action (see page 286), use certain feats, or use paragon path powers.
When you spend an action point, it’s gone [redundant], but you can gain more [redundant] in two ways: by reaching a milestone or by taking an extended rest. Each time you reach a milestone, you gain an action point. After you take an extended rest, you lose any action points you haven’t spent, but you start fresh with 1 action point.[wordy]

becomes:

Action Points
Your character starts with 1 action point. Once per encounter, you may spend an action point to take an extra action (see page 286), use certain feats, or use paragon path powers.
Each time you reach a milestone (see below), you gain an action point. After you take an extended rest your action points are reset to 1.

Milestones
Whenever you complete two encounters without stopping for an extended rest (see page 263) your character has reached a milestone.

And this

Action Points
After every extended rest (see p. 263), your character will have one and only one Action Point [not capitalized], whether they had more or less than that beforehand.[wordy] Once per encounter, you may use up an action point (likely your only action point at the time) [unnecessary] to take an extra action (see page 286). [what about using feats, etc?]
[how many action points do I have before the first extended rest?]

Milestones
When you complete two encounters without stopping for an extended rest, you "complete a milestone." [shouldn't be in quotes] When you complete a milestone, you gain (or regain) [unnecessary] one Action Point.

becomes:

Action Points
At the beginning of each adventure and after an extended rest (see p. 263), your character has one action point, regardless of how many they had beforehand. Once per encounter, you may spend an action point to take an extra action (see page 286), use certain feats, or use paragon path powers.

Milestones
When you complete two encounters without stopping for an extended rest, you reach a milestone. When you reach a milestone, you gain one action point.

[kjdavies]

Wonder if WotC's writers are paid by the word.

Hmm. I wonder if there could be a way to write 'to function points', as we do with code, and give a bonus for concise writing.

That is, the outline identifies the items that are expected to be covered for the document to be complete, and rather than paying by the word, the rewards are based on simple *and short* text.

I saw a specification today that was 11 pages long -- one paragraph of background ("we're doing the change described here"), a couple paragraphs of instructions ('build a file that matches the format described below'), then 9 pages of tables showing the file format and the data mappings to populate the fields, then one page showing the file query including join statements. It's a work of art, I could pick it and implement it *and it's not even my system*, no problem.

Concise writing (yeah, I'm not the best; to misquote Pascal, "sorry this is so long, I won't take the time to make it shorter") should be encouraged in formal documents, including gaming references and rulebooks.

Keith

[ggroy]

[shadzar]

So out of those 77 pages, how many would it be with smaller text, and smaller margins? I am guessing you just counted pages without condensing anything or removing extra white-space.

So if it was in some format to be given away in an SRD, then it could give all the races and classes as well, for a lot fewer pages, to try to get more attention.

Just figure you cut down to a single of each role type to get your feet wet into the game would cut all but 4 classes which should cut down even more.

The question then is why, if the books cost so much and the middle-man get the largest amount of profit, would a company NOT make the smallest thing to cut overhead and then try to find a way to get other parts out to people that nets the company more profits than the middle-men?

Books of all kinds still have a 44% markup right? So those cards for things mentioned would greatly increase WotC profits. Knowing them they would be random boost packs, but yeah...

So it is possible with 4th easier than other ediitons probably to give the players the instructions to play in order to draw them in.

Maybe it was the "everything is core" idea where everyone should play by and only by RAW that keeps the balance in 4th, since everyone always wants to play the same game as everyone else; that drove to make the big book of cap and everyone has to pay for all of it....

Not like that happens anyway because some never buy books, and some groups share a single book for many people. With DDi, you really only need one book since all the other stuff Wind was mentioning could be printed off.

Here is 77 pages of dull formatted but legible text for free, and here is a 77 page book professionally done up for you to chose from for about $10.

I just cannot see how a 4th SRD wouldn't have worked. I mean I might even play it if that were the case, and if playing it I might begin to like it enough to want to buy something like power cards to help me. As is, I have no interest on spending anything on 4th or really giving it a chance because it is too expensive for what I see is too little.

[Username17]

The entire PHB has about 600 words per page. The Combat Chapter is denser than most, coming in at about 645 words per page. You could shrink the font and shit, but remember that you're already doing better than double a novel page. And you could cut examples... but the box set is supposed to be for beginners to the hobby, so if anything you want more examples and diagrams and not less.

I am dead serious when I say categorically that there is absolutely no way to make 4e fit into a 32 page book without altering it as drastically as Advanced D&D was altered to make the Basic Set.

-Username17

[Bill Bisco: Isometric Imp]

So, is it time to spread the word of the end of 4E to the masses? Are they ready for it?

[Funswoggle]

So we're calling it. 4th edition D&D gets its last book around the September mark, with the Rules Compendium. There is never going to be an Arcane Power 2 or a Shadow Power or a Darksun Player's Guide or any of that. The DMG 3 will not happen.

Starting in Fall of 2010, they will produce a new line of D&D called "D&D Essentials" which will come in a Red Box. It will have vastly simplified rules when compared to 4e D&D, because the entire Player's Guide fits into 32 pages including the Table of Contents. It will go from levels 1-5, and the closest equivalent is the D&D Basic Rules. This strongly indicates that the new main edition of the game that will come out in 2011 will be contrasted as being "Advanced." Even money on whether the new edition gets called "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons."

In the meantime, D&D Essentials will be getting its own expansions, that will include a "Dungeon Master's Kit," a "Monster Vault," and at least two "Player's Essentials" books that will take the D&D Essentials game past 5th level. These will probably have kludgy rules that allow you to use them with 4e D&D standard, but the focus will be upon working directly with the simplified "D&D Essentials" rules.

Discuss.

-Username17

I'll take a piece of this action.

$50 bucks cash money says you're wrong.

[Windjammer]

I am dead serious when I say categorically that there is absolutely no way to make 4e fit into a 32 page book without altering it as drastically as Advanced D&D was altered to make the Basic Set.

I don't think "altering" is the best verb here, and that "reducing it to a lesser experience" is perhaps better.

I mean, look back at Keep on the Shadowfell which was initially scheduled to come out a month earlier than the 4E PHB (and the rest of the rulebooks; but at the time, the 4E PHB was to be scheduled for a solo release in May 2008, with Shadowfell coming out in April 2008). The idea here was to give people an experience of playing 4E and then upgrade to the full ruleset. The starter ruleset that came with that product was only 15 pages long (less for the players).

So the question is - which part of the rules will they leave out? Rituals are a safe bet; even WotC' high level adventures (paragon and epic) don't assume that people actually use them. Gear is next. All of that H1 module had the PC accumulating bling bling in the keep, but not once wasted a page to explain what they are supposed to spend it on. And no reviewer batted an eye. And so on. I'd think combat maneuvers are out (Bullrush etc.) too - best to whip up new players on the powers (and powers only). Skills are next - the starter ruleset 'explained' how to compress their use in a 1 page description. That's not a functional skill description, but then who cares. Skills would only be important in skill challenges, and WotC modules pretty much assumes that most people don't (like to) use them, much like rituals.

(Peripheral observation: quite a bit of the info above identified as PHB 1 'core rules' will probably be introduced in the course of the (a) solo adventure and more generally in (b) the group adventure. They'll load quite a bit of the rules knowledge on the DM only, as they did in H1 and the 2008 Starter Box.) --* Please see Edit Below.

But I'm under absolutely no delusion that the Red Box will be as incomplete as possible w.r.t. rules. In fact, I expect WotC to create and then explicitly flag these rules omissions as such, and head potential buyers onto the full product (PHB/RC). This is how a lot of their product has functioned lately - Draconomicon 2 invites you to buy Draconomicon 1, Plane Below wants you to buy MotP, Underdark wants you to buy DMG 2, Martial Power 2 wants you to buy Martial Power 1. And 'wants to buy' here literally means a 1-2 sequence of (1) leaving out a rule and then (2) telling the reader of the book 'oops, so that's MISSING HERE! SEE? BUY THIS!!!". Which gets us back to the Ryan Dancey point earlier, how you want buyers to go back buying your overstocked core product. Whether that's the new RC or the PHB, or even the first 'Heroes' book in the Essentials line, when we get to the Red Box - who knows. But it will be one of these.

So on the whole, the prospective 32 pages booklet in the Essentials Starter Box is probably not a good indication of where the 'Essentials' ruleset is going. WotC will simply repeat what they've done for starter kits since 2004 - give people a quick snap shot and have them yearning for more.

And once we get to that 'more', I absolutely don't see how the new Rules Compendium can't hold the entirety of the 4E Core Rules (as identified above, 76 pages +/- give and take a few pages).

And that's why I'm still not convinced that Essentials is a remake of the 4.0 ruleset. I mean, I attach a certain likelihood to that happening (quite above 0%), but so far I deem the opposite more likely.

*Edit 5 (additional info): there's also a 64-page booklet for the DM. While I expect replication of rules material from the 32-page booklet for players (see H1, see Starter Box), that's aplenty even IF you consider that it will have to include the rough basics on: XP awards, encounter building, other stuff from DMG that made it onto the DM screen.[/b]

[Username17]

So we're calling it. 4th edition D&D gets its last book around the September mark, with the Rules Compendium. There is never going to be an Arcane Power 2 or a Shadow Power or a Darksun Player's Guide or any of that. The DMG 3 will not happen.

Starting in Fall of 2010, they will produce a new line of D&D called "D&D Essentials" which will come in a Red Box. It will have vastly simplified rules when compared to 4e D&D, because the entire Player's Guide fits into 32 pages including the Table of Contents. It will go from levels 1-5, and the closest equivalent is the D&D Basic Rules. This strongly indicates that the new main edition of the game that will come out in 2011 will be contrasted as being "Advanced." Even money on whether the new edition gets called "Advanced Dungeons & Dragons."

In the meantime, D&D Essentials will be getting its own expansions, that will include a "Dungeon Master's Kit," a "Monster Vault," and at least two "Player's Essentials" books that will take the D&D Essentials game past 5th level. These will probably have kludgy rules that allow you to use them with 4e D&D standard, but the focus will be upon working directly with the simplified "D&D Essentials" rules.

Discuss.

-Username17

I'll take a piece of this action.

$50 bucks cash money says you're wrong.

Very funny. I never take a bet that I cannot win.

Since my prediction is that there will never be an Arcane Power 2, I could never collect my 50 dollars since at any future point "never" won't have happened yet and Arcane Power simply won't have happened yet.

There's also the little bit of wiggle room where they delayed a 32 page magazine of PHB Races: Humans until the end of the year and marked it a a "book" in order to claim that they were continuing to support 4e for the the entirety of the current production cycle. So I guss you could try to get money out of m that way.

But basically it's completely retarded to bet money that an event will never happen, because no amount of future events can get you your money. So no, I won't do it. People are totally within their rights to make fun of me endlessly if they restart 4e core products production in the new year, I've put enough credibility on the line that way. If you want to finance me to the tune of fifty bucks if they announce a new edition for 2011 or Essential D&D is wildly different from 4e, be my guest. But I'm not putting up 50 dollars - or any amount of money - against cash to be paid at the end of the universe.

-Username17

[Funswoggle]

I'll take a piece of this action.

$50 bucks cash money says you're wrong.

Very funny. I never take a bet that I cannot win.

Since my prediction is that there will never be an Arcane Power 2, I could never collect my 50 dollars since at any future point "never" won't have happened yet and Arcane Power simply won't have happened yet.

There's also the little bit of wiggle room where they delayed a 32 page magazine of PHB Races: Humans until the end of the year and marked it a a "book" in order to claim that they were continuing to support 4e for the the entirety of the current production cycle. So I guss you could try to get money out of m that way.

But basically it's completely retarded to bet money that an event will never happen, because no amount of future events can get you your money. So no, I won't do it. People are totally within their rights to make fun of me endlessly if they restart 4e core products production in the new year, I've put enough credibility on the line that way. If you want to finance me to the tune of fifty bucks if they announce a new edition for 2011 or Essential D&D is wildly different from 4e, be my guest. But I'm not putting up 50 dollars - or any amount of money - against cash to be paid at the end of the universe.

-Username17

Okay...perhaps that was a little vague.

I'll bet $50 cash money that the D&D 4E line will still be supported come January, 2012.

$50 bucks and I'll post a thread publicly declaring that I was wrong to have doubted you.

Hell, PM me and I'll even give you my personal contact info.

[Windjammer]

Sorry to write an extra post - but I snuggled in one more info in my above post (to those who read it earlier). There's a 64-page rules booklet for the DM in the Red Box.