Lago's Kickass D&D-Book Marketing Strategy!

[RandomCasualty2]

I've noticed that gamers really love playing Pretty Princess Dressup with their characters. Especially the boys.

That said, I think bundling the DDI with some kind of Character Visualizer application would be a great idea. I bet you could get people excited about playing your game RIGHT NOW if you let them build their character with all of these backgrounds and contacts and powers and then gave them a decent-looking 3D model that they spent an hour or so decorating.

This is very true.

My friends pretty much make it a tradition to create their PC in Soul Calibur 4 before playing.

[Korwin]

Btw. DFRPG gets into the second printing... (Core book and Background/MM book)

[Lago PARANOIA]

All right. So. Proposed race and class listing for the next edition.

Class/Power Structure
Honestly, I should've posted my new proposed class system for 5E in this thread. I suppose that it wouldn't be a big deal to just show you the URL. Or even copypaste, if people are feeling THAT lazy.

Classes

Psionic: Monk, Psion (telekinesis and telepathy), Artificer
Arcane: Warlock (illusion/enchantment), Wizard (conjurer/transmutation), Warsage (weapon-focused evoker)
Divine: Shaman (Diviner/Necromancer), Druid, Paladin
Martial: Rogue, Warlord (what the fighter was called), Ranger (Barbarian/Ranger combination)

Possible Kits:
Monk: Mystic, Bender, Animal Fist
Warlock: Hexer, Witch, Thrallherd
Wizard: Summoner,
Paladin: Cleric, Crusader, Grey Guard
Druid: Warden, Shapeshifter, Elementalist
Ranger: Barbarian, Planeswalker, Dungeon Raider
Rogue: Assassin, Spy, Jester
Warlord: Soldier, Gladiator, Mercenary
Shaman: Spiritualist, Necromancer, Oracle
Artificer: Rune Knight, Engineer, Alchemist
Warsage: Kensai, Ninja, Bard
Psion: Psyker, Mindlord, Mutant

Races

Human Paladin
Elf Wizard
Dwarf Ranger
Goblin Artificer
Orc Warsage
Halfling Rogue
Warforged Monk
Lizardmen Psion
Shifter Druid
Hobgoblin Warlord
Tiefling Shaman

Racial changes: Half-races will be a variant of pre-existing race where they get some special options. But as far as the game is concerned, half-elves/half-orcs and the like are pretty much just humans with some makeup and a special ability or two. Shifters and tieflings are explicitly derived from humans. Orcs, Hobgoblins, Goblins, and Bugbears are goblinoids. Dragonborn are out, they're just called Lizardmen. Kobolds are a split-off race from lizardmen.

Backgrounds:
Will be mandatory in 5E. They'll work just like they did in 4E, though they'll have more description to them. Everyone picks two backgrounds. Some backgrounds are class/ability dependent. Even though backgrounds are mandatory, they do not provide any mechanical incentive. Once a character does have their background they are of course free to ignore their background if it becomes irrelevant/uninteresting.


Equipment:
Will be a mixture of automatic, created, and found items. I believe that 5E could benefit from a good magic item creation system like in 3E if I can ever think of a way to provide a balanced system that provides a lot of choice without overshadowing 'found' magical items. Automatic items will be shit like arrows and rations at low levels and decanters of endless water and +2 swords at higher levels--stuff that will hurt you not to have but doesn't take any effort to get.


Skills:
The skill system will pretty much work like it does in 4E (binary have it/don't have it system, everything gets a +BLB though), however the bonuses will be more tightly controlled to prevent people from 'dropping off'. Honestly I think that open-ended professions should be thrown into the mix, where you use things like your 'Pottery' profession to look for weaknesses in the castle walls and your 'Orator' profession to give a stirring speech to the army. I am willing to be proven wrong on this, however.


Weaknesses:
Should be mandatory. I discussed mostly how they should go earlier in this thread, though I can copypaste again if people are interested.


Contacts: Will mostly work like they do in Shadowrun, however instead of contacts being fixed you can also 'level-up' your contacts (i.e. going from being friends with the Town Guard captain to the head of the biggest wizard's guild on the continent).


With all of that, I think that people just picking up the Player's Handbook will have a lot of ways to customize their character without feeling overwhelmed. If people still think that this is too much stuff for a character to have we can spread it a bit out. For example, instead of getting a kit at first level you get it at fourth. You don't pick up your first contact until third level. So-on.

[Lago PARANOIA]

This is from another thread, but because I like pimping my old thread it's going here.

I think 5th ed needs to take a drastic departure from the last 30 years of D&D. Frank's right, steampunk is in right now, and better yet, it's growing and not peaking yet. Making the default campaign of D&D steampunk might be radical enough to shake things up, while allowing hardcore fans to go back to Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance.

If I was going to sum up how I think that 5E should do its default campaign setting, I'd say that my 'ideal' setting would be a cross between Avatar: The Last Airbender, One Piece, and Final Fantasy X.

Or to be more specific:

• The default setting does not need to be Generic European Medieval Fantasy. We have Forgotten Realms, Dragonlance, and Greyhawk for that. The common thread between each of those series I mentioned is that the authors went out of their way to create a fantasy setting not based on GEMF. Say what you want about the actual game of FFX, but the actual setting is evocative and original in a way neither the earlier or later games can really match.
• The setting needs to have several global metaplots going on at once. This helps DMs decide on details and adventures that reinforce the setting and also gives people an idea about how to tie their characters to the game. For example, one global metaplot to be going on is that the hobgoblins are besieging Mountainhome, the capital of the dwarves. As in if you go through Dwarf Country you'll come across hobgoblin patrols as they try to consolidate their hold on the landscape. Not just because they're a random encounter, but if you go through their possessions you'll see dwarven loot and battle plans on them.
• The setting needs to be updated every now and then. None of this 'release one setting book every edition and watch the money roll in'. I've said before that a great way to build hype for your setting and to get players interested in it is to run global events at Cons where you run several concordant games and the outcome of these decide how the setting gets updated. For example, if a bunch of people win the 'halflings versus orcs' metaplot in favor of the orcs, then the fluff of the setting should be changed to hundreds of thousands of halfling refugees fleeing for their lives to whomever will take care of them even though previous books said that halflings live mostly in the border nations between the Dwarf and Orc lands.
• Get rid of this 'points of light' crap. The setting should be in a transition period between Points of Light and Points of Darkness. You can make it so that the world is slowly falling to apocalypse and isolated pockets of civilization or you can make it so that people are slowly fighting back the tides of monsters with their new technology. Whatever.
• The idea that places should be hard to get to because everything is done on foot until high levels needs to go. This idea is dumb, because it leads to crap like Krynn where you chart out the stomping grounds for your legendary heroes and it actually seems tiny--yet ironically populated with way too many monsters and ruins over such a small area to be believable. The population of the world should be small, but transportation needs to be fast. Heroes in this setting should be able to get from one side of the world to the other in no more than three weeks.
• The setting needs to invert the Science is Bad and Magic is Good tropes and make so that Science is Good and Magic is Bad. Mostly because finding the latter is really, really hard in heroic fantasy.
  
  Seriously, the default setting should be some Industrial/Victorian-era utopia that got completely fucked over by the introduction of magic in the setting. Gaia sent legions of druids to destroy the eeeeevil technology, cabals of wizards overthrew democratic societies and installed magocracies, evil religious orders sprang up and said that misogyny and slavery were totally okayed by Bane, etc.. That'd be interesting. If you've played Gaia Crusaders: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUGrbbJ5W5k this is the overall visual theme I'm talking about. Waterfalls and Eldritch forests cutting through what used to be great cities. They don't have to be MODERN cities like in that game, having a visual theme like Final Fantasy X or Kingdom Hearts is fine as well. Just have something that makes people feel angry that they traded libraries and town halls for mud farms and straw huts and living in barely-patched up aqueducts.
• Get rid of the Black and White morality. Doing Black and White morality without making it seem offensive/preachy is really, really difficult. Pick one of these three:
  
  White and Grey Morality: You definitely have heroes but not real villains. Note that I didn't say conflict. Even though you have a side that's in the right, that means making their opponents relatable or even sympathetic. When the orcs stroll by and burn down the hero's hometown, it's considered good to stop them but it's not cool to go to their town and slice them all up because they only did it because they're desperate and starving. While the Wizard's Guild clings to their idea of a magocracy, they're not doing it because they're evil bastards who love privilege and oppression, they're doing it because they're afraid they'll be persecuted even though they won't.
  
  Grey and Grey Morality: There aren't really any heroes or villains in the setting. You don't have a side that's definitely evil but you don't have a side that's definitely good either. Unlike White and Grey morality, defeating the orcs in the name of the Human Empire doesn't make the world a better place, it just means that the cycle of dominance has flip-flopped. It's sort of like two countries fighting each other over control of Ragnite.
  
  Grey and Black Morality: See WH40K or WHFRPG. You have a side that's very morally ambiguous, even evil, but their actions are justified because the people they're up against are even worse. The heroes are genuine bastards who do things like kill orc babies, but that's because the orc babies are evil. You are totally allowed to slice up everyone in the castle down to the maids without the game calling you a bastard, because the DM showed you a cutscene of the king throwing a feast where they cannibalized some peasants and everyone had a great time.

[Lokathor]

So what I'm getting from all this... is that you want to play in Barsaive.