The Gaming Den

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Well, what's it doing now? My friend, who's into 4e, didn't know about the "heroes of shadow" book (which someone on here should do a review of, if they have it) and I don't really know any groups in my area playing 4e (anecdotal, I know). But is there anything scheduled to come out after it?

There's a *planned* Heroes of the Freaky Tree Fucking Fairies- err, the Faewild book. But given how poorly HoS did (because it really was the worst book they put out in the last three years) it could easily be quietly dropped off the schedule at any time.

Personally, I see Hasbro dumping Mearls, then bringing in a handful of people who have no rpg history at all to manage the freelancer,s and who will been given some vague, unrealistic orders/goals to save/change the brand. They'll try one more stupid attempt to revamp 4E (perhaps making a board game version of the Redbox) then the brand will be abandoned for a few years, so that when 5E (although it won't be called 5E)does come out the old fans will see it as a brand new team swooping in and reviving DnD from it's state of near death to restore it to glory, rather than a money grab.

If they can figure out how to do a money grab there will be no delaying it.

Trouble is I do not see them being able to figure out a way to execute a decent money grab. 5e is a lot of investment. Surely they would not lose money but it is dubious that they will make enough that they would not be better off focusing on other projects.

I imagine Hasbro will say fuck it and wind down their DnD, maybe sell the licenses to someone, no idea who. Not paizo as they likely have little need for it.

I still think the chances of Hasbro selling it are little to none. (short of a company coming along and offering to buy it for far more money than it's actually worth) It costs very little to sit on the IP after dies off, and there's always the chance that it can be revived in some form or the other later on. Which is basicly what Hasbro does with their toy and board game properties.

Check out this OP, in particular where he ends up calling Mearls a biter. He means it tongue in cheek, but I think the case is actually not that easy to shake off.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rp ... -28-a.html

Windjammer wrote:Check out this OP, in particular where he ends up calling Mearls a biter. He means it tongue in cheek, but I think the case is actually not that easy to shake off.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rp ... -28-a.html

Lacking the give-a-damn to bother reading Mike Mearls' tirades from the last two years, what the hell are they talking about?

-Username17

FrankTrollman wrote:Lacking the give-a-damn to bother reading Mike Mearls' tirades from the last two years, what the hell are they talking about?

-Username17

It looks like the guy linked to a blog post from Mike Mearls that says basically nothing (D&D rules should support exploration, roleplaying and combat) and then said "he read my mind, great minds think alike, etc.!"

Yawn.

hogarth wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:Lacking the give-a-damn to bother reading Mike Mearls' tirades from the last two years, what the hell are they talking about?

-Username17

It looks like the guy linked to a blog post from Mike Mearls that says basically nothing (D&D rules should support exploration, roleplaying and combat) and then said "he read my mind, great minds think alike, etc.!"

Yawn.

Oh, the quality of the material is not worthy of discussion, agreed. What's noteworthy is that a case is being made that Mearls seems to have hit a stage where he's cribbing - badly - from fan posts. The fact that that can't be dismissed that easily (level of generality of content etc etc blabla) is a bit odd.

Windjammer wrote: Oh, the quality of the material is not worthy of discussion, agreed. What's noteworthy is that a case is being made that Mearls seems to have hit a stage where he's cribbing - badly - from fan posts. The fact that that can't be dismissed that easily (level of generality of content etc etc blabla) is a bit odd.

I don't think he's saying that at all. It's just a case of "hey, I had a similar (obvious) idea!"

Classifying D&D games into combat, roleplaying and exploration segments really isn't much different from splitting them into gamist, narrativist and simulationist segments; randomly musing along the same lines isn't "cribbing", IMO.

Unfortunately, I'm blocked at work from Wizards (but not EnWorld, go figure) but I always thought the 4E philosophy was that there was only the combat thing. That's it. So to even suggest there is a role play and exploration thing sounds from him sounds so strange.

I thought it was that you didn't need rules for roleplay/exploration because that was supposed to be Magical Tea Party / skill challenges.

tzor wrote:Unfortunately, I'm blocked at work from Wizards (but not EnWorld, go figure) but I always thought the 4E philosophy was that there was only the combat thing. That's it. So to even suggest there is a role play and exploration thing sounds from him sounds so strange.

The last paragraph of the article is:

"So what does the game look like if you strip everything away except for essential mechanics, and then orient them to support exploration, roleplay, and combat? What would D&D look like? We’ll start answering those questions next week."

He's just ruminating on D&D in general, not any edition in particular; the previous column was about "what makes D&D feel like D&D?"

hogarth wrote:

tzor wrote:Unfortunately, I'm blocked at work from Wizards (but not EnWorld, go figure) but I always thought the 4E philosophy was that there was only the combat thing. That's it. So to even suggest there is a role play and exploration thing sounds from him sounds so strange.

The last paragraph of the article is:

"So what does the game look like if you strip everything away except for essential mechanics, and then orient them to support exploration, roleplay, and combat? What would D&D look like? We’ll start answering those questions next week."

He's just ruminating on D&D in general, not any edition in particular; the previous column was about "what makes D&D feel like D&D?"

It sounds like he is trying to brainstorm a pitch for 5e, but he's too stupid to realize the answer to his question is "a boardgame, like any one of the one's on the market right now."

An RPG is about the elaboration and that's why people pay money. If I wanted to go to the minimum, I can RP without rules, can decide combat with a 1d6 roll or a coinflip, and can explore by laying down tiles like in Zombie!.

An RPG is about laying down a narrative, so at the minimum you ask the question "What's the minimum that I need to lay down a narrative." Since he can't figure that out, I should get a few laughs at his next installment.