Ok TD, I can't come up with a simple reply to your post other than something along the lines of "go the hell away you fucktard," maybe if I go point by point we can actually get somewhere though.
Titanium Dragon wrote:There's a story. I want to do something to affect it. In 4e, all the powers cease to have any meaning or effect the moment the combat music stops. When I want to interact with the story at all, I am told to just make something up or use the skill system. The skill system is garbage, so basically I'm down to just making shit up.
That's disheartening. 4e has dozens of books and thousands of pages, and yet my character's contribution to the story is still just the fact that I can imagine and describe things that a human could probably do and try to convince the DM that he could do those things with my winning smile and graphic description. What the fuck man?
Well, first of all, if you aren't RPing in combat, nor advancing the story, you're "doing it wrong". Given that D&D is designed to be 50%+ combat, if you don't consider combat to be a part of the story or to advance the story, then you're really probably playing the wrong game. When something matters in over half of what you do, I'd consider that to be a pretty significant impact.
No, 4e is designed to be roughly 95%+ combat, as evidenced by the fact that skill challenges are a shitty tack on system. Now maybe 3.5e is roughly 50%+ combat, but even then, the social skills need work.
Secondly, "make something up" is pretty much the cornerstone of roleplaying. No good system covers everything because there are always going to be things which do not come up nearly often enough to warrant rules. For example, I might, in one adventure, have to bake a cake with a file in it to break someone out of jail. Now, is there a skill check for baking? No, nor should there be.
it seriously depends on the degree of importance of the cake. In the given situation, the cake only needs to be soft enough for your friend to be able to get the file out. However if you're tasked with making a cake for some emissary or such, then you fucking damn well better roll, and scrounge up every bonus you can find.
The skill system in 4e is general enough that you can, however, find something which makes sense for it. For the cake, you could easily do a complex skill challenge involving bluff and diplomacy checks, for baking the cake and getting the guards to let you give it to the prisoner. Not an unreasonable choice, as that's more or less what you're doing.
bluff...
"There is no file in here, no siree, no file"
Guards: "get the fuck back here, and put the damn cake down now."
It should actually, first, be dependent upon the guards' attitudes. If your friend is locked up by LGs, they'll be fine with the cake, if he's locked up by anyone evil, they'll likely take the cake for themselves, find the file, and lock you up. However, there is room for skills. How many groups are going to try the (incredibly stupid) "escape by cake file" tactic? very few. How many are going to try more aggressive jail breaks? Damn near most, if not damn near all.
But not everything requires a die roll, nor SHOULD require it, and sometimes things might just work. Its not a big deal, and that's kind of the point of having a DM in the first place. If the only way you have to interact with the world is through the rules, then you WILL be limited, ALWAYS.
I'm just going to leave
this here.
I'm not terribly worked up about 4e for the simple reason that I can wait it out until 5e.
The secret is that when WotC was taken over by Hasbro, they did some market research and learned that their biggest selling books were the base ruleset book (PHB, DMG, MM) by a huge margin. This led them to create a new edition.
No other reason than profit exists. This means that in 2...maybe 3.... years, there will be a new edition. Hopefully, in the years of experimenting people are going to be doing because of the blandness of 4e that will keep them away from it, they will come out with some ideas more original than "let's create a ruleset to sell more minis".
Well, firstly, here's a little secret: you're wrong.
3rd edition was not a "Oh, Hasbro bought WotC, we're going to make a new edition" thing. Indeed, TSR was already starting to work on 3rd edition when they were purchased by WotC. Crazy how reality trumps your conspiracy theory, am I right?
First: That's not what he said. Second: Hasbro bought D&D and handed it to WotC, including the 3e project. WotC finished 3e, and sold it. Hasbro did market research, and found the biggest selling books were the Core books, and so, because they're a toy company more accustomed to the "minor project to sell shit loads of merch which can be replaced every so often" model than the "make one product, and support it as long as possible, making minor fixes as necessary" one. So 4e was made at Hasbro's behest, and now core books are coming out of Hasbro's ass.
Now, what WotC did was employ a market research company to figure out what their customers wanted, and then tossed the garbage TSR was doing out the window and actually made a game that was a real, marked improvement. That was 3rd edition.
And you know how they did that? Dragon Magazine. Gee, what was the first thing to go when 4e came along? Dragon and Dungeon Magazine. Yeah, that was smart... *headdesk*
So why 3.5? Some will say "Well, they were gouging people for money/those evil corporate bastards/ect." But they've said that 3.5 was a mistake because, basically, it failed at its objectives - it didn't fix the game and not everyone was willing to purchase a "patch" to the rules (and with good reason).
shouldn't be too long before they decide 4e failed at it's objectives.
So what about 4e? Will 5e come out in 2012? The answer is no. But why? How can I say that with any degree of certainty?
The reason is that developing a new edition is very expensive. Rather than having their staff work on books, they're working on a lot of stuff which never sees the light of day because they're reworking the base system, which takes a ton of time and effort. Sure, the core books sell well, but it takes them 2-3 years to produce a new edition, which is a considerable undertaking in terms of manpower.
Yes, the core books sell the best, but they cost the most to produce.
They have three years, and when 4e came out, it was pretty clear they'd been working on it concurrent with 3.5 for just about the entire time 3.5 had been out.
I mean, the brilliance of 4e is that it's extremely dumbed down. Even MMOs which cater to the masses have rules that interact in complicated ways, and to expect people who are also trying to tell a freeform interactice story to accept the formula of "you have sixteen ways to swing a sword, all with a different name" as the whole of their character is preposterous.
Actually, the brilliance is that it isn't "dumbed down". Again, compare 3e fireball to 4e fireball. 3e fireball is garbage. Not from a power standpoint, but rather, from a usability standpoint. The description of the spell is enormously long and stupid, full of unimportant dross. 4th edition's fireball is clean and concise, and thus it is very easy to use and understand (not to mention to find in the rulebook).
The shorter description speaks of concision. And to the average user, it is "Oh, this is much easier to use."
Fireball has a concise form:
3e PHB pg193 wrote:1d6 damage per level, 20-ft. radius.
hell, I think that might even be shorter than a lot of the 4e powers. Now granted, that glosses over specifics, such as range, save, capabilities of the fireball, etc. But if you want a short form, that's it.
Besides, if you're not willing to put time and effort into the game, maybe you should go play an MMO.
The trouble you have is that you simply do not understand modular design, nor do you understand why simplicity is a virtue, and complexity a vice. The rules should be easily understood, and complex gameplay can arise from very simple rules.
It cut out garbage, not the meat. What good stuff did it remove, I ask you? Skills are still there. Feats are still there. Many spells are still there in some form or another, more balanced. Some were removed due to being worthless, ridiculously overpowered, or obsoleting other party members, but if you are going to complain about that no longer being possible, I don't think WotC wants you in their audience. It is a SOCIAL game, let us remember.
again, I'm just going to leave this here:
The Tomes
The old grapple rules were garbage. The new ones are far sleeker and more efficient. Is grabbing people terribly useful? Ususally not, no, save in the context of a few powers. But that's okay.
Ah yes, so much better than making the grapple rules easier to use and useful...
I want to raise an army of the dead and take over the world.
I want to be a shiny pants paladin and create societies that are good and just.
In general, I want to do stuff other than kill stuff. What does 4e do in that respect? It doesn't beat Shadowrun, Exalted, aWoD or 3.x, thats for sure.
So play them. D&D is not
for you.
No, D&D is for everyone. An alot of them tend to want to do at least one of those things. So according to you, no one should play D&D, except you. Have fun.
And this is what a lot of people simply do not understand. D&D is not meant to allow you to run an army. That's not what it is for. It isn't meant to be a kingdom simulator either. It is meant to represent a group of heroes who do various deeds. They're the protagonists of an anime or of the Hobbit.
...
'scuse me while I go cast speak with dead so you can tell Mr.s Gygax and Arneson that they weren't supposed to have characters leading armies...
3.x is garbage for that stuff as well anyway. Sure, you can raise an army of undead... and it is horribly unfun for everyone else at the table. I've seen it happen EVERY SINGLE TIME. The guy thinks it is awesome, and everyone else knows it is retarded and horribly time consuming.
Which is why every class needs some way of putting together an army, and a mass combat engine needs to be worked up. People are going to want to lead armies. Now, sure, the LotR game probably has great mass combat rules, but it probably doesn't have much in the way of necromancy rules, it's not appropriate to the setting. Armies are, however, appropriate to D&D's setting, as are ravening hordes of undead. Not only does D&D need mass combat rules, but it needs mass combat rules that can handle single people taking on armies. It's probably better (and easier) to add mass combat rules to D&D than necromancy rules to LotR.
Running a kingdom in 3.x is making shit up, and you can do the same, but better, in 4th edition because 4th edition actually paid attention to putting in real noncombat mechanics.
I'm not sure whether to laugh my ass off or cry because you seem to actually believe this...
Sure, they're flawed. Heck, I made a post over a year ago on the WotC boards which was basically "Skill checks are irreparably broken because you can get such a large bonus on them all the time that one person will always fail while another always succeeds." Which is true. There are ways of making the system work, and perhaps they'll actually bother in 5th edition. But that won't be for a long while.
and yet you seem to think skill checks are actually useful... Either you're a pathological liar, or seriously disturbed...
But seriously, if you give examples, you might actually want to give games which support those things. 3.x doesn't support what you were talking about, and from what I remember of WoD, I don't think it really supports running an army either, though I may be mistaken. Exalted is all about that sort of thing from what I understand of it.
It may not support running an army, but I did okay in amassing said army, and giving orders to my people. Plus the others were talking about AWoD, not OWoD or NWoD.
I also liked being able to raise wrecked boats off the coast of some dangerous waters and magically repair them so I could create my own fleet and control trade in a region. I was well on my way to doing this in a 3e campaign before we retired it around level 12 or so.
Yeah... unsurprisingly. And really, what's to stop you from doing this in 4th edition? The "control trade in a region" part is, again, handwavium in both editions, and will probably involve adventures and stuff which correlate with your success at the task and the challenges which face you.
um... no.... controlling trade in the region is not handwavium, it is "DM, hook me up with a
beat adventure a bunch of people to push around and maybe kill a few of so the king has to actually send a level appropriate encounter to stop us!"
I want to be able to train powerful creatures as steeds and companions, even as a fighter.
Well, this is always a problem due to the "multiple turn" issue. Fundamentally, if you give one player multiple turns, bad stuff happens, namely, everyone else gets less time (and if everyone has multiple turns, the game takes forever to play).
lets see... Wizards and sorcerers get extra actions with haste, and time stop, and familiars... Rangers and druids get extra actions through companions... clerics get extra actions through undead... Paladins get extra actions through mounts...
that's just over half the classes that are getting extra actions and rounds through class features. I think it's okay to let the rest train creatures... especially since it makes sense for a good number of them (barbarian, fighter and rogue)
In 4th edition, you can have a beast companion as a ranger, or a mount, but they share your actions, which is a reasonable way of doing it as it gives you access to these things while avoiding the extra actions issue.
no, it's not a reasonable way of doing it, you might as well give rangers polymorph.
I play pen and paper games to do stuff I cannot do in MMOGs. Pure Combat is better done in MMOGs and CRPGs - faster, flashier, better graphics. World changes is what computer games are bad at, and that's what I want in pen and paper games.
Shittier, the monsters are far dumber, the battle situations are not as varied or interesting. Seriously, MMO combat is not really all that awesome, and often is pretty repetitive.
Actually, combat's getting better in computer games, look at Kingdom Hearts 2 and the God of War series.
Knock isn't worth the paper its' printed on, nor is the scrying spell that lets you spend ten minutes preparing to listen to 30 seconds of a conversation within line of sight.
Nor should it be. The entire point of these rituals is that they DON'T obsolete skill checks, but are usable in situations where you lack, say, someone who can pick locks or sneak around and listen around the castle (which is really what that ritual is for, I think; you're going to meet with the king and you are put in one of the towers, and you do the ritual to listen in on the conversations in the throne room/the king's bedroom/one of the other tower rooms).
If you need someone to pick locks and the rogue is nowhere to be found, drop some gold in a street thug's hands, they'll give it a shot. If you need someone to listen around the castle, talk to the servants, spread a little gold around, you'll get everything that's happened in the castle, ever.
AEG's War
Eden Studios' Fields of Blood
Malhavoc's Cry Havoc
So, in short, stuff which isn't a part of 3e?
AEG, Eden Studios' Fields of Blood, and Malhavoc press are part of 3e.
I could play a freaking game of Warhammer with them too to represent it, and, sadly, it will probably be better that whatever hashed-together mass combat rules some random 3PP produced.
yes, yes you can, in fact, you could even just go fucking play WHFRPG, and it'd probably work great. I hear there's a good amount of PC-blocking in that too, you should like it.
Or I could make it an abstraction - each character is leading a group of people, and the monsters are represented by single monsters, and we just play it out like a normal combat, except instead of killing individual monsters, you're killing troops and when they hit you, they're beating up your men. And then it is basically a normal combat with different stakes.
There you go, why was that so damned hard? You took the core conceit of Civilizations' combat system and applied it to an RPG. and it worked! Holy Shit TD you've done the impossible, you made a mass combat system for 3e! [/sarcasm]
If it's going with the latter, then there shouldn't be armies at all. Nor should you even get the ability to make them. It can no longer try to be the everything fantasy game, because Aragorn can't even travel with the god wizard of fairy tale magic.
And this is precisely what D&D has decided.
D&D hasn't decided a god damned thing.
