The Gaming Den

Sigh. One would think that the new hiring on WotC would be, you know, more important than shadzar's latest Gygaxian sperg.

Starting next week, I'm turning this column over to acclaimed game designer Monte Cook. Monte should be familiar to D&D fans for his work on the Planescape campaign setting, Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, Arcana Unearthed, the mammoth Ptolus city sourcebook, and, of course, Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition.

I've spent the past several months talking about D&D's past and how that relates to its future. It's now time to focus much more on the future of the game. Monte has an unmatched design pedigree in the RPG field, and for that reason we've brought him on board to work with R&D in making D&D the greatest RPG the world has seen.

lol

My bullshit detector says that "unmatched design pedigree" means: He asked less money, but, what are the details of his "pedigree"?

I would assume his "pedigree" were all the books that have his name on it and his own company Malhavoc Press.

Gx1080 wrote:My bullshit detector says that "unmatched design pedigree" means: He asked less money, but, what are the details of his "pedigree"?

He was also one of the big three authors who originally wrote 3.0.

shadzar wrote: -how really important do you think you are in this world today of 7 billion people? you are just a skid mark in the drawers of the annuls of time.

And that's why we play motherfuckin' Big Damn Heroes. Jesus fuck dammit, if you want to play Joe the mud farmer with a rusty broken sword hiding from goblins to pinch a pouch of silver, why don't you go play Warhammer FRP 1. ed instead? You can be a Rat Catcher, how awesome is that?

shadzar wrote:the world needs to function as if the PCs dont exist. only when the PCs interact with something do they change its course of events and then anything depending on that course to remain the same to continue the path. ripples in the pond as it were.

Which is exactly what your darling 2nd ed sucked at. And, quite frankly what D&D sucks at, and always have sucked at, since BECMI thorugh 4E. ironically, 4E does it better than earlier editions, where a given monster, terrorizing a village, might be a level 4 solo, a level 8 elite, a level 13 standard, or a level 18 minion when the Hobbits return to the Shire - the stats may change, but it's still roughly the same power level compared to the world.

But I digress. D&D has always sucked at letting the world mind it's own business, because of the rapid advance of the heroes. If the heroes decide to travel a bit, when they come back around to dealing with an old problem, any reasonably believable progression of power means the old challenge is now a ridiculous cakewalk.

rasmuswagner wrote: And that's why we play motherfuckin' Big Damn Heroes. Jesus fuck dammit, if you want to play Joe the mud farmer with a rusty broken sword hiding from goblins to pinch a pouch of silver, why don't you go play Warhammer FRP 1. ed instead? You can be a Rat Catcher, how awesome is that?

Dude my small, vicious dog kicks major ass. Especially when it comes to killing rats.

rasmuswagner wrote:But I digress. D&D has always sucked at letting the world mind it's own business, because of the rapid advance of the heroes. If the heroes decide to travel a bit, when they come back around to dealing with an old problem, any reasonably believable progression of power means the old challenge is now a ridiculous cakewalk.

And what is wrong with that? Why should dealing with the oppressive sheriff in your home hamlet that's extorting the farmers be anything but a cakewalk after you beat back the hordes of Hell and saved the Emperor's daughter?

Fuchs wrote:

rasmuswagner wrote:But I digress. D&D has always sucked at letting the world mind it's own business, because of the rapid advance of the heroes. If the heroes decide to travel a bit, when they come back around to dealing with an old problem, any reasonably believable progression of power means the old challenge is now a ridiculous cakewalk.

And what is wrong with that? Why should dealing with the oppressive sheriff in your home hamlet that's extorting the farmers be anything but a cakewalk after you beat back the hordes of Hell and saved the Emperor's daughter?

There is source material for this.

Swordslinger wrote:

shadzar wrote: they really ARE insignificant to the world. making them the center of hte world, rather than jsut the center of their story, means you end up with crap form people like the world waits for you and 2 goblins and and orc are always waiting in room 11b when you reach it. they have always been sitting there waiting for the PCs to reach room 11b, and will continue to sit there and wait for them until they have left the adventure area...maybe even longer. 5 years down the road of the PCs career they return and 2 goblin and an orcs corpses are not sitting waiting in room 11b.

The PCs are certainly not insignificant to those goblins and orcs.

The PCs are killing all their friends!

maybe those goblins sitting in room 11b didnt like the others and were jsut saying "fuck those assholes, let them die while we sit back and have a drink and play some cards"?

rasmuswagner wrote:

shadzar wrote: -how really important do you think you are in this world today of 7 billion people? you are just a skid mark in the drawers of the annuls of time.

And that's why we play motherfuckin' Big Damn Heroes. Jesus fuck dammit, if you want to play Joe the mud farmer with a rusty broken sword hiding from goblins to pinch a pouch of silver, why don't you go play Warhammer FRP 1. ed instead? You can be a Rat Catcher, how awesome is that?

shadzar wrote:the world needs to function as if the PCs dont exist. only when the PCs interact with something do they change its course of events and then anything depending on that course to remain the same to continue the path. ripples in the pond as it were.

Which is exactly what your darling 2nd ed sucked at. And, quite frankly what D&D sucks at, and always have sucked at, since BECMI thorugh 4E. ironically, 4E does it better than earlier editions, where a given monster, terrorizing a village, might be a level 4 solo, a level 8 elite, a level 13 standard, or a level 18 minion when the Hobbits return to the Shire - the stats may change, but it's still roughly the same power level compared to the world.

But I digress. D&D has always sucked at letting the world mind it's own business, because of the rapid advance of the heroes. If the heroes decide to travel a bit, when they come back around to dealing with an old problem, any reasonably believable progression of power means the old challenge is now a ridiculous cakewalk.

1. or i can play D&D since that is what it was made for...

you succumb to the problem of 4th edition....the PCs ARENT HEROES...just adventurers. your problem is thinking that they are ordained as heroes because they are PCs and cannot think outside of you small minded box.

2. oh yeah 4th with its 10 encoutners per level lets the world work around the PCs better, than all the editions that didnt try to force some power-leveling. i mean that is why none of those games exist using OD&D/AD&D that still ahve the same characters an havent reached the "max level" of the characters yet after playing since the year the game came out...

your DM obviously sucks as well you do, if you cannot use AD&D, OD&D, BD&D such that the world exists as a living thing.

shut up shadzar