So what IS going on with 4E these days.

[Kaelik]

You could have saved many words by just saying "I don't understand jokes."

You could save many words by not typing "You could save many words" posts every time you say something that isn't funny, isn't a joke, and is just demonstrative of the fact that you don't know TGD.

[Doctor Kenny Loggins]

I copied and pasted it from the last time you saw a joke.

[Koumei]

???

Yeah, you really know nothing about TGD.

He's referencing /tg/ of 4chan. I don't even visit that shitbucket of a place any more (it doesn't surprise me that SA Goons do, the two sites basically go cock in mouthhand in hand) but I sadly know this. MLP became popular, a few furries ruined everything with a few threads, then the mods had a bitchfit and banned everyone, deleted everything etc.

Note how it's still not actually funny or anything.

So what do we think about the Rainbows being tied in with the oldskool Prismatic effects? I see where they're going, making a reference to older editions to appeal to the fans, but it's not really staying true to MLP, is it?

[Username17]

I think that if you go back to some of the older MLP source material like Care Bears, you'll find that there is plenty of precedent for rainbow ponies shooting chest lasers that turn people to stone. It's only if you think MLP begins and ends with the more limited computer games that you get convinced that there is any sort of genre violation in ponies shooting chest lasers.

-Username17

[Doctor Kenny Loggins]

I am? /tg/ did that? I never go there.

[Koumei]

Do you think the up and coming Carebears supplement is going to be both faithful to the old Carebears cartoons and also balanced with the MLP-verse? Or are we basically looking at a completely separate game using the same system?

Still, that would explain the Prismatic tie-in for Rainbow Ponies, if that's what the Carebear Stare is going to be doing.

[Judging__Eagle]

My real concern is that non-caster Ponies will get stuck with linear progression, while all of the crazy prismatic spraying ponies turn everything into dust or acid puddles.

Also, Kenny, you really don't understand this place.

Work on crafting a MLP game is something that has been done before here. Unlike the rest of the internet, game designing here is srs bzns.

The "mods" here are.... the forum owner and sometimes someone from tech support. Their stance is that being told to "suck a barrel of cocks" is h'okay. A fully crafted MLP game is honestly not going to stir any sort of problems here; if anything it means that some players might have an other option to pick from for their games.

[Doctor Kenny Loggins]

Kay!

[Josh_Kablack]

D_C informs me that the Awesome Display domain ability for the Pathfinder Oracle class already has rainbow lasers of awesomeness on a class chasis with True Heart like healing abilities*. So it's really only the quadraped-centrism that differentiates the new edition, and while that's clearly enough to turn a lot of the old-skoolers off all by itself, I personally applaud the radical new direction

*See also Tome White Mage.

And just in case you thought I wasn't taking this seriously, here's a picture of my neopet, all decked out in nonsensical bling to give her that flaming hooves of fire in a rainstorm look

[Koumei]

So it's really only the quadraped-centrism that differentiates the new edition,

I'm fairly sure an infamous* argument won't come up this time though, what with everyone being ponies.

*Infamous on the Den, anyway.

[DragonChild]

Dude, My Little Ponies are fucking epic: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egrlzkKa6O8

[Orion]

You can't let centaurs into a horse dungeon. They're too tall, and they weigh so much they would founder constnatly.

[PhoneLobster]

Actually right now I'm somewhat more concerned with this basic My Little Pony hijack.

I mean I'm not going to condemn My Little Ponies, after all I fear their wrath, but they aren't telling me much about what the hell is up with 4E lately.

[Username17]

Actually right now I'm somewhat more concerned with this basic My Little Pony hijack.

I mean I'm not going to condemn My Little Ponies, after all I fear their wrath, but they aren't telling me much about what the hell is up with 4E lately.

They kinda do actually. The "4rries would sing the praises of th next offering of WotC, even if it was all MLP related" is a joke, but it's actually true. WotC (and to a larger extent Mike Mearls) has invested significantly in attaining a "cult" status for Mike Mearls, paying the "we know whether you're having fun or not" card repeatedly. At this point the people who are happy with the direction would basically be happy with any direction at all. Everyone else is to some degree unhappy.

The heads of the company have said explicitly that they don't have a contingency in case Essentials doesn't work out, and Essentials did not work out. The release schedule has ground to a halt, and they already literally fired everyone who wasn't in favor of the Essentials idea in the first place. Their latest essays have bee asinine, but they've also been zero-level design questions. They are casting about for a radical new direction. Because their last radical new direction didn't turn their freefall around.

And MLP Adventures would make as much sense as their last attempt, so why not?

-Username17

[Lago PARANOIA]

And MLP Adventures would make as much sense as their last attempt, so why not?

-Username17

I don't care much for ponies (iRL I have a weird phobia about horses, not other ungulates though, might have come from watching Godfather at an early age) but if WotC made a MLP game that was actually good and attracted new blood to the hobby I'd be all for it. As long as someone somewhere was still producing a quality D&D product.

[Just another user]

In fact, from what I've seen, that's the #1 reason why D&D loses players from one edition to the next. Players with large collections of dead tree rule books look at their hundreds and thousands of dollars of a book collection, look at the new edition, and ask "why do I need this?"

In a literal sense, it's easier to house rule what you already have than to buy something new and potentially have to house rule it too.

This is the most disappointing aspect of RPGs in general. All of them have only the bare minimal effort in game balance. It sucks that when you ask what a balanced RPG is, there's pretty much no brand name anyone can cite. Every RPG has its share of crazy balance problems.

I think that if a company spent their time producing carefully thought out balanced rules, they'd do great. With the current breadth of RPG choices, the one product we don't have is something that can run out of the box with no house rules. 4E is barely passable in that it runs well at low levels, but I have yet to see any system that doesn't break down at high level.

True balance is essentially impossible in RPGs, and personally I think that going too hard after it is not even a good idea.

I think there is a kind of sliding scale, on one side there is balance on the other there is variety, the more narrow is a game, the easier it is to balance, the only way to make a really balanced RPG would be to make it really limited (i.e. designed to play only one specific kind of scenario like dungeon crawling), have a limited number of options or have all the option being essentially the same, but I don't think it would make a very interesting RPG. (IMHO)

[K]

In fact, from what I've seen, that's the #1 reason why D&D loses players from one edition to the next. Players with large collections of dead tree rule books look at their hundreds and thousands of dollars of a book collection, look at the new edition, and ask "why do I need this?"

In a literal sense, it's easier to house rule what you already have than to buy something new and potentially have to house rule it too.

This is the most disappointing aspect of RPGs in general. All of them have only the bare minimal effort in game balance. It sucks that when you ask what a balanced RPG is, there's pretty much no brand name anyone can cite. Every RPG has its share of crazy balance problems.

I think that if a company spent their time producing carefully thought out balanced rules, they'd do great. With the current breadth of RPG choices, the one product we don't have is something that can run out of the box with no house rules. 4E is barely passable in that it runs well at low levels, but I have yet to see any system that doesn't break down at high level.

True balance is essentially impossible in RPGs, and personally I think that going too hard after it is not even a good idea.

True balance is just a platonic ideal that exists somewhere in the ether. That doesn't mean that things can't be well-balanced. The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.

You can have well-balanced things and just live with the fact that some things won't be perfect and won't get fixed until the next edition. I mean, if CCGs and MMOs are willing to do updates every few months to balance things, I don't know why TTRPGs can't do the same.

[ScottS]

You can have well-balanced things and just live with the fact that some things won't be perfect and won't get fixed until the next edition. I mean, if CCGs and MMOs are willing to do updates every few months to balance things, I don't know why TTRPGs can't do the same.

If your rules set exists on the internet (MMOs/"living rules" wargames), or if your game already involves people continuously paying to "update" their product (CCGs), then fine. Every time you do a major patch on a dead-tree RPG, you're asking people to buy a new set of textbooks, and there's going to be some rage there.

My own "Platonic ideal" RPG is pretty much putting out one edition of your game, keeping it in print forever, and then walking away from it. Correcting typo's etc., fine; "correcting obvious flaws in the rules", no, just leave it alone. I have problems understanding why RPGs can't just be like Monopoly, Battleship etc. and remain unchanging gaming fixtures. The current model of expecting customers to keep riding the Ferris wheel every few years stinks of fad-farming, planned obsolescence, and dirty tricks of that sort. (I've never done publishing, so I may be talking out of my ass here, but I can't help but wonder if another reason for edition change pressure, is that they need/want to keep their current employees on the front covers for author credit purposes, e.g. they'd still be paying full royalties to Gygax/Arneson if for some reason they'd never changed the game substantially from OD&D.)

[Leress]

I have problems understanding why RPGs can't just be like Monopoly, Battleship etc. and remain unchanging gaming fixtures.

Except Monopoly has changed it rules several times since it was first made.

[Lago PARANOIA]

I have problems understanding why RPGs can't just be like Monopoly, Battleship etc. and remain unchanging gaming fixtures.

Probably because those games are really boring and only survive by inertia. Mind, inertia is pretty goddamn strong market force, but you have to get inertia before you have inertia.

Don't think that for a minute that Milton Bradley wouldn't love to release an Ultimate Scrabble edition where you arranged letters on a Qix-like pyramid or some shit, but as we've seen from New Coke the downside to market inertia is that people don't like change even if it's superior. I mean, goddamn, the late 80's/early 90's were the heyday of experimental boardgames but except for a couple of them the only ones with staying power into the 2010s were those created before 1980.

[K]

When it comes to new editions, people are only unhappy if the the new edition is an obvious marketing ploy designed to get more cash.

People like new editions with better rules like whenever Shadowrun does a new edition. People even like supplements that redo busted parts of the game.

I mean, the nerd-rage behind 3.5 vs. 3.0 DnD was that they changed a lot of things but didn't actually fix anything. I can't name one thing that was actually better.

The nerd-rage behind 4.0 DnD was that it's an entirely new game being advertised as a new edition.

Don't confuse the nerd-rage at some new editions as opposed to nerd-rage at specific editions.

[Just another user]

You can have well-balanced things and just live with the fact that some things won't be perfect and won't get fixed until the next edition. I mean, if CCGs and MMOs are willing to do updates every few months to balance things, I don't know why TTRPGs can't do the same.

Well, for once because CCG and MMO are all or in part competitive, when players goes against one another balance is much more important. In RPGs player don't fight each other (usually). if you make it balanced enough the first time there should not be need to make a "patch" every few months.

A problem is that balance in RPGs is (IMHO) heavily setting/adventure dependent. For an extreme, and a little stupid, example, the skill Swimming in Waterworld/a sea adventure is a "must have", in Dark sun/a desert adventure is a waste of points, how much would you price it to make it balanced?

[K]

You can have well-balanced things and just live with the fact that some things won't be perfect and won't get fixed until the next edition. I mean, if CCGs and MMOs are willing to do updates every few months to balance things, I don't know why TTRPGs can't do the same.

Well, for once because CCG and MMO are all or in part competitive, when players goes against one another balance is much more important. In RPGs player don't fight each other (usually). if you make it balanced enough the first time there should not be need to make a "patch" every few months.

A problem is that balance in RPGs is (IMHO) heavily setting/adventure dependent. For an extreme, and a little stupid, example, the skill Swimming in Waterworld/a sea adventure is a "must have", in Dark sun/a desert adventure is a waste of points, how much would you price it to make it balanced?

Swimming? Hell, you don't make it a skill because that's dumb. Make it a stat check or have some kind of Athletics skill that covers running, climbing, swimming, and all the rest.

In this way, a good design achieves balance in a way that half-ass design won't.

It's a common problem in RPGs where people keep making super-specific things where general things would work better. I mean, you could have a Airship Flight skill and a Dragonflying skill, but there really is no need when a simple Flight skill can cover all the mechanics of flight and we just assume that the actual task of learning the controls is pretty easy.

[erik]

3.5 had a few improvements. "magic" DR was an improvement over the +x hierarchy (I know folks who would object to that). Were not monster statblocks improved? A couple spells out of a hundred were probably improved. And they got rid of exclusive skills.

Still not enough to outweigh the colossal waste of cognitive space that most changes could charitably be called.

[ScottS]

Except Monopoly has changed it rules several times since it was first made.

The official Parker Brothers rules and board remained largely unchanged from 1936-2008.

If we're being generous then I guess we can call 1974-2011 for D&D the "1903-1936 period for Monopoly", but there doesn't seem to be any effort from these guys to settle on a "final edition" and be done with it. From the same Wiki article, Parker Bros. finally acquired Monopoly in 1935, and by 1936 the Monopoly rules were crystallized. Hasbro bought WOTC in 1999, and it's been 12 years of D&D fucking flailing around (4 "new editions" ftl).