D&D5e is coming.

[LeStryfe79]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/317494-seminar-transcript-reimagining-skills-ability-scores.html

Another update. I had completely lost faith in WotC after 4ed, but this shit's actually starting to look good.

 

[Alex]

(...snip)
Faction mechanics in Planescape are pretty laughable and anti-immersive (lul) on so many levels it's not even funny. Hey, I've joined the faction and received this new power or bonus. Wohoo!
(snip...)

I always wondered what was up with that, they put these interesting factions in it, put real incentives for you to join them, but never went anywhere with them. Of course, a good GM can make do with only that, creating new stuff and making faction dynamics as complex as one wants. I just don't understand why they put factions in but didn't do anything with it.

 

[deuxhero]

Did you not pay any attention to even the basics of Planescape?

You are wrong. If there is anything I have learned in my travels across the Planes, it is that many things may change the nature of a man. Whether regret, or love, or revenge or fear - whatever you believe can change the nature of a man, can. I've seen belief move cities, make men stave off death, and turn an evil hag's heart half-circle. This entire Fortress has been constructed from belief. Belief damned a woman, whose heart clung to the hope that another loved her when he did not. Once, it made a man seek immortality and achieve it. And it has made a posturing spirit think it is something more than a part of me.

It's why the factions exist in the first place, if enough people believe their ideology is correct, it becomes so. The factions all believe adhering to their beliefs gives them power, so it does.

 

[Alex]

deuxhero

No, I got that. I understand their role in the setting and in Sigil. What I don't get is why the designers didn't give us more tools to make their politicking interesting from the inside. I mean, a few of the adventures had them figure prominently, specially that The Faction War. But I still feel the designers wanted to be something to be seen from without, not within. I would have liked a more sandbox approach to the beliefs, where the characters might even make their own faction and try to change the whole city.

 

[deuxhero]

Ah, K then.

 

[CappenVarra]

http://www.enworld.org/forum/news/317494-seminar-transcript-reimagining-skills-ability-scores.html

Another update. I had completely lost faith in WotC after 4ed, but this shit's actually starting to look good.

Yeah, they're saying enough right things to make it sound like . They still have a myriad ways to fuck it up, but 5th ed seems to be starting well at least.

And while we're on the subject of Planescape:

Greg: Anything specific from previous editions that you really want to see in the next game?
...
Rob: The electrum piece. I want to bring back the Great Wheel of cosmology. That would be awesome to have back.

 

[LeStryfe79]

I wonder how they're going to handle attacks per round? I hated 4ed 1 per round because it always felt like everyone had a 50/50 chance of completely failing in their given turn. This was compounded by the fact that almost all magic similarly rolled to hit. On the other end of the spectrum, I thought high level 3.X characters had too much to do on their turn. As much as I liked the flow of AD&D rounds, the half attacks were too clunky for many and end of round actions could cause confusion. This is one area where I think something innovative and new could be in order. I'm thinking it should mostly be determined by weapon type and fighting style, as opposed to character level.

 

[Grunker]

I agree.

They also need to make some sort of mix between the 3E and 4E way of doing races. On one hand, LA was retarded because it neutered characters to a point where it only payed off to pick 0LA races. Yet 4E's way of making everyone equal except a minor power was pretty bad too.

I don't know how to do it but I guess that's why I'm not payed to do it.

 

[LeStryfe79]

I think LA could have worked if the monsters had been designed to more accurately reflect a character of that level. In many ways I could see taking "levels" in a monster or race being similar to taking levels in a class. The big difference here being that you can't have more than one race(except hybrids of course!) A long time ago, races were classes anyway, so monsters as races combined with 3.x multiclassing might actually work. Maybe humans could have up to 3 classes(you can't take levels in human), demi-humans 2(+ their race class), and Monsters only 1(+ their race class). I would restrict monster races to one additional class to keep them slightly more rare and iconic than they might otherwise be. I suppose Half Elves should be allowed 3 classes + Elf, but restricted to max level 10 in any class to balance their additional flexibility. I dunno if these ideas are very good, but that's all I could come up with off the top of my head. I know there was something similar to this on 3.x with Paragons(?) but I'm not sure how well that was executed.

 

[deuxhero]

They tried it in Savage Species, but Savage Species was a steaming pile of poo all around.

Then again, there was recentlyish a system very losely based on the idea in homebrew that was actually fairly solid and turned monsters into flexible classes that can be multiclassed between and don't have "dead" levels *checks* here http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=8j07s5nd1adu3o7d5s4qnddj53&board=34.0

 

[Grunker]

They also did it in Arcana Unearthed (not Unearthed Arcana). That book definetely had problems but the races-as-classes thing worked.

Also, Savage Species is a wonderful case of doing-it-wrong in all cases, don't use it for comparison :p

Will check your link later.

 

[Father Walker]

Some stuff they've talked about seems interesting:
- Resolution of various tasks based on the character's Ability Score is pretty nice.
- Concentrating more on Abilities is cool in general.
- I like the idea of "themes" they've mentioned.

 

[LeStryfe79]

We need a codex playtest. It's going to happen. Who's with me?

 

[felipepepe]

We need a codex playtest. It's going to happen. Who's with me?

I would love to join, but my internet connection & job probably won't allow...Post a LP or something here, so at least I can read how it bodes.

 

[Grunker]

All the way LeStryfe. Haven't done P&P online before, never needed to, but this sounds kindda fun.

 

[Captain Shrek]

We need a codex playtest. It's going to happen. Who's with me?

If you do it WITHOUT DnD I would be counted upon to join. Codex has the correct group of irrational people to play a Pen and Paper RPG. What we need is a good DM.

 

[Grunker]

How do you propose we playtest D&D without playing D&D? :O

 

[LeStryfe79]

Even though I like to use miniatures in my D&D, I've had a better time without them online. Setting up fights and whatnot with a virtual tabletop can take forever, and I'm not sure it's worth the hassle. The best experiences I've had included simple chat and a die roller. One benefit of this is that everyone tends to get truly immersed in the characters and setting. On the other hand, I've seen these kinds of games lose focus and get all kinds of derp(think LARP level derp). I guess WotC almost has their VT finished, so maybe there's hope. We might even need to enlist that guy who's running the LP on Pathfinder(Ulminati?) He seems to know what he's doing. Whatever the case, this thing needs a true codexian treatment. We should learn a lot more in the coming months.

Also, this: http://critical-hits.com/2012/02/03/initial-impressions-of-the-new-dd/
an this: http://critical-hits.com/2012/02/02/ddxp-2012-recap-running-the-new-dd-and-playing-games/

 

[Captain Shrek]

How do you propose we playtest D&D without playing D&D? :O

By NOT playing DnD at all.

It will be shit anyway.

Best waste our time with something better designed and more fun.

 

[CappenVarra]

Btw, there's a popular ENWorld topic that has some interesting thoughts... Nothing about 5th ed specifically, but about playstyles in earlier editions. Worth a read imho: Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles.

 

[deuxhero]

Of course, with almost everything being DM call, this seems like it would be terrible for cRPGs (compared to 3.5's fairly complex combat that gave us ToEE)

 

[Alex]

I disagree. I have been waiting for a CRPG that does this well for a long time. Of course, you can't really focus on creativity on a computer game (as I was arguing on the Alpha Protocol thread), but you can give the players loads of options on how to tackle challenges and somehow calculate their effectiveness. Fallout did this to a small degree, with options like blowing up the entrance to the radscorpions' cave and using explosive skills to set up timed bombs near not yet hostile enemies.

 

[Father Walker]

Btw, there's a popular ENWorld topic that has some interesting thoughts... Nothing about 5th ed specifically, but about playstyles in earlier editions. Worth a read imho: Combat as Sport vs. Combat as War: a Key Difference in D&D Play Styles.

The guy misses the point, I think. Or perhaps he didn't get where lies the problem.

Imo he really adresses the problem of emergent gameplay vs. railroaded story-gaming. Both are to some extent tied to the question of PC mortality: whether it is accepted to see a lot of such or not (in story-games it's often not accepted, because such games tend to fall apart if too many of the player-controlled "actors" die).

Since most newer games and scenarios assume that PCs have sort of life insurance in form of the overaching plot, then we have this "combat as sport". If PCs meet a "monster", we can start putting our minis on the board, because surely the "encounter" has been prepared with our "party level" in mind. It's like Oblivian: the P&P, everything scaled to your level.

He seems to be pro-sport so to speak (I judge from his ineptitude in describing this "combat as war" gamestyle), but it's fun to see how he manages to point out all of the popamole of this playstyle. In his eyes, only players with "combat as war" mindset think about tackling their foes with caution, analyzing their enviorment and trying to tip the balance before the fight actually starts. Wow.

In addition, 4ed removes a lot of items from the Combat as War gamer’s bag of tricks and it’s much harder to rat

the opposition with 4ed powers than 1ed spells, since they’re specifically written to be resistant to be used for rat

ing and the lack of specific information about specifically how 4ed powers work in real-world terms make it hard for Combat as War players to use them to screw over the opposition instead of beating them in a fair sportsmanlike match since it’s hard to figure out exactly how to use 4ed powers for off-label purposes.

Interesting insight into mentality of 4E. So, all powers are shitty and usable on a gameboard so that players don't try to actually use them in a creative way and screw the GM by overcoming his dungeon in clever ways. Ok, no more questions about current state of "games" and "gamers".

 

[Grunker]

Since most newer games and scenarios assume that PCs have sort of life insurance in form of the overaching plot, then we have this "combat as sport". If PCs meet a "monster", we can start putting our minis on the board, because surely the "encounter" has been prepared with our "party level" in mind. It's like Oblivian: the P&P, everything scaled to your level.

I fucking give up. So many times I challenged your bullshit, so many times you backtracked or said "nah that's just the way I personally play" or some shit. The above proves it for real though: you are a complete retard.

 

[LeStryfe79]

I still think it depends a lot on the DM and whether or not he's running a module. I could almost run any edition the way I wanted to with a few house rules, but I still ran into problems with combat length. I was good with 3.X until level 16(BAB), but had major issues with 4th from the start(Massive hp and At Will spam). In 3.X, I ended up changing extra attacks to half attacks at full BAB. Basically, +11/ +6/ +1 became +11/ +11 and so forth. With 4th, I halved monster HP and made their successful attacks deal full damage. I've always found quicker, deadlier combat helps to bridge the gap between War and Sport. Of course, there's a lot more going on here than just combat speed, but it's a good place to start.