Sure, but if D&D dies off with the purchase, that still leaves a whole host of retro clones, the existing materials, etc. All it removes is the near monopoly of the role playing game industry, which I would contest is doing more harm than good.
Printable View
D&D is the main RPG. When it gets weakened, the RPG industry as a whole loses ground. If D&D dies, RPG becomes even more of a niche. Indie games and that's all. I like my indie games, but forget about being a professional in the area. It becomes by gamers, to gamers, for the pleasure of it. Sounds great, doesn't it? Except it isn't. Forget about support, splatbooks, miniatures, maps and excellent art (artists don't work for free). We'd be back in the 70s - do your own maps, paint your own miniatures. If you're not that good of an artist, well, tough luck.
I doubt that will happen, though. D&D was a 25-30 million/year business around the time 4e came out, and that was before the MMO, the Adventure System and Dungeon Command. At most, all Wizards of the Coast brands will be folded under "Wizards of the Coast" to keep them Core brands under Hasbro. And that's if Disney buys Hasbro and if Disney decides to go hardcore on demanding profits. They didn't exactly do that with Marvel, so I don't see why they would do so with Hasbro.
I think there is flawed reasoning here; saying that having a flawed game will keep more people in the hobby then a nonexistent one, or actually attract new people. It will just turn people away.
Having no DnD will mean people will turn to other things and try them out, and some of those are actually good.
Besides, I doubt that even if 5E fails, the DnD brand will not be gone for long. Someone will buy the brand, and release a new game under it. Who knows it even might be good.
I dunno, having a unified tentpole brand, a fairly universal gateway to the whole gaming world, the common lexicon that D&D brings to the hobby is, I think, valuable regardless of whether or not the game plays well. Unless we think PF can safely take over that role, I wouldn't want D&D itself to go away just yet. But I would be very curious to see what Pathfinder 2.0 would look like.
There are flawed games and there are terrible games. Spoting flawed games is only possible if you aready know a couple of amazing ones.
After all, AD&D 1st Edition was a huge success and it's as flawed as it can get, bordering on terrible with it's Attack Roll tables and saving throws.
DnD is already here, and it will stay in the current lexicon, even if no new books are published in the current iteration. Its just that present. I just claim that it would be worse that we have a bad DnD edition then none at all.
If I was in Paizo management I would be planning to release pathfinder 2.0 at around the same time as 5E.
It is flawed when you compare it from a present day perspective, in a similar way that some old computer games are flawed when compared to some modern titles.
My beef is that 5E is regressing, not evolving. It is bad by todays standards, let alone what the standards will be in a few years. Its flaws are insidious and buried under the pretty wrapping, but will reveal itself when played for a bit. Which is even worse, since it will disappoint people and turn them away from the hobby.
I sure agree that it's a couple of steps backwards, but I think that with 3rd Editions the tracks were set at a wrong direction and that it's a much better idea to go back before that point in game design and attempt to evolve from there, than to try twisting this flawed approach into something better.
Going back to 2nd Edition and reexamining the ideas and goals for 3rd Edition seems like the way to go to me.
There are lots of places where 3rd, 4th, and Next really have gone forward.
As a DM, 4th was amazing. The work that they produced was astonishingly useful. They are keeping much of what worked. Likewise, the math behind creatures is still being tweaked, but once there, helps them design and price creatures appropriately, which helps DMs create better encounters. Likewise, their full reconsideration of what healing meant helped expand the boundaries of what classes were needed. Next is not returning to cleric-only healing.
They are going backwards in some ways, but not without reason. The latest article in slowing down Level 10+ play harkens back to earlier editions, and it does so for the same reasons. At some point, you can't just keep pumping up the characters like Dragonball. If nothing else, you create huge amounts of work to keep up challenging creatures for those levels. If you limit the power gained in leveling, then you can leverage the more numerous lower level creatures and spend your time creating interesting high level creatures, as opposed to spamming out bland high-level creatures.
Unfortunately, game design is like engineering. Both are exercises in compromise. The game must be flawed in some ways. The game must be weak in some areas. If they are smart, the flaws are in places that most players don't mind and can work around. The game doesn't have to be perfect, but it does need to be fun.
Are we all reading the same article about high-level play? I saw it that they were doing both, having scaled-up high-level play AND having dispersed lords-and-masters style. They seemed to describe being able to pick your form of high-level that suits you.
About high level play and its complexity- it makes much more sense, from their modular concept, to have streamlined play at all levels. Creating a module that simplifies things is essentially impossible. Creating modules (or splat books) that add options, bells, whistles, and/or ramp up power is simple, time-proven, and wise.
Look at cars. Base models, then with various trim packages.
About the legacy concept- pure genius! I especially like the options- leader, saint, researcher, etc. One of the ideas that rubs me the wrong way is the concept of a 20t level character that nobody has heard of. Especially one who's Wealthy. It fits some character concepts (I'm looking at you, monk), but for the most part it's ridiculous, unbelievable, and breaks suspension of disbelief.
Actually, it's far more common than you would think at first glance. Let's consider say 20th level merchants. Quick, off the top of your head and without looking, who are:Quote:
One of the ideas that rubs me the wrong way is the concept of a 20t level character that nobody has heard of. Especially one who's Wealthy. It fits some character concepts (I'm looking at you, monk), but for the most part it's ridiculous, unbelievable, and breaks suspension of disbelief.
Rex W. Tillerson
Peter Voser
Michael Duke
Su Shulin
Jiang Jiemin
Bob Dudley
Ian Taylor
Liu Zhenya
John Watson
and Ryan M. Lance
If you guessed the CEOs of the top 10 biggest companies in the world by revenue (per wikipedia) you'd be right, but I bet you probably don't recognize more than a couple, even though for at least 6, I would bet you've heard of the company.
Lets try an easier list:
Carlos Slim
Bill Gates
Warren Buffet
Bernard Arnault
Larry Ellison
Lakshmi Mittal
Amancio Ortega
Eike Batista
Mukesh Ambani
and Christy Walton
That would be the top 10 richest people in the world (per Forbes, 2011). How many of those names do you recognize? More than the last list I'm sure, but still probably less than 50%?
If real life had levels, would you deny that these people are 20th level business people?
Let's try some scientists (http://www.superscholar.org/features...s-alive-today/)
Tim Berners-Lee
Noam Chomsky
Richard Dawkins
Persi Diaconis
Jane Goodall
Alan Guth
Stephen Hawking
Donald Knuth
Lynn Margulis
Gordon Moore
Probably an easier list for this crowd than the first two, but even there, I bet you don't know them all.
To take the point even further, how many of them, even of the ones you know, would you be able to identify walking down the street? How likely are you to believe any random stranger coming up to you and claiming to be one of these people? And this is in the modern age, with 24/7 tv everywhere, instant on communication with the internet at most people's fingertips.
Now lets unwind all the technology to medieval times, where the fastest long distance communication available to you is measured in days not seconds (or if you happen to know a wizard or cleric, in 20 word chunks...), and where most people are honestly too busy worrying about their next meal than what the crazy old hermit at the wizardanarium the next country over is doing or even who he is.
So 20th level characters who are relative unknowns throughout the world, yeah I can buy that.
Yeah, but let's look at a different list:
Georgy Zhukov
Attila the Hun
William the Conqueror
Adolf Hitler
Ghengis Khan
Hannibal Barca
Napoleon Bonaparte
Julius Caesar
Alexander the Great
Cyrus the Great
This is a list of the top 10 most successful military commanders.
Probably recognize most of those, don't you?
It'd be pretty normal for a high level wizard (scientist) to be relatively unknown, since they tend to keep to themselves and not do anything all that inspiring. (though there are certainly exceptions: Einstein, Newton, Hawking, etc) More martial characters, however, tend to become very popular. Sure, there was no internet or phones back then, but stories still got around. Odysseus, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Gilgamesh...on and on and on.
If you kill a dragon that was terrorizing a town, you can bet that those townfolk are going to be telling stories about you for a long time to come. Even if you only ever venture into dungeons and kill stuff for gold, you think the villagers aren't going to recognize when you come back out with wagons full of gold and powerful magic weapons and armor? Even if they don't know what you did, they'll make things up to tell the story if they need to.
That said, I wouldn't mind Legacy stuff being part of a module, as long as it doesn't take too long to get released. If nothing else, it should be easy to ignore for those who just want to hack and slash, or who want a more gritty campaign where the heroes never get the praise they deserve.
And all of them are dead, many even for centuries.
Who are the current highest ranking military officers in the American, Russian, and Chinese armed forces?
That we almost never hear of them hasn't anything to do with their capability, but because unlike the others, they didn't happen to be at the right places at the right time to become famous in world history.
Okay, how about the ten most successful bards of the moment? Or athletes, for that matter :smallbiggrin:
Anyway, the point is that there exist people in the world that almost everybody (within a certain country/culture) has heard of, and that many people would recognize at sight. Therefore, I would like my 20th level character to be one of them, or at least have the option to be one of them.
This, and everything else Yora said.Quote:
And all of them are dead, many even for centuries.
Depends on how you define success. Most popular, richest, most hit songs, best musical talent? Same with athletes, are you going by popularity, riches, awards?Quote:
Okay, how about the ten most successful bards of the moment? Or athletes, for that matter
Another thing to consider with both musicians and athletes is that they often achieve fame as part of an ensemble (much like your party would) and that not everyone in a top performing ensemble is going to be famous, even though without them, the ensemble would not be where it is. Consider Queen. Unquestionably one of the greatest rock bands, all Level 20 yes? Good. Now you probably would recognize Freddie Mercury (were he still alive) and Brian May, but what are the chances even if you know the names, you'd recognize Roger Taylor or John Deacon?
The key words there being within a certain country or culture. But I'm not sure anyone has or is suggesting that all 20th level characters would be obscure, just that obscure level 20 characters would not be an uncommon or unrealistic thing.Quote:
Anyway, the point is that there exist people in the world that almost everybody (within a certain country/culture) has heard of, and that many people would recognize at sight. Therefore, I would like my 20th level character to be one of them, or at least have the option to be one of them.
A 20th level character noone recognizes is perfectly viable if said character purposefully obfuscates and erases information and records about their exploits for whatever reason. Or maybe someone else does that, with their consent or without it. Or maybe people know that some mighty warrior killed the great orc warlord and his entire elite guard, but they have no idea who that is and what he - or she, accounts vary - looks like. I really think people should be less hasty to write something off as impossible.
So wait, your point is that you only become well-known after you've been dead for a few hundred years? That doesn't really make any sense. The reason we haven't heard about those high-ranking officers is because they haven't done anything impressive, since there haven't been any big wars recently.
The whole point of DnD is that your characters ARE there in the right places at the right time to do big, important things, especially as you get to later levels.
I'm not saying that it's impossible for a character to go unrecognized, just that it's highly unlikely that a group of adventurers doing normal adventurer things, killing big evil stuff like dragons and liches and demons, is going to be anything but a super-star to the people he's saved.
That doesn't mean that he HAS to become a noble, build a castle, and raise armies, but it means that he certainly can. it also means he's likely made enemies of several nearby nobles and kings who see him as a threat to their power, and could easily launch an attack to put him down. Others might seek to gain your favor, and come to your defense. Suddenly, there's a war on, and you're smack in the middle of it.
I called him a rogue/expert/beguiler. How is that making any implication about his character, except for the fact that he is obviously a skillmonkey?
Please, explain to me how I implied anything with my discussion of how Rupert Murdoch is a high level D&D character.
They're OP, duh. Crazy guys in pointy hats shooting Magic Missile all day.
In the immortal words of Medibot, "Who can understand the motivations of wizards?"
Apparently I was unclear. What grates on my nerves is the idea of a wet behind the ears kid, clutching a handful of freshly inked scrolls, who wanders into the "old haunted caves" and then crawls back out- six months or six decades later- fully lit up like the proverbial Christmas tree, filled with five lifetimes of knowledge, 20th level, etc. etc...
Meanwhile, all the dozens of societies, pantheons of gods, creatures of the under dark, all see him come out, and ask "Who the **** is this guy?"
As far as IRL people go, I'm a firm believer that Einstein was 4th level, and so was Jim Thorpe.
Also, I'm not saying every high level character should be a household name. But players know players.
The amusing thing is that since the DC to identify a creature is (at least in 3.5) harder as it gains more levels, the world has a tougher time figuring out who the almighty demigod is than recognizing the clumsy beginner. Then again, those people tend to be decked out in so much stuff that they barely look like their own species, never mind the person they were before they went on the road.
You don't make knowledge checks to identify individuals, so I don't think that is relevant anyway.
New survey is up. WOTC wants to know in detail what you think of all the individual maneuvers, spells, magic items, and so forth.
Hey, one guy I gamed with back in highschool was working on has his Ph.D. in philosophy when we ran into each other in grad school.
Looking at Wikipedia he's now the chief game designer at Zynga. So he's gainfully employed and is directly responsible for my wife wasting hundreds of hours of time.
OTOH it also looks like he never finished the degree.
Why am I not getting emails about these anymore? >:|
Well clearly his degree didn't get him a job in philosophy (of which there's more or less just professor and author). And if he didn't even finish it then well there you go.
I am EXTREMELY dissatisfied with the high level play.
Its just so boring, barely different then low level play.
I want to FEEL like an epic person. With epic abilities, and more options.
Not that many people play high level, but those that do, play it for a reason.
They play it FOR the lots of choices and cool abilities.
Why make it more attractive to people who don't care for those choices by scaring away people who DO enjoy them?
Their legacy approach is also idiotic. I could always do those things before with just some good roleplaying!
Are you privy to some version of the play test that no-one else has? As near as I can tell, they haven't released any high level play or legacy things for your to be dissatisfied in.
For me, high level play is ripe for more options than low-level play. I don't think that WotC will find most of those options profitable, so I expect to see a vibrant homebrew community grow around it. For my hard earned money, I'd rather them focus on making low level play cool.
You know, I'm curious. Do we have any information about how D&D Next handles alignment and how it applies to races? I recall seeing some articles about orcs and goblinoids that were more of the same old rubbish, but it's possible I don't have the whole picture.
Based on some really old interviews, alignment was supposed to be pure window dressing. NPCs and PCs have it, but it has no mechanical effect.
^^That's not entirely accurate. There is expected to be a mechanical element to alignment, but it only applies to outsiders. Angels, demons, and whatnot. But anything native to the material plane likely won't have to worry about walking into a Magic Circle Against Good, or something like that.
I see. What about the "Always Chaotic Evil" races? More of the same old?
Probably not. Generally speaking, the idea of "Always Chaotic Evil" hasn't been received well, because of its unfortunate implications. More likely, monster descriptions will include something like, "These guys tend toward chaos more than law, and evil more than good. However, exceptions always exist."
More likely than that, even, monster descriptions will be more like what we've been getting in the Wandering Monster column at Wizards.com. It describes the monster and its usual motivations and social patterns, and leaves it at that.
"Orc society is run entirely by murder and theft, not only of each other but also everyone they encounter. Orcs are also extremely lazy and never work for anything they can possibly steal from someone else, and they never do anything they could potentially force a slave to do for them. Their favorite pastime is to behead the women and children of their slave population and use the severed heads like rugby balls."
Ultimately it's boneheaded fluff-writing that's the real problem, and WotC is far from the only one guilty of it: The above description is a mash-up of the Orc, Ogre, and Gnoll societies from Pathfinder's fluff books.
I see. I'll be watching, I guess. Mostly out of curiosity, as I don't expect much.
Yes, the depiction of the "monster races" in Pathfinder is sort of hilariously horrible. Grimderp is a good word for it.
I don't know, not to be caricatures made up for the sole purpose of the PCs having someone whom it's okay to kill indiscriminately?