With the new edition of Dungeons and Dragons coming out, Wizards of the Coast has made the unusual move of farming out the adventures to a third party. In this case, Kobold Press. I've owned several of Kobold Press products and helped on a Kickstarter of theirs.
I wasn't around for their 'original patron project, which was proto-Kickstarter. The master of that house was quite wise in seeing how the tides were turning as patron funded projects, both in Kickstarter and in various webcomic circles through things like Patreon.
The two adventurers coming out for 5th edition are Hoard of the Dragon Queen and The Rise of Tiamat. They suffer some of that 'weirdness' in Amazon pricing in that the discount is good, but now awesome. Still, $22 bones each isn't terrible considering what the average book is running these days.
But what if you're curious to know what type of game design Kobold Press does in the first place?
DrivethruRPG is having their 10th anniversary sale. While I know that the PDF format isn't everyone's cup of tea, if you want to see what Kobold Press is capable of doing, the 10th anniversary bundle 2, includes Midgard campaign setting. This PDF in and of itself is normally $19.99. It's also an Ennies nominated setting for 2013. It also clocks in at 298 pages. Yeah, I know once you cut the cover and stuff out it probably falls into the 'readable' It includes Pathfinder and AGE rules (which I'm guessing is Dragon Age rules from Green Ronin) so you can see how they handle a few different types of systems.
If you don't want to spent the $10 on that, there's a free preview.
See what the future holds for the writing in Dungeons and Dragons next.
Showing posts with label 5th edition. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 5th edition. Show all posts
Thursday, June 12, 2014
Saturday, May 31, 2014
And a Fifth Horseman Shall Appear and his name shall be Next
But lo and behold, the internets are ablaze with the new information about 5th edition. The obvious news? It'll be at Gen Con, or at least, one of the books will. That strikes me as odd since AFAIK, the books are not printed in the United States and any changes that need to be made aren't going to get incorporated into the later books anyway. Live by the China, die by the China.
In addition, the price point for the core set is too high. Mind you, let me be clear, that's my opinion. I also don't think it will hurt initial sales at all. I think that there is every possibility of a sell through at Gen Con. Right now Amazon has the Player's Handbook for just under $30 bones. That's $10 more, at Amazon, than 4th edition.
For those that find that too expensive, there's even a starter box set that's under $13 right now. There are supposed to be some online rules to complement that which allow some further play than just the boxed set itself.
Let me be clear. It's not that I think these are bad values mind you. For $150, if you're only getting the core three books, you can probably get many moons of game play from.
But well, that $150 can buy a tablet. It can buy a few board games. It can buy dozens of supplements for free rule sets of the OSR that are readily available right now.
Mind you, some will point out that Amazon discount brings that down to $90 if you get them all at a heavy discount. But that's now. What happens if Amazon tells Hasbro they want more money like Amazon has done with a different publisher and cuts their deep discounts out? Companies need to stop pricing their books to account for the Amazon discount if they don't want to be beholden to Amazon's pricing.
Anyway...
It's not that it's a bad price, I just think it's a bad price for the core books for Dungeons and Dragons. Pathfinder has a core book that is the Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide combined. If $100 for two books is great value, what does that put the Pathfinder system at? Awesome value?
In addition, there is some weirdness going on. Let's look at the adventurers. For many people, the adventurers of a system are what a system lives and dies by. People talk about great campaigns for decades after the games have been run. It doesn't matter what system either. Talk about Warhammer and people will instantly pipe up with The Enemy Within and their favorite parts of that, or even smaller adventurers like The Three Feathers. Others will mention things like the Orient Express for Call of Cthulhu.
Both third and fourth edition didn't necessarily have a lot of great adventures in that vein. Wizards of the Coast has a real weakness when it comes to doing adventure paths. When they lost Paizo, the former caretakers of the print magazines Dungeon and Dragon, they lost the ability to do well regarded adventure paths, which for better or worse, are a standard for Dungeons and Dragons or D&D like games these days.
But the new edition has some starting adventures. In this instance, done by Kobold Press, a company that has supported Pathfinder, 3rd edition and even 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons. The first I believe is Hoard of the Dragon Queen, but that strange Amazon pricing comes through as this book is over $25 dollars and only has an 11% discount. Are you going to pay almost as much for a single adventure as you are a core book, with discount?
Strangely enough, despite being done by a third party and published by Wizards of the Coast, indications seem to be that any OGL will not be immediate.
That makes me wonder why then they picked Kobold Press. Let me be clear. It's not that Kobold Press is a bad publisher. They have a wide range of products and a wide range of materials ranging across different editions.
But not everything has gone smoothly.
Take their recent book Deep Magic for example, is a weighty tome available in hardcover and PDF. But right after it came out, there was an addendium. That's not a good sign.
Or how about some of the material that's currently late for their Kickstarter projects? For example, if you backed their adventure anthology, Midgard Tales, you've been waiting for Freeing Nethus for over a year.
If you backed the kickstarter for the miniatures for the Midgard setting, those were due either a year ago, or just under a year ago.
And Wizards of the Coast chooses them?
I'm sure that they'll pull through and that the various issues that Kobold Press is having with those different aspects are aberrants and of course, not standard practice, but if you've been waiting for either of those and you see their name associated with the new D&D that may not give you the warm fuzzies.
I think that not supporting an OGL right off the bat is potentially disastrous for Wizards of the Coast in terms of longevity of Dungeons and Dragons. Mind you, if they have their character creation software so heavily integrated, it might not matter anyway as that more than the limited third party support 4th edition received, keep players I know from buying material that wasn't in the software.
Why buy Goodman Games or other material that you would have to manually tally when everything else was so fairly well done within the system itself?
If you're a new player and you see Dungeons and Dragons and limited support only through Wizards of the Coast, and you see Paizo and Pathfinder and you see dozens of publishers being actively supported by Paizo, on the companies home page and receiving high praise from many of the people who make Paizo the community it currently is, which company are you going to buy from?
Mind you, there are some people who dropped buying things from Wizards of the Coast when WoTC stopped printing physical copies of Dungeons and Dragons magazines. There are some that stopped when WoTC pulled down the PDF's. There are some who stopped when WoTC dumped 4e and went with Essentials editions. There are some who stopped when WoTC took their character generation from a downloaded software to an online only software.
Here's the thing. Many of those players are NEVER coming back. Either they've fond something that met their fantasy need, ranging from Pathfinder or 13th Age for 'new school' players, or any one of the many OSR products already out and fairly compatible with the hundreds of 1st and 2nd edition products already out in the wild.
Me? I've got the boxed set and Player's Handbook preordered. I'm not a 'D&D' player do or die or anything like that. Those reading the blog on a regular basis know I'm a player in a Warhammer 2nd edition fantasy campaign. And if you look at that, an old system that's not supported and was replaced by Fantasy Flight Games with weird dice and an expensive core book, you might see some potential futures for a new edition of Dungeons and Dragons that doesn't' take into account that not only are they not the only fish in the pond in terms of what people can spend their money, and more importantly, their time on, their not the only Dungeons and Dragons game that people can spend their money and time on.
Sunday, January 29, 2012
Lesserton and Mor by Joel Sparks and Jeff Sparks
While waiting for some glazes to dry on some Khador models I'm working on, I figured I'd hit the Referee's Guide a bit.
One of the things I thought interesting, is that while there are 'half orcs', they don't call them that here. Instead, it's orckin. A simple enough change, but one that makes a lot of sense. There are so many half-X races in D&D and other fantasy games, that it seems lazy to just call a half orc or half elf by those names. One of the neat things about the Dhampyr is a unique sounding name that's still pretty recognizable if you know where its coming from. When using such races in your own setting, try to give them their own name.
Another neat little aspect, is the trade game. A lot of the humanoids here are known for their mastery of one particular type of large vermin; bees, crickets, frogs and spiders. Each one has its own economy of sorts but its all based on the barter system. Each tribe having its own specialty. A clever group can make some 'real' money on the small level if you will, but it can work.
One of the reasons it can work, is because like many older editions, the game focus isn't necessarily on money as a means of purchasing magic items so that you retain game balance or can overcome damage resistance.
This allows the authors to do some fun things that normally they might not be able to do without stressing the simple system to see if its going to break the economy of the game and push the players in one direction or another in terms of their relative power level.
In addition to playing various editions of Dungeons and Dragons, I hope that 5e design crew is scrutinizing what the current publishers and supporters of the OSR are doing and can take those best bits and learn from them.
Monday, January 16, 2012
The Hammer by K. J. Parker or more blathering about 5h Editio
In terms of pricing, well, I bought it during one of the Borders Bookstore closings with others at something like 4 books for ten dollars so say, $2.50. Which is a shame because I see the ebook is something like $10 in and of itself. A further shame because my local Half Price has numerous books by the author, and while I'd love to directly support the author, as Cage the Elephant would say, "Ain't no rest for the wicked, money don't grow on trees' so instead of paying $9.99 for an ebook, I'll pay $3.49 for a paperback that the author gets zero of. Not what I want to do but hey, the publisher has right now four books on sale for $2.99 so they are fully aware of the pros and cons of various models of pricing.
Anyway, onto gaming thoughts.
Like The Folding Knife, I initially didn't see a lot of room where the material could be considered inspiring outside of getting the reader thinking and engaged with the book and working on the readers own thoughts and awareness.
But as I continued to read, and this might, in part, be caused by all the talk of 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, I came to some interesting observations about what one might look at in terms of making the new edition more playable, that takes its pages from some of what 4th edition did.
In the Hammer, Gignomai or Gig, is a member of the met'Oc, a family of nobles in exile on an island colony. This island colony pays dues to 'The Company'.
Gig though, hates his family. They are not good people. Having been out of contact with the mainland for so long, they have grown decadent and survival is a daily struggle in the overall reach of things. The implications of such struggle are showcased through a variety of methods but...
Looking at 4th edition, there was a bit of a setting called a 'Points of Light' setting. It was supposed to be where things were dark and dangerous and could be problematic.
The problem was that actual game play didn't necessarily feel like that in the games I played or those I've heard of. This is for the most part mind you. In older editions, there were tons of random encounters and these random encounters didn't necessarily rely on the player character's level, they relied on where they were at. Only 3rd level and going to the old dwarf ruins some two weeks travel out of the city? Wandering encounter says you encounter a group of stone giants with two cave bears. Roll for imitative.
The sheer random chance of such an encounter was part of the danger inherent in the setting. On the other hand, you could encounter a group of giant rats or one cave bear by itself. There needs to be more random elements to things while providing players, in the option of the stone giants, with the opportunity to retreat if and when needed.
Another aspect of The Hammer, is that Gig is different. The whole 4e thing should have been the players were rising in a world of decay, not one that was necessarily full of decadence or evil, but one that needed new blood, new ideas and new methods to get things moving. In some instances, this might not even be new methods or new ideas, but motivation and energy. By having the players be the ones who are adding and changing the scenery, the GM is giving them far more power than giving them a slightly magical sword or dagger.
For example, in The Hammer, Gig creates a factory and with it, guns. This isn't new technology to the setting. It's not a new method. But no one has done it before because no one thought of it. No one took the time to do it. No one was interested in it. Everyone was interested in keeping things the exact way they were, fighting that inevitable decline of their ways as society collapsed slowly, ever so slowly about them.
This, the spirit of exploration, the spirit of fighting against the standard, is what D&D can be about without changing game mechanics and instead working on the settings.
But in order to do that, there would have to be some changes to the core structure of the game.
As much as I enjoy magic, and magic item shops, and schools of wizardry, to get the new feeling, to get the 'shinny' feeling, Dungeons and Dragons has to drop kick it to the curb. Oh sure, in an appendix, perhaps next to the wandering harlot one, put some notes about adding colleges of magic and magic item shops, but for the most part, in order to keep magic different and new and special, it has to be extremely limited and random.
When you provide the opportunity for players to buy anything other then the most mundane of magic items, you've destroyed magic. Now mind you, for many genres and games, this is perfectly acceptable. Magic in and of itself becomes another form of technology.
But then you need to drop the whole concept of a dark savage age where a few independent city states struggle for survival because when players can go to a magic shop and pick up an enchanted sword, if the local government isn't doing something with that magic to safeguard the people in the first place, that logic is flawed.
And magic colleges? Part of the problem with spellcastersspellbooks, and the numerous costs associated with all of that ranging from the inks used to copy the spells, to the spellbooks themselves.
On the altar of game balance, those flavor elements have been fairly neutralized but in exchange, the wizards have become nothing more than fighters that don't use a sword to attack people but rather use spells that do similar damage and have similar effects.
Limiting spell selection, limiting the ability to buy spells, limiting the number of spellcasters in the setting, these all go a long way in making magic, well, magical again.
As I think of it, limiting the scope of what the players can access, when they can access it and how the can access it, is far more of a campaign element than what rule system you're using. If plate armor is something that only the highly skilled can create, then towns and villages won't have it. If players are looking for magic items, they have to hunt down rumors of such and hope that the gods are kind to their request when they hear of haunted ruins where an ancient elf crafted drifted in madness but may, mind you may, just have something similar to what the seeker wants.
And speaking of seeking out magic items, here is another area where I think earlier editions were able to throw in a bit of fun. Magic items tended to be a little more random in their power and abilities prior to 3rd edition and this allowed paladins, who always seemed to have holy avengers, have this iconic weapon with them, despite the fact that it was such a powerful magic item and probably level inappropriate. It allowed White Plume Mountain to be stacked with items of vast and great power. It allowed rings of wishes to wind up as random treasure.
Game balance may have to take a couple of blows to the face in 5th edition if Wizards of the Coast is serious about uniting fans of all editions and that's not necessarily a bad thing.
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Paizo and Open Design versus Wizards of the Coast: Round one: Monsters
For some, when it comes to game mechanics, less is more. For example, when looking at 3rd edition, on one hand, one of the things many people say it did right, was make things more universal. While there are benefits to having one method of creating an NPC that will match up with a player, and of having standards for lowering and raising monsters, either based on hit dice or giving then levels, the problem almost becomes that you are no longer player Dungeons and Dragons.
Because you know what other systems use such a methodology? GURPS, Hero, Mutants and Masterminds, and I'm sure many others. But in Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition, the player creation aspect is so highly specialized and customized that for the Game Master, to honestly use it all the time, can be nightmarish. This isn't to say that many Dungeon Master's don't love to tweak or design or create. In some venues, this is WHY they are Dungeon Master's. In other's, because they are Dungeon's Masters and not playing, they get to tweak that part of the game like a player gets to do so with their character.
Each player though, generally only controls one character. If a Dungeon Master is making highly unique and customized characters and monsters each game, even if his enjoyment is high, his prep time is going to be huge. And taking up large chunks of prep time is never seen as a good thing.
So 4th edition went back to the drawing board on the monster side, and in terms of how monsters work, I think they largely succeeded. Oh, they screwed up the damage dealt and hit points possessed, but those aspects are able to be tweaked fairly right away. The presentation, the building, the roles, these things are shorter and sweater.
Yet in terms of Monster Manuals, after the third one, WoTC went back to the drawing board to tweak monsters because of the tweaks they did to the players in the relaunch of the Essentials line. It was another case of, "We're not going to reprint the core book because that's unnecessary, but here, have a book that fills the exact same role, including takes on all the old stuff, but is not actually a reprint." They followed up that Monster Vault boxed set with another monster product that failed to go epic but was well received due to the amount of information each monster had. It was almost like world building through the monsters. Very well done and very well received.
In terms of making monsters more, Open Design has their own Ecologies compiled from Kobold Quarterly. Paizo, while publishing Dragons and Dungeons, printed a compendium of Ecologies. Currently Paizo has a line of products that revisits monsters and expands them. The focus isn't on the game mechanics, its on making the monsters more useful to the Game Master by expanding information on where they live, how they live, why they act the way they do.
This was a fairly regular feature back in the day for Dragon magazine. Wulfgang's Ecology of the Ghoul is still one of my favorites from 2nd edition.
4th edition may have had some, but I honestly cannot recall Dragon online having any great impact on how I look at monsters. It's focus has been weak. There was a brief time when they created a new feature called Creature Incarnations. It featured a variety of monsters pulled from one monster. You can see one free article of it here. Its not bad in my opinion but...
I've mentioned before that Dragon Magazine used to be a fantastic resource for Dungeon Masters and players and I feel its become a little more than a preview and feedback machine. Back in 'my day' we had The Dragon's Beastiary and Ecology articles. When Dragon was feeling real generous and wanted to make the reader feel he got a huge bonus, we'd get a Creature Catalog, almost like a miniature sized Monster Manual.
If Dragon continued to support and publish the Incarnation articles, that would be one thing. You could say that they went in that direction. In the years, and its got to be going on something like four years, so over forty eight issues, there are less than twenty articles that fall in the heading according to a search on the article compendium.
When other companies are publishing books, in what is supposed to be a depressed buying market, especially for what are niche products, products that focus on the background and organization, and methodology, not on new game stats, if Wizards of the Coast is serious about learning from its past efforts, this is one of the directions they need to embrace.
Because you know what other systems use such a methodology? GURPS, Hero, Mutants and Masterminds, and I'm sure many others. But in Dungeons and Dragons 3rd edition, the player creation aspect is so highly specialized and customized that for the Game Master, to honestly use it all the time, can be nightmarish. This isn't to say that many Dungeon Master's don't love to tweak or design or create. In some venues, this is WHY they are Dungeon Master's. In other's, because they are Dungeon's Masters and not playing, they get to tweak that part of the game like a player gets to do so with their character.
Each player though, generally only controls one character. If a Dungeon Master is making highly unique and customized characters and monsters each game, even if his enjoyment is high, his prep time is going to be huge. And taking up large chunks of prep time is never seen as a good thing.
So 4th edition went back to the drawing board on the monster side, and in terms of how monsters work, I think they largely succeeded. Oh, they screwed up the damage dealt and hit points possessed, but those aspects are able to be tweaked fairly right away. The presentation, the building, the roles, these things are shorter and sweater.
Yet in terms of Monster Manuals, after the third one, WoTC went back to the drawing board to tweak monsters because of the tweaks they did to the players in the relaunch of the Essentials line. It was another case of, "We're not going to reprint the core book because that's unnecessary, but here, have a book that fills the exact same role, including takes on all the old stuff, but is not actually a reprint." They followed up that Monster Vault boxed set with another monster product that failed to go epic but was well received due to the amount of information each monster had. It was almost like world building through the monsters. Very well done and very well received.
In terms of making monsters more, Open Design has their own Ecologies compiled from Kobold Quarterly. Paizo, while publishing Dragons and Dungeons, printed a compendium of Ecologies. Currently Paizo has a line of products that revisits monsters and expands them. The focus isn't on the game mechanics, its on making the monsters more useful to the Game Master by expanding information on where they live, how they live, why they act the way they do.
This was a fairly regular feature back in the day for Dragon magazine. Wulfgang's Ecology of the Ghoul is still one of my favorites from 2nd edition.
4th edition may have had some, but I honestly cannot recall Dragon online having any great impact on how I look at monsters. It's focus has been weak. There was a brief time when they created a new feature called Creature Incarnations. It featured a variety of monsters pulled from one monster. You can see one free article of it here. Its not bad in my opinion but...
I've mentioned before that Dragon Magazine used to be a fantastic resource for Dungeon Masters and players and I feel its become a little more than a preview and feedback machine. Back in 'my day' we had The Dragon's Beastiary and Ecology articles. When Dragon was feeling real generous and wanted to make the reader feel he got a huge bonus, we'd get a Creature Catalog, almost like a miniature sized Monster Manual.
If Dragon continued to support and publish the Incarnation articles, that would be one thing. You could say that they went in that direction. In the years, and its got to be going on something like four years, so over forty eight issues, there are less than twenty articles that fall in the heading according to a search on the article compendium.
When other companies are publishing books, in what is supposed to be a depressed buying market, especially for what are niche products, products that focus on the background and organization, and methodology, not on new game stats, if Wizards of the Coast is serious about learning from its past efforts, this is one of the directions they need to embrace.
Friday, January 13, 2012
The Folding Knife by K. J. Parker
And that's a problem with Dungeons and Dragons. Make no mistake, I love D&D, but 3rd and 4th edition did really one thing very well and that's allow heroes to explore dungeons and battle monsters. While I'm not advocating that earlier editions were all about controlling the fate of nations via finances or that leadership was more that a feat, it was a 'name' level bit and that you had to work with hirelings, mercenaries and more, there is some truth to that. Sure, it was a bloody free for all in many ways and it didn't really work in many aspects but it allowed a GM who had players that wanted a different sort of end game, to not worry about killing Orcus to save the multiverse, but to pave roads and place more catapults onto the castle in order to protect it from the invading orcs.
Others have spoken more eloquently than I have on the 'end game' of the editions and I believe that while looking at opportunities for 5th edition, a hard look needs to be determined in what types of games people can play with it. If it stays focused on the slaying of monsters and the gathering of treasures, it needs to work damn hard to make sure those treasures are magical again. 3rd and 4th edition did a fantastic job of breaking things down into their numeric components but on the way, held firmly to the road by game balance, lost a lot of the magic of the game. Things like getting a Ring of Wishes or Blackrazor at 6th level, as it's old 1st ed stats were, unless you had a GM who loved to wing game balance, were not happening in 3rd and 4th. And maybe they need to.
Another benefit of the non-Epic fight game ending, is that like in the Folding Knife or hell, even in say Beowulf, it allows for some time gaps to fill in the years. Some of the Paizo adventure paths in Dragon magazine felt extremely rushed in terms of what the players were supposed to do, when they were supposed to do it, etc... Mind you, they always offered things that players could do to fill time, to fatten out any levels they needed due to missing a sequence of a dungeon, etc... but I remember reading one of them where the characters are out and about and as they return home, their home base is literally burning! Yeah, not a lot of downtime there.
Another aspect of the Folding Knife that is fairly not D&D, is that the main character, Basso, is a lot like a GURPS character or a Champions character. While he certainly has many numerous positive traits, he has several negative ones, including an inability to use his left hand, which suffered serious injury in an attempt on his life. These negatives and positives might be 'role played' and indeed, 2nd edition was famous, or perhaps infamous, for using role playing penalties to counter real game mechanic bonuses. I'm not certain how 5th ed could get around such an issue, but the fact that so many games build them into the core system should provide some insight as to how it can be workable.
While not a short story or one of my favored popcorn reads like those books in a Forgotten Realms or Warhammer series, The Folding Knife is a done in one which means I can now move onto another book or perhaps one of those epic series. If you're looking for something that is gripping, well written and shows how another end game style might look, then The Folding Knife is for you.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition unite all fans tip or Orcus isn't covered in gold
In my previous post, I mentioned some of the things that Wizards of the Coast could do in order to improve their relationship to the fans who will make or break the game.
The other thing that has nothing to do with game mechanics, is stop acting like Orcus, Asmodeus, the Slime Lord and the other numerous demons and devil higher powers have been dipped in gold and that we mere mortals are lucky to get one set of such stats per monster manual.
2nd edition pretty much skipped out on these big bads entirely. There were a few reasons why but in the end, it was just plain stupid. Mind you, in the end, it didn't really matter because the differences between 2nd and 1st edition were so small that if you couldn't run a game that incorporated both elements into your own campaign that you had more serious problems.
3rd edition though? Thank god for Necromancer Games and Green Ronin. They provided a ton of game stats that lasted a good long while even as WoTC hoarded the game stats for Orcus and other bad boys for the Book of Vile Darkness that was 3.0 and immediately had to be updated in books later on down the road.
4th edition was even worse in this regard as they decided one demon lord was enough and hey, a Legend and Lore book where you could throw down with Thor or other popular characters? I mean, we all know that there was a Thor movie that mad a ton of cash recently right and that the character is going to be in the Avengers movie? Apparently that was too much for 4th edition.
5th edition, right out of the gate, should look at the 1st edition Monster Manual and go, "If it was good enough for Gary..." and while perhaps not everything was, the demons and devil section of that old book wasn't afraid to tell you how many hit points those demon lords and devil princes had in the first core monster book.
WoTC has some interesting decesions ahead of them. If they are unable to put out quality material that can expand their reach past the core books and decide that the only way people are going to be interested in a Monster Manual 2 is if they piece meal out the game system, they are DOA in uniting all gamers.
The other thing that has nothing to do with game mechanics, is stop acting like Orcus, Asmodeus, the Slime Lord and the other numerous demons and devil higher powers have been dipped in gold and that we mere mortals are lucky to get one set of such stats per monster manual.
2nd edition pretty much skipped out on these big bads entirely. There were a few reasons why but in the end, it was just plain stupid. Mind you, in the end, it didn't really matter because the differences between 2nd and 1st edition were so small that if you couldn't run a game that incorporated both elements into your own campaign that you had more serious problems.
3rd edition though? Thank god for Necromancer Games and Green Ronin. They provided a ton of game stats that lasted a good long while even as WoTC hoarded the game stats for Orcus and other bad boys for the Book of Vile Darkness that was 3.0 and immediately had to be updated in books later on down the road.
4th edition was even worse in this regard as they decided one demon lord was enough and hey, a Legend and Lore book where you could throw down with Thor or other popular characters? I mean, we all know that there was a Thor movie that mad a ton of cash recently right and that the character is going to be in the Avengers movie? Apparently that was too much for 4th edition.
5th edition, right out of the gate, should look at the 1st edition Monster Manual and go, "If it was good enough for Gary..." and while perhaps not everything was, the demons and devil section of that old book wasn't afraid to tell you how many hit points those demon lords and devil princes had in the first core monster book.
WoTC has some interesting decesions ahead of them. If they are unable to put out quality material that can expand their reach past the core books and decide that the only way people are going to be interested in a Monster Manual 2 is if they piece meal out the game system, they are DOA in uniting all gamers.
Monday, January 9, 2012
5th Edition D&D Already?
In looking at the various news posts today relating to Dungeons and Dragons, it looks like 5th ed is on the way. This is way too soon in my opinion. We didn't get 3.5 this quickly. Mind you, I'm of the firm opinion that the Essentials were a ".5" edition so the cycle does seem to be quite short this time around.
WoTC talks about uniting the fans of the brand behind "one ring" so to speak. Won't happen. While 3rd edition had a lot of the elements that made D&D what its known for, 4th ed went a completely different path. Not necessarily a bad one in terms of game design, but rituals, spells, and magic items were all lain down and sacrificed under the banner of balance. You will not be able to make people who want to play a powerful wizard who is weak at low levels happy at the same time you make those who want all of the classes to retain equal utility throughout the entire careers. Not going to happen. End. Fini.
There are some things that I think WoTC should do that could help reduce the issues that will crop up during this time. Many of them have nothing to do with game mechanic design and I've mentioned them numerous times before.
1. Know what the hell you're talking about. When 4th edition was in the pipeline, the VTT (virtual table top) along with other bits of the DDI were supposed to be seamlessly integrated into the edition. A recent article by Ryan Dancy further illustrates how this was supposed to happen. Not only that though, but anyone remember 'The Rouse'? He was a great guy from WoTC and was talking about how there would be codes you would get from buying the books that would allow you to buy a PDF for "a buck or two." None of that happened. Mind you, by shutting the hell up, you'll cut off some potential communication between players, buyers, and the makers, but people want what you tell them they'll get. Is it entitlement? Probably. Is it human nature? Definitely.
2. Bring back PDF's of all editions. Even if you have to hire someone from India for $1 a page to convert the material, bring back every old book. WoTC has been talking about a solution to the piracy and PDF problem ever since the Player's Handbook 2 came out. Anyone remember that? that the PHB2 sold out but PDFs were undercutting sales? So PDF sales were undercutting sales of a book that physically sold out? Here's something to think of. According to an article on ye old internets, digital sales have surpassed those of physical sales. Provided a legal alternative that people can use for a 'fair' price and people will buy.
3. OGL all the way. Not only does 5e need to embrace 5th edition, WoTC needs to give 'seed' money to companies like Green Ronin, Frog God Games, Malhavoc Press and others to support it. The GLS was a complete and utter failure. By not embracing the OGL, WoTC not only allowed, but essentially actively encouraged Paizo to come out with Pathfinder. And the other editions that WoTC now talks fondly of? Chances are there is a retro clone of it, and chances are there's a GOOD retro clone of it. The old editions don't need WoTC support as people who want to play an older edition have a ton of choices. Now if WoTC supports the OGL, and does so by allowing third parties full access to the material before its printed, WoTC can concentrate on a certain 'style' of D&D while others fill the void. I like many aspects of 4th edition but find it silly that there are still no official rules for firearms. I like some of what WoTC has done with say, Dark Sun, but miss the dozens of options I once had in terms of setting support such as the Scarred Lands.
4. Playtest Intensively. 4e suffers from the Hero/GURPS effect in that a lot of the powers and abilities are the same but due to the way they were written, instead of having a master list of such abilities and powers that players could select from, each class gets its own write up providing monstrous bloat to the system. This doesn't count things like how the first and second 4e Monster Manuals are, I don't want to say useless, but their utility was greatly diminished when the 3rd Monster Manual came out and basically said, "Yeah, we don't know hot to calculate damage so try these numbers instead." And other bits like magic items and rituals and spells? Things that we used to see numerous articles for in Dragon like Pages From The Mages and Bizzar of the Bazaar among others? DOA.
5. Pull in One Direction. It does no one any good to have several people who work at WoTC talking about the Character Builder going online because it makes things more compatible among the various types of computer users and then in an podcast have another person talk about how all the customers are thieves and the reason that the Character Builder is going online is because its the only way to fight piracy. Pull in one direction or risk making yourself look like a gigantic jackass.
6. Examine HTML 5 for the DDI. I'm not a computer expert or anything, but with Tablets and Android becoming larger and larger means of accessing the internet, it would seem that HTML 5 offers a lot of benefits that Silverlight does not. Once again, not a programmer, but when you see tablets talking the place of notebooks, the whole thing about making the DDI something you can access from anywhere becomes more hallow unless its something people using an iPad or android tablet can access.
7. Review your ebook pricing. I'm not saying that every book should be cut to $2.99 or anything like that. but... if you haven't made your money back on the Crystal Shard, or you still don't collect the omnibus editions for online selling, well, when looking at epic fantasy on the kindle and the first WoTC book pops in at #73, well after numerous authors selling their books for less than $6.39, what does it hurt to test out different prices? It's not like you're going to be crushed by returns of unsold books. If the new price points don't work and don't increase market penetration, move back to the old prices.
8. Stop making promises. This one is hard because different people have different definitions of what a promise is. For example, when asked if WoTC was going to reprint the Player's Handbook with all of the errata in it, a thing that would be useful since there were dozens of powers and abilities that were changed with errata, the initial reply was that there was no plan to do so because they had done such a massive print run but when the time was right.... well, after WoTC changed things up with the Essentials, when do you think that time was right? WoTC has to be able to react to market conditions and if those conditions tell them to cancel the first quarter of products, then that's what they need to do.
9. Make Dragon and Dungeon real magazines again. I hear some laughter out there, but seriously, the things have gone to waste when compared to the proud legacy they used to have. There was a time, for those who came into reading these magazines, that they were not just little magazines that were used to preview upcoming game material. They brought their own value. When WoTC doesn't provide epic support because of some unknown factor that its not viable, there was easily the opportunity to do The Dragon's Bestiary or Creature Catalog. When people talk about the lack of spell selection, as I mentioned earlier, even if keeping it in game balance, pages from the mages would easily fill that need. When discussing unique characters and characteristics of characters, Legend and Lore, where heroes of myth and legend are given game stats, would provide GMs with opportunities to see how professional game designers handle weapons like Excalibur and provide a quick round of NPCs that the GM can use if he's running a specific type of campaign, such as an Arthurian one. And for god's sake, stop with the nonsense about people reading individual articles and compile the magazine at the end of the month. Seriously.
10. In terms of print products, remember to support the GM. The GM is the one who makes the game work or fail. While it is great that players have ten thousand options for their characters, if there are not a wealth of adventurers for every level, then the GM has to work. When there are more options for a particular level than another, GMs will cluster around those levels. Support the GM and he will support you. Paizo does an excellent job of this with various books that build on the game setting, such as their recently released mythic monsters revised, as well as single adventurers, and adventure paths. Throw in their maps and other GM focused aids and you can see why GMs, despite the complexity of 3.5, stick with it.
11. Hit 'em With the Classics Right Away. For all the talk of the 'shared experience' that WoTC likes to parade like a show dog, there are dozens of adventurers that haven't seen a 4e adaptation. When launched 5e should come out the door with several options for the GM including a boxed set that has something like In Search of Adventure. In addition to adventures and other classics of setting, for god's sake, throw some money at the old artist that made D&D the sensation it was. The fact that you can see Larry Elmore's art on miniatures and posters but outside of the one cover we got on Dragon when the introduction boxed set came out, is a damn shame. There are numerous artist who should be getting work from WoTC just to showcase their ties to the community. If Kezner and Co can hire a certain artist to do the cover of Hakcmaster basic, there is absolutely no reason WoTC cannot.
12. A decent starter box. WoTC, your started box was inconsistent with the core rules that came out shortly thereafter. Look at what Paizo did. I'm not saying it's perfect, but damn is it better than yours in almost every way that counts.
13. (I knew I forgot one) Don't dick around with the content. What do I mean? When 4e first came it, there was a deliberate decesion to without certain material from the first core books like the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual to 'encourage' buying of future books. Want the Frost Giant? Sorry, not in the core Monster Manual. Want to play a barbarian? Not in the first Player's Handbook. Listen, if your future content can't stand on its own two legs, then its worthless regardless of how you dress it up. What's worse, letting people know ahead of time that this is some dicking around to get money? Another bad marketing decesion.
I'm sure I'm missing some very obvious things or some people will disagree with me, but I think if WoTC can get out of its own way and stop being a corporation long enough to be, and let's be honest, this is what it probably needs to be, a game company, than 5th edition can succeed. Mind you, I personally think it may be too late. The days of Dungeons and Dragons being able to hit the types of goals necessary for it seem over. Look at it this way. If WoTC tells us that 4th edition did better than 3.5 which did better than 3.0 and its still not hitting its target numbers... well, that writing may not be on the wall but it certainly can't be fair away.
WoTC talks about uniting the fans of the brand behind "one ring" so to speak. Won't happen. While 3rd edition had a lot of the elements that made D&D what its known for, 4th ed went a completely different path. Not necessarily a bad one in terms of game design, but rituals, spells, and magic items were all lain down and sacrificed under the banner of balance. You will not be able to make people who want to play a powerful wizard who is weak at low levels happy at the same time you make those who want all of the classes to retain equal utility throughout the entire careers. Not going to happen. End. Fini.
There are some things that I think WoTC should do that could help reduce the issues that will crop up during this time. Many of them have nothing to do with game mechanic design and I've mentioned them numerous times before.
1. Know what the hell you're talking about. When 4th edition was in the pipeline, the VTT (virtual table top) along with other bits of the DDI were supposed to be seamlessly integrated into the edition. A recent article by Ryan Dancy further illustrates how this was supposed to happen. Not only that though, but anyone remember 'The Rouse'? He was a great guy from WoTC and was talking about how there would be codes you would get from buying the books that would allow you to buy a PDF for "a buck or two." None of that happened. Mind you, by shutting the hell up, you'll cut off some potential communication between players, buyers, and the makers, but people want what you tell them they'll get. Is it entitlement? Probably. Is it human nature? Definitely.
2. Bring back PDF's of all editions. Even if you have to hire someone from India for $1 a page to convert the material, bring back every old book. WoTC has been talking about a solution to the piracy and PDF problem ever since the Player's Handbook 2 came out. Anyone remember that? that the PHB2 sold out but PDFs were undercutting sales? So PDF sales were undercutting sales of a book that physically sold out? Here's something to think of. According to an article on ye old internets, digital sales have surpassed those of physical sales. Provided a legal alternative that people can use for a 'fair' price and people will buy.
3. OGL all the way. Not only does 5e need to embrace 5th edition, WoTC needs to give 'seed' money to companies like Green Ronin, Frog God Games, Malhavoc Press and others to support it. The GLS was a complete and utter failure. By not embracing the OGL, WoTC not only allowed, but essentially actively encouraged Paizo to come out with Pathfinder. And the other editions that WoTC now talks fondly of? Chances are there is a retro clone of it, and chances are there's a GOOD retro clone of it. The old editions don't need WoTC support as people who want to play an older edition have a ton of choices. Now if WoTC supports the OGL, and does so by allowing third parties full access to the material before its printed, WoTC can concentrate on a certain 'style' of D&D while others fill the void. I like many aspects of 4th edition but find it silly that there are still no official rules for firearms. I like some of what WoTC has done with say, Dark Sun, but miss the dozens of options I once had in terms of setting support such as the Scarred Lands.
4. Playtest Intensively. 4e suffers from the Hero/GURPS effect in that a lot of the powers and abilities are the same but due to the way they were written, instead of having a master list of such abilities and powers that players could select from, each class gets its own write up providing monstrous bloat to the system. This doesn't count things like how the first and second 4e Monster Manuals are, I don't want to say useless, but their utility was greatly diminished when the 3rd Monster Manual came out and basically said, "Yeah, we don't know hot to calculate damage so try these numbers instead." And other bits like magic items and rituals and spells? Things that we used to see numerous articles for in Dragon like Pages From The Mages and Bizzar of the Bazaar among others? DOA.
5. Pull in One Direction. It does no one any good to have several people who work at WoTC talking about the Character Builder going online because it makes things more compatible among the various types of computer users and then in an podcast have another person talk about how all the customers are thieves and the reason that the Character Builder is going online is because its the only way to fight piracy. Pull in one direction or risk making yourself look like a gigantic jackass.
6. Examine HTML 5 for the DDI. I'm not a computer expert or anything, but with Tablets and Android becoming larger and larger means of accessing the internet, it would seem that HTML 5 offers a lot of benefits that Silverlight does not. Once again, not a programmer, but when you see tablets talking the place of notebooks, the whole thing about making the DDI something you can access from anywhere becomes more hallow unless its something people using an iPad or android tablet can access.
7. Review your ebook pricing. I'm not saying that every book should be cut to $2.99 or anything like that. but... if you haven't made your money back on the Crystal Shard, or you still don't collect the omnibus editions for online selling, well, when looking at epic fantasy on the kindle and the first WoTC book pops in at #73, well after numerous authors selling their books for less than $6.39, what does it hurt to test out different prices? It's not like you're going to be crushed by returns of unsold books. If the new price points don't work and don't increase market penetration, move back to the old prices.
8. Stop making promises. This one is hard because different people have different definitions of what a promise is. For example, when asked if WoTC was going to reprint the Player's Handbook with all of the errata in it, a thing that would be useful since there were dozens of powers and abilities that were changed with errata, the initial reply was that there was no plan to do so because they had done such a massive print run but when the time was right.... well, after WoTC changed things up with the Essentials, when do you think that time was right? WoTC has to be able to react to market conditions and if those conditions tell them to cancel the first quarter of products, then that's what they need to do.
9. Make Dragon and Dungeon real magazines again. I hear some laughter out there, but seriously, the things have gone to waste when compared to the proud legacy they used to have. There was a time, for those who came into reading these magazines, that they were not just little magazines that were used to preview upcoming game material. They brought their own value. When WoTC doesn't provide epic support because of some unknown factor that its not viable, there was easily the opportunity to do The Dragon's Bestiary or Creature Catalog. When people talk about the lack of spell selection, as I mentioned earlier, even if keeping it in game balance, pages from the mages would easily fill that need. When discussing unique characters and characteristics of characters, Legend and Lore, where heroes of myth and legend are given game stats, would provide GMs with opportunities to see how professional game designers handle weapons like Excalibur and provide a quick round of NPCs that the GM can use if he's running a specific type of campaign, such as an Arthurian one. And for god's sake, stop with the nonsense about people reading individual articles and compile the magazine at the end of the month. Seriously.
10. In terms of print products, remember to support the GM. The GM is the one who makes the game work or fail. While it is great that players have ten thousand options for their characters, if there are not a wealth of adventurers for every level, then the GM has to work. When there are more options for a particular level than another, GMs will cluster around those levels. Support the GM and he will support you. Paizo does an excellent job of this with various books that build on the game setting, such as their recently released mythic monsters revised, as well as single adventurers, and adventure paths. Throw in their maps and other GM focused aids and you can see why GMs, despite the complexity of 3.5, stick with it.
11. Hit 'em With the Classics Right Away. For all the talk of the 'shared experience' that WoTC likes to parade like a show dog, there are dozens of adventurers that haven't seen a 4e adaptation. When launched 5e should come out the door with several options for the GM including a boxed set that has something like In Search of Adventure. In addition to adventures and other classics of setting, for god's sake, throw some money at the old artist that made D&D the sensation it was. The fact that you can see Larry Elmore's art on miniatures and posters but outside of the one cover we got on Dragon when the introduction boxed set came out, is a damn shame. There are numerous artist who should be getting work from WoTC just to showcase their ties to the community. If Kezner and Co can hire a certain artist to do the cover of Hakcmaster basic, there is absolutely no reason WoTC cannot.
12. A decent starter box. WoTC, your started box was inconsistent with the core rules that came out shortly thereafter. Look at what Paizo did. I'm not saying it's perfect, but damn is it better than yours in almost every way that counts.
13. (I knew I forgot one) Don't dick around with the content. What do I mean? When 4e first came it, there was a deliberate decesion to without certain material from the first core books like the Player's Handbook and Monster Manual to 'encourage' buying of future books. Want the Frost Giant? Sorry, not in the core Monster Manual. Want to play a barbarian? Not in the first Player's Handbook. Listen, if your future content can't stand on its own two legs, then its worthless regardless of how you dress it up. What's worse, letting people know ahead of time that this is some dicking around to get money? Another bad marketing decesion.
I'm sure I'm missing some very obvious things or some people will disagree with me, but I think if WoTC can get out of its own way and stop being a corporation long enough to be, and let's be honest, this is what it probably needs to be, a game company, than 5th edition can succeed. Mind you, I personally think it may be too late. The days of Dungeons and Dragons being able to hit the types of goals necessary for it seem over. Look at it this way. If WoTC tells us that 4th edition did better than 3.5 which did better than 3.0 and its still not hitting its target numbers... well, that writing may not be on the wall but it certainly can't be fair away.
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