Quote from: J ArcaneMy reaction to this comment is simply to point at the nomenclature and ask you to reconsider how names that sound like bad pastiche of kung fu movies might in and of themselves be offputting.

Possibly, although I suspect a more western themed (or at least culturally neutral) nomenclature will be present in 4E. My bet is that they'll use functional terminology similar to "Cleave" and "Magic Missile."

Skach> You're leaping after J_Arcane's misunderstanding. I didn't deny the Book of Nine Swords has an anime influence. I said that the mechanics laid out by the Book of Nine Swords were capable of being used to realise many different types of character concepts, of which anime-style warriors were only a subset. Because of this, claiming that the anime aspects of the Book of Nine Swords are the essential part of it is dubious. The mechanics are the key part, and while one of their goals is to emulate anime heroes, they don't require you just to do that. They also allow you to emulate all sorts of other heroic traditions.

QuoteIt "attempts" to do so in a very specific way.  A way that, for me, changes the fundamental feel of the game. I'm sorry for you if you don't feel the same, perhaps we're just so different in play styles that I could never make you see how it does so for me. Unfortunately, you seem to be of the mind that I am not allowed to believe that it changes the game in fundamental ways.

This change has already happened. You started off talking about future changes to the game - what 4e will be like. You continue to refer to it in the present and future tense, as a change that is going to happen, or that is only beginning. As I pointed out, the move away from the heavily armoured, kit-dependent fighter began in D&D 3.5 at least as early as 2004 (arguably even earlier, in the corebooks), and culminated in the Book of Nine Swords (now a year old). 4e is not "changing the feel of the game". The change has already happened. 4e seems like it is just going to build on this idea and make it easier to realise than in 3.x.

To me, what you are saying sounds like "4e is going to change the fundamental feel of the game from previous editions - it's going to have a spontaneous caster arcane class that uses Charisma as its casting stat!"

QuoteIs it just paranoid shit that the aforementioned Book of Nine Swords cites these very influences (I'll provide them again as you seem to have a stopping point at anime: Japanese Animation, Kung Fu movies, and video game, in that order IIRC)? Based on that information is it paranoid to speculate that the same influences might be in the next Edition? BTW, the anime is the least of my fears - it's the last two that make me more concerned.

I didn't accuse anyone of paranoia. Just whining. However, yes, it is a tenuous connection. All we know at this point is that something that is similar but not identical to the mechanical aspects of the ToB is planned for 4e. To go from there to "D&D 4e is going to be influenced by anime" is quite an intellectual leap.

QuoteSee, I think you've got a problem with my dislike for anime, in general. I'm sorry we have different tastes, Pseudy, really I am. But now that I've read a little more of the Bo9S, let me tell you what I'm talking about.

You seem to've missed the post where I said I didn't really like most anime.

QuoteSo, I read through the three new classes.  Basic stuff – not too bad. As I said up-thread, the business with devine power and Crusaders seems a bit off, but it's OK.  Then I went to look at some of the Maneuvers. I started with the..what is it...Dust Wind?  Did you know that all but three of the maneuvers include the line, at the end of the description, "this is a supernatural power."  There are blinding lights and streams of fire that can twist around corners; hell there's even one to mimic dragon breath. You know what the first thing I thought of was?  Air Bender. I could totally see taking an unarmed swordsage and having his fist emit/direct fire to mimic the fire benders in that show (don't start with me, I'm not an expert – I've just watched it with my son a few time).

Sure, you can read it and play it like it's just out of anime. On the other hand, I had a player use the technique where your weapon catches on fire in a game set in a 16th century fantasy Conquistadors game, and it fit in just fine next to the gun-slinging priest and the pirate rogue-fighter without feeling like we'd just stumbled into a game of BESM or Exalted. The mechanics of Book of Nine Swords are only as anime-like as you make them in play.

QuoteIf you don't think a character like that fundamentally changes the feel of the game, then we simply have a different basis of comparison and so will never agree.

Characters have been able to breathe fire since at least 2nd ed. with the "Potion of Fire Breathing". They've been able to have flaming weapons since 2nd ed.'s flaming arrows and flaming sword spells. They've had explosions centred on themselves since the Staff of Power/Staff of the Magi entered the game.

All that's changed here is that instead of having a fighter who carries a big flaming sword that's magic, there's a slightly different type of fighter can have his fists catch flame. Instead of just having a magic user who can blow up things with fireballs every fight, you also have a slightly different kind of fighter who can also blow things up.

Frankly, the supernatural abilities in ToB are the ones that depart the least from ordinary D&D's style of play. They simply take abilities that would normally be gotten from magic items and make them innate ones instead. They otherwise tend to be copies or refinements of magic items or spells that already exist.

QuoteSkach> You're leaping after J_Arcane's misunderstanding. I didn't deny the Book of Nine Swords has an anime influence. I said that the mechanics laid out by the Book of Nine Swords were capable of being used to realise many different types of character concepts, of which anime-style warriors were only a subset. Because of this, claiming that the anime aspects of the Book of Nine Swords are the essential part of it is dubious. The mechanics are the key part, and while one of their goals is to emulate anime heroes, they don't require you just to do that. They also allow you to emulate all sorts of other heroic traditions.

I can run a gritty game about street cops in the Bronx with BESM too, but that doesn't make the intent or the feel evoked by the game and it's use of language any different.

Again, can you come up with anything better than recycled arguments from Exalted flamewars, or is this all you have?

Quote from: J ArcaneMy reaction to this comment is simply to point at the nomenclature and ask you to reconsider how names that sound like bad pastiche of kung fu movies might in and of themselves be offputting.

That's about as deep as the "anime influence" goes - the names. It's very superficial.

Quote from: J ArcaneI can run a gritty game about street cops in the Bronx with BESM too, but that doesn't make the intent or the feel evoked by the game and it's use of language any different.

Again, can you come up with anything better than recycled arguments from Exalted flamewars, or is this all you have?

You've yet to point out how they're recycled arguments from Exalted flamewars. And even if they were only that, you've still yet to rebut them.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineYou've yet to point out how they're recycled arguments from Exalted flamewars. And even if they were only that, you've still yet to rebut them.

I don't need to rebut an argument that's contradicted by the very book in question.

I heard the same kneejerk comments about Exalted all the time on RPGnet.  Whenever someone said they didn't care for the anime-ness of the game, suddenly the game wasn't anime anymore.

It was bollocks about Exalted, and it's still bollocks here, only now it has the added boredom factor of being something I got tired of hearing 6 years ago.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineBecause of this, claiming that the anime aspects of the Book of Nine Swords are the essential part of it is dubious.

Are we reading the same thread?  Honestly.  Because I never claimed that anime aspects were the essential part of the Bo9S.  Perhaps you can go back and read it, I know I will.  What I did was quote the influences, Pseduo, influences.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThe mechanics are the key part, and while one of their goals is to emulate anime heroes, they don't require you just to do that. They also allow you to emulate all sorts of other heroic traditions.

Again, I don't believe I ever made the claim they required you to do so.  The fact that Bo9S allows you to is fine by me - it's a supplement.  Your failure in understanding, or in my communication to make clear, is that I'm concerned about how many of those ok-for-supplement-influences make it into core rules.  If it's just mechanics that let fighters gain feats that allow Intelligence or Wisdom or Dexterity or something to attack and defense rolls because of intense training and discipline - I could see that. Anything else you might as well just leave multi-classing in the way it is now, a free-for all.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThis change has already happened. You started off talking about future changes to the game - what 4e will be like. You continue to refer to it in the present and future tense, as a change that is going to happen, or that is only beginning.

On this you are both right and wrong.  I haven't clearly stated, until my last post to you, that this is the case.  I've only barely hung on in 3.5 due to, as Warthur points out, these ties that WotC left in. Hell, I hadn't bought the Bo9S for this reason - the feel it provides does not mesh well with my fundamental feel of the game.

But I would point out that I did make references to how i've absorbed all of these changes, but this one, if it pans out, might just be one to many new tricks for this old dog...

Quote from: PseudoephedrineAs I pointed out, the move away from the heavily armoured, kit-dependent fighter began in D&D 3.5 at least as early as 2004 (arguably even earlier, in the corebooks), and culminated in the Book of Nine Swords (now a year old). 4e is not "changing the feel of the game". The change has already happened. 4e seems like it is just going to build on this idea and make it easier to realise than in 3.x.

Again, this highlights a division in our common understanding - kit driven? This makes me think your basis doesn't quite go back as far as mine and thus we have different (completely valid) perspectives on what the fundamental feel of the game is.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineTo me, what you are saying sounds like "4e is going to change the fundamental feel of the game from previous editions - it's going to have a spontaneous caster arcane class that uses Charisma as its casting stat!"

Hey, I ddin't say 3.5 was perfect.  I've only kinda said it might be the last acceptable version for me. Quite franky, I've said in other forums, I think it was Dragonsfoot, that I've been looking longingly at my 1st Edition stuff again - back to a simpler time.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineI didn't accuse anyone of paranoia.

This is where you really confuse me, Pseduo.  Did you forget writing this just a few hours ago?

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThat's really just some paranoid shit you just spontaneously started talking about.

I mean it's right...there...see it? You wrote that. Not me.  Not J Arcane.  Are you OK?

Quote from: PseudoephedrineJust whining. However, yes, it is a tenuous connection. All we know at this point is that something that is similar but not identical to the mechanical aspects of the ToB is planned for 4e. To go from there to "D&D 4e is going to be influenced by anime" is quite an intellectual leap.

I don't recall making that leap or that assertion. I carefully laid out my concerns.  A has been stated to influence B.  B has been a stated influence for C. Influence is not transitive, so I've simply laid out my concern as how much will A influence C - will it be enough that C doesn't seem like my type of game anymore?  Anything else, you've read into this - I think based on your love of those influences - but that's just my intraweb pop psych degree talking.

Nor do I think you can say it's not going to be identical. You have as little idea as anyone else. And you don't know if it's just mechanical or if Dust Wind will be in the core rules because it roxxors!

Quote from: PseudoephedrineSure, you can read it and play it like it's just out of anime. On the other hand, I had a player use the technique where your weapon catches on fire in a game set in a 16th century fantasy Conquistadors game, and it fit in just fine next to the gun-slinging priest and the pirate rogue-fighter without feeling like we'd just stumbled into a game of BESM or Exalted. The mechanics of Book of Nine Swords are only as anime-like as you make them in play.

I honestly can't even say the scene you just described, or it's characters, bare anything resembling anything that is slightly similar to a facsimlie of an example of what I would consider the feel of the game.  I'm sure it's great for you - you sound like you loved it.  Sounds like a great game of...something like D&D...to me. But a gun-slinging priest, conquistadors? Again, we certainly have a different basis for fundamental feel of the game.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineCharacters have been able to breathe fire since at least 2nd ed. with the "Potion of Fire Breathing". They've been able to have flaming weapons since 2nd ed.'s flaming arrows and flaming sword spells. They've had explosions centred on themselves since the Staff of Power/Staff of the Magi entered the game.

All that's changed here is that instead of having a fighter who carries a big flaming sword that's magic, there's a slightly different type of fighter can have his fists catch flame. Instead of just having a magic user who can blow up things with fireballs every fight, you also have a slightly different kind of fighter who can also blow things up.

You've provided a nice little memory of D&D - magic items. It's not a slightly different type of fighter who can blow things up with supernatural ability.  I again point out that we have a very different idea of the fundamental feel of the game.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineFrankly, the supernatural abilities in ToB are the ones that depart the least from ordinary D&D's style of play. They simply take abilities that would normally be gotten from magic items and make them innate ones instead. They otherwise tend to be copies or refinements of magic items or spells that already exist.

Again - if you can't see how this alters that game dramatically, then we are simply at odds over different views of the game, that's all.

Because, frankly, your refutation of my concerns seems to be "It's not that different to me, I don't know what you're so upset about." It certainly isn't -"You can't claim that there's a possibility that those things will influence D&D." Which, btw, was the basis of my original post.

Quote from: PseudoephedrineThat's about as deep as the "anime influence" goes - the names. It's very superficial.

Did you miss my entire point of Air Bender? Is one of the entire "schools" resembling something from a cartoon not deep enough for you?

I should, when I get home, put a bunch of polls with a description of the maneuver and ask if it's one of those three influences. I think you'll see those influence, paritcularly the Kung Fu movies and video games are heavy influences for the specific maneuvers. The underlying mechanic is simply a way to balance them against the existing classes so as not to break the game completely...

Quote from: James J SkachAir Bender. I could totally see taking an unarmed swordsage and having his fist emit/direct fire to mimic the fire benders in that show (don't start with me, I'm not an expert – I've just watched it with my son a few time).

Watch the whole show.  From the beginning.  One of the best things on television, in part because it's not trying to be anything else but itself (including anime).  Seriously.  I look more forward to new episodes of that show than anything else on TV today.

Quote from: DrewBy making the classes that traditionally get left behind at higher levels more competitive?

I think you're reading way to much into this. High level fighters doing massive amounts of damage is no more an appeal to Exalted fandom than high level wizards blasting cities to rubble. D&D has always had an epic scope, this is more about keeping the archetypes balanced and interesting than emulating another system's conceits for the sake of appeasing a significantly smaller customer base.

And I say that as someone who enjoys the Exalted setting (if not the ruleset).

IRON HEROES Warriors/Fighters classes are all that is needed for the Non-Magic Users to be 100% honest.

Quote from: LacrioxusIRON HEROES Warriors/Fighters classes are all that is needed for the Non-Magic Users to be 100% honest.

I think the end product will be quite similar to IH tonally. If you recall the earlier quote (regarding olympic atheletes and how superhuman abilities will only kick in at high levels) it seems like they're shooting for the uber-competent weapon master rather than the kung-fu demigod.

Quote from: DrewI think the end product will be quite similar to IH tonally.

Dude, I suggested as much pages ago but people aren't inclined to drop their doomsaying.

To be explicit: the reason Bo9S is cited as the example and not IH is that the former is a Wizards' product and the latter is not.

The point isn't to turn D&D4e into d20 Exalted; it's to give fighters the same kind of inherent mechanical appeal as magic-users.  Anyone is perfectly entitled to disagree with this as a design choice, but to insist on viewing it as the Exaltedification of D&D is empty fucking fearmongering.

KoOS

Quote from: James J SkachInferences about pop culture status or coolness?  I claim to have no specific knowledge of either. I do get the distinct sense the influences that reuslt from it are different than mine - it is, IMHO, inevitable.

And why anyone would take me seriously is beyond me. I'm just here cause I'm bored at work and the client has their software...

Oh, I get it.  It's all been a big misunderstanding.  We're not supposed to take you seriously.

Quote from: MetrivusOh, I get it.  It's all been a big misunderstanding.  We're not supposed to take you seriously.

No, I was being jovial.  you can take it or leave it.

I stick to my original point.  I speculate that the game is changing in ways that ae probably great for WotC business, appeal to a braod range of gamers, but specifically to a younger demographic with a set of inluences different from mine.  And those changes will be enough that this edition may be the first one that, to me, makes the final break from the fundamental feel of the game distinct enough that I may nor follow.

To be clear, this is a concern, but I will hold off judgement until the release. To be clear, this is likely not to be a problem for anyone who does not have the same idea of what the fundamental feel of the game is, most likley due to a different set of influence, and probably because I'm getting old (not more mature, not more wise, not more anything, except old).

And that, too, you can take or leave to whatever level of seriousness you want...

What you need, Skachy, is to ditch the wife and kids, take up drinking whiskey neat from the bottle, start fucking an 18-yr-old blonde, and go on a drunken, debauched road trip across 17 states.