Quote from: Exploderwizard;755184Demon Boar? WTF is this, some generic retro clone! This is D&D motherfucker! We can call the monsters by their TRUE names here!

Its DEVIL SWINE and they better be included.

I always get mixed up which is which. It's a silly monster, anyway.

Quote from: LibraryLass;755186I always get mixed up which is which. It's a silly monster, anyway.

No sillier than wererats, werewolves, or other shape changers. Their ability to assume human form and their powerful charm abilities make them an interesting choice for a "monster" in town that could escape notice.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;755188No sillier than wererats, werewolves, or other shape changers.

Ehhh.

QuoteTheir ability to assume human form and their powerful charm abilities make them an interesting choice for a "monster" in town that could escape notice.

It seems a bit redundant to me if a spellcaster can become a wereboar, which I would expect 5e to be able to handle.

Quote from: Exploderwizard;755184Demon Boar? WTF is this, some generic retro clone! This is D&D motherfucker! We can call the monsters by their TRUE names here!

Its DEVIL SWINE and they better be included.

They prefer "Morally Challenged Porcine" now-a-days... :confused:

Seriously though there are a couple of BX monsters that seem to exist mostly in BX with the occasional strays.

B: Oil Beetle, Tiger Beetle, Cave Locust, Driver Ant, Robber Fly, Tarantella, The aformentioned Thoul

X: Caecilia, Water Termite.

Not counting the oddities in the modules.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;755169Maybe living statues are gone too.

Nooooooo!

Great Raven, now this thread needs a statblock for the crusty juggler.

Quote from: Omega;755210Robber Fly

Sadly missed all these years.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;755064I think there are some people who live for squeezing out every + bonus modifier they can and won't be happy until their BAB gets into the +40s.  But I think those people are the exception, not the rule.  I.e., I think a lot people who play PF and 3.x don't do so because they love all that crunch, but because that's the first D&D game this younger gen started on, and 4e didn't feel like D&D to them at all, so they stuck with what did.

Could be, idk, the peeps around here who started with 3e had nearly the same reactions as older players when it came to 4e.

Quote from: Spinachcat;754592About what? I've already eaten my plate of makeup. I'm fucking beautiful on the inside now. My kidneys are porn star fuckable. You better start chewing on yours to catch up with me.

But let's play a game of let's pretend...appropriate for this site.

Just imagine if this level of "marketing genius" was done by White Wolf and what RPGPundit's response would have been. Or even if it was done by WotC, but without his consulting gig?

Somehow, I doubt we'd be hearing the same Kumbaya for a starter set without chargen and PDF quickstart.

Ignoring the factor of whether or not a Basic D&D would have happened even without me; if I'd have had nothing to do with it, and was told "there's going to be a PDF that will be completely FREE that will have the Basic D&D rules playable from levels 1-20 and will be the default rules which will be all you need to run any Wizards adventure without needing to buy the PHB/DMG/etc., and it will be generally old-school in lines of thinking, with an emphasis on simplicity and keeping out most of the 3.x+ ideas", I would be over the moon with praise.

Look at my history of blog posts. I've been arguing, pretty much for a decade now, about how essential it is for D&D to have a real simple set of Basic rules that will work for beginners and remove the high entry-fee (not just monetary, but in terms of the price paid in terms of how much you need to read/know), thus wresting the game from the cycle of rewarding the uber-nerds and punishing the casual gamers.

I had never thought of a PDF, its true, but I was arguing since forever for a set needing to be as cheap as possible to bring people into the hobby. Nothing is cheaper than free.


...and had White Wolf done it? Well, its really beside the point to do it if you're not a high-end industry leader, but if we were to pretend (since that's what we're doing at this point) that this was some alternate universe where WW was the number 1 or number 2 company on the market, I would probably be bemoaning the fact that D&D isn't doing something like that too.

Quote from: RPGPundit;756178Ignoring the factor of whether or not a Basic D&D would have happened even without me; if I'd have had nothing to do with it, and was told "there's going to be a PDF that will be completely FREE that will have the Basic D&D rules playable from levels 1-20 and will be the default rules which will be all you need to run any Wizards adventure without needing to buy the PHB/DMG/etc., and it will be generally old-school in lines of thinking, with an emphasis on simplicity and keeping out most of the 3.x+ ideas", I would be over the moon with praise.

Look at my history of blog posts. I've been arguing, pretty much for a decade now, about how essential it is for D&D to have a real simple set of Basic rules that will work for beginners and remove the high entry-fee (not just monetary, but in terms of the price paid in terms of how much you need to read/know), thus wresting the game from the cycle of rewarding the uber-nerds and punishing the casual gamers.

I had never thought of a PDF, its true, but I was arguing since forever for a set needing to be as cheap as possible to bring people into the hobby. Nothing is cheaper than free.


...and had White Wolf done it? Well, its really beside the point to do it if you're not a high-end industry leader, but if we were to pretend (since that's what we're doing at this point) that this was some alternate universe where WW was the number 1 or number 2 company on the market, I would probably be bemoaning the fact that D&D isn't doing something like that too.

He kind of gotcha there SpinachCat. Nothing beats FREE and it's amazing that WotC is saying whatever you buy is just optional.

Like what the fuck? That's impossible and insane. Give me a PDF of a full Dnd game that's free I would shoot it to my Dnd DM and friends that have the money to print it and have it bound at Kinko's in 3 seconds. I mean seriously?

Quote from: Marleycat;756185He kind of gotcha there SpinachCat. Nothing beats FREE and it's amazing that WotC is saying whatever you buy is just optional.

Let's underscore that, because that's the really huge departure here and I do't think it's emphasised enough. Wizards is basically saying that thanks to the Basic PDF, nobody ever needs to buy a single RPG product from them again.

The PHB? Optional. The MM? Optiional. The DMG? Optional. Any future splatbooks and supplements? Even more optional. The Starter Set? Very fucking optional.

Of course, thanks to the shift to seeing D&D as a brand under which a plethora of products can blossom rather than an RPG and a bunch of tie-ins, Wizards can afford to do this. They make their real money with boardgames and MMOs and other revenue sources and the RPG is there less as a revenue generator (though revenue is of course welcome) and more as a testbed for producing IP to make other stuff out of. But even so, this is huge. This is a major player on the market saying two really important things:

• More obviously, they are saying that they are going to live or die by the quality of product they make. If everything is optional, then they are conceding that they can't expect to sell you a book just because it's necessary to run the latest hot adventure path or whatever. In other words, they are making a commitment to trying to make quality products which you will get excited about and want to buy, rather than feeling expected to buy.


• The subtler aspect, and the thing which might make this gamble worthwhile, is that they are saying "Nobody should need to pay anything to play our game or join our community, so here's the means to do just that." If D&D 5E is both popular enough that you can find a game in most towns where there's any RPG presence at all, and you don't need to buy anything to get involved, and the basic rules are simple enough to keep thee barrier to learning and starting play as low as possible, that could be huge.

Quote from: Warthur;756233Let's underscore that, because that's the really huge departure here and I do't think it's emphasised enough. Wizards is basically saying that thanks to the Basic PDF, nobody ever needs to buy a single RPG product from them again.
The PHB? Optional. The MM? Optiional. The DMG? Optional. Any future splatbooks and supplements? Even more optional. The Starter Set? Very fucking optional.

It's a big departure from 4e, but also from the company's own more distant past? When your direct competitor is basically doing this?

No doubt, a basic PDF is a great step in the right direction, but I still fail to see why this is the same type of game-changer (no pun intended) that the SRD was in 2001. D&D has been free to play ever since, if free online content counts.

Quote from: Windjammer;756247No doubt, a basic PDF is a great step in the right direction, but I still fail to see why this is the same type of game-changer (no pun intended) that the SRD was in 2001. D&D has been free to play ever since, if free online content counts.

Because SRDs are written as copyright safe havens first, rules resources second, and gateways to the game a distant third.

Conversely, Basic D&D a) probably isn't an SRD (I suspect there will be a separate one for the third party licence, if it's even open enough to be OGL-like), and b) is being pitched is something that interested parties can use to learn and play the game from scratch (perhaps after playing the Starter Set to get a basic introduction to the hobby).

With 3.X and Pathfinder, whilst it's always been possible to play from the SRD, the assumption was always that people would learn the game and play the game from books, and the SRDs and subsequent products were written with that in mind. With 5E Wizards are turning that assumption around.

Whatever the intent, though--be it encouraging play or as a developer safe haven--isn't the end result essentially the same?

Pathfinder (Paizo) continually expands the SRD with new material from their books--Advanced Race Guide, Mythic Adventures, Ultimate Magic--essentially ensuring that players who haven't bought the book have access to the game.

It doesn't sound as if Wizards is going that far, but releasing this online essentially ensures that players who haven't bought the book have (basic) access to the game.

Both companies now have essentially said "to play our game, you don't have to buy anything". There have been plenty of games to say that same thing over the year (see: the massive amount of free rules online), but to have the #1 and #2 gaming companies do it, that wouldn't have been believed not too many years ago.

Quote from: Zachary The First;756253Whatever the intent, though--be it encouraging play or as a developer safe haven--isn't the end result essentially the same?

Well, there's a simple test you can do: plonk the Basic PDF and the Pathfinder SRD in front of someone who's interested in gaming but doesn't have prior experience with either system, and see which they prefer to learn from.