The reality is this: TCO, Marleycat...

They looked at 4e and found it wanting. They looked at AD&D, Original D&D, 2e, 3e, Basic (closed playtests play/ed a LOT like Basic D&D and that's a very good thing), and they found it better.  Imagine that, they found 30+ years of game design and the enthusiasm of millions to be a more profitable stake in the hobby than the high hundreds-of-thousands who smirked and LOLZed their way through the hobby from 2007 to now.  The net result of this self-actualization by Wizards is that they fired the 4e design team and they fired you as customers.  

Mike, and by extension WotC, value gameplay styles that aren't fettered to 4e's rules-not-rulings approach.

It has been met with more enthusiasm than 4e, it is being embraced more than 4e, and 5e looks beyond trying to fix the problems that occur with the game (and all games have them) by just inventing a new rule.  You see, when DMs and players have the ability to say "that doesn't make sense, we'll do it this way", the game is better.  It lets you do things like have druids that turn into swarms of bugs that can actually do things a swarm of bugs could do, or burn poison off a hall and floor with a fireball spell.  

Now, before someone sets up a straw man, yes I know I can always try that with any RPG.  But consider, in the bug-form druid example, there are people who have right here on this board become so disconnected from how the game "works" versus how it plays that they were arguing against using common sense (bug swarm slips out of a cage, but the power doesn't let you do that, despite you being a bug swarm).

So that's one of the many sacred cows of 4e it is well and truly time to slaughter: playing mother-may-I with the fucking rules.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;544065So that's one of the many sacred cows of 4e it is well and truly time to slaughter: playing mother-may-I with the fucking rules.

I love you, in a manly, back-slapping, talking-about-sports-over-beers-and-ogling-busty-waitresses kinda way.

Quote from: Benoist;544056What you call mother-may-I, us human beings like to refer to as "talking to each other."

You sure TCO is human though? This whole "mother may I" line makes no sense to me given there will be DM rulings and interpretation of existing rules unless it's a boardgame.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;544050Seriously though, I think the problem 4e people will face is when they take it off DDI (which I am about 95% certain they will do). You will still have the books, but I imagine with all the people who rely on DDI, that is going to present an issue for 4e campaigns.

People will rediscover that you can fill a character sheet with a pencil. :eek:



"Damn you! Damn you all to HELL!"

Quote from: Marleycat;544067You sure TCO is human though? This whole "mother may I" line makes no sense to me given there will be DM rulings and interpretation of existing rules unless it's a boardgame.

I agree. Which is why I proposed to TCO to play one of the multiple WotC D&D boardgames instead, but that somehow offended him. It's what he wants after all: a boardgame with all parameters contained within the rules book. *shrug*

Quote from: thedungeondelver;544065The reality is this: TCO, Marleycat...

They looked at 4e and found it wanting. They looked at AD&D, Original D&D, 2e, 3e, Basic (closed playtests play/ed a LOT like Basic D&D and that's a very good thing), and they found it better.  Imagine that, they found 30+ years of game design and the enthusiasm of millions to be a more profitable stake in the hobby than the high hundreds-of-thousands who smirked and LOLZed their way through the hobby from 2007 to now.  The net result of this self-actualization by Wizards is that they fired the 4e design team and they fired you as customers.  

Mike, and by extension WotC, value gameplay styles that aren't fettered to 4e's rules-not-rulings approach.

It has been met with more enthusiasm than 4e, it is being embraced more than 4e, and 5e looks beyond trying to fix the problems that occur with the game (and all games have them) by just inventing a new rule.  You see, when DMs and players have the ability to say "that doesn't make sense, we'll do it this way", the game is better.  It lets you do things like have druids that turn into swarms of bugs that can actually do things a swarm of bugs could do, or burn poison off a hall and floor with a fireball spell.  

Now, before someone sets up a straw man, yes I know I can always try that with any RPG - except that 4e tells the DM not to improvise.  Hell, in the bug-form druid example, there are people who have right here on this board become so disconnected from how the game "works" versus how it plays that they were arguing against using common sense (bug swarm slips out of a cage, but the power doesn't let you do that, despite you being a bug swarm).

So that's one of the many sacred cows of 4e it is well and truly time to slaughter: playing mother-may-I with the fucking rules.

Why am I being included in this? Did I somehow become a 4venger without looking?

(Which would be pretty hard to do given I don't have any 4e books or DDI account).

Quote from: Marleycat;544070Why am I being included in this? Did I somehow become a 4venger without looking?

(Which would be pretty hard to do given I don't have any 4e books or DDI account).

You're a 3e fan, which makes you almost as bad

This Abyssal Maw imitation thing was funny the first three or four times, but now it's just bitter and mean. Let it rest.

Quote from: Marleycat;544070Why am I being included in this? Did I somehow become a 4venger without looking?

(Which would be pretty hard to do given I don't have any 4e books or DDI account).

My mistake.

Quote from: Melan;544072This Abyssal Maw imitation thing was funny the first three or four times, but now it's just bitter and mean. Let it rest.

How long did AM push our buttons again? Trust me, a joke or three aren't going to kill him.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;544071You're a 3e fan, which makes you almost as bad

No, I'm your worst nightmare a 2/3e fan.

QuoteMy mistake.

I was just needling you.

Quote from: Marleycat;544077No, I'm your worst nightmare a 2/3e fan.


I was just needling you.

Actually, there are a lot of things I like about 2e that I have implemented into my 1e games (thief skill progression, bard classes, THAC0, priest spell spheres).  And I don't have a lot against 3e, FWIW.  In fact, I'm getting ready to play my first TT version of it pretty soon.  My biggest gripe about 3e is that it seems to shift the emphasis away from archetype flavor and into "best build".  That, and it really started the whole "minis are required to play the game fully" shift.

Quote from: Benoist;544076How long did AM push our buttons again?

Too damned long, which is why I am suggesting to avoid that kind of cheap triumphalism.

And just because someone pushes a button, you don't have to jump. There is also that. A lot of people here are too eager to jump on threadcrapping, and the way they do it can destroy discussion as surely as a thread lock. And that, right there, is dancing to the trolls' tune.
:cheerleader::cheerleader::cheerleader::boohoo: :cheerleader::cheerleader::cheerleader:

I can understand some of what TCO is saying.  If you really enjoy the tactical depth of 4e, then you want tight rules, because that's the only way you can plan your movements.  You need a grid, you need minis, because you don't want your vision of what's happening to be different from the GM's, so when you do a rolling forward tumble dodge past a minion to strike the caster behind him, you don't want that interrupted by the GM saying "You can't do that, he's 15' feet behind the minions, not 10".  Again I'll just say WotC made one helluva tactical miniatures game, too bad they decided to market it as the mainstream D&D RPG, because now they'll probably flush it, which isn't necessary.  They could have had (and still could), a tactical minis game out of 4e that would outsell everything but the Warhammer games, and maybe Warmachine.

However, when the whole "mother may I" thing comes up, it smacks of someone who is thinking about power relationships at the table, which makes TCO seem like just another whiny entitled little shit.  But of course when he's here, he's trolling, so it's completely intentional.

The problem I think is that you can create a Campaign template for low magic / high magic / S&S etc I think when it comes to a 4e flavoured template it could be difficult because of the number of options, however it's easy for a group to create their own campaign template.

I am really warming to campaign templates idea (even though it's really only been hinted at and might not exist )
I hope that they provide a robust toolkit for groups to put these templates in palce then a group like TCOs just make a set of choices as a group at the start of the campaign and everything cascades and those templates are easy to share.
I can even see an offical RPGA / LFR template becoming the default for con games and whatever the new 'Encounters' flavour ends up being.

To me it's like a config file on a software stack. You can easily edit the config file to change the behaviour of the stack to suit but you don't need to tinker with the stack itself.