I like what you've done so far.

IMO, Method 3 for generating attributes to a bit too miserly. Players are seriously better off using Methods 1 and 2 since 3d6 will average 10.5 thereby getting +2 for most of their scores.

Also, does Night Elf Invisibility immediately end when the Night Elf moves again or does the timer for the racial ability persist the two minute duration with invisibility kicking in whenever the night elf resumes standing still?

It should end the effect.

How much gold will the player need to respec?

I'll leave it to GMs if they wish to allow retraining.  As it stands in the game I don't think that will be especially necessary.  

The game has not been designed with the expectation of optimum anything in mind.

Question: What are the precise rules on DoT expiration? If it is a supernatural effect (e.g. Insect Swarm), does it cease if the character who cause them goes unconscious or expires? If it is an effect of mundane origin (e.g. Serpent's String), does it always run its course completely?

Also, if I am reading this correctly, DoTs seem to do more damage overall because of how much damage is dealt per round (since you're adding your Int modifier each round of the DoT's direction) as opposed to once for the instantaneous damaging spell. Not being familiar with the MMO, was this intentional?

I didn't wind up working in any dispel or remove curse/disease/etc. abilities, so DoTs generally just do their thing for that many rounds or until the target goes incapacitated.

The excess damage is somewhat intentional in many cases, though I think Fireball may need a bit of a nerf.  Most of it should balance out a little bit once the levels advance and the damage from a single blast, or a DoT, tend to equalize depending on the ability in question, though the advantage of getting your Int bonus on every tick instead of once will always be present.

It also just dawned on me that I forgot to explain incapacitation/death and so forth, at least directly.  One more thing for the errata.

Inspired by today's playtest, as well as the copious revisions that've accrued in the short time since release, I've put together a whole new version!

Check it out at the download page, along with an editable character sheet!  Revision notes are here.

This is good stuff.  

Changing stance/aspect/aura is probably best as a free action.   Everybody loves free actions.  

Starting gold seems too random with 5D10.  Maybe 20 + 2D10?  

I am not sure if the "grunt monster" rule fits with WoW where "1 hit, 1 kill" usually only happens when the power levels between opponents is pretty extreme.  However, it might fit well for a WarCraft 2 or 3 style campaign where the PCs are heroes who each travel their mass o' mooks.  

I am a bit confused about how monster's activate their Special abilities, such as Bonk.  Did I miss a section?

What was your thesis?  
How did you specifically design the game to meet it?
When you made a specific game change from WoW, roughly how many were to fit the thesis and how many were to fit the change of medium?

I'm greatly interested in the "design behind the design" as it were.

Quote from: Spinachcat;399616This is good stuff.  

Changing stance/aspect/aura is probably best as a free action.   Everybody loves free actions.  

Starting gold seems too random with 5D10.  Maybe 20 + 2D10?  

Honestly, I think the starting gold just flat needs to be higher as well.  Much like in D&D, plate classes especially get the shaft with the present starting gold, but really, everyone struggles.  I made a hunter and was barely able to afford a bow and a leather vest, and my warrior isn't even in plate.  

Not necessarily starting out with the best armor is OK, I guess, but there's nothing left over for supplies, and food and water are pretty important if there's not a Mage around.

QuoteI am not sure if the "grunt monster" rule fits with WoW where "1 hit, 1 kill" usually only happens when the power levels between opponents is pretty extreme.  However, it might fit well for a WarCraft 2 or 3 style campaign where the PCs are heroes who each travel their mass o' mooks.  

The grunt rule was a suggestion from one of the playtesters, and I agree I don't know that there's a place for it in a standard WoW-style campaign.  I think however, it'll be a good way to handle mass combat, as you hint at here with the mention of WCII and III.

It could as well be a handy tool for GMs, and I'm kind of big on the GM side of the "rules" being more of a toolkit to be used and abused as each GM desires.  

QuoteI am a bit confused about how monster's activate their Special abilities, such as Bonk.  Did I miss a section?

It was a last minute section, and I had been expecting to be the one running the game, so I didn't go too into it there.  Even the monster levelling rules read more like notes than formal rules.

Monster abilities are pretty much at the whim of the DM, like the ones in old school D&D and so forth.  "At will", more or less, which is why I tried to keep them low key.  I just wanted to work in some of the little tricks that mobs pull in the game.

The monsters may also get an overhaul, though.  I was thinking of more of a flexible system, having a standard table of base stats per level, with notes on how to improve them and a list of special abilities to give them, so GMs can more easily customize their own monsters.

The list chosen was mostly picked based on the miniatures that came in the boardgame, in case I wanted to play with a grid.

Quote from: CRKrueger;399675What was your thesis?  
How did you specifically design the game to meet it?
When you made a specific game change from WoW, roughly how many were to fit the thesis and how many were to fit the change of medium?

I'm greatly interested in the "design behind the design" as it were.

I've got a whole 8-10 page paper on that subject, plus a good long interview on the Immortal Machines podcast as well.  ;

But to boil down all that a little more basically, the central idea behind the whole thing was simply that WoW sucks for actually roleplaying, even if it is a fun game, and that a tabletop conversion would be more suitable for letting players explore the world more creatively and interactively.  It was also sort of a personal social experiment, to really delve into design and follow where it lead and describe the process and what ideas I came with and how they stacked up by the end.  

Originally, the system was going to be much simpler and more abstracted, to focus on the narrative angle, but as I looked at the game and mine and other players' favorite aspects of the game, it wound up being a little more gamey, a little more emulative.  It was a case of not knowing quite what I DID like about WoW until I went into it, and that changed my design.

So much of the class design was about choosing what abilities I liked as well as what defined the basic nature of the class and what it can do, but keeping in mind what abilities wouldn't translate well into tabletop.  In particular, there's a lot of abilities in WoW that are just buttons to push to do damage, and on tabletop I find that sort of dull, it's what I didn't like about 4e.  So I tried to minimize that sort of thing as much as possible, though I'm not sure I entirely eradicated them all.  

Still, while it didn't entirely meet my original expectation, I like the game as it plays on the table, and that's really the most important part I think.

Do you feel that slower pace of 2D10 (vs. D20) in combat?  

Do the playtesters enjoy the lower variance?  I know that was a dividing line for many players with GURPS, but 2D10 is more open than 3D6.

As for the Armor, both Mail and Plate seem very impressive.  Have your PCs faced off against equally armored enemies?  Did combat become miss-miss-miss-hit or is the default tactic to hit tanks with magic?

Other than social concerns, are there any mechanical issues with playing within a group who may be mixed Alliance and Horde?  

Quote from: J Arcane;399688I've got a whole 8-10 page paper on that subject, plus a good long interview on the Immortal Machines podcast as well.

Is this posted on the Wiki?

Quote from: Spinachcat;399720Do you feel that slower pace of 2D10 (vs. D20) in combat?  

Do the playtesters enjoy the lower variance?  I know that was a dividing line for many players with GURPS, but 2D10 is more open than 3D6.

I didn't notice any problems on either my or the players end with the 2d10 in the playtest, and I've tried to balance the Armor and attack values in such a way to keep it from being too whiffy.

QuoteAs for the Armor, both Mail and Plate seem very impressive.  Have your PCs faced off against equally armored enemies?  Did combat become miss-miss-miss-hit or is the default tactic to hit tanks with magic?

Honestly, the original Alpha the enemies were waaaay too underarmored, so I can't answer this question, yet.  I've bumped up the base stats for monsters, so we'll see what becomes of it in this weekend's game.

QuoteOther than social concerns, are there any mechanical issues with playing within a group who may be mixed Alliance and Horde?  

I don't see that really becoming an issue.  Orc and Tauren stats are pretty gnarly but shouldn't be enough so to leave anyone feeling out in the cold.  

QuoteIs this posted on the Wiki?

The paper hasn't been posted yet, though I might do so at some point, I'm always faintly leery of posting my college work online.

The podcast interview discusses it a little though, and you can find that here: http://www.colonyofgamers.com/cogforums/showthread.php?t=19055

Jump to 12:30 abouts.

How was the second (or third) playtest?