Quote from: SpikeYou are mistaken in your reading comprehension there. I am not talking about the age of 'vancian magic' within the game, I am talking about Vancian Magic in the general sense.  The entire concept dates back to a set of fiction books written (as far as I recall) between 1960 and 1970 or so, with a +/- of about 5 years.   This fourty year old concept is 'the way forward'... despite having only one near example you could site, being Amber, which is only slightly newer.  Most depictions of mages seem to have some variation of 'at will' spell casting, in fiction.

Its been in the game since the start. Fighters have been in the game since the start. You argue that one is outdated largely due to its age, but not the other, based on this...

QuoteThe limited nature of your arguement is pathetically apparent when you bring in the 'fighter' or 'fighting man' statements. Unlike Mages, 'Fighters' have had real world counterparts for the entire lenght of human history, and despite some osterich behavior from overly civilized decadent western nations, will continue to be a part of the history of humanity for the forseeable future and beyond.

...and that beggars belief. That people do actually fight doesn't make the 'fighter' of D&D a realistic class any more than that people have religion makes the cleric a realistic one. Come on, the fighter class allows progression to super-human levels of toughness and combat ability, you're clutching at straws by claiming that it somehow has credibility because people fight.

QuoteThus they have absolutely nothing to do at all with the viability of vancian magic as a game design, the topic at hand.

But it has everything to do with refuting your odd assertion that vancian magic is somehow not relevant now.

QuoteThe thing you missed most was the thrust of my statement. I'll lay it out for you so you can't miss it... though I suspect you will given the general style of your posting.

'Something that dates back to the origins of our hobby is not properly called 'the way forward'. That phrase implies a change from 'how things are done'.  

I understand your point perfectly well, and disagree with it. You seem to believe that the way forward must imply change; it doesnt'. When it ain't broke, don't fix it. Continuing with something that works can be the way forward too.

QuoteThe proper method of labeling your Vancian Magic then relies on terms involving 'solid foundations' or 'proven systems' or even 'tradition'.  All those terms imply that something that has persisted for thirty odd years is worth keeping around.'

You'll note that I haven't said that its best to keep it just 'cos its old. Ever. Not here, not anywhere. So that rather makes your assertion there rather odd; I mean, if you want to think thats why I want to keep vancian magic then go right ahead. You're wrong about that, but there you go.

QuoteIn short I was poking fun at your use of the exact opposite choice of phrases to defend your obviously favorite magic system.   As I play 'fighting guy' in almost every character, I have no particular bias, other than yes, it is fucking annoying to have to stop after every encounter, no matter how silly, so the Mage can rest for eight hours. I've had games I've played in slow to a crawl, where exploring a simple dungeon took months of character time because of this phenomenon.  As a GM it doesn't happen so much, as I am perfectly willing to punish this sort of turtle play as brutally as logic demands.

I see, so your problem is that you've got a bee in your bonent 'cos you had some crap DMs. Fair enough. Blame the DMs.

Alas, James, my old ally has turned on me!

While I can certainly admit that 'The way forward' has weaker connotations of change than other phrases, it still does possess that sense of doing something new.

the negative aspects of 'Tradition' et al are debatable.  For every person that uses 'tradional' as invective, another finds it admirable. The word itself is neutral.  Still, due to its ability to cut both ways I put it last on my list.  I've yet to see a serious arguement that 'Strong Foundation' could be used as a perjorative.

Its not even out yet.


 Zheesh!!

 I'd rather answer the question the closer we are to an actual release date - say March or April of 2008.  

 Supposedly they are releasing this in may or June of 2008.


- Ed C.

I haven't read about a single change that I think is an improvement on the original thus far. If they get rid of vancian spell casting and make the game more feat-centric and cinematic, I don't even know how they can call it Dungeons and Dragons with a straight face.

They may come up with a great tabletop Anime MMORPG, but I can't say as I am all that interested.

Quote from: jgantsI don't mind getting rid of Vancian magic per se, but I don't like how everyone's abilities appear to be continually getting ramped up.

I want D&D to feel like D&D, not Exalted or WoW.

QFT again. Power creep has been a problem ever since Unearthed Arcana, and it seems to be getting worse.

Oh well, I didn't buy 3E either. YMMV.

When I first heard about D&D4, I said I was happy to hear that they would make it easier to DM this game but that I hadn't seen info that led me to believe this would be the case.

After reading blogs and stuff, I'm still not seeing much concrete evidence that they are streamlining the game. In fact, it seems they are adding quite a few bells and whistles.

What do you guys think? Are they simplifying this game based on what we know so far? It certainly doesn't seem to be the case from my perspective and I ain't going to buy if it necessitates the same work for prep and play.

Quote from: Consonant DudeWhat do you guys think? Are they simplifying this game based on what we know so far? It certainly doesn't seem to be the case from my perspective and I ain't going to buy if it necessitates the same work for prep and play.

That's the kicker for me; will they be able to substantially streamline the game. If they can, then I'll give 4E a whirl as a hopefully well-calibrated tactical fantasy game. If they can't, then I'll stick with my pre-3.x systems for D&D.

So I'm also curious to hear of areas of the rules where WotC are substantially simplifying the system and making it easier to run.

Quote from: HaffrungSo I'm also curious to hear of areas of the rules where WotC are substantially simplifying the system and making it easier to run.

Me too. As I've said for a long time, the basic engine behind 3rd ed is good, it just needs to be a much quicker game to run.

Quote from: CabIts been in the game since the start. Fighters have been in the game since the start. You argue that one is outdated largely due to its age, but not the other, based on this...



...and that beggars belief. That people do actually fight doesn't make the 'fighter' of D&D a realistic class any more than that people have religion makes the cleric a realistic one. Come on, the fighter class allows progression to super-human levels of toughness and combat ability, you're clutching at straws by claiming that it somehow has credibility because people fight.

This seems to fall under deliberate obtuseness. That or general stupidity. You brought in fighters, so why are you now arguing that my stance on fighters is irrelvant? I know, you didn't say 'that', whatever.

Quote from: CabBut it has everything to do with refuting your odd assertion that vancian magic is somehow not relevant now.



I understand your point perfectly well, and disagree with it. You seem to believe that the way forward must imply change; it doesnt'. When it ain't broke, don't fix it. Continuing with something that works can be the way forward too.

Again with the reading comprehension.  I never argued for or against it with my initial arguement, merely with your choice of language.  If you disagree, well, that's your business.  Its not like we are the French Ministry of Language setting the tone for all future conversations by all French speakers everywhere or anything.

Quote from: CabYou'll note that I haven't said that its best to keep it just 'cos its old. Ever. Not here, not anywhere. So that rather makes your assertion there rather odd; I mean, if you want to think thats why I want to keep vancian magic then go right ahead. You're wrong about that, but there you go.

Quote from: CabI can see that point, and I'd hold back from saying that there is any one thing you can't change or its not D&D... But Vancian magic has been in the game longer than some of the polyhedral dice, its more fundamental to playing some of the character classes than anything else I can think of. To call it an enormous change is an understatement.

Don't be a hypocrite.  

For irony, I note that in this case you DID use 'Fundamenta'... which makes me wonder why you feel the need to disagree so vehemently with my assertion that 'Way Forward' was an odd choice of words.

Quote from: CabI see, so your problem is that you've got a bee in your bonent 'cos you had some crap DMs. Fair enough. Blame the DMs.

Judgemental much?   If players insist on resting... even leaving dungeons for safer locations until they've rested what is the GM to do? Force them to stay? that's railroading.  I've seen fellow players, and I've seen my own players do some pretty extreme stuff to force a peaceful 'rest break' between encounters, even a midlevels of games.  At that point the role of the non-spell casters is to deal with any 'wandering encounters' that can't be absolutely avoided by themselves while the wizards and/or clerics stay 'resting'.   Recently I've had party member wizards who kept group teleport spells in reserve in case they just couldn't find any peace and quiet so they could leave the area if the GM got to vicious with the wandering monsters and the like.

Things like nation wide 'anti teleport' fields only work once before the game turns into a farce about 'how can I negate the rules this week'.




*NB: I have no desire to look up proper spell names and rules to explain how stuff actually goes down, as that is irrelevant to the discussion at hand. Attacking my arguements based on reading the rule book is a straw man. Just letting you know in advance that I will laugh at you.

Quote from: WarthurTry nearly 60 years ago. The first Dying Earth book came out in 1950, before Lord of the Rings was even published.



To be fair, the presentation of "Vancian" magic in D&D lacks a lot of the distinctive flavour of Dying Earth magic - probably sensibly, since Gygax and Arneson were going for a fairly generic fantasy game, but I still have a soft spot for the whimisical nature of the books

Me too. I have a signed first edition- I found it at Powell's in the early nineties and bought it for $15.00. i met Mr. Vance about a couple of years later when Nightlamp came out- and got it signed. He was a lot of fun to talk to.
My preferred reading edition, however, is the Lancer.

Quote from: SpikeThis seems to fall under deliberate obtuseness. That or general stupidity. You brought in fighters, so why are you now arguing that my stance on fighters is irrelvant? I know, you didn't say 'that', whatever.

I see, you're now taking two points that used some of the same words and linking them together because you can't respond to either as they were actually written... Ten out of ten for effort there.

(further parts of post cut unread, on the assumption that they're no better).