5E Musings?

So far it looks like just another version of 3rd Edition with just a few things left out.

The monsters thus the work of the DM has been shortened but not enough. Maybe they will have the monsters on cards or something.

The introductory modules can rot on the shelf at the prices they are wanting for the thinness of the product. Maybe if I did not already feel goug4ed already.  

The artwork and what they want to do with the Forgotten Realms looks really good.

I can't see any reason a serious Pathfinder player would stop playing Pathfinder over 5E.

I could see a GM looking at it and thinking how much easier it could be.

IF I were WotC I would have returned to a much simpler game with modern options (like BttDRPG) and then came out with incredible artwork and modules. I would have had D&D Television shows animated and live action, movies, more video games, and got the game out quicker.

DnD Next Progress as I see it, 4th Edition Memories, I lament my game.

DnD Next Progress as I see it, 4th Edition Memories, I lament my game.

DnD Next Progress
The "BASE" System is good and will over shadow the "other addition editions" and will hilariously show how the old school gaming style is superior as it gives the players ALL the options and less restrictions.

The game will also show how the new school options are superior to the old school restrictions.

Only complete dumbass sticks in the mud will e unhappy. That is until they play.

DnD is back and it has evolved for everyone.

Many players and DMs that have been playing that way for years anyway will go NO DUH!

IMHO DnDNext may/will be the best version of DnD ever made. Their problem is they have burned all their customers one way or another BUT DnD next will be a slow cure.

Something unheard of may happen.

Old and New school players and DMs will sit at the same table STFU and just go back to playing and having a good time.

Gaming may actually become fun again and that will mean more gaming for everyone!

4th Edition Memories
Sadly 4th Edition ended in my life when I decided I could not stand it anymore. The game had just gotten too repetitive and some of the players were story gamers and not rules gamers and they were NOT having a good time AND the rest of the group would only play 4th NOTHING ELSE.

There were serious design flaws. Way too much monster HPs or way too little damage from the players. I think if someone would amp up the damage and shit would die in 4th I might just go back and play it.

You have to put yourself in the game designers seat for a second. They did not make 4th Edition to hurt you okay.

They thought they were doing the right thing.

They are games just like you. They were hard headed and ignored ANY AND ALL SUGGESTIONS from their playtesters but they were most likely one of us.

I was talking to some people online and they basically were saying IF they met the 4th edition designers thy would kick their ass. Really is it that serious for them? I live eat breath RPGs (and sadly don't get to play much) and I don't get that stupid about it.

For me 4th Edition has lots of good and fun memories AND it has a few sucky memories. SO the question is IF you could have "repaired" 4th Edition what would you have changed?

I lament my game.

Well all the work and deletion all these years has brought me to this point. My game originally called CFRPG but now called BttDRPG has fell flat on it's face. Very few if any responses.

Throughout the years my coolness is slipping. I am getting old and outdated.

I basically came out with what DnD Next is going to be way ahead of the curve but my presentation obviously sucked.

Very few to nobody is biting, caring, giving a shit, loving it, or hating it.

Ah realization! I have made a Fantasy Heartbreaker! Now I truly know what that term means.

I lament my game. But at least I have only spent time on it and not money.

The elves sing songs but I do not have the heart to say what they are singing.

Is there going to be a New Age of Gaming? (LONG POST!)

If I were a gaming company with a stylish and rather well written Fantasy RPG I would be putting full steam ahead! The "stars are right" IMHO for many games to get spotlighted that would never have had the chance to do so.

There still is the void out there for many in gaming that is not filled by the Old School Renaissance and is not filled by Modern Fantasy Gaming. Many are out there and want to play but either can't find a group with their style or rules they like.

The Old School Renaissance still holds onto their "preferences" of what drives New School Gamers away. Race Classes, Race/Class Restrictions, or to sum it up not getting to play what you want to play. Some Grognards say tough! Suck it up and like it but many times as I have tried to run an old school game people that have never played Old School before are mystified and then appalled by the restrictions. They simply don't even give it a chance. My biggest killer is Elves that cannot be Rangers. I had both of my daughters about to play 3d6 in order and they just as they read through it said "Dad this game and those other games suck. You can't be what you want to be in those old games." Yes I know I know I could house rule it but why stick to these old outworn restrictions? My largely ignored RPG addresses these problems while staying old school simple but this is about people trying to make it in the RPG business world not my hobbyist approach.

The New School Gaming is somewhat doing fine but it is currently waning. Oh it is alive and well in it's current form but it is no longer in it's heyday like it was in the 80s and the 80s didn't even have the internet and all the conventions crazes that this modern world has.

You see tabletop gaming is at a very unique place at this time and I will get to that.

The D20 system came out in the early 2000s and reinvigorated the dying gaming industry. The 90s did have it's heyday as Vampire did make it's huge mark on the gaming world but by the end of the 90s it was dying as waves and peaks of popularity of things do. Many D&D gamers kept chugging along even though TSR was doing an Atari type glut failure. I must admit I quit playing D&D because of 2nd Edition as I found it really sterile and somewhat boring until the huge glut of Forgotten Realms stiff cam out and other people were running it. We gathered a group and played for years until people being assholes destroyed the group as well as people moving away, divorces, gossip. It's amazing how someone can be an admitted asshole then get their feeling hurt when people start calling him an asshole.

We all know the amazing story of WotC buying D&D and Hasbro acquiring it. They then got it back in order and came out with the 3rd edition. I have to say I had not been so excited about an edition or an RPG like that in a long time. I was blown away by all the detail. You could so many things with a character! Sadly that was replaced by questions on the game design that has plagued modern games for the most part ever since. TOO much damn detail which means too much work for the DM as everyone else sucked as DMs or was too lazy to run the game.

Well 3.5 put a band aid on it a few years after I bought a shit ton of books again and although I tried to resist I found the 3.5 books on Amazon for half price shipped and then I bought another 3.5 library. We played for many years until we gathered a quite large gaming group. Oh then once again the group grew and shrunk. We had gained a particularly brilliant rules lawyer that actually was so brilliant (if not "too brilliant") who actually memorized every rulebook in the 3.5 library. Without ever cheating he tweaked his characters into gods unlike anyone I had ever seen. Like I said he never cheated and used the rules to break the game and did he ever show how completely broken the 3.5 D&D game was. Well there was one alternate DM who did give too much gold when he was running but the Rules Lawyer never mentioned that rules break. I could put a challenge for his character but the rest of the party would die. He ended up killing the party a few months before the release of 4th Edition. He fireballed a villain amongst his own party who he well knew had a necklace of Fireballs and blew up the entire party. Of course he saves and too no damage though the combination of feats and magic items. He tried to say he made a mistake but he just knew the rules too well. Anyway the adventure was a save the world type adventure and he allowed the world to go into a cataclysm!

With my world destroyed and all of my group disliking and really pissed at the the rules lawyer things looked grim. The 3.5 rules had been shown so very broken or at least breakable by a rules lawyer. The rest of my players were story gamers for the most part.

The release of 4th edition things were really going well. The rules lawyer HATED 4th edition because despite all it's faults rules lawyers have a hell of a time breaking the game. He left after a bit of time and my table grew under the 4th edition. A bit of stupid drama and the table shook but the 4th edition game went on for at least a few years. During that time and since 3.5 I had been yearning to play some of the old school stuff. Unfortunately my group outright refused my request save for two game of Swords and Wizardry most of the players would only play 4th.

I kept telling them I needed variations in my games but no one would budge.

The 4th edition games began to slightly bore me and some of the players just did not get or like the rules and left and my wife is a story gamer and on medication and some of the players and DMs were rude when she did not get the rules. Battles that lasted four hours? Tables full of cards as in so many that we almost had no room for maps. The lies and deceit of WotC and their "Online Tool". The Essentials or 4.5 D&D. I began to get sick of 4th edition and one day I just wrote everyone and said not playing 4th for an undetermined time. They were appalled and I was cold. I never said they had to stop playing but the group died out.

I got a Pathfinder game started up using my Labyrinth Lord dungeon. It converted very well with far more options than LL/AEC and I must say Pathfinder is 3.5 perfected and is perfect in every way but it was too much damn work and some of the players were careful (if not boring) players and others story (if not foolish) gamers and there was snippy rude comments that pissed off the story players. When I stated I had no time to prep (as I was working out of town five days a week) the game and finally was going to convert it to Labyrinth Lord/Advance Edition Companion for ease of prep time and I had already written it in LL/AEC already, the players got pissed and threw a fit. The only were going to play Pathfinder. I guess they don't know rule #1 so I said fuck I won't game at all.

I looked round online and find there are many like me gameless. I will play Pathfinder again but life has not given me gaming groups that play on weekends. I have looked for Old Schoolers but they are far and few between and play on weekdays.

So here is how I see it. Pathfinder is successful because 4th Edition D&D did not do very well and is currently NOT doing very well and this time WotC is actually listening to the fan base this time concerning D&D Next. No matter what the reason there was a 4th edition is because of the flaws of 3.5 and after awhile Pathfinder will suffer the same fate when D&D Next comes out IF it is what they claim "a damn good game". The problem is they are FAR from coming out with D&D Next so this leaves an interesting gaming void that IF games like Numenera and The 13th Age do it right MIGHT be able to find a place in gaming BEFORE D&D Next comes out.

You see there are some apparently kick ass games coming out right now. Some have already came out and are chugging along like Dungeon Crawl Classics, Adventurer Conquer, King, Swords and Wizardry Complete, and others.

IF you take this little time in this void you will do well. People are kind of wary of it all and are looking for a gaming fix.

OR am I wrong? How do you see it? What say you?

D&D Next Hooplah

WOTC,

Alright stop talking about D&D Next and put out some play test material. None of your articles out there will really show what you got until you show what you got.

Your feedback and surveys are fairly worthless to you from a site that has mostly angry 4th edition hangers on.

Notice how Pazio did theirs? Release some material and get feedback!

Not talk about it and talk about theories.

Hope you are going to listen to the feedback.

My non-Perfect RPG

Well I finished my races, classes, spells, equipment, monsters, and NOT treasure.

Monsters ah Monsters, they are just mostly 3 stats. AC HD and Move with a brief description of damage and the monster.

After spells, Treasure Tables really suck. Have not made any yet. Oh how I dread.

I mean my spells are still only BARELY described hoping that GM Fiat and judgement will make the final decision.

The best part of the game is GM Fiat. The GM not the rules are the ultimate judge in this game. The other part is the GM not the players need to learn the rules. The players will just play their characters and have fun.

I also made the game to be played FAST! I decided on using the BASIC style of initiative.

It works.

It works with HUGE combats.

The game should be easy to run most of all and allow the GM to tell a story with fast action and deep story. EASY to run!

Hope to playtest this 4th of July with my Pathfinder Group as I am running out of patience with PFRPG.

I hope to start a spark and let it burn. This is not going to be another Simulacrum but a hybrid of old and new.

I hope that I can get comments good or bad to let me make this into a great RPG. I know that there will be many disagreement from those who have their own ideas but I have been gaming for 30 years and I know what makes a great game despite the intent of other designers.

No one purposely designs a game bad they just don't think of the practicality of their rules all the way through.

The Old School stuff I left out was Level Limits, Racial Limits, Weapon vs Armor Restrictions, and other stuff...

New School I left out Skills, Feats, Whole Page Monster Stat Blocks, Stupid Huge Hit Point Amounts, Level Adjustments and many other things.

Well been drinking and got to get ready for bed and work.

I quit playing 4E for an undetermined time and other musings

Well I told my gaming group that I was just burnt out on 4th edition. Yep I know that is former post I said I was going to put away my OSR setting and embrace the 4th edition and just shut up and play!

AND play we did. I was playing a cleric. The battles were few but LONG. We had in the past discussed that the players need to know their characters and use strategy. Much strategy was used and many monsters fell. It still took too long and many battles just drug along.

Due to my job I had to give up the DM chair and we had some of the other members running games.

The system is fairly clunky. The monsters have a full page of stats. Why? Worst of all everything except minions has way too many hit points. Why would someone design a game in a way that purposefully makes battles last over 30 minutes?

I thought they play-tested it for over a year. How can there be so much errata? Then the Essentials are coming out which is a whole another version.

I remember one battle where a character did over 30 points of damage to a gnoll and this had just only bloodied it after 20 minutes of battle.

Slow. boardgamish, no story just battle, well I just stopped having fun or at least very much fun.

I had suggested many times for my group to try my LL mega-dungeon but I always got the blow off and the statement "I only like 4th". I always stated that we did not have to stop playing 4th but every so often try another system.

The standard answer was "I only like 4th" even though many of them have never played anything else or very little of anything else. In the past when anything else was going to be ran they would not show up that day.

So we were back to the every Saturday only playing 4th edition and it stopped being fun. I mean I love my group of friends but every weekend we were just playing a game and using per encounters, dailies, healing surges, too many hit point, too much math, too many rules, and it just got all the same. I asked my wife and my 14 year old what they thought. They too had not been having fun for a long time either. That settled it.

What about the fear of your character dieing? What about running out of spells and supplies? What about having to go back to town to heal up? What about it being a challenge?

A game where your character had fought and clawed his way for every XP he ever got.

SO..

I told my players for an undetermined time no 4th for me and soon I will be playing something else. The reaction was not surprising and I was not surprised by "I only like 4th and only want to play 4th" and one of the players said that if any other game was ran "he would not be attending".

I was even schooled on how I should have finished the 4th game that we were playing and then they would think about another game.

I did not recall asking them to stop playing 4th nor would I ever. I do not want this to end friendships but they seem to be taking the less than savory path. I will continue to be friendly and hope the best for them.

I only asked for them to try another style of gaming and was shot down for at least as long as I have had this blog save a few sessions.

OTHER MUSINGS

So the new Red Box is out? It only cover 2 levels. Gee sounds like a sample more than a game sight unseen. Gee I told WOTC to do that back on their forums during the first really crappy 3rd edition boxed set.

It's causing a stir and that is good and now the OSR Game Writers need to get off their asses and make a real basic set.

There needs to be a LL/AEC, OSRIC, BFRPG. and/or S&W (S&W is already kinda basic though) intro/basic set.

It should cover all the races and all the classes up to 5th level.

Have a selection of monsters and a guide on how to play as well as an adventure included.

Make it cheap. Get it out there!

A boxed set? Possibly but the OSR publishers need to get off their asses and take advantage of what is going on.