If I'm going to play a game that is about going around dungeons, solving puzzles in them, avoiding traps, etc. then I'm probably going to go to 3E or Pathfinder.
If you actually wanted a dungeon crawl, then I would actually recommend 4e. It does that well. 4e is a tactical combat miniatures game with some roleplaying elements.
Between 4e and Burning Wheel, I'm not sure when I would want to fall back to 3e/Pathfinder. It would have to be a game that's not as combat-focused as 4e, but doesn't need the social or character-driven mechanics of Burning Wheel. Maybe if I wanted the full magic system of 3e for something...
If you actually wanted a dungeon crawl, then I would actually recommend 4e. It does that well. 4e is a tactical combat miniatures game with some roleplaying elements.
No, because the dungeon crawls I like are extremely low on combat. If there is combat, it is a complete non-necessity. I'm all about stuff like using mage hand to drop a block on a pressure plate from a distance. Or using prestidigitation to change the colors of things so you can find your way back through a maze. Or summoning a shitton of earthworms (or just one really big one) to eat away the foundation to cave in a room. You know, dungeoneering.
If you actually wanted a dungeon crawl, then I would actually recommend 4e. It does that well. 4e is a tactical combat miniatures game with some roleplaying elements.
I would argue that 4e's tactical depth is extremely shallow. At least WoW has a realtime element: 4E makes it fairly trivial to calculate the most optimal moves in combat, and overcoming other obstacles is little more than a statistics game.
2E actually has the best non-Pathfinder system for Dungeon Crawls in my opinion, though it requires a good DM to work, as very little is quantified properly in the rules. You can get really clever with the nonweapon proficiencies in a dungeon, and the mechanics for using one of these broad skills are fairly loose and usable.
3E adds to many quantifiable components which themselves are boring. But, if you have a bad DM, this is a good thing rather than a detriment.
4E feels like you're not actually making decisions that matter at any point, especially in combat. You can't do anything interesting, and it feels like you're just rolling dice to simulate what a computer game would do with a random number generator.
No, because the dungeon crawls I like are extremely low on combat. If there is combat, it is a complete non-necessity. I'm all about stuff like using mage hand to drop a block on a pressure plate from a distance. Or using prestidigitation to change the colors of things so you can find your way back through a maze. Or summoning a shitton of earthworms (or just one really big one) to eat away the foundation to cave in a room. You know, dungeoneering.
This is a interesting take on dungeon crawls, more of an exploration/mystery game. I'm not sure what system I would use for that. What would you do if/when the players and characters get stuck on the puzzles? Clearly you would want more than one puzzle available at a time.
I would argue that 4e's tactical depth is extremely shallow. At least WoW has a realtime element: 4E makes it fairly trivial to calculate the most optimal moves in combat, and overcoming other obstacles is little more than a statistics game.
4E feels like you're not actually making decisions that matter at any point, especially in combat. You can't do anything interesting, and it feels like you're just rolling dice to simulate what a computer game would do with a random number generator.
You could perform these calculations for any game with these kinds of mechanics.
The fun (at least, my fun) in playing 4e is acting with incomplete information. You've got your character's multiple powers, and you know what they do and how they work. But you're often thrown into new situations: unusual terrain, oddly shaped or constrained room layouts, new baddies or different mixes of existing baddies, irrational or unlucky other PCs, traps, weird magical glyphs on the floor that do who-knows-what. Should I blast those three goons grouped together, or drop everything to help a friend surrounded by other goons? Is it worth spending an action point to feed someone a healing potion? How can I maximize damage and still get over to the right place to provide flanking for the rogue?
4e is first and foremost a tactical combat game, and WotC did a good job putting it together. It's not exactly a spectacular roleplaying game, though, for all the reasons discussed on the show.
This is a interesting take on dungeon crawls, more of an exploration/mystery game. I'm not sure what system I would use for that. What would you do if/when the players and characters get stuck on the puzzles? Clearly you would want more than one puzzle available at a time.
It doesn't matter what the puzzles are. If you play a game like Zelda, all the puzzles have only one answer, such as shoot the eyeball with an arrow.
With D&D;, you have an actual intelligence, not just AI. Therefore, you can get really creative. Make up any old obstacle "there's a big pit". Then the creativity of the players decides where things will go. Maybe they fill the pit with water and swim across. Maybe they find a secret passage to go around. Maybe one person jumps and then you build a Pitfall-style rope swing. Maybe after they fill it with water, weird stuff floats to the top. This is the kind of game that is possible when you have a tabletop RPG.
D&D is your entry-level RPG. You give it to the younguns before you give them the heavy-hitters: Cthulhu, Inspectres, Paranoia, Burning Wheel (oh mans), etc.
Speaking of which, the Nook Color is going to be the BUSINESS for RPG rulebooks.
D&D; is your entry-level RPG. You give it to the younguns before you give them the heavy-hitters: Cthulhu, Inspectres, Paranoia, Burning Wheel (oh mans), etc.
Nope, not, wrong! There is no reason why you should use D&D; as an entry level rpg. There are lot's of simpler systems and better if you want them to move to games like Burning Wheel. (Also isn't Inspectres quite simple and easy for a entry level game, haven't played it myself but from what I have heard, I though it might be so.)
There is no reason why you should use D&D; as an entry level rpg.
Eh. It's a nice introduction to dice-based resolution and dungeon design. 3E and Pathfinder are the only systems related to D&D; I would touch, though. 4E is hopelessly broken.
Also isn't Inspectres quite simple and easy for a entry level game, haven't played it myself but from what I have heard, I though it might be so.
Yeah, but there's no dice resolution. Different styles of gameplay. Spirit of the Century is an excellent entry-level game, but it won't familiarize you with the dice mechanics in games that are heavily driven by both dice and storytelling like CoC.
Speaking of which, the Nook Color is going to be the BUSINESS for RPG rulebooks.
Holy shit, I never thought about using E-Readers for RPG rulebooks. Absolutely brilliant!
Yeah, problem is that the NC doesn't have an e-paper screen or 3G. I am having a lot of trouble making this call.
I've been playing 3.5 for a few months now, and it's fun because we meet up with some people, cook food, and then talk and bullshit and laugh while we play through. It feels like 3.5 is the right balance enough and from what my brother has ranted, Scott is right, 4E is just a straight video game. And you shouldn't play a game like D&D as a straight video game, or else it isn't fun.
Dark Sun as I said "It sounds like D&D meets Fallout." And when our DM said "Yeah, that's kind of how it is." It makes me kind of interested in playing it.
Eh. It's a nice introduction to dice-based resolution and dungeon design.
There are tons of games that work as a entry-level game that have strong dice mechanic in it. Also dungeon design has nothing to do with rpgs generally and if you want dungeons, by all means play D&D; it made to lots of dungeons in it.
Also this whole entry-level rpg talk is quite unnecessary in my opinion, it's good to have some simple games that you can use to introduce people to the hobby, but if you want to play CoC with someone don't waste your time playing D&D; or anything else, just play CoC. Generally if GM handles his job and player isn't complete idiot it should work out.
With D&D;, you have an actual intelligence, not just AI. Therefore, you can get really creative. Make up any old obstacle "there's a big pit". Then the creativity of the players decides where things will go. Maybe they fill the pit with water and swim across. Maybe they find a secret passage to go around. Maybe one person jumps and then you build a Pitfall-style rope swing. Maybe after they fill it with water, weird stuff floats to the top. This is the kind of game that is possible when you have a tabletop RPG.
Ah, That reminds me of the days of "GM and Dungeon Vs the Players". Hardly any monsters, just a test of cunning, skill, and making your players more paranoid than Adam Curry.
The only thing that would get me to play 4E is one of those Microsoft tables.
Or apparently my gaming group decided to experiment with the starter set for 15 dollars.
So I played my first game of D&D; 4th edition tonight and it wasn't the end of the world. It seems they have really pumped up how the early levels work. The mage I created with the character creation guide had over 20 hit points and a bunch of spells he could cast at will or once an encounter or once daily. The system in it's pared down starter form seems to be pretty good. No more 4 hit point mages with one or two spells and then they are out of the fight. I could literally cast a magic missile every round if I wanted to but strategically there are other spells that did more interesting things. I'm not sure I like the whole Healing surge and how condensed the skills are, but I need to see the Players handbook before I can really make a judgment. All and all, 4th edition seems to make D&D; easier to learn for new people. The fact that other then damage almost everything is d20 based and always the same kind of role definitely removes some of the confusion I've seen new players have with older editions (even Initiative now considers the higher number better). Since most of the time was sharing the one character creation booklet, we didn't play enough to judge the system too much. We'll see next time we continue the adventure.
Since most of the time was sharing the one character creation booklet, we didn't play enough to judge the system too much. We'll see next time we continue the adventure.
You'll find that combat is tedious and boils down to ADPR (average damage per round). Character classes are largely equal in their combat usefulness. Advancement is the same broken underlying mechanic as always.
It's telling that the Ravenloft game is so popular, as it's basically a natural extension of Fourth Edition's trends.
Since most of the time was sharing the one character creation booklet, we didn't play enough to judge the system too much. We'll see next time we continue the adventure.
You'll find that combat is tedious and boils down to ADPR (average damage per round). Character classes are largely equal in their combat usefulness. Advancement is the same broken underlying mechanic as always.
It's telling that the Ravenloft game is so popular, as it's basically a natural extension of Fourth Edition's trends.
Yeah, pretty much if you are someone who likes D&D;/WoW then 4ed will be amazing for you. No matter what class you pick, there is always some useful way you can do damage or heal. Almost every attack has some minor side effect to make it feel useful. If you like walking around killing monsters, it will be super fun for you, because you will always be useful regardless of class. But, as Rym said, that means that playing optimally consists of just doing your maximum ADPR over and over until the session ends.
I did joke with one of the players that since we have a girded map out, we are now playing a Board game :-p
I'm just saying that my initial impression is 4th edition is not a rape of my childhood D&D from my initial experience. I may not be that into this style of game play as I once was but I still enjoy taking down a large dragon and collecting a horde of magic items occasionally :-p
Since most of the time was sharing the one character creation booklet, we didn't play enough to judge the system too much. We'll see next time we continue the adventure.
You'll find that combat is tedious and boils down to ADPR (average damage per round). Character classes are largely equal in their combat usefulness. Advancement is the same broken underlying mechanic as always.
It's telling that the Ravenloft game is so popular, as it's basically a natural extension of Fourth Edition's trends.
Yeah, pretty much if you are someone who likes D&D;/WoW then 4ed will be amazing for you. No matter what class you pick, there is always some useful way you can do damage or heal. Almost every attack has some minor side effect to make it feel useful. If you like walking around killing monsters, it will be super fun for you, because you will always be useful regardless of class. But, as Rym said, that means that playing optimally consists of just doing your maximum ADPR over and over until the session ends.
4th ed is to old D&D; as WoW is to MUDs.
Or you could cave in the tunnels your enemy is in and have an awesome skills challenge to get out of the dungeon before you die due to cave ins. This, by the way, was set off by the bard who just bought loads of fireworks before leaving town because that's his thing.
Or you could cave in the tunnels your enemy is in and have an awesome skills challenge to get out of the dungeon before you die due to cave ins. This, by the way, was set off by the bard who just bought loads of fireworks before leaving town because that's his thing.
Don't bother. Let me lay it out for you - Scrym hate D&D;, therefore, if you defend it or say a good word against it, you're clearly wrong, and stupid for enjoying it. Any point you bring up in it's defence is invalid, because burning wheel. No no, Don't actually try to reply, sugarlips, burning wheel is their RPG equivalent of a fundie's goddunit.
Don't bother. Let me lay it out for you - Scrym hate D&D;, therefore, if you defend it or say a good word against it, you're clearly wrong, and stupid for enjoying it.
Not quite. I love D&D;, and have fond memories of playing it. But, I don't kid myself about what it is under the hood. If you want a Wow-style dungeon crawl with flat advancement (which is a legitimate thing to want), D&D; is the best you're going to get. It's like a Mustang (car). If you want to drive a certain way, it's awesome, but take it down a road for which it's ill-suited, and you're in for trouble.
Any point you bring up in it's defence is invalid, because burning wheel.
Burning Wheel is by far not the most apt example in most cases of a better designed role playing game for non-dungeon crawls. Inspectres, Dread, Dogs in the Vinyard, Lacuna, A Thousand and One Nights, Freemarket, there are countless better designed games for particular role playing purposes.
Don't actually try to reply, sugarlips, burning wheel is their RPG equivalent of a fundie's goddunit.
Except that D&D;'s flaws in many (not all) gaming situations are objectively manifest through even a cursory game theory analysis. Or are you going to try and tell me that D&D; has a contextual mechanism of social conflict equivalent to its mechanism for martial combat? Not all games need it, but the mechanism design of an imbalance affects your game.
Except that D&D;'s flaws in many (not all) gaming situations are objectively manifest through even a cursory game theory analysis.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, eh? But I'll say fair play, as I don't doubt you could explain it in a bit more detail, since I've never studied game theory, and you have, I'd appreciate if you would, briefly. Teach me things, if you'd fancy.
Or are you going to try and tell me that D&D; has a contextual mechanism of social conflict equivalent to its mechanism for martial combat? Not all games need it, but the mechanism design of an imbalance affects your game.
No, I wouldn't bother, because I'd be A)wrong, and B)lying. There are some skills that have an effect - quite a few, actually, bluff, charm, intimidate, etc, etc - pretty much every non-combat skill has some use in character interactions, for example, a bluff check to try and lie about the value of a Gemstone can be defeated by a sufficiently high appraise roll. It's not as...hm, I suppose the closest way to put it I can think of is Specific and focused as burning wheel, but there are rules and skills for more beyond combat. It's not a game where you're going to have an entirely non-combat game without an external module, but that's not what it's made for. It's made for adventurers on a campaign, not courtiers jockeying for social position(though I don't doubt modules exist for that purpose, however, that's beside the point), where you're likely to not only have talking and character interaction, but also some combat, maybe some PVE sort of stuff - I've mentioned before, I have fond memories of deep, dark, and trap-filled dungeons, and players trying to outwit the GM's carefully constructed traps. You gotta pick the game for the system - you want courtesans and politicians, with manipulations and schemes, a game of social positioning chess you play burning wheel. You want people who while are equally apt at solving problems with their brains as their brawn, prefer to have boots on ground and getting their hands dirty, you play D&D.;
But, I don't kid myself about what it is under the hood. If youwanta Wow-style dungeon crawl with flat advancement (which is a legitimate thing to want), D&D; is the best you're going to get.
But you don't seem to have been taking advantage of the system, from what you describe - if you play it like WOW, you get WOW. If you play BW like WOW, you just get somewhat more difficult WOW. Hell, I've told the story before about the game where inside a besieged church, a rouge managed to get up to the roof with a single use ring of teleport. Expends his arrows on the forces of hell below, and then, strapped a bunch of lead roof tiles to himself to the point of being over-encumbered, along with everything sharp he could find, and just shuffles over to the edge of the roof where the massive boss creature was standing below, pounding on the door, and falls off, on purpose, landing on the big bad, killing it, and barely surviving in the process. With a spot of luck and quick thinking, it went from an unwinnable fight to a convincing victory, and the DM rolled with it, kept the campaign going on the new path, and it was great.
You can't do that shit in WOW - you couldn't even start to try. If you were playing it WOW style, you'd just prepare your spells and swords, wait for the monsters to break in, and then methodically kill as many as possible before you died.
Burning Wheel is by far not the most apt example in most cases of a better designed role playing game for non-dungeon crawls. Inspectres, Dread, Dogs in the Vinyard, Lacuna, A Thousand and One Nights, Freemarket, there are countless better designed games for particular role playing purposes.
Yep, and they can all be terrible if you're doing it wrong, or don't make a bit of an effort. You can play any game by the numbers, or optimally in any given situation, but that doesn't make them necessarily entertaining, as you know.
It's kinda like using tools(in the hammers, saws and wrenches sense) - You can be using the right tool for the job, and it still goes poorly, because you were using the right tool in the wrong way. It's only a combination of Doing it right, with the right tool, that will get the job done well.
Also - Sorry for getting shitty at you pair. It was a bit outta line. My apologies, there's no excuse for it, and no call for insults. Olive branch extended and head bowed, so to speak.
I know you're going to say "It's not D&D any more!" and I grant that that's technically true, but, as I think I've mentioned before, 4e with the addition of social combat from FATE for resolution of complex non-combat situations makes for a pretty good game. Borrow the core concepts of social combat for your social skill challenges and it works out pretty well, and makes the game a lot more versatile in between the hack 'n slash segments which are, obviously, what D&D is really about.
I know you're going to say "It's not D&D; any more!" and I grant that that's technically true, but, as I think I've mentioned before, 4e with the addition of social combat from FATE for resolution of complex non-combat situations makes for a pretty good game. Borrow the core concepts of social combat for your social skill challenges and it works out pretty well, and makes the game a lot more versatile in between the hack 'n slash segments which are, obviously, what D&D; is really about.
I wanted to play Dark Sun and I didn't want to mess about with finding or making a conversion and then selling my players on it. I wanted to play D&D; I just wanted a little bit more robust mechanism for social interactions because I wanted to tell a little more story than just "You go into a cave and kill seventeen kobolds hej-kin and an ogre a b'rohg."
So, I have been reading stuff on 4th edition and I found this pdf called Races and Classes: A preview to 4th edition. It literally goes into how they designed and what they were thinking when they made 4th edition. Fairly interesting stuff. If you find the pdf of this somewhere it might be an interesting read if you hate or like 4th edition.
Comments
Between 4e and Burning Wheel, I'm not sure when I would want to fall back to 3e/Pathfinder. It would have to be a game that's not as combat-focused as 4e, but doesn't need the social or character-driven mechanics of Burning Wheel. Maybe if I wanted the full magic system of 3e for something...
2E actually has the best non-Pathfinder system for Dungeon Crawls in my opinion, though it requires a good DM to work, as very little is quantified properly in the rules. You can get really clever with the nonweapon proficiencies in a dungeon, and the mechanics for using one of these broad skills are fairly loose and usable.
3E adds to many quantifiable components which themselves are boring. But, if you have a bad DM, this is a good thing rather than a detriment.
4E feels like you're not actually making decisions that matter at any point, especially in combat. You can't do anything interesting, and it feels like you're just rolling dice to simulate what a computer game would do with a random number generator.
The fun (at least, my fun) in playing 4e is acting with incomplete information. You've got your character's multiple powers, and you know what they do and how they work. But you're often thrown into new situations: unusual terrain, oddly shaped or constrained room layouts, new baddies or different mixes of existing baddies, irrational or unlucky other PCs, traps, weird magical glyphs on the floor that do who-knows-what. Should I blast those three goons grouped together, or drop everything to help a friend surrounded by other goons? Is it worth spending an action point to feed someone a healing potion? How can I maximize damage and still get over to the right place to provide flanking for the rogue?
4e is first and foremost a tactical combat game, and WotC did a good job putting it together. It's not exactly a spectacular roleplaying game, though, for all the reasons discussed on the show.
With D&D;, you have an actual intelligence, not just AI. Therefore, you can get really creative. Make up any old obstacle "there's a big pit". Then the creativity of the players decides where things will go. Maybe they fill the pit with water and swim across. Maybe they find a secret passage to go around. Maybe one person jumps and then you build a Pitfall-style rope swing. Maybe after they fill it with water, weird stuff floats to the top. This is the kind of game that is possible when you have a tabletop RPG.
Speaking of which, the Nook Color is going to be the BUSINESS for RPG rulebooks.
Dark Sun as I said "It sounds like D&D meets Fallout." And when our DM said "Yeah, that's kind of how it is." It makes me kind of interested in playing it.
Also this whole entry-level rpg talk is quite unnecessary in my opinion, it's good to have some simple games that you can use to introduce people to the hobby, but if you want to play CoC with someone don't waste your time playing D&D; or anything else, just play CoC. Generally if GM handles his job and player isn't complete idiot it should work out.
Also Trail of Cthulhu > Call of Cthulhu.
So I played my first game of D&D; 4th edition tonight and it wasn't the end of the world. It seems they have really pumped up how the early levels work. The mage I created with the character creation guide had over 20 hit points and a bunch of spells he could cast at will or once an encounter or once daily. The system in it's pared down starter form seems to be pretty good. No more 4 hit point mages with one or two spells and then they are out of the fight. I could literally cast a magic missile every round if I wanted to but strategically there are other spells that did more interesting things. I'm not sure I like the whole Healing surge and how condensed the skills are, but I need to see the Players handbook before I can really make a judgment. All and all, 4th edition seems to make D&D; easier to learn for new people. The fact that other then damage almost everything is d20 based and always the same kind of role definitely removes some of the confusion I've seen new players have with older editions (even Initiative now considers the higher number better). Since most of the time was sharing the one character creation booklet, we didn't play enough to judge the system too much. We'll see next time we continue the adventure.
It's telling that the Ravenloft game is so popular, as it's basically a natural extension of Fourth Edition's trends.
4th ed is to old D&D; as WoW is to MUDs.
I'm just saying that my initial impression is 4th edition is not a rape of my childhood D&D from my initial experience. I may not be that into this style of game play as I once was but I still enjoy taking down a large dragon and collecting a horde of magic items occasionally :-p
You gotta pick the game for the system - you want courtesans and politicians, with manipulations and schemes, a game of social positioning chess you play burning wheel. You want people who while are equally apt at solving problems with their brains as their brawn, prefer to have boots on ground and getting their hands dirty, you play D&D.; But you don't seem to have been taking advantage of the system, from what you describe - if you play it like WOW, you get WOW. If you play BW like WOW, you just get somewhat more difficult WOW. Hell, I've told the story before about the game where inside a besieged church, a rouge managed to get up to the roof with a single use ring of teleport. Expends his arrows on the forces of hell below, and then, strapped a bunch of lead roof tiles to himself to the point of being over-encumbered, along with everything sharp he could find, and just shuffles over to the edge of the roof where the massive boss creature was standing below, pounding on the door, and falls off, on purpose, landing on the big bad, killing it, and barely surviving in the process. With a spot of luck and quick thinking, it went from an unwinnable fight to a convincing victory, and the DM rolled with it, kept the campaign going on the new path, and it was great.
You can't do that shit in WOW - you couldn't even start to try. If you were playing it WOW style, you'd just prepare your spells and swords, wait for the monsters to break in, and then methodically kill as many as possible before you died. Yep, and they can all be terrible if you're doing it wrong, or don't make a bit of an effort. You can play any game by the numbers, or optimally in any given situation, but that doesn't make them necessarily entertaining, as you know.
It's kinda like using tools(in the hammers, saws and wrenches sense) - You can be using the right tool for the job, and it still goes poorly, because you were using the right tool in the wrong way. It's only a combination of Doing it right, with the right tool, that will get the job done well.
Also - Sorry for getting shitty at you pair. It was a bit outta line. My apologies, there's no excuse for it, and no call for insults. Olive branch extended and head bowed, so to speak.