GURPS 4th Edition Revised Announced

 

Another unexpected RPG announcement - and another one I am happy to see even if I am not really doing anything with GURPS or planning to anytime soon. This edition of GURPS is 20 years old at this point which I suppose means it has lasted longer in its current form than the legendary Third Edition which truly put GURPS on the map in the late 80's and through the 90's. It's weird. GURPS was a standard reference in any wide-ranging RPG discussion back then, both for the universal mechanics and for the universal coverage (and high quality) of its supplements. Even if you didn't play it you knew about it and may have used some of its books to craft a campaign in something else. It was a significant part of the RPG landscape. 

These days, despite the longevity, I feel like GURPS is an obscure reference in most discussions I see online if it is mentioned at all. It is fairly crunchy and we know tastes have moved on from that over the past decade +. People who think 5th edition D&D is complicated might keel over at the site of a GURPS weapons table and spontaneously combust opening GURPS Vehicles for 3E. Sometimes though the complexity is worth it -whether you call it realism or verisimilitude or whatever. GURPS has definitely filled a niche but that seems to be a smaller niche now. The 3rd edition was a big deal, then 4th edition came out and it felt like GURPS just faded away within a few years. I bought all the hardcovers as they were published as I assumed we would get around to playing it at some point ... but we did not. SJG had a hard time keeping them in print, Munchkin became their main focus, and it felt like the line just dried up. Other places online, where GURPS was a normal part of the conversation, seemed to forget that it existed or only spoke of it in past tense. It's similar to the Hero System which was once a major player and has been continually in-print for decades but has largely faded from popular conversation within the hobby.

I was still surprised that this was an update and not a full new edition. It's been 20 years and that's a pretty good run for any edition of an RPG - is it not time to reboot? If you're going to go through this much work, that is? From the discussion in  the forums it sounds like they are doing a pretty extensive retouching of the two Basic Set books from art to text edits and even adding in some new material, all while bending over backwards to keep the page number references the same. That's going to put some significant limits on what you can or cannot do. It also sounds like money is a limiter here and I totally get that. I appreciate the goal of not making the books people own obsolete but I do have to ask - if the game isn't making you any money right now why make this partial, limited update? Why spend that money on meeting modern standards on layout, art, and language to go part way? Why not come out with a new edition and get some attention? Run a Kickstarter like everyone else is doing and emphasize the 20 years of buildup and support and say you're making an edition for the next twenty years? 

I ask this because doing an update now effectively closes that door for years if a major goal is to not anger your existing GURPS fanbase. I could see putting something out as a stalking horse to see if people want a new edition but a partial re-doing of the core rules might as well be a new edition in gamers' heads. Doing v4.5 in 2026 means you'd better not be doing v5.0 in 2027 or 2028 as "we just bought new rulebooks" is all you're going to hear at that point. I mean maybe there are no problems to solve with 4th edition. I haven't read it in years but I doubt that nothing has really come up in two decades of play. 

Also I'd say they need to call it the "core rulebook" if they are updating and consolidating it into one volume. That's what people are calling these things now. If it's an appeal to the younger generation then stop calling it the Basic Set, which is a total 80's throwback reference they mostly won't get, and for those of us older members of the crowd that term used to mean it came in a box, and GURPS did, for a while, but not for 30+ years now.

Always liked this cover

The other thing GURPS needs is a setting - a big, popular setting. Being the serious RPG nerds' toolkit is a fine enough niche but if you want to attract some attention you need a reason for people to get excited. 

• D&D has, well, "D&D" in the name, history, and a bunch of published settings some of which have novels and miniatures and video games built around them.
• Warhammer has a lot of the same attractions as D&D
• Basic Roleplaying has Runequest which has Glorantha
• Hero System has Champions as its flagship and is still probably what most people call it
• Savage Worlds has Deadlands

Most game systems have some kind of setting that plays into their strengths. GURPS major perceived strength in the past was world books which covered a lot of historical ground, some fantasy, and some science fiction but there was never one setting that was purely "GURPS" the way Champions defined the Hero system. It needs one, because settings are what really lock people into a game. You don't need to change the essence of GURPS like making it a dice pool or a d20 based game. You do need to get something out there in the world that gets people's attention and gets them interested in your game. I rambled on about these same issues 8 years ago and I don't think much of anything has really changed.

I hope this goes well for them - I'd like GURPS to survive at least. But I would really like to see it thrive again.

Not-40K Friday: Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 5th Edition is Coming

 

Alright, well, I admit that was unexpected. I haven't followed 4E that closely as I have a low-mileage set of 2E books sitting on the shelf and that's what I figured I would run for any campaign likely to develop in the near future. I did look at it a little in 2023 when I ran my one-shot game. As I began picking up their 40K RPG books and AoS books I also looked it over just to see how Cubicle 7 was managing their various product lines. It's only been out around 7 years AND they just launched an Old World RPG which is an alternate fantasy option so I didn't think they would be redoing their main Warhammer game but there it is.

Now I haven't run or played a ton of WFRP since the 80's & 90's - and even then it was always behind D&D - but I've always felt like it's underrated by RPG players in general, and especially as a sort-of traditional fantasy setting RPG that feels very different than D&D. By that I mean it's recognizably medieval European style fantasy with knights and elves and dwarves and wizards but it plays about as differently from D&D as you can imagine while still keeping those trappings. It can be a tough transition for someone who has played D&D to walk into this game and have their expectations rearranged. I think the part of the OSR crowd that's looking for lower-powered D&D could like this - if they aren't completely caught up in classes and levels for mechanics. 

This new edition is launching next year so it's the 40th anniversary edition which is ... weird. Yet another game that I remember being the hot new thing hitting a milestone like that. I am very happy  it's still being produced and supported, especially in a form that looks a lot like the original. 

This is the cover on my original book

I do wonder, business-wise, about launching a new edition of the mainline Warhammer RPG at almost the same time as launching a new separate line of Warhammer RPG. I'm thinking most people are only going to play or run one or the other but I suppose enough people will buy both to make it worthwhile. Also this one is all about backwards-compatibility - a notable trend of late - as the game is in that fairly common place of having been out long enough to have produced a shelf's worth of supplementary books that update or flat-out replace sections of the core rulebook so why not go ahead and integrate that material into the core. It's an admirable attempt and I like it but I also know there will inevitably be some compromises. "Now that the new core rules include systems from the Magic book, we can revise the magic book too and add more spells and items and optional stuff." It's just the way things work with RPGs.

Reading about this has me thinking I ought to do something with it. We are close to finishing up the Temple campaign so maybe a short run in the Warhammer world is a possibility. I had really been thinking about an Old World RPG test run but maybe giving original recipe WFRP another go is a good option too.

Mutants & Masterminds 4th Edition Announced

 

Well I suppose it was inevitable. It has been 15+ years since M&M 2E became M&M 3E (well, "DC Adventures, -then- M&M3) and that's a ridiculously long run for one edition of an RPG.

I thought Cam Banks' comments were funny so I left them in

I am happy to see something new that's big for M&M as it's been slow to quiet for a long time in the new product department. Some renewed activity should be a lot of fun. I am also very happy that Steve K is running it. I am a fan of his work.

That said I am heavily invested in 3rd Edition and I am not all that excited at buying a 4th iteration of the Freedom City sourcebook, or an expanded powers book, or a villain sourcebook if it's just a reprint of all the villains we already have and know. I have everything they printed for 2E and 3E and both of those are flat-out comprehensive rulesets for running a superhero campaign. I'm not sure what a new edition is going to improve and I hope they have some good new ideas to share and we are not going to see the same set of books we already have with some slightly tweaked mechanics.

There were some mechanical things in 3rd that could benefit from some adjustment - the effectiveness of Toughness versus Defense is a big one. I always thought a "revised 3E" rulebook could have probably taken care of those kinds of wrinkles. I recall SK stating years ago that if he did ever do a new edition that he would go back to pre-built powers in the core book and save the power building for a separate book - like 2nd Edition - and agree with that choice. It's bound to be confusing for people looking for an Energy Blast power or a Web power being directed over to the "Damage" or the "Affliction" powers. From a design perspective it makes a lot of sense but from the "intuitive" sense it's a little trickier. I've seen a rumor that they are doing away with Dexterity and Fighting as separate stats and presumably going back to Agility as the baseline? That would be a move back towards the D&D standard ability spread which is probably smart in the "D&D is everything" environment we live in now and it worked for 2nd Edition so it's probably fine.

I guess that's at the heart of any trepidation I have over a 4th edition: Are we doing this because we have some great ideas to make the game better after 15 years of publishing and tinkering with it? Or are we looking for a cash flow bump? There's nothing wrong with that in general but it's not a great reason to reboot a game line - for the players, anyway. For now I will trust this team, based on their excellent track record, that they are doing this for the right reasons.

Oh look, there are some notes going around the internet:

... and one more interesting bit of news:

Ongoing projects like the Event Horizon and the Vigilantes Handbook are still launching for 3rd Edition, serving as the final curtain call for a long and beloved era. Event Horizon will even offer GMs the opportunity to end their 3E campaign with a Crisis on Infinite Earths-style cataclysm or a seamless pivot into 4E.

For me this does add some urgency to getting that next campaign going. I've worked in a fair amount of superhero gaming the last ten-twenty years but it's mostly been short runs and one-offs with M&M, Icons, Marvel Heroic, Marvel Superheroes, and Marvel Multiverse. I haven't run a sustained super-campaign in a long time and I feel like this is signaling to me that this is a good time to really get my hands dirty with 3E for an extended time before the new version comes out. Now to figure out how to incorporate Time of Crisis into this ...

One last early plea: Put the Knockback rules back in the core book as a standard thing - it's too iconic of a comic book thing to make them optional! 

2024 D&D PHB Not-So-Shockingly Sets New Sales Record

 

This isn't exactly a surprise but according to the press release posted in this thread at EN World the new PHB is the fastest-selling D&D thing of all time. Alright. That's good for the game and for RPG's in general to a degree and promoting numbers like this is what companies do when launching a new product. It is still a little weird to see D&D treated like a mainstream product - like a videogame launch in many ways. They quote a number of 85 million "D&D fans" and I expect people on the internet to run with that number as though it's the number of people actually playing D&D which we know it is not - because if it was they would have said so. That's a nice squishy number that could include anyone who's played Baldur's Gate 3, for example, and should not be taken as hard evidence of anything.

That said I don't want to downplay WOTC's success here: they've helped to make D&D a bigger thing than it has been in a long time, if ever. They don't get all of the credit, as despite my own lack of interest the streaming stuff like Critical Role clearly had an impact, and they've had some stumbles as well like the OGL thing last year. But, even given the boost from other factors, they a) made a version of the game normal people - casual players - could understand and b) came up with a business model that involved a limited number of books per year that didn't drive everyone crazy or radically change the game - issues with 3E and 4E that limited their success to a degree.

They also appear, at least right now, to be successfully pulling off an edition change that they aren't calling an edition change. One might say "desperately" trying to call it not an edition change. I get it - a new edition is a great reason for people to jump off of the train, especially when you have the mass market audience D&D has achieved. Most normal people are not excited about paying for another set of rules for a game they already play or learning a new set of rules: "Why can't we just keep playing with what we have?" That's a completely reasonable point of view. But much like the videogame industry I mentioned above - particularly with bigger members of the industry - many game companies depend on new editions to make money because the main rulebook is the one thing everybody tends to buy. Games Workshop is the king of this and has been for some time but TSR/WOTC and Paizo are members of this society and I'd say Modiphius is moving in this direction as well. WOTC has not used the word "edition" much at all in their conversations instead using "revision" as more of the go-to descriptive term and bending over backwards to emphasize "backwards compatibility" which ... ah ... sure. It's nice and to some degree correct but I don't know that it's built to let you run a 2014 Paladin right alongside a 2024 Paladin - will the subclasses cross? I don't know yet but I would guess not without some rejiggering on the DM's part. 

Looks a lot like the last one on the inside

I do have a copy though I have not yet read it and have no plans to run it at this time. I made my D&D-type-fantasy-rpg-of-choice some time ago in favor of Tales of the Valiant and I (and my players) are perfectly happy with it. I do figure it's worth going through to see what the new standard will be. I'll post up my thoughts once I do that with comparisons to the prior version and to ToV. 

Outside of interesting ideas from competitors my other issue is the continuing push by WOTC to move towards D&D Beyond as the "standard" way to play the game and consequently the push towards a subscription fee for a tabletop game. I will not be joining this particular bandwagon and while a lot of companies are busy cross-promoting streamers and setting things up on various online tool sets I just have zero interest in playing the game this way so my take on D&D 2024 will strictly be as a set of RPG books used at the table. 

So it looks like 6th edition will continue to be the juggernaut when it comes to RPGs. Not really a surprise and it is nice to see a company making an effort to not instantly invalidate everyone's books for a new release of their game. Time will tell how it all goes but it all looks pretty optimistic for now. I'm going with the Rising Tide outlook here and hoping that continued good news for D&D will help all of those other games we like too, from ToV & PF2 to smaller names like Mutants & Masterminds, Twilight 2000, and Savage Worlds. It's all looking good for now.

40K Friday - Lots of Faction Previews

 

Well we've had a couple of weeks of faction notes for 10th edition 40K and one thing that holds true with these kinds of things is that every faction looks at them and starts to talk about nerfs, negative changes, and how GW hates them. Every. Single. Time. 

Link is here - scroll down if you're interested.

I still remember last edition how people were complaining on the Dark City about how the new Dark Eldar codex was terrible and GW obviously hated them a few weeks after it released even as they were winning their first tournaments with what was widely considered to be a drastically overpowered codex. 

Space marine players were fairly even-keeled about it this time but so far I've seen Necron players assuming the worst about Resurrection Protocols, Chaos Marine players griping about Dark Pact hurting their units, Guard players complaining about the Battle Cannon's AP reduction, Votann complaining about almost all of the changes to their army -despite going to Toughness 5 - and just a notable level of saltiness after each reveal. 

I just don't feel this way. Sure, there are a lot of changes to these forces but it IS a new edition. That's what that means! Especially in a "full reset" edition like this! The general character of an army rarely changes outside of the first couple of editions where they appear - that's where the Votann are now so I am not shocked they are getting some adjustments, really more than most of the other armies we have seen. Without full context of the rules it's generally a bad idea to see changes as all negative but that doesn't stop people.  

The only times I have really gotten annoyed with these kinds of changes are:

1. 3rd edition gave space marine tactical squads both weapons if they took "more than 5" instead of needing the full 10. This gave rise to the 6-man las/plas squad as a standard. Then for 4th edition they changed it back and my Crimson Fists had to be rejiggered after I had built them around this concept.
2. Various edition including 9th have messed with ork morale in some really bad ways. They hit a solid, playable standard with the Late 4th/but mostly 5th edition codex Mob Rule where leadership effectively was equal to the number of orks in the squad with mobs of up to 30 boyz. It was thematic as orks were basically unbreakable until most of them were gone at which time they got fairly easy to shatter. This last edition broke it once again to where most ork players were finding ways to use smaller mobz and much of the flavor was lost. Hopefully the new game will fix it. 

Overreaction Wednesday - 5E Positivity!

Here's a link to an interview with Mike Mearls. The first section is what really interested me, where he is asked about making the rules available for free:

By sharing the rules, we’re making it easier than ever for people to get into D&D. For way too long the rules have been a deterrent. So, it’s really about focusing on what’s important – campaigns and adventures – and selling that, while removing barriers to entry.

Wow! That is 180 degrees from everything I have ever heard from TSR or WOTC and from what most other RPG companies have done, with one or two exceptions! It very clearly is what Paizo is doing, and I think it's been noticed over at the Wizards place. Now granted, the rules were somewhat freely available with 3E and the SRD, but that was not quite as user-friendly as the new PDF so I'll take that this is a new attitude. There is more:

As far as worrying about sales goes, we’re definitely approaching the business in a different way. In the past, the way to make the business work was to release more and more RPG books. In reviewing sales records, it’s pretty clear that after a few expansions people simply stop buying and many even stop playing.

This works for smaller companies, mainly because they can't release books all that often. I admit that I got that drinking-from-a-firehose feeling with 4E because there was a book every month for a while. That's a lot to keep up with when you like other games too.

Could you imagine trying to keep up with a boardgame if a new expansion or three came out for it every month?

Imagine it? I've lived it, back when Warhammer Fantasy & 40K were well-supported in White Dwarf it was a must-have to get all the rules expansions and new units. 40K has been on quite the run for the last two years as well with some kind of new book or PDF coming out about every month. I will happily take a slower-paced release schedule, especially for an RPG.

In hindsight, it’s actually a fairly obvious move. Let’s say you buy the three core rulebooks and then the two volumes of the Tyranny of Dragons campaign. That gives you everything you need for the next 6 to 12 months of gaming. Do I really have much of a chance to sell you more RPG stuff during that time? Why fight that battle?

Hallelujah! They finally get  it! "Support" does not require a new book every month!

...I think in the past D&D relied way too much on a volume strategy, where we did so much stuff that it was hard for people to get excited about any one thing. Book after book came out each month, far faster than anyone could absorb it all.

Our philosophy now is to make everything count. If we release a new super adventure, like Tyranny of Dragons, or a new rules expansion, we want it to be an event. When you add stuff to an RPG, you’re asking all the DMs out there to evaluate their campaigns, learn new options, and then try to implement them. You have to be very careful in how you add things to the game, and very deliberate in making those additions exciting and compelling.


My dream would be a world where new expansions are real events, where people are seeing exciting new ideas and concepts for the game.

So Paizo is the obvious model here: Rulebooks 3-4 times a year, some kind of small setting supplement every month, and an adventure every month. Campaigns/settings/adventures as the focus instead of rules mechanics. I really really like this approach.

The only other company I can think of that's taking a similar philosophy is Pinnacle with Savage Worlds. For quite a while now the rules have been available for $10 in book or PDF form and the emphasis is on adventures and campaign settings rather than rules expansions. It seems to work alright for them. 

This is what's being said now and I wonder how it will hold up and what we'll be seeing in 2015-2016 as sales numbers start to become real. Perhaps those last two years of not selling a whole lot of books tempered the expectations to more tolerable levels. 

I also wonder if this change means we might see more support for old campaign settings. We know the Realms are going to be a focus for this first wave. Maybe Greyhawk gets some love? Maybe Birthright? Planescape seems like a pretty rich vein to mine for adventures and campaign material. One or two setting "events" per year and it could be a really nice run if this course holds.  

Will I be running it? Not anytime soon, at least as far as a campaign goes. we have a pretty full plate here with Pathfinder, a potential 4E continuation (someday!), and whatever games we can fit in on the side. But I am more interested now than I was, and I would not be opposed to playing it either.

This is about as positive as I have felt about 5th in a long time. I'm looking forward to what comes next.

The New D&D Starter Set - Pros and Cons

Reviews for the new starter set for D&D have been popping up over the last week and they are almost universally positive, which is good, but surprising. I keep thinking back to the reviews of the 4th edition starter and they were mixed at best for what is a very similar approach.

• The new set contains pregen characters, a small rulebook, and an adventure that will take a party to 5th level (and dice).
• The 4E Red Box contained a limited character generation system through a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style short adventure, a small rulebook, and adventure material to get characters to 2nd or 3rd level (and dice).

The main criticism of the 4E set was the limited long term value of the material. You could make a few characters, run through the adventure (and a downloadable adventure) and then other than future use of the poster maps and the tokens there was not much left to do with the contents.

I see the same issue with the new set, but it seems to be less of an issue for people this time. Pregenerated characters are an issue I will address below but this set has the same limited-use issue: once you finish the adventure there is not much utility left in the box. Sure, it has a longer adventure, but it doesn't have the poster maps, tokens, miniatures, or pawns that some of the other recent starter sets had that might be useful components for games down the road, so there is a tradeoff.

Later 4E starter

Finally - pregens. Including only pregenerated characters in this set is a real negative in my opinion. The 4E set had limited character creation so that at least the player got to pick a race and class and some details - like a name - to make it their own. Making players take a character they didn't create lessens the connection and the feeling of having a personal stake at risk in the game. This isn't Conan, Gandalf, Sinbad, and Lancelot teaming up for some epic quest - this is a party of beginning heroes so give the players an option to create them right there in the box!

Pathfinder Beginner Box

Bonus comparison: The Pathfinder Beginner Box had pregenerated characters (the iconic characters for the 4 main classes) but also included basic character generation rules so that it had the best of both worlds - the speed of play of pregens plus the more personal touch of player-created characters. It was more expensive, but I suspect that was more due to the 80-plus pawns included in the game rather than a few extra pages of rules.

Original 4E starter

The earlier 3rd and 4th edition starter sets included miniatures and poster maps or dungeon tiles but did not have character generation rules so there has been a general trend over the last 14 years towards making these kinds of products a very limited introductory item and less of a true gateway like the old Holmes/Moldvay/Mentzer Basic sets. I thought the Pathfinder set might change this trend but apparently not.

3.5 starter

Now the ray of sunshine with the new box is that the new D&D "Basic" rules are available as a free PDF download. That's good. I was thinking the decision not to put character creation rules in the game was still driven by the idea that people might not buy the Players Handbook when it comes out if they had basic rules but clearly that's not the reasoning anymore. Could they really not include some of that in the box? A printed version of the basic rules for character creation for the 4 core classes and a few of the races, through level 5, would have made this a much stronger product for actually exploring the game. I expect the $20 price point forced a ruthless paring down of material though.

3.0 Starter

For me, a huge part of the fun of the game is making up your own character, not playing someone else's. Thinking that it's not essential to me is missing the whole point of why people play the game. Including them as a quick start option, sure - including them as the only option, well, that's just bad. It's saying that individual characters aren't that important and I think that's a bad way to get started. Sure, those of us who have been at it for awhile know that you can have fun playing almost any kind of character if the other players and the DM are good and into the game, but for new players "my character" moments are one of the first things that distinguish RPG's from boardgames.

Also, practically speaking, with the modern emphasis on selling books full of character options, I don't see how de-emphasizing character creation in your first product is a smart move. I'd think the plan would be to emphasize that instead but maybe this is part of the new approach to the game they're supposed to be taking.

In the end this isn't aimed at me and it's probably not even aimed at the apprentices anymore considering they have a fair amount of RPG experience now. I may give them a copy to try out but there's not really a burning urge for a new edition here since they're happy with 4E/Pathfinder/Savage Worlds/M&M/Shadowrun. I do have some interest in running at least a few sessions so I can talk about it with some experience but I am not sure when that will happen. If I do, I'll post about it here.

Overreaction Wednesday

• Bunch of stuff about future D&D organized play options here. I'm not really big into these kinds of things but this one looks almost over-complicated to me. They mention trying to lessen the "intimidation factor" of getting into these things. Maybe that's a problem for some, but I suspect the "hassle factor" of getting in and keeping up with all of this stuff is more of a problem for the grown-ups that might be interested. Want to run a game at the local store? Look - we've added paperwork to enhance the fun! I know, I know, I'm probably overstating it but that's how it strikes me reading the wall of text in those 30+ bullet points. 

• The D&D digital tools available information is listed here. I thought this one was particularly interesting: It includes character generation, adventure management, and rule lookups. CharGen I get. Rule lookups are something you can do with any decent PDF or website. "Adventure Management" though - what exactly would that cover? Combat manager? Loot tracker? I'm a little curious, though I'm not nearly as fired up about New D&D as a lot of people are. 

• EN WORLD did a nice release timeline graphic also - here. I'm sure I'll pick up some of these, I'm just not sure how much.

• M&M Gadget Guide - the compilation of the weekly guides - is coming and there's a little blurb here. I like the cover and the stats for the giant robot are a free PDF & HeroLab download which is pretty cool. 

D&D Release Stuff

EN World has a bunch of stuff about the next release of D&D here. It's coming from Amazon and Wizards so it looks this is the real thing.

First Impressions? Well, for the first time ever I'm going to say "I don't like those covers". I'm having a hard time nailing it down but my gut reaction is "bleah". I don;t think it's the art as much as the overall presentation. I've liked all of the others over the decades. The revised "black cover" 2E books didn't really do much for me but I didn't dislike them. Maybe these will grow on me.

Does that little red "Dungeons and Dragons" flag on the lower left imply we might see books for another game in the same format? Something, say, compatible with D&D enough to share books with it? Don't know, but I'm sure it's there for a reason.

Timing-wise it's a staggered release - PHB in August (Gen Con), MM in September, DMG in November, which seems late but OK.

Notable notes on the Starter Set:

• The starter set is titled (on Amazon): "Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set: Fantasy Roleplaying Fundamentals" - oh lord, it sounds like homework! Core set? Basic set? None of those were good enough?
• "Ideal for a group of 4 – 6 ..." - OK, sounds right
• "...the Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set includes a 64-page adventure book with everything the Dungeon Master needs to get started..." - OK, so far so good. I'm assuming softcover full-color like the Pathfinder starter set
• "... a 32-page rulebook for playing characters level 1 – 5 ..." - Interesting. That's a pretty good range for a starter set
• "... 5 pregenerated characters, each with a character sheet and supporting reference material ..." - and this may kill it if it means there are no character creation rules. I hope there are and this is just additional material to help get a game started, as creating a character is one of those "fundamental" elements of playing D&D. 
• "... and 6 dice." - Cool, this is a good thing.

As long as it has the character creation rules for whatever classes are included then it sounds like a solid deal. The price is certainly right at $19.99 Fantasy Flight has been selling Star Wars Beginner Boxes with dice (but no creation rules, pregens only) for $29.99 for a couple of years now so I think this one will do really well due to price, being a bigger game, and general curiosity.

The Cult of the Dragon/Tiamat thing appears to be all of two adventures. They're both 96 pages, and I wonder what kind of level range they will cover? Two books doesn't scream "Adventure Path" to me. 

I assume that strip at the top will be the new banner/flag for the Realms.

 "Adventure design and development by Kobold Press." - that's interesting. I don't follow KP but I am aware of them, and as far as I know that's not a person but a group of people, so it's basically hiring another company to write adventures which you then publish as your own. That's an odd choice, an escalation of sorts, beyond even using a freelancer. I wonder if it's a one-off thing because of resource shortages while getting the new edition ready - basically not enough in-house writers to go around, or if it will be a continuing thing? It does work around some of those licensing issues if they do not go with an open license - they can target certain design teams or designers with specific projects, identify an adventure or supplement with that name, and keep it as an in-house branded product all at the same time. I guess we will see how it develops.

Apparently they are doing minis too. There an open set (including Drizzt, of course), then there is this:

Collect all 44 miniatures found in the D&D Icons of the Realms: Tyranny of Dragons boosters. Found in 4 figure blind booster packs, and inspired by the Tyranny of Dragons storyline, you'll find dragons, kobold fighters, bugbears, wraiths, mind flayers, and many more iconic D&D characters guaranteed to level up your tabletop roleplaying game experience.

Produced under license by Wizkids

Format: Booster 

Price: $19.99

 Four figures for $20? $5 each? It does look like a pretty good-sized box and it does mention dragons so maybe some of them will be larger than man-sized. That would definitely make a difference for me at least.  

Overreaction Wednesday - Release Dates!

D&D Next/5th/Yet Another Edition coming on 7/15? At least in starter set form it does seem likely. Article on ENWorld here, furious discussion about it on ENWorld here.

Warhammer 40,000 7th/Surprise/Gold-Plated Edition is definitely coming 5/24 (no starter set til August most likely, but the big rulebook will be drop-podding in within two weeks! Here is a video with Jervis Johnson talking about the changes. That's shockingly modern of GW - good job.

Yep, only two things! Isn't that enough? Are you not entertained?

OK fine, here is a funny video for 40K fans - Link. There is harsh language, a lot of harsh language, both audio and printed on the screen. Some familiarity with the universe will make it much funnier.

I don't have a funny D&D video, but WOTC has a bunch of D&D-related videos here. If you're bored and need 12 hours of video of other people playing D&D I'm pretty sure it's in there.

Overreaction Wednesday

There's another article by Mike Mearls on D&D Next, this time on XP. The main point is this:

From the perspective of game design, the difference between these approaches becomes important when we think about how best to implement rewards in published adventures. In the past, we've always defaulted to using experience point rewards for everything. However, for narrative-driven adventures like adventure paths, that approach can prove troublesome. Designers have to jam in the "correct" number of combat encounters to make sure the PCs level up at the right pace. Adventure design thus becomes a process of matching up the right flow of XP to the correct tempo of the plot. Otherwise, if characters don't level up at the expected rate, subsequent chapters in an adventure path become too difficult or too easy.

 Rather than force the issue, a much better approach is to allow designers to present both options, and let DMs decide how best to run any adventure. This simple change to an experience point mechanic that's been in place since the earliest days of D&D helps to illustrate one of our critical guiding principles in the design of D&D Next. The game must provide options to support different styles of play—especially when it's clear that the default way of doing things no longer matches the way so many DMs run their games.

I really don't like this one. D&D has always been about experience and treasure as the main reward. You may or may not have some narrative thing going on as well but 4th Edition laid out a "Quest Experience" system to accommodate that. "Allowing designers to present both options" sounds fine but I suspect what that means is not sticking to our own rules for experience and encounter design - which is ridiculous.

Don't get me wrong in my current 4E campaign I have not always followed the number of encounters per level, and the resulting XP, by the book. There have been times I have told the players to level up for next time, regardless of the amount of XP they have actually gathered. The point is exactly that: I made that call.

The whole point of having a system is to show everyone how it is supposed to work. Individual DM's will vary their approach, but with a solid baseline out there everyone has a common reference point to use. Is D&D really going to have two experience systems, one showing XP/monster per encounter per level and one that says "wing it"? Why bother?

In the mechanics of the game there should be a solid system for XP's and progression. In the DM Advice chapter when discussing a narrative campaign there should be a section on the narrative level up approach. One is rules, one is advice. Everyone has a common reference point and (theoretically) everyone is happy.

Suppose some people decide to ignore initiative too and just start going in Dex order. Do we need to "support" that too? Within the rules. you cannot mechanically support not using certain sections of the rules! Leave that up to the DM's and playing groups.

There are lots of narrative style adventures and even campaigns out there. Typically they are for games that don't use levels and that's where they belong. In a level based game, a published adventure should stick to the system described for that game and leave it up to the DM's to improvise if they choose. Ignoring their own experience system would be a mistake in my opinion for standard D&D adventures.

This doesn't seem to be a difficult concept to execute - Pathfinder's been doing it for about 5 years now and is doing quite well by all reports. Maybe someone there could help WOTC out on this.

Plenty of other games do this just fine and I like a lot of those games. Having experience points and leveling up is one of the signature features of D&D and should stay that way. Sure, you can do it other ways, that's one of the fun things about the game. Let's not rush off and change it just because that seems cooler today.

There's a bit of self-fulfilling prophecy here too. If they would publish some sandbox adventures for this new edition, maybe the narrative style adventure wouldn't seem so dominant. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

Overreaction Wednesday

I mostly ignored the newly created anniversary date of D&D last week. What day should it be? The day the first draft was completed? The first day someone else saw it? The first time Gary ran a game? The first time Dave and Gary talked to each other about it? The day it was first published? One person chose a date and a lot of people agreed with it and that's fine but it doesn't mean much to me. I think it's enough to declare "1974" as the birth "date" of D&D and leave it at that.

That said it did spur some nice articles:

Here's a fairly nice retrospective on D&D's place in things.

Here's another nice little flashback from Tracy Hickman

Some additional thoughts from Wizards folks like Ed Greenwood.

On a different note here's an article on 4E that presents some strengths. I think there's more self-promoting in it than I like but it's not wrong in what it says in general.

This is a Next article on level advancement. It's fine in what it discusses except for a few points

In 1st and 2nd Edition AD&D, a goblin was worth around 15 XP. A fighter needed 2,000 XP to reach 2nd level. That's a lot of goblins—134 goblins would make the fighter 2nd level if you assume the fighter killed them all alone.

Except in 1st Edition AD&D most of your XP's came from gold, not monster XP's, and it was not even close. Comparing monster XP's directly is a waste of time when figuring the speed of level advancement for this edition. I'm a little surprised at this.


The 4th Edition DMG reveals some of the expectations that went into building the XP math for that game:

If you were to start a campaign with 1st-level characters on January 1st, play faithfully for four or five hours every week, and finish four encounters every session, your characters would enter the paragon tier during or after your session on June 24th, reach epic levels in December, and hit 30th level the next summer. Most campaigns don't move at this pace, however; you'll probably find that the natural rhythms of your campaign produce a slower rate of advancement that's easier to sustain.

At four encounters every weekly session, characters would reach a new level every other week, and we thought that felt about right. We also adjusted the scale so that you'd hit 2nd level pretty quickly—the first hit is free, so to speak.


Wait, what? Play 4-5 hours per week and finish 4 encounters every session? I know my group chit-chats a lot but I cannot see any group with the 4E standard of the five character party finishing 4 encounters in 4 hours - or 5 hours. We rarely finish 3 encounters in 5-6 hours. It's more than "pacing" it's just how the game is built.

They're going to set standard assumptions for Next that they feel are good, and as long as they tell us what those are then that's fine. I just don't like to see things I know are not accurate included like they're some scientific baseline for discussion. Maybe I'm being too nitpcky but if you're going to quote precedent, I'd like it to be right!

One other thing I missed in the run-up to Xmas:

When it comes to the outer planes, we're treating Planescape as our default assumption. It's a much-beloved setting and one that's fairly easy (by design) to integrate into existing campaigns. That means the return of the Great Wheel, the Blood War, and other classic elements of the D&D cosmos. The same process for the inner planes applies to the outer planes, with our intent to add elements to the cosmos to increase storytelling opportunities and make the Wheel as flexible as possible for different settings and different DMs.

(cranky gamer face) - One of the "fluff" elements of 4E that  really liked was the revised cosmology. It was simple, made a lot of sense, and fit D&D very well. I'm not thrilled with dumping that. I know a lot of people like the old great wheel, and I know Planescape has its fans. I was just hoping that was one thing they would keep. Ah well.

Less critical: "Tyranny of Dragons" is the big Forgotten Realms event for ... this year? I thought it was The Sundering? Isn't that still going on? It says "later this year" - maybe it's for after Next releases while "The Sundering" is just the run-up to that.

The Good:

• Using an established D&D big evil instead of some new thing
• It puts dragons front and center - evil dragons in particular
• It affects a big popular area of the Realms - good choice

The Bad:

• Using Tiamat as a featured enemy after using her in Red Hand of Doom for 3.5 and Scales of War for 4E. She might be a little too familiar to some groups
• Changing up the Cult of the Dragon - yeah the Dracolich guys are apparently not as interested in that part anymore. That's a pretty big change. I always liked that these guys weren't just a simple dragon-worshipping cult. 
• "Dragon Whisperers" - ugh. Can we skip that part? Dragons aren't animals you know. You can have a conversation with them.
• What year is this again? 

It'll probably be fine. Maybe I can work it into Paragon/Epic for 4E.

New D&D Officially "Next Summer"

Other good things about summer

There's a nice broad range for you. I'm guessing Gen Con or right before Gen Con.

Press release, En World comments etc. here.

Notable line:

Players will be immersed in rich storytelling experiences across multiple gaming platforms as they face off against the most fearsome monster of all time.

Say what? Vecna? Tharizdun? The Tarrasque? Typos? Overly corporate cross-platform-marketing-schemes?

The Winter Fantasy con is in February and I expect we'll see some actual dates announced there.

My take is ... I don't know ... there were things I liked in Next and things I didn't it's difficult to tell from all the versions of the rules we saw, plus their weekly Q&A, plus various interviews, what we're really going to get when the dust settles.   I'm having a hard time getting excited about it. Just not that amped-up at the prospect of buying the PHB-DMG-MM all over again, not to mention the inevitable fighter book, wizard book, Forgotten Realms book, Eberron book, special combat rules book, and all the rest. The editions may change, but the marketing plan does not.

Between the 4th Edition stuff I still have to finish, the Pathfinder stuff I am running, and the occasional foray into Labyrinth Lord I'm going to need more than "Hey it's new D&D" to get energized about this one.

Overreaction Wednesday

I'm taking it easy this week but there is one thing I got a chuckle out of. Mike Mearls has a post on "design elegance" here.

Now this article is fine, the funny part is the comments. One commenter posted what I was thinking:

"Great article on Design, followed by bad comments from readers."

Yep, but it is funny to see the newer generation freaking out about saving throws - apparently now the "old way" of doing them is the fort/reflex/will of the d20 era, and the move to using ability checks (like most of the rest of Next and a lot of other games over the years) is somehow more complex than adding a separate sub-system to the game in addition to ability checks. I was fine with F/R/W but just rolling this into stat checks is simpler overall. What would have happened if they had been around before 3E?

Overreaction Wednesday

It's been a couple of weeks since the last one of these - it feels like we're in a slower period now - the big cons have come and gone, the Next playtest is going internal, and there's not as much going on in general as far as new stuff.

Next

• Apparently Mike Mearls said something about evil character support not being included in the PHB. I doubt this as what is described sounds pretty clunky but then I don't much care either as my groups don't usually play evil characters anyway. There's a poll and a discussion here on EN World. This sounds like the kind of thing people get all excited about and then find out there's really not much to it when the game is finally released. 
• Here's a fairly interesting article on design for Next. I'd like to see stuff like this in the DMG down the road to help guide the future. 
• Here's the article on the Warlock class design if you haven't seen it. This one didn't do a ton for me. I didn't care about them in 3rd but I thought they made some sense in 4E and had some interesting concepts tied to them. For Next's broader approach to classes I think they're going to be about as distinctive as 3E sorcerers were vs. wizards. I hope they prove me wrong but they've never struck me as a "needed" class. They feel more like something that should go in an arcane magic supplement or they should be refit into a more defined niche, like fighter-mage.

4E

I was happy to see that the D&D Encounters adventures are starting to show up on DTRPG. These are one of the harder to find types of books for 4E, at least at a reasonable price, and they are exactly the kind of product that should be available in PDF. This is 12 encounters with a coherent theme for $4.99 - sounds fine to me. Hopefully the rest of them become available shortly too. Being modern products I can't see too many barriers to getting them out there.

Pathfinder

The next big rulebook for PF is the Advanced Class Guide which is supposed to feature new hybrid classes, each of which is a mix of two existing classes. There's a big interview with the designer here and it looks like the beta starts very soon. From their own announcement:

Now that you know when to expect the playtest, on to the new class. Up to this point, we have talked about 7 of the 10 classes: the Arcanist (a mix of sorcerer and wizard), the Bloodrager (a mix of barbarian and sorcerer), the Hunter (a mix of druid and ranger), the Shaman (a combination of oracle and witch), the Slayer (a blending of ranger and rogue), the Swashbuckler (a mix of gunslinger and fighter), and the Warpriest (mixing the cleric and fighter). The 8th class is...

The Investigator. This class blends together elements of the alchemist and the rogue to make for the ultimate sleuth. Using extracts, sneak attack, and a new mechanic called inspiration, the investigator is skilled at putting together clues, finding hidden foes, and striking enemies with precision. Think of him as part Sherlock Holmes, part Doctor Jekyll. Using inspiration, the investigator can add a bonus to certain skill checks, saving throws, and even attack rolls.

Now there are some interesting ideas here and I love the enthusiasm but beyond possible niche bleedover (a mix of druid and ranger? I thought ranger was sort of a mix of fighter and druid already? etc) I'm not sure I've ever heard anyone say that Pathfinder lacks class options. In fact I'm not sure what it does lack with lots of classes, races, gear,, four monster books, and magic and combat supplements Pathfinder is pretty well-stocked in most areas. I'd like to see more of the "interesting new systems" type stuff like we have in Mythic Adventures and Ultimate Campaign, but that's probably my always-the-DM side showing. Have people really gotten bored with 20 or so classes and per-level multiclassing? Where do they find the time? The only holes I can see compared to prior versions of D&D is a psionics system and a monsters-as-pc's supplement. I suppose they will get to those eventually. In the meantime I will take a look at the beta version and see if anyone wants to try them out in our game.

Overreaction Tuesday

There have been a few developmentss since the last time I posted about Next:

From last week's Q&A:

 How would a 3.5 prestige class designed to be taken by a multiclass character, like mystic theurge, be modeled in D&D Next as a subclass?

While we can’t yet talk about which specific subclasses we’re going to end up with, we’re looking into “multiclass friendly” subclasses to help blend the spellcasting classes with those that are not spellcasting classes. This goes in both directions; while we might have a subclass for, say, the fighter that makes it easier for that class to multiclass with a spellcasting class, we’re also considering subclasses for spellcasting classes, like the druid or sorcerer, that make them friendlier for weapon use. For the classes that already mix weapon use and magic, like the bard, cleric, paladin, and ranger, we are less likely to look for subclasses for that purpose. For any concepts not quite rich enough to support an entire subclass, we’re also looking into feats as a potential way to deliver some class-blending aspects, much like what you would expect from the multiclass feats from 4th Edition, especially since the feat design we have right now packs a lot of punch into a single feat.


Wow, I thought multiclassing was settled pretty well in that last packet but now we're tweaking sub-classes for it and we might also use Feats for it? Options are great but this could turn into a mess really quickly if someone takes a few levels in two or three classes, takes a multi-classing feat or two, and then moves into a prestige class. It doesn't really matter until we get details but the 3E approach they've published gives a player two ways to mix in more flavor: per-level multiclassing and prestige classes. I think adding feats into the mix could be interesting but how does it improve the game or add options that those other two do not? I suppose we'll just have to wait and see.

"Here's the windup..."

From the week before:

What is happening in the game world when a fighter deals damage on a missed attack?

Since Armor Class represents a combination of agility and the ability to absorb the impact of the weapon (for example, why a suit of plate, by default, has a higher AC than leather armor), we like to think of it as the fighter character striking the body of the target, and the armor (or hide) absorbing the brunt of the damage, but not all of it; the strike was so brutal and skillfully placed that it did more than anyone else could have done with the same attack. For anyone except a fighter with this very specific training, the armor/hide/scales would normally absorb the full impact of the strike, thus dealing no damage and being described as a miss.

If there were two early and consistent complaints about 4E they were 1) Fighter Daily Powers and 2) "Dissociated Mechanics" where it was hard to tie the game mechanics to a physical action as it happened. This question touches on elements of both and WOTC needs to tread carefully here to avoid the same kind of blowback as we saw with 4E. "Damage on a Miss" is an interesting mechanic and I think it has a place in a game where specific mechanics play a big part in defining a character. If they handle this right - and I like the answer above - then maybe we will see some similar things included for other classes and game abilities.

"ARGH!" (see below)

From the week before that:

Mike mentioned in Legends and & Lore that sorcerer and warlock were back to being full classes instead of mage subclasses; is this true for psions as well?

Right now, psionics are not a priority for our design. Because we have many different ways we could go with the design of psionics, we don't have anything further to announce about psionics at this point.

That's very polite. I'm reading it as "Dear fans: please stop freaking out about trying to cram psionic powered characters into the wizard framework because they won;t be in the first set of books anyway." That's a smart play, even if they let that storm brew a little too long.

"DE-NIED!"

Finally, this came in my DDI monthly renewal notice email over the weekend:

Should you decide to renew your subscription, we wanted to make you aware of some upcoming changes to DDI.  As we look to the future launch of D&D Next, we are shifting our focus to the development and support of the new rules set, which will impact the Dungeons & Dragons Insider subscription service:

• DDI will remain available to those who still wish to access all the great 4th Edition Magazines and Tools as part of the DDI subscription.
• Starting in March of 2014, the DDI tool set (Character Builder, Adventure Tools and Compendium), will no longer be updated with new 4th Edition game content.
• Existing issues of Dungeon magazine and Dragon magazine will continue to be offered for viewing.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere the last issues of Dragon and Dungeon would be in December 2013. Maybe that changed or maybe the extra three months gives them time for any bug fixes or additional updates to wrap things up. At least they're getting the word out now - I appreciate that.

If you're wondering why I still pay for this it's simple: I'm still running it. If you're running a 4E campaign having the compendium at your fingertips - all of the items and abilities - is a nice thing. The monster tweaker is handy too. That said, If my campaign ended next week I'd drop the subscription at the next opportunity as that is it's only real value for me.

 I do wonder what they're going to do with the whole DDI concept for Next - that's some nice reliable income but so many other games (like Pathfinder) have similar (or better) tools available for free that I wonder if it's sustainable for another edition. My own guess would be "no" but I don't know that the corporate outlook will see it the same way. Maybe they will  take a note from MMO games right now and go with the pay-once model (buy the box ala Guild Wars 2) or free base game but pay for the expansions like some other games. I think it would be simpler to just make it free to begin with but like I said, most companies are going to want to monetize their digital content so I doubt that will happen. The presence or absence of an open license may play a role here too. There are some rumors going around that there will be but nothing really solid yet.