Comments for Mob | United | Malcolm | Sheppard

Comment on The Obligatory D&D5 Post by admin

admin — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 00:06:55 +0000

Well, you never know what the methodology is. They may have a way of crunching large amounts of qualitative feedback presented in a standardized form.

Comment on The Obligatory D&D5 Post by magicbox

magicbox — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:59:22 +0000

Yeah, I wonder how many playtesting levels they have. I know they do alpha testing in very small groups, and traditionally beta testing was more prolific but still a small group, just not a small group that helped design it, thus noting the stupid little things that the designers just assumed you’d know or do. I don’t think that the open playtest is like beta testing, since if they do have most of the game built then I agree that almost nothing will get changed. I still remember that we managed to get Appearance dumped in nWoD playtesting and in the middle of playtesting they seriously changed the entire dice system, neither of which I can see WotC doing.

Also with large enough groups of people playtesting it’s difficult to build consensus on what needs to change and difficult to build momentum to encourage the company to change it.

Comment on The Obligatory D&D5 Post by admin

admin — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 06:12:47 +0000

We did much the same thing. I fantasize reviving the “Advanced,” brand for the kind of rules that appeal to serious system-wonks. They’d even use the old three book structure beside the box sets, with each adding complexity to these core elements.

But I don’t think they’re going to do that, which is a pity.

Comment on The Obligatory D&D5 Post by Crose87420

Crose87420 — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 06:07:48 +0000

Interesting stuff. I, myself, not being a particularly astute industry follower and not particularly astute anyways I was surprised when I heard the announcement that D&D 5e/Next would be live play-tested at the D&D Experience convention in late January. It was only at the end of September, I believe, that Monte Cook was brought back to WotC and the hints of a possible new edition started. Now, about four months later, play-testing the game is happening? My first thought was; “They have this thing (the rules) done, or nearly done.” So why the open community play-test? Well, I figured it was a good way to find out if any of the rules would result in serious backlash. ( I hadn’t considered the, “making it our (your) own game by being part of the process,” as a reason for the play-testing, but, I’m not that astute as I mentioned.)

As was mentioned the people involved in 5e/Next are very capable. I think they will no doubt produce something very widely accepted within the RPG community but not something that blows up like D&D did back in the 80′s.

One last tidbit, an interesting thing occurred to me the other day. We played Basic/Expert D&D back in the day. When AD&D came out, the PHB and DMG , we used those rules but not as they were originally meant. We cherry-picked the rules we wanted, both players and DM, from these books and brought them into our Basic/Expert games. Sometimes a player would use a rule from the PHB that none of us at the table used, or maybe even knew about. But, as soon as the player said, “oh, it’s on page xxx of the PHB,” it was all good and didn’t seem to make any difference in the game. We also used Basic/Expert and AD&D modules/adventures without any thought as to what system they were intended and it all worked out fine.

Hopefully 5e/Next can pull this off.

Comment on The Obligatory D&D5 Post by admin

admin — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 01:32:22 +0000

Well, it’s not really their job to be radical, but create a version of D&D with broad appeal. They’re talented folks, though I think designing D&D is pretty burdensome, as it’s filled with expectations from lots of different parties.

Comment on The Obligatory D&D5 Post by Rob Sharp

Rob Sharp — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 00:40:42 +0000

That would be a recipe for disaster then! Do you think WotC is capable of anything radical, that isn’t system related, at this point?

Comment on The Obligatory D&D5 Post by admin

admin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:12:43 +0000

One of the things Eberron was used for was to dump all of the ideas kicking around WoTC that were never published, like pulpy Haggard and Prof. Challenger style stuff. Baker’s Eberron was not really the same as the final product, and I’m not sure how it really turned out for them, so I’m not sure they’d be bullish on this except as a promotional thing. After all, I’m sure the prevailing attitude is that any winner would be a vehicle for the excess fluff collecting in house first.

Comment on The Obligatory D&D5 Post by Rob Sharp

Rob Sharp — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 23:04:41 +0000

I think it would be interesting if WotC repeated the Eberron experiment and asked the community for a setting rather than relying on Forgotten Realms, which I guess they see as a fairly safe bet (and coincidentally have a mountain of assets to easily exploit).

Comment on The Imperial Mysteries Post by admin

admin — Sat, 21 Jan 2012 06:50:16 +0000

First, the fact that you used some kind of 4chan Anon email as if you were the uncounted legions is a bit much. You’re a TVTroper and RPGnetter who uses the handle Zenoseiya.

But leaving that aside, I’ll just say that:

1) It’s up to you, but it could be yes. A “yes,” is not even meaningful, though. The overall cosmology that Imperial Mysteries uses, above and beyond what is in the book, is not an objective Giant Space Dungeon, with easily classifiable zones.
2) No, it’s not incongruous. Your reading draws premature conclusions. Example . . .
3) The text of Imperial Mysteries never describes what Abaddon looks like. It never says it’s a “fiery hell.” In fact, Inferno never says hell is all fiery and Judeo-Christian references. It might be in spots, but you largely inserted these references where they did not exist — as in, they were not written down in the books.
4) Demons are, in fact, freaky soul-eaters as well.
5) It’s a big enough place for all kinds of things. Imperial Mysteries has text space limits, so it will naturally go for broad strokes and playable concepts.

Comment on The Imperial Mysteries Post by Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 05:03:46 +0000

Is the description of Abaddon supposed to explain that the Inferno and the Lower Depths are the same place? Because the description is incongruous with previous mentions of the Lower Depths in the books and by the writers, which described it as a grey waste rather than a fiery hell, inhabited by freaky soul-eating “Invaders” instead of debased and tormented demons.