Joseph Bulock

Lunar Knights Zelda: Phantom Hourglass Animal Crossing Nintendogs

I really don't think its going to be a tougher sell. I think, even if many of the "hardcore" D&D folks don't go out and purchase 4.0, which I actually doubt any meaningful portion of them really will, I think the edition will do much better at bringing new people in. 3.5 was hard to bring new people into if they weren't really into it. Fourth edition looks much easier to run a casual campaign, or a one off with a group of people who really don't think of themselves as pen and paper gamers. I only say this because the latest batch of WotC products do a good job of this. I've played Inn Fighting with plenty of folks who'd never play a full on D&D game, and while its designed for that sort of experience, I think fourth edition, with some work, could be used as a gateway game. I'd even venture to say that it enables this without penalizing those of us that want to run campaigns that span months or even years, though I'm sure I'll be burned alive for saying so.

I was just as sad to hear it. I just recently picked up TQ through steam and have been really having a great time with it. Many of the 40k fans at the office have picked up Soulstorm and have been playing that, with all the various "that's really awesome" comments abounding. I would love to have seen what came next from them. Also, picking on the grammar on a bunch of people who just saw the product of years of blood and sweat disappear is really classy.

NIN - Ghosts I-IV Protest the hero - Bloodmeat

I'm in the odd camp that would eat sausage made from my own blood before I ate sausage made from the blood of another creature, so I don't see what you're all freaking out about. You're eating blood and flesh all the time, why be so picky.

I voted Wii. I love mine, play it constantly, and get more enjoyment out of it per session than my 360. I don't play with friends that often, and while the games aren't swearing every chance they can get like most 360 games, they are fun in a way that I'd say is independent of age.

I believe it's the other way around. But don't quote me! Alvin is, as always, wrong.

I love how you read a massively positive article and pull out only the minor gripe.

the quote isn't about 'defending every side of an argument'. it's about continuing to defend one side of an argument even when it leads to absurdity (e.g. claiming nystul's magic aura is a combat spell). I have to say that it's more about a fairly poorly defined argument on your part. If he was claiming that it was a spell to cast in combat, your argument would stand, and Gromnir would be getting a bit silly. But instead, he's pointing out that every spell in D&D can have a value in combat, which I think is a valid point. Not every spell is going to do damage or even do harm to your enemies, but almost every spell can go towards confusing them, misleading them, or hampering their ability to make the best decisions they can in combat. The only trick is to have a DM that is actually doing anything interesting enough to make use of the spells.

Of course, Japan has some of the best public transportation in the world. Not that I'm defending DUI, there's no excuse for it.

And that's pretty much how I imagine I'll feel about 4th. I'll still have some nice memories about 3rd edition, and especially some its variants, but I imagine that most of my games will be happily run in 4th edition. That being said, I'm going to be really bummed out if Iron Heroes doesn't have a 4th edtion conversion or new book.

Because it costs money to make it?

My point isn't that they have to be goofy and annoying, more that they seem very much predisposed to it. This comes as much from generic fantasy concepts of gnomes and halfings then things specific to D&D, but that's part of my point. Moving towards more races that are more specific to D&D will give them a more defined setting, and maybe even help them pull away from some of the more "washed out" fantasy races.

I'm not sure exactly why gnomes get me. I'm not a fan of halfings much either, might just be the annoyance of small weapons. Could also be the lighter tone of all of their cultural stuff, or they way that most players always play goofy, "whimsical" gnome characters, and most of my games lean towards the darker side of things.

Definitely a good point, but while I hate being the only non-drow in a party (they tend not to fit my playstyle), I do lookforward to playing dragon born or tiefling characters, especially if their inclusion in the PHB means no level adjustment. You can blame the dragonlance setting, but I'm looking forward to have a draconic race that is fairly commonplace.

You got it backwards. Tieflings are in the core book. Gnomes aren't. In all seriousness, I'm excited to have more interesting races in the PHB. Gnomes seem like one of those we have these because every fantasy setting has them sort of races, while tieflings are at least slightly more D&D unique. Same for dragonborn. Half dragon people and half demon people are nothing new, but they at least are new to the PHB, and for those people who don't buy the second, third, etc PHB's, it'll be nice to have some new faces in the book.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20080201a Josh also forgot Dragonborn look neat.

Also, they revealed today in Ask Wizards that there will be a social encounter system. This sound's pretty interesting, and might encourage more "talk your way out of it" sort of things, but also has the possibility to let lame gamers "roll my bluff check" or whatever constantly and not do any actual role playing.

Not at all. Just trying to shake up the echo chamber. Everyone is entitled to like whatever they want.

I blame kiddies and their uber graphix consoles. I blame people who want a gaming experience that doesn't require a calculator, is easy to get friends into, and avoids bickering over conflicting interpretations of ambiguous or poorly defined rules.

You're old school. We get it.

So small changes that aim to refocus previous ideas are too small to be innovative, but the big ideas (changes to story settings, skill systems) are no good because they move too far away from third edition... Another headache, courtesy of Sand

I got dragon too, which really doesn't seem to fit. I think they need more creatures or something.

I was actually thinking more as a player. I really enjoy my character being the source of cool stuff, and would gladly have seen even fewer magic items. The fact that the game is balanced to have characters given magic weapons of lesser bonuses at certain levels is alright, but I'd rather just not have magic weapons that boost stats.

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/d...;authentic=true New post finally! They claim to have simplified magic items, and have removed a few slots. I think I'd rather have seen even less dependence on magic items, but I'm probably in the minority there.