4E already released!

[Tale]

Wait a second, Warlock's attacks are only once per encounter! That's it, D&D is finished!

 

It would have been so cool to have an entire fight consist of a Warlock yelling dark secrets at his enemy until the enemy lost his mind.

 

"YOU ARE AN INSIGNIFICANT SPEC IN THE UNIVERSE!"

"THERE IS NO PLAN, YOUR LIFE IS MEANINGLESS!"

"NOBODY LOVES YOU!"

"YOU WILL BE FORGETTEN WHEN YOU DIE!"

 

All the while his enemy is screaming "NOOOOO! IT CAN'T BE TRUE!" until his head explodes.

Edited May 30, 2008 by Tale

[Volourn]

4E... looks.... horrible... ... ....

[Jorian Drake]

Wait a second, Warlock's attacks are only once per encounter! That's it, D&D is finished!

 

It would have been so cool to have an entire fight consist of a Warlock yelling dark secrets at his enemy until the enemy lost his mind.

 

"YOU ARE AN INSIGNIFICANT SPEC IN THE UNIVERSE!"

"THERE IS NO PLAN, YOUR LIFE IS MEANINGLESS!"

"NOBODY LOVES YOU!"

"YOU WILL BE FORGETTEN WHEN YOU DIE!"

 

All the while his enemy is screaming "NOOOOO! IT CAN'T BE TRUE!" until his head explodes.

Josh! quick! Take notes for future HK-47 comments!

 

 

 

 

 

and Tale: "You crack me up little buddy!"

[Jediphile]

[quote name='H

[Jorian Drake]

you know, investigation is also a class in its own, and why shouldn't they have levels anyway?

[H]

I love Lovecraft, or perhaps I should rather say I enjoy it. Call of Cthulhu is one of the best RPGs, I've ever played. Clearly your definition of what constitutes "lovecraftian" differs greatly from mine... I'd assume you're using the term on the basis of the "unthinkable secret" or "horror" bits, but to me Lovecraft is rooted in horror literature and works can be very verbose, whereas the above example just using a few catchphrases and then focuses exclusively on game terms and effects, which lacks finesse and literary quality in my eyes - no "we live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity" here...

I'm sorry, but what examples do you refer to? Tale's? Not sure if you've noticed, but he wasn't serious. There are no examples of cosmic secrets of unthinkable horror in the books. Sure, you can crack a your momma joke every time your warlock uses this ability, but nobody encourages you to.

[Jorian Drake]

[quote name='H

[Magister Lajciak]

I am distinctly unimpressed by what I have seen of 4E thus far and unless some new info I haven't seen yet makes me change my mind, I won't be switching nor will I buy the books to poach stuff for my campaign (buying them would be like rewarding the designers for ignoring my concerns and swithing the target audience to other demographics). The nature and scale of the changes in 4E seem to be such (from what I have seen up to now), that they go beyond my threshold for D&D feel... As such, I will either remain with 3.5E or convert to the Pathfinder RPG, or most likely play some houseruled version of D&D (which is what I am playing now) based primarily on the Pathfinder RPG.

[J.E. Sawyer]

I love Lovecraft, or perhaps I should rather say I enjoy it. Call of Cthulhu is one of the best RPGs, I've ever played. Clearly your definition of what constitutes "lovecraftian" differs greatly from mine... I'd assume you're using the term on the basis of the "unthinkable secret" or "horror" bits, but to me Lovecraft is rooted in horror literature and works can be very verbose, whereas the above example just using a few catchphrases and then focuses exclusively on game terms and effects, which lacks finesse and literary quality in my eyes - no "we live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity" here... So "lovecraftian" is not the word I'd use. Besides, d20 (or its successors) have nothing to do with CoC, if you ask me - they gave investogators levels - LEVELS for crying out loud!!!

Delta Green is the only CoC game/setting where more than 5% of campaigns go beyond three sessions anyway -- and for good reason. Stock, old-fashioned Chaosium CoC is great if you want to simulate the story experiences heavily, but it kind of blows as a game.

[Jorian Drake]

I am distinctly unimpressed by what I have seen of 4E thus far and unless some new info I haven't seen yet makes me change my mind, I won't be switching nor will I buy the books to poach stuff for my campaign (buying them would be like rewarding the designers for ignoring my concerns and swithing the target audience to other demographics). The nature and scale of the changes in 4E seem to be such (from what I have seen up to now), that they go beyond my threshold for D&D feel... As such, I will either remain with 3.5E or convert to the Pathfinder RPG, or most likely play some houseruled version of D&D (which is what I am playing now) based primarily on the Pathfinder RPG.

i think the creators were too fast to decide to make this into 4.0, i think it is a good system, but it would be more fitting as a seperate one, not as a dnd decendant

[Sand]

Its just way too overpowered and too cartoony.

[Jorian Drake]

Its just way too overpowered and too cartoony.

...maybe i could accept 'overpowered' as an opinion, even if all the NPC-s and monsters will use the same system, thus a balance (like in every other RPG) would exist, but 'cartoony'? If you mean the illustrations it is your decision how to implement things into the campaign, and I can't find any 'cartoony' thing in the 4.0 otherwise. No rubber chicken summoning, no 'anvil on the head' spell, and no 'banana skin trap'. I am really intetrested in what 'cartoony' means for you.

[Sand]

Over the top and ridiculous levels of action.

[Jorian Drake]

Over the top and ridiculous levels of action.

ah, so "action-rpg"-s are for you cartoons, because the action part

 

I guess cyberpunk and shadowrun then aswell

[Jediphile]

you know, investigation is also a class in its own, and why shouldn't they have levels anyway?

 

Because the death rate among investigators in CoC is so high that having levels is as pointless as a cleric's weapon.

 

The Keeper can change that, of course, but then the horror element of CoC is quickly banished to the outer realms of the Great Old Ones.

[Jediphile]

I love Lovecraft, or perhaps I should rather say I enjoy it. Call of Cthulhu is one of the best RPGs, I've ever played. Clearly your definition of what constitutes "lovecraftian" differs greatly from mine... I'd assume you're using the term on the basis of the "unthinkable secret" or "horror" bits, but to me Lovecraft is rooted in horror literature and works can be very verbose, whereas the above example just using a few catchphrases and then focuses exclusively on game terms and effects, which lacks finesse and literary quality in my eyes - no "we live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity" here... So "lovecraftian" is not the word I'd use. Besides, d20 (or its successors) have nothing to do with CoC, if you ask me - they gave investogators levels - LEVELS for crying out loud!!!

Delta Green is the only CoC game/setting where more than 5% of campaigns go beyond three sessions anyway -- and for good reason. Stock, old-fashioned Chaosium CoC is great if you want to simulate the story experiences heavily, but it kind of blows as a game.

 

Playing "Walker in the Wastes" or "Masks of Nyarlathotep" takes many, many, many sessions, unless you play for a very, very, VERY long time in each instance. And those are classics.

[Sand]

Over the top and ridiculous levels of action.

ah, so "action-rpg"-s are for you cartoons, because the action part

 

I guess cyberpunk and shadowrun then aswell

 

Nopt just action RPGs. Over the top to ridiculous levels of Action RPGs, and when I do run cyberpunk game its not over the top. I keep it gritty, low key, and subtle to a degree. Plan on doing the same in a Shadowrun campaign I am going to run soon.

[J.E. Sawyer]

Playing "Walker in the Wastes" or "Masks of Nyarlathotep" takes many, many, many sessions, unless you play for a very, very, VERY long time in each instance. And those are classics.

I was trying to get at the fact that the average CoC party consists of something like a baker, university professor, prostitute, and 40 year-old private eye with a bastball bat and a .38 revolver between all of them. DG parties tend to be a lot better prepared, organized, and equipped. They also tend to fight a lot of human opponents, like members of The Fate/Maj-12/Karotechia, etc.

[Jorian Drake]

Playing "Walker in the Wastes" or "Masks of Nyarlathotep" takes many, many, many sessions, unless you play for a very, very, VERY long time in each instance. And those are classics.

I was trying to get at the fact that the average CoC party consists of something like a baker, university professor, prostitute, and 40 year-old private eye with a bastball bat and a .38 revolver between all of them. DG parties tend to be a lot better prepared, organized, and equipped. They also tend to fight a lot of human opponents, like members of The Fate/Maj-12/Karotechia, etc.

you people talk so much about coc and such, that i became interested in it, however i already have 4 campaigns going on and cant GM it, and I dont think the others want a game with higher fatality rates than vampire anyway

[Jediphile]

Playing "Walker in the Wastes" or "Masks of Nyarlathotep" takes many, many, many sessions, unless you play for a very, very, VERY long time in each instance. And those are classics.

I was trying to get at the fact that the average CoC party consists of something like a baker, university professor, prostitute, and 40 year-old private eye with a bastball bat and a .38 revolver between all of them. DG parties tend to be a lot better prepared, organized, and equipped. They also tend to fight a lot of human opponents, like members of The Fate/Maj-12/Karotechia, etc.

 

While this is correct after a fashion, it is unusual for a CoC game, and by far the most encounters in the game will be with humans, because the monsters are so terrible that killing them is really, really tough... assuming you don't go insane from just seeing them first.

 

However, what I don't like about the flashier 3.Xe/4e games and their ilk is that they seem to focus on form over content - it suddenly becomes much more important to give the players flashy abilities and powers "OMG are so wicked cool" even if they don't really have much bearing on the game balance, since the opposition gets to take the same abilities - suddenly it becomes more important to make the game "seem" and "feel" cool and munchkin by letting them go through the inevitable hackfest rather than confront them with real problems. For D20 it would be more about having the rights feats and gizmos than building your character the right way. It's another reason why D20 doesn't work well for CoC IMHO, since skill levels are tied to your experience level, meaning no skill can have more ranks than your experience level plus 4. Given that CoC is a game about investigation that focuses heavily on skill use, where is frequently better to be very good at one or a few skills and suck at others, it doesn't work well under D20 since the character is only allowed to take skill ranks so high. CoC is a skill based game. You investigate and find clues. It's not about having the best magical item to hack the monster to bits, because that almost always fails in CoC and should.

 

Of course, D&D has always been closer to the basics of dungeon-crawls and hack 'n slash than games like CoC or Exalted - I don't deny that D&D grew out of board-based wargames - but it did grow beyond that. D&D adventures like "Night's Dark Terror" or "Fate of Istus" are scarcely about exploring caverns and killing monsters. You can do that, but it's just window-dressing. Those adventures are plots first and hackfest second, and with those D&D had grown beyond the hackfest. 3.Xe threw that out in favor of a return to the dungeon-crawl like "Temple of Elemental Evil" or "Tomb of Horrors". 4e seems to continue that trend, throwing away what most RPGs have evolved into in favor "dumbing down" to go all hackfest to get back to basics IMHO.

 

you people talk so much about coc and such, that i became interested in it, however i already have 4 campaigns going on and cant GM it, and I dont think the others want a game with higher fatality rates than vampire anyway

 

Sorry about that. Don't be tempted, though. CoC is a harsh game. I think Paranoia is probably the only RPG that has a higher fatality rate. That said, my central CoC character did go through an entire campaign without dying while people around him dropped like flies. He did not walk away unscathed, though. He lost a bit of sanity... Oh, and he began having a highly unfortunate tendency to end up eating his friends around every full moon

 

Seriously, resist the temptation of CoC - the Great Old Ones are harsh masters and their lure difficult to escape once you're ensnared...

[Tale]

I'm debating on buying these. I've never P&Ped and never will, but something is tempting about purchasing them. They're functionally worthless, but they could have interesting ideas and stuff in them... to what end? To earn my nerd cred?

Edited June 6, 2008 by Tale

[Jorian Drake]

I'm debating on buying these. I've never P&Ped and never will, but something is tempting about purchasing them. They're functionally worthless, but they could have interesting ideas and stuff in them... to what end? To earn my nerd cred?

oh lol...i suggest you buy vampire or 3.5 instead as your first books

 

i like 4.0, but that much that i suggest it to the others as first books

[Tale]

Is vampire 3.5 somehow more useful to someone who will never P&P than D&D 4.0? Is Vampire's art better? Is there more likely to be a Vampire 3.5 video game for me to use the books as background for when playing?

Edited June 6, 2008 by Tale

[Jediphile]

Is vampire 3.5 somehow more useful to someone who will never P&P than D&D 4.0? Is Vampire's art better? Is there more likely to be a Vampire 3.5 video game for me to use the books as background for when playing?

 

Probably not, but 4e is unlikely to be that useful either, since the computer games usually rewrite the rules pretty freely. Just look at the KotOR games - they are based very loosely on the D20 Star Wars rules and work very differently in several ways. For example, in the computer games, you can choose to use the Flurry progression, the Critical Hit progression or the Power Attack progression, but you cannot use them at the same time like you can in the P&P game. And none of the force-skills made it into KotOR either, while many, many feats and powers were totally rewritten. There wasn't even a sentinel class in the P&P game, and the jedi prestige classes are unlike those in the RPG too.

[Tale]

I've already established that it's going to be useless to me. But what makes another useless thing preferrable? If I do buy some P&P books that I'll never ever use, why that one?

 

At least D&D has some familiarity for me. I've read a number novels and played several games that were based on the Forgotten Realms part of it.

Edited June 6, 2008 by Tale