Changing the Games We Play
Guess the folks at Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast must just be into changing things this year.
Starting their next "big" expansion in October, Magic gets few alterations they've announced:
- "Intro packs" instead of theme decks. Seems like a fine idea to introducing new players, but I probably would have hit the existing fat packs for this instead of the theme decks.
- Fewer new cards per year. Yay. Even when I was buying a booster box for each expansion, I felt there were an awful lot of cards I never saw myself.
- One common in each booster pack will be replaced with a land. Eh. I can understand the desire to give new players more access to lands (being a fundamental part of the game), but I don't like this way to do it. To people who have tons of land, it's a waste of a card slot. To those who are new, it doesn't give them enough land to do anything with.
- One in eight booster packs will have a new "mythic rare" rarity card instead of a regular rare. Guh. Huge turn-off there for me, as someone who's been scaling back his purchasing by a lot. I can't justify purchasing boxes these days and on the singles market, these are almost guaranteed to be beyond my budget.
Overall... less appeal for me. We rarely play anymore. I can't afford to be in it for the collecting, which seems to be the way they want to push things. Ah well.
I've also had the chance to sit down and look at some of the changes in the soon-to-be-released 4th Edition D&D.
- Alignment shift. No Chaotic Good or Lawful Evil? Huh. Consolidation, of course. It looks like they're further defining "Good" and "Evil" to include "freedom" (a key element of chaos) and "tyranny" (an extreme of order) into those base alignments respectively. I wasn't expecting that, though I don't see any particular problem with it.
- Dragonborn and tieflings, but no gnomes. Again, these seem like odd choices to me out of all the races they could have picked, but that's fine. Eladrin? Meh, they're not a new race to me, just a new name for high elves.
- The focus on "encounters" seems much heavier than previous to me. Pacing of the game, rewards, use of powers - all revolve around the concept.
- It appears the PHB is more of a self-contained rules book than 3E, while the DMG has more advice for the DM. Pleasant change from all signs.
- Discussion of and attention to "roles" in the group. Not a bad thing, but probably the biggest sign from what I see of bleed-over from MMORPGs. The fighter class, for example, is described as a "defender" and gets abilities to encourage enemies to attack it while hindering them if they try to avoid the fighter and go for a softer target. While I remember a long tradition of fighers being in the front line to protect mages, there's now more talk about it and mechnical abilities to back up this tanking to a degree.
- Rituals. I find this idea to be quite neat - things like raising the dead, scrying, notable summons, enchanting items and such being files apart from class abilities and more generally accessible. They have their own limitations and costs, but seem to require a feat (or scroll) rather than being a specific class.
- Multiclassing/Paragon/Epic... I'm a little big fuzzy on these points. At level 11 and 21, you can take on... paths. Sounds like templates to me, in that you get a few extra things as you progress. Multiclassing seems to be taking a feat and swapping some abilities of yours class for those of another. Sounds like it should be simpler in play than previous, but I haven't been able to fully wrap my mind around it yet.
- Giving the players what they want. Strange, maybe, but I find myself having the most reservations about what I perceive as a shift toward further empowering/catering to the PCs. DMs are encouraged to give out magic items along the way based on what the players want rather than what makes sense or what's randomly rolled, and if they don't find it they can potentially make it.
I seem to have a lot of trouble explaining how I feel on this point. D&D has seemed to me a more "neutral/unbiased" game system. Even in 3E with the disparity between PC classes and NPC classes, you could slap whatever class you like on the party's opposition. The game was what I might call "as fair as it needed to be." If a gaming group wanted to play a game where the PCs were superheroic, it wasn't hard. If they wanted to play things more gritty, that could be done too.
Now there's more push toward the PCs being the heroes who are plainly better than anyone else. That's not a bad thing... unless you want to play a game where that's not the case. I think some settings and games are perfect that way, but it feels like there will be an uncomfortable level of desconstruction necessary to make a D&D game where things are more balanced. I prefered D&D as a generic system that could be tweaked to fit a setting - instead of a more genre-specific game that has to be untweaked out of its current bias, then retweaked to fit a setting with a different tone.
Personal bias, I suppose.
Closely tied to that, I think the number of powers associated with each class will make it more unpleasant to try to fit them mechanically into a setting with a different slant. It used to just be magic (which was much of the book) that had to be altered in most cases, but now I'm afraid it might take more effort to personalize a setting and use D&D.
The feeling I get is that is has become more setting-specific.
Well, enough on that for now. I won't be jumping at the books when they hit shelves in a few days, but I probably will buy them eventually. Alas, I expect they'll gather dust for the most part as my current co-gamers seem more inclined toward other games these days.
Starting their next "big" expansion in October, Magic gets few alterations they've announced:
- "Intro packs" instead of theme decks. Seems like a fine idea to introducing new players, but I probably would have hit the existing fat packs for this instead of the theme decks.
- Fewer new cards per year. Yay. Even when I was buying a booster box for each expansion, I felt there were an awful lot of cards I never saw myself.
- One common in each booster pack will be replaced with a land. Eh. I can understand the desire to give new players more access to lands (being a fundamental part of the game), but I don't like this way to do it. To people who have tons of land, it's a waste of a card slot. To those who are new, it doesn't give them enough land to do anything with.
- One in eight booster packs will have a new "mythic rare" rarity card instead of a regular rare. Guh. Huge turn-off there for me, as someone who's been scaling back his purchasing by a lot. I can't justify purchasing boxes these days and on the singles market, these are almost guaranteed to be beyond my budget.
Overall... less appeal for me. We rarely play anymore. I can't afford to be in it for the collecting, which seems to be the way they want to push things. Ah well.
I've also had the chance to sit down and look at some of the changes in the soon-to-be-released 4th Edition D&D.
- Alignment shift. No Chaotic Good or Lawful Evil? Huh. Consolidation, of course. It looks like they're further defining "Good" and "Evil" to include "freedom" (a key element of chaos) and "tyranny" (an extreme of order) into those base alignments respectively. I wasn't expecting that, though I don't see any particular problem with it.
- Dragonborn and tieflings, but no gnomes. Again, these seem like odd choices to me out of all the races they could have picked, but that's fine. Eladrin? Meh, they're not a new race to me, just a new name for high elves.
- The focus on "encounters" seems much heavier than previous to me. Pacing of the game, rewards, use of powers - all revolve around the concept.
- It appears the PHB is more of a self-contained rules book than 3E, while the DMG has more advice for the DM. Pleasant change from all signs.
- Discussion of and attention to "roles" in the group. Not a bad thing, but probably the biggest sign from what I see of bleed-over from MMORPGs. The fighter class, for example, is described as a "defender" and gets abilities to encourage enemies to attack it while hindering them if they try to avoid the fighter and go for a softer target. While I remember a long tradition of fighers being in the front line to protect mages, there's now more talk about it and mechnical abilities to back up this tanking to a degree.
- Rituals. I find this idea to be quite neat - things like raising the dead, scrying, notable summons, enchanting items and such being files apart from class abilities and more generally accessible. They have their own limitations and costs, but seem to require a feat (or scroll) rather than being a specific class.
- Multiclassing/Paragon/Epic... I'm a little big fuzzy on these points. At level 11 and 21, you can take on... paths. Sounds like templates to me, in that you get a few extra things as you progress. Multiclassing seems to be taking a feat and swapping some abilities of yours class for those of another. Sounds like it should be simpler in play than previous, but I haven't been able to fully wrap my mind around it yet.
- Giving the players what they want. Strange, maybe, but I find myself having the most reservations about what I perceive as a shift toward further empowering/catering to the PCs. DMs are encouraged to give out magic items along the way based on what the players want rather than what makes sense or what's randomly rolled, and if they don't find it they can potentially make it.
I seem to have a lot of trouble explaining how I feel on this point. D&D has seemed to me a more "neutral/unbiased" game system. Even in 3E with the disparity between PC classes and NPC classes, you could slap whatever class you like on the party's opposition. The game was what I might call "as fair as it needed to be." If a gaming group wanted to play a game where the PCs were superheroic, it wasn't hard. If they wanted to play things more gritty, that could be done too.
Now there's more push toward the PCs being the heroes who are plainly better than anyone else. That's not a bad thing... unless you want to play a game where that's not the case. I think some settings and games are perfect that way, but it feels like there will be an uncomfortable level of desconstruction necessary to make a D&D game where things are more balanced. I prefered D&D as a generic system that could be tweaked to fit a setting - instead of a more genre-specific game that has to be untweaked out of its current bias, then retweaked to fit a setting with a different tone.
Personal bias, I suppose.
Closely tied to that, I think the number of powers associated with each class will make it more unpleasant to try to fit them mechanically into a setting with a different slant. It used to just be magic (which was much of the book) that had to be altered in most cases, but now I'm afraid it might take more effort to personalize a setting and use D&D.
The feeling I get is that is has become more setting-specific.
Well, enough on that for now. I won't be jumping at the books when they hit shelves in a few days, but I probably will buy them eventually. Alas, I expect they'll gather dust for the most part as my current co-gamers seem more inclined toward other games these days.
Try to help here: Hero/Paragon/Epic are descriptors for the 'feel' of the game at those levels. Back in 3rd and 3.5 editions, when characters breached into the 9 to 12 range of levels, the game shifted. More powerful magic was made available and more potent villians with nastier tricks showed up. Also, it was the level range where those who took an early prestige (Like at 5th or 6th level) class were starting to "get into" that class and it's powers. The characters had larger things to deal with and certainly the scope of a campaign would veer from the troubles of a few places to troubles of a massive kingdom or even nation. By the time characters were nearing the "end game" of levels 16 - 20 the use of magic is near ridiculous, all the things they could do and face, their gear all radiated magic power and frankly, you were saving the world each game session. So they've taken that as sort of a guide for 4E. Your heroic levels of 1 - 10 are your character making a name for himself, fighting localized evils and solving problems in their home and nearby places. When you hit level 11, the game takes a shift, you're now a paragon and the worries of the kingdom/nation you live in are concerns of the adventuring party. the Paragon paths are sort of "gimme" versions of the most likely prestige classes for each base class, further refinement of an aspect of that class's role. Epic is what it says it is, these are the levels your character begins to continent hop or face the most dire of circumstances on their path to a great reward.. a legendary ending, be it demi-godhood, becoming the most powerful mage in the world or just.. walking off into the sunset.
ReplyDeleteI understand the tiers, just not the paths at this point. And previously, there seemed less sharp a distinction (save at 21+ epic levels). The whole 'building to an ending' things sets me off slightly, too. On one hand, I appreciate a good ending in a game. One the other, I'm not sure I like 'the game builds to an ending at level 30' as the default for D&D. Again, I'm more accustomed to my D&D being generic...
ReplyDeleteGiven how rarely I get to RP anymore, this opinion may be moot; but from your description of the new 4th ed, it seems like they are trying to force the players to play their game, and taking away some of the inherent creativity that was what really drew/draws me to RPG's. Looking back on the years I played with you, and other groups, the system was really just a medium for interactive story-telling. I will admit to a fondness for 2nd ed rules because of their simplicity. I never had much use for 3rd - I felt, much like I feel based on your description of the new 4th ed, that they are adding in more and more rules, and options which seem to be a crutch for the unimaginative, a playground for the rules-lawyers, and something that forces constraints on the creativity of everyone else. I've never been one for playing many pre-made modules (ok, we all played temple of elemental evil in one way or another...). Force your players to the limitations of what's in the books, and you might as well just boot up the xbox, or break out the board games. Just my two cents.
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