Monday, May 12, 2008

4th Edition Excerpts: Giants and Epic Destinies

Who and a what huh? Hill giants are just like stone giants? When did that happen? Why was I not informed?

Okay, maybe they play similarly in combat. I wouldn't know, having never had a party of the right level to express my thwarted interest in giants. But how does that translate to "too similar?" They may have the same intelligence, but they don't act the same. Maybe they could use a little mechanical differentiation, as the kids say these days, but I can tell 'em apart.

And I'm all for limited campaigns, and the presented material does look kinda cool, but I'm not so sure I want my game system structuring my campaigns for me. On the other hand, giving characters a concrete way to provide feedback to the DM sounds kind of nifty. "Ah, Dave has taken 'destroyer of zwirfs' as his epic destiny. He must want to fight zwirfs." On yet another hand, shouldn't the DM be able to figure that kind of thing out?

I'm still looking forward to 4e. I've liked all the preview material so far. (Except for the sword wing. No hints of history, and it does nothing horrible to the PCs, fulfilling neither of my main monster criteria.) And, if it plays fun, fast, and with less work, that'll be worth any weirdness in the setting fluff. And any weirdness generally.

But those bits of it strike me as just a little bit off.

4 comments:

  1. On the other hand, giving characters a concrete way to provide feedback to the DM sounds kind of nifty. "Ah, Dave has taken 'destroyer of zwirfs' as his epic destiny. He must want to fight zwirfs." On yet another hand, shouldn't the DM be able to figure that kind of thing out?

    Or, you know, the player could just tell the DM, "Hey, I wanna fight zwirfs in this campaign." That's an idea that's so crazy, it just might work! ;)

    Seriously, trying to figure out what your players want through all this crazy subterfuge seems silly and passive-aggressive to me. You need to be asking your players what was fun and what was dull, and asking them what sort of adventures they want. Otherwise, you're likely to "clue" right past each other. This is one of those areas where apparent WotC goals seem to be steeped in bizarre and pointless ritual.

    - Brian

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  2. Yeah, straightforward is usually the way to go.

    I kind of get the impression that WotC wants to use their system to teach people how to play "properly." They figure a bunch of dumb kids are going to be playing their game for the first time, and they want to give them some handholds to show them where to go. So you get stuff like quest cards and epic destinies.

    Which isn't particularly necessary. Plenty of kids had fun with the older editions without all those doodads.

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  3. I kind of get the impression that WotC wants to use their system to teach people how to play "properly." They figure a bunch of dumb kids are going to be playing their game for the first time, and they want to give them some handholds to show them where to go.

    Which is why I think this passive-aggressive, guess-what-I'm-thinking stuff is dangerous. It feeds the notion that up-front asking people what they want is somehow cheating. Yeah, it's great if you can read your players and adjust things on the fly to fit the current mood and mold the flow of events to the moment-by-moment desires of your players. But on the big themes, if you're trying to guess what the players want, and they're trying to hint, you're just asking for disaster.

    Which is my long-winded way of saying I agree with you. ;)

    - Brian

    PS - Thanks for the heads-up on Gnome Stew.

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  4. Forget Dave, *I* want to fight zwirfs!

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