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Who are the edgy elves in the context of PHB1 for 4e? Also they did add gnomes latter on from what I recall
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Dec 30, 2021 14:32
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Eladrin???? But they weren't edgey. They were just fey elves. I don't know grog doesn't makes sense sometimes.
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Dec 30, 2021 14:37
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I assume they mean tieflings, they were in the first player's handbook iirc.
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Dec 30, 2021 14:40
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It's an objective rationalization for a subjective opinion. At some point "I just don't like it" stopped cutting it so you started seeing desperate objective complaints like "there are no gnomes." It's more common in pseudopolitics, with biased crap like crime statistics or IQ tests being cited when "I just don't like them" stopped working. Kai Tave posted:Mearls didn't really start out as the guy in charge though, that was a result of layoffs and reorganization from what I remember. I wonder if his heel turn came along with the layoffs then. He probably leveraged sabotaging the product as "taking it in an exciting, proven direction!" which, meant trying to appease a handful of bloggers by addressing their spurious complaints. Which was doomed to fail since, as above, Magic Missile missing and absent gnomes were never the problem - it was just a non-debatable hook that people could hang bad feelings on.
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Dec 30, 2021 14:53
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The PHB 2 Gnomes were pretty great, finally having a unique niche to live in.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:03
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Coolness Averted posted:But from what I recall Hasbro didn't expect giant things. Magic was what justified WotC to Hasbro and D&D was a side passion project they were allowed to keep. Like 3x even has the famous anecdote Monte Cook used to share about WotC being really proud 3e had the best sales of any d&d launch year, and the exec just shrugged and said that was a standard GI Joe year. You have to remember that, at the time, Hasbro was still riding high off of Transformers movie money. As the tweet thread points out, they were gambling on a lot of IPs in an effort to catch lightning in a bottle for a second time. Hel posted:I assume they mean tieflings, they were in the first player's handbook iirc. I assume it's this, except Tieflings have been around as playable characters since 2E.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:03
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Coolness Averted posted:But from what I recall Hasbro didn't expect giant things. Magic was what justified WotC to Hasbro and D&D was a side passion project they were allowed to keep. Like 3x even has the famous anecdote Monte Cook used to share about WotC being really proud 3e had the best sales of any d&d launch year, and the exec just shrugged and said that was a standard GI Joe year. You recall wrong; 4E was trying to become a topline brand like Magic and it was expected to do Magic numbers. Otherwise 4E would have been a side passion project and got no corpo support at all.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:05
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That said, I do know someone else IRL who was turned off by 4E by the fact that there were no gnomes, because at the time she refused to play anything but gnomes. I never really understood it, but by the point of 4E's release I was so burned out on D&D that it didn't matter because I wasn't playing it anyway so I never tried to understand.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:06
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The situation was also exacerbated when their competitor agitated to continue selling the previous edition. Like, suddenly gnomes were really loving important because money was on the line.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:13
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Covermeinsunshine posted:Who are the edgy elves in the context of PHB1 for 4e? Also they did add gnomes latter on from what I recall You actually could play gnomes from the jump in 4E; there were rules in the Monster Manual for their ability scores and racial power. They didn't have any feat support though; that came in PHB2 with their official introduction, alongside most of the missing classes from the PHB like bard, druid, and sorceror. You really couldn't have put out a complete 3E-compatible PHB because the different structure for classes meant you needed page space for 30 levels of class powers. And also ideas for 30 levels of class powers, which I imagine is what kept the monk out until PHB3.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:18
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Falstaff posted:That said, I do know someone else IRL who was turned off by 4E by the fact that there were no gnomes, because at the time she refused to play anything but gnomes. I mean, there was also this official promotional animated spot where a gnome was complaining about only making the MM cut, not the PHB, and a tiefling set his badger on fire. (I confess to liking it because literally everybody I knew who played a gnome in 3E played a conniving little poo poo who caused problems on purpose and rolled Bluff checks against the party when they called him on it, which somehow the DM allowed.) They definitely were not expecting there to be a faction of gnome lifers raising the ruckus they did.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:26
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Glazius posted:And also ideas for 30 levels of class powers, which I imagine is what kept the monk out until PHB3.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:29
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MadScientistWorking posted:Nope. The monk wasn't the issue. The issue is that they originally wanted to have a power source that the monk would fit into called Ki. Eventually they realized that they couldn't come up with ideas for some of the classes beyond monk and that the idea was kind of racist. That's why the monk doesn't follow the psionic scheme. Its a class built with a different design philosophy that got dumped into that power source because ehhhh close enough. I thought that made them cool.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:35
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Siivola posted:Re: Online gaming, I think it's way more likely that the next big thing in the virtual tabletop world comes from an established video game company deciding to cash in on RPGs than from WotC's software department. All of the big traditional RPGs are hampered by janky rules that need massaging to move to digital, and all the current VTTs suffer from trying to support every game out there. You could do cool poo poo with a bespoke ruleset and a matching platform, but then you also would need an IP to get any eyes on the product. I think that's what Fandom is (was?) trying to do with Cortex. They were a tech company who bought an RPG system with a history of being used on licensed IPs, and they've bet the farm on their digital tools. They're not doing a great job and I suspect that after Legends of Greyskull comes out Cortex will go into hibernation for another decade, but there it is.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:40
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Coolness Averted posted:But from what I recall Hasbro didn't expect giant things. Magic was what justified WotC to Hasbro and D&D was a side passion project they were allowed to keep. Like 3x even has the famous anecdote Monte Cook used to share about WotC being really proud 3e had the best sales of any d&d launch year, and the exec just shrugged and said that was a standard GI Joe year.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:40
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Bucnasti posted:You are stuck with the same mentality as the people running these products, “it’s as good as we can make it, this is how I got into the hobby so we should keep doing it that way.” Okay, let's lock into a specific example. Please explain to me how Warhammer could reduce friction when I can walk into any brick and mortar GW store and go "i want do warhammer but i no understand game" and get a free gameplay, assembly and painting tutorial? Followed by buying a starter kit with two (small) complete armies? After which I am handed a schedule for store's game nights? I can promise you GW is not, in any way, shape or form running their business "the same way" they did in 1994. I know it's fun to be smug on the proto-4chan, but you're literally just saying companies should build their own community supporting infrastructure that already exists and didn't cost them a dime to make and this will translate into money and you have provided absolutely zero examples of anywhere this is being done and if it's making an impact on sales. admanb posted:Mixing pure white in for your highlight will work okay for pink but will look like a washed out mess for a lot of other colors. The GW system is often lower-investment than how skilled painters mix colors because you need a lot of different light and dark colors tones to mix good shades and highlights. The point I was making is that GW's beginner pipeline is both highly efficient at teaching you how to assemble and paint miniatures, and it's made very convenient, and it is also tailor-made to make GW a shitload of money at the new customer's expense. Not all of their painting guides do this ,but there are many where they just kind of go "you're gonna need like 16 different paints to do this" and you absolutely do not need 16 different paints to get an excellent paint job.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:46
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Kai Tave posted:Mearls didn't really start out as the guy in charge though, that was a result of layoffs and reorganization from what I remember. D&D department layoffs were a yearly tradition for a while, though it's not really clear if underperformance (however you care to define it) prompted the layoffs or if the layoffs then resulted in underperformance which then prompted further layoffs etc. It still is rather astonishing that mearls went from the guy who was writing the "Calm down you loving Grogs everything is going to be fine here I'll even explain it to you." Articles before 4e's release to the guy who was publishing a new wizard subclass every month while the Fighter still only had a basic attack.
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Dec 30, 2021 15:58
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Kurieg posted:It still is rather astonishing that mearls went from the guy who was writing the "Calm down you loving Grogs everything is going to be fine here I'll even explain it to you." Articles before 4e's release to the guy who was publishing a new wizard subclass every month while the Fighter still only had a basic attack. Mearls has never been a super great "guy in charge" kind of designer imo, Iron Heroes was not undeservedly praised for having some really fun concepts but the actual execution thereof was pretty rough in a lot of places, and during 4E's development he was apparently the voice on the team who kept trying to pull things back to being more 3.X-ish, but I guess his actual skillset is knowing what side his bread is buttered on. I'll give him this, once the whole Zak thing broke he permanently abandoned his twitter account immediately rather than trying to post through it, which people in far greater positions of power making far more money have utterly failed at doing. Whatever else, he knows how to look out for number one. Siivola posted:Re: Online gaming, I think it's way more likely that the next big thing in the virtual tabletop world comes from an established video game company deciding to cash in on RPGs than from WotC's software department. All of the big traditional RPGs are hampered by janky rules that need massaging to move to digital, and all the current VTTs suffer from trying to support every game out there. You could do cool poo poo with a bespoke ruleset and a matching platform, but then you also would need an IP to get any eyes on the product. I'm really unconvinced that the next big step in TRPGs lies in branded IP because for pretty much the entirety of the hobby there's been one game that ever pulled ahead of D&D to any notable degree at any point and that wasn't a licensed branded game, it was Vampire. The Avatar: the Last Airbender kickstarter made like 10 million dollars and it's considered the mega runaway TRPG crowdfunding success of all time, and my guess is that it's going to go the way of all brand IP elfgames which is it's gonna slide right into the not-D&D pile while D&D continues to dominate the scene. Online and VTT stuff becoming much more of a factor is a lot more likely, though even there I don't expect WotC to actually develop anything themselves so much as buy out something, and I definitely don't expect such advances to come from video game companies because even though WotC is officially a billion dollar company now, video games are still a much bigger deal overall. But in terms of IP that gets eyes on the product? The IP that gets the most eyes on your product is D&D, and that's not changing anytime soon.
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Dec 30, 2021 16:40
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Piell posted:Yes, it means you're making things people like instead of sticking to things basically nobody likes because "tradition" lol what a loving nerd, gnomes rule evanescence elves drool e: In all seriousness it may have been halflings that were cut? Basically one of the "fun" races was cut for a another stoney-faced, Very Cool and Serious elf spin-off
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Dec 30, 2021 17:07
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I will hear no opinion on Eladrin from people who haven't run Taclords.
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Dec 30, 2021 17:17
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Wasn't the major reason Gnomes were cut from the 1st 4e PHB because they, historically, haven't really had a clear identity within the game and have had trouble narratively distinguishing themselves from Halflings? In all honesty, I feel like they should have just have just renamed Hobbits to Gnomes in the transition from OD&D to Basic/AD&D when they got that cease and desist from the Tolkien estate, it would have nipped two problems from the earlier editions (Halflings/Hobbits as a race of easy-going homebodies that don't like doing D*D adventure stuff and Gnomes whose racial schtick changes every edition) in the bud.
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Dec 30, 2021 17:20
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TheDiceMustRoll posted:Okay, let's lock into a specific example. At what point in that process does the guy at GW explain that if you want to play the army that interests you you'll need to buy (and carry around) this stack of books to compile all their rules? Or that if you want to create an actual army to play against anyone you'll need to break out a piece of paper and a calculator and figure out your point costs like you're doing your taxes because GW doesn't offer a good digital army building solution and they won't support the 3rd party ones that do? Those are points of friction for a new player, those can be eliminated but GW is stuck in the "We need to sell books made of dead trees" mentality of a 20th century business that thinks it's competitors are other game companies that also sell books instead of a 21st century business that realizes it's real competitors are companies like Netflix and King that put serious effort into making their products frictionless for new users. Friction is not a roadblock, it's an accumulation of small things that slows the flow of new players through your introductory funnel, your example of a painting guide that requires 16 different colors of paint is a perfect example, and the introduction of Contrast paints is an example of them addressing some of that friction. Buying stacks of books and relying on janky 3rd party apps are more examples that these companies are not addressing. "GW/WotC digital products have always sucked" is not a valid argument for not doing them it just means they need to devote more effort to it. Relying on a community that they didn't pay for means they have no control over how their product is promoted, it means that rear end in a top hat in the local group can gatekeep, or that people can be left to fend for themselves if they don't have access to a local community. All of these are solved problems that other industries have already faced, but tabletop games continue to look inward instead of expanding their horizons outward.
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Dec 30, 2021 17:21
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Dawgstar posted:I will hear no opinion on Eladrin from people who
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Dec 30, 2021 17:31
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Companies with razor-thin margins don't really have a lot of money to invest in digital tools - most creators are struggling to pay writers a decent wage and find artists they can afford. Also, there's D&D. And there's currently no incentive for D&D to do anything differently, as they're making more money than they ever have. Waving your hands around and saying "things could be better!" is true but there's no real reason why it's feasible.
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Dec 30, 2021 17:31
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Bucnasti posted:You are stuck with the same mentality as the people running these products, “it’s as good as we can make it, this is how I got into the hobby so we should keep doing it that way.” Why are you arguing with TheDiceMustRoll as if you're talking to a Hasbro rep? WotC are doing amazing with the terrible ways they're running now, I'm sure if things flag they'll come and get business advice from you. 
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Dec 30, 2021 17:57
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Kai Tave posted:
They are working on digital tools internally right now. It's probably going to be the foundation of whatever the "next edition" of D&D is that they talked about recently coming in like 2024 or 25 or whenever. According to the Survey they sent out are probably going to be filled with cosmetic microtransations, for like digital minis and probably Dice, as well as WotC seemingly generally hiring up a number of designers recently. Bucnasti posted:You are stuck with the same mentality as the people running these products, “it’s as good as we can make it, this is how I got into the hobby so we should keep doing it that way.” WotC on some level doesn't care if people steal their game, like I'm sure they want people to pay for it, but like they fully understand that a number of people will just pirate poo poo, or go to DnDBeyond or R20 to buy it, rather than buying books WotC gets paid from the Third Party sites whatever their share is, but more importantly than that, they keep a stranglehold on Marketshare because they are likely fully aware that a number of people just use 5etools or download PDF's or whatever, but they are still playing the game and keeping "D&D" front and center. Dexo fucked around with this message at 18:03 on Dec 30, 2021 |
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Dec 30, 2021 17:57
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Truly, D&D had never had different kind of elves before 4th Edition had the audacity of deleting gnomes forever, nor had anyone ever made a distinction between forest-loving elves, high-magic elves, or the fey, in the history of all fiction and all D&D editions.
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Dec 30, 2021 18:19
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Tuxedo Catfish posted:
It's me, I'm the one who was deeply fond of/had a crush on the eladrin in AD&D and got unreasonably angry that they were relegated to 'just another elf' in 4e. TheDiceMustRoll posted:The point I was making is that GW's beginner pipeline is both highly efficient at teaching you how to assemble and paint miniatures, and it's made very convenient, and it is also tailor-made to make GW a shitload of money at the new customer's expense. Not all of their painting guides do this ,but there are many where they just kind of go "you're gonna need like 16 different paints to do this" and you absolutely do not need 16 different paints to get an excellent paint job. Just a side comment here. The friction with GW isn't 'how do I assemble and paint miniatures', it's having to assemble and paint the bloody things at all.
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Dec 30, 2021 18:24
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I think much more of an issue is that the main friction in starting an RPG isn't character generation or rule access, it's cat herding. And that can't really be reduced because people are people. Even in-person meets tend to have problem with groups becoming locked-in long-term. You can maybe get away with pick-up one-shots but those aren't that interesting for many people and they push even more in the direction of having only One System To Rule Them All because learning a new system for a one-shot is a lot of effort for relatively little payback.
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Dec 30, 2021 18:27
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hyphz posted:I think much more of an issue is that the main friction in starting an RPG isn't character generation or rule access, it's cat herding. And that can't really be reduced because people are people. Even in-person meets tend to have problem with groups becoming locked-in long-term. You can maybe get away with pick-up one-shots but those aren't that interesting for many people and they push even more in the direction of having only One System To Rule Them All because learning a new system for a one-shot is a lot of effort for relatively little payback. Yeah, and then it's "wow, we're going to play this D&D that's in the video games and the Big Bang Theory and the Stranger Things and the movies are coming out" vs. "wow, we're... um... going to play this game that this friend says is pretty good, I hope we have fun..."
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Dec 30, 2021 18:33
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I am trying very hard to think of an RPG improved by gnomes, and I cannot.
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Dec 30, 2021 18:39
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The only one I can think of is Zzarchov Kowolski’s The Gnomes of Levnec. That’s some quality gnoming.
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Dec 30, 2021 18:42
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Night10194 posted:I am trying very hard to think of an RPG improved by gnomes, and I cannot. Fairy Meat?
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Dec 30, 2021 18:44
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Well that sounds like the gnomes are a focus instead of 'and also a gnome' so that would probably improve them.
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Dec 30, 2021 18:44
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Kai Tave posted:I'm really unconvinced that the next big step in TRPGs lies in branded IP because for pretty much the entirety of the hobby there's been one game that ever pulled ahead of D&D to any notable degree at any point and that wasn't a licensed branded game, it was Vampire. The Avatar: the Last Airbender kickstarter made like 10 million dollars and it's considered the mega runaway TRPG crowdfunding success of all time, and my guess is that it's going to go the way of all brand IP elfgames which is it's gonna slide right into the not-D&D pile while D&D continues to dominate the scene. But consider that for years Hearthstone ate WotC's lunch in the digital card game space, and Blizz made that to experiment with small development teams. The game was free, fun enough and nerds still liked WoW, so of course it did well. Now there's a hundred games competing for a share of that pie, including Magic Arena. There's no reason someone couldn't do the same with an online RPG, especially since the current crop of VTTs are barely on the level of Magic Online circa 2014. That's what I meant by combining a ruleset and a platform: A tabletop RPG for your phone, no books needed. Just like Magic in 2014, right now D&D is tied to the dead tree product and all the online tools exist to serve that. I don't believe for a second that they would change course by 2024 or whenever AD&D Next.5 is due out. It'll still be written in a book, with the expectation that people will gather around a table to play it.
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Dec 30, 2021 18:46
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Night10194 posted:I am trying very hard to think of an RPG improved by gnomes, and I cannot. Ars Magica?
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Dec 30, 2021 18:46
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Rogue Trader
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Dec 30, 2021 18:47
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Night10194 posted:I am trying very hard to think of an RPG improved by gnomes, and I cannot. I enjoy Eberron newspaper gnomes.
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Dec 30, 2021 19:08
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Calico Heart posted:the thing that did it for me was fourth ed was looking in the rulebook and seeing there were no gnomes but there was a newer even edgier kind of elf.
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Dec 30, 2021 19:12
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hyphz posted:I think much more of an issue is that the main friction in starting an RPG isn't character generation or rule access, it's cat herding. And that can't really be reduced because people are people. Organizer Play is a huge fix to this, actually. "Come the the LGS on Wednesday, we play D&D" is definitely a thing that WotC promotes, with absurd success.
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Dec 30, 2021 19:13
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