From 5th back to 1st

WotC has been busy as of late.  First they announce fifth edition and now they are going old school and announcing that they are reprinting the 1st edition core rulebooks.

From the announcement:

In 1974, the world changed forever when Gary Gygax introduced the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The legacy of his innovative ideas and the extensive reach of his powerful influence can be seen in virtually every facet of gaming today.

To help honor his work and his memory, we created limited-edition reprints of the original 1st Edition core rulebooks: the Monster Manual, Player's Handbook, and Dungeon Master's Guide. These premium versions of the original AD&D rulebooks have been lovingly reprinted with the original art and content, but feature an attractive new cover design commemorating this re-release. Available in limited quantities as a hobby channel exclusive in North America.

Your purchase of this monumental book helps support the Gygax Memorial Fund—established to immortalize the “Father of Roleplaying Games” with a memorial statue in Lake Geneva, WI.

I think it's awesome that they are reprinting the books.  Tapping into the OSR market is a good businesses decision and one that is long overdue.  The fact that a portion of the proceeds are going to the Gygax Memorial Fund is great news, and a classy move by WOTC.  There seems to be a real culture change taking place over at Wizards.

Just like the reprint, it is long overdue.

Paizo Picks Up Wizards of the Coast's Slack

A while back Wizards of the Coast decided to discontinue production on their line of pre-painted plastic miniatures.  A lot of people, including me, were disappointed at this.  Though I don't play 4e, their minis were still really cool, durable, and best of all painted (I can't paint a mini to save my life!).  

I just received word that Paizo has teamed with WizKids have teamed up to fill the void.  This is good news, and not just for fans of Pathfinder.  This is good news for everyone who likes to use miniatures in their games but can't paint, likes cheap minis, and doesn't want to worry about damaging a fragile pewter figure.  T

he teamup is also something to be excited about.  Paizo has been offering quality products for a few years now and has built up quite a reputation in the gaming community.  Most people know WizKids for their miniature games like HeroClix and Mage Knight.  With the two working together this line seems destined to be a quality product.

The new miniatures will be available fourth quarter of this year. 

D&D Lair Assault: 4th Edition Takes Final Step to Becoming a Board Game

"The D&D Lair Assault program is designed for players looking for more complex, strategic, and highly tactical challenges. The D&D Lair Assault program is tailored to groups of players who enjoy solving tactical puzzles, optimizing characters, and using rules to their advantage. Each D&D Lair Assault challenge features complex encounters prepared in advance by the Dungeon Master.  Players are then pitted against their DM in an attempt to solve highly customized and creative challenges."

That is from here.  I found out about it at Geek Related.  Here is the official Wizards of the Coast announcement from a few days ago. 

I almost wish I hadn't read any of it.  There is so much to be disturbed about in the above statement that I won't even go into it.  I will say that I don't understand the people at WotC that are currently in charge of Dungeons & Dragons.  On the one hand they almost acknowledge that 4e is going in the wrong direction and attempt to right the course by releasing Essential.  Then on the other hand they go and release their ridiculous collectible cards and now they are doing this. 

Congratulations Wizards of the Coast you are now managing to piss off and alienate even the 4e crowd.  Maybe they figured they had pissed off fans of every other edition so they might as well go for the complete set.  Not all of those who play 4th edition are pissed of course, some really like the sound of this.  But is it really a good idea to fracture your market yet again?  It just doesn't seem like good business sense to me, but then again neither did refusing to sell old school PDFs.  

Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dungeons & Dragons

We don't link a long of things from the Wizards of the Coast website these days, but this will be our second this week.  Chris Perkins, one of the developers of 4th edition writes a column over at the WotC website called The Dungeon Master Experience.  In the most recent of that series Perkins talks about great villain combinations using Season 2 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and specifically the combination of Spike and Drucilla.  He asserts that, "two villains are better than one."  While I don't nessesarily agree the article is an interesting read for DMs, particularly those who enjoyed Buffy the Vampire Slayer. 

At the bottom of the article there is  a poll at the end for you to vote on your favorite villainous duo.  Your options are:

Auric Goldfinger and Oddjob (Goldfinger)
Carl Showalter and Gaear Grimsrud (Fargo)
Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker (Bonnie and Clyde)
Dr. Drakken and Shego (Kim Possible)
Faith and Mayor Richard Wilkins III (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
Gaius Baltar and Caprica Six (Battlestar Galactica)
Gul Dukat and Weyoun (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine)
Hans Gruber and Karl (Die Hard)
Kang and Kodos (The Simpsons)
Lursa and Betor (Star Trek: The Next Generation)
Mr. Burns and Smithers (The Simpsons)
Saruman and Grima Wyrmtongue (The Lord of the Rings)
Shere Khan and Kaa (Walt Disney’s The Jungle Book)
Spike and Drusilla (Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
The Joker and Harley Quinn (Batman: The Animated Series)
Vincent Vega and Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction)

Over 10 Feet of Awesome

You know what a battle axe is and you can tell a longsword from a short sword, but how are you when things start to be a bit longer?  Well Wizards of the Coast aims to find out!  Test your mettle in their Pole Arm Quiz, and find out if you can tell a Glaive from a Guisarme.    The quiz has 22 questions in total, only 13 of which I got correct.  Alas, I had thought I would do better.  See how you do and if you can beat my score.

Thanks go out to Grognardia for pointing me toward this awesome quiz.  I agree with James, the gentlemen who runs the site; this is the coolest thing to be seen on the Wizards of the Coast website in a long time. 

Dungeons & Dragons TV Commercials Then and Now

Dungeons and Dragons has changed a lot over the years. Yet one does not need to delve into the rulebooks to notice the alteration.  One only need to take a look at two commercials, a first edition commercial from the 80s and a much more recent commercial for 4e.

THEN

(Yes, that was Cameron Frye from Ferris Bueller's Day Off.)

NOW

(We got to see that Beholder last year in our trip to Gen Con.  He looks pretty awesome, and is really massive.  I'm sad to say the poor fellow has lost some teeth though.)

The two commercials are so vastly different that it's hard to believe that they are for different editions of the same game!

Now I want you to do me a favor, and I know this is going to be difficult.  

I want you to forget everything you know about roleplaying games.  Pretend you don't know anything about them.  You are just a someone who is bored and is looking fun to do.  You are watching TV, and these comercials air back to back.  

Which commercial do you like better? Which game do you buy? Why?

Of Wizards, Miniatures, and Robert Downey Jr.

“Never mind, they are intent on running the concept behind a roleplaying game into the ground, then peeing on it, then stomping on it, then running off squealing.” -mxyzplk

Yes, another quote. This particular one comes from mxyzplk the writer of Geek Related.  Like me, he has taken exception to WotC's recent move to introduce a collectible card game element to D&D.   

After reading his article I picked up on another piece of news, D&D miniatures are being discontinued.

From WotC:

D&D RPG Product Release Updates

Despite the best laid plans, sometimes we make changes to the D&D product release schedule. Usually this happens well before we’ve communicated our plans, but sometimes we must make changes to schedules that have already been announced. That happens to be the case we have here.

We have made the decision to depart from prepainted plastic miniatures sets. Lords of Madness stands as the final release under that model. We will continue to release special collector’s sets (such as the Beholder Collector’s Set we released last fall), as well as make use of plastic figures in other product offerings. Check out the Wrath of Ashardalon board game next month for the latest example of this. Moving forward, we will continue to explore more options for players to represent characters and monsters on the tabletop, including Monster Vault and other D&D products that feature monster and character tokens.

The Heroes of Shadow product, originally scheduled for March and presented in digest-sized, paperback format, is moving to April to accommodate a change to hardcover format. Additionally, three D&D RPG products have been removed from the 2011 release schedule—Class Compendium: Heroes of Sword and Spell, Mordenkainen’s Magnificent Emporium, and Hero Builder’s Handbook. While this means fewer books, we plan to deliver just as much great content for players this year through other formats, including board games, accessories, and digital offerings. I’ll keep you up-to-date on the latest releases each month as we go along.

Finally, I wanted to let you know that we’re making a change to the way we handle D&D Insider content. Subscriber data informs us that the vast majority of you consume our articles individually, when they are posted, as opposed to downloading the monthly compilations. So, starting this month, we’re just providing the articles. There won’t be any more monthly downloadable compilations. This is not a reduction in content, just a clarification of presentation and putting the emphasis where the majority of you are using it. Corrections and updates to articles which used to appear only in the compilations will now be made to the individual articles a few weeks after the original posting.

In addition to the end of the miniatures, three books have been canceled and there will be no more monthly compilations of Dragon or Dungeon on D&D Insider.  Personally, I don't care about the books (I wasn't going to buy them) or the monthly compilations (I don't have D&D Insider), but I did love those miniatures.  

Many other people are also bemoaning the loss of these miniatures:

Product changes at WotC: no more Minis
WotC to Discontinue Plastic Minis
R.I.P. D&D Minis 2003-2010
News: Tales of WotC Woe

The bottom line is that many us of don't have the artistic ability to paint our own miniatures, so despite great companies like the late Ral Partha, Reaper, and Dark Sword have made many amazing works of art over the years, the majority of us have never been able to fully enjoy a painted miniature.
That is until 2003 when WotC launched one of their greatest products ever, D&D Miniatures. They were plastic which some disliked, but I was actually a fan of. The plastic, besides being much cheaper, was more likely to bend than break and were easily bent back. If one did break, a cheap replacement could always be found. They were pre-painted and looked great, which meant you could enjoy them right out of the box. There were such a wide variety of them available that you could almost certainly find whatever you were looking for.

It sucks to have WotC launching stupid products like these fortune cards, but discontinuing a quality product like their miniatures. So it seems that mxyzplk's concerns have been validated...

WotC has gone full retard.

Of 4e Sales, Ryan Dancy, and the End of D&D as we Know it

I caught wind of Ryan Dancy's recent article over at ENWorld from JoeTheLawyer.

It's a very interesting read to say the least. 

Among the things he says Dancy states that, according to his industry sources, Pathfinder is outselling 4e.

Paizo couldn’t exist without the OGL and the D20 System Reference Document. And according to my industry sources, it’s outselling Dungeons & Dragons a feat (no pun intended) I would have considered almost impossible 10 years ago.

Pretty staggering no matter how you feel about 4e.  To think that ANY fantasy roleplaying game would outsell Dungeons and Dragons is mind blowing.  

He went on to say,

Three years ago I told people that it didn't matter if 4e was successful or not, because it was likely to be the last version of D&D that would be based on paper based tabletop gaming. I've seen nothing so far that changes my opinion about that.

To think that 4e would be the last version of D&D to be printed on paper is a little shocking.  Yes, PDFs have seen a mediocrity rise over the last ten years, but to think that people won't buy books any more...  

Guess I should get an ipad or one of those new ripoffs. 

Obviously D&D is changing, but what will it change into, will it be reconizable, and will it be something the majority of us enjoy? 

Those are the questions WotC and other industry leaders will have to answer in the coming years. 

Game Balance and the Conformist Utopia

Reducing everything down to the point where everything is mechanically identical may be balanced, but it will be just as fun as a conformist utopia. -Korjik

I came across this quote over at EnWorld.  Besides being funny, it is also absolutely true.  In my youth I always thought game balance was a good thing, something that one should strike for.  However, over the years I've come to question whether a balanced game is always a good idea.  Now I'm not saying one should throw game balance to the wind, just that balanced isn't always better.   

Take D&D as an example.  In first and second edition you have no real balance between the classes, at least not in the modern sense.  The fighter is great at the beginning, but gives up the crown fairly early on to the magic using classes.  This is further balanced out by the fact that the magic wielding classes all took far more experience to advance in level.   Yet a 18th level fighter and a 18th level wizard were not balanced against one another.  

Third edition came along and did away with differing experience table and so undertook the difficult task of balancing each class against each other each level.   At this task, they failed terribly.  That isn't to say they didn't go a great job, I'm not bashing 3rd edition here, but the classes were not all made equal.  A 12th level Wizard is orders of magnitude better than a 12th level Ranger.  Other classes were very well balanced, like the Wizard and the Sorcerer, but by and large there was a pecking order as to how powerful the classes were.  The reason they couldn't all be perfectly balanced is that they all did different things, and did them in different ways. The classes all had their own feel and their own niche within the game.  

Soon after 3.0 came 3.5.  It attempted to fix the issues in the original 3rd edition design, including some of the balance issues between the classes.  Rangers, for example got much better, but still the classes were not perfectly balanced against one another and the pecking order still was there, albeit in a slightly different order.  The jam was still in the cog, which is to say that the classes were still so widely different, and had abilities that couldn't be quantified to match each of the other classes perfectly.   
 
Enter 4th edition.  Game developers had been questing for balance for a long time now and finally come up with a way to balance all the classes almost perfectly, give them all comparable abilities.   Now I'm not saying that all the classes from 4e are the same, but they are much more similar to one another than in any other version of the game.  Each has dailies, per encounter, and once a day abilities that can be easily balanced against one another.  Now I'm not saying that 4e is perfectly balanced, but it is the closest thing to perfectly balanced that exists out there.  

WotC finally hit the mother-load of balance, finally reached the promised land it had long search for.  Hell I had been looking for it myself for a while, but now that I got to look on it, I didn't really like what I saw.  Gone was the unique feel of each class, gone was what made each of them special.  They just all felt the same, uniform, homogeneous. 

That's when I realized that the White Whale I was chasing was something of a poisoned prize.  To get balance you have to give something up, a certain amount of flavor and texture.  You have to be willing to part with the differences that make things unique and interesting.  Balance craves uniformity and consistency, and those things just aren't very interesting. 


So I am done chasing game balance as the ultimate prize.  Instead I'll keep it on the shelf with the other things.  It has it's place, but it isn't higher than a host of other factors that make up a great game.  

Confusion About Fortune Cards: Why the 900 Pound Elephant is on the Toilet

Based on some of the comments from my previous post, "D&D Flushed Down the Toilet by Wizards of the Coast," I felt like I should really clear up some of the confusion.

1.  D&D has offered these types of cards before.

Spellfire was introduced in 1994

There have been cards that have been released and had the name D&D slapped on them.  For example, D&D tried to capitalize on the success of Magic: The Gathering by releasing what is widely considered to be among the worst collectible card games in history, Spellfire.  It was a flop and didn't hang around too long.  However, Spellfire was a stand alone game.  These were not cards that you used within your D&D games to give your characters extra powers.

Spell cards for Wizards and Priests were for use in a D&D game, but they were just easy reference cards.  Much like those people who wrote the spell info down on an index card, these cards offered no advantage short of easy access to the information presented in the Player's Handbook.

2.  These New Fortune Cards are just like the various Game Mastery Decks available

No.  Paizo offers many different decks, including a critical hit deck.  That is not a CCG being driven into an rpg.  It is a single deck that everyone draws from when scoring a critical hit.  Honestly, when we played with them most people just felt that they would rather have the double damage.  That sad fact, along with the fact that the DM also draws from the deck means that everyone is on a level playing field. 

3. Buying those cards to increase character power is just like buying a new supplement book

Uh, no.  If one buys a splat book to increase character power then they are buying it for a new feat, skill, or spell.  If the DM allows access to the book then he allows access for everyone, not just the person who bought the book.  If a DM only allows you to choose things from books that you physically own, leave the game. With D&D Insider and the character builder there is little to no reason to own all of these supplemental books as it pertains to making characters.  Players have access to all the feats from the various books through that program. 

4.  D&D is not Changing

People for some reason (probably because they didn't actually read what I wrote) accused me of saying that, "D&D is dying."  I never said that, and that certainly isn't what I meant.  What I said is that D&D is changing, and changing into something that isn't much like what it was.  

It is changing like it or not.  I don't like it, some people no doubt will.  I'm not saying that this product will be a failure, far from it.  I think it will make a ton of money.  I just don't think it is good for the game.  D&D will continue, it just probably won't be D&D the way many people know it, like it, and/or play it. 

5.  You have no idea what the cards are like

I do, actually.  They have sample cards posted online.  I posted one of them in the original article and I've posted two below in the Card Comparison section.

Card Comparisons

To help people who believe that these cards are the same as those that have been offered before I've posted five different cards below for people to look at. 

The first is a critical hit card from GameMastery's critical hit deck.  As you can see there is a real give and take to these cards.  If you are using them you may end up doing half the damage that you would with your only compensation that your target is sickened for one round.  It's happened to me folks, and it sucks.

The second card is a spell reference card.  As you can see it gives no advantage short of you not having to look the spell up.  Handy?  Yes.  Power increasing?  No.

The third card is a Spellfire card.  It's a bad CCG, a Magic: The Gathering rip off, and has nothing to do with D&D save the fact that they slapped the brand name on it to aid sales.

A Card from the GameMastery Critical Hit Deck

A 3rd Edition Spell Reference Card

A Spellfire Card

One of the new Fortune Cards

One of the new Fortune Cards

The final two cards are these new fortune cards.  As you can see all advantage, no disadvantage.  The only disadvantage you'll encounter with these cards is not having a deck when everyone else does.  I've seen people say draw from someone else's deck, but right away I see a few issues there.

1. What is just one player buys them and everyone wants to draw from his deck?  How would he feel basically being the one to supply the entire group with cards?  I'm sure some people would be fine with that, but I could see it being a problem for others.  Especially when playing in games where the Players don't know each other.
2. People are encouraged to build a deck that has been tailored to their specific character.  If a wizard filled his deck with magic boosting cards to maximize his potential, what good would it be for the fighter to draw from his deck? 
3. Does the DM also draw from the deck?  These are player cards and don't seem to be meant for the DM, but 4th edition is the ultimate edition of Game Balance.  I'd say the game is almost perfectly balanced, but with these cards the balance get's thrown out of wack.  Even if the DM does draw, the added flexibility of being able to play the cards on any of the monsters in the game makes the cards more powerful in his hands than in the hands of the players.  I'm sure it won't be long before we see DM cards..

So in conclusion, these cards are indeed a new thing.  This new thing is changing the what D&D is, with more changes likely to come in the near future.  Finally, this is not the end of D&D.  It will survive, though perhaps not in a form that is appealing to many. 

I Repeat, the sky is not falling (unless the sky is general respect for Wizards of the Coast's integrity). 

D&D Flushed Down the Toilet by Wizard of the Coast

I hate collectible games.  I've tried to get into them, but it just never works out.  I played magic for a while, but dropped it because I didn't have the money to really compete with the other kids who had a lot of money.  I played HeroClix for a while, but that soured too.  I just don't like games where the playing field is slanted in favor of those who are willing and able to just continually throw money at the game.  

That's something I've always liked about RPGs including D&D.  Having more money didn't present you with any kind of real advantage.  You might have cooler looking dice, or more books, but everyone plays on a level playing field.  

Not anymore.  

Wizards recently announced their new line of products, collectible cards for your 4e D&D game.  Called, "Fortune Cards," this really heralds the death knell for D&D as we knew it.  We can squabble over editions all we want, but this is a real rift between what we have known as a roleplaying game.  

From the announcement:

Fortune Cards are available in 8-card booster packs with differing levels of rarity (common, uncommon, and rare), and serve as another avenue for excitement at the game table. Players can crack open boosters of cards just prior to participating in a game session, or come to their game with pre-built decks. With each booster, a player’s tactical options for their character during the game alter and expand in interesting new ways. Integrated into all Wizards Play Network programs and other D&D organized play games in 2011, Fortune Cards create an instant, inexpensive purchase for players on the day of a D&D event at your store. For players playing at home, Fortune Card decks can be customized to suit a player’s character in an ongoing campaign as well. Players can also collect and trade cards with their friends as they build their Fortune Card decks.

I really was in disbelief when I read it, but I probably shouldn't have been.   I went so far as to check my calendar to make sure it wasn't one of those online April Fool's Day jokes.  

No folks, this is for real.  D&D is official branching out into the collectible card game arena.  

Now obviously WotC can't put a gun to your head and make you use them.  But if you want to play D&D in organized play the cards will be there.  Would you sit down at a table and be the only one who didn't have a set of cards?  I wouldn't.  Why would I want to play in a game where I couldn't be an equal with the other party members because I hadn't put together a deck for my character?  That doesn't sound fun to me.  Hell, you may even be required to a deck to play in some games aimed at more "experienced" players. 

Many 4e players are already saying that they want nothing to do with these ridiculous cards.  So now it seems that a rift between 4e players is all but inevitable.  There will be those who favor the cards and will be willing to spend obscene amounts of money on them (just like any other collectible game) and there will be those who feel that D&D should be an RPG but a collectible card game.  What do you do if half of your group feels one way and half feels another?  I don't think a game can succeed with only some of the players reaping the benefits of these cards.  Even if your group all wants to play with cards what do you do with inequities among the group's financial situations.  One player may have a ton of disposable income and go nuts buying entire sets of these cards, building a deck that "pwns" while another member may be broke and only able to afford a booster or two.  

 

The question now remains, what is D&D becoming?  Is it changing into something else, more of a card game like Magic the Gathering?  Or is it becoming more of a board game with a hand of cards, miniatures and a board?  I'm not sure, but with these cards it sure isn't an RPG the way we have previously defined them. 

I have returned!

Please excuse my long absence.  After a week in Sin City for my bachelor party my immune system was apparently shot and I got very very sick.  After a full week of recovery I am back to peak condition... or at least as close to peak condition as I ever get.

A few notes on my trip.  It was amazing.  I had a great time thanks to my friends who organized and paid for most of the trip.  They are also amazing.  Of the things we did that are gaming related I first want to talk about the Excalibur's Tournament of Kings.

Now I had never seen it, but my expectations were very high.  This is the Excalibur's main draw (as far as shows go) and though I had been to Medieval Times a couple of times in the past I counted on this to be even better.  (Yes, I love Medieval times) The logic behind this thought was the amount of money that the Excalibur would be able to put into their show that would catapult it far beyond what their competition could hope to achieve.

D&D's 2010 Campaign Setting

Wizards of the Coast has said that every year they will support a different campaign setting, and they have recently announced the setting for 2010. I don't play 4E for many reasons but I was interested to see what setting they would support. To be honest I thought it would be Dragonlance, but it wasn't.

It was Dark Sun.

Surprised? Me too.

Here is what the cover art looks like...




I don't have much experience with Dark Sun, but it seems like an interesting setting. It never seemed very main stream to me which is why it was surprising to me when I heard the news. In addition to that the dark gritty feel of the setting just doesn't seem to fit with fourth edition.










Click the banner below to read WotC's official announcement.