Author Topic: The D&D Designers Answer Your Questions (Read 447 times)

OneST8 · « **on:** February 19, 2008, 12:15:09 pm »

Check out this Slashdot article for the questions [submitted by slashdot readers] and the answers [from the D&D designers].

Falonthas · « **Reply #1 on:** February 19, 2008, 12:40:29 pm »

why after reading that do i think these people have never played with real dice before

lonnarin · « **Reply #2 on:** February 19, 2008, 02:16:25 pm »

Wow, it sounds like WotSC are actually considering pay-to-play for tabletop. "oooh it's digital! but you gotta pay us to activate it, after you already bought the book". What a worthless, despicable, backwoods incompetent gaming company! They should stick to Pokemon.

The release of D&D 4.0 will result in the rennaissance of Shadowrun campaigns.

scifibarbie · « **Reply #3 on:** February 19, 2008, 05:49:51 pm »

I liked Shadowrun

Stephen_Zuckerman · « **Reply #4 on:** February 19, 2008, 11:25:27 pm »

For myself, I'll keep playing 3.5e.

Eorendil · « **Reply #5 on:** February 20, 2008, 08:33:35 am »

Shadowrun is pretty cool. Then again Rolemaster grew on me too.

Falonthas · « **Reply #6 on:** February 20, 2008, 08:57:09 am »

i keep playing 2nd
love my thac0

wow never knew i could put that many thoughts in type to have 1000 posts on anything

Nehetsrev · « **Reply #7 on:** February 20, 2008, 09:02:06 am »

Just about any RPG can be pretty cool if you've got a good set of players/gm's to enhance it. Some others I love come to mind:

Star Frontiers (Alpha Dawn, Knight Hawks, & Zebulon's (Revised rules))
Gamma World (Gotta love the mutations both good and bad....)

Dark Conspiracy

I could go on with others too....but I think you folks get the picture. It's we who play the games that really make 'em great (or not).

Stephen_Zuckerman · « **Reply #8 on:** February 20, 2008, 02:07:16 pm »

Death to THAC0!

Falonthas · « **Reply #9 on:** February 27, 2008, 11:03:57 am »

no thac0 rocked

nothing like neg ac going head to head with neg ac

lonnarin · « **Reply #10 on:** March 12, 2008, 04:55:44 pm »

The only thing I couldn't stand about 2nd edition was when THAC0 went negative, and when rogue charts started spewing numbers above 100%. That was the day mathematics as we know it died and turned into some convoluted XY axis of evil.

Falonthas · « **Reply #11 on:** March 12, 2008, 05:08:19 pm »

*pats lon on the shoulder* its ok we know math is bad

Stephen_Zuckerman · « **Reply #12 on:** March 12, 2008, 05:50:34 pm »

It's not that it was math. It's that it was a ridiculous code almost -designed- to exclude non-enthusiasts. Straight-up AC is better - I'm sure 4e will improve on combat even further, but I don't care enough to throw money at WotC's latest mad scheme for more money.

Falonthas · « **Reply #13 on:** March 12, 2008, 06:35:21 pm »

actually 3rd 3.5 and 4th are versions made by wotc for money period

though i love nwn wotc made dnd for dummies

Honora · « **Reply #14 on:** March 12, 2008, 08:05:29 pm »

Quote from: Falonthas

actually 3rd 3.5 and 4th are versions made by wotc for money period

Agree. The Microsoft "versions" mentality has infected everything.

Thank gods they can't come and take my books away! I'll be passing on 4.0, especially with the emphasis on "simplification". We already have WoW.

Gulnyr · « **Reply #15 on:** March 12, 2008, 08:53:15 pm »

I don't mind simple. Simple includes things like consistency of rules, which is always good, and sometimes things just need to be simple in order to get them done, like combat. I'd rather a session last a long time because the party is RPing than because we have to look up every other action in the rulebook, y'know?

Pseudonym · « **Reply #16 on:** March 12, 2008, 08:59:42 pm »

Wrong! Looking up the rulebook and arguing semantics was what made D&D great!

Script Wrecked · « **Reply #17 on:** March 12, 2008, 09:40:20 pm »

*reminences over taking an hour to do one round of combat...*

lonnarin · « **Reply #18 on:** March 12, 2008, 10:50:15 pm »

Quote from: Gulnyr

I don't mind simple. Simple includes things like consistency of rules, which is always good, and sometimes things just need to be simple in order to get them done, like combat. I'd rather a session last a long time because the party is RPing than because we have to look up every other action in the rulebook, y'know?

That's the problem with many games systems I think. Once you get into so many attacks per round or specified skills and charts, then it bogs down the tabletop RP time with references to the rulebook over and over and ruleslawyering on triple meanings, and even righteous combat gets boring once you sling out 6 attacks per round and tediously reroll that die 6 times. That's another reason I liked shadowrun, you could always just default to a macro-skill set or base stat if you didn't meticulously pick the exact right skill, and combat was limited to 3-4 attacks per round at matrix-kungfu speeds.

stragen · « **Reply #19 on:** March 12, 2008, 10:55:33 pm »

I never really played D&D much, and only as a player. I played maybe only a total of 12 sessions or so in my entire roleplaying life.

Most of the time I played GURPS. In the end I came to understand the simpler is better. Steve Jackson released a GURPS lite rule, a freely downloadable 20 page document. In the end this is what I used. I gave a copy to each player and put all my other books away.

Still in GURPS the unit of measurement for a 'round of the table' was one second. So combat still took a long time for a minute of action.

No point here.