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Saturday, July 5, 2014

5e and rpg forums

Rob Schwalb, one of the lead designers of D&D 4e, had a blog post where he basically says 4e catered way too much to the munchkin math geek crowd and he's glad that 5e is going back to its roots, where the impact of the number-crunching min-maxers should have a much lower impact.

Reactions to this blog are interesting. Over on The RPG Site, it's been mostly positive. A lot more old school D&Ders post there than you might expect.

The reaction on RPGNet is the complete opposite. They are raging about this. They HATE that he called their pet D&D version basically a bad game compared to its predecessors. If you have an account there, don't make the mistake of defending Rob's post, as you will probably get banned. (Not that the mods are biased or anything).

Please take the time to look through both. If you have only been active on RPGNet, I strongly recommend you give The RPG Site a chance. The forum runs a lot like RPGNet did 12 years ago. Mostly gamers, with little moderation.

1 comment:

Diffan said...

I've not posted on RPG Site because I'm a fan of 4E and I feel that any such attempts for a positive 4E thread would either receive zero traction OR I'd be arguing with a bunch of people.

It's a reason why I have an account on RPGnet. I don't post there much, honestly, because I'm more active with the WotC and Candlekeep (Forgotten Realms fan-site) forums.

As for Rob's spiel, I think it's pretty funny but so completely at odds with ALL my experiences with both 3.5 AND 4E. I honestly don't know if I'm doing things different or if it's him?

Additionally, I'm grateful he helped build up 4E to the game it is today. It IS extremely different than previous editions and THAT is it's appeal. I don't need to shell out hundreds of dollars for v3.75 (like Pathfinder) or an OSR game (like Swords and Wizardry). 4E's large differences are, to me, what got me hooked in the first place.

Also, as I look towards 5E I can see that it too will be it's own beast. It'll have elements of other editions (spells require a save, less emphasis on gear for example) but it does enough different that it scratches an itch that neither 3.5 / Pathfinder OR 4E scratch. It also doesn't have the, to me, needless complexity of TSR-era versions of D&D. And it's these differences that are drawing me to that system.