Yep, 4th Edition is coming out....

[Bluebomber4evr]

1. All they said about alignment was, "Alignment will not be as it is now. Andy Collins doesn't want it as a mechancial element, Bill backs him, so Andy's getting his way." That does not mean it is dead, only that the rules have changed. Besides, Ravenloft without at least the good/evil alignment would be drastically different, almost pointless.

Hey! That's not necessarily true. I've got ridden of alignment IMC, and replaced it (And Power's Check) with taint (Indeed, I integrated those three into one system), and so far things are going great. At least I have my players developing their characters instead of relying on the "I'm good / I'm evil" premise for doing things.

And, IMHO, Ravenloft becomes a more interesting and deep setting when you forget about good and evil and center on the motivations people have for acting in a certain way. When you have "good" people doing "evil" things just because that's in their best interest, you have a more encouraging roleplaying experience, again, IMHO.

As Ravenloft is a gothic horror setting, good and evil are essential. Gothic literature is at heart a morality play, thus if you remove the meaning behind good and evil, you remove a lot of the meaning built up around many things in the setting. The Dark Powers, the darklords, powers checks--all of these are about the struggle between good and evil. Removing this key element waters down Ravenloft and makes it lose a lot of its uniqueness.

[HuManBing]

Ravenloft however is not always a place where good ends happily and evil ends unhappily. Frequently the good are punished and the evil are rewarded (or so it seems to our perception of things).

I think Ravenloft certainly modifies the usual approach to alignment. I don't think that it necessarily requires an alignment system in order to work though.

[WolfKook]

As Ravenloft is a gothic horror setting, good and evil are essential.

Again, not necessarily. Evil may be very important, but good is just expendable. Take the characters in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein. None of them are depicted as inherently good or evil. Victor Frankenstein could not easily be classified as "evil"... He is just too ambitious for his own good. And the monster could also be seen as a victim of society, not innately evil, but driven towards evil. At some points, you can almost sympathize with him (it?).

In Ravenloft, also, the best DL stories (IMO) are not those which make the DL look as an evil wrench (As Inza Kulchevich), but those which make it morally ambiguous, with dark motivations moving them towards evil.

As I see it, evil may be essential in gothic horror, but not just as an alignment, but as an abstract entity pervading everything, and tempting people into making the wrong choices to embrace them into their clutches (Dark powers, anyone?). At least, that's the way I work with it, and -in my experience -it makes for a more interesting setting.

Gothic literature is at heart a morality play, thus if you remove the meaning behind good and evil, you remove a lot of the meaning built up around many things in the setting.

I haven't removed it. I just have another way to work with it. "Good" and "Evil" are not innate characteristics of a given character, but the results of the choices he has made.

The Dark Powers, the darklords, powers checks--all of these are about the struggle between good and evil. Removing this key element waters down Ravenloft and makes it lose a lot of its uniqueness.

Hey! As I said in my later post, I haven't removed the DPs, the DLs, the powers checks or anything else that makes RL so interesting and unique! I have just removed the characters' alignment!

[cure]

In all honesty would you guys and gals prefer to have WotC botch up Ravenloft or keep it's real spirit alive here, at the F.O.S?

I mean it would be nice to have Ravenloft in the 4th edition but let's be honest with ourselves: WotC would never ever do justice to the real Ravenloft fans. What do you all think?

I think you should start a new thread and put up a poll for this excellent question.

[Igor the Henchman]

In all honesty would you guys and gals prefer to have WotC botch up Ravenloft or keep it's real spirit alive here, at the F.O.S?

I mean it would be nice to have Ravenloft in the 4th edition but let's be honest with ourselves: WotC would never ever do justice to the real Ravenloft fans. What do you all think?

I hope my question won't come out as offensive.

Where do you draw the line between "real" fans and "fake" ones?

[steveflam]

In all honesty would you guys and gals prefer to have WotC botch up Ravenloft or keep it's real spirit alive here, at the F.O.S?

I mean it would be nice to have Ravenloft in the 4th edition but let's be honest with ourselves: WotC would never ever do justice to the real Ravenloft fans. What do you all think?

I hope my question won't come out as offensive.

Where do you draw the line between "real" fans and "fake" ones?

Good point Igor Well I think it is easy enough. ANyone who loves playing Ravenloft, writing about it, Dming it. Just look at all the effort people who belong to this site put into it, especially the moderators. I play other setting but my favorite setting is Ravenloft. Unfortunately for me noone in my gaming group likes Ravenloft because they find it too hard, not enough magic or gold etc etc etc. I could go on and on of course

[LordGodefroi]

I don't mind a new D&D edition per se, but I hope it won't be even more videogamesque. What's that obsession with speading the game? In a few editions, it will be a "OK, in the cave stands a menacing troll, and (one dice is rolled) zapp, the battle is finished."

Also, that tabletop-online symbiosis leaves me with many question marks.

Joël

Curious that you mention the video-game-ization of D&D.

Because "spells for fighters" (i.e. stances and maneuvers) was mentioned as being mainstreamed into the rules, I just had a look at Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords today and hated it.

It seems to me that they are upping the power levels of D&D (again) and trying to turn it into Castlevania or Final Fantasy. . . i.e. a paper-and-pencil video game.

The idea of a Paladin with anything like a "chi strike" or producing cold, fire, or energy effects due to his "stances and maneuvers" just turn my stomach.

[Spiteful Crow]

I don't mind a new D&D edition per se, but I hope it won't be even more videogamesque. What's that obsession with speading the game? In a few editions, it will be a "OK, in the cave stands a menacing troll, and (one dice is rolled) zapp, the battle is finished."

Also, that tabletop-online symbiosis leaves me with many question marks.

Joël

Curious that you mention the video-game-ization of D&D.

Because "spells for fighters" (i.e. stances and maneuvers) was mentioned as being mainstreamed into the rules, I just had a look at Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords today and hated it.

It seems to me that they are upping the power levels of D&D (again) and trying to turn it into Castlevania or Final Fantasy. . . i.e. a paper-and-pencil video game.

The idea of a Paladin with anything like a "chi strike" or producing cold, fire, or energy effects due to his "stances and maneuvers" just turn my stomach.

Did you take a very good look at it?

Most of those "maneauvers" boil down to "you hit your enemy very hard" or "you find a weakpoint and attack it". What's so "spell-like" about that? And Paladins ALREADY get supernatural powers. What's the problem with changing the mechanics for it?

[The Giamarga]

The problem is that almost every body gets very obvious someitmes anime-like magical powers too easy. I'm speaking of 3E here mind, as i havn't seen enough of 4E to comment on it. Assassin casting spells is one example.

[Daisu]

Usually they have a landmark ingame event to switch over editions, ie 1st to 2nd Time of troubles, 2nd to 3rd Vecna.
The idea of general bland campaign setting as backdrop for 4th is not that great to hear.

[Jester of the FoS]

I don't mind a new D&D edition per se, but I hope it won't be even more videogamesque. What's that obsession with speading the game? In a few editions, it will be a "OK, in the cave stands a menacing troll, and (one dice is rolled) zapp, the battle is finished."

Also, that tabletop-online symbiosis leaves me with many question marks.

Joël

Curious that you mention the video-game-ization of D&D.

Because "spells for fighters" (i.e. stances and maneuvers) was mentioned as being mainstreamed into the rules, I just had a look at Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords today and hated it.

It seems to me that they are upping the power levels of D&D (again) and trying to turn it into Castlevania or Final Fantasy. . . i.e. a paper-and-pencil video game.

The idea of a Paladin with anything like a "chi strike" or producing cold, fire, or energy effects due to his "stances and maneuvers" just turn my stomach.

It's odd but without it what can fighters do at high levels? What class abilities do they have that let them do any damage?
None.
Oh, they have a few special fighter-only feats that increase their damage by 3 or 4.
So the wizard goes up at least one die each level (starting with d4s but quickly moving to d6s) so a lvl 20 wizard can drop 20d6 damage each and every round of combat if they're going easy on the badguy. Meanwhile a lvl10 fighter and lvl20 fight inherently do the exact same damage.

Tome of Battle (which is bound to be very, very different from 4E) was their first real attempt at closing the gap. We'll see it plus the years of feedback in 4E.

[Jester of the FoS]

Oh, and big whoop that D&D is borrowing from Video Games.

Guess what, video games borrowed from D&D. Alot. Final Fantasy started out as one giant, colossal D&D rip-off.
But while D&D only updates and reinvents itself every 10-5 years, videogames have an upheaval ever 2-4.

They look at Final Fantasy and such, something that branched out of D&D, and can see its evolution and the evolution of every other RPG on the market and see what worked and what didn't and look for good ideas. Look to see what they can apply or steal to make the p-n-p version better.

Would you really not want them to use a brilliant, amazing concept and apply it to the game because it originated in a video game? I can picture the conversation when they were building 3E...
"Hey boss, I was playing EverQuest and everyone was talking about 'balance'. This strange concept that all the classes should be more or less equal."
"An idea from a video game? We MUST reject it! Quickly, unbalance the classes back to 2E standards. Fighters must cap out in usefulness at lvl 8 and wizards should become gods at level 15."

[elliott20]

a lot of the balance issues comes from our perception as to what is considered "balanced" and what is considered "playable".

hell, I'm pretty sure when we see the word balance, we all have different definitions in mind which probably results in different implementation.

With D&D, balance between casters and non-casters supposedly comes in the form of resources available vs. power. casters can level cities at higher levels but can only do so a few times a day. warriors cannot do that but they can do what they do all day long as long as they're still standing.

So pretty much, each class is supposed to have a different play style.

This philosophy, however, begins to fall apart because of the resource expenditure vs. power garnered.

[Rotipher of the FoS]

WotC's latest teaser expands upon that "lights in the darkness" quotation. Check the FACT thread for a link.

[Mangrum]

Because "spells for fighters" (i.e. stances and maneuvers) was mentioned as being mainstreamed into the rules, I just had a look at Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords today and hated it.

I have no love for ToB:Bo9S either, but it's important to note that the system there isn't representative of 4E. The designers have described that book as, to paraphrase, "a peek at the directions 4E was going at that particular time." The 4E team admitted that they hadn't quite worked out the game balance of those new rules yet.