More D&D 4E Gossip

I have not got round to checking out 4th Ed yet… I am practically foaming at the mouth with enthusiasm but again and again I’m coming across little items online that really, really worry me! Greywulf says here that it’s as if “they’ve stolen our first three levels to get to that much-vaunted ’sweet spot’ right from the start” and that there’s no sign of “starting heroes with single-figure Hit Points and their father’s rusty sword”. That would be a real shame! I have always loved the “starting mook” feel of D&D and AD&D. You are the cowering kid hiding behind the bar for your first few fights (if you’re a mage) or a bravo who has more guts than go if you’re a fighter… You don’t start off with butt kicking abilities, you start off just learning the ropes and survival is a struggle! People who don’t want to go through that have always been able to accelerate and bump their starting characters a level or two in character generation (DM approving of course).

That said – even as starting mooks with little or no oomph you’re still harder than the average group of city watchmen (NPC: soldier – 1HD Thac0 20, AC 9 or to modernise a bit 1st level soldier CR2) who have on average 4HP and can just about beat up a dock worker. That brings me to another point that terrifies me however – the idea of scaling the NPCs so that the same NPCs get harder as the players progress… Why would you want to do that? (I’ve heard speculation but have no basis to assume this is in 4E – I’ll just keep hoping it is not until I get myself a copy!)

Online “Table Top” RPG the next big thing?

According to Wizards, the next big thing in Table Top gaming is going ot be online… (Clues have been there since 4th Ed was first mentioned for those of us listening…)

D&DI (D&D Insider) is going to (eventually) present an online “Table Top” where you can use maps and images of your character that you’ll be able to create (also online – also eventually) to play with full character interaction and voice in a 3D environment. Alternatively you’ll be able to print them out and use them in your real pencil and paper table top game if you know any real people to play with…

Going on WotC past performances in the online arena the weasel will remain more than a little skeptical until it can get its paws on the Beta…

Still, the prices look pretty reasonable, forgetting all the cool digital stuff, you get dragon and dungeon magazines thrown in… I like that!

Thanks to Greywulf for the link above…

[Edit: 08/08/08 08:08:08 (ish) For alternative online table tops (some of which may be working already) try here. Thanks to Geek Related for this link...]

Wizards of the Coast kick off a new row over game licencing!

After this announcement about WotC’s new GSL (Game System Licence) there was a bit of furore on various discussion boards. Some things got said by Linae Foster on this particular thread that are pretty worrying regarding the future of OGL products and in fact any other product that small publishers may want to release a D&D 4th Ed version of. There has been a bit of scaremongering and the usual sensationalism over the whole thing (this article on BoingBoing floated through reader at me this morning).

One person has kept a fairly level head about this and hopefully he is right – it is all speculation and rumour and misunderstanding. I can’t see any court upholding claims that publishing the same work under another system violates the GSL; if the original work is the IP (Intellectual Property) of the publisher then they should be free to publish it in any system they please (you can’t copyright a number system / rules system AFAIK). We shall just have to see how it all pans out…

Thanks to glimeral for his post which sifted out all the relevant comments, from Linae Foster and Scott Rouse, in the thread that kicked off most of the fuss…

In Memoriam

So last night, at the IGA meeting in Cassidy’s, we had 1d4+1 moments of silence. The reason? This week, one of the greats of gaming history failed his final saving throw and passed away and we thought that 1d4+1 moments would be the way Gary Gygax would have wanted the time calculated!

Others have said more and better than I could about the passing of one of the fathers of modern gaming so I figured I’d just link to a selection of my favourite things that have been put up on the web to commemorate him this week…

Order of the stick
John Kovalic
Wired Article
Wired Logo
Thead

Edit: It has just been pointed out to me that it was 1d4+1 moments (I had typo-ed 1d4+2 for some reason – probably because the result was 2). That is now corrected.