Thursday, April 26, 2012

W is for What Next?

(Apologies to all coming here for the A to Z challenge, you might not be all that familiar with the back story of today's rant.)

I wanted to talk about World of Darkness today. But instead I am going to rant.  Well not rant so much as complain about gamer privilege. I know in the scope of things this is so minor as to be non-existent. But yet here I am...

W is for What Next?

So unless you were away from the internet like was all day yesterday you probably missed the "Big news" that Monte Cook packed up books and told WotC, "Screw you guys I'm going home."

Ok, not exactly like that.  Lots of times people leave projects on properties they love due to disagreements.
I have left playtests in "protest" before over a direction the author wanted to take that I felt was a bad idea.  I won't name names either, but it was a property I really liked and was honored to be a part of.  The game in my mind still sucked, but plenty others still liked it so maybe I was the one in the wrong (I don't think so).

So Monte Cook has left Wizards and his work on D&D Next; the nom-de-net for Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition.

I am a D&D fan. I am a D&D loyalist in fact.  I have every single edition and played them all.  I have nearly every retro clone.  I bought into the D&D 4 hype and bought a ton of books for it. I loved moving the minis on the maps with my kids, I loved the fact that the classes were balanced and I loved that 1st level characters all had something to do.  I disliked how long combats took. I disliked all the meta-gaming that had to go on with feats and surges and actions and markings.  But it was D&D and I still was able to do the sorts of things that worked for me.

Now we are going into the next version, and I have barely played the last version.  My kid's group, The Dragon Slayers, are wrapping up their 3.x game.  We have gone through many of the "Classic" adventures and as much as I love 1st Edition, I really don't want to go back to it.

I know.  I am complaining about having too many games to play. Woe is me...

I guess I'll wait for the playtest like everyone else.  But I have to say that at the moment, D&D 5/D&D Next is not filling me with a lot of excitement.

Meybe I'll just back to D&D Basic and house rule the hell out of it.  Start characters at a higher level (really, wizards should have more spells than 1) and use some of the rules I like from 4e (bloodied) and 3e (multiclass).

6 comments:

Rhonin84 said...

I was waiting for you to catch up with me on this, I really do love Pathfinder BUT I can see the power creep and I'm not happy.

Dig out B and X and the B/X companion that is where I started again...followed by ACKS and now I am looking at CnC again.

Though I think the real McCoy that we are looking for is in those B and X books.

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Greg. I tend to agree that B/X is the sweet spot.

I would want to house rule the hell out of it though.

Rhonin84 said...

Well then house rule it..but put all of them together first so it;s all clear in your mind and in the players minds...

I have been looking at multiclass rules trying to figure out which I want to use...

Laura S. said...

Hello, Timothy! I don't know anything about gaming, but it's too bad when any kind of writer leaves a project. Hope it all goes well!

Have a great week and happy A to Z!

Timothy S. Brannan said...

@Laura, yes. It does not bode well.

@Greg. I like 3.x's rules for multi-classing the best. But I also like Prestige Classes.

Rhonin84 said...

I can agree on the multi-classing rules but I loathe Prestige Classes...