Yeah, same thing happened to Kobold Press yesterday when they announced that they were developing their own system.
Yup DMG pg 82.
As for the other post…DMG came shortly after the PHB and, in 1e, latter books superceded previous ones. So, I guess there was a short time where 0hp=death but it was officially overruled.
Thinking back, we didn’t convert from Basic to AD&D right when it came out so we probably never played with just the PHB. Also, we were really into Gamma World and a game called Space Opera and Travellor for awhile so that probably was the reason I don’t remember ever DMing 1e without the DMG.
I forget where I read it but apparently several groups are seeing this as an opportunity to push their own system.
WotC, in their greed, has turned the whole content community into a competitor instead of an ally. And there are a lot of them so that is no small threat.
I hope whoever is responsible for this boneheaded cash grab is losing sleep over this.
What amazes me most is the complete lack of understanding the C-suite has for their business and their customers. They do not see their community as something to be nurtured but as something to be pilfered.
It seems Paizo is drawing in others under their umbrella.
WotC really made a mess for themselves. I’m not sure how they will get out of it (not sure they can).
Decades ago, I went to White Wolf’s officia website. They had links to fan sites with fan created material. At about the same time, TSR sued a European mythology site for using the word kobold. Troma put nearly all their films free on YouTube (They’ve since been removed for violating community standards). Al Lowe (creator of Leisure Suit Larry) has a page on his website to download of all the abandonware he’s done and helpful instructions on how to get the stuff to run on today’s machines and systems. The Greatful Dead famously had a special section at concerts for fans who wanted to record the show.
If you have a fanbase that loves you, you should try to love them back- not screw them over.
Stranger
Also relevant:
Stranger
I feel really bad because I’m not communicating well, especially with Ascenray and I don’t know why.
In 1E/2E/5E DND, if a player created a character and wanted them to be the best aim in their village and the best with a bow, they can say that but there were no game mechanics to back it up. Their DM might have accepted it and maybe done something to help with that but there were no rules for it. Maybe specialization in 2E but at the time, bows already started with two shots per round at first level. The best they can do in those rules for 1E/2E was put their highest roll in DEX and hope it was at least a 16 to get a bonus to hit. That’s assuming they were allowed to do that and it wasn’t 3d6 in order. In 5E, they would be able to put the 15 of the starting attribute array into DEX. There is probably a background to up that at least to 16.
In 3E, the default system was 4d6, drop the lowest, with at least an overall +1 mod bonus and put them wherever they wanted. They also had point buy, as does PF1. A starting human could put the 15 into DEX, use their bonus for human to make it a 17 DEX, which is probably national level good rating. Then they could pick Weapon Focus as a feat to get another +1. For a first level Fighter or Ranger, who is specialized, they have a +5 to hit, which is quite good at that level. Point buy might allow an 18, for +6. I’m rusty on system mastery but other than a Critical Focus to have an even lower threat range, I think that’s the most they can do. It works though and the mechanics of the system back up the concept of the player.
If the player with the 1E/2E/5E character goes to another DM and tells them their back story, then says their original DM gave them a +1 to hit with their bow, that DM does not have to accept it. There is nothing backing the player’s concept that another DM has to accept. That’s the kind of DM fiat that I am talking about and don’t like.
In 3E, that character is a legal character for Pathfinder Society, and would play exactly as they wanted it to, regardless of which table they go to.
That’s what I mean when I say the player knows what to expect from the table and whether or not they will have something that was in their other game.
What I have found in discussions is to make sure I am talking about RAW (Rules As Written) because those are the facts, or rules, of the game. Yes, though, at my table, concept is more important, I lean towards fun, and balance is thrown out the window to make the game fun.
My experience was different on many levels. I am not wanting to play some random farmer who gets called to war and does well. I want to play a hero, maybe even a super hero. I am not saying I want everything handed to me. I’m not saying that I want all my rolls to be 20. I’m saying that I want to be playing a hero who goes out and does Good. 1E/2E did not help me play that but it was the only game I had with the group I had. I tried to make due with it but it was never satisfying to me as a game.
Even as a DM, I wanted characters to feel special. That meant high stats due to the high requirements for bonuses. I made it tough on myself for DMing but I’m hoping that since I have some players in my groups that gamed under me in the 80s, I’m doing something right.
I’m not against whatever another group wants to do. I’m merely saying that in my head, a wizard that casts their only spell then has to use a crossbow the rest of the day isn’t a wizard to me. 5E’s idea of cantrips is another good idea and fortunately, PF1 has many things built in that allow that but I can also use the cantrip idea and do by scaling up cantrips.
I was gaming so couldn’t share the news first of Paizo’s announcement! Woo hoo! Great job, Paizo! Too bad their servers are still down or I would buy a lot from them.
Congrats - you parallel-invented Rolemaster.
Rolemaster, not D&D, was the system of choice for the Uni roleplaying society here, so it’s what I mostly played starting out.
I do not miss it at all.
Being on Chaosium’s mailing list, I got an email a couple of days ago which said that they were temporarily lowering the price of their Basic Roleplaying system (normally $21.95) to 99 cents at drivethrurpg.
The email began with “Apropos of nothing…” and a smiley face.
That’s the “Big Gold Book” (BGB) which provides basic skill-based conflict resolution and combat rules, character creation, and various powers (magic, mutations, superpowers, psychic abilities), and various options and spot rules, but it doesn’t really offer any kind of setting. I like BRP as a good “roll your own” system for creating settings in a variety of genre but I think most people transitioning from D&D are probably looking for an all-up game that has some fully developed setting details, hence why Chaosium has all but dropped support for BRP in favor of focusing on well-developed properties like Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, Mythic Iceland, and most recently Rivers of London, all of which use variations of BRP. The other thing that I think D&D players would not care for is that it doesn’t have any kind of character leveling system; like Traveller and many other skill-focused systems, all quantitative character development is essentially skills or marginal increases in attributes with no stepwise increase in hit points or other secondary stat pools like Luck or Sanity (for CoC). It’s a great setting for a more grounded game based on interaction or investigation, and there are rules for a more pulpy, cinematic feel, but character death is an ever-present threat, encouraging resolution by means other than brute force and making combat a truly dicey option (pun intended).
Stranger
WOTC responds. I’m reserving judgment until I see the final product. (Though I haven’ RPGed in years)
Brian
“You’re going to hear people say that they won and we lost because making your voices heard forced us to change our plans,” WotC writes. “Those people will only be half right. They won—and so did we.”
I guess it took them four days to develop that sad spin.
Paizo and other companies that jumped ship from the OGL aren’t going to just say “Nevermind then!” and come back. WotC burned a huge amount of goodwill with this and can only be called a loser.
Firstly let me start with my boilerplate rpg rant:
Games Workshop, I utterly despise you.
Anyway, a few thoughts from my kyuss-worm
riddled brain
WoTC are pissing ontheir chips* :
Game rmechanics arent copyrightable
Hasborgs size is great for squishing medium companies but wont work against someone with no assets to lose.
Pathfinder took off because 4E sucks catoblepas balls
The financial holy grail of D&D is a blockbuster movie or Tv series . And computer games. P&P Gaming material is chickenshit.
*french fries not poker
Legal question: if WoTc sue Tiny Assetless Publisher, is there anything to stop other rpg publishers chipping in for a shit hot legal team?
And novels. WotC has made a lot of bank over the past couple of decades on Forgotten Realms novels (Drizzt, etc.); many of the readers of those books have never actually played D&D.
All gamers should, especially Americans.
We had a great 4e campaign. But yeah, it was not so good.
I thought 4E was… Okay. I only played it online in a couple of play-by-post campaigns. But it wasn’t all that difficult to wrap my head around it. I didn’t feel that it was as awful as many people have said it is, but it is my least favorite version that I’ve played. (I have not played 5th Edition, just never had the opportunity.)
In my experience, my favorite AD&D editions, in order, have been:
- 3rd Edition
- 2nd Edition
- 1st Edition
- 4th Edition
If you consider 3.5 to be its own thing then stick it at the top and shift the rest down, but I consider it to be just a major fix of 3, not its own separate entry.
I probably have the most experience with 2nd Edition. When I first really started getting into gaming with a group, that was the contemporary one, and I played the heck out of it. Much nostalgia there. But 3rd was just easier to play, rules made more sense, and I felt like you had more options to customize a character (without having to collect all of the splatbooks or obscure Dungeon Magazine articles). 1st Edition had a fun retro feel to it. 4th Edition had a lot of math and made more sense for a video game than a tabletop, but I still had some fun campaigns so it was okay.