They had similar systems in 7th Sea and d10 Legend of the Five Rings but again they were just for Mass Combat and Chases and not a general application. Exalted has a Mass Combat system that is more Miniatures Gaming level than even D&D has for tactical combat. I still can't think of anyone who has tried to make a skill system for resolving ANYTHING in game.

Yet another reason to like SR. One BBB, then the extra books if you want to get into further depth, but it's still playable from the one book.

Should have pre-ordered...I got all three core books for $57 including shipping off Amazon. The books are really nice though and the gift set came with a heavy cardboard "sleeve" where all three can be stored.

I do have to agree with a prior post, using the basic skill challenge template in other games is pretty easy to do and I think would be fun. Those couple of SR4 examples are pretty sweet!

I think it important to note that the License for 3rd party 4e D&D stuff is so heinous that it might as well simply not exist. In the words of Admiral Akbar: "It's a Trap!"

It's Here.

The long and the short of it is that if you ever release anything under that license they have the right to take your IP, sue you for violating what s now "their" intellectual property, and force you to settle out of court with you paying their legal fees. And no, that's not hyperbole, that's seriously what it actually says. They can terminate your license at any time and you are still bound by the contract afterwards and they are not. Furthermore you can't ever publish anything OGL for 3rd edition D&D ever again if you print anything under the 4th edition license ever.

Basically no one is taking it. All the major 3rd party d20 companies are emphatically not jumping on board. Sword & Sorcery, Crafty Games, Paizo, etc. have all taken a giant step away and told WotC to stuff it. Even Necromancer Games, which had already started up a proposed 4e product line took a hard look at the GSL and shook their head in terror and disgust.

-Frank

Frank, why is that important to any of us in this thread?

Maybe I am underestimating the numbers, but I didn't think the majority of gamers try to publish their house-rules, cool content or adventures.

I'm curious. Have you even played 4th Edition DnD? Every other post in these few DnD thread is you bringing up another reason that the new edition is horrid and should not be played. I'm always eagerly anticipating what you will bring up next to take the system down. I for one, am continue to check this area of the forum just to read what you have to say next.

Agreed. Though sadly, I consider all the... "Class Books", for lack of a better term (Maybe "Expanded Core"?) to be necessary

Which means for me, SR Clocks in at around $190

I also would consider D&D to be a cheaper investment in the long run as well. Because All I've ever needed for D&D was the three core books. I like some of the expansion settings, but outside of a very short Dragonlance game, and a Forgotten Realms game that ended up using nothing but the map of the realm, I've never really used any of the expansion material for it. Never cared for the "Complete X Guides" from 2nd ed, didn't have the money or access to the stuff from 1st ed (Unearthed Arcana, etc), and while some of the last group I played with used the class splatbooks, my 3.X character were all pretty vanilla out of the core books. I never felt any of it was necessary in the slightest, since the core game is "Generic Fantasy World X", and I tailor it to my own needs pretty fast.

Ok, I lied. I've used my Keep on the Borderlands modules (I currently own 3 versions, and have owned about 7 or 8 copies of it over the years ) a lot. But that also was a Basic D&D book, and came in the box set. I just keep adapting it to the new editions.

But for SR and it's evolving world, I consider almost all of the books "necessary", to some degree. The Place books and adventures are definitely less so, but they're still a part of the entire experience, and something I want to add to my collection.

<shrug> Don;t get me wrong, I'm not disagreeing with you. In the short term, D&D is much more expensive, and that can definately be daunting to a new player. But really, how many SR groups play with just the core books? And how many SR groups play with *just* the BBB?

For experienced gamers, I don't think cost is really going to be a factor, other than for a handful of folks who might have picked it up on sheer whim if it was cheaper but never planned to really play it. For anyone who's a fan of D&D style gaming, it's not gonna stop them in the least.

Interestingly enough, Red Brick Games announced yesterday that they have signed on as the first person to use the new GSL. They haven't stated whether or not they plan to adapt Earthdawn to it or not (I suspect not, myself), but... It'll be something to watch.

Chris Pramas at Green Ronin has said they will likely do some GSL stuff in the future, though they're wagons are still tied pretty heavily to both OGL/D20, with their Freeport, true 20, and Mutants & Masterminds stuff.

Sword & Sorcery is a bit of a surprise, but not by much. Outside of their licensed stuff (Warcraft, EQ. Which it's in their own interests not to switch systems for), I'm not even certain we'll see much, if anything from them.

No clue who Crafty Games are. Some Google, and... Ahh, Spycraft. Makes sense. DId they leave Alderac, or is this an imprint like SSS is for White Wolf? ANyways, again, no real surpise. Especially since I can;t see this working with a non-D&D setting.

Paizo's no real shock, after WotC cut them off. Honestly, the whole Pathfinder thing comes off as a tantrum on their part. WotC took their ball away, so now they're throwing a balled up rag around and refusing to go home

The thing is, many of these companies are pretty entrenched in what they're doing. The SSS stuff, especially Monet Cook's Malhavoc stuff, Ronin's True 20 and M&M, and SPycraft all diverged pretty heavily from standard D20, to the point where they bascially created a whole new game using the bare bones of the original. It's nice they showed that initiative, and riding the wave of lemming-like borg collective of D20 players helped give them their start, but I think with a bit of effort all of these could have been accomplished just as well, if not better, without the D20 logo and the OGL. Frankly, there's no way to adapt any of these to 4e without scrapping everything and starting from scratch. It's not in their best interests to do so in the least.

Paizo, meanwhile, it trying to pick up with WotC is leaving off with 3.5. I have my doubts as to how well they'll manage, personally. It'll be something to watch, but I suspect most D&D players that don't switch to 4e will either stick with the "classic" WotC material, or are already using Monte Cook's stuff or the True 20 stuff. At best they may pick up a book here or there as supllemental material.

I should note here as well that of the half dozen or so D&D groups I know of, the only one who allowed any non-WotC sourcebooks to be used was a group running Cook's stuff, and they were running the game using those as their primary books, and only allowed Malhavoc stuff, in additionto WotC material. I know some groups went nuts with the "Non-official" material, but I suspect they were pretty few and far between.

So honestly, I'd be surprised to see any of the big names in 3.X announce they were switching over. And frankly, I doubt WotC really cares. OUtside of the buzz that the D20 Zombie Attack caused, I don't think the D20 business really helped WotC at all, especially financially. The vast majority of the D20 stuff was utter crap and reflected poorly on D&D, and the stuff taht was decent went from D20 to OGL pretty fast and splintered off to the point where WotC's core books weren't needed, or weren't even compatible.

And it would be stupid for the OGL guys to drop their successful lines to try and work up something new from scratch for 4e. And yes, I agree, the GSL is kinda silly and very restrictive. But I think that's because WotC would like to actually get a piece of the action this time. And I can't really blame them too much.

As I keep saying, it'll be something to watch. It's a new development and a new direction for the hobby, and as always, the effects it has will be pretty far reaching.

Because you're likely going to see a lot less 3rd party support from rocking companies like Paizo & Green Ronin for 4th Edition, compared to the support for 3rd edition and the continuing support for OGL-derived games like Pathfinder, True 20, etc.

The GSL prompted a lot of laughter when I read it.

Please, don't taunt the Frank. He's like bear in the zoo. He likes to growl, but he's harmless as long as you don't poke him with a stick

(Kidding Frank )



In this instance, he wasn't talking about house rules and the like. See my post above. Several companies managed to really make a name for themselves and carve out a niche by adapting and evolving the OGL. It'll be interesting to see the long term effects of this.

To expand on my other post, from what I gather very few folks outside WotC got a look at 4e ahead of time (I know Chris Pramas talked about that a couple times). So most of them are being cautious regardingg the GSL. Between their stake in the current product they're producing, and the fact they need time to digest the new rules and see what's possible for them to create and market, it's gonna be a bit before any of the major 3.X companies dives in. Add to that the restrictive nature of the GSL, and I suspect most will be taking a "wait and see" attitude and see what happens with early adopters (Like Red Brick).

Bull

You're always so much more concise than me, Adam

Must be the White Jesus in ya

Sorry...this stick of mine sometimes has a mind of its own. And maybe its just me, but sometimes Frank acts like a bully and that often causes me to not let him get away without at least a little rebuttal, no matter how weak my own may be. I respect that man to no end and the majority of his posts are worth reading, even if I vehemently disagree... He just comes from a completely different angle and it seems to often encourage a response...anyways...

As to the third-party support, my experience has been similar to Bull's post. I really haven't played in a group where we used much else than the core books in DnD. Even back to 2nd Edition, while a lot of players picked up some of them, the vast majority was simply not allowed in the campaigns we played in. I've pretty much always played with just the core... So, while the license may be restrictive, I don't see that impacting our games, and that is the only real experience I have to pull from.

All I know is in the past three years, I've played four different table-top games: DnD 3.5, Hero System, SR4 and DnD 4.0. Both DnD versions were quick to pick up, play and have fun. There was relatively little needed to get started, chargen was under an hour and while there was still plenty to learn after a first session, it was not needed to keep playing.

Hero System took a solid 6-8 hours to chargen and that was using a paid-for piece of software. I think the system is the most mathematically sounds, but even after months of playing it, we still had to look up about every little thing...it just didn't play all that well.

SR4 took 2-4 hours to chargen and the first 2 months of playing were still relatively slow. All characters have a lot to do right out of the gate and that often slows the game down. It wasn't until we got into our 3rd or 4th month that we really started to hit the sweet spot of having fun each session with a good pace...

My only point is, for a system, fun is not the sum of its math. And fun is the purpose of any game...

And yet, I'm not the one going around "rebutting" people with attacks on their person. What is up with that?

-Frank

Frank is NOT acting like a bully! Mathematical reasoning = the antithesis of bullying, which tends to be emotinally-fueled physical aggression.

Guys, knock off the baiting and bullying debate and such. Back to gaming/games. Thanks.

My apologies, Frank, for thinking you to be a bully in some of your posts. I did not mean to offend you or anyone else by my own posts.

I still think that one should play a system before making a determination whether its fun or a disaster. As I have said in SR4-related forums several times, I love to come here and pick apart rules but when it actually comes to the game table, I think I use a total of like 2 or 3 house rules, most of which have come from these forums.

From the pov of pure copyright law, the GSL is sort of superfluous. One cannot copyright rules or tables. They can only copyright setting, characters, unique monsters, the fluff, and the books as written. There is really no law stopping anyone from stripping out the fluff and the setting details, rewriting the rules in their own words, and publishing them. Likewise, there is nothing stopping anyone from writing and publishing compatible material, so long as it doesn't steal fluff from WOTC.
Except, of course, for the threat of frivilous lawshits that will take a couple decades to work through the courts and cost millions of dollars to both parties before WOTC loses its final appeal and actually has to pay a portion of the defendant's court costs by which time the defendant is already bankrupt and has had its assets and IP bought by WOTC.

You're right, Bull. I said that you "could" play with just the BBB, but if you look on my bookshelf, I've got a whole shelf of SR books, and some overflow. It's just the initial cost to "get your foot in the door" of the game that I find a little prohibitive.

When I did play D+D back in the day, I had a whole other shelf of 2nd ed books (and some 1st), Realms, Dragonlance, Spelljammer, Dark Sun, the Complete's and more that I can't remember right now. I had a lot of disposable income back then. Gas wasn't $4.15 a fraggin' gallon. So I also agree with your point that the hardcore fan (usually the DM and maybe some of the players) isn't going to be put off by the price.

And that GSL is just nuts, IMO. I mean they actually wrote in that you can't sue Wizards for anything covered under the GSL! I don't speak lawyer, but damn!

Is it can it be Mad Max time please?

I'm no lawyer either, but this seems to be more "wishful thinking" on WotC's part then actual fact.

We're paying more than double this for gas over here in Switzerland.

I think the real question is what they're paying in Australia. When will the price of gas hit a critical point where people will have no choice but to drive up and down the desert all day in giant handmade muscle roadsters while wearing tight spikey leather?

No, there are parts of the GSL that really aren't enforceable. But I think this is mainly an attempt by WotC to maintain some quality control.

The OGL wasn't a bad idea, but it didn't do what WotC wanted it to do: Sell more D&D books. Sure, early on when it was the "Big THing", it probably did, but in the long run you ended up with three core groups of OGL d20 product:

1) Stuff like the Freeport books from Green Ronin, and some of the classic style adventures that were put out by various companies. These were supplemental, tended to be very good products, but weren't heavily used. And I think they're the few products that got produced that were basically what the OGL was intended to encourage.

2) A massive glut of mediocre to crap books that seemed to be, by and large, ignored by the D20 community and disallowed from most home games because they were badly written and broken as all hell. There were a LOT of D&D groups that after a while said "No more third party crap, we're only using the official WotC books". I know we had a guy who kept bringing in feats and powers for his Paladin he found in various 3rd party books, and wow. Broken.

3) Stuff like True 20, Monte Cooks books, Mutants & Masterminds, etc. Stuff that circumvented the core D&D rules, and basically either didn't need the official WotC books at all, or changed the rules to the point where the WotC books were incompatible. Don;t get me wrong, there was some terrific stuff, and it was interesting to see how game designers could tweak the d20 ruleset. But at the end of the day, this didn't help WotC move any product.

So to me, the GSL is mainly a way to keep the lid on what the rules get used for in products that they're not involved with. Possibly some degree of quality (and content) control, and a way to ensure that any 4e D20 product will require you to spend at least a little money on WotC product first.

Sucks for the 3rd party companies, but really, I can't say I blame WotC for wanting to make some money off their rules

Bull

The OGL was in very large part a response to TSR's absurdly litigious death throws. It was Wizards of the Coast's promise to not sue people for publishing their house rules on the internet, which was a very real possible in the last days of TSR's independence. It served to dispel the fear and enmity earned by TSR's business practices and did so well.

The real question is if fans have been sufficiently lulled by the years of the OGL or if they will see this change as dangerous backpedaling to the bad old days of T$R.

Is that in American dollars, Kroner(?), or Euro's? I don't know the exchange rates, since I don't travel to Europe much anymore.

It's not so bad here in Austria where we have our own, albeit tiny, oil industry. Here we are merely paying around Euro1.50 per LITER, or more than $6.00 per gallon.



Isshia

So Mearls responds to skill challenge criticisms:



Translation: we fucked up completely, and we refuse to admit it or errata our mistakes. Go figure something out for now, and we'll have some expanded rules for you to buy in the DMG 2 that may or may not work.

-Frank

It is in dollars since I am comparing it to the quoted dollar price.

Did you ever use a skill challenge in actual gameplay? We did, it worked ok and was IMO more fun then one guy doing all the work with a simple skill check. Not the holy grail of non-combat conflict resolution, but not as bad as some people claim it to be.

But, but, but the math is broken!

Because everyone who went to school knows that math equals fun and you cannot have fun without math.

Hm... I actually had fun doing math...

You then, are a mutant

But yeah, as noted, math is not the be all and end all of gaming, they'll get over it.

This arguement always bugs me. My group played syndicate for a while, which was a free RPG on the internet, and I'm pretty sure its still out there. It had the most simple resolution system in the universe (roll a d6, GM makes up outcome). We had fun. However lets just say that the price was right.

I have no doubt that a good GM and significant house ruling can make skill challenges fun, but I'm not paying money for a good GM. I'm paying for solid rules, which I'm not getting.

Our original intention was to make a system where the players would do things in non-combat situations. As it turns out we completely failed at that and produced a system in which players fail to do things in non-combat situations with great regularity. Our suggestion is to move the goal posts and run a campaign in which failure is expected and rewarded so that the game doesn't collapse when people run afoul of the fact that we can't predict the results of rolling a die five times.

-Frank

...however, with the old Open Source policy I was able to obtain the core 3.0 --> 3.5 updates as RTF file DLs. Yeah, no pretty pictures or bookmarks/indexing, but all the important stuff was there.

Now OS is no more.

Does this part say that Wizards now owns whatever you publish and it becomes thier IP?

Sure looks like it.

We did and it wasn't a lot of fun. Since you need twice as many successes as failures, it can be pretty depressing when you've got 2 out of 3 failures but only 1 out of 6 successes, and you're going to have to make 5 rolls in a row or fail the skill challenge.

There might actually be a reason why it was called skill challenge. Just saying.

Yeah, you can spin it either way, really.

I mean, seeing a skill challenge gains you experience if you succeed, some might think the 11% (or so) chance to succeed on a 1st level moderate challenge where everyone has optimized skills is satisfactory. Others feel that probability needs to be a lot higher, which I would agree with, as you should expect to have a lot better chance to succeed at first level.

Now, I don't think the 11% success rate is static as you gain levels...I think it does become easier at higher level and higher complexity, but its still a pretty bad chance to succeed. Even internal folks have stated they "tweak" the rules to let a natural 20 get an automatic success or two as well very liberally hand out +2 bonuses to good, creative skill use.

And I'm going to break down and say it yet again...the end result of a failed challenge (which players are much more likely to see than successful challenges) are not equal to dying in combat. A failed challenge sets up an added obstacle to the party's success. Such as only getting a 4 guard escort instead of 20 of the lord's best men. Or, perhaps instead of getting that magic sword immediately, you have to prove yourself to the king first, then you will be awarded it. I mean, its still a double-whammy, as you don't gain the experience and you get an added obstacle to boot, but failure, shouldn't normally mean death.

I view it more like getting captured during combat. You failed the encounter, but you are not dead. You now have to escape from imprisonment on top of completing you quest goals...

That's obviously a pretty big spin on the existing probabilities, but if your DM is aware of the issue and carefully plans accordingly, they can still be fun...

You still get xp for overcoming the obstacle, though. If the obstacle is not a simple penalty, of course.

Hah! If that were true, PCs would spend most of their time captured. Not a lot of fun, there; the argument's the same with the skill challenge.

No.

Nonsense, having the PCs captured all the time is the making of a classic story: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bridge_on_the_River_Kwai

You don't need skill challenges. Any possible use of skill by the party can be avoided with practical application of violence.

For example, if a group of Paladins have learned that the Evil Kingdom of Unspeakable Evil is about to invade the Lawful Good Kingdom of Sugary Sweet Lawful Goodness and wishes to warn the Lawfully Good Lawful Good King the 4e conversation should go something like this.

Paladin: "Listen, The Evil King of the Evil Kingdom of Unspeakable Evilness is preparing his Unspeakably Evil Army of Evilness to invade your Lawful Good Lawful Good Kingdom of Sugary Sweet Lawful Goodness and you're not ready for it. You need to prepare your defenses and raise your army immediately. There is still time to put up a defense but you must act quickly. Of course, we have no proof of this other than the fact that we are Lawful Good Paladins and we could be lying through our teeth so you would be right to be skeptical and we understand that you will be reluctant to believe this unlikely tale. Under normal circumstances, we, the Paladins of Holy Lawful Goodness, Peaceful Cooperation, and Super Evil Smiting would use our diplomacy skills to convince you, wise and noble Lawfully Good Lawful Good King of the Lawful Good Kingdom of Sugary Sweet Lawful Goodness that we are telling the truth about this grave threat to your kingdom and the rest of the world. Unfortunately, we know that that won't work in this edition so instead we are going to simply kill you right here and right now, kill your heirs, take your throne, kill anyone who complains that the kingship can't Lawfully be transfered that way, and then pray to our Lawful Good God of Lawful Goodness for forgiveness, Hopefully we'll have all of the slaughtering finished in time to begin training the troops that we'll conscript from your kingdom by this afternoon." *splits the King's head open with a swift sword blow*


Edit: I just noticed that in 4e Paladins no longer have to follow any sort of code and can do whatever the hell they want without any sort of consequences.

Technically you don't NEED any part of the game engine...but certainly, it's back to early AD&D days for those who don't want the brokeness...they have little choice at this point but to delete them entirely from the game. Just like first edition, there will be no skills....except, you know, that'll imbalance certain races and classes and even monsters who are based partly around the idea of being strong at skills, but hey...


Isshia

My point is, a "falied" encounter, either skill or combat, normally does not end the night of adventuring. The majority of the arguments with the "math is broken" banner assume that a failed skill challenge equates to everyone packing up their books for the night and coming back to the table with new characters next session. At least that is the perception I am getting...

So far, I've played a total of 10 hours of 4th Edition...we've have 4 combat encounters and no skill challenges.

I still view a skill challenge in a different light than most...for example, I tried to get my DM to set one up in our first session when I tried to get discounted rooms for the party. The way I saw it, I was willing to take my 11% (or so) chance to get a discount and if I failed, I got to pay regular price... Now I'm not saying all challenges would be this way, as I suppose a failure to some DMs would be not getting a room at all, but again, we are not talking about extreme consequences for failure here.

I still don't understand why you would think no skill challenges equal no skills...

In the two sessions I have played, thus far, we've used a ton of skills, in and out of combat, yet haven't got into a skill challenge yet. Each of the skills have quite a bit of use... So I don't think you can blanket delete skills from the game if you decide to throw out the challenges.

I'd just say this. When we say "a challenging test of skill for D&D characters", are we more likely to think of 1.) haggling for a 10% discount for a large group at a small countryside inn, or 2.) walking across a chasm of doom on a tightrope, where if you fall off the tightrope we roll a percentile die where you have a 99% chance of being forever destroyed or a 1% chance of surviving with 1d4 hitpoints remaining?

Hrmm, honestly? I've haggled far more than I ever had to make tightrope walking tests in any edition of D&D

Really, I think the skill challenge issue is moot anyways. As I've said elsewhere, simply tweak the numbers a little to give the PCs more of a fighting chance if you want. Require fewer successes, a lower DC, whatever. Yes it sucks that it made it into the final rules, but Wizards has said this was a mistake, it's gonna get errata'd (May already have been, I never bothered to look). I mean, I know, an RPG book that needs errata? It's nearly unheard of!

When you say "a challenging test", well, yeah, is option 2. But, when you just say "a skill challenge", then I think both are valid options. Its anything outside of combat that you want to put together a set of skill tests to perform. Granted, sometimes the DM will say screw it, and give you a single roll, and that is fine too.

I think you shouldn't forget an option 3, which is something like:

3) Tracking a lone thief from your base camp, in the middle of the night, deep in the forest, where you have a "chance" to locate and confront him before he makes it back to the guild's cave hideout or a really good chance to only see him entering said cave hideout and decide what to do from there.

I'd almost say that your tightrope test is more of a set of individual tests than a skill challenge. I guess that's the conundrum...you can view any non-combat encounter as being individual only or a group effort. And that effort could be crossing a chasm, getting an item from the duke, getting a discount at the local inn, or trekking days in the woods tracking down a thief.

I would recommend thinking twice (or three or four more times) if the result of a failed skill challenge was being forever destroyed. Even if my chance of avoiding that was greater than 50%, I don't think I'd want to put my party in such peril with nothing but the dice determining the outcome.

Granted, as a DM/GM, I'm not the cold, cruel type that let's only the dice decide the outcome. I've rarely killed any player because of dice alone. I mean, even assuming the math worked in a skill challenge, meaning a better than 50% chance of success (some feel that 65% or better is more fair), I wouldn't want to set up these encounters to have fail = death. Now, I have played in campaigns where I have had to create 3 characters within the same dungeon, as the DM was strict and let the dice do the talking. But, it was just a dungeon crawl and after we finished, I didn't want to go back and play again with the same DM. I just didn't have as much fun...