A more complex analysis would include going over the PHB, the DMG, and the Amber Main book and doing a word count. I skipped the DMG, and I used a very broad brush for both the Amber book and the PHB, both of which have fairly low rules per page densities. Honestly, I think I’d strip the skills and powers out of my list of rules in both cases if I wanted to spend the time to do a full analysis. Those aren’t rules as much as they are modules that interface with the rules. (There are definitely rules in the skills and powers sections, things about how to gain them, how to compare them, and how to adjugate them, but the skills and powers are a slightly different sort of entity. )

Michael Phillipss last blog post..Geneology, what’s that

It’s true that these rules look a bit different to what D&D rules look like – there’s a lot of advice about what to do to resolve situations without a randomiser, and so on – but they are rules nonetheless (and obviously just as able to be ignored as any other rules).

Certainly I think Amber is more rules heavy than Fudge. With Fudge you’ve got one simple core mechanic and essentially everything revolves around that mechanic; with Amber, none of the Powers work quite the same, there’s a completely different subsystem for building items, Shadows, and (with Shadow Knight) Constructs, and so on.

The problem I have is basically this. When I start a new campaign, I have to sell my players on the excitement of what the campaign will be “about”, some of which – much of which – will be what the world will contain. My enthusiasm for someone else’s creation is unlikely to ever be as great as my enthusiasm for my own creation. The one thing fluff does do is act as a crutch if you are unable or unwilling to make things up yourself – but if you are able and willing to create your own fluff (or let your players do it), then it’s nice not to have to worry about going against the “official” fluff when you do so. In that sense the less “official” fluff the better.

Keep the fluff to supplements, I reckon.

Ferex, some of the best role playing sessions I’ve ever played or run were in strongly rules-light systems like BESM or Amber Diceless Role Playing.
(Well, actually by the year before the release of 3.0, our 2nd edition group knew the rules so well that they might as well have been transparent, but the learning period for a game like 2nd ed. AD&D is months or years vs an hour for BESM and “till you are done with character creation” for Amber. I found that systems with a single unified mechanic and no during gameplay use of charts tended to take little time to get back to strong role playing with my group. (Fuzion was like that. There were two mechanics and minimal charts, so we were able to get the mechanics down during character creation and get on with the actually playing our characters during the adventures. 3rd most intrigue based game I’ve ever played was a Bubble Gum Crisis game on the Fuzion engine.)

That is what I loved about 3.0 and especially 3.5. The actual game system was, itself, fairly simple and streamlined. There was very very little stuff that needed to refer to the books that couldn’t be handled between sessions after you learned the 1.5 different core systems. (the d20 system and the grapple system)

Michael Phillipss last blog post..Geneology, what’s that

Yaxs last blog post..New Skin!

I’m also really tempted to start working on writing 3rd/4th edition compatible materials (not GSL material, but 4th compatible. I dislike what I’ve seen of the GSL so far, but there is no reason to actually be bound by it.)

Michael Phillipss last blog post..Geneology, what’s that

Personally, I like the fact there is not so much “fluff” because I feel like this aspect of the game is being left to the players. How fluffy is it really if you are being spoon fed those things? Wouldn’t those same literal minded people stick to the preconceived fluff? NO! You can’t set Xor’s pants on fire, only monsters and bacon! I look forward to putting in my own variety of fluff and leaving the crunchy number things to people who can add.

The rituals thing is interesting. I’ll be curious to see how people use it and feel about it two years from now.

- Brian

I will and I shall! As soon as the books are officially out…

I agree that the second line of flavour text technically kills Command’s more creative uses, but as a DM I’d be willing to waive this.

However do note one thing. Now that non-combat NPCs don’t have stats anymore, having an ‘open’ command power available every 10 minutes (because it’s an encounter power now) against non-heroic/non-monster target is an issue.

As this little analysis suggests, some of the new designs have changed how the game can be played and I guess we’ll have to accept that, hack it carefully and check what breaks or move on to something else.

So if I get this straight a ritual is a long-to-cast spell that needs a feat to be performed from a spellbook but anyone can use them from scrolls.

Oh boy this will irritate a lot of purists!

Yum, Sacred cow make good steaks!

Why don’t you post a “Power of the Week” and open it up for us to give our ideas for non-combat uses? I won’t be getting the books, or even playing 4e in the forseeable future, but I love creativity exercises.

I wish they didn’t have that “fluff” sentence in the Command, as I feel it limits it.

“You can choose to drive the foe back, order it closer, or cause the foe to throw itself to the ground.”

Besides, the way the power reads it sounds like a “stun” with “telekeniesis.”

“Hit: The target is dazed until the end of your next turn. In addition, you can choose to knock the target prone or slide the target a number of squares equal to 3 + your Charisma modifier.”

What i find good in it is that it’s not a class specific thing. You just need to have the feat to be able to cast ritual from a book but anyone can cast one from a scroll (for one use).

In order to limit the use of these abilities it is now component base. You’ll need some amount of material of a specific type worth X gp to cast the ritual. An you need to find these or purchase these ritual.

I find this a good thing since that removes the “we need a cleric to be able to restore ailment” now we just need someone that is able to cast rituals (take the feat) and we are set and even then we could use scrolls to cast them if nobody as the feat.

Nobody should feel forced to take a class he does not want to play…

Do note that the Crunch Overlord, in his haste to announce his triumph, has clearly not read the chapter on rituals yet…

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ex/20080528a

This seems to cover a lot of non-combat magical effects like scrying, illusions, long range teleport and various cures.

Maybe therein lies non-combat powers.

Anything crunchy is good! Mwa HA HA HA!

They even created a game just to recapture that “1st edition feel”, which any KoDT fan will be well aware of.

@Dax: Welcome to the Blog. Agreed that bad DMs need to be given the chance to get better… if they don’t they need to be shown the door.

Keep on the Shadowfell is not devoid of story potential… But since it’s an introduction to a new system whose core is action combat, you get a lot of those. As all gaming groups do, Hand and Slash group will do just that and story groups will try to convince the mooks in there that there is a better life outside the Keep…

@Gazza and Brian: Each Power has a few lines of flavour text that can give guidelines for non combat uses.

Command has this (In for a penny, in for a pound):

You utter a single word to your foe, a word that demands obedience. You can choose to drive the foe back, order it closer, or cause the foe to throw itself to the ground.

As you can see even that was nerfed.

Graham gave me a good idea, I will start a log of my 4e games here and I will encourage my players to come up with non-combat uses of powers and we’ll test them and report how it went here.

@Glyph: You know something? New players to D&D almost always start with Hacking and Slashing. It’s as fun way to explore the system and its iconic monsters. So making the Core as crunchy as possible is a good move I agree (I’m just a bit jarred at how constrained some are now… makes it easier to adjudicate, but man it feels like a CCG/CMG).

Some (if not most) players from previous editions will have moved to a wider playing style and can start as soon as they grasped 4e mechanics.

I think that’s why I saw so many ‘it feels just like D&D’ in posts about playing Keep of the Shadowfell.

On the other hand, it is pretty obvious that they have decided to let the fluff and crunch of the game get completely seperated. Which may turn out to be good or bad. It really is a test of the idea that you can apply fluff to any rules system. On the gripping hand, I hope that there are fluff-heavy books published later.

All in all this reminds me of the old Shadowrun RPG, back during it’s 1st and 2nd editions. They released a main book that was so much crunch that it was pretty much just a mechanics and crunch encyclopedia. The result: Almost all of the world suppliments were pure fluff and flavor text that had only a tiny rules chapter in the back. So even though the rules system has changed so much since then that the mechanics are unreconizable, a good amount of those 10-15 year old books are still wonderful resources. So maybe we will see a bit of this in 4e d&d.

- Brian

Brians last blog post..Compare and Contrast: Monster Books