Inq. of the Week: Non-RPG Content?
Several readers commented on last week’s Inquisition to point out that the Eberron campaign setting for D&D doesn’t actually fit in that well to the Steampunk genre, but the results of our poll are an astounding majority (76%) of people who are interested in or like Steampunk. Only 7% actively dislike the genre, while the remaining 17% are either indifferent or don’t know enough about the genre to make a decision. Perhaps we should have some educational posts to enlight and convince that 17% to be more interested in the genre.
Well voting for the ENnies closed over the weekend, first and foremost I’d like to extend our thanks and appreciation to everyone who voted for us! No matter what you ranked our site compared to the others, they all help and hopefully we will be pleasantly surprised at the ceremony during GenCon. Being nominated for an RPG award for “Best Website” is an absolute honor for Dave, myself, and everyone else who contributes here. During the first two years of this site (2005-2007) I always took some pride in the fact that I first added the “Videogames” category to the site and for that period of time it was our biggest category. Since then RPGs has easily overtaken all of the other categories, which is not a surprise to us because 2007 is when we all started playing regular tabletop RPG campaigns again after several years of hit and miss attempts.
In an effort to always be looking and moving forward, this week I’d like to ask you all what kind of content you are most interested in seeing here at Critical Hits other than RPG and D&D related posts. Each of these categories includes reviews, editorials, previews, and everything else related to the topic that we can think of but if you have something specific in mind please share it with us in the comments. For example if you’d like to see weekly reviews of the coolest and best comic books each week (or month), then vote for comics in the poll and share the specifics with us in the comments. The one stand alone entry in the poll is “Original Webcomic”, for the few of you that have been reading the site for long enough might remember that I used to do a webcomic and post every week called Random Encounters for a few months, if this is something you’d be interested to see more of please let us know! You can vote for as many choices as you like, so feel free to vote for all of the categories you’d like to see us post more about in the future.
Loading ...Of course, if you can think of something new that you’d like us to cover here, vote for the “Other” option and let us know in the comments!
Inq. of the Week: Sources of Power?
Image property of Sergio B.
We generally try not to impose our opinions overtly on all of our readers, so when it came to a topic like psionics in D&D we really wanted to see how many people like it and how many people can’t stand stupid sciences in their freaking fantasy games! So last week Dave, or I guess we’re referring to each other as “colleagues” now though I prefer to call him Davey-gravy-pants, asked the question about preferences with regards to psionics in a fantasy setting. Not quite half of those who voted (48%) really do like psionics in D&D, tough some may have been swayed by Dave’s reference to psionics as random special abilities in 1st Edition which I was very surprised to read about. The rest of you are actually split right down the middle with 26% who don’t like psionics in D&D and 26% of you who might like psionics, but you’re not sure, maybe if it buys you some flowers first and takes things nice and slow…
Just before the Player’s Handbook 2 was released back in March I wrote an inquisition asking which power source people most wanted to see in the PHB3, the source that won the poll was psionics so it seems the PHB3 is shaping up to meet a lot of expectations already but unfortunately shortly afterward we discovered that WotC has abandoned the Ki power source concept which came in second in the poll. I’m surprised that I haven’t seen or heard more backlash from the elimination of the Ki source, something which I personally feel was a mistake but I can fully understand why it was done and though I don’t have any mechanical issues with the Monk being a psionic class it just feels wrong to me.
Lamentations of old power sources aside, now we’d really like to know which of the released power sources is the most popular! Unfortunately I am not including any home-made power sources, because some of them are totally sweet and would break the poll.
Loading ...Martial Classes: Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Warlord
Arcane Classes: Wizard, Warlock, Swordmage, Sorcerer, Bard, Artificer
Divine Classes: Cleric, Paladin, Avenger, Invoker
Primal Classes: Barbarian, Druid, Shaman, Warden
Psionic Classes: Monk, Psion
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Check out the full image at Sergio B’s flickr page!
Inq. of the Week: You Got Science in my Fantasy
Last week, my colleague asked about your caffeine of choice to keep you going through those long gaming sessions. The battle was heated, and so was the eventual winner of Coffee (which is appropriate since that’s what I’m drinking right now) taking 34% of the vote. Speeding closely behind it (and overtaking the lead several times) was the old favorite Soda, with iced tea coming in third as a refreshing alternative. I was glad to see last place was the pill-popping option… there are too many other tasty alternatives to turn to drugs to stay awake for your marathon sessions of Twilight Imperium.
Danny brought you his view of the mechanics behind the new Psion class last week, and when the Monk came out, I gave you my views on why I’m biased towards psionic characters. In response to those articles and on other blogs, we heard a lot of complaints that psionics just don’t fit with the D&D milieu. Even for a die hard fan such as myself, it can be hard to justify mental powers (that in other media are often linked to “the next stage of evolution” and other scientific/pseudo-scientific concepts) as part of the D&D world. Dark Sun was a world custom built for psionics, as all the other alternatives for fantastic powers had some issues. I myself have attempted to run campaigns that heavily focused on psionic characters (and try to get some use out of the weird healing and utility powers that were never taken when you had Wizards and Clerics around). In other campaigns, however, there would be one psionic character, and in terms of flavor, they just ended up being a different kind of Wizard.
However, as reminded I’m reminded in the new Design & Development article (sub required):
Psionics have been a part of D&D since the ancient days of the Eldritch Wizardry supplement to the original Dungeons & Dragons game. They also appeared in an infamous appendix in the 1st Edition Player’s Handbook, allowing any character to get lucky by randomly manifesting psionic powers.
So let’s try our best to settle this issue right here and now. As far as your preference in all things psionic in your D&D games…
Loading ...Inq. of the Week: How Caffeinated?
Addressing one of the more criticised aspects of 4th Edition D&D, last week Dave wanted to find out what the most popular class role is and it looks like he got some good results. Striker came out in a short lead with 27% of the votes, followed closely by the leader role with 22%. Defender recieved 16% of the votes and Controller came in last with 15%, while a solid 20% of those voting either don’t like class roles, don’t play 4E, or really like bananas.
We’ve had a lot of Origins 2009 coverage over the last week, and on Saturday celebrating the 4th of July Dave and I realized that GenCon is only a few weeks away. This realization makes me ponder what keeps me going through such hectic times, and more often than not the answer always comes back to caffeine. I’ve been a huge soda fiend since middle school, and even though my day job has stopped buying soda but still provides coffee, I just can’t bear switching over!
My assumption is that most of you are fans of my favorite legal addictive substance as well, so let us find out what the most popular source is!
Loading ...In discussing the topic with Phil the Chatty DM, he pointed me to this great website that lists the various sources of caffeine and how much each contains per oz. It’s definitley useful information to have at hand.
Inq. of the Week: Know Your Role
Arguments of firing from space and beaming into the sun aside, the Quinto vs. Quinto matchup was won by the super-villain Sylar. I thought his role and fate by the end of the last season were pretty interesting, though I’m sad to learn that everyone thinks that not even the scientific genius of Vulcan’s favored son could stand up to an immortal, shape-shifting, power-stealing psychopath. Let us hope that we are never forced to endure that fight.
Only a short Inquisition this week, since I have lots more Origins goodness to send your way soon, including an epic recounting of our journey to victory over the Ultimate Dungeon Delve, another seminar by Monte Cook (this one about designing dungeons), a seminar about 4e villain design, and my recap of the show’s exhibit hall, along with a few very short podcasts that describe some of the cooler games from the show floor.
Without further interruption, as suggested by our Ultimate Dungeon Delve teammate Krog, I ask the following:
Loading ...Discuss your preferences as far as roles and the strengths and weaknesses, but if you want to bash the role system, might I recommend starting a thread on your favorite RPG forum?
Inq. of the Week: Quinto vs. Quinto
Skill Challenges have been one of the hottest topics when it comes to the 4th Edition of Dungeons & Dragons, but up to last week we weren’t really sure how most of you feel about them. In our last Inquisition Dave finally asked about them, and 56% of you voted that you have run/played in Skill Challenges and enjoyed the mechanic. 21% of you said that you have not played in a SC yet, but plan to soon while 15% have played/run one and didn’t like them at all. A healthy 5% of you are not sure at all what you think about Skill Challenges, and the last 3% haven’t played in one and never plan to! Thankfully 0% of our readers chose “I don’t use skills” because surely all of you use your sweet bow-hunting and nunchuk skills on a regular basis.
A while back, over two years ago it seems, we had an epic showdown Inquisition between Ian McKellen and Ian McKellen…errr, I mean between Gandalf the White and Magneto! The mysterious White Wizard ending up kicking considerable ass in the poll, but it generated some interesting debate about who would actually win in a fight. There are so few opportunities to match an actor against themself such as this, that when a more recent example came up I just coulnd’t resist.
Loading ...Here we have Zachary Quinto vs. Zachary Quinto! His premier role as the villain Sylar in the aptly named tv show Heroes vs. young Spock from the new Star Trek movie.
It should be no secret that I am no fan of Heroes, but dislikes aside I’ve always thought Quinto made an excellent looking (if not terribly emo and lame in action) villain. Sylar is a superpowered serial killer who hunts other superpowered humans and steals their powers.
On the other side we have the young version of our old friend Spock, logical and emotional all over again. He really needs little introduction, but his vulcan and human heritage makes him a real threat to contend with, oh and the vulcan neck pinch is a real kicker too!
Who do you think would win in the fight, and why?
Inq. of the Week: Challenging Skills
On the occasion of E3, we were all “video-gamey” and asked who won the battle for the public’s digital hearts by wielding the most dreaded weapon of all: the multimedia presentation. The Xbox 360 successfully won among you, the readers, by capturing 38% of the vote by announcing the magical technology of Project Natal, the zombirific southern sequel Left 4 Dead 2, the stabbing Assasin’s Creed the 2nd, and others. Second place with 29% was those of you who don’t give a crap, and third place went to Nintendo’s M-heavy lineup.
Last weekend, as I’m oft to do every two weeks or so, I ran the next adventure of my campaign. Within it, they once again faced down a great wyrm black dragon that blames them for the death of her black dragon son (whom they did kill, but he was kind of a jerk in the first place). Earlier on, when they were but in the Heroic Tier, they fled from the menace by ducking through forests, and fleeing on horses to a safe area. Then in this last installment, the dragon found them flying through the skies aboard a flying Dwarven pirate airship (what else?) and threatened to destroy the ship if they didn’t toss the heroes overboard. Despite now being Paragons, they still found their powers mostly useless against the creature, and scrambled to improvise other alternatives aboard a flying pirate ship. Firing at the creature’s wings, slowing it for a round, ordering the pirates into a better sense of organization, searching the hold for something useful, and finally, firing a Deva riding a barrel of rum attached with a chain to an anchor at the dragon using twin ballistas.
What do both of those encounters have in common, other than the same foe? They were both done as skill challenges. (In similar fashion to Mr. Mearls’s method of throwing a famous demon lord at your players at level 1).
As I’ve remarked before, skill challenges have been something of, umm, a challenge for many DMs and groups. It doesn’t help that it had to be heavily errated for the numbers to work the way they were intended, and everyone seems to have an opinion on them.
Thus, I’d like to find out that opinion, especially towards our skewing heavily towards liking 4e audience:
Loading ...My sense overall is that either they fall flat and it’s just kind of boring, or they’re pretty awesome without a whole lot of room in between. But if you have stories of either, feel free to share them!
Inq. of the Week: Opinions of E3 2009?
A week ago we were quickly approaching the first anniversary of the 4th Edition of Dungeon & Dragons release, which has now passed and the results are in for our poll asking for opinions on the new edition so far. Just over half of the 381 voters chose ‘strongly like’ (52%), which is a majority but not a shattering lead which is right around where I would have guessed it to be. 24% of you chose simply ‘like’ citing a number of differences or problems with the system but overall still a favorable reaction to it, which gives us a total of 76% of you who like 4E for the most part. 8% of you were neutral/undecided or don’t care about 4E, while 10% dislike it and 6% strongly dislike it which gives us a total of 16% who don’t like 4E very much or at all. I have to say I’m a bit surprised at the 76 – 8 – 16 spread, especially considering the seemingly rampant resurgent edition wars going on recently.
For the past week I’ve been hearing faint whispers around the edges of my geek-radar (standard issue) about E3 going on, but it feels like this year everything is far more muted than it has been in previous years. The only thing that I’ve really heard a lot of excitement about is the new Star Wars: The Old Republic trailer, which does look extremely badass and the changes to the MMO style really intrigue me. This all led me in a discussion with Dave to wonder if less people have really been paying attention to E3 this year, if there haven’t been any ground breaking announcements, or if I’m just out of the loop! What I’d like to ask this week is what you’ve heard from E3 that excites you, or if you haven’t heard anything at all:
Loading ...Nintendo’s E3 news – A new Metroid game produced by Team Ninja (trailer here), Super Mario Galaxy 2 and New Super Mario Bros. game (trailer here) for the Wii, Wii Vitality Sensor
Microsoft’s E3 news – Left 4 Dead 2 now with new zombies and melee weapons (chainsaw! – trailer here), Project Natal (trailer here), Assassin’s Creed 2 (trailer here)
Sony’s E3 news – God of War 3 (trailer here), new PSP Go!, Eyetoy, Final Fantasy XIII & XIV, Uncharted 2, The Last Guardian (trailer here)
Feel free to share any other news or announcements from E3 2009 that we didn’t list here or that you’re particularly excited about!
Inq. of the Week: One Year Later for 4e
Two weeks ago, we wanted to find out at what age you rolled your first dice. (Hopefully by that point you stopped trying to eat them). Poll results indicate that among the 426 respondants, 49% of you started when you were at those formative years of 11-15. 27% of you (myself included) were at the tender age of 10 or younger when you started slaying dragons. 17% of you started when you were 16-20, possibly as a result of this thing called “college.” One single person said 51 or older was when starting to play RPGs, so to you sir or madam, I salute you!
As of this Saturday, 4e will have been out for one year. Possibly the most controversial of all editions and certainly the most blogged-about edition of Dungeons & Dragons to ever be released, D&D 4e has been built up, torn down, and reported on across the Internet. Armchair and professional designers have taken sides to discuss it, while players and DMs examine all the rules closely looking for suggestions and answers. Meanwhile, celebrities of the geek world helped promote the game by playing it and letting people listen in on their game.
Starting with the initial announcement at GenCon 2007, we polled reaction to the coming of a new system and found most to be cautiously optimistic. Then shortly after release, we polled about everyone’s favorite edition of D&D, which at the time showed a preference for 4e, and late voting has only increased that lead. It seems only natural to follow up with the following, after 1 year of release, the question on many minds…
Loading ...As I write this post and poll, I worry about the potential for edition war. (Unlike previous polls, this will be the first one we’ve done on the subject since the RPG Bloggers Network brought together so many different opinions on RPGs). If you’d like to explain your vote in the comments, feel free, just please be respectful to other’s preferences and tastes and choices. I have another post brewing about the conflict between fans of different editions across the blogs (and hopefully my last post on the subject), but for now, we’re just looking for numbers.
Inq. of the Week: Age of Roleplaying?
I don’t think anyone is that surprised by the results of last week’s poll, asking people to choose their two favorite Star Trek movies. J.J. Abrams recent entry into the franchise came out in the lead with 60% of the votes, with second place predictibly going to The Wrath of Khan at 53%. First Contact was in third place with 22% followed by Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country at 14% and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home at 12%. I am actually surprised that the TNG movies aren’t as enjoyed as the original series movies, but that’s probably because I grew up with TNG and not the original. Thankfully it looks like many people are quite happy with the reboot of the original franchise and hopefully any future installments will be even better.
This week I’ve been thinking about something that I don’t believe we have touched on yet, and that’s at what age people start playing RPGs. I’ve heard from quite a few people that are new to D&D with 4th edition from various ages, but even just yesterday I ran my D&D game with a player who had not played since 2nd edition many years ago and is now trying it out again. So with that in mind, tell us:
Loading ...We’d love to hear what year exactly you started in also, and which game it was that started you out in roleplaying, in the comments!
