Observe 1d6+1 moments of silence.

Penny Arcade:

Is 4th edition really that bad?

It means he's playing(rolling dice) his game despite being dead. At least I hope that's what it means.

I'm fairly sure it is.

Sad but I've never liked D&D.

If you consider butchering the system to make it easier for video game developers to make games using it so Hasbro can make more money through royalties "bad," then yes. They're changing the magic system from memorized spells to mana, FFS. There's no point in buying it, since I'm sure they'll have 4.5 out in another six months.

3rd edition is the pinnacle. There is no reason to use any other system.

Wow, I thought I was the only OotS reader 'round here since the departure of Burrie.

Kwanzy.

I think Glyde reads it, but I also doubt he hangs around here anymore.

I read it too.

OotS is win
4th edition sucks
RIP Gary Gygax

I read OotS.

But it's so SLOW lately. Quick! Something! Happen!

I own the OotS books Dungeon Crawlin' Fools and No Cure for the Paladin Blues, and both have been signed by Rich Burlew. When he signs them, he even draws a picture of a character of your choice. I went with Durkin and Thog.

Gary Gygax dies of extreme virginity.

HURR

How disrespectful.

This would be INCREDIBLY FUNNY if he didn't have like 7 kids.

I'm pretty sure a bunch of spells, like Melf's Acid Arrow, are actually named after his children's characters.

I used to love D&D back in the day... and i still compare games today with it when i try them out for the first time. but unfortunately theres really no room for a pen and paper game in the world today. Most gamers who are into that sort of thing are on MMO's nowadays, and those who still like them have a pretty hard time finding players in most places. people old enough to be into the classic RPG have jobs and lives nowadays, and games that require everyone to have hours of freetime at once get played alot less than you would like.
Gary Gygax began the RPG craze, and he saw it get pretty big durring his lifetime, but in the digital world we want more players with less effort, in games we can play whenever the hell we want. With Gygax gone, and D&D burning to death in the hands of WOTC, pen and paper has seen its last. sometimes ill still miss it, but the future of rpgs will be online.
Its just too bad that most MMO's right now suck. I haven't heard anything on the follout mmo in a bit... just on F3, but im looking forward to that.

What? My local gaming store has plenty of pen and paper groups going right now. They always have. It might have died in your area, but it's still going strong in others.

Yeah seriously.

I ride by the gaming place near here all the time and theres always atleast 4 nerds in there playing whatever.

what



No. MMORPGs are the opposite of what a P&P enthusiast wants. They're absolute timesinks, where nothing happens. If that's your experience with P&P, then I feel sorry for you.



You're implying that P&P RPGs have not updated since the old days. That's not true, gaming is just as alive as it was back in the day, and enjoyed by people geeks of all ages. The internet has only made it more vibrant, with large discussion boards for people to swap ideas, a burgeoning indie scene and IRC to allow people to play who previously couldn't. As for the job thing, well that's the same with all hobbies.

With Gygax gone, and D&D burning to death in the hands of WOTC, pen and paper has seen its last.[/QUOTE]

It's a good thing then there's plenty more games out there than D&D. In fact, most serious gamers only see D&D as a stepping stone or a piece of nostalgia. It's still the largest game, by far, but there are still lots of other games, easily acquirable online or in gaming shops.

D&D has been a dinosaur for years now, suffering from some major inherent design flaws. Especially the alignment system. Sure, it's a classic, but it's bull**** in principle and ignored in practice.

Except, as psionics has demonstrated, power points ("mana") make a magic character way more fun to play. The current restrictions on spell casting are stupid. Like preparing the same spell five times prevents you from remembering another. :downs:

At least it sorta makes sense in the context of clerics, since technically they pray for spells every day, but wizards? To say nothing of sorcerers, who by their very definition cast spells by the seats of their pants?

OOPS I PREPARED AN EXTENDED PROTECTION FROM GOOD INSTEAD OF A SIXTH MAGIC MISSILE, I GUESS I WILL HAVE TO SLEEP FOR 8 HOURS NOW!

So one second you're complaining about how 4E is a worthless abomination, and then you conveniently forget the fact that 4E fixes it? Most characters now are going to be unaligned with only a few extreme characters dedicated to either good or evil. Alignment-based magic and abilities are now intent-based (i.e. "Protection from Evil" protects you from someone trying to do something evil to you)

And for whatever it's worth, the XKCD tribute.

The most I've looked into 4E was the rumors I've heard about it. I never bothered looking into it before shooting my mouth off, because I'm cool like that. Also, I like conspiracies, and the idea that WotC is butchering the system to sell the system to video game developers is a perfect one. So I didn't know that they were changing the alignment system. I didn't convenient forget, I conveniently eschewed research.

At any rate, the alignment system is not the only thing I don't like about D&D, and I never said the magic system was perfect. I just think that they've done magic that way for such a long time, they might as well stick with it. I agree that it doesn't make any sense. Are wizards magical people or not? Why do they need to prepare spells (As a GM, my excuse was always that spells take a long time to cast, so you get the difficult stuff out the way before going to sleep, so you can only prepare a certain amount of spells)? Where does the sorcerer fit into all this? How come his magic uses identical spells to the mage? Why aren't sorcerers wild mages? I'd rather see a magic system like they have in Ars Magica or Mage, but that would just make the core book 500 pages longer.

I don't like D&D because I'm tired of the premise. Troupe of adventurers in generic fantasy world. Can only do that so many times before you never want to raid another crypt again. This wouldn't be such a problem if there were good supplements out, but I haven't seen a good D&D setting since Planescape.