Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1136864I don't really see 4th and 5th edition D&D as improvements so much as just changes, I think the term would be called churning. When a broker buys and sells financial instruments ostensibly to play the market for a client, but in actuality just to earn commissions for those transactions, that is called churning, and that is what I think the purpose of the 4th and 5th editions are for, to sell new books. Everytime they sell a new book, they earn additional money. The 3rd edition is fine, 4th and 5th editions are just additional games, but 3rd edition still works fine. RPG games don't become obsolete, pen and paper is pen and paper no matter what century you are in. 3rd edition will still work fine for fantasy role playing in the 22nd century as it does today. Kind of like chess, Monopoly, and poker, no one is doing 2nd, 3rd, and 4th editions of those. I think the key is writing new adventures rather than constantly trying to change the D&D game all the time.

The essential problem with this argument is that everything said about it could also be said about 3E/3.5/PF too.

Quote from: Greentongue;1136978"Empire of the Petal Throne" is struggling under that load.
The anything goes of that setting has been emphasized so much that not playing a fluid gender is somehow not playing the setting correctly.
IMHO

Well, EPT was famously the first published rpg setting to acknowledge  gay/lesbian pcs and npcs (in 1975). Of course, since it was the first published rpg setting of any sort, everything in there was a first. But I don't recall gender-fluid? Nor have I noticed the setting becoming prescriptive rather than permissive in that regard. But then, I haven't been paying attention lately, so I'm not challenging you on that. I would be interested in hearing more. Perhaps in another thread, so as not to hijack this one.

The problem I always had with 4E was that it looked more like an adaptation of an MMORPG and less like D&D. Among the various editions it stuck out like a sore thumb.

On its own, it wasn't -terrible-. I mean, it played reasonably well. But it didn't have the same ... kinesthetic? as D&D. Am I making any sense here?

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1136980The essential problem with this argument is that everything said about it could also be said about 3E/3.5/PF too.

Under original Dungeons & Dragons, when a player decided to do something that wasn't combat related, the DM had to use his best judgement as there wasn't a skills system. If you wanted a suit of armor, you had to pay 50 gp to an NPC, if a PC wanted to make his own Armor, the DM would say, that will cost 50 gp, the Player will ask how does the armorer make any money if it costs him 50 gp to make the armor and he sells it for 50 gp? The DM then feels uncomfortable because there were no hard and fast rules to cover Armor making, as none of the abilities in any of the character classes covered this. It was all about fighting, killing and taking. treasure and players turned that treasure into more useful items so they could do some more fighting and treasure taking. 3rd edition had more hard and fast rules that didn't rely on DM's judgement. 4th edition made D&D very much like a board game, you moved a piece around on a board, you had to decide on facing and you rolled the dice to determine the results, and there were a number of different options you had to choose from.  3rd edition goes up to a certain level of detail without turning the game into a complex miniatures combat game on a board. D&D is above all, a game of the imagination, playing with miniatures isn't for everyone. If a player see's his character as a miniature with a sword permanently extended in one hand and a shield in the other, that kind of limits his imagination. When I played 4th edition, I sometimes put pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters onmthe board to represent different monsters that I didn't have miniatures for.

I doubt many DMs would say it costs the same to make a piece as it does to sell the piece.

But I could see a DM bundling in the workshop costs into the first product. Though honestly setting up an armoursmithing shop would cost alot more than the armour. Not so mention does the PC even know how to do this. Metalworking is NOT easy. I know. I went to metal working shop and learned some of the processes. Same with woodworking to craft the stock of a crossbow. I still have the one I made in shop from school decades ago.

As a DM I'd have to consider alot of factors if a player wanted their character to out of the blue do this. Its what the DM is there for anyhoo.

One reason I like 5e. It gives you just enough skills and tool skills to have a handle up front on the logistics,

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;1137154Under original Dungeons & Dragons, when a player decided to do something that wasn't combat related, the DM had to use his best judgement as there wasn't a skills system. If you wanted a suit of armor, you had to pay 50 gp to an NPC, if a PC wanted to make his own Armor, the DM would say, that will cost 50 gp, the Player will ask how does the armorer make any money if it costs him 50 gp to make the armor and he sells it for 50 gp? The DM then feels uncomfortable because there were no hard and fast rules to cover Armor making, as none of the abilities in any of the character classes covered this. It was all about fighting, killing and taking. treasure and players turned that treasure into more useful items so they could do some more fighting and treasure taking. 3rd edition had more hard and fast rules that didn't rely on DM's judgement. 4th edition made D&D very much like a board game, you moved a piece around on a board, you had to decide on facing and you rolled the dice to determine the results, and there were a number of different options you had to choose from.  3rd edition goes up to a certain level of detail without turning the game into a complex miniatures combat game on a board. D&D is above all, a game of the imagination, playing with miniatures isn't for everyone. If a player see's his character as a miniature with a sword permanently extended in one hand and a shield in the other, that kind of limits his imagination. When I played 4th edition, I sometimes put pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters onmthe board to represent different monsters that I didn't have miniatures for.

Um there was a skills system in old dnd games though, i know BECMI had one.

Quote from: Slambo;1137190Um there was a skills system in old dnd games though, i know BECMI had one.

Thers also one in AD&D. Pretty rudimentary. But there. And OA intriduced skills as proficiencies.

The "they" I was referring to wasn't Wizards, but rather the SJWs who have taken over wizards in its peak 5e popularity.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1137339The "they" I was referring to wasn't Wizards, but rather the SJWs who have taken over wizards in its peak 5e popularity.

Not just WOTC. They are infesting FFG now and Paizo has been taken for a good while.Drive-thru and BGG have been gradually co-opted as well. Though BGG was allways leaning there anyhoo.

Quote from: Tom Kalbfus;11371544th edition made D&D very much like a board game, you moved a piece around on a board, you had to decide on facing and you rolled the dice to determine the results

No facing in 4e. Same as 3e and 5e. WoTC D&D has never had Facing.

Quote from: Zirunel;1136989Well, EPT was famously the first published rpg setting to acknowledge  gay/lesbian pcs and npcs (in 1975). Of course, since it was the first published rpg setting of any sort, everything in there was a first. But I don't recall gender-fluid? Nor have I noticed the setting becoming prescriptive rather than permissive in that regard. But then, I haven't been paying attention lately, so I'm not challenging you on that. I would be interested in hearing more. Perhaps in another thread, so as not to hijack this one.

I thought about the terminology and the push for "inclusiveness".  I'd rather just drop the topic.

This has probably been answered before, but why did Pundit choose to substitute the Catholic church with Sol Invictus?

Quote from: Mjollnir;1137663This has probably been answered before, but why did Pundit choose to substitute the Catholic church with Sol Invictus?

His stated reason is, IIRC, that he wanted to avoid setting off the anti-Christian animus so prevalent among gamers.

It's exactly the same church, just change the name back to "Jesus" if you prefer it.

Dark Albion along with a couple pdfs from gurps having to do with towns and fiefs are, taken altogether, a nigh inexhaustible wealth of info for doing something closer to actual medieval play; changing sol invictus to heyzues christo is easy enough, I took greater umbrage at "Arcadia" than anything else in the material. Also a simple fix.

Byzantium is always a thorn for me; they called themselves romans but so did the HRE, at least "emperor of the romans" is what they used frequently alongside "christian empire". The HRE has a certain amphoric quality regarding who is actually in charge of anything that makes it very playable setting wise. The pope, the holy roman emperor, the bohemian king, and count carl von needleweimer are all equally in charge at any given moment.

According to the reading I've done most people outside of Byzantium called the byzantiums Macedonians or greeks rather than romans, largely because of their use of greek rather than latin. But most players get confused if you don't simply call them byzantium or specify later day non hellenistic greeks.

Now medieval authentic commerce/coinage, thats hard to nail down, I can see why gygax went with "copper coin, silver coin, gold coin, etc". In addition to roman minted coins found in ruins (whose value would be in melting them down and recasting them as local currency) it seems every county sized area was likely to have its own coinage minted, often of various or mixed materials, and coins from one area would have only the value of their composite metals assigned them by weight if taken to another area unless that area had frequent trade with the settlement where said coins were minted. Money changers become a necessity in this pardigm, and unifying territory under one rule would also have this as an economic impetus, making commerce easier by decreasing the amount of assorted coinage types in circulation. It would seem large transactions among far flung or far traveled concerns would be more based on the raw metal by weight shaped into ingots, and simple barter and straight goods-for-goods trade would be a great deal more prominent than a simple chart listing the coin cost per item.

Yet imagine players fresh from a dungeon with a collection of old coins no one but a money changer wants, trying to get a room at an inn, where the innkeeper wants the local barons coins only, or a number of chickens, sheep, or coils of rope or jars of whale fat instead.