Sunday, June 08, 2008

Chatty Drinks the Kool-aid

Chatty ran two games yesterday for the World-wide D&D Day. He's officially head-over-heels for 4e:

I like it a lot! It’s an entirely new action role playing game based on common elements of prior editions. I love how fluid and fast the action can get, how easy it is to adjudicate actions not directly covered by the rules. All calls felt natural and players agreed to my proposed calls without debate.

I adopted 4e once and for all sometime during the afternoon of my 2nd game… Here I was with complete strangers (most of which had no intention to switch to 4e), killing their PCs and still seeing excitement, trepidation and fun on all their faces.


One thing I will say for 4e: it's got a very kinetic vibe, with characters running across the battlemats and all sorts of "toys" to interact with. So hearing that Chatty is smitten with the game is hardly a surprise.

What is a bit of a surprise is hearing that James Mishler appears to be warming to the game.

4 comments:

ChattyDM said...

It's all about sugar Baby!

:)

I say and repeat... the market is ripe for a 4e friendly book of random tables with no crunch whatsoever so that it's legal...

Had I the time I'd tackle the project but I abandoned the idea of being a RPG publisher (no money)... I'll stick to the blog.

trollsmyth said...

Had I the time I'd tackle the project but I abandoned the idea of being a RPG publisher (no money)...

And people wonder why I bemoan the weakness of the industry side of the hobby.

Chatty, can you remind me where you discussed this idea of a book of friendly random charts? I vaguely remember reading that, but I've been reading so many different accounts of first encounters with 4e lately, I'd forgotten that until reading your reminder.

- Brian

ChattyDM said...

I think I dropped this idea left and right whenever people bemoaned the absence of such charts.

Since no one can publish 4e stuff yet, such a product would fill a niche that people want and that publisher can publish with no fear of legal reprisal.

In my case Brian, I currently make a very fine salary in my day job so there's very limiting time I can spend on moneyed self publishing... (and little incentive) I'd have to abandon the blog while I work on it.

Plus publishers pay peanuts... I currently make about 3 times the salary that Final Fantasy Flight games were offering for a Games design position...

Self publishing can lead to a self supported job... but it needs a bajillion hours of work to build up a name and a brand people trust (heck Montye cook slaved at ICE, TSR and WotC before he could live off Malhavoc).

So yeah... If noone takes on the random table idea and if I don't land the big director's job I'm aiming at currently, I may tackle this as a group, PDF profit-sharing /Charity project.

trollsmyth said...

Plus publishers pay peanuts... I currently make about 3 times the salary that Final Fantasy Flight games were offering for a Games design position...

You're preaching to the choir here. There's very little incentive to devote more than a hobbyist's resources to RPGs. If you have the skills to do it well, you can almost certainly make better money doing similar work elsewhere.

Self publishing can lead to a self supported job... but it needs a bajillion hours of work to build up a name and a brand people trust (heck Montye cook slaved at ICE, TSR and WotC before he could live off Malhavoc).

And Monte is certainly a special case. As a writer, pouring your hours and art into fiction is a much safer bet. It'll still take you a decade to build the sort of income you can live on, but at least you have a decent shot at it. The RPG market is simply too small, and the revenue stream too divorced from the activities of the fans, to really provide a secure and steady income for most folks.

That all said, I look forward to seeing what 4e spawns with anticipation. Some folks will give it a go just for the experience, and there's a lot to be said for that.

- Brian