Don't you have an iMac? Those usually have webcams built in.

Edit: That's how the ghost of Steve Jobs watches you wash your balls.

Edit2: Pick a character!

i did a mud run once and it was a lot of fun. i guess they vary in awesomeness by quite a bit, so its always worth looking into review of that orgs previous mud runs. ya, some can suck and have lame obstacles and not enough water, but others are awesome and are a total blast. i think the one i did was kind of middle ground but i liked it. make sure u got an insane outfit cuz thats the funnest part.

thus concludes my review of dnd 5th editions.

webcams are almost free nowadays enron, go to any store usa and get one

Knee jerk reaction is: holy shit eLzar has been sipping the Cthulaid too much lately. On second thought though, this could be the perfect excuse to get in shape. Let's say my interest is piqued.

D>M>

| Mudrun

http://survivormudrun.com/locations/locations_nor_cal.htm#

I am so out of shape, and yet soooo down to "train" for this. Seriously. Who's in?

Yes, perhaps my point was a little over the top. Democracy is great, just it sometimes gets a little sideways.

I'm mostly with you on that Enron (except I like democracy). Basically the kind of people who yell loudly on Internet forums are not your real audience and are not worth listening to.

But, hopefully they have a decent community manager who knows this stuff. If they do this might turn out OK.

RIP 5e.

| Zombo eNron

You know, I tend to agree on the 4th ed points made. While fun with the introduction of flavored powers, but they eventually become a bit of a ball and chain and do nothing to quicken the pace of DnD's notoriously monotonous combat. 4th ed had good ideas, but dragged too much 2nd and 3rd Ed baggage in plus its own.

5th ed sounds like a mess waiting to happen. Community input is great and all, but if you don't have a strong management team to understand the impacts of every additive of subtractive changes, and veto when necessary, then this will only mire the works by adding more and more incoherent crap. Lets face it, populace opinions can often do more harm than good, since in the end, many are born from inexperience, mindless agendas and straight stupidity. Look at our congress: Put in by popular vote, left to their own devices... Profit! Oh wait :(

Earthdawn: I'm in FTW. Fuck Yeah! Also, I still lack a Web Cam. Dork, I know. Your momma I say.

D>M>

| Fared Jogel, FTW

I know not this Jared Fogel you speak of.

4th Ed: While they tried to make all sorts of cool powers for the PC's to use and feel effective, important, and interesting through every encounter, they forgot that the D20 was still in effect and there are a lot of numbers on that bad boy that will STILL take the PC out of the game and make them ineffective. I like the idea of gettin' something at every level, and I think the modular encounter creation system was cool, but in the end it felt like a lot more overhead for effectively the same result as with 3rd/2nd/1st/D&D. Maybe the powers added more panache to the combats as they had flavor text built right in to the description, but it still became more of the same after a while, I guess. The loot system sort of bugged me too.

5th Ed: I don't know, I think crowdsourcing might work out. Not to say that a bunch of grumpy neckbeards are better suited to create the next D&D system, but I think listening to the fans, and following the trends could make for an interesting product. The fear is that by using fan metrics to drive design decisions, you might end up with a lowest common denominator game that doesn't offend, but doesn't really excite. OR, fresh, non-corporate perspectives might really help the design and the million monkeys might find a way to create something unique.

MMO's have won the day so does D&D offer a similar experience to try and speak to a wider audience, or does it go deeper into RPGs and satisfy their niche market as best they can? Since D&D is a component of a publicly traded company, my thoughts are it will try and emulate MMO's again (like 4th edition) and release another product of middling value.

Trail of Cthulhu/Earthdawn/Space RPG game FTW x2!

I never realized Jon and El-ron had exp with 4th ed! That's pretty cool. I only have limited play time with it from the few Encounters sessions I attended, but I can understand your complaints. I think as far as exploration not being emphasized, I figure that's something that a DM would handle more than the ruleset. You're right that the game is really built around those encounters/set-pieces, but they made encounters-on-the-fly very easy to whip up, so I bet a fun DM could have made stuff feel a bit more organic and open-worldy. Worldy!

My fear of a fan-based D&D 5th Ed is that it'll be the 2nd coming of Pathfinder which is pretty unappealing to me. Mind you, I've never actually PLAYED Pathfinder, but glimpses into that weird fanatical d20 sub culture are such a turn off, I hope the fans involvement is more PR than anything else.
Drrzzzzt&D.

Ah, Jared Fogel. There is a merchant out there waiting with your custom-made wardrobe. All with matching handbags.

I could never get attached to 4th ed. Got the books, read through them. I got the impression they put too much emphasis on combat and character balance and dropped many rpg skills.

| RIP 4e

Yeah, that didn't last long. I'm actually looking forward to a new edition. I was pretty excited about 4th ed at first but I got really burned out on it. Me and Enron played quite a bit of it with the game group. (Speaking of Enron, where is that guy? You playing Earthdawn or what, dude?)

What I liked:
- Amazing ease of use for creating encounters. Just an incredible system.
- Wizards that don't suck at level 1.
- Classes get fun stuff at every level.
- Skill check system had some really good potential, although the actual implementation was fail.

What I didn't like:
- Too many mechanics that are obviously just mechanics with no explanation for how they work in the context of the game world, breaking immersion. Ie, why does every town sell magic items? How is it that each PC can heal themselves? (This is actually something they lifted from Earthdawn, but in Earthdawn it makes sense because everybody knows magic.) Why exactly can a fighter use a given power only once per day?
- Really stupid player races.
- Really awful setting background. Just lazy and generic.
- Long, loooong combats. In one of our recent sessions we fought 12 zombies and I think it took about 2.5 hours.
- Too much whiff factor. The way the DCs are set up, and using a d20 as your main resolution mechanic, you're very likely to have runs of absolute shit luck. Getting a miss and fucking up your daily power was incredibly frustrating and all too common. There was one painful session where I missed every combat roll and did absolutely nothing. In fact, since encounters were built around number of players, I actually hurt the party just by showing up that day. It was like a Jared Fogel performance minus the sweet grappling.
- All the emphasis was on set piece encounters and not on actual exploration.

D&D Next: That's gonna be bad. "We want the fans to make the rules" ... /puke

I got a bunch of 4th Ed stuff that was luckily on sale but DAMN, what a waste :( I better join a weird group quick to get some use of those books.

| D&D EXXXXTREME in 3D! Now with a dungeon finder queue!

Jorn - Curse your silken tongue and internet ramblings. The amount of money I dropped on those Earthdawn books almost match my mini purchase binges. Feel so dirty... The worst part is that I'm actually functionally illiterate.

Wizards of the Coast just announced they are working on a new edition of D&D. Meh.

Back to Earthdawn. I get dibs on the t'skrang Swordmaster; Inigo Ssstoya. He's looking for the six-fingered windling who killed his father.