Kicked in the Dicebags!
The Secret Lives of Geeks

At long last, the battle between Good and Evil has culminated in one giant throwdown, featuring hosts from 3 different podcasts!

Chad and Dan from Fear the Boot!

Adam and Keith from Player's Edition!

Jim and Noble Bear from the MasterCast!

And the cretor of Kicked in the DiceBags and all around groovy guy, Chris Mais!

Who will be the victor?

Direct download: KTD_A_Very_Special_Episode_1_-_DD_Debate_Battle_Royale.mp3
Category:general -- posted at: 10:09am EDT
Comments[4]

  • Great to listen to. Thought I would shared http://ethericlabs.posterous.com/#!/what-made-you-weird-life-geek-roleplay

    posted by: Dr Ether on 2011-06-28 17:04:15

  • A token argument for 4E, since nobody on the cast apparently wanted to do so. :) 3E suffers, as do all previous versions, from having a bunch of completely unrelated game mechanisms mashed together. You have weapon damage vs hit points, yet you also have the spellbook-magic system that (except for Evocation spells) completely bypasses AC or HP or whatever. Then you have a different system for turning undead, a different system for combat maneuvers like tripping/disarming, and so on. This particularly becomes a problem inasmuch as the magic system is far better at doing everything than all the other systems. Whittling down a monster's hit points is much less useful than hitting them with save-or-die or save-or-suck spells. Additionally, 3E has inherited a list of spells that cover literally every problem you could ever encounter. Whatever the situation, there is a spell to fix it--no cleverness, no class-building, no role-playing required. 3E is a system where the cleric and druid are better at being fighters than the fighter is. Further, 3E is possibly the worst system for DM preptime that I've ever played. Not only do you have the problem of having to build every NPC from the ground up via PC classes, as the game progresses you have to come up with more and more elaborate contrivances so that your party of flying/teleporting/divining/mind-controlling mini-gods can't snooze past every obstacle you give them. This is a system where you actually have to invent and use lead-lined castle walls, anti-magic zones, and equipment-eating monsters. Finally, some players taut some sort of roleplaying depth or complexity which 3E supposedly had and 4E has abandoned. 3E never had these things in the first place. The great roleplaying and worldbuilding that people remember from their 3E games was brought to the table by the players and DM, not by the rule mechanisms. Just look at the games we play now that have actual roleplay and social-situation mechanisms, and compare them with 3E. D&D has ALWAYS been a kill-things-and-take-their-stuff wargame, and it is that which 4E does far better than 3E. All classes are more useful. Rituals give the players magic tools to solve problems rather than magical solutions to problems. The spellcasting/fighting/class abilities subsystems have been eliminating in favor of a power-based system that covers wildly different abilities in a consistent and interconnected fashion. If we limit ourselves to core rulebooks for each, the PHB1/DMG/MM for 4E provides an all-round better system than the PHB/DMG/MM for 3E. Both editions had a massive publishing effort on top of those that added and revised and supplanted them; it's not a problem unique to 4E. So there we are. Not that anyone cares, I'm sure. Congratulations, guys, I have been successfully trolled. :)

    posted by: HenryHankovitch on 2011-06-28 01:22:56

  • wait... who is on from FtB?! i can't read it because it is YELLOW!! AHHHHH!!!

    posted by: LvL20DM on 2011-06-27 18:15:32

  • Great show, Chris. Loved hearing everyone riff about D&D, what they (don't) like. Looking forward to Very Special Episode 2. :)

    posted by: Ed Healy on 2011-06-26 08:42:24

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