Goodman Games

I was looking at my new 5th ed. Players Handbook and read the Warlock. Seems a bit familiar. A spell-casting character who gains his powers from a patron. You make a bargain with a Fey Lord/lady, Demon Prince or even Cthulhu. Hmmmm......patrons......wonder where I saw that before.

Blood Axe wrote:I was looking at my new 5th ed. Players Handbook and read the Warlock. Seems a bit familiar. A spell-casting character who gains his powers from a patron. You make a bargain with a Fey Lord/lady, Demon Prince or even Cthulhu. Hmmmm......patrons......wonder where I saw that before.

4th Edition, pehaps...?

GnomeBoy wrote:

Blood Axe wrote:I was looking at my new 5th ed. Players Handbook and read the Warlock. Seems a bit familiar. A spell-casting character who gains his powers from a patron. You make a bargain with a Fey Lord/lady, Demon Prince or even Cthulhu. Hmmmm......patrons......wonder where I saw that before.

4th Edition, pehaps...?

The Warlock was like that in 4th? Never played 4th. Avoided it.

Blood Axe wrote:The Warlock was like that in 4th? Never played 4th. Avoided it.

It was, although far less exciting compared to the DCC wizard.

Blood Axe wrote:The Warlock was like that in 4th? Never played 4th. Avoided it.

And before that, D&D 3.5. Before that, 2e Player's Options. It's definitely not a new idea though I don't think any of them have quite the panache that the DCC wizard has.

GlassEye wrote:

Blood Axe wrote:The Warlock was like that in 4th? Never played 4th. Avoided it.

And before that, D&D 3.5. Before that, 2e Player's Options. It's definitely not a new idea though I don't think any of them have quite the panache that the DCC wizard has.

Thanks for the info.
Never noticed a Warlock with Patrons before and Ive been playing since Moldvay. (skipped 4th) The 5thed Warlock seems interesting .

GlassEye wrote:I don't think any of them have quite the panache that the DCC wizard has.

Well said. Having a character with a patron does not mean it's as exciting a character as found in DCC. I think DCC nailed it.

There's nothing new under the sun

I remember reading some stories a while back about some albino dude with a magic sword who made a pact with a patron, too. Probably hardly anyone has ever read it though. It was by some guy named "Heath-rooster" or something.

Ddogwood wrote:I remember reading some stories a while back about some albino dude with a magic sword who made a pact with a patron, too. Probably hardly anyone has ever read it though. It was by some guy named "Heath-rooster" or something.

Elric? Never read them. But that wasn't a RPG game. Many stick to the basic "wizard" type. Its a pretty new concept tor D&D. It hasn't been in any main rulebooks before. Except maybe 4th which I didn't play.

Blood Axe wrote:

Ddogwood wrote:I remember reading some stories a while back about some albino dude with a magic sword who made a pact with a patron, too. Probably hardly anyone has ever read it though. It was by some guy named "Heath-rooster" or something.

Elric? Never read them. But that wasn't a RPG game. Many stick to the basic "wizard" type. Its a pretty new concept tor D&D. It hasn't been in any main rulebooks before. Except maybe 4th which I didn't play.

mmm, if you decide to read them, don't set your expectations too high. Great ideas, great characters, great stories, all pulled together with writing that probably wouldn't even get a call back from a literary agent today. Still, they're short, so they move quickly and are worth a read if you aren't expecting too much. Especially the first book which has a couple of great scenes with Patron interaction, including one where Elric makes his pact with his Patron.

As for the existence of the idea in D&D, I don't have a photographic memory but I don't recall ever seeing it included as part of actual gameplay - just the idea mentioned as a descriptive explanation for some of the character classes.

Also, from what I've seen, since 5E was developed based on player input, it seems like it is basically just the better parts of the previous 4 editions all pulled together with some new stuff borrowed from other systems, which I guess is what you would expect.

Blood Axe wrote:
Elric? Never read them. But that wasn't a RPG game.

Well, not until 1981 it wasn't.

At any rate, the point is that nobody is "stealing" ideas from anyone here. The DCC RPG takes inspiration from the same sources as D&D, so it's not surprising that some similar concepts come up. I still like DCC's implementation the best, but it's also nice to be able to port rules, adventures, and ideas from one game to another.

Ddogwood wrote: it's not surprising that some similar concepts come up.

Indeed. Everyone's favorite "new" rules concept from 5th edition, Advantage/Disadvantage, is certainly not new: Barbarians of Lemuria featured a similar idea, and apparently it was originally a rule concept from J. Tweet's Over the Edge rpg.

Ogrepuppy wrote:

Ddogwood wrote: it's not surprising that some similar concepts come up.

Indeed. Everyone's favorite "new" rules concept from 5th edition, Advantage/Disadvantage, is certainly not new: Barbarians of Lemuria featured a similar idea, and apparently it was originally a rule concept from J. Tweet's Over the Edge rpg.

It's also similar to the Roll X, Keep Y system in Legend of Five Rings. Where as your skills increase with certain weapons, or other proficiencies, you gain increasing numbers of dice to roll and increasing numbers of dice to keep for reaching a target number to succeed.

Aplus wrote:There's nothing new under the sun

I just checked, and there's nothing new over the sun either.