That's where we disagree; to me, at least, different iterations of the rules had different feels independent of the adventures.
Of course the adventures had a certain feel, too; but I believe the rules did, also.
The Future of D&D Seminar - Full Video from PAX East
That's where we disagree; to me, at least, different iterations of the rules had different feels independent of the adventures.
Of course the adventures had a certain feel, too; but I believe the rules did, also.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
I agree. But I will say that I think a lot of the "feel" of a set of rules depends on how they are presented, the fluffy wrapper around the crunchy content. And the more wrapper you provide in flavor, the more feel the rules have above and beyond what the rules themselves do.
To use an example, I have been a fan of Traveller for a long time. As Traveller developed into MegaTraveller, you got a strong impression that the PCs were "gentlemen adventurers" embarking on a second career after a previous one (typically military or paramilitary) that set their skills and experiences. You could fairly easily see the elements of society that would be familiar to anyone studying Victorian or even Roman history, infused with a dose of laissez-faire trading and entrepreneurship, possibly mercenary in nature. When Traveller New Era came down the pipe, the fluffy coating the rules got via setting was changed via interstellar catastrophe and the presentation became even more militant, incorporating a lot of military jargon as well as co-opting the rule engine from a military post-apocalyptic game (Twilight 2000). That changed the game's feel radically to me and I dropped new developments in my favorite sci-fi role playing game like it was a hot potato. And that's without ever seeing a single adventure.
It's tempting to say it was the setting that really did it, but that's not all of it. I didn't like the post-apocalyptic setting, true. But I really chafed at the style of presentation. I did the same with Planescape and it's annoying patois, so I never picked up many of the products nor gave the setting much consideration. The feel, or at least the feel of the presentation, was NOT what I wanted to experience.
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him)
I think it can work. I think the initial Star Wars movie and initial sequels worked so well because it was consciously trying to invoke the feel of the movie serial adventures. It analyzed and borrowed trope after trope, inspiration after inspiration, from swashbuckling pirate adventures to Tarzan, from melodramatic radio play to samurai adventure. And all with a can-do attitude about presenting new visuals. And the synthesis worked. Brilliantly.
Trouble was, I think someone engaged in too much effort to make the whole project have literary weight and then drank too much of that Kool-aid. The prequels then had to live up to that literary weight when they might have done much better if they had just stuck to the idea of making exciting action serials. So I would argue that the prequels were as bad as they were compared to the original trilogy because they were trying to simulate something the original trilogy became through emergence as it successfully simulated something else entirely.
I guess the moral of my story here is - if you want to simulate what something was, don't lose sight of what the original was simulating in the first place.
That might apply to Rocky too. Rocky was about a shlub finding a way to rise to an occasion out of his depth. Rocky 2, also a decent movie, continued that theme, finally ending in success. But Rocky 3 and 4, neither as good, dispense with that initial theme.
Argyle King
Legend
I find myself agreeing with Morrus when it comes to feel. While I would agree with others that fluff and presentation create a lot of the feel, I also believe that mechanics themselves can (and often do) promote a certain feel. I've played games in which I did not feel the fluff and crunch had a coherent relationship, and the clash in feel is noticeable in play.
There's no denying that feel is a subjective thing. I've heard people say it's not possible to quantify something which is so subjective. I somewhat disagree. While I acknowledge that one thing could feel two completely different ways to two different people, I also believe that it is possible for a community as a whole to agree on a general ballpark of a feel which matches the majority of a community's outlook.
In my head, I think of it like a car. If you added suicide doors, a spoiler, and racing stripes to a mini van, it might very well look cool. That being said, nobody would confuse the mini van for a muscle car. The parts underneath the aesthetic add-ons still matter; what's under the hood still matters.
There's no denying that feel is a subjective thing. I've heard people say it's not possible to quantify something which is so subjective. I somewhat disagree. While I acknowledge that one thing could feel two completely different ways to two different people, I also believe that it is possible for a community as a whole to agree on a general ballpark of a feel which matches the majority of a community's outlook.
In my head, I think of it like a car. If you added suicide doors, a spoiler, and racing stripes to a mini van, it might very well look cool. That being said, nobody would confuse the mini van for a muscle car. The parts underneath the aesthetic add-ons still matter; what's under the hood still matters.
ColonelHardisson
What? Me Worry?
I'm also of the opinion that the rules themselves can evoke a "feel" or atmosphere. I found this to be true of both the Holmes edition of D&D and 1e. I played both of these iterations before I found or used a prepackaged adventure. We used what we could glean from both to create "dungeons" (every adventure at that time - 1979-80 - was a "dungeon" to us) to play. I guess you could assert that we created our own "feel" for the game, but it was created using just the rules themselves. The array of classes, races, spells, and monsters, the spell effects, turn undead, the way combat worked, it all created a distinct ambiance for each iteration.
Anyway, to get directly on-topic again, I was surprised to find myself really liking that they had been discussing the way 2e priests worked, and seemed to think it was something worth bringing back. The more I think about it, the more I realize that was something I missed from 2e.
Anyway, to get directly on-topic again, I was surprised to find myself really liking that they had been discussing the way 2e priests worked, and seemed to think it was something worth bringing back. The more I think about it, the more I realize that was something I missed from 2e.
WalterKovacs
First Post
They do point out in the video, the initial book will not just have the core, but a lot of modular elements right out of the gate. [Adding tactical grid combat, probably some variations on critical hits and fumbles, different rules for dropping below 0 hp, stuff involving death by massive damage and coup de grace perhaps, etc]. Now, it's possible stuff you are looking for aren't in the initial wave, but if you have some idea what the modular element would be, it is probably easy to add your own house rules. The game, in effect, is a small core system with a bunch of suggested house rules included.
From the sounds of it, a lot of the modular elements are things that shouldn't effect adventure design too much. While there will hopefully be maps that allow you to use the grid for combat, you'd still want the maps to give you an idea of the layout for gridless combat. You don't really need to change the numbers if you are changing what happens when you reach 0 hp, or what happens when you roll a 1 on your dice. Similarly, character creation isn't significantly changed by most of the DMs modular options (it would seem). While you may make different choices knowing whether there will be no, little, lots or all grid combat, there really isn't an element on the character sheet that would need to be modified to reflect that. And, from the sounds of some of the rumors anyway, the player options is mostly core stuff. You can go with a theme, or you can customize your feat selection. You can go with a background, or you can customize your skill/language selection. Based on skill selection, your fighter may just have a bunch of attacks like in 3.5, or you can have a number of combat maneuvers like 4e.
The player designs their character however they want, and the DM creates the environment the players are dropped into. The player/monster interaction ultimately comes down to the core rules of d20's modified by ability scores and other modifiers. Most of the modules likely won't modify those greatly, or at least, won't require different character sheets (or adventures) for each module. Instead you just apply the effects of the module to the edges. Rarely does an adventure get into the marginal elements that most modular things will likely cover. I don't know many adventures that address what happens if you drop below zero hp, or if you roll a critical failure. Now, you may have to adjust the ammount of treasure based on magic item rarity, but magic items in a setting is often one of the most likely to be changed anyway. [And, there may even be a modular approach to giving out treasure, so that the adventure just has to point out where treasure goes, and the DM decides which method to use to determine the treasure there ... instead of the adventure doing so for the DM]. Treasure allocation is, again, a modular element which doesn't actually change monster design or PC creation, etc.
It does depend. Most modular elements will be combined and included 'in bulk'. So, it would be more about where they fit thematically. So, if they put out a Dark Sun book, it would include modular elements for dealing with desert environments, non-metal weaponry, low magic item setting, wild talents, etc ... things iconic of that setting (assuming they didn't already appear elsewhere; and depending on the ammount of page space, they could just reprint it in the book anyway). Now, it's quite possible that what you are looking for is a few things that don't have a home in a specific book, but instead work in an article, in which case, outside of a "best of Dragon" release, would only be available through the website, you may be out of luck [or need to do a one-month subscription, grab some back issues thing once in a while].
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As for the idea of 'modern rules/old school feel', one of the things that was common, especially for 2e, was the kitbashing, houseruling elements, where no two DMs were really doing the same thing. While the lack of rules, and thus freeform play was an element back then, for many at least, it wasn't a constant game of DM making stuff up, it was often a case of DM makes stuff up, but going forward, that's the rule. Either the DM thought out the house rules ahead of time, or at least tried to be consistent once they made something on the fly, etc. So the 'modern' thing is likely to do some of the DMs work ahead of time. "Everyone is going to running a house ruled version of D&D, and here are a list of possible house rules we've come up with to help you get started." So, for people used to the modern style of the rules of the game being in print, they go out of their way to show all these rules that are optional, instead of mandatory. The hope is that, it gives the DM the freedom to go further, and not just use the optional elements in the book they like, but that in seeing the areas where the rules are amorphous, they can make their own changes without it feeling like 'cheating' or being a 'bad DM' like it might to houserule a more rigid system like 3.5 or 4e.
Obviously, there is the risk that giving the DMs a list of choices for houseruling elements will blind them to anything outside that system, just as some people find that a character with all the tactical options a 4e character does will rarely think outside the box to try a "page 42" type maneuver or something similar. However, it's more often a complaint of the DM [or other players] that someone fails to see innovative options instead of sticking to the power cards, while it's less likely to be a situation where the players are upset that a DM isn't implementing a house rule because it isn't 'core' (in most cases, the DM refusing a house rule the player wants would have other reasons anyway, and if the DM wanted to implement it, but was hesitant about it not being core, would just playtest it and decide to remove it if he didn't like it). So, in the DM case, it's more of a 'potential shortcoming', but then again, a DM that hugs close to the rules would have been less likely to houserule with or without the suggestions, so at least the suggestions may push them to try and find something that suits their DM style, and their groups playstyle, better than just flat core.
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mach1.9pants
Hero
Has anyone seen a transcript of the seminar? A lot easier to digest in chunks than the vid.
Alphastream
Adventurer
I disagree with that statement. Rules were a huge part of the feel of prior editions. Look at the difference between a spell in AD&D and a spell power in 4E. There are benefits to both, but they have very different feel, create entirely different gaming approaches, and lead to different experiences. Look at the amount of pre-casting in 3E (Bull's Strength, etc.) and compare to how little of that happened in AD&D (or even in 4E). The rules shaped that experience. Or, how magic item crafting in AD&D was different than 3E and different than 4E.
I do think the initial adventure design was lacking. It was a shame and continues to be a shame that so many use those store-published adventures to judge the game when so many excellent adventures have been published since that time. I don't know why Wizards has this problem. I think they confuse "approachable" with a requirement to be boring and plain, when the reality is new players want to be swept away (just not confused).
On the other hand, I started my D&D play back in the day with KotB and found it to be a terrible adventure. It's a boring cave/dungeon crawl unless your DM breathes life into it. It lacks a good overarching story, any plot development, real antagonists, real PC development, real role-playing, etc. It's actually all possible to do (I had a blast with the story I used for Caves of Chaos playtest players) but the original doesn't actually provide these bits. The 4E Encounters season is far better at this, even if limited by the format (having to be weekly encounter-heavy sessions). I would actually much rather see something like Rahasia or Saltmarsh as the model. These can be improved upon as well, but they have both a classic feel and have story elements that drive a great experience.
TarionzCousin
Second Most Angelic Devil Ever
Argyle King
Legend
Despite my rather poor grammar in my previous post, I think you got the gist of what I was trying to say in regards to pdfs and such.
To clarify a little more, I was asking a question as to content which may not be robust enough to warrant the full book treatment. Since I used Low-Tech in my previous post, I'll use that as an example again for sake of consistency.
One of the "companion" pdfs which I bought had more detailed material on shields. It added more granularity to shields and how to modify them and things of that nature. Even in a modular system where many things are by their very nature optional, those rules were optional/niche enough to not be given page count in the hardback book. Instead -as mentioned- they were offered in a "companion" pdf which delved further into a topic covered in the the book. I wanted it, so I picked it up -no muss; no fuss; no additional fees to pay to subscribe to a service. I simply picked the product I wanted and purchased it.
If something similar were to occur with a D&D Durango product, I suspect such a companion piece would be a DDi article. That was your answer as well. I have not heard anything to indicate WoTC as a company has changed their views on pdfs. While I know the design team claims to only be 10-20% finished, I wonder if somebody somewhere has reconsidered how the DDi model will work when attached to a modular game system.
To clarify a little more, I was asking a question as to content which may not be robust enough to warrant the full book treatment. Since I used Low-Tech in my previous post, I'll use that as an example again for sake of consistency.
One of the "companion" pdfs which I bought had more detailed material on shields. It added more granularity to shields and how to modify them and things of that nature. Even in a modular system where many things are by their very nature optional, those rules were optional/niche enough to not be given page count in the hardback book. Instead -as mentioned- they were offered in a "companion" pdf which delved further into a topic covered in the the book. I wanted it, so I picked it up -no muss; no fuss; no additional fees to pay to subscribe to a service. I simply picked the product I wanted and purchased it.
If something similar were to occur with a D&D Durango product, I suspect such a companion piece would be a DDi article. That was your answer as well. I have not heard anything to indicate WoTC as a company has changed their views on pdfs. While I know the design team claims to only be 10-20% finished, I wonder if somebody somewhere has reconsidered how the DDi model will work when attached to a modular game system.
