D&D 5E D&D Next Blog: Tone and Edition

Morrus · Apr 28, 2012

Kaodi said:
When the entire party is made of "exceptions" , it turns out it is nothing exceptional at all.

They're exceptional compared to the game world, not to each other. They're the A-Team. PCs are PCs because they're exceptional.

Mouseferatu · Apr 28, 2012

shidaku said:
DDN is NOT the "please everyone" edition, it's the "find common ground" edition.

So glad to hear other people saying this.

So many people seem to expect DDN to be everything to every player. It can't be; no game can. The idea behind DDN isn't to provide everybody everything they want; it's to provide everybody something they want. If you ("you" being "anyone") are holding out to see if DDN does absolutely everything you want in a game, no exceptions, you're probably wasting your time.

There are aspects I like of every edition to date. I don't expect DDN to equal or exceed all of them. I just hope/want it to equal or exceed enough of them, without introducing any deal-breakers, that I find it a step forward.

Mark CMG · Apr 28, 2012

It's been my thinking for a while to reorganize creatures throughout the game books in a different way, and by common, uncommon, and rare sorts of categories, though not quite in the manner suggested by the WotC blog.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/310179-5e-toolkit.html#post5657189

Mark CMG said:
I like this but would include a small section of animals in the Players' book with creatures like horses, camels, dogs, cats, hawks, ferrets, and maybe bears and some other more dangerous but familiar ones. It would help during play both regarding the keeping of domesticated animals and in allowing players to better understand the combat sections.

http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/310179-5e-toolkit.html#post5657447

Mark CMG said:
I'd go with two books for rules and gameplay, one for players (with some animals and such included) then one for GMs with many of the typical cross-setting and mythical creatures plus GM guidelines for creating more. But I'd also have the setting books be the place for most creatures, common ones included in a player setting book and more information on those creatures and many others in the GM setting book.

Essenti · Apr 28, 2012

WoTC: We are going to include dials in 5E, so you can tweak the feel of your game.

Gamers: YAY! We like dials!

WoTC: Here's an idea for a dial on player races, Common, Uncommon, and Rare...

Gamers: BOO! We hates your dials!

I do not envy WoTC...

Bedrockgames · Apr 28, 2012

shidaku said:
Thing is: EVERYTHING is contentious if you ask the right people. A lot of people here find generic HP contentious, the converse find wound systems contentious. Some people find anything other than humans contentious, so we can't avoid everything that is contentious for everyone. DDN is NOT the "please everyone" edition, it's the "find common ground" edition. Finding common ground with 4e'rs after remoing healing surges, returning to vancian magic, removing the at will/encounter/daily triad, might just be giving them a couple popular(among 4e'rs) playable races.

No, they didn't say that 4e would reflect our favored playstyle, so why do you assume that it will reflect a more oldschool playstyle? I find this a fairly contradictory assumption.

Common ground is going to mean you include as core the key elements shtared by all editions (or new elements that bring those things together some how). Dragonborne is not common to all editions, it is unique to one. However dragonborne like races are common enough in things like setttings or option books. So i suspect dragonborn will be included as an optional race. If they include dragonborne in core that wont be a delbreaker for me (particularlt if surges and powers are out as you suggest). I just think they will have an easier time including it as a module.

Bedrockgames · Apr 28, 2012

Balesir said:
For a new take on Elves, Dwarves and Trolls, Runequest blows everything else I've seen out of the water with what it came up with in 1978, IIRC...

Runequest does a great job. I like it, but definitely has a feel that isn't D&D.

Which edition of runequest do you prefer?

Balesir · Apr 28, 2012

Bedrockgames said:
Runequest does a great job. I like it, but definitely has a feel that isn't D&D.

Sure - it was originally built tailored to Glorantha and even the AH "fantasy earth" stuff didn't really undo that link completely. Add to that the fact that it eschews levels, classes, hit points and xps and it's clearly a very different game. If I want a gritty, world-situation centred game, though, I find the differences more cosmetic than real. For that type of game I want to reduce these factors (levels, classes, etc.) anyway; RQ and similar systems just do that job for me right up front.

Bedrockgames said:
Which edition of runequest do you prefer?

I actually like the Avalon Hill edition, mechanically. I think they neatened things up well. I haven't played the Mongoose versions, though.

Crazy Jerome · Apr 28, 2012

Essenti said:
WoTC: We are going to include dials in 5E, so you can tweak the feel of your game.

Gamers: YAY! We like dials!

WoTC: Here's an idea for a dial on player races, Common, Uncommon, and Rare...

Gamers: BOO! We hates your dials!

There are two main problems with it as a dial:

It's a lousy, half-baked dial.
It takes the spot of what could be a much better dial.

Technically, it isn't even a dial. It's some keywords that imply a dial might be in place, but we don't really even know that. However, since this is an article early in the design cycle, we can overlook that part.

Here's a novel idea as a replacement (hinted at previously in this topic). Come up with a few sets of keywords. Make them keywords that describe things as they are, not based on some guesses as to how people think they fit into D&D. Then make your dials (or other controls) to work with those good keywords.

Bad Dwarf Example Keywords: Common, Martial, Vaguely Scottish, Steampunk

Good Dwarf Example Keywords: Stone, Crafty, Taciturn, Classic Fantasy

The first set tells you some things that might happen, while implying a whole lot that isn't necessarily true. The last set tells you some widely viewed truths about dwarves--which you can then adapt to your game if you want. If you want a vaguely Scottish Steampunk dwarf because it fits your world, it isn't hard to slighlty twist Craft and Taciturn to get that. But of course you could go another route, too.

Nor am I saying it is as open and shut as I wrote that. "Classic Fantasy" has some holes in it." But Common, Uncommon, and Rare is simply useless. It takes a whole host of assumptions and collapses them down into mush. There's no way to tag everything "correctly" with such keywords, because of that mushy nature.

Furthermore, if you have several keywords for each creatures, describing it as it is, it provides all kinds of cross-reference possibilities that aren't there, otherwise. Maybe, I have a world where the "fey" are highly prominent, and thus want to include a lot of creatures with that tag, including elves. Or maybe I have a world that is more focused on a modern twist to the fey, and I only want such fey if they are also "Modern Fantasy".

Finally, it is way too early in the design to be collapsing boundaries that much. Eventually, it has to happen, because even with a few sets of good keywords, we will have holes. But for now, would be better to "key" things as they are, and see which keywords emerge, than to come up with any old set and try to shoehorn the creatures into it.

Sunseeker · Apr 28, 2012

Bedrockgames said:
Common ground is going to mean you include as core the key elements shtared by all editions (or new elements that bring those things together some how). Dragonborne is not common to all editions, it is unique to one. However dragonborne like races are common enough in things like setttings or option books. So i suspect dragonborn will be included as an optional race. If they include dragonborne in core that wont be a delbreaker for me (particularlt if surges and powers are out as you suggest). I just think they will have an easier time including it as a module.

To an extent it's going to mean "common elements", but it's also going to mean "popular elements" of each edition. EX: with classes, they're taking each class that appeared in a PHB1, roughly 10 classes. There are "common ground" classes, such as the Fighter, Cleric, Wizard, Paladin and Thief/Rogue, and then there are ones that aren't so common ground, such as the Assassin(arguably a rogue subset), the Barbarian, and others.

I would wager that among the 4e crowd, Dragonborn and Tieflings are pretty popular. I'd say Half-Orcs have always been pretty popular among 3.xers(in my experience people enjoyed playing them), earlier edition folks seemed rather upset at the fact that Gnomes didn't make it as a race in PHB1 in 4e.

So we're probably looking at something like this, if Wizards takes the same route as they do with classes(which I think would be the fairest and most inclusive way).
Humans
Elves(probably with sub-races)
Dwarves
Halflings/Hobbits/Kender/short human non-fey race.
Half-Elves
Half-orcs
Gnomes
Dragonborn
Tieflings
*other*
*other*

10 races, 10 classes. Really letting 4e get it's foot in the door with Tieflings and Dragonborn isn't asking much compared to all the "common ground" races like Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Halflings, Gnomes, Half-Elves, and so on.

rounser · Apr 28, 2012

You don't need a dial for this. You need a switch, that eliminates the unwanted race from references in rules, artwork, the lot. Traditionally this was done by ghetto-izing monstrous, offbeat or niche races into a supplement. Doesn't matter if they're unique in the campaign - if one turns up in the party you're tuned into channel dragonborn for the course of that campaign.

Won't be until 6E when we may get the "hey, it's as much what we leave OUT of the core rules cake as we put in" edition, after the 4E dragonborn anchovies have stunk out the 5E oven. Dragonborn warlords with double flails and tanglefoot bags aren't walking into Hommlett or Shadowdale as I or many other people run such worlds anytime soon, and they're iconic to 4E if you want to signal that 5E is thematically just 4E all over again - there was off-putting flavor stuff there too. They were on the PHB cover for goodness sakes. It's like Regdar showing up (not dying on the floor like in the 4E PHB) and trying to pretend there's a solid disconnect from 3E. Can't have your cake and eat it on the issue IMO.