Legends and Lore 11/22/2011 - A Different Way to Slice the Pie

[Stormonu]

One thing that always turned me off to using the D&D Rules Cyclopedia instead of say, the Mentzer basic set was all the extra rules that I didn't want in the game.

I'd rather they built D&D as a lean and mean machine and made things like AoO's, Powers, Feats and the like optional rules that you add into the game if you wanted it. Look back at the 2E rules - a lot of the rules were optional, things we take for granted as Core now, such as proficiencies/skills, the -10 hit point death rule, 20 is a "critical", priests of specific mythoi and such. And then there was the entire "Player's Option" line...

I really feel that D&D needs to back away from "this is the way you must play the game" and back to a "lets give you the tools to make this your game". (Pathfinder/3E can be just as guilty as 4E in this regard)

 

[Jan van Leyden]

Your battlefield mobility guy would work against most opponents, but would have trouble against opponents with this specific feat. Which is good design, as long as not every opponent has this feat.

I see where you're going, but you solution would still imply a feat tax on the battlefield mobility guy in order to maintain the status quo. This I wouldn't call "good design".

A long-time player of mine once said: "The game rules define the reality of the character's world. As someone who has lived there all of his life I expect him to know the rules." While I wouldn't really underwrite this for all the rules - like monster special attacks and so on - there's some truth in it where the building of characters is concerned.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I can understand exactly what you mean here - I enjoyed playing a 19th level Wizard but needed 11 different predetermined spell lists depending upon what would be expected on any particular day. The thing is how do you stop the expected accumulation of information and rules as your character achieves higher and higher level?

Very difficult to do so completely with information on items, spells, etc.-- which is all the more reason not to compound the problem with doing it on purpose with rules. The former is an "issue" that can only be managed. The latter is a "problem" that can be solved.

The 3E Sorcerer/Wizard divide is an example of managing that information flow. There is really very little distinction between them, short of the wizard has to embrace dealing with a lot more information to get his power from flexibility. Arguably, there are balance issues there too, but that is a tough one to crack , since by definition anyone willing to be "Mr. Flexible" is going to have an advantage, but someone really good at it will be able to milk it. They could start with the AE magister as the common base for both, and then have wizard and sorcerer builds that had more flexibility versus more limited raw power, respectively. You'll never get it perfect, but you can circle around perfection gradually, for most users.

But the spells work the same for both. They don't introduce extra saving throw types for the wizard.

 

[LurkAway]

Another workaround is to reduce combat limitations at higher levels, especially epic play. The reduction in limitations that you have to remember may offset the increased complexity of character options.

For example, on the 4E subforum version of this thread, I wrote:

OTOH, rules like drawing a weapon = minor action were born, I think, because of questions at the table about whether your PC should be able to move and draw a weapon at the same time, etc. So by 'ditch', maybe just make it an optional rule.

Theoretically and interestingly contrary to Monte's article, I think that if such a rule had to exist, it might actually feel like it belongs more at the low-level tier than the high level tier. That is, in gritty D&D, a low level PC is more likely to fumble while drawing a weapon while dodging, moving, etc. or fumbling the immediate followup attack. Whereas the epic warrior could do it without a sweat. So the low level combat rules could actually be more complex if it's trying to model combat limitations like that.

I don't know how this would play out in practice, but I suspect that epic combat would have a less tactical and more mythic quality, and low level combat would have a more gritty feel with less options but more limitations.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'd rather they built D&D as a lean and mean machine and made things like AoO's, Powers, Feats and the like optional rules that you add into the game if you wanted it. Look back at the 2E rules - a lot of the rules were optional, things we take for granted as Core now, such as proficiencies/skills, the -10 hit point death rule, 20 is a "critical", priests of specific mythoi and such. And then there was the entire "Player's Option" line...

I really feel that D&D needs to back away from "this is the way you must play the game" and back to a "lets give you the tools to make this your game". (Pathfinder/3E can be just as guilty as 4E in this regard)

I'd rather have dials than off or on options. If you have such options, you can't help but radically change the game world every time you add or take one away. (In a sense, this is why 1E to late 2E, 2E to 3E, and 3E to 4E have been contentious.) Now some things you might not be able to help it, but there is a big difference between:

1. Have feats - customize your character that way to get N relevant abilities for your character. Or don't use feats, and get predefined things by class.

2. Have feats - customize your character that way to get N relevant abilities for your character. Or don't use feats, and radically change the power level because the stuff from feats isn't otherwise modeled.

I see the game world as this thing over there. And then the game rules are the model through which the group manipulates and interacts with the game world. Then the fiction and the group imagination is what makes that interaction interesting.

Ideally, a change to the model shouldn't change the assumed reality of the game world. (Ideally. There is no way to nail that one completely.) So M&M's previous example of using ability scores to handle skills versus a simple skill system versus a complex skill system--that works great in this regard. In the game world, Joe the Fighter can jump about yea far. Whether you model that simple or complex, it should be about the same distance. (This of course ignores "options" that are really changing tone or sub genre instead of complexity level, where Joe might be able to barely jump or practically fly, depending. And while on that subject, these kind of options should be explicitly called out as such.)

All that said, I'm also ok with the most simple part of the dial being, in some cases, "The DM makes something up that sounds reasonable," or, "The player narrates something appropriate, with DM approval," etc.

 

[LurkAway]

Ideally, a change to the model shouldn't change the assumed reality of the game world. (Ideally. There is no way to nail that one completely.)

Indeed. Thus 4E fast-forwarded Faerun by 100 years --- not that this bothers me but it was done so that the fiction could match the rules. And don't get me started on the huge mess with Dragonlance.

 

[Windjammer]

If we adopt this mindset, we can peg an adventure as being 5th level or 12th level or 19th level and have it carry weight not only in terms of character level but also in terms of complexity.

This is brilliant! Apart from levels already serving as a differentiating factor (PC power level) Monte Cook hits upon the idea to use them to introduce another hurdle to disperse the module buying populace. Brilliant!

What's coming next? 'Given that there are around 12 different play styles in the D&D community, we should write different campaign sets for each of them, and then support them in separate product lines. A DM browsing through these supplements would straight away discard 11 of these product lines. Next week I'll explain how that will magnify our sales by the dozen.'

 

[Kzach]

Complexity by level is exactly what I want from D&D. It's always BEEN that way. And guess what? There is a very easy way in which to limit or expand the complexity in your games... just limit or play within the levels that have the desired complexity. I know, revolutionary, huh.

What's coming next? 'Given that there are around 12 different play styles in the D&D community, we should write different campaign sets for each of them, and then support them in separate product lines. A DM browsing through these supplements would straight away discard 11 of these product lines. Next week I'll explain how that will magnify our sales by the dozen.'

So... WotC caters to your every whim and your preferred play style AND makes a profit from it, and this is somehow a bad thing?

 

[M.L. Martin]

And don't get me started on the huge mess with Dragonlance.

Actually, when it comes to Dragonlance, the games have never driven changes to the fiction--it'd be more accurate to say the opposite, although even then, not strictly true. The Fifth Age and the 3E relaunch were both given the go-ahead after Dragons of Summer Flame and the War of Souls, respectively, were written. And it was TSR Management that mandated that 5A be a card-driven, non-AD&D system, for various reasons (trying to attract the DL novel fanbase, and trying to distinguish the DL license from the already-sold and perhaps overly broad D&D movie license, as I understand it). The design team originally wanted to go with a stripped-down AD&D as the baseline, similar to 1995's Lankhmar set but tweaked for Krynn, I expect.

 

[Windjammer]

So... WotC caters to your every whim and your preferred play style AND makes a profit from it, and this is somehow a bad thing?

I take it you didn't get my analogy to TSR's 2nd edition proliferation of campaign sets?

Look, all I am saying is this. Modules have already multiple factors that splinter the general customer base interested in buying them. Factors like, is it written for Eberron ('nope, I don't play in Eberron'), is it for levels 25-27 ('nope, our campaign is only beginning to reach Paragon'), and now Cook wants to have a third differentiating factor: complexity level.

May I also ask what correlating level progression with an increase in rules complexity has to do with a progression of PC power level (as in BECMI)?

What's the prima facie rationale for saying 'yep, at epic or immortal level, the rules should be more complex'? I understand that the rules should be about something different than level 1 play, but why should they be more complex and detailled?