A small handful of new 5E designers' quotes: Design Goals, Healers, Art, OGL

[Henry]

This is something I find very interesting. As much as I enjoyed the OGL on the customer end, I would find it hard to argue with the idea that their main competitor exists solely because of the OGL. I like that Pathfinder is around, competition is always a good thing and D&D needed it, but from the WotC perspective having such a large competitor is probably not something they were happy about; the idea that when an edition change occurs people may switch to another companies product. Very interesting. Either way I guess we benefit.

I would argue however that D&D 4e wouldn't have been any larger with or without the OGL. Instead, the 3E fanbase who weren't ready to leave it would have gone on to other games, or just shifted their creative energies to other hobbies anyway. As it is, they have a fanbase to attempt to woo back, rather than get the word out to people no longer in the hobby. Though admittedly, it makes the job of "wooing" harder.

 

[Kobold Boots]

I think the thing to keep in mind here is that WoTC's learned quite a bit about PR and Internet damage control since 4Es inception, aiming the initial public commentary at pain points and vague statements geared to create curiosity without angst.

I imagine that what they will do is take a look at all three/four editions of the game, break down each part of the game by edition and give players and GMs the tools they need to plug and play parts for the game they want to play collectively.

I can see 4e style grid combat working with 1e or 2e style character builds. I can see 4e characters working with 1-3e vancian magic. What needs to be focused on is the list of things that need to be balanced when you choose a certain combination of options for your game.. and that's fodder for a new DMG.

Now if some groups can't reconcile their own play style amongst themselves, that's a sign that the personality dynamics in the group are dysfunctional, but at least with a proper toolset you won't be able to blame that dysfunction on the edition any more.. which I think is a fine, unstated design goal.

 

[TrippyHippy]

This.

There are going to have to be some tough decisions made about the direction of D&D.

To me the crux of the issue all comes down to Lawful vs Chaotic players.

There are some D&D players (Lawful) who love the structure of pen and paper RPGs.

They want rules for everything. They want no metagaming. They want fairness.

These are the folks that love Grid play, skill challenges, balanced classes/races, in-depth rules for charging, grappling, sliding, flying, etc. They want the feel of a chess game on steroids, where their clever build ideas give them a numerical edge.

Then there are the others (Chaotic) who feel all of this bogs down the game. How can you get into the story of the game, when every three seconds you are having to refer to one of fifteen books for how something proceeds?

These are the folks that love grid-less battle with easy to remember base rules, vancian magic, DM's "winging" it, and lack of balance when it makes since story-wise. They want to feel as if they are actor's in a play being written on the fly.

Sadly, I DM for a group of buddies where I have extremists on both sides. Someone's not going to be happy. Should be fun to see how this all pans out.

But roleplaying games have always been an amalgamation of all these factors. What I think has been a damaging meme that has occurred in gaming over the last decade or so, is the notion that good game design needs to be focussed solely on one specific aim - and anything that deviates from this specific goal leads to 'incoherence' (the 'system matters' doctrine). In my view, however, the opposite is true.

The best and most successful games are those that embrace multiple aspects of play. If we look at what made Dungeons and Dragons special as a game in the first place, it was that it was an amalgamation of 'Gamist', 'Simulationist' and 'Narrativist' play all at once. Whilst some players got off on the tactical aspects, others found the idea of shared worlds interesting, and others just liked the outlet for a bit of thespianism and storytelling.

5th edition needs to recapture this philosophy of game design.

 

[Alzrius]

We know from a Gencon slip that WotC already has (or at the very least had) plans to make the Eberron back-catalog available electronically (possibly via DDI).

Wait, what?

Can you elaborate on this? I don't recall anything like this being mentioned, either at Gen Con or here on the boards.

 

[Mark CMG]

I hope they get the OGL situation figured out soon. With the GSL, the restrictions were only half the problem they had. The other half was in how long they strung out not getting it together.

 

[mcmillan]

Wait, what?

Can you elaborate on this? I don't recall anything like this being mentioned, either at Gen Con or here on the boards.

I happened to recently come across another mention, tracked down description from back then. The relevant part:

James Wyatt said that they had offered a year access to ten Eberron third edition books for ten bucks. Bart Carroll remided him that that was for next year and it hadn't been announced yet.

 

[Mark CMG]

I would argue however that D&D 4e wouldn't have been any larger with or without the OGL. Instead, the 3E fanbase who weren't ready to leave it would have gone on to other games, or just shifted their creative energies to other hobbies anyway. As it is, they have a fanbase to attempt to woo back, rather than get the word out to people no longer in the hobby. Though admittedly, it makes the job of "wooing" harder.

I would counter that without the seeming need to "recapture" control over IP (through odd naming conventions and revamped systems), 4e might have been the 3.75E plus .25E that PF was/is moving toward. A 4E OGL wouldn't have needed to change so much, or go in such radicaly different directions, and might have hung on to a much larger portion of the market even as 3PP might have stayed on board and helped grow the brand even further than 4E OGL could have done on its own. I think it is a mistake to think of a 4E OGL in terms of what 4E needed to become without contintuing to support the OGL community.

 

[Mark CMG]

"I don't think 'requiring someone to be a healer' is a sacred cow, but having healers in the game is. I wouldn't want to see D&D do away with healing, but I don't think there's anything keeping us from exploring a version of D&D where players can simply play anything they want, ignoring concepts like role and function when putting together their party." - Rodney Thompson

I think this is a problematic way of approaching a tabletop roleplaying game design, in that there's this prevalence to think of roles in terms of function rather than form or shape. I think there is a way to granulate functions such that any narrative concept of character can be realized through the systematic building of individuals regardless of their ultimate contribution to the whole of a party. However, a traditional class-based system might not be the way forward toward that roleplaying-oriented goal.

 

[Alzrius]

I think there is a way to granulate functions such that any narrative concept of character can be realized through the systematic building of individuals regardless of their ultimate contribution to the whole of a party. However, a traditional class-based system might not be the way forward toward that roleplaying-oriented goal.

I find myself thinking this a lot lately, and I think that a point-buy system allows for this much better. I've seen a few companies take a stab at a d20 System-based point-buy method, but the only one that's ever really excited/impressed me in terms of what it can do has been Eclipse: The Codex Persona.

 

[darjr]

OGL, yea, not having a definitive statement at the outset doesn't bode well.