D&D 5E D&D Next Design Goals (Article)

[Remathilis]

We had a game that felt like D&D and had the math RIGHT, and they killed it.

Agree to disagree on both counts, m'lord.

 

[hemera]

Well darn, it better well feel like D&D when we play it. I'd hate to get a game going and realize I'm playing Battletech. (Wait...what do you mean your fighter fires his LRM-20 at that orc?) Seriously though, the focus on accessibility is good, and the common understanding is a great focus. (You've got your elves, dwarves. dragons, orcs, and magic and all that happy stuff) And you can accommodate various playstyles via modules to keep various edition style players happy. It's a noble goal.

Time will tell if they get there. I hope they do.

 

[El Mahdi]

...I'm not sure how Mike can square this aim, which seems to be going in an entirely new direction, with the desire for reunification.

It's not a "new" direction. Those guidelines are they ones they used to start the whole process, likely before they even anounced the edition was in development.

 

[El Mahdi]

Sounded like they started this process right where they absolutely needed to start this process...with the right questions and the right approaches.

 

[Yora]

The bounded matrix of descending AC was responsible for a lot of the ability of early versions of the game to have monsters of broadly varying power levels be a creditable encounter for a wide variety of levels. It means that multiple level adventuring parties can work.

If you convert the numbers correctly, THAC0 and BAB should give you exactly the same results, with exactly the same chances of any given roll hitting a given AC.
Keep in mind that 3rd Edition did not make an accurate conversation and the numbers change at different speeds in 2nd and 3rd Edition. But you could easily covert THAC0 into "d20 + BAB + Misc must reach AC or higher" without altering any chances.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Sounded like they started this process right where they absolutely needed to start this process...with the right questions and the right approaches.

How dare you be so rational and reasonable, we are supposed to rage against the D that is D!

 

[Doug McCrae]

It's not a "new" direction. Those guidelines are they ones they used to start the whole process, likely before they even anounced the edition was in development.

I meant that it was new in the sense of new to D&D. Imo, D&D has never really done archetypes before, classes have always been far too specific. For example the wizard, or magic user, with his spellbook, VSM components, Vancian memorisation, and so forth, is a very particular instance of the 'magic man' or 'wise man' archetype.

However I was operating under what I now think is a mistaken assumption - that the core of D&DNext would resemble OD&D or B/X. I think this will not be the case, the core won't look quite like anything we've seen before, it will be more stripped down. Using that core, I assume one could make an OD&D magic user by applying a module to give him a spellbook, etc.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Sounded like they started this process right where they absolutely needed to start this process...with the right questions and the right approaches.

Maybe, but I'd say it's arguable whether their goal of uniting the D&D community under a single game is possible given people's downright conflicting desires. I'd also add that while they started there, and keep repeating it as their goal the vast majority of talk coming out of WotC sounds to me one-sided against what I want out of D&D as a 4E fan.

 

[Sunseeker]

Maybe, but I'd say it's arguable whether their goal of uniting the D&D community under a single game is possible given people's downright conflicting desires. I'd also add that while they started there, and keep repeating it as their goal the vast majority of talk coming out of WotC sounds to me one-sided against what I want out of D&D as a 4E fan.

The proof is in the pudding so to speak, I think a lot of their 4e hate is really lip-service to appease the old-schoolers though. But I don't think anyone will know for certain until we actually see the stuff nearer to release.

 

[Arytiss]

The proof is in the pudding so to speak, I think a lot of their 4e hate is really lip-service to appease the old-schoolers though. But I don't think anyone will know for certain until we actually see the stuff nearer to release.

Personally I've yet to see any of this 4e hate from the designers. I suspect the vast majority of it is over exaggeration by fans of that particular iteration of comments the designers have made concerning flaws of 4e.

I'm encouraged by this design document. While there's nothing really new there (not particularly surprising since they've been effectively telling us about this stuff for the past three months), it's good to get some solid insight in to what they're looking at in their approach to the design of Next.