DDXP Begins Today!

[quindia]

When answering a question about the 2e Battlesystem and old school Chainmail, Mike Mearls answered...

Wargame rules are a great example of the kinds of rules modules we’d like to look at for the next iteration of D&D. They are very useful in some campaigns, occasionally useful in others, and never touched in even more. The same thing applies to skirmish battles, or even using miniatures for the typical D&D session. Miniatures are one of those things that I’d prefer to see people using because they enjoy painting or collecting them, not because they feel that the rules require miniatures.

The whole interview is here. Anyway, it seems like minis and the grid will be optional.

 

[Falstaff]

Not to sound too negative here, but it sounds like what you are saying is that all you will ever play is AD&D and that if D&D5/Next isn't pretty much exactly the same as AD&D, you won't even give it a shot. So, uh... why are you even involved in the discussion?

The entire point of the new system is to create a New D&D that will hopefully make itself available to a wider audience than 4E did. To do that, it takes constructive input from a wide range of people who are willing to make such a modular system work. All of the people who refuse to come out of their respective corners and have the attitude "my way or no way" simply aren't helping the discussion. I just don't get it. Why come into a discussion just to say you won't ever be interested unless the game is exactly the way you want it, when you know it can never be exactly what you want?

You don't sound too negative; I understand your point.

I guess the reason why I felt compelled to post here was because I have heard that WotC is hoping that this new edition will bring older edition players into the new game. Well, I'm one of those 40+ old gamers and based on what I've read so far, I'm not interested. At all.

But I'll leave the conversation. I totally understand how my voice isn't needed.

 

[The Halfling]

You don't sound too negative; I understand your point.

I guess the reason why I felt compelled to post here was because I have heard that WotC is hoping that this new edition will bring older edition players into the new game. Well, I'm one of those 40+ old gamers and based on what I've read so far, I'm not interested. At all.

But I'll leave the conversation. I totally understand how my voice isn't needed.

I'm quoting Falstaff not to pick on him, but because this quote reinforces the train of thought I had last night on DDN and it's noble intention of unifying the community.

The disparity of play and design between the editions from BECMI to 4e
is too great. It been 30+ years since the old white box, and if players of that style of system have steadfastly clung to it through 2 to 3 newer incarnations, what makes you think that another new system with another modern design will drawn them in. The OSR movement wasn't about making a new system, it was about getting the old school systems back into print using the OGL.

What a 3e player wants out of a game is different from what a 4e players wants, but BOTH are different from what a OSR player wants. Neither are simple or quick in play. And as for the thought of both kinds of players at the same table, it will come down to what kind of game the DM wants to run. A 4e player who wants to run a PC with all the bells and whistles of DDN probably won't be playing with a OSR DM. It's not going to happen. You would have a better chance of a 3e/4e DM allowing an OSR player, though the player's satisfaction level probably wouldn't be too high.

What I see from DDN is a system of codified house rules. A definite throwback to my own old school days, where we all played the same system, but not the same game.

 

[TerraDave]

W... Mike Mearls answered...

... Miniatures are one of those things that I’d prefer to see people using because they enjoy painting or collecting them, not because they feel that the rules require miniatures.

The whole interview is here. Anyway, it seems like minis and the grid will be optional.

He repeats elsewhere thats minis won't be needed.

Also confirms that we will not be seeing a new setting any time soon (the 3E setting search was mentioned in the question):

but we want to make sure we have plans in place for fans of a variety of favorite settings. That probably means new settings, like the runners-up in the Eberron contest, will have to wait.

 

[mudbunny]

He repeats elsewhere thats minis won't be needed.

I know that a bunch of the playtest games at DDXP yesterday were run mapless/miniless.

(Note, I am not at DDXP.)

 

[Henry]

Here's my question...

Can the demo-players who signed an NDA talk about ANYTHING of their experience? Their impression or whether they liked what they played or not? Or if I FELT like D&D to them, even if they can't say why?


Of a hypothetical 10 people, if 50% say, "good," 30% say "bad", and 20% are "indifferent", or 90% say "bad" or something, that at least gives us an overall impression. It kinda sucks if they can't even talk about their feeling of it.

 

[mudbunny]

Here's my question...

Can the demo-players who signed an NDA talk about ANYTHING of their experience? Their impression or whether they liked what they played or not? Or if I FELT like D&D to them, even if they can't say why?

(Note, not at DDXP)

I know from reading [MENTION=71575]chat[/MENTION]tyDMs twitter feed this morning that he really, really enjoyed it. Also, chatting with a friend who is there, he also really enjoyed it (he was playing in a mini- and map-less game).

In addition, E (from geeksdreamgirl.com) wrote up her impressions here[/url.]

It is long, so I will excerpt her impressions of the game that she had that was run by Monte Cook:

Immediately after the seminar, I went to my mustering station and was assigned a table for the WotC Secret Special adventure, which was a playtest of the new edition core rules. I didn’t know anybody at my table (at least until Mike of SlyFlourish sat down!) but we were all excited to try the new iteration of D&D.

While waiting on our DM to arrive, I was scrolling through my Twitter stream and saw a tweet from Baldman Games that if any table yelled “THE BALDMAN RULES” they’d get Monte Cook as their DM. Since I hadn’t heard any tables yelling, I showed the tweet to my table and we all sounded the chorus. Sure enough, Monte himself came to our table to run our game!

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have noticed my silence for the next few hours. Here’s why:

Monte Cook. Srsly, do I need more reasons?
I couldn’t publish any crunchy details about the game, including any pics that might show character sheets. (Sorry!)
Our game was pretty freakin’ awesome.

Now, you don’t need your very own Monte Cook to make the new D&D great. Of course, having an awesome DM helps, but that’s true for pretty much every game out there.

Here are some of the things that struck me about this game:

There was a LOT of talk at the table. In character at times! I’ve never been at a D&D table where players were more invested in figuring out their next move.

On that topic, your next move isn’t on your character sheet. You don’t go paging through all your stuff thinking, “Well, I could Bluff this guy.” Nope. We were doing what we thought our characters should do, even if that involved our very NOT charismatic half-orc fighter trying to be a charismatic leader of a band of skeptical savage orcs. Multiple times. In other games, it’s “Okay, who has the highest Charisma? You? Okay, you go talk to those orcs and get them to help us.”

Everything was fun and fast and fluid. I didn’t feel like the game got bogged down at any time during our session, even when we had a few rules questions for Monte. Things just happened and they flowed with the story and the story was awesome because we made it that way.

Thanks again for an awesome game Monte & friends!

Of a hypothetical 10 people, if 50% say, "good," 30% say "bad", and 20% are "indifferent", or 90% say "bad" or something, that at least gives us an overall impression. It kinda sucks if they can't even talk about their feeling of it.

 

[Henry]

Fantastic. Thanks, mudbunny!

I also just now saw a post Plane Sailing had on the NExt Forum collecting various tweet responses.

 

[ferratus]

The disparity of play and design between the editions from BECMI to 4e
is too great. It been 30+ years since the old white box, and if players of that style of system have steadfastly clung to it through 2 to 3 newer incarnations, what makes you think that another new system with another modern design will drawn them in?

Some fans of D&D are strict platonists. There is an ideal form of D&D and that is 1e. The more things deviate from 1e the less it is like D&D. 1e will always be as near to an authentic D&D experience you can get, and every other edition thus far has failed to measure up. There is probably not going to be any edition or new ruleset that will displace 1e (or BECMI, or 2e, or 3e) as the place of D&D in their heart.

Myself, I'm a strict Aristotelean. It is D&D as long as it performs the function of D&D in which I assemble a party of adventurers to explore the dungeon and save the world. I'll toss classes, levels, six ability scores, vancian magic and everything else onto the bonfire if it aids me in creating a better play experience. I'll still call it D&D (even if that name isn't on the cover) because I care about slaying dragons and exploring dungeons, not rules subsystems.

So there is going to be a delicate row to hoe between the two of us. I'm simply not interested in bringing back what I consider (IMO of course) to be broken, disruptive, inefficient and unbalanced game mechanics simply for the sake of "authenticity". The platonist isn't going to be interested in D&D mechanics if they don't have strong links to the rules and mechanics of his favourite D&D edition.

However... (and here is where the hope comes from) people are perfectly capable of liking multiple editions and multiple styles of play. Also, some people may have a favourite edition, but can play another edition and be content that they are playing a form of D&D. Others like aspects of all editions of D&D, and wish there was a way to combine what they like in one edition of D&D. Finally, there are those who don't like a version of D&D, but can recognize the good ideas that it might have.

I think the absolutists generate a lot of heat on discussion forums (as extremists are wont to do), but I think the vast majority of D&D players are those in the last paragraph.

I thus have confidence that D&D players and groups will accept D&D if it gives them a means to move towards their favourite playstyle while still keeping all their friends. I also think (and this may not be true of those who post on RPG forums) that your existing group of friends is more important than your favorite version of D&D.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

It's not that simple. As someone already pointed in another thread, it's not easy to simply disallow a Player's Handbook race without some players seeing you as a jerk.

Also, the implied setting is a very important part of the D&D experience to me; look at the cover of 4E PH and what you see? Yes, a dragonborn. And they'll also appear a lot around in both modules and sourcebooks, even in the background of the world.

I don't like dragonborns, but I have no problem with people liking them, I just want them to be an option in whatever book they're released, not a relevant part of the core, with people asking me why they're not a part of my setting. I hope I have clarified that.

Cheers,

And I'm totally bored of people endlessly playing dwarves and elves, so I'd prefer if they don't show up in the core book. Obviously we can all see the problem here. If it is going to be a big tent then it IS going to have to incorporate the things we both like.

I think there's a point where people might have to look at their highly specific tastes in terms of game elements and ask why they're so set against some perfectly interesting concepts and so hard set on having others. 5e will not succeed without people doing that. This is something in general that has gotten less than a lot of consideration is that WotC is not to blame for people's narrow tastes that divide them up into different warring camps. The people that play, that make up the community of D&D players, are responsible for that. The most that WotC can EVER hope to do is cater to everyone as best it is possible to do. The fans have got to do the rest, so if you want to see a successful D&D game going forward we will all have to look real hard at ourselves and decide to be inclusive and not exclusive.

D&D is after all a game of imagination and creativity. That should be an inclusive impulse that accepts things and does cool things with them, not a rigid traditionalism or exclusive particularism that can only tolerate some narrow set of things in the game and set ways of doing things.