D&D 5E Legend Lore says 'story not rules' (3/4)

[thecasualoblivion]

One of the major goals of D&D Next seems to be making the rules (especially action resolution) as simple and lightweight as possible, and cutting down on minor little things you can take during character creation that you have to remember later for some small benefit. Do you approve of these goals? If so, how do you think the rules can accomplish what you mention here?

I neither approve or disapprove of simple and lightweight. What I want is deep character creation and progression. Those two things are usually but not necessarily in conflict. I haven't seen any sign of deep character generation coming from the playtests, so what the article just said leads me to conclude that they aren't even going to try.

One more reason to reject this game.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

i think the company producing D&D should be creating the majority of its flavor material. I got so tired of the splat treadmill in 3E and having to go to lower quality third party material for stuff like modules and GM material. Mechanics are not important, but I think flavor matters a lot too. When I look at the complete 2E books versus the compelete 3E books there is no contest on which line added more to my campaign in terms of detail, inspiration and setting content. The 3E books just gave me more feats and prestige classes, with very little substance of flavor. The 2E books were bursting with flavor. The best books ever produced in my opinion were the Van Richten books and wotc made nothing that approached them in my opinion, not because they lacked the talent (they had some of the most talented people working for them) but because they become so focused on mechanics over flavor. You just wouldn't see something like that from WoTC. The Van Richten books basically showed me a whole new way to approach the game as a GM. They were a revelation. That is what I want from a supplement line.

In your opinion

I take the opposite opinion, and I would like to see Next cater to both opinions, which they are not currently doing.

 

[Ahnehnois]

D&D is not a shared language. I don't speak 4e. I don't speak 1e, or even PF. I don't understand published adventures or organized play conventions either. At best, D&D is a language family.

A language works best when everyone who uses it can communicate efficiently.

Well, everyone that uses is is really only one particular gaming group. I have little interest in being able to communicate with other gaming groups. If you join my group, you learn my rules and my style. I'm not counting on any book to shortcut that process.

And while more rules can sometime be problematic, wasn't the point of modularity that you don't have to use all of them. I don't want hour-long combats or miniatures, so I don't use those rules. I want in-depth character creation and detailed skills, so I use those.

After the core rules for the game are done, we really want to stop adding so much stuff to the mechanics of the game and shift our emphasis to story.

Not really sure what this means either. Some people would use that phrasing to indicate that the game provides noncombat mechanics, but that seems not to be the case given this context.

It might also refer to narrativist mechanics. Or content production (settings, adventures, etc.). Neither of those things are part of the core D&D experience and it's unlikely I'd spend any money either.

The other side to this coin is that with a much-reduced emphasis on turning out new rules mechanics, the material we make receives more playtesting, development, and care. If you want to make an archer option, it has to be a good option. You don't get a second chance at it.

Actually, you get more than a second chance. You get a million. Every table is another shot. A D&D book is a resource for ideas, not the final product. The game at the table is a final product. I don't expect refinement out of my books, but I do expect inspiration. More new concepts. What if I don't want to play an archer? What if I want to play a witch?

No, I'm really not buying into any of this (short) article.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@AbdulAlhazred I just meant the L&L itself; short, terse, vague. To deliver a bombshell such as "yeah, all of those plans to unify the playerbase under the big tent via a basic core and modules? Well, yeah thats pretty much impossible so we've decided to put out this Moldvay Basic core with a few dials. YOU LOSE. GOOD DAY SIR." with a few paragraph column that doesn't explicitly say much of anything and definitely doesn't speak to the gravity of the situation? That would be quite a "drive-by". It basically just read to me as "no crappy mechanics proliferation...good, focused mechanics married to story." That hints at "no rules modules or splatbooks" but it doesn't actually say it nor does it address what a catastrophe that would be.

It would be akin to your wife walking through the kitchen and saying; "ok honey, coffee pots on, your lunch is on the second shelf, don't forget to take Tommy to baseball practice, I'm sleeping with your best friend and want a divorce. Off to work, ta-ta!"

LOL, yeah, I get you. Honestly, I agree with you, there's not some huge revelation in this article. Its quite likely as well that from Mike's point of view he thinks he's been on a single steady course with an unwavering vision from the start. I wouldn't know really. I do know that from MY perspective there was at least some sort of a notion that there would be serious attention directed at meeting the needs of different play styles and tastes within the larger context of D&D, and that would address the needs of ALL edition's fans. I never expected DDN to provide everything that 4e provides in the way 4e does, but actually there was at least the hope that it would both provide the essential play style AND some improvements in presentation and play experience. Nothing in this column really changes my current understanding of the fact that FOR ME DDN will offer essentially nothing and won't be useful to me at all.

Truthfully, the "we're going to release content slowly and do more with adventures and stuff" is sort of tangential to my own concerns. I mean, what difference does it make at what pace they release mechanics to a game that I am probably not planning on buying anyway? lol.

 

[Bedrockgames]

In your opinion

I take the opposite opinion, and I would like to see Next cater to both opinions, which they are not currently doing.

Absolutely. It is just my opinion. But I think they either have to do one or the other. In the lore article he pretty much says it is a matter of focus. Good flavor material takes just as much time and effort as mechanics. And if they take the 3E/4E mechanic heavy approach, that will leave a lot less time for them to work on the kind of stuff I am interested in.

 

[Bedrockgames]

But as others have pointed out, the brokenness in 3e/3.5 was RIGHT IN THE PHB. It was the initial core material that was mechanically idiotic (to put it bluntly). I mean I remember reading the 3e PHB and just shaking my head and walking away. Even without playing the game it was pretty clear there were huge issues with casters, skill system wonkiness, etc. The supplements for 3.x were doomed from the start because they were built on a bad base. I think this is why ultimately 3.5 so annoyed and vexed the developers at WotC that they said "enough!" and wrote 4e.

I dont really want to derail this with another debate about 3E and balance, but my experience was I didnt really encounter huge issues with the game until people started bringing in builds based around many of the feats and prestige classes in the complete books. You are certainly entitled to believe 3E is a bad base, but plenty of people have been using it now for thirteen years and still love it. I myself am just starting up a new 3.5 campaign after a few years away. Re-reading the phb and dmg I have to say I am a lot more impressed this time around, and I think it is actually a incredibley well done system in many respects. If you use the complete system you tend to run into fewer problems in my opinion (I still think there are some issues with the magic, but nothing I cant deal with).

 

[I'm A Banana]

I think the actual thrust of the article is pretty cool, and reassuring. It's part of what we talk about when we talk about making a few significant decisions rather than a million little ones (that all add up to something big, if you do it right), and part of making the game less about niche jargon ("was that a turn or a round? does this provoke an opportunity thing or not? is this a ranged primal controller or a melee psionic striker?") and more about big chunks of imagination fuel that are easily grokked by those interested in understanding them. Things that cause a measurable difference in what the character does in the game.

I don't yet understand why anyone would really miss one million little bits and fobs that don't really do much.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Absolutely. It is just my opinion. But I think they either have to do one or the other. In the lore article he pretty much says it is a matter of focus. Good flavor material takes just as much time and effort as mechanics. And if they take the 3E/4E mechanic heavy approach, that will leave a lot less time for them to work on the kind of stuff I am interested in.

If they must pick one, then they must be honest with us and stop lying about 5E being for everybody.

 

[Bedrockgames]

If they must pick one, then they must be honest with us and stop lying about 5E being for everybody.

I dont think they are being dishonest. He clarified that they will still be doing the rules modules, they just are not going to go splat crazy. Obviously they can't please everyone. But they can release like three different core books to accomodate a range of style, then followup with largley flavor material. I dont see that as lying.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I dont think they are being dishonest. He clarified that they will still be doing the rules modules, they just are not going to go splat crazy. Obviously they can't please everyone. But they can release like three different core books to accomodate a range of style, then followup with largley flavor material. I dont see that as lying.

I find that hard to accept when they speak of removing major styles of D&D from Next, like removing the idea of numerous supplemental material that has been a mainstay of D&D for the past 12 years.