Interview with Mike Mearls

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Shadowrun (which I started roleplaying with) is an abstract system, same as D&D. I don't really see wound levels ("So, a 5 cm cut to the hand is a light wound, meaning 1 box of damage. And I am dead at 10 boxes, meaning, 10 such cuts to the hand or arm?") as that more realistic (or "logical", or "simulationist" for some) than hit points. Both require a suspension of disbelief. And the less said about the relation between Shadowrun's firearm rules and the real world the better.

Well, I will not claim that Shadowrun was actually good at what it aimed to do, but it seemed to pretend it a lot better then D&D.

<snip>
Almost every subsequent RPG coming out soon after D&D was an attempt at better support for role playing by introducing more verisimilitude, usually through rules. Champions, Role Master, Gurps, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu... The only exception that quickly comes to mind is Palladium and that's more of a copy cat situation. D&D was sold as the original role playing game, and almost everything that followed, until recently, were attempts at improving upon different aspects of that.

The question is - why did D&D never try to get "better" at this? Why did it keep mechanics that are so "in-the-face" lacking of verisimilitude like hit points or levels around? I can get classes in this context, because class and role are obviously closely related (well, at least they used to be), and you want to facilitate playing a role...

 

[Fenes]

The question is - why did D&D never try to get "better" at this? Why did it keep mechanics that are so "in-the-face" lacking of verisimilitude like hit points or levels around? I can get classes in this context, because class and role are obviously closely related (well, at least they used to be), and you want to facilitate playing a role...

Because like Shadowrun, it needs to strike a balance between realism/simulationism and ease of play/fun/valid options. Ideally, the method and rules chosen allow for a wide range of playstyles. Shadowrun's 4E does this really well with their optional rules, IMHO. D&D has fallen behind in that point, with the options for different playstyles getting reduced. It remains to be seen if they'll open the system, or keep it as narrow and rigid as it currently is.

 

[Samuel Leming]

The question is - why did D&D never try to get "better" at this?

They did try. Remember Non-Weapon Proficiencies D&D 3.0 was a major step forward too.

Why did it keep mechanics that are so "in-the-face" lacking of verisimilitude like hit points or levels around?

Neither is "in your face". They're just abstractions. I've become tired of them at several times, but neither really snap my suspenders of disbelief.

I can get classes in this context, because class and role are obviously closely related (well, at least they used to be), and you want to facilitate playing a role...

That's not quite what I mean by role. Usually by that I mean another person in another world.

Sam

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

They did try. Remember Non-Weapon Proficiencies D&D 3.0 was a major step forward too.

Neither is "in your face". They're just abstractions. I've become tired of them at several times, but neither really snap my suspenders of disbelief.

I see the term is catching on.
They were a great disconnect for me at first, though I quickly got over it. And these days, I appreciate such abstractions. Of course, if I was to make my own perfect RPG system (and who active gamer doesn't sometimes want to do that?), I would try something else.

That's not quite what I mean by role. Usually by that I mean another person in another world.

Classes tend to define who you are in that world. They give "hints" on what or who you are.
It's interesting how differently roles can be defined or understood in context of RPGs.
I remember reading a citation from Gary Gygax in the context of rewarding XP for role-playing - he seemed to closely associate roles and classes, and that playing a cowardly fighter or a cleric unwilling to heal his comrades should be "punished" with less XP. Which is certainly not how many other people would understand role-playing. A coward fighter or a priest unwilling to use his faith to the benefit of unbelievers would certainly not be associated with "bad role-playing" by some. It seemed as if Gary focused more on the "role in the party" then "role in the world" when he refered to role-playing, and regardless of whether you agree with him (or my description of his stance) or not - this sure has always been a certain conflict/confusion in the definition of what role-playing or what the "role" in role-playing games means.
This might also be a difference in the "GNS" debate.

Gamist might say "role-playing refers to the role I play in the party/game"
Simulationist might say "role refers to the role or kind of person I play in the RPG world"
Narrativist might say "role refers to my characters place in the story of the game".
The difference between "Sim" and "Narr" might seem an artifical one here - if you're in the world, you're also in the story, and your role relates to both. The difference is certainly subtle and might be superficial.
The "story" approach concludes a certain element of predetermination in what kind of stories and situations the PC will find himself, and where his experiences will lead him.
The "world" creates the background and motivations of the character (not that of the player) and sees how he will react to any situation handed to him.

There is always a lot of overlap - if I am playing a Fighter, I can assume that my role in the party is to, well, fight. In the context of the world, I will be seen as a man that uses weapons and violence, and will be able to cope best with combat situations. In the story, I will be the one that will be involved in a lot of combat and will lead any battles that are to be fought.

 

[lutecius]

Sure? If people don't agree with the design goals, they might also disagree with the observations of Mike.

hmm no. Not considering the fanboi attitude of many posters who defended that.
That would be implying 4e is not what the designers intended and that they screwed up somehow.

What's interesting about these discussion is how different people perceived the D&D ruleset. I would never have expected "simulationist" gamers (if I had known this term already before the entire discussions came up) to see D&D belonging into that category, or being good at it.

I don't think dnd was that good at simulation before. The point is now it's worse.
Each previous edition was a step away from its wargamey origins, 4e is a step back.
It bothers me precisely because dnd wasn't "sim" enough to my taste, even though i liked the base mechanics.
4e may be more streamlined, more balanced, more "fun", but it's definitely more abstract and gamist too.

But I didn't begin my adventuring role-playing career with D&D and its hit points, levels and vancian magic. I started with Shadowrun, with the injury/damage system distinguishing between penetration and damage, nonlethal and lethal damage boxes, degrading explosions, recoil and stuff like that.

I'm not very familiar with shadowrun or the GSN definitions but to me "simulationism" doesn't necessarily mean detail and complexity, just that the rules represent something consistent "in game" and justifying them doesnt involve jumping through a series of hoops like 4e's Vancian combat and many powers do.

Getting over the entire level/hp system was a small feat in and on itself for me. (Though the vancian system proved to bother me most, for a variety of reason - and none of them was the fact that vancian spells itself are more interesting and varied then the stuff I knew from Shadowun).

Like you must know by now, I loathe Vancian casting but i believe it was actually meant to simulate, well... Vancian magic, or at least it could be easily justified by "the quirky nature of magic".
From a purely gamist pov, a system that didn't require the whole party to rest every hour would have made more sense and a magic point system would have been more obvious.

Levels are not that hard to rationalize but the way xp were earned in AD&D, the multiclassing restrictions and skills being tied to your level certainly were.
The subsequent editions tried to alleviate these inconsistencies but 4e brought them back with the rigid classes and the new skill system.

 

[pemerton]

What's interesting about these discussion is how different people perceived the D&D ruleset. I would never have expected "simulationist" gamers (if I had known this term already before the entire discussions came up) to see D&D belonging into that category, or being good at it.

Have you read Ron Edward's essay on Dungeons and Dragons? It makes for an interesting read. He argues that there was recognisably narrativist play in D&D from the beginning, and obviously also gamist play, but that both mainstream D&D play, and also system design, gradually drifted in a recognisably simulationist direction.

However, I think most people who accept and deploy the GNS framework would argue that AD&D and 3rd ed D&D were, as published rulesets, "abashed" - that is, unable to deliver a coherent play experience unless drifted in one or another direction (either gamist or simulationist) in the course of play.

As a simulationist game, 3E involves a trade-off between "purist for system" (eg skill points, monster design rules, grapplilng mechanics etc - the mechanics are ingame causation) and "high concept" (eg levels, hit points, etc which deliver a cinematic experience via the mechanics without the need for metagame intervention/narration of the sort that 4e requires). I think the tension between these two design goals probably helps explain many of the love/hate feelilngs people have towards 3E.

D&D is the original game of that category. Until the late nineties there were simply no other categories.

Leaving aside the fact that D&D was never an obviously simulationist game until AD&D, there was also Tunnels & Trolls, a self-consciously gamist game.

Almost every subsequent RPG coming out soon after D&D was an attempt at better support for role playing by introducing more verisimilitude, usually through rules. Champions, Role Master, Gurps, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu...

Champions was played in a narrativist and a gamist fashion as well as in a simulationist fashion. Call of Cthulhu is simulationist, but not by way of verisimilitude ("purist for system"). It's goal is to deliver, via the mechanics without the need for metagaming, a certain genre experience.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

forge-isms

This is the TRUE face of The Forge and ALL that comes from it!

:3

 

[pemerton]

That cartoon sent me to a Forge essay I hadn't read before ("The Nuked Apple Cart"). An interesting essay. I think Edwards is spot-on with his reference to "fiction thinly disguised as source material". This is an annoying feature of a lot of RPG supplements - there is no meaningful discussion of how to use the "source material" to actually play a game.

There is also the following final pragraph, which I found interesting:

As a final note: I am a customer as well as a designer of RPGs, in fact, far more so the former than the latter. As customers, too, each of us faces a personal decision: are you a practitioner of an artistic activity or a consumer of a advertising-driven product? I urge you to consider your role in roleplaying economics, and to consider whether a shelf of supplements and so-called source material really suits your needs, as opposed to a few slim roleplaying books with high-octane premises and system ideas.​

If my RPGing is art, it's not particularly good art. I don't think myself as particularly a victim of commercialism either. But because RPGing is a group activity, I am certainly constrained in the direction I can take my gaming by the tastes and preferences (genre, thematic, "artisitic") of those I game with.

Btw, I don't really understand the Forge-hate. The essays are comprehensible. Whether or not they're mostly true or mostly false is a matter of opinion, like so much else in the cultural sphere. But blatant attacks upon the Forge, or upon theorisation in general in the domain of RPGs, reminds me of attacks upon serious reviewing and theorisation in other domains of culture - a little bit knee-jerk and anti-intellectual.

If you don't like the New York Review of Books, don't read it. There's no real need to hate it. I'd say the same about the Forge.

Also, and just to come back on topic, the most recent discussion of "Kickers" - a Forgist technique set out be Edwards in his Sorcerer RPG - that I saw was one by Mearls, talking about his use of the technique in a 4e game.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

People dislike the Forge for the exact reasons given in that comic - the "forgisms" are complete rubberish, the attitudes are pretentious at best, and there's always that hang over of "We SERIOUS gamers write SERIOUS essays on SERIOUS games; you should listen to us because we're SO IMPORTANT."

Gaming is a hobby. Writing several essays and coming up with your own silly terms that are ultimately meaningless is, well, silly. Doing it and taking yourself seriously is REALLY silly. Doing it and expecting others to take it seriously is insulting. Doing it, expecting others to take it seriously, and then getting upset when they don't? That's jerk behavior.

I mean, look at that paragraph you quoted. What a joke! Roleplaying economics? "high-octane premises and system ideas?" I find it immensely difficult to respect anyone who can use that paragraph with a straight face. How much easier would it have been to say "D&D is the MAN. FIGHT THE MAN. FIGHT THE POWER!" And hey, it's just as stupifyingly dumb, but without all the access baggage and wordage.

 

[pemerton]

Prof Cirno, I assume you know that there are some people who go to arthouse cinemas and pay to see independently-produced films not because they always prefer those particular films to studio-produced ones, but because they support the notion of cultural diversity.

I myself subscribe to more political and cultural magazines than I have time to read, in order to support the existence of those magazines.

Ron Edwards is suggesting the same sort of outlook for RPGs. That is not remotely absurd or incomprehensible. Do I agree with him? In principle I have some sympathy; in practice I own a lot more mainstream than indie RPGing material, and I don't have a copy of Sorcerer.

As to high-octane premises and system ideas - obviously the 4e design team think there's something to be learned about system ideas from indie games, because skill challenges (and, to a lesser extent perhaps, other aspects of the 4e mechanics) incorporate some of those ideas. Likewise the idea of an explicit and metagame-heavy endgame (via Epic Destinies).

As to high-octane premises - in my view one thing that Ron Edwards underestimates in his discussion of the role of premise in roleplaying is that in many cases (especially, I think, fantasy RPGing) the premises that are easily addressed are closer to the aesthetic (or perhaps the ethical, in a broad sense of that word - what sort of life can be worthwhile?) than the moral premises that Edwards tends to focus on.

I think that 4e is better suited than earlier versions of D&D for addressing these sorts of premises, because the mechanics (of powers) automatically present the PC as a particular sort of heroic figure. Likewise for monsters - their powers automatically present them as a certain sort of villain. I think that these features of the system make an adventure like Heathen (Dungeon 155) more viable in 4e than in earlier versions of D&D (though I still think the designer squibs a bit at the end when he says "If one of the PCs decides to accept Naarash’s offer, the adventure is over and you’re on your own" - some suggestions here would help).

Finally, I don't see why it would follow from the fact that RPGs are a hobby that it is silly to try to engage in criticism of them (let alone why it is insulting to you that someone might expect to be taken seriously in doing so). Reading novels is a hobby for some, painting is a hobby for others - it doesn't follow that literary and art criticism are silly, nor that they are insulting to hobbyists. (Btw, do you regard all the langugage of criticism - "modernism", "abstract expressionism", "minimalism", etc - as meaningless, or only its use in the context of RPGs?)

Finally, and once again to stay on thread topic, Mearls has some interesting things to say in the podcast about the importance to him of thinking seriously about RPG design.