Dragon 370 - Design & Development: Cosmology

[M.L. Martin]

To each their own, I suppose. I find the extreme balance obsession in 4e to be very.... scary, I guess is the right word. I'm afraid to touch anything for fear the perfectly balanced mechanism might go spinning madly out of control. 3e I was very comfortable sticking a finger in the wind and saying "Good enough for government work"; with 4e, I feel if I want to come up with a new exploit/spell/prayer I'd better build a spreadsheet and make sure my new ability is not the slightest bit better, or the slightest bit worse, than any existing ability.

This explains some things. It baffles me, but it explains some things.
I felt exactly about 3E exactly the way you feel about 4E. This may be due to not enough actual play and too much reading and following online discussions, but from nearly the beginning, it gave me the impression of 'This is a finely balanced, highly interwoven and coherent system--and we've hidden a lot of the basic assumptions from you. Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Tinker Here." 4E has the same level of rigor in its powers, but at least it's more transparent about the kind of results it thinks you should be getting.
Now, if 3E was transparent or loose enough for you to feel comfortable winging it, then I understand your fondness for it better than I have. I usually felt that if I had to deal with the rigor and detail of 3E, I might as well go with HERO or M&M and at least get the transparency and design flexibility 3E lacked--and I know you can handle HERO, so your passion for 3E puzzled me.

I feel constrained. I find the one-size-fits-all cosmology to be another example of constraint, even if it's only for "official" worlds, it's part of an attitude that has shifted D&D from being a generic toolkit for fantasy gaming to being a set of rules usable only in one fantasy world. It's becoming closer to a setting-based game than a genre-based toolkit, and while I am perfectly capable of (and intend to) using it to do what I want with it, I feel I have to fight the design intent to do so, that the dev team is no longer on "my side", if you follow me.

D&D has always been bipolar in this regard, largely due to the magic system (not just Vancian, but the arcane/divine split and other quirks), monsters, and hidden assumptions discussed above. 1E was a stew, 2E tried to broaden things, 3E seemed to want to have it both ways by both increasing flexibility but undercutting that with hidden assumptions and designing for the 'core D&D experience'. 4E is for 'playing D&D', even moreso than 1E and 3E, IMO.

(And to make my biases clear, I was excited about 4E and think it got a lot of things right, especially in the math, artifacts, and shifting monsters from a 'race-centered' to 'class-centered' style, but I think it's too close to the core experience for someone like me, who's fonder of the outliers.)

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Yeah I am the same as Matthew, I find that the transparency of the math and the fact that the balance has lots of support/fall backs that I feel much easier messing around with the math.

As for the cosmology, I too find it easier to mess with cause well it is more "generic" and more giving us certain areas that generate specific ideas and feelings. We know what a Feywild be like what a Shadowfell be like, etc. As such we can easily use those to build our own cosmologies.

I am finding both rules wise and the way fluff has been done it is much easier for me to run the gambit from low-fantasy to fantasy-sci fi, to high-fantasy, to mystery, etc.

 

[Spatula]

So I might describe the ice as slick, and muddy... But the DC won't be a hard set in stone number somewhere.

Which also helps avoid those annoying rules lawyers... "You said the ice was muddy! The DC shouldn't be the DC you said... whaaaaaaa...."

Not really, because (just as in 3e) there's an appropriate DC "set in stone" in the books. The rules lawyer says, "We're level X, so the DC is either n1, n2, or n3... or, x1, x2, x3 if the DM is using the errata'd numbers..."

E.g. Eberron's take on the planes was really well-received, so they modified the standard cosmology to include aspects of it.

They did? Where?

I felt exactly about 3E exactly the way you feel about 4E. This may be due to not enough actual play and too much reading and following online discussions, but from nearly the beginning, it gave me the impression of 'This is a finely balanced, highly interwoven and coherent system--and we've hidden a lot of the basic assumptions from you. Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Tinker Here." 4E has the same level of rigor in its powers, but at least it's more transparent about the kind of results it thinks you should be getting.

3e doesn't hide its basic assumptions. It's even chock full of sidebars telling you why the non-intuitive bits are the way they are. 4e isn't any more or any less transparent, although I suppose the number of online interviews these days gives us some more insight than we had back in the early days of 3e.

 

[Spatula]

And what's wrong with having a baseline cosmology for new DM's who want to just run some adventures, not build a whole cosmos? What's wrong with having a default origin and story to tie things like Giants and Elementals together?

Nothing wrong with the "baseline" world. The problem is forcing every setting to be that same world. What's the point of the different settings if they're all the same?

 

[M.L. Martin]

3e doesn't hide its basic assumptions. It's even chock full of sidebars telling you why the non-intuitive bits are the way they are. 4e isn't any more or any less transparent, although I suppose the number of online interviews these days gives us some more insight than we had back in the early days of 3e.

What's the proper total attack bonus and AC/saving throw bonuses for a warrior-type of 12th level, then--factoring in expected feats, stats, magic items, and the like?

This is what I was complaining about--the game gives you a lot of tools, but it doesn't tell you the results it expects you to get from those tools, especially the magic items. The "Expected Wealth" system was one of the chief offenders. Yes, it was a step forward, but it was like doing a point-based generation system with a raw number of points, but no minimums or maximums for fundamental character abilities. The inclusion of "system mastery" elements was another strike against this.

4E improves this with magic item levels (which debuted in late 3.5) and Page 42, although the errata on the latter is disheartening, I admit.

 

[Spatula]

What's the proper total attack bonus and AC/saving throw bonuses for a warrior-type of 12th level, then--factoring in expected feats, stats, magic items, and the like?

What's the expected damage of an 11th level paragon path encounter power? An infernal lock gets 3d8+Con (avg 13.5+mod) to 1 target within 10 squares, +10dmg on a conditional basis. A spellstorm mage gets 4d6+Int (avg 14+mod) to all creatures in a 5x5 square within 20 squares, and creates a wall of difficult terrain around the targets that does 10 dmg to any that pass through it. What's the transparent formula for designing new powers? How much expected damage are various riders worth in a power? Range? Area effects?

This is what I was complaining about--the game gives you a lot of tools, but it doesn't tell you the results it expects you to get from those tools, especially the magic items.

Right, but then 3e wasn't really concerned with that sort of thing. Numbers are built from in-world reasons rather than game reasons (all undead have 1/2 BAB, etc.), and whatever you end up with in the end is what you end up with. It wasn't until later in the design cycle that we see that lack of concern was getting in the way of developing a usable encounter building system, and thus we have 4e's generally superior way of looking at things. That doesn't make 3e non-transparent, just not as well put together as 4e.

 

[Lizard]

Wait, wait, wait - are you saying that, in order for you to admit you are wrong, you are unwilling to accept people stepping forward and outright stating that they felt some of these things were problem, and instead demand online threads as the only proof you will accept?

It would be proof a lot of people thought these things were wrong BEFORE the developers announced they were wrong. Given how people will rant on the Internet about the color of hobbit toenails on page 17 of an obscure module, I simply find it difficult that seemingly major problems with D&D have been present for 30-odd years and no one saw fit to complain about them in public. The deadliness of the elemental planes, for example, was either ignored ("You have the amulet of whatever that protects you, onwards!") or the planes were there as background fluff, never actually visited. I never heard anyone say, "I really WANT to run an adventure on the Plane of Earth, but I just can't!" (I personally felt the incredible hostility of the elemental planes was part of their charm, they were hideously inimical to "mortal" life, a place you could only go when you were closing in on demigod status, and when their energies spilled into the "real" world, strange and terrible things occurred...the idea of "safe" bubbles in these planes, and the sort of strange beings which might live in them, was also extremely appealing to me, and a great adventure seed. I love the idea of a town or settlement in a 'bubble' on, say, the plane of Earth (classic version), surrounded by literally infinite stone, ever aware that a shift in cosmic forces could crush them to nothingness, yet still home to those who, for whatever reason, need to be there...)

FWIW, I ran into a similar problem with generic undersea adventuring. A Water Breathing spell is subject to Dispel Magic, and all underwater races would know this and it would be the first line of attack against surface dwellers. I just created a higher level, non-dispellable spell. I didn't need to redesign how oceans worked.

Could it possibly be that the reason for the support is that there are people that honestly agree with the decisions made and the reasons behind them??

Sure. But I'd expect it to be in the form of "Wow, you know, I never thought of that before... but they're right!" as opposed to the form of "We ALWAYS thought this, we just didn't TELL anyone." The design diaries, etc, often state things in a way which makes it seem as every change they make is so self-evidently brilliant and long-demanded that it's completely inconceivable anyone could possibly have ever played the game any other way and still had fun, and, yes, that attitude does annoy me, and it is very often echoed by 4e's more outspoken partisans. I find 4e to be a game which has actually managed to transcend its fanbase. It's fun DESPITE the people who like it.

 

[Lizard]

I don't get this. All editions of D&D have presented a bunch of stuff without providing a real alternative, some of which you might not like. Suddenly 4E is faulty for doing the same thing?

Did I say the other versions WEREN'T faulty?

1e was pretty absolutist. Female dwarves have beards! Or else!
2e I had no interest in, so I can't comment.
3e's MOTP presented several alternate cosmologies and had extensive discussion on how to interface your cosmology with the rules.
4e, judging from the preview, jumps back to 1e.

I fail to see how criticism of 4e equates to "Every/any other version was better!"

Probably about as much as in previous editions? If you don't use D&D's default cosmology, whichever version it might be, then the Manual of the Planes, whichever edition it might be, will be of limited interest.

I still go back to the 1e MOTP for inspiration. Even though I don't use the layout of the planes, the sheer scope and spectable -- planes of SALT! of RADIANCE! Planes like infinite nested pearls, planes of giant metal cubes... -- is always inspiring to me. If the 4e MOTP provides that same sense of infinite possibilities, of things I would not have thought of on my own, it's worth it.

 

[Lizard]

Drifting off topic a bit, one of the things which I finally came to like about 4e was precisely that last -- that, in effect, every "monster" is a "monster with class levels", and you can, pretty much, make every encounter unique, designing NPCs from the ground up with whatever Cool Powers they ought to have. 99% of the time in D20M and 3x, my players are fighting classed monsters, because they're cooler and because I don't like the idea of all the orcs vanishing when you hit 5th level -- you'll be fighting orcs at 20th level, they're just 20th level orcs. 4e seems to take this as a baseline, and once I broke through the mental block of seeing the various Monstername Verber things as *species* instead of *classed individuals*, the game made a lot more sense.

 

[Lacyon]

The deadliness of the elemental planes, for example, was either ignored ("You have the amulet of whatever that protects you, onwards!") or the planes were there as background fluff, never actually visited.

I don't like pre-built, "You VILL use zis und you vill LIKE it!". 4e has far more of the latter than it needs, and saying, "Well, just ignore it!" leads to the question "Why buy it?"

If you take the time to reconcile these two statements, you'll understand why some people are happy that the irritating things they previously ignored or handwaved no longer need to be ignored or handwaved.

Sure. But I'd expect it to be in the form of "Wow, you know, I never thought of that before... but they're right!" as opposed to the form of "We ALWAYS thought this, we just didn't TELL anyone."

FWIW, I ran into a similar problem with generic undersea adventuring. A Water Breathing spell is subject to Dispel Magic, and all underwater races would know this and it would be the first line of attack against surface dwellers. I just created a higher level, non-dispellable spell. I didn't need to redesign how oceans worked.

I suggest that most of the people saying "We ALWAYS thought this" are the same people who handwaved did exactly this kind of thing.

The fact that you had to design a new spell to make underwater adventuring even close to a reasonable idea suggests a design flaw in the game. For my money, the fact that I needed designed such a spell wouldn't likely drive me onto message boards to gripe. But, in seeing one published by WOTC, I might say "FINALLY, that's been bugging me for so long."

I find 4e to be a game which has actually managed to transcend its fanbase. It's fun DESPITE the people who like it.

It is possible that a bit more benefit of the doubt is in order.