Mearls: Augmenting the core

[Jack Daniel]

Well I'm of the opinion that he is talking about 5e with these articles. When they were marketing 4e they sometimes did so by stating something along the lines of "3e was bad because....and here is how 4e fixed it" This style offended a lot of people (not me as I agreed with those that thought 3rd was a bad game). This seems to be a bit more "sneaky" calling an element of 4e "lame" without overtly stating that he is speaking about 4e.

This is true enough. When 5th edition does finally roll out, you know that WotC is going to treat it like the return of "Coca-Cola Classic," deposing the heinous imposture of 4th edition's "Coke II." And it doesn't matter whether the mechanics of 5th edition look anything like older editions, or whether they're something completely new: this is simply how the marketing machine is going to portray it. That will be their narrative: "4th edition pleased lots of gamers, but it drove lots of gamers away too. Now, with 5th edition, everyone can come back into the fold and be one big happy family again."

And whatever 5th edition does wind up looking like, we can probably make a few safe predictions already. It will keep the good bits of 4th edition: its combat rules will be based on solid math, and casters won't go back to being a "win button." We can hope (although it's not by any means definite yet) for Mearls' model of a simple core with modular add-ons: that would be awesome. And the core he describes sounds a great deal like B/X D&D crossed with C&C's SIEGE engine, which is a great foundation upon which one could overlay various modular skill systems, feats/powers, gridded combat, mass-combat, king-making, social combat, etc. It really could work.

(Side note: if 5th edition does come along and take this modular structure, I'm hoping that "feats as perks" get done away with and folded into "powers." It's always been such a misnomer, hasn't it? A "feat" is a deed, an action, something that happens when you *do* it. It's a good name for martial powers, much better than "exploits" anyway, but it's a bad name for a game mechanic that gives you a passive bonus. My ideal 5th edition would see simple fighter and rogue classes that have a few class features but don't use powers; and likewise simple mage and cleric classes that use a sleek spell system, something like Green Ronin's Dragon Age. One could then build a powers system around martial feats/exploits and magical spells/prayers, the former of which get simply overlaid onto fighters and rogues, and the latter of which are somewhat more powerful and therefore replace the core spell system for mages and clerics. Wouldn't that be badass?)

 

[thedungeondelver]

I think you're misunderstanding why people play earlier editons. There are definetly those who are the "one edition to rule them all" kind of folks that are happy with edition X and will be until they die. There are others who play prior editions who stick with them because the newer edition does not particularly appear to be a better alternative. If given a better game, a lot of people will try it out and play (assuming 5e is actually a decent game)

I think you don't know me well enough to apprehend my understanding of why people play older editions of AD&D. Nothing you said runs contrary to what I've said. In fact it essentially supports exactly what I said, so thanks...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

This is true enough. When 5th edition does finally roll out, you know that WotC is going to treat it like the return of "Coca-Cola Classic," deposing the heinous imposture of 4th edition's "Coke II." And it doesn't matter whether the mechanics of 5th edition look anything like older editions, or whether they're something completely new: this is simply how the marketing machine is going to portray it. That will be their narrative: "4th edition pleased lots of gamers, but it drove lots of gamers away too. Now, with 5th edition, everyone can come back into the fold and be one big happy family again."

And whatever 5th edition does wind up looking like, we can probably make a few safe predictions already. It will keep the good bits of 4th edition: its combat rules will be based on solid math, and casters won't go back to being a "win button." We can hope (although it's not by any means definite yet) for Mearls' model of a simple core with modular add-ons: that would be awesome. And the core he describes sounds a great deal like B/X D&D crossed with C&C's SIEGE engine, which is a great foundation upon which one could overlay various modular skill systems, feats/powers, gridded combat, mass-combat, king-making, social combat, etc. It really could work.

(Side note: if 5th edition does come along and take this modular structure, I'm hoping that "feats as perks" get done away with and folded into "powers." It's always been such a misnomer, hasn't it? A "feat" is a deed, an action, something that happens when you *do* it. It's a good name for martial powers, much better than "exploits" anyway, but it's a bad name for a game mechanic that gives you a passive bonus. My ideal 5th edition would see simple fighter and rogue classes that have a few class features but don't use powers; and likewise simple mage and cleric classes that use a sleek spell system, something like Green Ronin's Dragon Age. One could then build a powers system around martial feats/exploits and magical spells/prayers, the former of which get simply overlaid onto fighters and rogues, and the latter of which are somewhat more powerful and therefore replace the core spell system for mages and clerics. Wouldn't that be badass?)

Feat was a term inherited from 3.x where it was something that a fighter got that gave them something weakly similar in some general way to a 'power' in 4e. Since 4e feats worked mechanically a lot like 3.x feats they used the same term. Makes sense in that context perfectly well.

As far as how powers would work in a 5e I don't see a lot of reason to change them much from how they work in 4e. They could use certain tweaks and there might be more divergence between the classes than AEDU strictly provides now, but then again we've already broken from that anyway, so it isn't actually a big jump to some other slightly different way for them to work for different power sources. I'd still note however that having basically the same power structure for all classes has some nice points to it, like being able to do swaps to MC, etc. Notice that most of the rules quandries in Essentials revolve around the fact that they broke this. I don't think it is a massive big deal, but extra complexity will ensue with any system that uses different power models for different classes.

 

[fireinthedust]

Personally I think it is irrelevant WHY he's writing this column. I seriously doubt the economics of the RPG market will allow the publishing of a 5e for at least several more years. Even then I believe the economics and realities of the D&D community will kill the idea of a modular system stone cold dead (or at least reduce it to triviality).

I don't know about that.

Like I touch upon in my current blog post (see sig), there is a history of modular additions to the rules in D&D.

2e: Skills & powers (precursor to 3e)
3e: splat books (heroes of battle, heroes of horror, grafts, etc). OGL content. Pathfinder. Dragon Magazine. New magic items. Psionics.
d20 Modern: cybernetics. mutations. templates. space travel. mecha. spellcasting fx classes.
4e: PHB2. DMG2. powers if viewed as chosen class features, despite comparisons to feats/spells in earlier editions.
5e: ? (basic 5e + menu of rules additions?)


I think the industry has thrived on modular rules.

I don't think any of this is "new" in the same way that Galileo didn't "invent" a heliocentric solar system. Mearls is just pointing out what's been going on in the hobby for some time, and saying that IF he did a 5th edition, THEN he'd want to make this aspect of the industry easier to deal with FROM THE START and not just as an afterthought the GM has to sweat over.

Mearls does seem to be organizing his material well. I think he has a good grasp on rpg design, and I'd like to see this new system.

 

[Argyle King]

Maybe it's just me, but a lot of these articles -when read together- seem to be describing a product which is already made by Steve Jackson Games.

one simple core mechanic for everything? check

modular add-ons and option rules? check

complexity dials which can be adjusted with the modular rules? check

etc, etc


e23: GURPS Lite (Fourth Edition)

 

[tuxgeo]

< snip >
(Side note: if 5th edition does come along and take this modular structure, I'm hoping that "feats as perks" get done away with and folded into "powers." It's always been such a misnomer, hasn't it? A "feat" is a deed, an action, something that happens when you *do* it. It's a good name for martial powers, much better than "exploits" anyway, but it's a bad name for a game mechanic that gives you a passive bonus. My ideal 5th edition would see . . .

If the name of "feats" is the only thing that bothers you about them, then you have already succeeded in your own quest, haven't you?
Simply call them "perks!"

As for myself, I agree that they could easily be called something other than "feats"; but I would prefer to see (or hear) them called --
-@- "caps," which is short for "capacities," of course; or
-@- "chinks," as in, "filling in the chinks";or
-@- "fits," on the theory that each player will choose ones that truly fit well with his or her character concept; or
-@- "specs," in order to abbreviate "Specialties Not Over Budget" without having to utilize the SNOB acronym; or
-@- "tones," as in "muscle tone," used to indicate an overall degree of readiness to perform tasks.

There are a lot of different words that could be applied to replace the "feats" nomenclature.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I don't know about that.

Like I touch upon in my current blog post (see sig), there is a history of modular additions to the rules in D&D.

2e: Skills & powers (precursor to 3e)
3e: splat books (heroes of battle, heroes of horror, grafts, etc). OGL content. Pathfinder. Dragon Magazine. New magic items. Psionics.
d20 Modern: cybernetics. mutations. templates. space travel. mecha. spellcasting fx classes.
4e: PHB2. DMG2. powers if viewed as chosen class features, despite comparisons to feats/spells in earlier editions.
5e: ? (basic 5e + menu of rules additions?)


I think the industry has thrived on modular rules.

I don't think any of this is "new" in the same way that Galileo didn't "invent" a heliocentric solar system. Mearls is just pointing out what's been going on in the hobby for some time, and saying that IF he did a 5th edition, THEN he'd want to make this aspect of the industry easier to deal with FROM THE START and not just as an afterthought the GM has to sweat over.

Mearls does seem to be organizing his material well. I think he has a good grasp on rpg design, and I'd like to see this new system.

I think there is a big difference between an EXTENSION and an OPTION. There's a reason Skills & Powers has been (mostly retrospectively) labeled '2.5e'. While some of the various add-ons to 2e overlapped they were generally a simple 'stack' of things you used. 2e also had the characteristic that every piece was a little subsystem all it own, nothing really built on anything else except the basic elements of the system that were always present (and note that included every major subsystem of the game). The same is pretty much true of 3.x, spell casting, feats, the combat system, etc were ALWAYS there, new books added new elements to existing categories of things, or added some totally independent new subsystem. d20 IS a modular system, but also note that you can't PLAY d20 by itself, and you're not expected to mix d20 CoC stuff with d20 M&M stuff or d20 D&D stuff. If you do, you need to do surgery in most cases.

A modular system made up of options which has alternatives to its major core mechanics and makes many of them optional? BW is probably about the closest thing, with several combat systems. I would call this by no means common, nor would I venture to state that a market leading RPG can viably do that. I think it is a much less well established theory than you do. I think it is obvious you can have extensions to a game and some optional rules extensions. I think it is not at all obvious that you can make a 'lego' RPG where you can swap out large chunks of functionality freely. I suspect you will find there are really only going to end up being 2 or 3 real options once you account for dependencies and what is really well enough supported to be usable.

 

[Argyle King]

I think it is obvious you can have extensions to a game and some optional rules extensions. I think it is not at all obvious that you can make a 'lego' RPG where you can swap out large chunks of functionality freely. I suspect you will find there are really only going to end up being 2 or 3 real options once you account for dependencies and what is really well enough supported to be usable.

I don't believe I would agree with the part I italicized. Aside from D&D, I also play GURPS, and the 'Lego' approach is pretty much exactly how GURPS works. IMO, all of the options are supported well enough to be usable.

edit: I had forgotten briefly that quotes are automatically italicized anyway.

"I suspect you will find there are really only going to end up being 2 or 3 real options once you account for dependencies and what is really well enough supported to be usable."

 

[Plane Sailing]

After reading Mike's article, I like the idea of more modularity in D&D, but I think the way he is describing it is all wrong - as if he is describing vertical modularity when what the game could benefit from is horizontal modularity (not that I'm intending to be griddist here, just that I think his thoughts expressed in that article are orthagonal to what would work well).

In some ways I think there is a lot to admire in the BECMI series, where increasing levels added extra complexity in terms of rules, options for adventures and so forth.

I wonder whether ideally though there ought to be an ultra-simple resolution mechanism for all kinds of things (melee, magic, social, exploration, sailing, politics, traps) which has options for simple checks (single die rolls) or complex checks (series of die rolls) as a baseline. So there are simple ways of handling ALL those things.

Then you could have modules which could be plugged in to extend any one of those things in a way which respects the basic mechanics but builds on top of it (ideally in a non-fiddly way!) which expands the options from simple and complex checks to elaborate checks (or some more appropriate name). Not 'more powerful', but 'more options'. A combat module might include more combat maneuvers that could be undertaken during a complex series of checks (and would include the extensions which are valid for PCs and Monsters - so you could seamlessly overlay it on ANY baseline adventure). Not necessarily feats, but rather teamwork maneuvers, or setup maneuvers or combination attack manouvers that could be attempted by anyone.

You would never create a module which depended upon another module. Each would independently sit on the baseline system, and have a clear and obvious way in which it extends it.

That's what I'd like to see, and how I think it ought to be done.

Cheers

 

[Crazy Jerome]

That's what I'd like to see, and how I think it ought to be done.

What you described is what I understood him to be advocating. I might be extrapolating from the whole series, though.