Something Awful leak.

[Ratinyourwalls]

It could easily be fixed by giving the weaker undead a 1 in Charisma, couldn't it? I suppose that it would also make them vulnerable to charm and bluff type effects too but they could easily make undead blanket immune to those types of things. I dunno. I really hope this was just an error on the part of the reader or something.

 

[SteveC]

I think a lot of people are missing what catastrophic is saying, so perhaps an analogy will help out.

I work in a shop where I regularly interact with our code developer group. The primary program they work with deals with almost all of the regulated work we do (we are a contract pharmaceutical lab).

This program was originally written in the late 90s by someone who had no formal programming experience, and they did a great job for what they knew about and what they could imagine the business would grow to include. What they did not do, and it's hardly surprising since they weren't trained as a programmer, was make things modular. At all.

Since then, we have grown to generate about 100x the work, and the software now has a team of six full time developers, who all do modular coding. The underlying code base, however, has largely not changed.

This is not good. In fact, it's about the worst thing you can possibly have, and it has resulted in the application becoming something like the Winchester Mystery House, where modules are built all over the place on top of each other. Since there's very little consistent underlying structure, it makes development a royal pain, with many, many problems, since nothing was developed to work together.

In the next couple years, we are going to be hiring a few more developers, and re-doing almost the entire thing from scratch.

Consider that redesign an edition change in D&D. If you create the foundation of the edition in a consistent, modular fashion, you can easily build out a variety of modules on it. For example, if you have a consistent class structure, you can easily add powers to it. If not, your module becomes redesigning each class from scratch.

I haven't seen much that's real about 5E, but what I have seen has not been modular at all: it's simply been a rehash of basic D&D from the late 70s. That edition is simple, but it has many, many assumptions about how classes work that are not portable or modular. If the advanced combat and the advanced powers module have to rewrite the combat and class system from the ground up, you don't have a module, you have a different game that still uses the same attributes and a D20.

 

[Windjammer]

This isn't internal playtesting. This is something they are taking to conventions.

A playtest is not an excuse to just throw some stuff together and hurl it at people, like some kind of developmental reading of entrails. It is meant to test and iterate the design.

If 1.0 doesn't have those features, then the whole process will involve playing catch-up and never really locking such features down.

Where's the design? Where's the edition fan inclusion? Where's the modular system? It's not in 1.0. And it should be.

Excellent questions.

I really gotta ask what the WotC R&D staff were doing throughout 2011 while they were busily sinking 4th edition?

Giving us 'class updates' no one wanted (PH cleric anyone?), thinning the product catalogue, and outsourcing 90% to freelancers, and now we get ... this?

This unfinished sorry thing of a 'playtest document' is Mearls' explanation of why for 14 months they couldn't pump solid work into 4e?

You gotta be kidding.

 

[Elf Witch]

Its the biggest block of D&D people at rpg.net, and its the biggest block at WotC's forums. That adds up to 4E people being the biggest piece of three out of the four largest online D&D discussion communities. Is 4E a majority, I'm not sure. Its bigger than any other single faction, I believe.

You cannot judge just by what people post on a forum. Especially polls which really don't have any security to stop people from voting more than once.

If you look at a lot of those polls you will often see if you add up the 3E people with the the people who play different versions of the older editions it comes to a bigger group then 4E.

I have a feeling that is the group WOTC wants back the big group of DnD players who are playing older versions.

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

I don't mind having 20 conditions IF they are all distinct and interesting. "drunk", "distracted", "confused", "frozen", "petrified", "zombified", "panicked"... Hey, a hero's life is no cakewalk.

"I don't wanna get fraculated..."
"PSYCHO-fraculated."
"Still fraculated..."

Invisible Boy/The Bowler

 

[the Jester]

Excellent questions.

I really gotta ask what the WotC R&D staff were doing throughout 2011 while they were busily sinking 4th edition?

Giving us 'class updates' no one wanted (PH cleric anyone?), thinning the product catalogue, and outsourcing 90% to freelancers, and now we get ... this?

This unfinished sorry thing of a 'playtest document' is Mearls' explanation of why for 14 months they couldn't pump solid work into 4e?

You gotta be kidding.

Actually, I think quite a lot of us wanted those class updates, and 2011 saw pretty much all good content, even if it was slightly thin.

If the catalogue hadn't been thinned out, how many more people would now be crying that WotC tricked them into buying more 4e stuff right before they killed it (not that that would be an accurate characterization, but...)? In fact, there are already people that feel that way.

No, I think the last 15 months have been good for 4e; there has been a bunch of good DDI content, PO: HotF, PO:HotEC, Shadowfell, Monster Vault 2, etc. etc.

 

[ggroy]

I really gotta ask what the WotC R&D staff were doing throughout 2011 while they were busily sinking 4th edition?

Giving us 'class updates' no one wanted (PH cleric anyone?), thinning the product catalogue, and outsourcing 90% to freelancers, and now we get ... this?

This unfinished sorry thing of a 'playtest document' is Mearls' explanation of why for 14 months they couldn't pump solid work into 4e?

At times I wonder if Mearls' daily job these days is more like being a manager and dealing with the workplace politics and higher management (whether WotC or Hasbro), and less actual game design/development type stuff.

 

[Ratskinner]

It's only natural. People are starved for new tidbits of 5e. It's been two months since we were given any meaningful information about the game.

True enough, but there is no game...just a rough idea for one.

 

[KarinsDad]

I think a lot of people are missing what catastrophic is saying, so perhaps an analogy will help out.

I understood exactly what he was saying and to some extent, even agree with some of it. But, I think that he is basing his "the sky is falling, there is no modular design here" ideas off of a very incomplete and small sample set of information.

I work in a shop where I regularly interact with our code developer group. The primary program they work with deals with almost all of the regulated work we do (we are a contract pharmaceutical lab).

This program was originally written in the late 90s by someone who had no formal programming experience, and they did a great job for what they knew about and what they could imagine the business would grow to include. What they did not do, and it's hardly surprising since they weren't trained as a programmer, was make things modular. At all.

Since then, we have grown to generate about 100x the work, and the software now has a team of six full time developers, who all do modular coding. The underlying code base, however, has largely not changed.

This is not good. In fact, it's about the worst thing you can possibly have, and it has resulted in the application becoming something like the Winchester Mystery House, where modules are built all over the place on top of each other. Since there's very little consistent underlying structure, it makes development a royal pain, with many, many problems, since nothing was developed to work together.

In the next couple years, we are going to be hiring a few more developers, and re-doing almost the entire thing from scratch.

Interestingly enough, where I work, we did do a modular redesign of our project in 2001 and 2002. The redesign was led by a guy with a PhD in Computer Science. We spent 2 years redesigning it and have since 2003, had a fairly stable product. However, we have found since then that modular does not necessarily mean better. It often means bloatware as more and more components are created and "plugged into" the software. We are now re-designing it yet again to be a lot less modular (the new redesign is also being led by the same guy with the PhD and we are yanking out some design elements that 10 years ago, were thought necessarily).

The problem you describe above is not merely a result of lack of modular design, it's a problem of all software with increased mass over time. The same problem happens with RPGs.

So, although there is something to be said for modular design, it too often has its own set of issues. With regard to an RPG, WotC would be better served by limiting the amount of modular design and going with a very strong and stable core set of rules. The modular portion of it should be mostly limited to additional classes (and feats and some special rules for modifying rules beyond core, etc.) and different mechanics to handle some of the abilities of those classes, but even new modular classes should still be 80% to 90% core driven with regard to design. For example, Psions might use Power Points, but they should still have Psionic powers that are statted up similar to spells and those powers should still interact with the rest of the rules very similarly (e.g. Stunned is still Stunned, etc.).

 

[Kzach]

I believe that if you were correct, 4e wouldn't be a dead system walking.

Show me the evidence that says 4e is a dead system, please?

I believe that, if you were correct, nobody would be playing or discussing 4e.

If this is a prank, it is a very elaborate one. If you actually go look at the thread involved, you will quickly see this isn't a case of one random guy showing up and saying "oh hey I've got a leak". This is a case where a whole group of people who were already involved in a discussion for weeks somehow got started on talking about the 1.0 playtest and one admitting they saw the rules caused a cascade of 2-4 other posters admitting they saw the rules too. The info on that pastebin link from the first page was slowly spelled out by several different people in the midst of normal conversation between them.

Umm... sorry, but you just described exactly how such a hoax would play out. "I shouldn't mention this but I got a peak at some early play-test rules," he winks slyly to his buddies who then grin and reply, "Oh yeah, me too!"