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

[Bedrockgames]

The flipside of that, is that if the options don't get added quickly enough (i.e. the ones that let us recreate what we had in previous editions), some of us (such as myself) won't even look at it until it has them, by which point we might not even care anymore about Next.

I tend to agree with Mearls. While I enjoyed 3E, one of my chief complaints was the rules sprawl and how the expansion of mechanics through slat books introduced a lot of unintended brokenness.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yes, this. Not rules modules.

I really shouldn't try to write these at 11 PM on Thursday night.

Thanks for taking the time to clarify. I figured this is what you meant (though I have to admit, I was intrigued by the possibility that the rules modules would be ditched entirely).

 

[Bedrockgames]

Leaving aside for a moment whether or not it's good for the rules of the game, it seems like it would be bad for the sales of the game. This is a 180 on how Wizards has handled the D&D game line since the launch of 3.0. The intent with that release was to let 3rd party publishers produce the lion's share of settings and adventures because market research showed those products, while often helpful for a game, didn't sell as well as character options. Has that changed in the last decade and a half?

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.

 

[LostSoul]

I think this is like most of these columns - saying something without saying anything at all.

"we need to stick to things that make sense and resonate with you"

Well, that's great; I'd be interested in hearing about how those things relate to the choices players have, but I guess that you don't really care to tell us about that.

 

[Iosue]

My concern is that most of that is looking like mere colour.

And yet, even in the current playtest, none of that is mere color. The fighter part is mechanically robust, the archer is covered by the Sharpshooter specialty with four feats over 9 levels, and the Marksman fighting style, with five maneuvers over 10 levels, and the blacksmith is covered by the Artisan background, which provides training in 4 skills.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That would be my guess as well. The alternative is far, far, far too much of a bombshell for it to be released in such a "drive-by" fashion.

That being said, I've had a suspicion that since the beginning of this difficult (to say the least) endeavor there may come a time when the effort to synch the large number of 2nd and 3rd order interactions of each of the core elements plus modules becomes so unwieldy that they just throw up their hands at the futility of it...and market basically a tight, Moldvay Basic type core game with a few minor dials.

That would not surprise me if it happens, but I'm all but sure that this isn't it. Its too terse and vague. If I was a cynical internetian, I would almost say that Mearls is laughing right now. Either that or facepalming.

Well, it isn't IMHO a 'drive by' of anything. They have been backing down to this since they first began to hint at DDN. The first talk was grand nonsense about a game that could be played in different styles so it would please at least the vast majority of D&D players regardless of if they liked OD&D or 4e. There would be 'modules' that would rework the various subsystems in order to achieve this.

Frankly the first post I remember making on the 4e forums can be summarized as "bunk, this is impossible, Mike and Monte are sniffing glue or shining sunshine where it doesn't belong." Everything that has happened since then bears out that analysis. Every announcement has steadily ratcheted back expectations. No, no, there won't be different ways to build a wizard, no no there won't be different skill systems, healing systems, etc and now we've simply reached the end of that long slide with "well, actually, we're not planning on having much in the way of options at all...."

Clearly what we are going to get is a 2-3 tier game where there is a 'basic' game, a 'standard' game, and an 'advanced' game. Each will simply pile some more options on top of what the previous layer in the cake provides. basic will be just classes and races, no skills, backgrounds, feats, etc. Standard will probably add backgrounds and specialties, and skills, establishing the default game. I'd expect Advanced will simply be a collection of optional rules you can add on top of that. Other things like domain management and henchman rules might also be designated as 'advanced'. There are NOT (and this has been stated) going to be ANY parallel options. There's not going to be a 4e-style skill system for instance you could swap in, or 'indie game'-like narrative control mechanics options.

The reasons you state, and additional nightmares in the production of adventures and supplements that have been noted a million times in the last year, clearly are too significant. There's just no way any game company could reasonably support a swiss army knife of a game like was hinted at 18 months ago. The real question, which of course can never be answered, is to what degree these unreasonable expectations were constructed and to what degree they were just foolish game designer fantasizing now brought down to earth.

Meh, whatever, I am loosing whatever interest I had in what goes on with WotC. 4 years ago I was their loyal customer and could feel confident in defending their good intentions, common sense, and vision. At this point they've squandered all of that completely. I only wish Paizo would publish a game that matched with my tastes, I'd love to be able to give them my money. WotC at this point is very unlikely to see any of it again in the foreseeable future.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I hope it's not complete, because that entry is really vague about such an important-sounding topic. Taken at face value, it even further erodes any interest I have in the project, especially if they don't produce the things that will make me buy the game in their initial "batch."

I don't buy D&D for their campaign settings, I have one of my own, thanks. I'm not interested in their cosmology, by and large. I don't care about the fluff for its own sake. I want to buy options and rules - I can supply the rest.

I get that I am not "every gamer" but I am also not alone in my approach to the hobby. This, again taken at face value, would create such a huge divide in the community. It would be the last thing they should be doing under the pretense of "unity edition." There's more to this than we know at this point, I think...

You are certainly not alone. I can appreciate D&D fluff and Cosmology, and DO recycle some of it into my own setting, but without rules that meet my needs there is little reason to buy just WotC fluff. It might be different if the rules they were developing were even remotely suitable to the type of game I run...

 

[Manbearcat]

@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!"

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

My concern is that most of that is looking like mere colour.

The key about 4e's options was that they mattered in action resolution.

At present, what is missing for me in Next are action resolution mechanics that will take that colour beyond mere colour.

Well, I certainly agree with the first part, the notion that "4e options don't matter" or that they don't evoke character concepts seems ridiculous to me. As the game has been expanded with more options the expressiveness of them all has grown a lot, but you could make a LOT of MEANINGFULLY different characters in 4e on day one. When your GW fighter waded into battle with his 2 hander and exercised his role by doing lethal counter attacks, while the sword and board fighter did it by attracting tons of hits, pushing the enemy around, and blocking attacks on his allies that was MEANINGFUL options at work.

I don't think DDN lacks meaningful options at some level. Obviously picking a class is quite meaningful, and the other major options matter, but at the same time I can see what you mean. Still, I think where 4e was thin was in terms of packaging. Later on they added things like Themes, and there was a sort of vague notion of a "build" from the start, but I DO think the game needed an easy handle you could use that would make it trivial to create the most basic concepts like "dwarvish greataxe fighter" or something without needing to figure out you needed to be a weapon talent 2 handed fighter with the "add wis to CC attacks" feat and these 5 powers. As the number of options grew in 4e the lack of that was felt more. Themes COULD have provided that if they'd been in the core design, but when they did come along they just made things worse in practice. All 4e's options are (mostly) quite effective for what they were intended to do, but packaging was an issue.

Obviously DDN has that issue in hand, which is nice. My issues with it are different. It has more than color, but the mechanics are just unnecessarily a mess. I think the analysis of what people's real issues with 4e are were superficial and missed the mark basically.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I tend to agree with Mearls. While I enjoyed 3E, one of my chief complaints was the rules sprawl and how the expansion of mechanics through slat books introduced a lot of unintended brokenness.

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.