Beyond Old and New School - "The Secret That Was Lost"

[Mercurius]

A couple of things spring to my mind, here. The first is that this is not my experience with 4E. I think it must be for some people, and I'm not sure why, but I generally see the players engaged with the position of their character (both literal and figurative) in the fictional space and their objectives before ever they consider what powers they have available. The powers are tools and resources available to achieve the ends they set themselves, not the determinants of their objectives. I think, perhaps, this type of play does require at least moderate facility with the rules (the general framework, not the specific rules for every power), but the players I play with have achieved a sufficient level some time ago.

This is an interesting point, because part of the problem with my 4e group is that despite playing for three years, we played on average once per months; sometimes it was twice a month, sometimes we missed two or three months. But the net result was that not all of the players mastered the rules, which slowed things down.

So it may be that while the rules have something to do with how imagination is enabled, and immersion within the game world, it is more to what degree they are mastered. In the same sense that a jazz musician can only truly improvise - at least with skill and total freedom - when they have mastered the "rules" of their instrument (anyone, from novice to master, can improvise with a musical instrument, but not with the degree of "immersive freedom" that a Charlie Parker could).

The second point is that I think the idea of constraints "stifling imagination/creativity" is to some extent a false one.

So do I! That's not what I'm meaning to stay. Constraints, or structure, don't stifle imagination, but "filler" does. A video game does, at least while you're playing it - because that's the nature of a video game; it is not meant to inspire you to generate your own images, but to "feed you" with pre-made ones.

It is rarely either/or, however - but more of a spectrum. I am saying that the more "filler," the less one's imagination becomes dynamic and active. This isn't the same thing as constraints/guidelines, which are more like scaffolding.

Here's another analogy that I think might better try to get across what I'm trying to say. Imagine renting an apartment. It has limitations and structure (constraints) by virtue of the shape of the rooms, the square footage, etc. Imagine that apartment as empty - you can do anything with it, decorate it in any number of ways - within the limitations of the physical space that it allows, of course. You might think about different themes - Japanese or kitsch or arts & crafts. Now imagine that same apartment pre-furnished. You can move things around a bit, and add a piece here and there, but its pretty much pre-determined. A further extreme would be sub-leasing an apartment that you can't change at all.

I think 4e is sort of like a pre-furnished apartment. Now the thing is, the furniture is better quality than in messy eccentricity of 1e, but it is also more tightly filled, making it more difficult to move pieces around. It isn't a sub-leased apartment, so there is some freedom of movement, of re-arranging things.

The analogies to chess and so on have been overused, but look at art. While it might be true in principle that a wider range of expression is available with abstract art, it can hardly be said that representational art has ever lacked in variety or creativity! Limiting oneself to representations - even photorealistic ones - of real or imagined objects seems to leave ample space for flights of fancy. I think the same is true of RPG rules. The permutations and combinations that arise from rules that are hard and fast but designed to mix and combine in interesting ways has a value just as valid as - and to me more valuable than - totally unfettered free expression.

I agree. Actually, the interesting thing about abstract vs. representational art is that there's no correlation, as far as I can tell, with "imaginative richness." The degree of abstraction does not correlate with the degree of imaginative richness and has nothing to do with it.

Does this invalidate my hypothesis? Only if we equate abstraction-representation with the spectrum I am referring to, which I'd prefer not to. It really might be something else, a kind of transparency that some representational art has and some doesn't (or to what degree it has it). Compare Todd Lockwood, a technically proficient artist, but one whose art is rather "opaque" - it is a kind of simulative realism Now look at someone like Stephen Fabian, who I think is much more imaginatively rich; his art, still representational, is more transparent, it evokes imagination and wonder. At least for me!

Another angle is to look at a principle in the education system that I teach in, in which we use a phrase "from form to freedom." The idea is to start children with form and distinct guidelines and to gradually lead them towards freedom - to doing things themselves, from within themselves. Imagination, in its more receptive mode, is no more or less a part of the process anywhere along the way, but the degree to which it is self-generated should theoretically increase.

I have a different secret to ponder. Original D&D opened up a wondrous universe of possibility to us all, but to me it had a "secret that was never found" until much later. That secret was the role of the rules in communicating among the players the nature and conceits of the game world. The rules give the players a firm understanding of what their characters can do and what to expect of the world in response; my experience is that this liberates them to act with confidence in the game world and to genuinely feel that they have "competence" when playing a badass hero.

I'm not @pemerton , but I think this is part of what he is getting at with his "version" of immersion. If my character is supposed to be a competent and skilled operator, but I have no real clue how the game world works in respect of the character's abilities, I do not feel "immersed" in my character. I know I'm supposed to feel confident and capable - but how can I when any action I take is based merely on a guess of what results it may have?

This is where I believe [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] might be right, that we're talking about different cognitive styles. Some prefer more clear guidelines, some less. If you look at the KAI theory, you have two poles of adaption and innovation; one isn't better than the other, but they are very different. What you're talking about sounds more like the adaptive style, in which clear guidelines are preferred, and the individual prefers to master a pre-determined system; the innovative style prefers to think outside of the box, to create the rules themselves.

This is indeed a byway, but I actually think there are some values that are absolute - they just don't cover everything like a blanket.

Absolute value has some kind of "meta-assumption" or principle that veers into religion. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but I'm merely saying that if there's absolute values to the universe, then they must be based on something; it seems illogical that they "just are."

Instead of specifying what sort of icecream you should like, for example, they simply say you should be honest about what you like and allow others to like what they like. They don't even rule out disagreeing with others but still allowing them to follow their own preferences. I think Piers Benn put it well; I don't remember the exact words, but paraphrasing: "tolerance is a good thing, but it's important to realise that I tolerate things that I disagree with, because tolerating what I agree with would be stupid".

I agree, of course. The tricky part, though, is that some equate disagreement with intolerance or expressing a perspective with telling others how they should think, or what the One True Way is.

Correlation does not equal causation. Saying, "this is how I think it is, whether you agree or not" is not the same thing as saying "how I think is how you should think, and I'm going to force you to do that." We are all, by and large, free to think the way we want to think - at least to the degree that we are free within our thinking, which most (all?) of us are not to varying degrees. When people cry fowl, "That's OneTrueWayism!" what they are really doing, in my view, is externalizing their own lack of freedom onto others, as if They Are Doing It To Me. The fallacy here is that anyone can actually force another to think as they think (of course they can and do - that's the game of advertising and politics - but not if one is conscious; subliminal messaging only works if you don't realize it is happening).

So while I agree with your advocacy of a kind of absolute tolerance, part of that includes tolerance for disagreement - from both sides, not only the side who is expressing a meta-theory on human existence, but those who feel fenced in by meta-theories and resort to settling into the ultimate philosophical dead-end of absolute relativism. Or, as the bard said, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your [or my, or any] philosophy." And I mean any philosophy, including any I spout up, and also including the philosophy of absolute relativism that has been the guiding light on college campuses for a few decades now, and was one of a few founding forces in the politically correct movement of the late 80s and early 90s.

I personally advocate an approach which one of my favorite philosophers, William Irwin Thompson, called "mind-jazz" or "knowledge-art" - which is based not on trying to find The One True Way, but a more expressionistic approach which arises out of the complex information age, or as Thompson describes it, "the play of knowledge in a world of serious data-processors."

In a way this is a radical or dynamic relativism, but rather than making a pancake out of everything and saying "everything is subjective and relative," it not only brings context back into the mix, and allows for degrees of truthfulness based upon context, but also allows us to play within meta-theories and uber-cosmologies without falling into the old absolute despotism.

To put it another way, if we realize that any castle we make is made out of sand, we can be more free to make castles, because we know they're impermanent and relative - but they also become more meaningful because of it, partially because they're not trying to account for all things at all times, but instead are microcosmic expressions of the macrocosm.

 

[Balesir]

So it may be that while the rules have something to do with how imagination is enabled, and immersion within the game world, it is more to what degree they are mastered. In the same sense that a jazz musician can only truly improvise - at least with skill and total freedom - when they have mastered the "rules" of their instrument (anyone, from novice to master, can improvise with a musical instrument, but not with the degree of "immersive freedom" that a Charlie Parker could).

That is quite a good analogy, too, I think. If you are thinking about what fingering you need to use or concentrating on the form of your mouth to get the right sound, anything you improvise will probably be a mess. It's when those "physical" parts of making the music become wholly instinctive that you can actually just make the sounds you want to hear.

It's similar with RPGs; you need to know how to make the character act in the environment instictively before you can really just "inhabit" them and focus on their wider aims. It's possible to assume that the rules are "just what you already imagine them to be", and that means the player has an instinctive grip of them from the start - great!... except that there's a problem. The problem is that the rules are actually what the GM imagines them to be, and those won't always mesh with what the player(s) imagine(s) them to be. So you have learned to play a guitar with one specific tuning, and now you have been handed one with a different tuning - and you have no control over retuning it...

Here's another analogy that I think might better try to get across what I'm trying to say. Imagine renting an apartment. It has limitations and structure (constraints) by virtue of the shape of the rooms, the square footage, etc. Imagine that apartment as empty - you can do anything with it, decorate it in any number of ways - within the limitations of the physical space that it allows, of course. You might think about different themes - Japanese or kitsch or arts & crafts. Now imagine that same apartment pre-furnished. You can move things around a bit, and add a piece here and there, but its pretty much pre-determined. A further extreme would be sub-leasing an apartment that you can't change at all.

I think 4e is sort of like a pre-furnished apartment. Now the thing is, the furniture is better quality than in messy eccentricity of 1e, but it is also more tightly filled, making it more difficult to move pieces around. It isn't a sub-leased apartment, so there is some freedom of movement, of re-arranging things.

Another interesting analogy - that I see in an utterly different light.

For me, the decoration and style of furnishings is simply "colour". You change it by refluffing. What system provides - at least what 4E provides - is the rooms and basic form of the furniture. What you use the rooms and furniture for is up to you. The chair is designed for sitting on, but using it to stand on to reach that top cupboard will work just fine. If you don't like the colour of the chair you can paint it, and so on.

An alternative is to say "here is some wood - build your own chair", but it's harder to do. What old editions of D&D do, in my mind, is say "if you want a chair, ask the DM for one - but be careful how you use it, because we encourage the DM to make your chair idiosyncratic in both form and architecture. Don't try standing on it, for instance - the DM may be assuming it has only three legs".

Absolute value has some kind of "meta-assumption" or principle that veers into religion. Nothing inherently wrong with that, but I'm merely saying that if there's absolute values to the universe, then they must be based on something; it seems illogical that they "just are."

This is now well off topic and veering into areas verboten in this forum; if I say more it'll be via PM.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't see how you came to these conclusions.

This is the kind of old school rhetoric that just baffles me.

How?

Simply playing 3E/4E as written.

" So whats in this room?"

" Whatever it is I find it. Made a search roll DC 35. WooT!"

Push button play. After all what exactly is the point of interacting with setting elements if nothing is really going to happen until a die roll is made?


Play element> select menu item> activate menu item> get result <loop>


There is little actual "playing" for the players to do. Anything that moves the game meaningfully forward is a die mechanic.

 

[Halivar]

" So whats in this room?"

" Whatever it is I find it. Made a search roll DC 35. WooT!"

Push button play. After all what exactly is the point of interacting with setting elements if nothing is really going to happen until a die roll is made?


Play element> select menu item> activate menu item> get result <loop>


There is little actual "playing" for the players to do. Anything that moves the game meaningfully forward is a die mechanic.

This is exactly how I feel about Diplomacy, as well. And also why I'd love to ditch the skill list in favor of just rolling against backgrounds.

 

[Aenghus]

How?

Simply playing 3E/4E as written.

" So whats in this room?"

" Whatever it is I find it. Made a search roll DC 35. WooT!"

Push button play. After all what exactly is the point of interacting with setting elements if nothing is really going to happen until a die roll is made?


Play element> select menu item> activate menu item> get result <loop>


There is little actual "playing" for the players to do. Anything that moves the game meaningfully forward is a die mechanic.

Well, that's one of the major conundrums of RPGs, which is whether to emphasise player skill or character skill.

The opposite and equal comparison to the above example is a player dumping his PC's charisma and all social skills and still being an excellent diplomat and social animal in the game because his real life social skills are excellent. Or a DM demanding a level of precision that approaches pixelbitching to achieve any success.

I think these extremes are potentially objectionable to a fair segment of the RPG audience whose tastes lie elsewhere.

But in practice, most games don't approach these extremes. Games emphasising skill rolls still require players to clearly say what they are attempting, and typically provide too much activity for the players to attempt everything. Games emphasising player skill also pay at least some attention to PC resources.

Personally I've been frustrated by too many pixelbitching DMs to tolerate that style of play any more, but YMMV.

 

[Mercurius]

How?

Simply playing 3E/4E as written.

" So whats in this room?"

" Whatever it is I find it. Made a search roll DC 35. WooT!"

Push button play. After all what exactly is the point of interacting with setting elements if nothing is really going to happen until a die roll is made?


Play element> select menu item> activate menu item> get result <loop>


There is little actual "playing" for the players to do. Anything that moves the game meaningfully forward is a die mechanic.

I can feel your pain here and have similar feelings about 3e and 4e, especially the AEDU Paradigm where the player picks from pre-defined options rather than envisioning a cool and heroic action.

That said, at least with regards to your example, I think there are ways around it. For instance, the player has to get to the point where they even get to roll that check. It may be that the DM doesn't offer the opportunity to make the check until the player "asks the right question" - in the the case of your example, looks in the right spot.

But I agree with @Halivar that social skills like Diplomacy are quite irking. I'm not sure of an easy way around it, because you want to allow un-charismatic players to play charismatic characters (it might even have therapeutic value!), so maybe some kind of middle ground is optimal - role-playing it out, and then adding a check if and only if it is necessary.

 

[Mercurius]

It's similar with RPGs; you need to know how to make the character act in the environment instictively before you can really just "inhabit" them and focus on their wider aims. It's possible to assume that the rules are "just what you already imagine them to be", and that means the player has an instinctive grip of them from the start - great!... except that there's a problem. The problem is that the rules are actually what the GM imagines them to be, and those won't always mesh with what the player(s) imagine(s) them to be. So you have learned to play a guitar with one specific tuning, and now you have been handed one with a different tuning - and you have no control over retuning it...

This makes me think that there's a different of underlying assumption as to the role of the DM and their power in the game world. I guess I'm relatively traditional and see the DM's power as absolute - I mean it ultimately is in the sense that they can throw whatever they want at the players, so even if a game is by the book, if they really want to kill a party of 3rd level characters they can always just through the Tarrasque at them.

So while I agree that having shared agreements - namely, the rules - are important, the DM is not only a rules referee, but also the story teller. I find myself fudging things all the time if I think it improves the quality of the game experience. In 4e this often meant ending combats earlier than when they would have ended if played by-the-book. For instance, let's say the part of paragon characters fights a monster with a huge number of HP. Once its clear that the party was going to win with no character deaths, I might wait for the next massive blow against the monster to end the combat. So if the monster had, say, 158 HP left out of 500+, and the rogue hit it for 67 HP, if the combat felt like it was dragging then I might call that a killing blow.

Another interesting analogy - that I see in an utterly different light.

For me, the decoration and style of furnishings is simply "colour". You change it by refluffing. What system provides - at least what 4E provides - is the rooms and basic form of the furniture. What you use the rooms and furniture for is up to you. The chair is designed for sitting on, but using it to stand on to reach that top cupboard will work just fine. If you don't like the colour of the chair you can paint it, and so on.

That works as well. From that perspective, I agree with what you're saying, but it still touches upon one of the seemingly ongoing questions in RPG design theory: Do the rules dictate the imagination experience, and if so how and to what degree?

In some ways its similar to the question, does availability of firearms increase gun violence? Or would lowering the drinking age increase alcohol-related deaths and alcoholism? Etc. I can see arguments on both sides and tend to not take an either/or approach, but both.

In the context of RPGs, I think how you use the rules (and how well) is more important than what rules you use, in terms of immersion and imagination. But I think what rules you use does have some impact. Part of this is individual - Manbearcat's cognitive styles - but I suppose the question is whether there is anything inherent, or any meaningful generalizations we can make (e.g. "4e is less conducive to imagination than 1e"). I think the jury is still out. I tend to think if that's the case, its better to take a step back and look at it from a different light, or at least try to integrate opposing perspectives in a Hegelian synthesis, for example: guns don't kill people, people kill people and the nature of a gun is to kill, therefore its availability increased the likelihood that people will be killed by guns.

In other words, the rules themselves don't "force" or create the play experience, but the nature of the rules - depending upon what they are - opens up probable enactments.

An alternative is to say "here is some wood - build your own chair", but it's harder to do. What old editions of D&D do, in my mind, is say "if you want a chair, ask the DM for one - but be careful how you use it, because we encourage the DM to make your chair idiosyncratic in both form and architecture. Don't try standing on it, for instance - the DM may be assuming it has only three legs".

So here's the question, and maybe a rephrasing of the "Holy Grail" - and perhaps worth its own thread: how to integrate the best of both old and new school D&D?

I would suggest that to even approach that question we'd have to agree that there is something to integrate - meaning, that there is something in the old that is lacking (or de-emphasized) in the new, and something in the new that is lacking (or de-emphasized) in the old. I tend to take this approach. Now if you, or someone doesn't, then there really isn't anywhere to go with it.

I think it comes down to whether we see a game as an ongoing, organic process of development, or something that has achieved (near-) perfection in one form (or edition) or another. I take the former approach, which is why I'm not an advocate of any particular edition.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Well, that's one of the major conundrums of RPGs, which is whether to emphasise player skill or character skill.

The opposite and equal comparison to the above example is a player dumping his PC's charisma and all social skills and still being an excellent diplomat and social animal in the game because his real life social skills are excellent. Or a DM demanding a level of precision that approaches pixelbitching to achieve any success.

I think these extremes are potentially objectionable to a fair segment of the RPG audience whose tastes lie elsewhere.

But in practice, most games don't approach these extremes. Games emphasising skill rolls still require players to clearly say what they are attempting, and typically provide too much activity for the players to attempt everything. Games emphasising player skill also pay at least some attention to PC resources.

Personally I've been frustrated by too many pixelbitching DMs to tolerate that style of play any more, but YMMV.

For myself it is merely a matter of what I find fun. Interacting with the setting directly brings more enjoyment. Rattling off mechanical solution X gets tiresome quickly. My character doesn't really exist and so cannot appreciate being "tested". I OTOH, do exist and find myself having more fun dealing directly with the fictional environment.

Formulaic mechanical resolution is just a tabletop stand-in for programmed code. The secret that was lost, the 'lightning in a bottle' of the original game cannot be reproduced with code. It is an organic thing that lives at the gaming table existing only as long as the participants sustain it. Such a thing cannot be contained in a codified procedure.

 

[ExploderWizard]

But I agree with @Halivar that social skills like Diplomacy are quite irking. I'm not sure of an easy way around it, because you want to allow un-charismatic players to play charismatic characters (it might even have therapeutic value!), so maybe some kind of middle ground is optimal - role-playing it out, and then adding a check if and only if it is necessary.

Social interaction is fun and one of the worst things to replace with a skill check. There is the basic message and then there is the delivery. If you gauge the reaction to a message largely by the content and let the CHA (or other relevant stat) of the character be the measure of the delivery, determination of reactions become simpler.

If two PC's respond to an npc's offer in plainspeak: " I don't think that will work for us".

PC #1 has a CHA of 16 and/or a socially skilled background.

PC #2 has a CHA of 6 and no such background.

When PC #1 responds the npc will hear " not exactly what I had in mind, lets see what other arrangements we can make" as a sort of in between the lines message.

When PC #2 responds the npc will hear " screw that. If thats the best ya got you can stick it" as a sort of in between the lines message.

So it is very possible for normal conversation to take place HIGHLY influenced by the attributes of the character. The influence of such attributes will depend largely on the attitude and disposition of the recipient.

What is absolutely poison to social influence checks is the instant confirmation of success when a high number is rolled. There should NEVER be a situation involving trying to influence someone (by social means alone) looking at the die and getting the "YOU DID IT!" Why are mind reading magics needed if minds can be manipulated so certainly with regularity? It kills the entire " I hope they bought it" trope of not knowing if a scheme worked until its tested.

 

[Mercurius]

Mercurius, I don't what range of RPGs you are familiar with, and so I do not know what other games you are intending to pick up in your critique. You seem to be launching a salvo against a whole range of games, and not just contemporary ones either: you seem to be attacking any game in which the player's response, when the GM narrates a situation in which that player's PC finds him-/herself, is to consider what game mechanical resources s/he has to bring to bear.

Let's stop right there, my friend! I'm not "launching a salvo." I really like 4e, but I also see issues with it (at least for me, and many others with similar complaints).

To answer your question, I'm familiar with a wide number of games, most of which I haven't played. But I can at least keep pace with the names you mention and have at least a sense of what they're about.

This seems to pick up not only 4e but such "traditional" games as RQ, RM, Traveller and 3E. Indeed, it seems to pick up any game in which the player is expected to, and expecting to be able to impact the fiction via any technique other than "persuade the GM it's a good/fun idea".

See my comment to Balesir. It seems that there's a deeper issue here, which has to do with the basic assumptions about the nature of GM power. Is it absolute or not? Is the DM the opposition and the rule books the referee, or is the DM the "god narrator"? Etc.

Part of the problem with the old school approach is DM abuse - that is, it relies upon the DM being able to be an impartial adjudicator. This is easier said than done. On the other hand, part of the problem of the new school approach is what some have called "player entitlement," although you might call it player empowerment.

The right question might not be whether or not the DM has absolute power because, as I said to Balesir, even if he doesn't technically, he does in all practical sense. But he also doesn't in that if he abuses his power too much, he'll lose the trust of the players and perhaps even his gaming group. So I think the right question, or at least a better question, is what is the role and responsibility of th GM/DM - and, specifically, what is primary and what is secondary; what is the "hierarchy of roles," so to speak.

Regarding "pawn stance," I think, again, it is a matter of degree and - to refer again to my response to Balesir - analogous to the question about guns, and what their role is in violence.

One slight caveat. "Gygaxian" D&D certainly employed pawn stance, but it could be done in the theater of mind, while 4e requires (and 3e almost requires) some kind of externalization, a battle mat and miniatures, which I feel strengthen pawn stance.

I personally don't understand why metagame via the AEDU structure is widely regarded as pernicious, and metagame via Fate Points is widely regarded as acceptable, but I do acknowledge that this view seems to be widely held, at least on ENworld.

Part of the attraction, for me, of the 4e approach is that it produces a more granular rationing, which in turn produces more diversity in play and also allows more sophisticated interaction with the action economy.

I think its a both/and situation, where 4e's strength is also its weakness. I agree that AEDU can offer a diversity of play due to the sheer number of options and resources a player can draw on for their character to use. That's a strength; in my mind, its a strength that a fighter has more options than "I attack." But the weakness is that because there are so many options/resources, they tend to obfuscate the underlying "uber-option" - which is the player coming up with their own imagined maneuver, one that written down or official. Yes, there is page 42 - but that's essentially an after thought.

Now if page 42 was actually page 1 (proverbially speaking), the entire tone of 4e would have been different. Sort of like saying: "D&D is a game of imagination - you can do whatever you want, whatever makes sense in the moment; as examples, here are some options..."

Again, a cart and horse thing.

I don't find 4e remotely uncreative or "passive". In fact I find it puts intense demands on players, as it calls upon them to play their PC - to get inside that character, as expressed as a suite of mechanical resources plus story elements and inclination, and not simply to sit back and let the GM do all the heavy lifting.

I think this can be the case, but unfortunately it seems that it usually isn't. Why? Because it offers a depth and detail of abstraction that, for most I think, obfuscates immersion, rather than augmenting it.

Its sort of like this: the internet is an amazing tool that can greatly en-rich life. Too much internet is "too much of a good thing," and actually obfuscates more important qualities of life - like human intimacy, creativity, etc.

Besides having the mechanical resources to actually express my character, the other part of the "immersive experience", for me, is having the play of an ingame situation reflect, and evolve in a way that reflects, the stakes for my PC. This is related to mechanics - because these will dictate, to a large extent, how ingame situations unfold during play - and also to the story elements that the game has the capacity to express and make matter. 4e has a narrower range in this respect than, say, HeroWars/Quest; and a different range from Burning Wheel (less grit, more fantastic romance). But within that range I feel it does a reasonable job of bringing characters to life in play.

Pemerton, I see your take on 4e to be one of the most adept and profound - that you "really get it." But I think most don't, or can't, or don't want to. They want something more similar, or at least they want the depth and complexity to be optional or, that magical word, modular.

So we're back to the cart-and-horse thing. I like 4e, I even like powers to some extent; I also like 3e and its customization options. But I also long for a simpler core, and--more than anything--the ability to "telescope" (as a verb) in and out, to dial up or down in complexity.

As I said to Balesir, I feel that all editions have their strengths and weaknesses. I tend to prefer more recent editions to older ones, in the same way that I enjoy more recent technologies to older ones. But sometimes something is left behind.

One final analogy. "New school" D&D (3e and 4e) is like an mp3 file, whereas "old school" is like vinyl or even a cassette. Obviously the mp3 is a superior technology - but its also lost something in the process, an organic quality to the sound. Old school advocates see the crackle and hiss of vinyl, or the limitations of its technology, as "features and not flaws." I see them as anachronistic and charming, but would prefer to have the flexibility of recording and clear sound...but...want that organic sound. So for me I'd like to see 5E combine the best of both worlds, and - this is where 5E can bring something new to the mix - provide options and pathways that every DM and game group can easily customize it to their preferred style of play.

To quote Arthur from Excalibur, in a wistful tone...

It is a dream I have...