D&D 5E 5E: A chiropractic adjustment for D&D (and why I'm very hopeful)

[Remathilis]

Which tropes are being referred to here? I mean I agree with the view prevailing in this thread that 4E had a strong (but narrow) vision/playstyle, and sure some of the races (and their prominence on the PHB!) caused ructions and certainly new 4E tropes like martial healing caused concerns, etc. But how was 4E constrained by previous tropes?

I think part of the problem was certain preconceived notions. For example, a fighter being primarily focused on defending other vs. dealing out huge damage, or how wizard magic went from a hodgepodge of unique spells to the ADEU+Ritual system, scattering and reassigning spells everywhere. Or how certain monsters and races got redefined (elemental archons, devas & tieflings). Or having Pelor and Bane on the same Pantheon. A lot of old D&D baggage got dragged into 4e, causing no end to the problem of "that's not how it works anymore" or worse "the old way was bad, here is the new way".

 

[Raith5]

I think part of the problem was certain preconceived notions. For example, a fighter being primarily focused on defending other vs. dealing out huge damage, or how wizard magic went from a hodgepodge of unique spells to the ADEU+Ritual system, scattering and reassigning spells everywhere. Or how certain monsters and races got redefined (elemental archons, devas & tieflings). Or having Pelor and Bane on the same Pantheon. A lot of old D&D baggage got dragged into 4e, causing no end to the problem of "that's not how it works anymore" or worse "the old way was bad, here is the new way".

OK, I understand where this point is coming from. As much as I like 4E some, and most of these elements of monsters and gods worked well in my campaign, I can see the issue. I think putting all classes into the ADEU framework was the key point (i have to confess that while I liked all classes having the same refresh rate, it seemed weird to not allow
a wizard to remember two fireballs!)

But I cant help but think on the other side of this coin that 4th ed game added mechanical process to long standing D&Disms. I mean fighters as defenders was not a complete invention of a new practice neither clerics as primary healers. I also think that the prevalence of forced movement in 4th ed made standing near to ledges during fights a clear problem - again not a new practice.

 

[Remathilis]

OK, I understand where this point is coming from. As much as I like 4E some, and most of these elements of monsters and gods worked well in my campaign, I can see the issue. I think putting all classes into the ADEU framework was the key point (i have to confess that while I liked all classes having the same refresh rate, it seemed weird to not allow
a wizard to remember two fireballs!)

But I cant help but think on the other side of this coin that 4th ed game added mechanical process to long standing D&Disms. I mean fighters as defenders was not a complete invention of a new practice neither clerics as primary healers. I also think that the prevalence of forced movement in 4th ed made standing near to ledges during fights a clear problem - again not a new practice.

Which goes back to my point: it wasn't that it wasn't necessarily bad, just different. A fighter never worried about marks. A wizard could memorize fireball until he was out of spell slots. These changes had the initial shock of "what did you do to my X"? When we used the newer (and less iconic) classes and races, we found that the lost baggage helped overcome some of the initial reaction. (Not enough to save us playing it; Pathfinder drove the nail in that coffin).

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Wait a minute, Gygax wasn't a very good game designer? (snip lots of outrage) Calling him so flippantly a bad game designer, in passing, is just so absurd. (snip)

AD&D's combat (and unarmed combat and psionic combat). Cyborg Commando. Dangerous Journeys.

No, Gary wasn't a good game designer. But he was an entrepreneur who synthesised the ideas of Dave Arneson et al (and that includes some of his own ideas, of course, particularly in terms of the fiction he had spent a lifetime consuming) and took the risks that created this hobby and indirectly spawned MMORPGs etc....

What you call "belittling" I would suggest is more properly an honest appraisal.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

No, Gary wasn't a good game designer.

Bollocks. I'll take Gary's game over anyone who's come along since. First Edition is wonderfully designed, just horribly organized. I'll take that over the reverse, which is what we've seen since.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

Bollocks. I'll take Gary's game over anyone who's come along since. First Edition is wonderfully designed, just horribly organized. I'll take that over the reverse, which is what we've seen since.

What do you use for a combat system?

Don't get me wrong, 1E got me hooked on this hobby so I am aware of its charms to this day.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Bollocks. I'll take Gary's game over anyone who's come along since. First Edition is wonderfully designed, just horribly organized. I'll take that over the reverse, which is what we've seen since.

So, if you liked a band's first album, and then you thought everything they'd done after that was pretty much horrible junk, would you think they were an amazing band? Or a band who were great for one album, then really lost their way?

I ask because, like, seriously, have you read stuff like Dangerous Journeys?

I can't really explain how excited I was when I saw it, back in like, 1992, in an Oxford (UK) gaming shop (a weird little place, I forget it's name, be unsurprised if someone else here knows it - run by an older couple, I bet it's closed now), Dangerous Journeys, all the books, by GARY GYGAX (OMG!) on the shelves. Why had I not heard of this game? Why were people not talking about it? It was by Gary "D&D" Gygax! My brother and I bought it all at once!

Only then we actually tried to read and play that game, and oh god, so bad. That'd be a whole thread by itself. Basically everything that could be wrong with an RPG, except for perversion or horrible art (it was so-so instead), was wrong with it. Terrible rules, terrible organisation, didn't play well, wasn't focused or exciting, etc. etc. Probably the greatest disappointment of my gaming career. I thought I'd found gold. I'd actually found mud.

It was not the work of a master game designer. Nor was anything Gary made beyond 1E, that I am aware of. This doesn't mean he wasn't a really cool, fun, charming, imaginative and creative guy who started an amazing hobby (it might have started without him, but it'd have been very different in form, and a bit later), but by any normal measure, he was not a "skilled" game designer, or a creative or imaginative one when it came to mechanics (Dangerous Journeys is far LESS imaginative than D&D in terms of mechanics, for example - which makes one wonder how many mechanics in D&D were influenced by Arneson or others). He is perhaps the most important game designer. He is not the most skilled game designer. If one can't see the difference, I don't know what to tell one. Every field of human endeavour features people more important than they were skilled.

Further, describing every single RPG designed by every game designer as "horribly designed, wonderfully organised", is such intensely shallow and meretricious tripe (and obviously in error, given how many are horribly organised!), that it's almost beyond comment (even if you limit it to D&D, Retro-Clone and OSR games it's pretty risible). That may well be your opinion, but it's the lowest-value kind of opinion - purely subjective, having no value to others, even those who might, in this case, also like 1E.

 

[DDNFan]

.

Whatever one thinks of Gary's game design chops in the fine details, he knocked it out of the park. What matters most? The tiny parts that are easily updated? Or the overall concept, putting all the pieces together to make a compelling experience. That's the difference between a master and a worker, or an architect and a day laborer. The worker might be (probably is) better at putting up drywall, and that's what I believe you guys are focusing on instead of the big picture. None of the TTRPG games or designs that I've seen since have come up with a better core idea, core vision, that can't be reduced to mere iteration on D&D.

As I wrote before, name one designer who came up with a new unique vision, regardless of the fine details, that is compelling enough to not only play for fourty years, but to iterate on endlessly and build other games on. Build an entire hobby on. Make TV shows about. Write endless books about. It grabbed people and didn't let go. I'm playing tonight and tomorrow too. It has me in its stingy grasp, never letting go.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and based on the amount of imitations of D&D with minor cosmetic or mechanical alterations, the core concept is the same. Every other TTRPG designer owes Gygax not only their respect, but virtually their entire career.

I stand by this, by reading the opinions of many game designers who think that where D&D erred in the past two editions was striving for structural innovation rather than innovate on the core concept. But why fix what isn't broken? The core idea of D&D is terrific, it's only the fine details that can and should be updated occasionally, but only to the extent that they make the central gameplay better.

In that sense, building simple rules that encapsulate the essence of what D&D is, and stripping out the useless cruft that doesn't focus on the core game experience, is what Mike Mearls and so on did. They do deserve a lot of credit for that, and is an admission that they can't really come up with a better core gameplay idea of what D&D is or could be. Not only because players rejected it last time (and the time before, I know several groups who hate anything 3rd ed or later), but because D&D is the rocketship.

Chopping off dead weight and going back to a lean machine closer to 1st and 2nd ed (even leaner, less tables and finicky stuff) is what's going to make 5th edition a big success in my opinion. I can't really give huge credit to the game designers since, since many of their ideas are now being flushed or reverted or at least greatly toned down to fit within the context of what D&D is trying to be. The core concept. The big picture hasn't changed. Monte Cook, for example, admitted that rewarding system mastery was a design goal of his. That's probably why micro-feats from 3rd and 4th are being combined or even made entirely optional. Because that's not what makes D&D a good game.

Everything we've seen are relatively small details, stamp collecting if you will. I don't pay homage to stamp collectors, maybe a passing tip of my hat. Lots of game designers you see are just playing in Gygax' sandbox, and should be reminded of that as often and as emphatically as possible, lest they forget their place in the grand scheme of things and their egos grow bigger than their breeches.

A genius is defined as someone who creates something new and unique, outstanding and game-changing. You could say all kinds of bad things about this or that bad mechanic in the original D&D game, and improve on those. But the worst you can say about Gygax' design skills is that he was a one-hit wonder.

If there are any better game designers out there, why are we all still talking about D&D instead of their brilliant new idea? Because they don't have anything truly substantially different, and they are all still just imitating Gygax and following in his footsteps.

 

[Sadras]

If there are any better game designers out there, why are we all still talking about D&D instead of their brilliant new idea? Because they don't have anything truly substantially different, and they are all still just imitating Gygax and following in his footsteps.

I might be unpopular in saying this, but I do not think that is a fair assessment to make. You really want to compare that age to this?

 

[DDNFan]

I might be unpopular in saying this, but I do not think that is a fair assessment to make. You really want to compare that age to this?

If it's not a fair assessment, it's probably only if you include wargaming and board games in the comparison.

For table top RPGs, D&D or D&D-derived is where it's at, has been, and who knows, maybe will be for a long time. Shadowrun and other games that broke into new areas, still borrowed liberally from D&D's gameplay, which didn't exist before and hasn't substantially been improved upon, and even though some mechanics might be better in this or that set of game rules, the actual concept of how one plays this game has been fairly universally purloined by its imitators.

Sure, some of those games play really differently, but their core idea is still basically the same as what Gygax came up with when he put those elements together. That's what I mean when I say game design genius. It's big picture stuff, like a director or movie producer.

Saying he wasn't even a good game designer is laughable. His work stood the test of time, minus certain alterations which have proven themselves to lack durability or lasting impact. 3rd ed and 4th Feats have turned out to be a huge mistake because of the inherent glut that it adds to the game, without making it more fun for everyone playing it, and possibly downright frustrating. There were frustrating aspects of early D&D, just as there were for the Ford model T. Nobody is seriously saying that Ford himself wasn't a car making genius, are they? While they drive around in variations of his invention?

This is where I drop the mike and bow out of this thread, I've made my point and will leave it to the reader to decide if they know how to show proper respect where it's due, to those like Gygax who have made their lives better and brought joy to countless millions.