A transition I want to see...

[am181d]

Casual gamers need a solid core for one-offs and organized play.

By contrast, I don't need anyone to tell me I'm allowed to modify the rules. I will do it regardless.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Just being modular will help a lot, even if the modules that 40% of the users end up using aren't in the RAW.

When you have a way of doing something, people get inordinately bent out of shape over changing it. They ascribe to this way properties it does not have--and sometimes even counters.

When you have two or three or four obviously different ways, not only does this fragment the way people do things, but it also makes it crystal clear that no single way was the be all to end all.

And then obviously some people are invested in "the way people play D&D" not being fragmented. If the official rules do a lot of the fragmenting at the table (if not the books and conversations), then they are seriously undercut--by the RAW.

 

[GreyICE]

RAW/RAI has always been a bit of a false dichotomy. RAW was what the Char Op used for theoretical optimizations, many of which found horribly overlooked holes in the rules.

I'll note that for RAW/RAI dichotomy, 3E was a thousand times worse than 4E. The 'plaintext' language of 3E left many powers entirely ambiguous, while the very exact language of 4E made sure that it was clear how they worked in 99.5% of cases.

As for why saying 'screw RAW' is a bad idea, here's the text for venomfire:

Venomfire

Is it applied once per round, once per successful attack, or once per failed poison save?

We don't know what the RAI is, because WotC didn't use to care about RAW (figuring that everyone could figure out RAI). So things weren't checked for RAW compliance. The result is spells where you're not really quite sure how they work.

P.S. You can't tell me how venomfire works, so don't even try. You just have to make a ruling, then ban the spell.

 

[billd91]

I see what you mean but for those who play a lot of convention games and gamedays, particularly tourneys and living campaigns, or who run spontaneous pickup games with players who they don't necessarily know, a solid RAW core ruleset often plays a big part in getting those games together quickly and easily. We'll see how the presentation of 5E manages to cater to both those circles of gamers, particularly if organized play organizations are going to be a big part of 5E.

Meh. People played D&D at conventions back before the the rules were cleaned up for AD&D. Sure, it was a grab bag of quality, but I really don't see that a tighter rule set has changed that. The most important key has always been being open minded and respectful of the GM and the players.

 

[Mark CMG]

Meh. People played D&D at conventions back before the the rules were cleaned up for AD&D. Sure, it was a grab bag of quality, but I really don't see that a tighter rule set has changed that. The most important key has always been being open minded and respectful of the GM and the players.

I was one of those people and the rules were definitely meant to be more DM-adjuticated out of the box. I'm not sure if that would fly with today's players. And therein lies the problem. There is a level of consistency expected in organized play that the rules need to provide that didn't exist back then but very much exists today, certainly in the last decade or so. You can tell players to just suck it up but once they get online and start comparing notes from various tables in the same tourney, the backlash that would likely develop could harm the player base and revenues in ways WotC is unlikely to want to risk.

 

[FireLance]

I'm with you...but I'm not so sure about having a discussion of whether something is Fun or not. Those types of discussions usually go quite badly also. How about less about RAW and Fun, and more about what the results of this or that mechanic might be. Will it speed up game play? Slow it down? Will it close a loophole? Will it support a style, mood, or feel? Etc., Etc., Etc.

I'd like to see discussions along these lines, too. Just tell me what the range of likely effects are, and I'll decide whether or not it will be fun for me and my group.

 

[Lwaxy]

The RAW have always been mostly a suggestion to me The problem is, in the "good old times" when I got interested players they asked about how our rules looked like. Essentially, every DM made their own. Nowadays, it is mostly expected you follow the RAW, and have only a few house rules.

Well, our games ARE house rules (with few exceptions) based on the RAW framework of all editions and PF Sometimes makes it harder to get new players, but then we don't need any more players at the moment.

I suppose we would drop a lot of those "speed the game up" house rules if 5e could accomplish the same.

 

[KidSnide]

Having played D&D for 20 years or so without having heard the idea "rules as written," I share the yearning for going back to a place where there is no "one true way" of playing the game. I understand the advantage of standardization for pickup games and organized play, but pickup games and organized play had been around for a long time before 3e provided a set of rules that people mostly gathered around. Yes, sometimes you would walk into a game that was run very strangely, but that was part of the charm of gaming with strangers.

With a modular system where the "core" represents the least complicated incarnation of the game, I wonder if we'll start seeing specific sets of modules characterized as game styles (e.g. "simple core", "tactical core", "all options tactical") just so folks have common reference points.

-KS

 

[Mark CMG]

With a modular system where the "core" represents the least complicated incarnation of the game, I wonder if we'll start seeing specific sets of modules characterized as game styles (e.g. "simple core", "tactical core", "all options tactical") just so folks have common reference points.

I think that's a pretty safe bet. Maybe they will also roll out their licensing scheme to embrace something like this.