An Essay to Wizards of the Coast

[keterys]

I hope they let folks who want lethal games - at _any_ level - dial things up to there. If you enjoy that gameplay, why should you be restricted to level 1? It should work that way at 10th too!

I do think the _default_ should not have newbies create a character and die cause they lost initiative.

 

[Dannager]

On this we completely agree. When it comes to game design, I don't believe that anything, whether concept, playstyle, mechanic, etc. should ever be phrased in terms of should or should not...as in this style should be what the game focuses on, this style should not be included, etc.

Then, actually, we don't agree. I believe that there are things that the game design should focus on.

D&D is a universal game. The First universal game. And needs to address all styles going forward.

I don't believe that D&D is a universal game. At least, not in the sense that you are portraying it.

 

[timbannock]

Now, take 3.5 Edition, and clean it up. Make 5th edition what Fourth edition should have been. What third edition was to the previous editions. A clean up and simplification of the rules. Put out a conversion guide for 3.X to 5.0

I'm not sure if you and I agree, but I think you'll see something like what you want.

I think you'll see more of a 2e with the math corrected and going in an ascending direction (ala 3e). A lot of systems will be clearly marked optional or advanced. There will, by default be a lot more handwavium than 3e saw, and maybe slightly less than 4e saw.

That said, you will likely see 4e's player/DM rule split in great effect. Monsters won't work or be built anything like PCs, but will scale with them appropriately as in 4e.

Combat won't be abstracted as many seem to like, I don't think, but there will be info on how to play "off the battlemap." Ranges and movement will still be measured in 5' squares, but they will go back to saying 20 feet instead of 4 squares.

I think the core of a character -- six ability scores, hit points, AC, and potentially Ref/Will/Fort defenses with a 4e-esque saving throw -- will be the core building blocks, but skills/feats/powers will see a LOT of changes, and won't look too much like any edition thus far.

 

[El Mahdi]

I don't believe that D&D is a universal game. At least, not in the sense that you are portraying it.

Then let me clarify. From the beginning, D&D has not been a game focused predominantly on one specific play style; be it gamist, simulationist, or narrativist. However, later editions did tend to focus more on certain styles than others.

Saying that the design going forward ought to not concern itself with real life, is exclusionary toward simulationist gamers.

I believe that's a mistake.

 

[mmadsen]

I think skill challenges have two modes. (Maybe more, but I know of two.) One is essentially the "complex skill check" - to open this lock will take 4 successes, to decipher this cryptic text will take 4 successes, etc. That use of skill challenges is not (or at least need not be) metagame heavy. But it also generally won't bring out the claimed virtues of skill challenges, either - for example, if one of the PCs is weak at lock picking then s/he will just stand back and let the others go at the lock while s/he keeps watch, or shines her boots, or whatever.

For the skill challenge to achieve the virtue of engaging everyone, then the GM has to frame the situation, and adjudicate it, in a metagaming fashion - for example, s/he has to narrate consequences for checks (both successes and failures) in such a way that they suck the other PCs, and thereby the other players, into the action.

Is it metagaming for the DM to create challenges that will engage the whole party?

 

[Dannager]

Then let me clarify. From the beginning, D&D has not been a game focused predominantly on one specific play style; be it gamist, simulationist, or narrativist. However, later editions did tend to focus more on certain styles than others.

Saying that the design going forward ought to not concern itself with real life, is exclusionary toward simulationist gamers.

I believe that's a mistake.

I believe it shouldn't concern itself with mimicking real life to the detriment of other aspects of play. Certainly, realism should inform certain aspects of its design, but it must be balanced against design goals, as with all things.

I think there's plenty for the "simulationist gamer" to like in any edition of D&D, even those which place a lesser design emphasis on it. I think that, for too long, simulation has had too high a priority associated with it in Dungeons & Dragons.

 

[Number48]

Could there be a simple dial for danger? See if the math works for this: Take a group of 4E characters fighting a group of 4E monsters of appropriate level. Cut the hit points of all combatants in half. Just the hit points, not damage or anything else. Does the math more or less work for a balanced but more dangerous scenario?

 

[keterys]

That is most certainly a more rocket tag scenario that will emphasize high initiative high damage characters, which might work great for many people.

 

[pemerton]

Is it metagaming for the DM to create challenges that will engage the whole party?

Yes, but not at the point of action resolution. (Contrast a game like Traveller, or one reading of early D&D, where the bulk of the challenges aren't created via metagaming but via die rolls on tables.)

But the sort of metagaming I had in mind was at the point of adjudicating the consequences of action resolution. If a 12/3 skill challenge is going to engage the whole party over the course of its resolution, then (in my experience) the way to achieve this, as a GM, is to narrate consequences of skill checks that pour the pressure onto other PCs. For example, if (in a social challenge) the "face" PC successfully stonewalls with a good Bluff check, the NPC antagonist turns his/her attention to the dwarf fighter who was hoping to lurk unnoticed at the back of the party! Now the player of that PC has no choice but to get involved - even if it is only in the form of letting his/her PC look like a dork as the other PCs step in and cover for him/her.

This example is based on the actual play episode I linked to upthread, although in that particular episode things were complicated by the fact that the dwarf fighter was not lurking at the back of the party but was in fact the party leader (as far as the NPCs were concerned) and so was therefore very much at the forefront of the party, but relying upon his Machiavellian companions to make social situations work from behind the scenes. This became very hard when he found himself seated at a dinner party in between the Baron with whom he was in the process of forging an alliance, and the Baron's chief advisor, who was also (unbeknownst to the Baron) the PCs' chief adversary.

Adjudicating things in this sort of way - to keep the pressure on all the PCs so that they have to remain engaged or else fail to get what they want from the situation - does require metagaming, I think. And this is why I think that skill challenges continue to be somewhat controversial as an action resolution mechanic, or are often said to be nothing more than a version of 3E-style complex skill checks.

 

[pemerton]

Also, low level combat really should be 'he who hits first wins'.

Think about it. In a sword fight, the guy that lands the first solid blow wins. Real Sword fights from the middle ages resemble BraveHeart much more then they resemble a Star Wars lightsaber duel.

The use of the word "should" here needs to be reexamined.

<snip>

we typically accept that combat in RPGs consists of something more dynamic and cinematic than running up to your enemy and lopping their arm off in a swing.

My own preferences on this definitely run Dannager's way.

However, . . .

the tension and danger of low-level play is a great deal of fun for many people.

The solution, therefore, is . . .

I hope they let folks who want lethal games - at _any_ level - dial things up to there. If you enjoy that gameplay, why should you be restricted to level 1? It should work that way at 10th too!

In a unity edition, it has to be feasible to dial the danger up and down. Given that there is likely to be a single, core, coherent approach to PC build, I think the place for this dialing up and down of lethality will be in the encounter design rules - perhaps in the monster rules ("double all damage"), perhaps in the encounter composition rules ("put in double the number of monsters), or both, or somewhere else I'm not thinking of.