Coherence as a Critical Goal for 5e

[innerdude]

I've suddenly and unexpectedly gained a profound admiration for Fantasy Craft. To the point that someone would have to seriously convince me to run any other d20 variant (assuming I'm interested in running d20 at all).

And I'm surprised and frankly a little shocked by it. In my heart and mind I thought I was inevitably drifting into OSR / rules-lite territory. My old Rules Cyclopedia, Savage Worlds and FATE seemed to be more more accessible and fun than the current 3.x / OGL landscape.

In essence, I'm trying to figure out why Fantasy Craft appeals to me so much. Truth told, I haven't played it yet. I have no idea how "balanced" it is in gameplay, if high-level play is a mess, or if the baseline math is "creaky."

But there's just a certain something, an innate sensibility in Fantasy Craft that frankly I've never felt in any other OGL / d20 system. By comparison, bog-standard 3.5 now feels almost . . . crude in its implementation. Which isn't all that surprising, given that at some level 3.x is still largely and directly beholden to D&D's roots. And I love Paizo as a company, but have never felt as great an affinity for Pathfinder as I do for Fantasy Craft.

The only way I can describe it is that Fantasy Craft has a certain coherence about its design that is both quantifiable yet hard to pin down. Part of it, I believe, stems from an acceptance on the part of the developers of just what OGL d20 / D&D actually is--a complex rendering of a resolution / gaming mechanic focused primarily on combat, that rewards players for picking out the best rules bits to "power up" characters, while nominally attempting to place those mechanical "power ups" within the game world's verisimilitude. And Fantasy Craft embraces this reality, crunchy, fiddly bits and all.

So what does this have to do with D&D Next?

It's mostly about this idea of coherence. I'm not really a Ron Edwards / Forge guy, though I appreciate the thought that went into Gamism/Narrativism/Simulationism as a theory. But after reading through Fantasy Craft, I'm starting to have an idea of what "coherence" is at least kind-of, sort-of supposed to mean. It's the opposite of "cognitive rules dissonance," where the game itself purports to provide a certain style or "feel," but the rules design pushes the actual gameplay into entirely different, largely incompatible directions.

And I'm wondering what 5e's approach to this type of "coherence" should be, if any. The 5e designers consistently emphasize modularity as a key design goal--but just because something is modular doesn't mean that the core doesn't have specific design emphases. The point of modularity, we've been told, is for 5e to support the general "feel" of previous D&D editions.

But is this a "coherent" goal? Can the rules really support multiple styles simultaneously without radically shifting the baseline assumptions? If done right, I think 5e will successfully support multiple play styles, but I am also convinced that there will be one play style that will be the "assumed" default mode, and that many design decisions will have to enforced for that assumed mode to work.

So what should D&D 5e's default "coherence" be? Should D&D 5e both implicitly and explicitly promote a particular game style that is most compatible with its rules structure, even if its "modularity" allows for significant "drift" away from it?

 

[Lwaxy]

I am not quite sure what you are saying Fantasy Craft is promoting in ways of coherence. For D&D, the "coherence" is that the GM can adapt it to the needs of the group (which is one reason 4e didn't count for me, couldn't do that). That, to me, is a baseline assumption.

I do not think there is a baseline style of play for any of the existing editions. I've seen so much variety. And I bet if you ask 10 people you get at least 5 different answers.

So no, I think the sort of coherence you are talking about would only be detrimental to the game.

 

[innerdude]

When I'm talking about coherence in reference to Fantasy Craft, it's the idea that the designers seemed to recognize that the core d20 system is typically best at producing a gameplay style that emphasizes concrete, mechanical player options, and the interaction between those player options at the table.

The power of rolling a single d20 for checks is its simplicity--there's a single die to roll, and a single number added to that roll to deduce the result. Yet when mechanical resolution is made this simple, it sort of unconsciously promotes this idea that since mechanical resolution for a d20 game is "simple," that anything that could be resolved mechanically should be resolved mechanically.

"Coherence" isn't about adaptability; it's about the rules themselves either implicitly or explicitly supporting a certain play "style" as optimal for the best experience.

And I strongly disagree with the assertion that there isn't a baseline style of play for existing D&D editions. Every RPG assumes a certain "baseline" style of play that the Rules-as-Written should ideally produce. Whether any particular group follows that baseline is another question entirely, but that doesn't mean that assumed baseline style--the one that optimally supports its gameplay tenets--doesn't exist.

Now, can individual groups tailor rules and assumptions to produce unique, and subjectively better experiences for them? Absolutely. But designers have to have some idea in mind about how particular rules generally work and flow when they create them. "Good" design, to me, is at least partially encompassed by the concept that a "good" rule produces its "intended" effect.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Good thread topic. I really like your analysis of 3e/d20 -

what OGL d20 / D&D actually is--a complex rendering of a resolution / gaming mechanic focused primarily on combat, that rewards players for picking out the best rules bits to "power up" characters, while nominally attempting to place those mechanical "power ups" within the game world's verisimilitude.

A lot of 3e players seem to want to detach many of the rules from the game reality. Class doesn't mean anything, for example. I had the same experience running Mutants & Masterminds, a d20 game. The players often wanted to take the same feats, the most mechanically powerful ones, for their PCs, feeling that they could put any flavor on them, whereas I, as GM, wanted feat choice to say something about a character. After all, that was how I was building my NPCs.

The Forge dislikes the approach of 2e AD&D and Vampire, which bill themselves as story-creation systems while using fairly traditional gamist/simulationist mechanics.

The creators of 2e AD&D faced a very similar problem to the creators of 5e - both wanted to please sets of players that wanted different things. With 2e the tension was between old school Gygaxian gamist play, with challenging dungeons that make no sense at all from a verisimiltudinous perspective, and the newer school Dragonlance/Forgotten Realms style of play that wanted to tell epic Tolkien-esque stories. The 2e solution was mostly to keep the rules the same (so they could retain the Gygaxians) play up Rule Zero, and put all the responsibility for story creation on the DM's shoulders. The DM is supposed to fudge things to keep the epic heroes alive, for example.

Admittedly, 2e does make a few very important rule changes to support its preferred play style, notably the removal of xp for gold.

I think it's going to be easier to keep the fans of old school, 3e and 4e happy, because 2e is the major outlier in D&D's history, in terms of its aims for play. Apart from 2e, *every* edition of D&D has supported gamist play, though the player skills each edition promoted have changed somewhat.

Old school - Knowledge of the rules, particularly monsters and spells. Ability to read the DM.
3e - Knowledge of the rules, particularly character builds. Combat tactics.
4e - Reverses the priority of 3e, combat tactics are #1, builds #2.

 

[Ratskinner]

The creators of 2e AD&D faced a very similar problem

<snippage>

I think it's going to be easier to keep the fans of old school, 3e and 4e happy, because 2e is the major outlier in D&D's history, in terms of its aims for play. Apart from 2e, *every* edition of D&D has supported gamist play, though the player skills each edition promoted have changed somewhat.

Old school - Knowledge of the rules, particularly monsters and spells. Ability to read the DM.
3e - Knowledge of the rules, particularly character builds. Combat tactics.
4e - Reverses the priority of 3e, combat tactics are #1, builds #2.

Good analysis of 2e as the outlier. Also probably why its my favorite edition.

Would've XP'ed you, if I could. I blame all those other posters who aren't inspiring me to "spread it around."

 

[Guest 85555]

I dont think D&D has traditionally been coherent in the edwards sense. If anything its appeal has been its incoherence, allowing it to satisfy people from several different camps. I do think the closest thing we have to coherence with D&D is 4E, and while it really excited people who likedthat style it is dropped by the people who came to D&D for other things. So I think it would be a mistake for wotc to take another shot at coherence unless they want to continue along a path of becoming more niche.

 

[delericho]

I dont think D&D has traditionally been coherent in the edwards sense. If anything its appeal has been its incoherence, allowing it to satisfy people from several different camps.

Yep, I think this is right.

I do think the closest thing we have to coherence with D&D is 4E, and while it really excited people who likedthat style it is dropped by the people who came to D&D for other things.

I agree with this, too.

So I think it would be a mistake for wotc to take another shot at coherence unless they want to continue along a path of becoming more niche.

Not sure I agree with this, though. Or, rather, I'm not sure that there's anything they can do now to avoid becoming more niche.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

A lot of 3e players seem to want to detach many of the rules from the game reality. Class doesn't mean anything, for example. I had the same experience running Mutants & Masterminds, a d20 game. The players often wanted to take the same feats, the most mechanically powerful ones, for their PCs, feeling that they could put any flavor on them, whereas I, as GM, wanted feat choice to say something about a character. After all, that was how I was building my NPCs.

Nice comments overall, and nice thread too.

As to the above paragraph I tend to agree. I saw this in myself then even stronger in 4E. I wanted a monk in 4E with the first PH - played a 2 weapon Ranger with "Martial Arts" as a weapon (GM was cool with this). Then re-flavored fluff but kept the mechanics the same.
As for M&M that is one of the basics of the game - like HERO it is an effects based system. The entire idea was that all the mechanic abilities have no actual flavor, and that flavor is explained by the player. Which means you can play any type of character you want. Personally I think that is almost necessary for a superhero game - so many character types with so many possible SFX (or power sources) no two of which work the same as others.

As for the class doesn't mean anything - yeah that was me. Each class level was, in my mind, nothing more than a specific package of skills and abilities that I could use to build my character closer to concept.

But then I play HERO more than anything else, and that approach tends to come with me to other games I play.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

As for the class doesn't mean anything - yeah that was me. Each class level was, in my mind, nothing more than a specific package of skills and abilities that I could use to build my character closer to concept.

But then I play HERO more than anything else, and that approach tends to come with me to other games I play.

Ditto. Hero System is an interesting example, because in the Forge sense, it is mostly coherent, but not in the same way that, say, a game directed solely and firmly to old-school AD&D dungeon crawls might be. For 5E to cover a wide range but still achieve coherence, it has to cohere at a different level of abstraction.

That's why options can work just fine, but not everything can be optional, and not every "socket" for an option can be equally "optional". There has to be a backbone or framework for the whole thing to cohere around.

Consider this. I have a Ryobi weed eater with different detachable "business ends". There are 8 different things you can get, and I've got the "weed eater" fishing wire, the brush cutting blade, and the leaf/snow blower. Now, you can buy separate tools that are coherently a small grass weed trimmer or a blower. That's coherent as "weed trimmer" or "blower". Or you can swap ends on my tool, which is coherent as a "outside yard maintenance secondary tool". But there isn't any coherent option that you can add to that Ryobi to turn it into a riding lawnmower or an indoor shop vac or a food processor.

What D&D has tried to do in the past is the same thing I've done when I'm trimming hedges or around the drive way. You hold the thing you have at an ackward angle and make it work. That can carry you so far, but then you pull your hip out of joint and decide that a more specific tool/attachment might be in order. So now they are trying to zoom out a bit to that wider Ryobi model, and make something coherent for a lot of the main styles of D&D. Not all the styles of D&D every practiced.

 

[innerdude]

. . . not everything can be optional, and not every "socket" for an option can be equally "optional". There has to be a backbone or framework for the whole thing to cohere around . . .

What D&D has tried to do in the past is the same thing I've done when I'm trimming hedges or around the drive way. You hold the thing you have at an ackward angle and make it work. That can carry you so far, but then you pull your hip out of joint and decide that a more specific tool/attachment might be in order.

In addition to making me laugh, this post has a lot of truth to it. If there's "angst" out there surrounding 5e's development, I think it secretly stems from this fear that "modularity" is really going to be nothing more than forcing us to use different "ends" for our RPG "outside yard maintenance secondary tools," instead of actually supporting our preferred style.

I think the reason I started this thread was because I wanted to discuss if that's a net positive for 5e--or if it will ultimately end up with mostly dissatisfied customers "kind-of, sort-of" putting up with its weaknesses, because, well, "It's D&D. It's what we all agreed to play."