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<blockquote data-quote="innerdude" data-source="post: 5910549" data-attributes="member: 85870">I've&nbsp; suddenly and unexpectedly gained a profound admiration for Fantasy&nbsp; Craft. To the point that someone would have to seriously convince me to&nbsp; run any other d20 variant (assuming I'm interested in running d20 at&nbsp; all). And&nbsp; I'm surprised and frankly a little shocked by it. In my heart and mind I&nbsp; thought I was inevitably drifting into OSR / rules-lite territory. My&nbsp; old Rules Cyclopedia, Savage Worlds and FATE seemed to be more more&nbsp; accessible and fun than the current 3.x / OGL landscape. In&nbsp; essence, I'm trying to figure out why Fantasy Craft appeals to me so&nbsp; much. Truth told, I haven't played it yet. I have no idea how &quot;balanced&quot;&nbsp; it is in gameplay, if high-level play is a mess, or if the baseline&nbsp; math is &quot;creaky.&quot; But there's just a certain something, an innate sensibility in Fantasy Craft that frankly I've never felt&nbsp; in any other OGL / d20 system. By comparison, bog-standard 3.5 now&nbsp; feels almost . . . crude in its implementation. Which isn't all that&nbsp; surprising, given that at some level 3.x is still largely and directly&nbsp; beholden to D&amp;D's roots. And I love Paizo as a company, but have&nbsp; never felt as great an affinity for Pathfinder as I do for Fantasy&nbsp; Craft.The only way I can describe it is that Fantasy Craft has a certain coherence about&nbsp; its design that is both quantifiable yet hard to pin down. Part of it, I&nbsp; believe, stems from an acceptance on the part of the developers of just&nbsp; what OGL d20 / D&amp;D actually is--a&nbsp; complex rendering of a resolution / gaming mechanic focused primarily&nbsp; on combat, that rewards players for picking out the best&nbsp; rules bits to &quot;power up&quot; characters, while nominally attempting to&nbsp; place those mechanical &quot;power ups&quot; within the game world's&nbsp; verisimilitude. And Fantasy&nbsp; Craft embraces this reality, crunchy, fiddly bits and all. So what does this have to do with D&amp;D Next?It's mostly about this idea of coherence.&nbsp; I'm not really a Ron Edwards / Forge guy, though I appreciate the&nbsp; thought that went into Gamism/Narrativism/Simulationism as a theory. But&nbsp; after reading through Fantasy Craft, I'm starting to have an idea of&nbsp; what &quot;coherence&quot; is at least kind-of, sort-of supposed to mean. It's the&nbsp; opposite of &quot;cognitive rules dissonance,&quot; where the game itself&nbsp; purports to provide a certain style or &quot;feel,&quot; but the rules design&nbsp; pushes the actual gameplay into entirely different, largely incompatible&nbsp; directions. And&nbsp; I'm wondering what 5e's approach to this type of &quot;coherence&quot; should be,&nbsp; if any. The 5e designers consistently emphasize modularity as a key&nbsp; design goal--but just because something is modular doesn't mean that the&nbsp; core doesn't have specific design emphases. The point of modularity,&nbsp; we've been told, is for 5e to support the general &quot;feel&quot; of previous&nbsp; D&amp;D editions. But&nbsp; is this a &quot;coherent&quot; goal? Can the rules really support multiple styles&nbsp; simultaneously without radically shifting the baseline assumptions? If&nbsp; done right, I think 5e will successfully support multiple play styles,&nbsp; but I am also convinced that there will be one play style that will be&nbsp; the &quot;assumed&quot; default mode, and that many design decisions will have to&nbsp; enforced for that assumed mode to work. So what should D&amp;D 5e's default &quot;coherence&quot; be? Should D&amp;D 5e both implicitly and explicitly promote a particular game style that is most compatible with its rules structure, even if its &quot;modularity&quot; allows for significant &quot;drift&quot; away from it?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="innerdude, post: 5910549, member: 85870"] 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[I] something[/I], 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 [I]coherence[/I] 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[I] is[/I]--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? [/QUOTE]

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