D&D 5E Coming Around on the "Not D&D" D&D Next Train

[Majoru Oakheart]

While all these things are true, none of them prevent the designers from shifting the baseline of the game. They did this already when they decided to remove racial penalties and have classes grant ability score bonuses. The latter, I don't oppose. All I want is for humans to have no racial modifiers with a maximum score of 18, and everything else built around that. If they aren't going to do that, then drop ability scores entirely. Proper tradition is the only reason to keep them.

I agree. Or at least if they are going to give humans +1 to stats then make the baselines 4 to 19 instead of 3 to 18. I'd like strength to actually be a measurement of how much you can lift and carry. If you get "maximum" strength, you should be able to lift 1000 lbs and should look like you have muscles everywhere.

I know I personally hate adding to everyone's stats constantly. Because it'll mean by max level EVERYONE can lift 1000 lbs.

 

[teitan]

Speaking of funny things that go around about d&d I saw a blog comment somewhere the other day that claimed 4e came out because Blizzard bought d&d and told WOTC to make it like WoW!

 

[Raith5]

That said, there's a huge contingent of people for whom powers and AEDU were not bugs, but features. Those were very controversial and IMO don't add to the feeling of playing D&D, thus they should be out. For good. Thankfully the design team appears to be hitting most of the right notes and actually listening to the feedback of the majority of D&D fans, rather than the vocal minority who are a) not game designers, b) hate everything about every edition of D&D except for power cards, or c) just have a bunch of confused and contradictory notions such as making the game only two classes, or removing the d20 entirely. I've seen so much silliness out there I think part of a game designer's job in evaluating feedback is figuring out who the feedback is coming from and what their biases are.

If they spew nothing but venom for the majority of D&D rules's history : IGNORE THEM ENTIRELY. No game designer will tell potential clients to consider playing a different game, but I will.

In hindsight one of the things that 4th ed has done has clarified in my mind what I like and dont like in the legacy of pre 4th ed D&D. I agree that 4th ed was a big difference from previous editions. But slaying sacred cows has clarified what I felt was missing in 4th but also introduced new ideas and concepts to the game which have changed my basic expectations of what makes a good RPG.

While I am generally a fan of 4th ed, I have mixed feelings about about the AED structure. I really like utility powers so I would take them out of the discussion. But I can fully understand that some folk do not like or cannot narrate martial daily powers or at will or encounter magic. I dont think the system of a good game should force this. Id like to see a system that balances an ability or power across the AED spectrum with ED abilities being something like 2 and 4 times respectively more powerful than a basic attack. Then you could just choose the timing of your abilities according to your tastes, character concept and campaign.

 

[pemerton]

For me D&D is not predominantly mechanics. It is the story elements that underpin a certain sort of gonzo fantasy RPGing.

I played and GMed quite a bit of AD&D from the mid-80s through to the late 90s, but from 1990 until 2008 I GMed Rolemaster because I preferred its mechanics to AD&D and 3E. But in the time running Rolemaster I used a very large amount of D&D material - one campaign was set in Greyhawk; one in Oriental Adventures/Kara-Tur. I used a heap of Greyhawk stuff - setting books, modules (both classics like the Ds and more recent Greyhawk material) - a bit of FR stuff (a map of Waterdeep became the City of Dyvers in my Greyhawk game), and plenty of Oriental Adventures stuff.

I also used non-D&D stuff, including old MERP modules, RM modules, a Bushido module, etc.

In 2009 I switched systems as a GM, from RM to 4e, because 4e had more of what I wanted than RM and didn't have the features of AD&D and 3E that I personally don't care for. In my 4e game I have used only D&D stuff, but as much B/X and 3E material as 4e material.

With this background and play experience, I don't really accept that I'm not a true D&Der, or in some sense disloyal to D&D, just because I happen to think that up until 4e D&D's story elements have generally been superior to its mechanics.

 

[Dausuul]

Speaking of funny things that go around about d&d I saw a blog comment somewhere the other day that claimed 4e came out because Blizzard bought d&d and told WOTC to make it like WoW!

Sounds like this Ryan Dancey post after a few rounds through the rumor mill.

 

[teitan]

Sounds like this Ryan Dancey post after a few rounds through the rumor mill.

Great post but this comment was from 08 in a really scathing review of 4e a few days after it came out. I'm going to try to find it!

Can't find it now but it was pretty darn funny...

 

[Gorgoroth]

The list of bugs I mentioned, which everyone here is already aware of, were partially or wholly fixed in 4e, (or new to 4e which didn't exist before) after many years of people complaining about them. CoDZilla, Fighters being lame at high levels, wizards not having at-wills : those were all "fixed". But, were they fixed in the right way? IMO, no. They went too far. They went with a "paradigm shift" mentality, which threw out the baby with the bathwater and created a game that at the table feels completely different and loses its essential nature. They tried to codify every little thing that could possibly occur to you to make your character do, and if you don't have a power or a feat to do it, you simply can't without a house rule (because otherwise the guy who did take it will complain : hey, not fair). D&D doesn't need such restrictions.

Take Luke and the Rancor pit. In 4e, hitting the switch to bring it down on it might be a feature of the "encounter", in an explicit way. What if there are no "big shiny buttons", but the player comes up with something creative to kill a huge beast in one move? That should, realistically, undoubtedly, simply work. We did many such epic things over the years...and those ideas, as well as the outcomes, are what makes the game fun and exciting. I don't want a narrative where I can try to re-roll five times in a skill challenge to shut the pit door down on the Rancor, I want to come up with the idea on the fly, roll a thrown rock attack on it, and if I fail, mayyybe I can try one more time from the other side of the room, but if I fail? I die. Too bad. The D&D equivalent to that is a "save of die" or "kill or be killed" mantra, quick, brutal, combat resolution. The only way to not die is to not get caught by the Rancor, or stick a bone in its mouth, or something. Tell me, how would sticking a bone in its mouth occur to someone who's grappled? Why not just blast your Jedi daily on it? There was almost always the option to win by mere damage. When you're expected to win, the entire game shifts way too much in the PCs favor. When you're expected to mayybe win, or die trying, but have fun taking risks and seeing what your clever ideas vs the dice have to say about it, then you can see why I want my Rancor pit to be a place where PCs are sentenced to die. If you're down there and miss the button, it'll get a chance to grab you again, and what if you don't have a bone in your hand this time? That trick might work the first time on it, but not the second.

A Jedi's daily is probably the best way to kill this thing, so ignore the bone in the corner over there, and ignore the button too because if your dex sucks you have no chance of hitting it anyway, and in those modules they never make it so only one type of class can win. At least I've never seen it. What I'm saying is, the D&D equivalent to the Rancor pit happens often, in all editions, but without the expectation that PCs aren't immortal and their toons are expected to dust it off and go on to the next encounter (and thus, pay their subs at DDI or the next splatbook). I want PCs to die. I do like a lot of what 4e tried to do, and they've learned the lessons of the past I think.

E.g. the regeneration healing mechanic proposed for everyone is a beautiful, elegant, logical, and natural way to progressively heal. It's better than any edition has done before for most characters. They can instantly reunite all editions fans with a bugfix that kills "Surges" AND allows DMs to keep the adventuring day going forward at whatever pace they want. It's brilliant.

 

[teitan]

In no way can you not do that in 4e... there is a huge emphasis on improvisation in the core books. Also, you mention there not being a button in your example except you fail to mention that such a thing must even be listed in 3e and earlier editions as well. Anecdotally your example is invalid and RAW your example is invalid. Reading Perkins ' the DM Experience" alone challenges your example on every level. Also, in no way does 4e encourage the example of pulling a switch as a skill challenge though using a skill challenge as the improvisational mechanic would be brilliant as a series of opposed tasks against the rancor. You're just demonstrably wrong in how even WOTC approaches the game.

 

[B9anders]

I'm seriously digging 5th Ed (and the ease of converting previous edition material is huge), it's sort of like what I wanted 3rd Ed to be.

This. I look at Next and see a mix between 2nd ed Skills & Powers & 3rd edition.

I loved the direction Skills & Powers were going in (I could finally make characters that fit my vision of them) - It was broken, but it was the direction I had hoped to see 3rd edition go in, just made cleaner and more balanced - A saner, intuitive and far more modular version of 2nd edition.

The D20 mechanic was a great innovation to D&D that is for keeps, but 3rd edition introduced a tyranny of numbers that changed the style of play too much for me. class Bonuses stacking with item bonuses on top of more bonuses - numberlicious. Prestige classes, which should have been a great platform for flavour and roleplaying, somehow ended up adding to the stacking bloat.

I am as excited for 5ed as I've ever been for a roleplaying game - It looks like it really could turn into my ideal version of D&D - A mix of 2nd and 3rd edition for all the modularity you could want, sans number tyranny, with the option of scaling back to something much closer to OD&D (which, for various reasons, has a simplicity I also have a love for, concurrent with my desire for a more complex system) - Just with the benefit of 13 years of experience on how to balance all these things (If 5ed allows you to just make "Basic Fighter" and have him more or less balanced with the rest at 12th lvl, they will have done a great job).

Still a few things I'd like to see tweaked - Kits themes - in a way that allows you to take them at later levels as well to replace prestige classes (and maybe some kits that require higher levels) - And the spellcasting ranger is just not an archetype I recognise from anywhere but the D&D rulebooks. And I have no idea why Monk is still core - doesn't seem archetypical enough for me to be in there.

Other than that, I am well and truly excited. A return to a more restrained core classes and races is a great choice - A PHBII should be easy to write after that, I imagine a DMGII would have lots to add as well.

But what doesn't gets put in the PHB/DMG is imo as important as what does get put in - It sets the tone for a generation of gamers and gives a vision of what is the standard of fantasy for the game - whilst I would happily play a cool anime-style dragonborn Warlock/Warden or whatever and enjoy that, I prefer a D&D that sets a tone where this is a highly unusual and rare character - ie, picked from a dedicated sourcebook.

 

[pemerton]

The list of bugs I mentioned, which everyone here is already aware of, were partially or wholly fixed in 4e, (or new to 4e which didn't exist before) after many years of people complaining about them. CoDZilla, Fighters being lame at high levels, wizards not having at-wills : those were all "fixed". But, were they fixed in the right way? IMO, no. They went too far. They went with a "paradigm shift" mentality, which threw out the baby with the bathwater and created a game that at the table feels completely different and loses its essential nature.

This is hugely contentious.

I outlined my history with D&D a little bit upthread. For me, 4e doesn't make the game feel completely different at all, nor lose its essential nature. It's the best system I've yet used for achieving the gonzo fantasy feel of D&D.

In other words, your tastes and your subjective responses to various forms of RPG mechanic aren't universally shared.

if you don't have a power or a feat to do it, you simply can't without a house rule

As [MENTION=3457]teitan[/MENTION] pointed out, this is just not true. I mean, the DMG has a section headed "Actions the rules don't cover" (page 42) and the Rules Compendium lists examples of improvisational uses of skills. With its standardised DCs and standardised damage values, the game absolutely supports improvised action resolution.