D&D 5E D&D Next: The Toolbox Edition (What's not to like?)

[Ahnehnois]

To be honest, goals are always sound good, whatever edition you talk about. The important thing is to achieve said goals.

What they do is indeed more important than what they say. But frankly, I did not agree with the basic goals they laid out for 4e, so a mission statement to the effect of inclusiveness and playability (as opposed to balancing the game no matter what) is a significant statement.

 

[Li Shenron]

1) an adventure module is published. On the back cover, they spend 44 lines of text telling you they use rule a but not b and module c for combat is required and the magic system the bad guys use is module a again, ad nauseum and they have no room to tell you what the cool adventure is. Inside, the adventure writers have to spend 16 extra pages of notes on "if you don't use this feature, replace it with that feature" stuff.

A reasonable concern, but I am definitely optimistic.

There will presumably two types of modularity: PC/NPC/monster design, and running the game.

Regarding the first, I don't think adventures will make much difference. The players are still going to be able to use their PC whether they created them as basic or as complicated as possible. NPC and monsters provided by the adventure will be pre-designed, and the DM at worst may have to check how some specific high-complexity ability works. However I think most NPC/monsters provided by adventures will be fairly low-complexity exactly so that they can work in everybody's game.

2) I'm a player looking for a new game, or a DM recruiting. Right now, I say "I run 3.5e, E6 version". Anyone who doesn't understand can ask "What's E6?"

Under DnDN I might spend 5 minutes laying out what I do and don't allow or use in my campaign, just to explain WHAT GAME we're playing.

If they can minimize these issues, I'm definitely in favor of where 5e seems to be going.

I don't think there'll be a hundred modules in core. It's very possible that "rules modules" will be just between 10-20, so it might take 10 minutes to explain them. The point is that something like using or banning a single feat or spell is not really modularity as they intend when they talk about 5e. Modularity mostly regards entire sub-set of the rules, although they can be small sub-sets, but still things such as using a variant for running combat with more details on tactical movement, or a variant for HP and life/death rules with different conditions, or a variant on healing (rests, surges) to allow seamless combat during a day...

Smaller changes (yes/no to individual character options) can be just called House Rules as usual, and a DM who likes using tens of them will still take the same amount of time as in previous editions to explain them all out.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

It is not perfect, but I suppose another option for monsters is:

1. Monster manuals are the place to provide different levels of complexity. You get basic version, and then options detailed. Got to fill up those pages. Even if you are only using the simple version for combat, you might mine the more complex parts for flavor and/or ad hoc rulings.
2. Adventures always include the simple version inline with the adventure text. This serves as a pointer to the monster manual if you want to use the more complex options.
3. Where the adventure includes a new (or substantially changed) creature, they include a mini monster manual appendix. If it is too large to justify the page count, they might make it a digital supplement.
4. Where this breaks down, you are expected to do what you've always done when "converting". Substitute another complex monster that is a good fit, design one yourself, grab supplemental fan material, etc.

I'm not wild about monster appendices, but I'm also not wild about the 4E delve format, nor the 3E-style insertion of long monster listings inline. It's a pain to flip, but it is also a pain to break up the adventure text with lots of stats. So a compromise of simple stuff inline with references elsewhere to more details might be the best we can get. In any case, it worked well enough for early D&D.