D&D 5E Different approach to buying the core books in 5E

[Elf Witch]

Why do you think that I dislike all the stuff before it? Or was this not directed at me?

AD&D was a great game, and I enjoyed playing it. 3.X was an even better game, and I enjoyed playing it. 4E was better still, and I love playing it.

Each and every edition has had its flaws, and 4E is no exception. But Cook had blatantly never even read 4E (passive perception is on the FRONT OF EVERY CHARACTER SHEET) and with him at the helm, 5E would obviously lack anything that 4E just did better than every previous edition.

That part was not directed at you at all it was at the 4E fans who really dislike what came before.

That is not a criticism directed at them just like I don't like 4E they have every right not to like an older edition it all comes down to taste.

So what if Monte has never read any 4E there are designers on the project who have and I think they would have been able to balance things.

Monte represent to me the people who played before 4E and didn't like most of the changes it made me feel better that there was someone on the design team who was not involved in 4E.

 

[GreyICE]

That part was not directed at you at all it was at the 4E fans who really dislike what came before.

That is not a criticism directed at them just like I don't like 4E they have every right not to like an older edition it all comes down to taste.

So what if Monte has never read any 4E there are designers on the project who have and I think they would have been able to balance things.

Monte represent to me the people who played before 4E and didn't like most of the changes it made me feel better that there was someone on the design team who was not involved in 4E.

Not having worked on 4E isn't the problem.

It's when he'd present new and exciting ideas for his audience that were BASIC FEATURES of 4E presented in the PLAYER'S HANDBOOK that lead me to have this feeling that no one on the design team knew jack about the game I loved. I mean didn't Monte show the article to anyone? Anyone at all? Did no one say "err, Monte? Your cool idea? Yeah, that's how D&D has worked for the past 4 years."

It also makes him look totally incompetent.

 

[Lanefan]

I voted that I'd buy the core three come hell or high water but that actually only applies to two: I'll buy the PH and the DMG, and leave the jury out on the MM as of the three it's the one I'd likely need the least. (if I can't dream up enough monsters out of all the previous MMs I should probably get out from behind the screen)

If I end up actually running 5e then I'll probably find myself buying the MM and maybe a setting book or two as well.

Lanefan

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think you're putting a lot of emotion into one ill-advised comment Monte made. I prefer to look back on all the awesome and brilliant stuff he's written. Monte's proved himself many times over.

 

[GreyICE]

I think you're putting a lot of emotion into one ill-advised comment Monte made. I prefer to look back on all the awesome and brilliant stuff he's written. Monte's proved himself many times over.

It was an entire article. And it wasn't the only example. He proved time and again he had never really played 4E, or made any effort to understand how 4E worked, and that alone made him entirely unsuited to create an RPG that 'united every edition.'

I mean as a 3.X player, how would you feel if someone wrote an article about a nifty mechanic where wizards, instead of getting encounter powers, got a whole lot of daily powers from lists of possible daily powers, and suggested maybe as wizards gained levels they could get those dailies from higher power lists, as well as getting more from the low power lists?

Because that's how painful reading Cook's articles were.

I mean lets put that in perspective. Monte Cook is taken aboard to help design 5E. He gets a new column, Legends and Lore. He devotes his very first article to introducing his idea for a brand new gameplay mechanic. A brand new gameplay mechanic that 4E has used for the ENTIRE HISTORY OF 4E. He presents this as a new innovation that 5E might use. That was his grand introduction to the community.

Oh yeah, his second article was about making magical items optional, something the Dark Sun campaign setting and DMG 2 had done YEARS ago. He presented this as something new to the history of D&D.

His third was about removing the 'every PC is an island' model of 3E and replacing it with a model where other players had core abilities designed to help the party as a whole.

I kept waiting for the "surprise! Each one of these is an actually already in 4E" article, but it never came. I think he thought he was discussing something BRAND NEW. Frankly his name was dog dirt to most serious 4E players, and not for 'no reason,' or because he created 3E. He was given a forum to present his ideas, and each one of his ideas demonstrated that he'd NEVER EVEN PLAYED A 4E CAMPAIGN.

One would think at least playing a 4E campaign would be a prerequisite for the man who was supposed to lead the design of the 'edition to unite all editions.' But from reading his articles, you got the distinct impression he meant 'unite AD&D players with 3E players.' Hysterically, by developing bad versions of a lot of the mechanics 4E used.

 

[Savage Wombat]

Sorry, can't agree with you. You're talking about a man who has admitted that he can't keep constantly fresh in his mind every variation of the rules that actually made it into the books, as opposed to every rule he's tried out, playtested, proposed, written about, put into another book, or otherwise used but not necessarily published in the final copy.

Sounds pretty human to me.

Monte didn't design 4e. He didn't even (iirc) design 3.5. We don't know what he's played, and whether he's more of an expert on a particular system than you, who clearly plays it considerably.

He doesn't need to, because he doesn't need 4e system mastery to design 5e. He can have people working for him who do. If he didn't represent your interests, then hopefully the design process feedback would let him know that. His job was to provide vision and leadership. His job was to be familiar with the high concept of RPG design, not any one particular system.

So weekly columns on gaming pablum weren't his strong point. It doesn't invalidate his design experience.

 

[underfoot007ct]

Sorry, can't agree with you. You're talking about a man who has admitted that he can't keep constantly fresh in his mind every variation of the rules that actually made it into the books, as opposed to every rule he's tried out, playtested, proposed, written about, put into another book, or otherwise used but not necessarily published in the final copy.

Sounds pretty human to me.

Monte didn't design 4e. He didn't even (iirc) design 3.5. We don't know what he's played, and whether he's more of an expert on a particular system than you, who clearly plays it considerably.

He doesn't need to, because he doesn't need 4e system mastery to design 5e. He can have people working for him who do. If he didn't represent your interests, then hopefully the design process feedback would let him know that. His job was to provide vision and leadership. His job was to be familiar with the high concept of RPG design, not any one particular system.

So weekly columns on gaming pablum weren't his strong point. It doesn't invalidate his design experience.

IIRC, the 3E design team was Jon Tweet, Skip Williams & Monte Cook.

 

[GreyICE]

Sorry, can't agree with you. You're talking about a man who has admitted that he can't keep constantly fresh in his mind every variation of the rules that actually made it into the books, as opposed to every rule he's tried out, playtested, proposed, written about, put into another book, or otherwise used but not necessarily published in the final copy.

Sounds pretty human to me.

Monte didn't design 4e. He didn't even (iirc) design 3.5. We don't know what he's played, and whether he's more of an expert on a particular system than you, who clearly plays it considerably.

He doesn't need to, because he doesn't need 4e system mastery to design 5e. He can have people working for him who do. If he didn't represent your interests, then hopefully the design process feedback would let him know that. His job was to provide vision and leadership. His job was to be familiar with the high concept of RPG design, not any one particular system.

So weekly columns on gaming pablum weren't his strong point. It doesn't invalidate his design experience.

This is not a matter of 'forgetting little things about the editions.' Everyone forgets little things about the editions. Whether a spell was in 3.X. Whether you provoke opportunity attacks for untrained disarm attempts. Etc, etc, etc.

Those would be forgivable things to forget.

No, this would be the equivalent of forgetting that Wizards were Vancian Casters. Combined with the raw garbage of some of the articles (seriously, read Getting the Most out of Rules to learn exactly how many words you can spend on an article that could be summarized in one sentence (We need to have clear and defined, readable rules mixed with fun and engaging flavor, and that's really quite difficult) and you might understand why I considered him a blight on the entire process. And I was not alone.

Anyway, this is rather tangental. But lets just say I have some hope again for 5E, but won't be rushing to buy the books unless the playtest impresses the hell out of me.

 

[Dannager]

So what if Monte has never read any 4E there are designers on the project who have and I think they would have been able to balance things.

I would consider it problematic (to say the least) if one of the game's lead designers was this unfamiliar with the current state of the industry. To have not made oneself intimately familiar with 4e when you are personally charged with developing its successor strikes me as lunacy. I'm not saying it's true (we've seen evidence that it might have been, but we don't know for sure), but it certainly gives one pause. And I definitely don't think it's something to be defended as a smart choice.

 

[Elf Witch]

I would consider it problematic (to say the least) if one of the game's lead designers was this unfamiliar with the current state of the industry. To have not made oneself intimately familiar with 4e when you are personally charged with developing its successor strikes me as lunacy. I'm not saying it's true (we've seen evidence that it might have been, but we don't know for sure), but it certainly gives one pause. And I definitely don't think it's something to be defended as a smart choice.

Has Monte actually came out and said he does not know anything about 4E or is this just people reading between the lines?

He has been a game designer for a long time I don't think it would take much for him to be able to grasp what the other designers are saying.