Ethos for a New Edition

[Tony Vargas]

If in 5e, martial characters suck then the design team have been lazy (and to me they have not come across as being lazy). It is not difficult for martial/mundane characters to perform powerful, significant yet believable actions. There is absolutely no reason for fighters to suck in the pursuit of verisimilitude.

In the honest persuit of faithfulness to genre, none at all.

In fact, it's harder to include casters as viable characters in a genre-faithful FRPG than to include martial ones.

There's some sort of inexplicable, deeply-seated prejudice in the D&D community, though, that says magic isn't magic, unless martial sucks.

I've heard theories that it's some sort of nerd vs jocks thing, or that it's elitism, or that it's just nostalgia for how badly balanced the game was in its early days. :shrug:

Whatever the reason, 4e pushed for equality too hard, too fast and has paid the ultimate price.

 

[BobTheNob]

Two minor points....

Lieber (6'4" and 200+ lbs.) was Fahfrd, whereas Harry Otto Fischer was the Mouser.

And Faramir isn't really a Mary Sue, nor a main character. So if Tolkien identified with Faramir, he basically relegated himself to playing a strictly supporting role. That said, Faramir is one of my favorite characters in the story.

Actually, Tolkein was Beren, and it's also the name on his gravestone (with his wife having Luthian on her grave)

 

[tuxgeo]

I posted the following "Ethos for a New Edition", almost four years ago on these boards in a towards 5E thread. Looking at it again and what is being talked about by Monte, his team, and the smatterings of playtester posts, I cannot help but smile with hope that D&D Next is going to be the edition for me. I honestly think they are setting themselves up to nail it!

Ethos for a New Edition

< . . . snippage of many insightful and prescient points! . . . >

Your thoughts?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Not quoting the whole thing, but offering these comments:

o It is fine for magic to be "mysterious"; but the "dark" quality of it is only applicable in the same sense that any closed book is "dark" until it is opened: The light shineth upon any opened page. In an age when few can read letters at all (=rampant illiteracy), few can read grimoires.

o Yay for characters' identities' being defined by inner sources, not their items. Fully agree.

o Rules and flavor cannot be in symbiosis when the players are free to reflavor everything at will -- which they are.

o Fantasy Pillars: stretching among Tolkien and Vance and Howard and the others is fine, but it should stretch a bit beyond those. You left out Poul Anderson and Michael Moorcock; but many more authors should also be included. (Eddings for extreme Sorcery. Glen Cook for semi-mundane Companions among evil spellcasters. And beyond -- far beyond.)

o Generally, making the character you want is a great ideal; but the actuality will always be limited by page-count. We can hope for good things. Ultimately, making it possible to create absolutely "any character" would change the game so much that it wouldn't be recognizably D&D anymore.

I largely agree with the rest of the points. Good foresight on your part, Mr. the Wise!

 

[Sunseeker]

o Magic is mysterious and dark once more; rather than the safe hum-drum technology of the fantasy world.

I disagree. The level of magic needs to be dependent upon the world in question. That's what makes the game interesting, the variety. Not one singular way to approach a given subject in every given situation.

o The days of character’s being defined by their suite of magical items instead of their skills and heroics are gone.

Eh, again, this is situational. It plays into the above, that's for certain, but in situations or settings where magic is not "dark and mysterious" I don't think this is necessary.

o Adventuring is inherently not safe; combat encounters should present danger to the characters – the safety net must go.

Safety net? Like how you don't die until you drop below -X health?
Like how no matter how beat up you get you never get wounded?

Honestly the problem here is that removing these perceived "Saftey nets" starts to impact not just how characters are played, but how players percieve their characters, since things like wounds actually physically happen to their characters. When a game starts stepping on the perception of the PC it starts feeling less and less like the players have any real say in the game.

Honestly without specifics I think this is mostly personal perception. Run a dangerous game if you want. Run a safe game if you want. Run a heroic game if you want. These are decisions that should be left up to the individual games, not forced upon the genre as a whole.

o The assumption of miniatures and a battlemap should not be implicit in the ruleset; the rules must also be able to support those groups who prefer the landscape of the mind.

I agree that if a group wants to be more "role-play-ey" that they should be able to do that, but honestly you can't really achieve tactical play without a visualization of the combat.

o Whilst no specific world is given, the rules should allow for one that sits between Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, Vance’s Lyonesse and Dying Earth series, Howard’s Conan Stories, Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series, Williams’ Memory, Sorrow and Thorn, Erikson’s Malazan series and Fritz Leiber’s Stories of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser; and be able to stretch to any of these fabulous fantasy pillars.

The game should indeed be adaptable to any setting. Unfortunately, almost all of your points up till now(and including the next one) are strongly against that level of flexibility.

o Verisimilitude is not a dirty word; a certain logic to the fantasy world should be upheld.

Whose logic exactly?
Don't answer, it's rhetorical. There's no One Logic to rule them all, attempting to establish one is just bold-faced "In-my-opinionism". There's no right answer to fantasy, that's why it's called fantasy and not "history". Particle physics in my fantasy game? Sure! In some other guy's? Up to him.

o Character creation must be flexible; the ability to meld many different but viable character ideas should be encouraged, rather than feeling pressured to focus on a couple of "optimised builds".

o Players should feel that they can develop a character that is both effective in combat and interesting out of combat – rather than either/or.

Agreed.

o The game economy must make sense and feel real; rather than being a calculated spoon-fed wealth lacking in true achievement.

I'll go out on a limb here and doubt that most RPG players are economists, or have even a basic grasp of any single economic theory, much less the plural. Lacking achievement is dependent upon each and every game.

o The game cannot afford for some classes to dominate at the expense of others at more powerful levels; and nor should the answer be compressing the classes into homogenized lumps of roughly equal measure.

o The game also cannot afford for rules to unmanageably bloat at higher levels with the time taken to resolve this vast array bloating as well.

o And most of all and above all else, the game must be fun!

Agreed, 110% on that last one especially.

Your thoughts?

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

Honestly you seem to be going back and forth between thinking that there is a specific manner in which every game should function, and suggesting that each player and game should be unique to them. Some of the differences between your points are nearly irreconcilable, others aren't.

 

[Dannager]

If in 5e, martial characters suck then the design team have been lazy (and to me they have not come across as being lazy). It is not difficult for martial/mundane characters to perform powerful, significant yet believable actions. There is absolutely no reason for fighters to suck in the pursuit of verisimilitude.

Here's the issue as I see it.

You have spellcasters, who use magic. Magic can basically do anything. In fact, if your magic system doesn't allow magic to be used to do anything, it's typically seen as incomplete.

Then you have non-spellcasters, who use things that are not magic. Sure, they might have a handful of magic items, but we're already talking about a magic item system that is largely beyond the players' control, so they are not to be relied upon. Non-spellcasters can really only do such things as are believable (in some cases, perhaps, Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not believable, but believable all the same) in the real world.

The problem is that these two groups have to interact. Each group has to be able to challenge (and potentially overcome) the other in the normal course of play.

This is no problem for spellcasters. Magic can do anything, including turning a spellcaster into a melee monster, or just outright killing a non-spellcaster with an offensive spell.

This is a problem for non-spellcasters. Remember, magic can do anything. A magic system that does not allow you to fly, or turn invisible, will be seen as incomplete by a lot of players. And that flying, that turning-invisible, those things are very, very hard to compete with from a non-spellcaster's perspective.

It's really a sort of Venn diagram issue - the sphere of control over the world that spellcasters enjoy is complete (or so near to complete as to be indistinguishable from it during the normal course of play), while the sphere of control over the world that non-spellcasters enjoy must be limited or players begin to decry a lack of verisimilitude.

Yes, sure, magic is limited in terms of use. You only have so many spells per day. The fighter can swing his sword forever. That's awesome. But that's not how the assumed course of play in D&D has really ever worked. Spellcasters ration their spells, or supplement them with cheap consumables, and are thus able to extend their effectiveness. But above all, the non-spellcasters are essentially tethered to the effectiveness of their spellcasting companions; the hit in party effectiveness that a party completely out of spells takes is too great to risk continued adventure, and we get the X-minute adventuring day problem.

So for those who need verisimilitude to be a priority: How do you reconcile a personal need for verisimilitude with a professed desire for magic to be powerful and flexible, and a professed desire for non-spellcasters to be viable, exciting, and useful contributing members of the party? You want the villain to be capable of flying, and turning invisible, and protecting-from-arrows himself, because that's the sort of magic D&D ought to have. But where does that leave the non-spellcaster, confined to the bounds of the believable? How does he compete?

 

[Skyscraper]

Partly snipped from the OP:

o Magic is mysterious and dark once more; rather than the safe hum-drum technology of the fantasy world.

o Rules and flavour should be in symbiosis with one another, rather than in competition or strained accord.

o Streamline for elegance, not to bash complexity into vague simplicity.

o Character creation must be flexible; the ability to meld many different but viable character ideas should be encouraged, rather than feeling pressured to focus on a couple of "optimised builds".

o Players should feel that they can develop a character that is both effective in combat and interesting out of combat – rather than either/or.

o The game economy must make sense and feel real; rather than being a calculated spoon-fed wealth lacking in true achievement.

o The game cannot afford for some classes to dominate at the expense of others at more powerful levels; and nor should the answer be compressing the classes into homogenized lumps of roughly equal measure.

o The game also cannot afford for rules to unmanageably bloat at higher levels with the time taken to resolve this vast array bloating as well.

o And most of all and above all else, the game must be fun!

Those are pretty general statements there. With hindsight, I can tell what you are referring to with regards to certain D&D editions, but really, general statements such as : I'd like for the game to include characters effective in and out of combat; or I'd like for classes to neither be equal nor unbalanced... Well, that's pretty much like asking for Peace on Earth. In theory, pretty much every single living soul will agree, it's getting there that's kind of complicated.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

Here's the issue as I see it.

You have spellcasters, who use magic. Magic can basically do anything. In fact, if your magic system doesn't allow magic to be used to do anything, it's typically seen as incomplete.

Here's the thing though, what if magic can do anything... eventually. Part of the problem from earlier editions to 3e is that spellcasting has become automatic with a reduced chance of interruption. That problem was compounded by most players not seeking to take advantage of the ways how you could disrupt casting. 4e did a great job of separating out rituals from "spells" but then didn't capitalize on it. I sincerely hope that D&Dn continues with this distinction. If rituals are powerful but take time, resources and planning, and spells are cast but are easier to disrupt, then I think you start bringing back the combat power level of casters to their more mundane colleagues.

Then you have non-spellcasters, who use things that are not magic. Sure, they might have a handful of magic items, but we're already talking about a magic item system that is largely beyond the players' control, so they are not to be relied upon. Non-spellcasters can really only do such things as are believable (in some cases, perhaps, Ripley's Believe-It-Or-Not believable, but believable all the same) in the real world.

Why can't non-spellcasters be good with the resources they are good at: loads of hit points to avoid being affected, better defenses that increase in a mundane way (skill bonuses to AC) rather than capping out and relying on magic to take them the rest of the way? Why not use the bulk of stuff from 4e that IS believable, fun and makes mundane characters interesting to play as well as poweful?

The problem is that these two groups have to interact. Each group has to be able to challenge (and potentially overcome) the other in the normal course of play.

This is no problem for spellcasters. Magic can do anything, including turning a spellcaster into a melee monster, or just outright killing a non-spellcaster with an offensive spell.

Make the melee-monster-magic a ritual that takes an hour and uses resources. Or you could take it further and make it usable only from a scroll, where a scroll is not a spell or ritual impressed upon vellum but is its own individual thing, unreplicable as either spell or ritual.

You need to learn how to make this scroll and you don't make it easy. It might take years of study, expensive resources or be incredibly specialized requiring a whole bunch of pre-requisites or all of these. Crafting the scroll takes time and it might not be 100% effective all the time, it might have side effects. A caster using it might not be certain of what they get, that is part of what I was referring to as far as magic being dark and mysterious.

A swordsman can be confident with his weaponry and his capacity with that weaponry. A wizard might have confidence with certain magic but would be pushing themselves with other magic. Spells don't need to be deadly, they just need to be capable of fizzing, or using further resources of the spellcaster whether it be their capacity or aspects of their health. You make it so that a player cannot spam these special abilities willy-nilly. They only pull them out when necessary rather than be their typical modus operandi.

This is a problem for non-spellcasters. Remember, magic can do anything. A magic system that does not allow you to fly, or turn invisible, will be seen as incomplete by a lot of players. And that flying, that turning-invisible, those things are very, very hard to compete with from a non-spellcaster's perspective.

It does not have to be. What if the introductory spell for flying takes a standard action to sustain meaning a spellcaster can only use move/minor actions and thus the spells they can cast becomes limited to spells castable as minor or move actions? Such spells are obviously less powerful. Or you make Flying a ritual that takes time to cast but only has a short duration. There are so many ways you can limit these spells.

As for the mundane fighter, if he can put an arrow into the caster, perhaps the caster needs to use all of their actions to avoid plummeting? Make flying riskier so the caster needs to rely on circumstances being favourable or being made favourable.

Invisibility might not be 100% perfect. When an invisible character moves, the light might refract around them in a perceptible pattern that perceptive characters have a greater chance to notice.

What I'm getting at here is that you put limits on these spells so that there is an innate fairness to the magic; a fairness that admittedly wasn't necessarily there in previous editions.

It's really a sort of Venn diagram issue - the sphere of control over the world that spellcasters enjoy is complete (or so near to complete as to be indistinguishable from it during the normal course of play), while the sphere of control over the world that non-spellcasters enjoy must be limited or players begin to decry a lack of verisimilitude.

Why can't spellcasters be good at what they are good at which is perhaps a small subset of the "complete" set of magic. Perhaps there is a further subset of magic that they can cast but is uncertain, leaving the rest of the set of magic beyond their reach. Sometimes what they do will be effective but the guarantee of its effectiveness is no longer there.

Yes, sure, magic is limited in terms of use. You only have so many spells per day. The fighter can swing his sword forever. That's awesome. But that's not how the assumed course of play in D&D has really ever worked. Spellcasters ration their spells, or supplement them with cheap consumables, and are thus able to extend their effectiveness.

There are so many ways to limit magic as I've highlighted above. Rationing their use through the Vancian system is really just a small part of what is possible and richly thematic.

But above all, the non-spellcasters are essentially tethered to the effectiveness of their spellcasting companions; the hit in party effectiveness that a party completely out of spells takes is too great to risk continued adventure, and we get the X-minute adventuring day problem.

Extend the capacity for at will spell casting. Also reduce the PCs capacity to control their environment at higher levels. Making shifting/teleporting or MMMing expensive and difficult rather than adventuring macro number one will go a long way to forcing a group to soldier on (rather than the DM having to constantly rehash the "x" is going to happen in "y" hours time trope).

So for those who need verisimilitude to be a priority: How do you reconcile a personal need for verisimilitude with a professed desire for magic to be powerful and flexible, and a professed desire for non-spellcasters to be viable, exciting, and useful contributing members of the party?

You reduce the access and automaticity (making up a word) of spellcasting. It is powerful given optimum conditions, but those optimum conditions are not easily garnered, particularly during combat. Combat needs to be a rough place for the wizard to be.

You want the villain to be capable of flying, and turning invisible, and protecting-from-arrows himself, because that's the sort of magic D&D ought to have. But where does that leave the non-spellcaster, confined to the bounds of the believable? How does he compete?

Protection from arrows in 3e was too powerful. There needs to be a "lesser" version that is like a 4e shield spell but requires actions/resources from the caster to use while the effect lasts. Have the full version be a higher spell that is good against grunts but not as effective against the dedicated archer.

Casters in 3e really had carte blanche in their actions. The thing is, it is not difficult to ratchet this back a step; limiting such magic but still keeping the wondrous essence so that the caster is still "special" enough. You can limit the caster without resorting to the "hp damage plus condition" ethos that turned a significant subset of wizard-lovers off of 4e.

Again I say, it should not be difficult to keep caster-players happy while keeping mundane characters relevant, necessary, powerful, desirable-to-play and significant.

Excellent discussion by the way.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[kitsune9]

I posted the following "Ethos for a New Edition", almost four years ago on these boards in a towards 5E thread.

I think I remember this. Good post!

 

[Herremann the Wise]

o Rules and flavor cannot be in symbiosis when the players are free to reflavor everything at will -- which they are.

I disagree to a point. You just make sure the reflavouring follows the mechanic or does not confuse the intent of the mechanic. However, some spells/effects will be inherently reflavourable (the flavour does not impede the mechanic) while other spells or effects are inherently tied to the mechanic. The symbiosis and tight relationship between the mechanic and flavour should be there in either case.

What is preferable to avoid is putting a veneer over a mechanic that gives a certain perception when the reality of the effect produced is dissimilar.

I think 4e has built a good foundation of reflavouring mechanics that is not necessarily at odds with a good meshing between mechanic and flavour.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise

 

[Skyscraper]

How do you reconcile a personal need for verisimilitude with a professed desire for magic to be powerful and flexible, and a professed desire for non-spellcasters to be viable, exciting, and useful contributing members of the party? You want the villain to be capable of flying, and turning invisible, and protecting-from-arrows himself, because that's the sort of magic D&D ought to have. But where does that leave the non-spellcaster, confined to the bounds of the believable? How does he compete?

I think that the answer ought to be: he doesn't (compete, that is).

I think it's fine for some classes to be unable to compete with others in certain spheres, at certain times, or in certain circumstances. A fighter (of just about any level) unable to compete with a high-level wizard seems pretty logical to me. I've never felt compelled to play a wizard (or a spellcaster) over any other class in 1E and 3E, because the other classes were still fun to play.

I also think that the basic precept that classes ought to be balanced is flawed. A RPG is not about competition anyway. If it was, the DM could simply have all PCs die and be done with it, and he'd win. An RPG is about an experience in gaming where character flaws contribute to the story. This is recognized by many, some gaming systems even include flaws in the core rules (Savage Worlds, for example). If I play a fighter that wishes to defeat a wizard, the idea is not to find a way to slay the invisible, flying, protected-from-arrows mage in a 1v1 battle; it's about finding a way to defeat him when he's not invisible, flying and protected from arrows.

So I think that a wizard outshining a fighter in high-level combat should be expected. The fighter still needs to be in that adventure group when the wizard hasn't cast his protective spells, when the group is low level, and generally he's always pretty useful anyway, in the end. (And many fighters find a way to fly too, ultimately ).