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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mercurius" data-source="post: 6065070" data-attributes="member: 59082">As I sit here enjoying a white Christmas in New England and watching my two daughters playing with their new toys (and eating the too much candy "Santa" gave them)--and also waiting for the crepe batter to set--I have a few thoughts about D&D and such.I've been thinking about D&D Next and its relationship to other editions, as well as the possible future(s) for the current 4E Crowd. It struck me that there is a kind of oscillation between editions having to do with how "tightly constructed" the game is, how much the game is tightly woven vs. more loose and open. For instance, AD&D 1E was very loose - it had a rambling rules system with all sorts of add ons. 2E tried to tighten and streamline, jettisoning certain "fiddly parts" and making the system more cohesive (actually, one could say that it goes back further, with OD&D being more open and B/X being more tightly woven).3E initially seemed tightly woven in that it had a core mechanic, yet it was because of its core mechanic that it became very loose and open-ended, easily customized and, of course, the basis for tons of alternate rules and hundreds of OGL d20 games.4E returned to a more tightly focused rules system. While it still followed the d20 mechanic, its secondary systems were all tightly woven around it; it is more difficult to pick and choose, to add or subtract - it was very streamlined and cohesive in its structure.There is a dynamic that can be seen in systems - whether in nature, in human cultural or societal systems, basically systems of any kind. It is an oscillation back and forth between extremes, a yin-yang dynamic. In the school I work at this has shown up as an oscillation over many years of more conservative to more liberal policies and ideologies (and employees, really), and back again, over and over again - year after year. This is quite natural and even healthy, yet I keep wondering if it is possible to exist on a "higher order"--a Hegelian synthesis--that incorporates the best of both extremes but doesn't fall into one or the other. Now I think to some extent, each new iteration of a system does do this - it takes at least some of the old as its basis (thesis) and brings new elements into it (antithesis) and from that we have a new game (synthesis). Occasionally this becomes a regression; something vital was lost and a step backward has occured (many feel that this was the case with 4E, although I tend to feel that there was both a loss and gain with 4E). Which brings me to D&D Next. For me the big question is whether they can really pull off what they've essentially said they're trying to pull off: integrate the best of all editions, especially 3.x and 4E, and thus both "streams" of the dynamic I mentioned above: the more tightly focused and the more open-ended and freeform. Now it seems that 5E, at least relative to 4E, will continue the trend of going from tight-to-loose, so it will continue the oscillation. But can it do so while integrating the best of 4E, in particular its streamlined quality and playability? Some have said that 3.x is more "simulationist" and 4E more "gamist", which is why many of the 3.x fans were turned off. "My fighter has daily powers? What's up with that?" Yet for those who enjoy 4E, a major part of it is what the "AEDU Paradigm" allows for - a more tactical combat experience.And that, I think, is one of the areas where we'll be able to tell if 5E is a higher order or just another variant: Can it include the key component of powers - which give all classes, even non-spellcasting ones, interesting and different things to do in each round, yet without the "gamist" abstraction?Just some grist for the mill on this Christmas Day...</blockquote>

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