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I for one hope we don't get "clarification" on many things.
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<blockquote data-quote="sunshadow21" data-source="post: 6371768" data-attributes="member: 6667193"><p>It also hurts a lot of people who can't play in a regular home game for a variety of reasons and/or use the forums/email as their main method of playing. Relying on DM judgment in a forum based game for every little detail like 5E seems to be requiring would suck, and it will limit what is becoming a major environment for playing these games. So organized play is not the only thing hurt; it effects a lot of would be players.</p><p></p><p>And simply not using a mechanic because it it relies too much on DM judgment is not a valid answer, not for something as major as stealth mechanics which is going to come up in every group and every adventure at some point. It can work for a lot of things, but not something like that. </p><p></p><p>In the end, I have to fall on the side that rules first, with the caveat that the rules are to the point, clearly understood, and it's reasonably easy to see what changes could easily be made and what effects those changes would have. That gives both sides a starting point to work from. The DM can and should always go through before starting a campaign and figure out what, if any, changes need to be made for that specific campaign and group, and communicate that to the players to maintain the shared baseline. Someone up the thread a bit said it best when they said they wanted to play a different story each time, not a different game entirely. Players need to be able to have a fair bit of control over not only what options they have, but how likely those options are to succeed if those options are to mean anything. A vague "it's up to the DM to determine precisely how this is going to interact with the world" is not very solid ground for a player to be standing on.</p><p></p><p>I don't think this is necessarily bad, but it is an important and major limitation. The DMG is going to have be the absolute best book WotC has ever published in order for this system to have a chance to appeal to players (as opposed to DMs) long term. It's one of the biggest mistakes they made with 4E, and I am a bit surprised to see them making it again. Making DMs happy is important, but without players feeling engaged (and I never really got the impression that they were in 4E; sure, people had fun, but I don't recall seeing anyone who was just a player actively defending and supporting 4E, ever; it was always DMs or someone who played on both sides of the screen), it's just another system and once the new shine wears off, there are other systems out there that achieve being rules light and player friendly at the same time. No matter how strong the brand name is, it won't be easy for a DM wanting to run D&D to win that battle if the players just want to have fun and feel like they can find just as much fun or more with something else. Throw in the increased importance of organized play and playing over the internet to catch those not able to commit to a full time regular game, and the lack of clarification so many seek will end being a major limiter to the overall success of the system. People who have the interest, the time, and/or the local community to support a strong DM oriented system that relies heavily on consistently playing face to face with the same group is not all that large of a group, and it's probably getting smaller as the average age of the gamer reaches into adulthood. </p><p></p><p>If WotC is content to have made an updated version of the original game that will appeal to the same type of people it originally did, they have succeeded very well. Beyond that, though, they may have problems. If they were even remotely interested in winning over the 3.x/PF/OGL crowd, they haven't shown it yet. Even the 4E crowd seems a bit shaky. The DMG will be the telling point in whether or not they win over these crowds sufficiently to have reached their goal of being a unifying game that everyone can be happy playing. The response will probably also shape just how much clarification we get going forward. If it remains mostly the pre 3rd edition crowd, we'll likely see virtually none; it clearly has a level of support that WotC is happy with right now, and they aren't likely to jeopardize that to chase a group of players that probably wasn't on their radar much anyway. If they manage to get those that have splintered off more recently, more clarification will be needed to retain that particular crowd; that crowd is going to get tired of the whole "let the DM decide" approach, and if WotC wants to get and retain them, more clarification and codification will be required, and probably sooner rather than later.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="sunshadow21, post: 6371768, member: 6667193"] It also hurts a lot of people who can't play in a regular home game for a variety of reasons and/or use the forums/email as their main method of playing. Relying on DM judgment in a forum based game for every little detail like 5E seems to be requiring would suck, and it will limit what is becoming a major environment for playing these games. So organized play is not the only thing hurt; it effects a lot of would be players. And simply not using a mechanic because it it relies too much on DM judgment is not a valid answer, not for something as major as stealth mechanics which is going to come up in every group and every adventure at some point. It can work for a lot of things, but not something like that. In the end, I have to fall on the side that rules first, with the caveat that the rules are to the point, clearly understood, and it's reasonably easy to see what changes could easily be made and what effects those changes would have. That gives both sides a starting point to work from. The DM can and should always go through before starting a campaign and figure out what, if any, changes need to be made for that specific campaign and group, and communicate that to the players to maintain the shared baseline. Someone up the thread a bit said it best when they said they wanted to play a different story each time, not a different game entirely. Players need to be able to have a fair bit of control over not only what options they have, but how likely those options are to succeed if those options are to mean anything. A vague "it's up to the DM to determine precisely how this is going to interact with the world" is not very solid ground for a player to be standing on. I don't think this is necessarily bad, but it is an important and major limitation. The DMG is going to have be the absolute best book WotC has ever published in order for this system to have a chance to appeal to players (as opposed to DMs) long term. It's one of the biggest mistakes they made with 4E, and I am a bit surprised to see them making it again. Making DMs happy is important, but without players feeling engaged (and I never really got the impression that they were in 4E; sure, people had fun, but I don't recall seeing anyone who was just a player actively defending and supporting 4E, ever; it was always DMs or someone who played on both sides of the screen), it's just another system and once the new shine wears off, there are other systems out there that achieve being rules light and player friendly at the same time. No matter how strong the brand name is, it won't be easy for a DM wanting to run D&D to win that battle if the players just want to have fun and feel like they can find just as much fun or more with something else. Throw in the increased importance of organized play and playing over the internet to catch those not able to commit to a full time regular game, and the lack of clarification so many seek will end being a major limiter to the overall success of the system. People who have the interest, the time, and/or the local community to support a strong DM oriented system that relies heavily on consistently playing face to face with the same group is not all that large of a group, and it's probably getting smaller as the average age of the gamer reaches into adulthood. If WotC is content to have made an updated version of the original game that will appeal to the same type of people it originally did, they have succeeded very well. Beyond that, though, they may have problems. If they were even remotely interested in winning over the 3.x/PF/OGL crowd, they haven't shown it yet. Even the 4E crowd seems a bit shaky. The DMG will be the telling point in whether or not they win over these crowds sufficiently to have reached their goal of being a unifying game that everyone can be happy playing. The response will probably also shape just how much clarification we get going forward. If it remains mostly the pre 3rd edition crowd, we'll likely see virtually none; it clearly has a level of support that WotC is happy with right now, and they aren't likely to jeopardize that to chase a group of players that probably wasn't on their radar much anyway. If they manage to get those that have splintered off more recently, more clarification will be needed to retain that particular crowd; that crowd is going to get tired of the whole "let the DM decide" approach, and if WotC wants to get and retain them, more clarification and codification will be required, and probably sooner rather than later. [/QUOTE]
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I for one hope we don't get "clarification" on many things.
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