J. Tweet's comments on Swords & Wizardry

[stuart]

An interesting post from Jonathan Tweet (designer for D&D 3e) on his recent experiences playing Swords & Wizardry -- which is a clone of Original D&D with tidied up rules.

The game has a lot of warts, but it played really fast. Combat was arbitrary but it was blessedly fast. We didn't use miniatures. That's a break with tradition, but it seems to represent a bald refusal to be realistic and or attempt simulation. The interesting thing is that we can now approach the original D&D rules knowing everything we know about game design and role playing. Used judiciously, the system works and is simple, just what you need for a more story-oriented game. I think there are some interesting possibilities along these lines.

The problem with such games is that there's a lot of bad stuff that people are nostalgic for. For every bad rule that you might want to strip out, there are people who won't think your OD&D is original enough if you don't have it. Swords & Wizardry even has two AC systems that it uses side-by-side: the old-fashioned 9-down system that they have to include for tradition's sake and the 10+ system that they have to include because it's just clearly better.

Miniatures are fun, but I found the idea that *not* using them was "a bald refusal to be realistic and or attempt simulation" was a very strange idea. Sometimes I think people are using these words (eg. realistic, simulation) to mean vastly different things from each other.

 

[mhensley]

He says this stuff like he never played D&D before 3rd edition, which I think explains a lot about 3rd and 4th edition design decisions.

 

[ExploderWizard]

[More from Tweet]
Added 5 July 09: For the record, the "bad stuff" I'm referring to is stuff like: too much arithmetic (5% XP bonus, copper pieces, etc.), wonky XP progression per class, too-random character creation, and poor class balance. It also has the problem that didn't get fixed until 4e: all spells are daily, which makes spellcasters play too differently from the fighters.[End quote]

This tells me that despite all the history and game design knowledge that Mr. Tweet has, he really doesn't understand old school gaming.

Spell casters play differently from fighters. This is a problem?

 

[stuart]

He says this stuff like he never played D&D before 3rd edition, which I think explains a lot about 3rd and 4th edition design decisions.

I would have thought anyone designing a new edition of D&D would be VERY familiar with all the previous editions. I remember seeing Mike Mearls post about how the 4e team sat down and played OD&D.

 

[Maggan]

He says this stuff like he never played D&D before 3rd edition, which I think explains a lot about 3rd and 4th edition design decisions.

Tweet wrote some books for AD&D2nd edition.

Jonathan Tweet :: Pen & Paper RPG Database

Although that doesn't prove that he actually played the game he was writing for, there is a good chance that he did in fact play D&D before 3e.

/M

 

[Vigilance]

He says this stuff like he never played D&D before 3rd edition, which I think explains a lot about 3rd and 4th edition design decisions.

I'm not really sure how you get that from what he's saying.

And he's right on the whole.

A lot of the changes made for 3e and 4e are improvements.

Of course, by fixing the old bugs you create all new bugs, but that's the way living in an imperfect world goes.

 

[Riley]

I don't get the impression that he is unfamiliar with the old games (at least AD&D) - just that he is looking back a long time after moving on to more modern incarnations.

It's the same kind of response that I get when I look back through the old books on my shelves.

 

[ggroy]

I would have thought anyone designing a new edition of D&D would be VERY familiar with all the previous editions.

Maybe this time around, they wanted to start from a "clean slate" in designing 4E?

The easiest way to do this is to hire people who are clearly ignorant about older editions and the history of the game.

 

[Maggan]

The easiest way to do this is to hire people who are clearly ignorant about older editions and the history of the game.

Enticing as that theory may be to some, I don't think Tweet was involved in designing 4e.

/M

 

[stuart]

Maybe this time around, they wanted to start from a "clean slate" in designing 4E?

The easiest way to do this is to hire people who are clearly ignorant about older editions and the history of the game.

Mearls isn't ignorant of older editions. Pretty sure that applies to the rest of the 4e team.

A lot of people (like me) started in the early 80s with Moldvay/Mentzer Basic and then moved onto AD&D. I don't think it'd be uncommon for people to have played every version of D&D *except* OD&D -- although the differences between Basic, AD&D and OD&D aren't that great from what I've seen.