D&D 5E L&L - D&D Next Goals, Part One

[Sunseeker]

So doesn't "core" necessarily mean "incomplete?"

Stripped of the supplemental material, the PHB1 in most editions provides all the materials a player needs to reach the normal maximum level of the game. The DMG provides the DM with the instruction on how to run that game, the MM gives the DM the ability to populate that game. Beyond that, the PHB2, DMG2, MM2, splat books, 3PP material allows you to diversify that game.

But the "Red Box" has traditionally not provided those materials. It provides limited content for a limited gaming experience.

 

[GX.Sigma]

Stripped of the supplemental material, the PHB1 in most editions provides all the materials a player needs to reach the normal maximum level of the game. The DMG provides the DM with the instruction on how to run that game, the MM gives the DM the ability to populate that game. Beyond that, the PHB2, DMG2, MM2, splat books, 3PP material allows you to diversify that game.

But the "Red Box" has traditionally not provided those materials. It provides limited content for a limited gaming experience.

But how is the PHB1 (of any edition) not "limited"? Everything with a page count is limited in some way. It's just a matter of what the page count is, and how you limit things. Naturally, a product with a smaller page count will be more limited than a product with a larger page count, but that doesn't mean it's incomplete.

The original Red Box--and subsequent ones--were incomplete by design, but that doesn't mean any small-box intro product has to be. I hope you'll agree that the original White Box, a very small product with a very limited scope, was a complete game.

 

[Li Shenron]

The danger they face with "modularity" beyond that is how do they create products for people not using all of the modules? So if I'm playing with Modules, A, C and E, will an adventure product cover that? And lets say I'm playing an adventure that's released before Module E was available? Does that mean I have to do significant extra work as GM to make it work?

If you mean rules modules, adventures don't generally need to know which ones you're using.

If you mean character material modules (e.g. additional classes, spells etc), adventures could be written to include those, but just like in the past it won't probably be done.

 

[Li Shenron]

But how is the PHB1 (of any edition) not "limited"? Everything with a page count is limited in some way. It's just a matter of what the page count is, and how you limit things. Naturally, a product with a smaller page count will be more limited than a product with a larger page count, but that doesn't mean it's incomplete.

Of course everything is quantitatively limited, but core books are "complete" in the sense that all other non-setting specific books won't require additional books beyond the core to be fully usable.

There have been few exceptions in the past, and it's been debated what is better: for a hardcore gamer who buys most books it might be better if they cross-reference each other because it can create a large and organic game system, but for those who cherry-pick the books it's not a good thing to have stuff you can't use unless you spend more money.

 

[Li Shenron]

The more I read the L&L article again, and the more confused I get...

Not that I am in a rush to find out what they are going to publish, but certainly my English must be bad because I read hints at completely different things. "We're going to make an RPG product called Dungeons & Dragons" means he's talking about ONE single item (book or box) with a single price tag, right? But does it replace the 3 traditional core books, or will they also be published (in which case I guess "core" will then refer to the single item from now on)?

He says the item is not a sampler but provides the capability to run a full campaign. First, that doesn't tell me at all that it includes a setting or a story arc (and he specifically says it's not a game to run a single adventure, if you have a story arc, that's practically a long adventure, even if you can call it a "campaign"). I think here he just means that the item contains everything from level 1 to the last level... if it ends at level 5, it's clearly a "sampler" isn't it? What if it ends at level 10, is it still a sampler or is it not, on the ground that 10 levels are often enough for a full campaign?

I hardly believe that they mean the item will be huge like Pathfinder, otherwise the price tag will seriously put off most of the potential new players, thus it must be slim, maybe 50-60e max.

So then it must be so that they simply will keep the material limited. Four classes, four races, a minimum number of spells, feats, monsters etc... Only the minimum information for the DM. Very few modules in the core, probably just the narrative combat and tactical combat (otherwise a lot of the D&D usual crowd won't even look at the new edition).

Then I look at the current playtest packet (excluding adventures), and it has a total of 276 pages, with the caveats:
- it's written in fairly large fonts compared to 3ed core books, so can be shrunk a good 20% at least
- some material in the current playtest may be completely removed (no magic items in core?)
+ no narrative combat and tactical combat modules yet
+ no artwork yet

It might be possible to fit everything under 300 pages and 50e if they give up magic items and only put max 100 monsters, but I'm not sure I like the sound of that...

 

[pemerton]

The "core books" of any edition are considered "core" for a reason, because they contain enough information to play a complete game, everything after them is supplemental.

Which is my point, the "Red Box" has traditionally not been a complete product.

That's a matter of perspective. Moldvay Basic indicated that Expert was following, but could be played itself as a complete game from levels 1 to 3. B/X together certainly were a complete game, even though Expert (which stopped at 14th) flagged the possibility of levels up to 36. And the combined page count for B/X would be less than 128 pages, once some duplication is allowed for.

The current situation with 4e is really about as off-putting to non-gamers as I can imagine. You have a complex, abstract game system where everything is core, the original books are seriously out-of-date, the Essentials stuff is a confusing hash, an online subscription service thing, and a maze-like website that tries to jumble together the t-shirts, novels, keychains and all that other kitschy garbage in with the game into a "D&D Brand Experience". Terrible stuff.

Essentials is particularly bad. The two players' books have a lot of repetition between them. Then some of that is replicated in the DM book. And much of that is replicated in the Rules Compendium. Not to mention that the player elements - classes, feats, powers, etc - have lots of repetitive, redundant (and sometimes inconsistent) flavour text.

For flavour text, I think the model should be Moldvay Basic. Its classes, spells and monsters had enough flavour text to let you know what it was about, but not the lashings of purple prose that seem to have come into fashion around the time of 2nd ed AD&D, and were brought into 4e around the time of MM3 and Essentials.

The 4e PHB and MM also illustrate nice levels of flavour text. (But the 4e PHB is obviously too complicated to be an introductory game.)

The current designers need to look at Moldvay Basic to get a better idea of how to write clear, concise RPG material!

 

[fjw70]

Agreed on using Moldvay as the standard for a entry RPG product. Still my favorite RPG book of all time.

 

[delericho]

I'm not rooting for $100 box, but I could see $50 no problem.

Agreed. Although a better guide still might be those D&D board games, which have a price point of $65 each - which feels pretty good for what you get.

I agree, but I don't want the 1-book solution to equal Pathfinder's core rulebook. That monster is ridiculous and I never wanted to take it to game nights because it's so huge. I'd much prefer something along the lines of Castles and Crusades Player's Handbook, it's about 142 pages. I don't think a core book should be any bigger than about 200.

And I agree with this too. In general, I consider the SWSE core rulebook to be about right - between 250 and 300 pages, and being reasonably complete and yet also a good starting point. Plus, the rules complexity is not bad, although even that is probably a bit too high for the core game.

Additionally, a book of that sort of size probably represents about $40 of your startng price, which would still leave a good $25 for other materials - dice, minis, tiles, whatever. Of course, it's not as simple as that... but I would have thought they could make something like that work.

 

[fjw70]

$50 – 65 is too much to draw in the casual fan. There needs to be a complete game (for probably 10 levels) for maybe $30, probably a boxed set with dice. No minis or battle maps needed. No modules either. No specialties/feats or backgrounds/skills or maneuvers or wizard specialties or cleric domains/gods, just the bare bones. A lot of casual gamers and old-school D&D players will be happy with that.

Then a hardcover book (or books) can be released with all the bells and whistles (i.e. modules, maneuvers, feats, skills, etc.). These books would not require the box to play and the box would not require the book to play, but both use the same core system.

 

[Ratskinner]

The more I read the L&L article again, and the more confused I get...

Not that I am in a rush to find out what they are going to publish, but certainly my English must be bad because I read hints at completely different things. "We're going to make an RPG product called Dungeons & Dragons" means he's talking about ONE single item (book or box) with a single price tag, right? But does it replace the 3 traditional core books, or will they also be published (in which case I guess "core" will then refer to the single item from now on)?

He says the item is not a sampler but provides the capability to run a full campaign. First, that doesn't tell me at all that it includes a setting or a story arc (and he specifically says it's not a game to run a single adventure, if you have a story arc, that's practically a long adventure, even if you can call it a "campaign"). I think here he just means that the item contains everything from level 1 to the last level... if it ends at level 5, it's clearly a "sampler" isn't it? What if it ends at level 10, is it still a sampler or is it not, on the ground that 10 levels are often enough for a full campaign?

I agree, the more I read the article, the less I'm sure of what it says product-wise.

However, my current interpretation/guess is that it means that:

1. D&D will come in a box which is suitable for shelving at major retailers for somewhere between 50 and 100 US$.
2. The box will contain the "core" game (whatever that is) including simplest-version characters, monsters, treasures, spells, etc. (This might mean that specialties and backgrounds are pre-selected, and maneuvers aren't there, for instance.) I would also expect a set of tiles and tokens to match up with any maps, monsters, and PCs presented.
   1. It sounds like they want this to be capable of supporting a "complete" campaign...so I would speculate levels running to at least 10. Of course, keeping pagecount and complexity reasonable will force them to make some depth vs. height vs. width decisions. (see * below)
3. All the fiddly-bit stuff we are playtesting now will probably appear in "Advanced" supplements, but I don't think its clear whether that would be (an) additional boxed set(s), books, as part of adventure-path boxed sets or what. (WotC may not have decided yet, but I think the article would lean towards the latter.)

Now, whether that initial boxed-set counts as a "Basic" or "Beginners'" set is just semantics, IMO. A "complete" rpg can actually be very small. Its when people start putting extra requirements on it that things get tough. (If I can't play my Half-Giant Half-Dragon Sorcerer/Dragon-Disciple/Bloodmage, then its not a complete game!)

* To that point, they seem to have promised that you'll be able to play any PHB1 class from day one...so it sounds to me like they are aiming to keep as much width (character types, monsters, etc.) in the game as possible. I'm thinking that depth (fiddly-bittedness) will be the part that keeps pushed into the "Advanced" parts, especially since each fiddly bit included magnifies the amount of information needed for every other fiddly bit that it touches.