D&D 5E L&L The Next Phase

[Mistwell]

Is it the official policy of theRPGsite to stalk me wherever I go and post that tired old thing?

Stalk you? I have 7,480 posts here, and I've been active in most of the 5e discussion here. You and I have talked here at EW for years. If you're uncomfortable having yourself quoted back, perhaps that's an opportunity for self-analysis? I do think that quote of yours is insightful, and useful for others to see how you think about these things. You don't think the quote provides any utility to others who may not be as familiar?

 

[ExploderWizard]

Is it the official policy of theRPGsite to stalk me wherever I go and post that tired old thing?

Is it your policy to pretend you didn't say it?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Stalk you? I have 7,480 posts here, and I've been active in most of the 5e discussion here. You and I have talked here at EW for years. If you're uncomfortable having yourself quoted back, perhaps that's an opportunity for self-analysis? I do think that quote of yours is insightful, and useful for others to see how you think about these things. You don't think the quote provides any utility to others who may not be as familiar?

Is ENworld really the place to drag a personal feud from another forum?

 

[thecasualoblivion]

Is it your policy to pretend you didn't say it?

Did you come here to this thread just to say that?

 

[Zoombaba]

Well, that was de-railing. Looks like thecasualoblivion gets his argument. (No it's not, that's just contradiction! ) Can we go back to examine the L&L article?

 

[Mistwell]

Is ENworld really the place to drag a personal feud from another forum?

We have a personal feud? New to me. I never thought of you in that sense, anywhere. You and I both like 4e, and that always put you in my "tentative ally" section of my brain

Look, that comment of yours, I thought, was honest and helpful in viewing your posts on these sorts of topics. It explains where you are coming from in a genuine way. Do you think it no longer reflects your views? If that's the case, just say so.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The concepts for the modules seem ok and,in theory, will provide support for a variety of play styles as D&D Next was originally advertised as being able to do.

I do see a bit of a disconnect in the methodology with which this is being implemented.
For example:
[/quote Mike Mearls]

The editors and a team of designers will finalize work on the core game. This work consists of squashing bugs, simplifying things, and incorporating the final round of public feedback. The game’s foundation will be set in stone, as will the core options for the classes.

Meanwhile, a second design team will tackle a number of outstanding topics. These include the following elements.

• 
  The underlying math of the game. We’ll run stress tests on the numbers, monster abilities, and so on to make sure that everything shakes out as we expect. This work is important to making adventure and encounter design fast and easy. It also ensures that the classes play fair.

[/End quote]

So dev group 1 will be setting the core options and foundation of the game in stone, while dev group 2 will be working on the underlying math? This is a setup for the left hand to not know what the right hand is doing if ever there was one.

I can understand the modules being developed independently (although the core would need to be done first to insure the modules would all be fitted to same base game) but the core game development being spread across two teams with simultaneous development taking place on modules looks like a blueprint for miscommunication.

How many versions of the "set in stone" foundation for the core game will be floating around between the teams? Which one will get picked by the number crunchers? Which version of the crunched numbers will the tactical module team use?

All of this will be happening with no external eyes on the process. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping for the best, but memories of past sloppy copy/paste mistakes are making it hard to get those hopes up too high.

 

[Gilbetron]

All of this will be happening with no external eyes on the process.

There will be plenty of external feedback - just not public. There's private playtesting groups - and it sounds like they are being fairly liberal letting people in - simple, serious interest and proven track record actually playtesting is about all you need. At this point, it's all I want, I don't need to see the sausage made anymore, I just want to get grilling!

 

[MarkB]

I hope these modules and subsystems will be cross-compatible with each other, as well as with the core game. I'd quite happily play a campaign using all four of them.

 

[Plaguescarred]

I'm glad to hear that the optional tactical combat system will look a bit like AD&D’s Player’s Option: Combat and Tactics book with key lessons learned from 4th Edition as its one of my favorite 2E book and we use it in our 2E campaign all the time to get more combat options. I think its good that it will have rules for combat that operate like 3rd Edition or 4th Edition too, possinly catering to more than one playstyles.

The optional dramatic system that emphasizes D&D as a storytelling activity sounds like fun and intriguing too. I hpe it will be previewed sometime.

An optional system that allow to pick class features a-la-carte to build their own subclass sounds like a optimal way to inject customization into classes and i just hope it doesn't create more balance issues.

Finally a campaign system that focus on downtime seems like it will contain a lot of rules that i would think are DM suggestions or guidelines.