D&D 5E Legend Lore says 'story not rules' (3/4)

[Li Shenron]

It might be strange for the guy in charge of D&D R&D to say this, but here it goes: After the core rules for the game are done, we really want to stop adding so much stuff to the mechanics of the game and shift our emphasis to story.

I am somewhat surprised to see so much hype started by this article... I simply read Mearl's statement above as it was saying that they are not at the moment interested in designing tons of characters material (feats, classes, spells, etc) or additional non-essential rules, but modules are another thing and they're not gone...

E.g. the rules for combat with lots of monsters, a wounds system, alternative spellcasting rules, these are IMO modules that many gamers already know they want in the game, so WotC will not give up in designing these.

OTOH they won't bother coming up with new ideas that aren't already wanted/requested, at least until the game is published (after that of course they can do what they want). For instance, they may not bother coming up with new action types to include in the action economy, or to add more class-specific mechanics to the classes which are already designed.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Hey I didn't say that, Mearls did

 

[Balesir]

Well I thini we come at things from a different perspective is all.

Oh, sure - but I'm slightly surprised and dismayed that the DDN designers, in all their talk of "styles of play" and "big tent" etc. have not touched upon how to handle this divide/difference at all. Basically, they don't seem to see it.

 

[Raith5]

I want that stuff to be implicit in the classification, keywords and such, not spelled out in a novella, to be honest. With the old "fluffy rules" approach you got guidelines too specific to a list of situations; I want the specification in system language to be giving me enough of a clear idea of how the thing works that I can actually work out for myself whether or not a wacky, non-standard use idea will work or not. Instead of leaving room for creativity by having partial rules, have the rules deal with classes and mechanisms so that alternative uses come as a natural extension of the way things work, not because the GM lets them work if s/he likes them.

I agree with this. I think keywords, standard conditions make a lot of sense for someone like me who just wants to get on with it. I quite like a line or two of description but one of the things about 4th I liked is that the fluff can be ignored and refluffed. I also really dont think that spells like fireball need to say unattended flammable objects are going to catch fire - surely DMs can determine contextual things like this

 

[pemerton]

I also really dont think that spells like fireball need to say unattended flammable objects are going to catch fire - surely DMs can determine contextual things like this

Agreed. A lot of detail in spell descriptions seems like some earlier groups' adventures, and their GMs' rulings, turned into something rigid for everyone. Rulings not rules!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Take-away from Crazy Jerome's quote: Put more weight into abilities and weapons and skills.

Combine those two thoughts to get this: stop using Backgrounds as being "the" way to get skills (aside from specific Skill Training feats). Instead, give every PC the effect of Skill Training in something that is universal to that class; in Basic this could be a bonus to all checks on a specific Ability, but in Standard it could be explicitly skill-based.

For example:
1. A "Basic" Fighter might get a class bonus to all Strength checks, whereas a "Standard" Fighter would get automatic training in Endurance and Swim, or Climb, or Jump, or Throw, or whatever is most usually based on Strength and/or Constitution.
2. A "Basic" Cleric might get a class bonus to all Wisdom checks, whereas a "Standard" Cleric would get automatic training in Knowledge (Religion) and Persuade, or Sense Motive, or whatever is most usually based on Wisdom and/or Charisma.

What I'm suggesting here is that a person learns and improves skills from pre-career training ("background"), and from career-training ("class"), and also from active pursuit of career ("specialty"); so spreading out the acquisition of abilities-to-do-things across several of the dial/hooks (is there such a thing as a "dial/hook" yet?) might make for a smoother or more adaptable way of providing abilities to PCs.

(Yes, I'm suggesting they should stop putting skills only in backgrounds.)

DDN classes DO give out an ability score bonus. While it is small, it does something along the lines of what you're talking about. Obviously you're talking about wanting a more even contribution between these things. I think the counterpoint would be why have every member of a class be stuck with the same skill? Its obvious when it is something like 'Thievery' you play a thief, but not so obvious for many other skills. I guess its certainly possible to find at least one iconic skill per class, though fighter might be an exception. I think the concept with putting it all in background was just to let you build any crazy thing you wanted to.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Oh, sure - but I'm slightly surprised and dismayed that the DDN designers, in all their talk of "styles of play" and "big tent" etc. have not touched upon how to handle this divide/difference at all. Basically, they don't seem to see it.

I think it is a very tricky issue from a presentation standpoint (as well as design become some of this centers on how many mechanicl details the spell itself should have). You have one group that wants mechanics and flavor seperate for clarity and easy of use, another that wants them more intertwined for flow and completeness (among other reasons). That is a tough call.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Agreed. A lot of detail in spell descriptions seems like some earlier groups' adventures, and their GMs' rulings, turned into something rigid for everyone. Rulings not rules!

The hilarious thing is that 4e HAS A RULE FOR THIS, it just isn't called out in the Fireball spell, why should it be? Objects can be attacked by spells and the DM is perfectly well in his rights to run an attack on everything in the zone of the spell. It works just like any other attack, each object has hit points, etc all perfectly straightforward.

The problem here isn't the lack of a rule to cover burning things with a Fireball, it is the expectation that this rule will be called out in every single place that might use it. 4e assumes you know the rules. They are very regular and have only limited exceptions that are caused by the specific situation. This comes up in other places too.

For example: A guy a while back told me that the 4e Flametongue was 'flavorless and dull'. I compared it to the 1e flametongue. They do virtually EXACTLY the same thing. The difference is the 1e version has 2 long paragraphs that try to explain all the rules surrounding a flaming sword, that it casts light, burns certain creatures, starts fires, etc. The 4e version invokes the fire keyword and describes the sword as bursting into flame when activated. Presumably you're supposed to know that fires burn things and that they shed light (admittedly this could have been called out as a property perhaps, but still fires make light, not rocket science). The 'burns certain creatures' part of course is covered by other rules (Vulnerability) and the fire keyword. Clearly if you simply imagine what a flaming sword does the 4e flametongue is no different from the 1e flametongue. Yet just like with the Fireball apparently things just MUST be spelled out in nauseating detail. I dunno, I don't like to be critical but it feels like people's creativity is broken and needs a cast or something? I don't get it...

EDIT: Oh, and Pemerton, OF COURSE D&D is just the compiled rulings of vast numbers of Gygax and Arneson, and Rob Kuntz's (and then other people of course, but probably mainly them) games. Go read "Old Geezer" over at rpg.net if you don't believe me. In fact he's got a kickstarter up IIRC to put out a book of "playing with Gary" annecdotes. He's kind of the ultimate Grognard, but his book title is pretty clear "We just made up some we thought would be fun". Every time they played the DM just wrote up what they did, made up new stuff for each game, etc and it just got stacked into the book pretty much. Obviously things got revised and reworked and extended, but the "Fireball shoots from your fingers and explodes when it hits something" language MOST SURELY would trace back to some very specific single instance of play sometimes in 1972-74 probably. Same with the 'expands to fill a volume' language, etc.

 

[pemerton]

The problem here isn't the lack of a rule to cover burning things with a Fireball, it is the expectation that this rule will be called out in every single place that might use it.

<snip>

Presumably you're supposed to know that fires burn things and that they shed light (admittedly this could have been called out as a property perhaps, but still fires make light, not rocket science). The 'burns certain creatures' part of course is covered by other rules (Vulnerability) and the fire keyword. Clearly if you simply imagine what a flaming sword does the 4e flametongue is no different from the 1e flametongue. Yet just like with the Fireball apparently things just MUST be spelled out in nauseating detail. I dunno, I don't like to be critical but it feels like people's creativity is broken and needs a cast or something?

Yep, I think we're on the same page here.

OF COURSE D&D is just the compiled rulings of vast numbers of Gygax and Arneson, and Rob Kuntz's (and then other people of course, but probably mainly them) games.

My point was that, if this was part of the fun for Gygax, Arneson et al then why don't we try to cultivate the same fun in our games, rather than treating the output of someone else play experience as input for our own.

Maybe in your game fireball expands to fill the corridor, maybe in mine it doesn't - as long as we're all happy with our resolution, what's the problem?

Or another example - in my 4e game, when the deva PC uses Memory of a Thousand Lifetimes I often describe the recovered memory, using this to foreshadow or recapitulate or hint at some new complication or possible direction. I'm sure there are other tables where the memory is not narrated and the bonus die is just rolled and added. I don't see anything wrong with these sorts of table differences in resolution.

 

[Balesir]

(admittedly this could have been called out as a property perhaps, but still fires make light, not rocket science).

Actually, fires help with rocket science, too. Just sayin'...