Legends and Lore: Preserving the Past

[Nyronus]

They tried that to a certain extent with the Shade, and again, howls of nerdrage at the -1 Surge.

Um, the reason there were "howls of nerdrage" was because the penalty was RETARDEDLY HARSH, while the benefit was nothing but. It was giving up half your turn to gain very limited access to a rogue class feature. The race trades any hope of an extended day to be really o.k at stealth. A pixie rogue will out-sneak a shade any day of the week. People were upset because it was utterly stupid and bad design, not because of some sort of slavish devotion to combat.

As for structuring adventures around things other than a string of combat encounters, if you can't do it, then your not trying too awful hard. The last adventure I ran was some exploration, a bit of in-depth roleplay, and a single combat that consisted less of trying to beat the enemy, more getting away from them. The party was basically going up against 12 level 26 elites and a level 30 Solo with another level 30 Solo backing them up. Winning was not an option. Extra points because the other level 30 Solo was supposed to beat them up before the second one showed up with the small army, and instead they handled the situation well enough to keep that from happening, forcing the second Solo to attack them at full strength. Another example was the party was trying to simultaneously save an ally from execution and raise a city in rebellion. Saving the ally was the matter of a battle, but preparing for the operation involved a string of skill challenges. If they had failed those, even if they had saved their friend then either their soldiers or the people of the city would have been slaughtered in the operation. They would have won the battle, but at the cost of the war. Even earlier there was an episode involving a complex skill challenge getting dirt on, and negotiating with Drow Matrons with only a token combat. Make the adventure about accomplishing a goal (getting out alive, saving a city, making allies), instead of beating enemies, and you'll find the need to run 4-5 encounters of scaling difficulty to be far less pressing. Death is not the only price for failure. Really, the string of combats thing is more indicative of a DM's laziness or game style than a problem with the system.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Would someone please tell me what's the problem with taking monsters of old and giving them an update? Hell old monsters are new monsters to someone that has never played D&D before.

Absolutely nothing is wrong with updating monsters of old (with the exception of certain monsters). And the 4e designers already do this - most of the monsters are monsters of old. This is just article #3 (I think) in a series that demonstrates that Monte Cook did not do his research.

In his first L&L article he describes passive perception almost precisely then continues the paragraph "Which I like to call "Passive Perception"." (Or words to that effect). He put Passive Perception in quotes as if it wasn't a concept familiar to oh, I don't know, every single player of D&D 4E.

The complaint isn't the specifics of what he's writing. It's that in every single L&L article so far he has demonstrated that for all he's a senior designer for D&D, he appears not to have opened a 4e rulebook. Instead he's talking about things we've had for years as if they are new and innovative. A combination of apparent ignorance and actual authority that does not bode well for the game going forward.

 

[I'm A Banana]

People were upset because it was utterly stupid and bad design, not because of some sort of slavish devotion to combat.

Right, but the logic of the design -- judging from what the developers had said -- was that a party with a Shade was supposed to get in less fights, due to its stealth capabilities.

So the "sucks at combat, great at stealth" design that made it like a 1e thief (forex) was a problem.

Which indicates that with 4e as it currently exists, making a class that balances based on adventure roles rather than combat is problematic. So 4e going to embrace a more 1e or 2e model of balance is something that isn't likely to happen. Hence one of the needs (in my mind) for an eventual 5e.

Really, the string of combats thing is more indicative of a DM's laziness or game style than a problem with the system.

A good DM can solve any problem with the system. It doesn't mean the system doesn't have a problem.

Again, I think the intent of 4e design was to revolve around the encounter (and the combat), and it met that design goal well. That goal just isn't the goal that everyone WANTS out of D&D.

If we're going to preserve what the past has to offer, 4e can't do it very well. 4e is proudly and defiantly its own beast. That has its benefits, but "respecting what has come before" isn't really one of those benefits. I do think the core of 4e is solid and will probably translate into any 5e that comes out, but I don't think the game gets to stop evolving with 4e. 5e will come and solve some of 4e's problems (and probably introduce some of its own). If it comes with an eye toward preserving what people from dialgo on up have been doing, it'll probably be pretty great.

 

[Scribble]

The complaint isn't the specifics of what he's writing. It's that in every single L&L article so far he has demonstrated that for all he's a senior designer for D&D, he appears not to have opened a 4e rulebook. Instead he's talking about things we've had for years as if they are new and innovative. A combination of apparent ignorance and actual authority that does not bode well for the game going forward.

I kind of wonder if the audience he's reaching out to might not be the ones whom have ALSO not opened a 4e book, but are also already making assumptions?

(Also think about this... Some people just get excited about something just because their favorite designer, writer, artist, whatever, talks about it being great. Now they have Monte talking about things that are great. Maybe he doesn't want to come right out and say hey this is already in the game... He wants to get people seeing he's the same ol Monte before he shows them they're shovelin a bunch o hate on something they shouldn't be.)

 

[DEFCON 1]

The other thing people seem to want to willfully ignore is that Monte is not talking concretes here. He's talking philosophy. And yet we still get responses from people wondering why he isn't saying anything that can immediately be pointed to as something that's going to be in 5E.

These columns aren't about Fifth Edition.

Do they discuss gaming philosophies that might influence the design of 5E? Absolutely. But nothing in these columns (either in Mearls' or in Cook's) is INDICATIVE of what 5E is definitely going to be or have within it. At all. So all of you who keep wondering what these columns are about is completely missing the point. They are talking ideas. They are talking history. They are talking gaming in general. That's it.

And if you don't LIKE the fact that these columns aren't actually 5E previews in disguise (which they have said is the case from the very beginning)... then do yourself a favor and don't bother reading them... because I suspect you're always going to be disappointed.

 

[Scribble]

The other thing people seem to want to willfully ignore is that Monte is not talking concretes here. He's talking philosophy.

Yep- D&D has a long history of being somewhat amorphous. It is whatever the particular group wants it to be.

Somewhere along the way the idea that doing it in one particular way, or by one set of rules, is the ONLY way it can be has gotten more en vogue.

I think Monte is also trying to help revert that idea with these columns.

It's playing to the strength of tRPGs. They can be easily modified (and should be) by the group using them.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I really think what these columns are is a way to get feedback from the audience without them really knowing what they are giving feedback for.

For example let's say I plan on running a campaign about undead but I haven't told my players yet. Well in a casual D&D conversation one day I mention how cool it would be to run an undead campaign and to have XY and Z in the campaign. Well the people I am talking to may say "Well I don't know about Y but having X and Z would be really cool." Well I go back to my campaign that I have been writing up and change Y to something else.

What I have done was I have gotten feedback from my players on a game I am planning to run without them knowing about it. I am essentially gathering information about what my players want so I can present those wants in the campaign without them knowing about it until afterwards.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Somewhere along the way the idea that doing it in one particular way, or by one set of rules, is the ONLY way it can be has gotten more en vogue.

I don't even think it goes that far... that anyone at WotC decided to make the new edition of D&D 'the ONE TRUE WAY'.

What I think is more likely is that it was either mandated from above or mutually agreed upon by everyone involved that the transition from 3rd to 4th would include certain things that (they thought) would help generate more revenue for the company.

For instance... at the time their miniatures division was still going along pretty well, plus they had good success with Dungeon Tiles. So making 4E pretty much require their use meant more sales of those two parts of the game as well.

Getting out from under the OGL was probably a requirement (because of the idea of wanting to keep almost all of the brand in house), so that necessitated distancing the game far enough that you really couldn't transfer a 3E game to 4E or vice versa (without massive overhauls of the system). This meant those people who wanted to play 4E pretty much would only spend their money on 'WotCs' 4E... rather than the previous way where people could easily play 3E without ever spending money on any of WotC's 3E products, since there was plenty of other products available to use instead.

They also probably knew they wanted to move more into the computer / social media realm for the game... and thus having a game system that was completely codified numerically and not have abilities determined by "DM fiat" (like illusion spells used in combat for example) meant you could keep better check on things like 'balance' because the math all supposedly worked. As a happy result of that... being able to then have computer programs that do that math for you (that a person would pay a subscription fee to have access to)... was a completely new (and incredibly successful) revenue stream that generated funds as well.

THAT'S what I believe is a much more likely scenario of the state of Wizards at the time they were putting together 4th Edition. Much less of a Machiavellian "we will rule all of gaming by doing it our way!" attitude, and more of a "what can we produce that will keep people buying our products?" one.

 

[Scribble]

I don't even think it goes that far... that anyone at WotC decided to make the new edition of D&D 'the ONE TRUE WAY'.

Oh... that's not what I was saying. I meant that the players have moved more towards the RAW is "correct" way of thinking.

 

[Retreater]

For some reason these Monte Cook articles remind me of the old Wil Save articles from Dungeon magazine. Somebody rambling on about his experiences with roleplaying games but no mention of anything specific about D&D ... likely because he doesn't even play D&D anymore (in its current edition).

Retreater