Mearls' Legends and Lore: Miniatures Madness

[delericho]

There's a difference between being able to work on a team and work on a design that isn't 100% to your liking and being sold on that design and believing in it. This latest article of Mike's makes it QUITE clear that he's not at all sold on the way 4e has worked out. Given that he's the guy in charge game system implementation itself if he doesn't any longer believe in the product then there's a serious issue there.

When Andy Collins took over as the lead on D&D we got 3.5e, which was sometimes referred to as "Andy Collins' House Rules". When the time came for a new edition, we got 4e, which is really Andy Collins' version of the game.

Now Mearls has taken over, as we've just had Essentials, the changes to which probably make it "Mearls' House Rules". In a few years time, we'll probably get 5e, which will be Mearls' version of the game - the version he would create if freed from 4e legacy issues.

In all honesty, I'm quite looking forward to that version, especially in light of the preference expressed in this column.

EGG said a lot of things, but I'm not really convinced he meant a lot of them. Or maybe more accurately he believed them, but that didn't make them true. AD&D 1e particularly was practically an homage to Tolkein.

When I read the 1st Edition PHB recently, that was not at all the vibe I got from the game. In order, I would list the most prominent influences as Leiber, Howard, Moorcock, Vance, and then Tolkien. And that's based on an incomplete reading of Appendix N - it's likely people like Lovecraft would also have a very significant influence.

 

[I'm A Banana]

When Andy Collins took over as the lead on D&D we got 3.5e, which was sometimes referred to as "Andy Collins' House Rules". When the time came for a new edition, we got 4e, which is really Andy Collins' version of the game.

OH RLY?

I always thought James Wyatt left a bigger impression on the thing. Given the number of times his name crops up in that list, and the fact that he's since moved on to board games from D&D, and a handful of editorials that told me that Wyatt and I were playing very different versions of the game, I often attribute a lot of the more "gamist" ideas to that dude, and one of the hallmarks of 4e as an edition is that it is much more gamist than the editions that came before.

Not that I am at all close to the mark on that necessarily, of course. Truth is, each WotC edition has been a pretty collective effort. In any team, clearly some peoples' ideas get heard more often than others', but I'm not sure there's a way of sussing out which rules elements were originally attached to which designers, since the whole thing goes through so many folks before it's out, everyone gets to touch it, gets the praise and the blame.

 

[delericho]

OH RLY?

I was pretty sure. But it is of course possible I'm wrong.

 

[Balesir]

I disagree with (a). I think it is preferable to have clear, commonly understood rules that require judgement. Rules that require judgement ensure that each decision point is going to be coloured by the creativity and aesthetic tastes of the players in the group.

I think that I want that rule to be disagreed upon by two reasonable players.

Well, it does seem that I was insufficiently clear that, since this is the D&D 4E forum and the thread is about comments by the chief designer of D&D 4E I was talking about the D&D game exclusively.

With that clarified, I would say that it is eminently reasonable that you should have these preferences in some roleplaying games - but (a) I don't think that those methods fit D&D 4E well, and (b) that you seem to prefer them for every single roleplaying game you play I regard as blinkered narrowmindedness, I'm afraid. My only question would be, if that is the only type of game you wish to pursue, why on earth are you starting with D&D as your system?

The answer to (b) is the Czege Principle: "creating your own adversity and its resolution is boring." When you can define elements of the game world it can raise issues - are you advocating for your character, or attempting to maintain the consistency of the game world? You can't do both. Here's an interesting blog post on the subject: The pitfalls of narrative technique in rpg play Game Design is about Structure

Paul Czege's comments would be apt in this case if the game was restricted to a single GM and a single player. Several games, though, have distributed authority over resolutions without (allowing) 'self resolution'. Universalis' definition of "complications" springs immediately to mind as an example. None of these techniques, though, fit "gamist" or "challenge-based" play - which is what I want when I select D&D as the system.

I think what's important are the roles and authority of different players within the game. I spend a lot of text explaining how the DM's job is different from the player's job. Keeping on focus of social dynamics, I think that, in my hack, if you constantly disagree with the DM's rulings, you should find another DM. The vagueness of that rule - that it could reasonably apply (or not) in a lot of different situations - means that each DM has great freedom and responsibility to present a consistent game world. The text of my hack, explicity and over and over again, says that the DM should base his decisions on maintaining the consistency of the game world; I think that's what makes the rule clear instead of vague.

I tend to think of "reasonable" actions like the TV show Spartacus; other DMs might disagree and go with something much more realistic/gritty, and others might want more of a high-fantasy vibe. Since one of the DM's important (and explicit) jobs in my hack is to present a consistent world, I give the DM the freedom to do that. I think that's where the personal creativity - hmm, instead of creativity let's say personal spin on the setting - comes in.

So, you have a home-produced system that suits you - good! What has this to do with the features of D&D?

(Eero does a good job of explaining why I put that responsibility on the shoulders of the DM alone; in my hack, I want to challenge the players, and I expect them to try and push the boundaries - but they must respect the DM's rulings, or else they are "cheating"/guilty of "misconduct"/showing poor sportsmanship. One of the player's jobs is to respect the DM's rulings).

So, the game you are "challenging" them at is "guess what the GM is thinking"? Sorry - I'll stop now.

But! I'm not trying to say that this is the one true way. I wrote my hack to deliver a specific game experience, so I went with these kinds of rules. I can easily see how they would not work given other goals.

If it's not the "one, true way" why are you advocating it as the desirable direction for the development of D&D 4E?

Let me try to sum it up again: "D&D 4E is good at the job it set out to do; if you think it could be improved for that purpose I'm all ears, but if you don't like that purpose, why not pick a system that suits your purposes better? That is what I do when I want a game with different goals".

It seems to me that many of the "edition war" type arguments boil down to attempts to control/advocate/influence the core play goals of D&D as a system. Such arguments are bound to be futile and will furthermore make for a less focussed - and hence poorer - D&D. Surely, a more productive line would be to ask what other games fit your preferred goals better, and how might they be improved to focus better on your chosen aims?

 

[Dausuul]

It seems to me that many of the "edition war" type arguments boil down to attempts to control/advocate/influence the core play goals of D&D as a system. Such arguments are bound to be futile and will furthermore make for a less focussed - and hence poorer - D&D. Surely, a more productive line would be to ask what other games fit your preferred goals better, and how might they be improved to focus better on your chosen aims?

Perhaps LostSoul is simply trying to re-focus D&D on its traditional mode of play. This business of "clear rules that admit of no ambiguity and require no judgement calls" is quite new to the game--3E moved in that direction, but 4E is the first edition that made a concerted effort to stamp out all necessity for DM judgement--and frankly I don't like it. Neither do a lot of other folks... including, apparently, the latest inheritor of the Gygaxian Throne*.

And as for futility, I completely disagree. The game is going to change and evolve over time--4E is certainly not the end of the story, and 4E itself is changing, as Essentials made clear. Why shouldn't we advocate for those changes to go in the direction we prefer? The arguments may get heated, but they generate more light than you might think.

[size=-2]*The Gygaxian Throne is made from the dice of defeated player characters, forged into a single enormous chair. The d4s all point inward. A D&D brand manager should never sit easy.[/size]

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Perhaps LostSoul is simply trying to re-focus D&D on its traditional mode of play. This business of "clear rules that admit of no ambiguity and require no judgement calls" is quite new to the game--3E moved in that direction, but 4E is the first edition that made a concerted effort to stamp out all necessity for DM judgement--and frankly I don't like it. Neither do a lot of other folks... including, apparently, the latest inheritor of the Gygaxian Throne*.

And as for futility, I completely disagree. The game is going to change and evolve over time--4E is certainly not the end of the story, and 4E itself is changing, as Essentials made clear. Why shouldn't we advocate for those changes to go in the direction we prefer? The arguments may get heated, but they generate more light than you might think.

[SIZE=-2]*The Gygaxian Throne is made from the dice of defeated player characters, forged into a single enormous chair. The d4s all point inward. A D&D brand manager should never sit easy.[/SIZE]

But I have yet to see anyone claiming that 4e is anywhere near to, or attempting to reach, some 'judgment free' set of rules. That to me is a weak premise. There IS always judgment involved in GMing any RPG. Neither does 4e shy away from it either. ALL it appears to do is provide fairly unambiguous rules for some common situations. This is no different from what the original D&D rules attempted to do. They codified for example the rules governing how you hit with a sword and how much damage that does, and how much damage combatants can withstand, etc. If one is opposed to the existence of objectively applicable rules then in order to be logically consistent one would have issues with ALL of the objective rules of the game.

The real truth is that there are always objective rules, and there are always situations requiring subjective judgment and selective application of the rules to specific situations in order to portray the imaginary game world and its narrative. Like Balesir says if you don't agree with the existence of objective rules then D&D is NOT the game to be playing. 4e is SOLIDLY in the tradition of every previous edition. Nor is evoking Gygax as some advocate of some mythical version of the game that never existed accurate. Gary after all wrote ALL of 1e AD&D, a game who's avowed purpose was to codify the rules to an objective standard. Lest one not believe the truth of this, I merely direct you to the forwards of both the 1e AD&D PHB and DMG.

Really, it is fine for people to play whatever games they want in whatever way they want to play them, and personally when I play RPGs or run them I care very little about any sort of theoretical consideration.

 

[Dausuul]

The real truth is that there are always objective rules, and there are always situations requiring subjective judgment and selective application of the rules to specific situations in order to portray the imaginary game world and its narrative. Like Balesir says if you don't agree with the existence of objective rules then D&D is NOT the game to be playing. 4e is SOLIDLY in the tradition of every previous edition. Nor is evoking Gygax as some advocate of some mythical version of the game that never existed accurate. Gary after all wrote ALL of 1e AD&D, a game who's avowed purpose was to codify the rules to an objective standard. Lest one not believe the truth of this, I merely direct you to the forwards of both the 1e AD&D PHB and DMG.

I wasn't trying to "evoke Gygax." Mike Mearls is the head honcho of the folks who publish D&D; therefore he occupies the Gygaxian Throne (with apologies to George R. R. Martin). That's all I meant by that. Deciding whether he's the true-born heir to the kingdom or a treacherous usurper is left as an exercise for the reader.

As for the question of DM judgement and the rules: The DM is still required to adjudicate corner cases, but 4E has virtually eliminated rules which require judgement calls as a matter of course, and that is new. Charm magic is a good example. 4E no longer has "charm spells" as previous editions understood them; they have been replaced by very specific combat rules, like the succubus's kiss which makes you unable to attack the succubus and forces you to jump in the way of attacks when next to her, but doesn't change your behavior in any other way.

A certain amount of codification is a good thing. Charm spells were notorious for being a pain to adjudicate; in some campaigns they were essentially useless, in others there was no real difference between charm and domination, and the DM seeking a middle ground had to figure it out without much help from the rulebooks. They needed an overhaul. But I feel 4E, in boiling down charms to something that didn't require any adjudication in the normal course of events, destroyed the essence of the thing. Under the new rules, the succubus's kiss is useless except as a defensive measure.

I think 4E did an important thing with the effort to nail down every rule in the book. Generally speaking, rules ought to be nailed down. That's the point of rules. However, there are places where (IMO) the rules function better if they provide some guidance and leave the DM to work out the specifics. 4E is good because it means the next edition can start with totally nailed-down rules, then loosen nails deliberately where needed, rather than stuff flopping about just because nobody ever got around to swinging a hammer at it.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yeah, well, I'm not sure it is so much 'nailing things down' that gives you things like the stat block for the Succubus. That might be a small part of it, but the more significant part IMHO is just that the designers felt like a COMBAT situation shouldn't come with monster abilities that just take PCs clean out of the fight. Remember, the Succubus can also Dominate a PC. Hit them with Dominate and then with Charming Kiss. It works pretty well. I had some fun with that the other night in my Saturday game. The kiss power actually works pretty well. I didn't find any problems with that monster related to the narrative. It worked decently. The Succubus certainly wasn't able to completely neutralize a PC but remember it is a 30 or 40 second period of time in which combat is taking place. If I wanted to have the Succubus really messing with PC/NPC heads I'd do that more out of combat in some fashion. The monster's stat block doesn't address that, but THERE is where I like things to be open ended. The DM can utilize the monster thematically in any story appropriate way, there's no rule getting in the way when it is pure narrative.

 

[Balesir]

Perhaps LostSoul is simply trying to re-focus D&D on its traditional mode of play. This business of "clear rules that admit of no ambiguity and require no judgement calls" is quite new to the game--3E moved in that direction, but 4E is the first edition that made a concerted effort to stamp out all necessity for DM judgement--and frankly I don't like it. Neither do a lot of other folks... including, apparently, the latest inheritor of the Gygaxian Throne*.

Then can I suggest that D&D is not the game you thought it was? My view is quite simple:

D&D has, since day 1, included hit points, limited spell/power uses, "experience" points and character levels. As such, it was pretty much focussed on players stepping up to the challenge of managing resources to kill (OK, maybe just "defeat") creatures and take their stuff. This is built into the fabric of the game - it's the game's "DNA".

Some folk found other things to focus roleplaying games on. Initially, they did this using D&D, but invariably they had to "tweak" it quite a bit to get it to work to their satisfaction. This is, I believe, because it was fundamentally not built for what they wanted to use it for.

The more perceptive and adventurous of these folk either made their own systems from whole cloth or found systems that others had made that suited their purposes better. A long period of experimentation and discovery followed. Many good - and many frankly awful - systems were developed.

With 3.x and especially with 4th Edition D&D, I think the designers have actually returned D&D to its 'roots'. They have recognised the "DNA" I mentioned earlier and aimed to create a game system that is optimised for that purpose. I love the result. I can understand that those who wanted to use D&D for other aims prefer earlier editions - essentially because their lack of optimisation for "gamist" or "challenge based" play means they are better for other styles of play, in a similar way to which a hacksaw with no blade is better for use as a hammer, because there is no blade to break or cut yourself on!

The "answer" I advocate for those who are not interested in "challenge based" play (or, more accurately, are not interested only in such play) is to find an alternative system or systems that suit your tastes better. Maybe that would even be a derivative of D&D - but if you take out the xp, the levels and the hps and modify the spell systems I am confident you'll end up with a game better suited to your preferences.

The one thing I sincerely hope does not happen is that Mike Mearls - or anyone else - tries to take D&D back towards those other play modes piecemeal. All that this will get us is a game that still has basic gamism in its blood, due to the deep-engrained xp, levels and hps, but which is horribly compromised in other respects in a (doomed) attempt to provide "the perfect game" to those for whom the D&D system's core strengths are really not what they are looking for.

In this respect, it's a shame that the D&D brand is indivisible. I get the impression that what some (many?) folk really like is the setting colour and "genre" that has developed around D&D. If someone was able to write a brand new system around that, without the D&D system tropes that run counter to exploratory ("simulationist") play, I think it might be a huge hit.

And as for futility, I completely disagree. The game is going to change and evolve over time--4E is certainly not the end of the story, and 4E itself is changing, as Essentials made clear. Why shouldn't we advocate for those changes to go in the direction we prefer? The arguments may get heated, but they generate more light than you might think.

It's not a question of "one true game" evolving over time. There is no single, irrefutable goal to support such a supposition - that is the problem. Why should we fight to pull a vehicle down two (or more) divergent roads, when if we had two vehicles we could simply take one for each road? Both roads are good - why fight over which one we should all take, when everyone could take the one that suits them (and some, like me, will wander awhile down both, at different times). Given that the "vehicles" in question exist in the realm of ideas, we are hardly likely to run out of wood - or draft horses!

[size=-2]*The Gygaxian Throne is made from the dice of defeated player characters, forged into a single enormous chair. The d4s all point inward. A D&D brand manager should never sit easy.[/size]

Nice image

 

[Dausuul]

Yeah, well, I'm not sure it is so much 'nailing things down' that gives you things like the stat block for the Succubus. That might be a small part of it, but the more significant part IMHO is just that the designers felt like a COMBAT situation shouldn't come with monster abilities that just take PCs clean out of the fight. Remember, the Succubus can also Dominate a PC. Hit them with Dominate and then with Charming Kiss. It works pretty well. I had some fun with that the other night in my Saturday game. The kiss power actually works pretty well. I didn't find any problems with that monster related to the narrative. It worked decently. The Succubus certainly wasn't able to completely neutralize a PC but remember it is a 30 or 40 second period of time in which combat is taking place. If I wanted to have the Succubus really messing with PC/NPC heads I'd do that more out of combat in some fashion. The monster's stat block doesn't address that, but THERE is where I like things to be open ended. The DM can utilize the monster thematically in any story appropriate way, there's no rule getting in the way when it is pure narrative.

Charm spells were never good at taking enemies out of a fight. There was usually a clause about hostile actions breaking the effect; in 3.5 any threat from you or your allies against the charmed creature broke the spell (and you got a +5 to save if you were in combat when the spell was cast).

The point of charm magic was to be a non-combat effect. The succubus works her wiles on you and you become entranced, not a dominated thrall but not entirely free-willed either; she can worm secrets out of you, induce you to help her out in seemingly harmless ways, and so forth. In combat, the 4E version works out okay. Out of combat, it's mostly useless unless the DM makes up an entire new ability to cover it. If you want to do that making-up, more power to you; but I would prefer to have guidelines from people who've put some thought into it and tested it in play. That is, after all, why we pay money for this stuff.

I have a tough time imagining hard-and-fast rules for charm magic that could be made to work--charm spells are "social magic," which is a fuzzy area by its nature. But there is a wide range of options between "hard-and-fast rules" and "no rules at all."