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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7759110" data-attributes="member: 71699">Wouldn't this require that Mearls has helped himself to characterising Cook, Tweet and Williams' motives? When I look at Numenera I see the work of a designer who is profoundly interested in narrative.The Battlemaster is very popular in our group, one of our most distinctive characters is the Dwarf Battlemaster. I think the Champion has some identity issues due to insufficiently good mechanical design: it's the weakest of the core fighter archetypes. Greater mechanical payoff for its athletic focus would bring it more to life narratively, at the table.In an RPG, rules formalise a player's leverage on the narrative. This can go from very simple, powerful rules, which you see in storytelling games where players can rewrite the high-level plot, to the complex of levers in D&D that let players nudge the plot in different directions. Most of D&D remains focused on fighting: if Mearls wanted to address a failing in D&D mechanics, he should address that! If he really feels that previous versions of D&D failed to prioritise narrative sufficiently, where then are the 5th edition rules that are as detailed and sophisticated as fighting rules, that address exploration and social pillars? FCS the non-combat skills dimension of D&D was only salvaged because the D&D Next beta testing community rallied around them!Golly, I'm ranting. However, my take on it is this. If you look at Mearls work he has been as heavily invested in combat as the rest of us. His Iron Heroes system seems to me to build on the Book of Nine Swords (which I don't think he was involved in, so perhaps some parallel innovation was happening there). What he is describing is possibly his own growth as a designer. I am critical of revisionism, and I am critical of a claim to be focused more on social etc while still selling books almost wholly devoted to fighting. That said, I would argue that "imagined fighting" is not fighting. It's something else, and it is important to understand the symbolism involved and realise that killing a guard, and persuading one to step aside, are much closer than they superficially appear. Save that the killing is better supported by the mechanics of <insert edition of D&D>.</blockquote>

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