Mearls: The core of D&D

[Celebrim]

I agree, but not in the way you want me to.

WotC is spending the big bucks making and developing rule systems.

You are making the same mistakes that WotC is making. Namely, you think rules systems are really valuable. Now, I grant you that rules systems are not trivially easy to make, and I've seen a lot of bad ones. But, as far as rules systems go, I think of them about like Neil Gaimen or Monte Cook think of ideas. Ideas aren't really valueable. A good idea talent can generate novel ideas by the ton - more than not only he could use but more than a dozen people could ever use. Most peoples thoughts aren't even worth a penny because creativity in and of itself is so cheap. Likewise, I'm a rules smith. if I wanted to, I could probably generate a new core rules system a week for the next 6-10 weeks. (Heck, I created a new system - SIPS - on the spur of the moment for my personal use just a few weeks ago.) Rules systems aren't valuable. You could publish a good rules system which you'd put a lot of work into, and chances are 99 times out of 100 it would be ignored in the market and your product would die. For one thing, there are probably already a dozen or more good rules systems out there. Who even needs a new rules system? FATE, D20, HERO, GURPS, BRP, D6, Storyteller, Savage Worlds, etc. etc. If you are spending big bucks creating rules systems, you are WASTING YOUR FREAKING TIME. License out a system that does what you need, tweak it to fit your setting, and get to the hard work of producing a game.

Paizo is using someone else's rules to profit on their own.

You can talk about WotC being "corporate culture" as much as you want - Pathfinder only exists because WotC did all the work for them.

Wrong! Paizo was doing the hard work. Towards the end, Paizo might have been more responcible for D&D's ongoing success than WotC was. How many D&D players have as their defining moments of 3e things like the 'Age of Worms' adventure path? D&D isn't just a rules set, it's a game and a RPG is as much or more defined by how you prepare for it than the rules system that you use*. D&D's success in the market has always been tied more to how it encouraged and helped DM's to prepare for the game, than it was to its own often bumpy sometimes exasperating rules. When I was getting into the game and young, what drove play as much as anything else is some friend bought a new module and wanted to run it. I'd get into pick up games not because someone had a useless Player's Handbook in their lugage or backpack, but because they had a module stuffed in there. We didn't need the rule books. That was easy. It wasn't the hot new rule books that drove the game or made us love the game, it was adventures.

Granted, you can make your own adventures and I do, but that's hard. My current campaign has about 300 hours of preparation time in it so far and would seriously benefit by me having put triple that time into but I don't have time. And I'm taking short cuts by incorporating some published adventures into the game! I have a very very good idea of how much hard work goes into creating a good story or a good adventure path. Don't tell me how Paizo only exists because WotC "did all the hard work". There speaks either a player who doesn't run games, because I can't imagine a GM saying that.

*Celebrim's Second Law of Gaming

 

[Celebrim]

if people were paying Paizo simply because of WotC's work.....well, the SRD is free.

I'm always annoyed by the fact that I can't spread XP where I want it.

Yes, exactly, RC.

 

[Stoat]

Can you give particular examples? I didn't get this feeling from any 1st ed AD&D materials - and Dragon magazine, at least through the early 90s, was a handbook of house rules (both in the articles and in The Forum) being published by TSR.

The 4e DMG has a page discussing how to design, implement, and correct house rules.

I can't remember the 3E DMG as well, but I think it addressed the issue of house rules design too.

Was this a 2nd ed thing?

I won't attempt to speak for Celebrim, but it sounded to me like he was referring to TSR's internet policies circa the early to mid 1990's. Somewhat like Palladium, TSR took an aggressive stance toward "protecting" it's online IP through the use of C&D letters and other threats of litigation brought against folks online. IIRC, TSR took a strong stance against folks posting their houserules online.

Time was, you could google "T$R" and get a flavor for the tenor of the times.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Now, Paizo's APs are great, yes.

If you like Paizo's style, and you like APs, then I'm sure they are. If you don't like either of those, not so much. If you don't like both of those, then Paizo's AP and resulting "cred" are this strange infection that means you seldom get published adventures that you like, and thus you might as well roll your own or go with cheap alternatives, since you'll have to rework the whole thing anyway.

How many people fall into that category is subject to debate, of course. But admiration for the greatness of Paizo's products is hardly universal.

 

[Celebrim]

If you like Paizo's style, and you like APs, then I'm sure they are. If you don't like either of those, not so much. If you don't like both of those, then Paizo's AP and resulting "cred" are this strange infection that means you seldom get published adventures that you like, and thus you might as well roll your own or go with cheap alternatives, since you'll have to rework the whole thing anyway.

Well, I've never ran a module that I didn't rework at least a little, and in most cases I rework them right down to the level of changing the map, the names, and most of the descriptions. This happens because I'm super critical and have very definite opinions on things, and not necessarily because the module is bad.

However, it is true that I seldom get published adventures that I like. In general I blame this on the very poor state of existing adventure writing art; the better story tellers in the business tend to produce adventures with poor gamability, and the ones that are better at gamability tend not to have compelling motivations. Others have interesting ideas in there head, but do very poor jobs of communicating how the adventure should be run. Paizo on the whole tends to be as good as any and better than most IMO, although I could make a ton of specific objections to most of what they do, there usually isn't a fatal flaw in their design or presentation.

But, what I'm really interested in when I hear you say this is what you would count as a well designed adventure. What are you looking for when you flip through a module?

 

[Bedrockgames]

I never run modules ( or do so rarely) but imlove having them out there so i can cannibalize them for ideas, encounters, maps etc. This is why i bought dungeon in the past and why i think its so helpful for companies to release Adventures for their games.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

But, what I'm really interested in when I hear you say this is what you would count as a well designed adventure. What are you looking for when you flip through a module?

First, and this is a must for even getting to "decent" in my book, I want meaningful information, well organized. "Meaningful" is naturally going to be one of those eye of the beholder type things, and I'll grant that my tastes probably make me hard to please here. But generally, I want something that I can use to make the adventure better--more lifelike, more fantastical, more interesting, more challenging, etc. A lot of times, I get the impression that the text is trying to give me that, from some idea the author had, and probably used well in his home game, but it got lost some where in the flavor text.

Example: You have an orc tribe faction, the "bezerk beaters." I want to know their motives, their means, their methods, their mistakes, etc. If you've got a little bit about their odd cooking habits, sure, throw it in. And I want those useful bits to be at least somewhat easily applicable to the adventure at hand. OTOH, I don't want a long dissertation on their place in society, which is not likely to come up. And I sure don't want little off-beat flavor text items (hair color, voice tone, etc. ) to take up a lot of key mind space. I find that a little bit of flavor goes a long way, and that one really good piece of flavor is a lot better than lots of half-hearted flavor sprinkled throughout.

I especially find this when the author has apparently gone out of his way to be "edgy" or push some cause or any number of other such bad habits that adventure writers seem to learn readily from bad novelists. Or maybe their editors learn not to clean this stuff up properly from their counterparts in novels. It might be unfair to blame the writers here.

I want information that helps me run the game, not that shows me how cool the writer thinks his story or characters are. If the author gets too caught up in the flavor text, he can obscure the meaningful adventure running bits, make them harder to find, and in some cases, manage to leave them out altogether.

I could write forever on organization. Suffice it to say for now that I think column and a half stat blocks for a single wizard automatically fail on organization. That's just the tip of the iceberg. I thought Monte Cook's work in Ptolus was as good as a 3E-ish product could be organized, given the limits of the mechanics. It was very good, but Monte cheated a bit, and a product that big has its own advantages and disadvantages.

Then beyond that base requirement, which is so seldom met to my satisfaction, I want source material that meets my preferences (naturally). Since I don't like horror, anything smacking of trenchcoats, tieflings, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, DragonLance, Planescape, and a bunch of other stuff, I'm probably forgetting--the universe of adventure writers that sometimes cater to my tastes is somewhat limited. When such a writer manages to satisfy the base requirement, I can appreciate his good work, but I'm not likely to run it, and thus don't benefit from it.

I think there are some critical, err, "literary" objections to much of the work referenced in that preceding paragraph, that goes beyond mere preference. But I'm sure that is a huge discussion that should be done separately, if at all. Suffice here to say that I find much of the hard work put into making everything "gray" rather banal and shallow, with a strong dash of faux sophistication which I find amusing, if not useful. I find that the Pazio products generally favor sophistication over depth. When they are praised for depth, it is usually, IMHO, because the reader has mistaken the former for the latter. A not unusual thing, nowadays.

If that sounds a lot like, "flavor I don't like is bad," I'm not being that silly. I'm saying flavor I don't like is flavor I don't like, and sometimes I have strong reasons for it. And I'm mostly convinced that most of the praise for the flavor in the above products for being "good" by people is really, "flavor that I do like," and not nearly so convinced that the reasons are much considered beyond that.

 

[Celebrim]

First, and this is a must for even getting to "decent" in my book, I want meaningful information, well organized. "Meaningful" is naturally going to be one of those eye of the beholder type things, and I'll grant that my tastes probably make me hard to please here. But generally, I want something that I can use to make the adventure better--more lifelike, more fantastical, more interesting, more challenging, etc. A lot of times, I get the impression that the text is trying to give me that, from some idea the author had, and probably used well in his home game, but it got lost some where in the flavor text.

Example: You have an orc tribe faction, the "bezerk beaters." I want to know their motives, their means, their methods, their mistakes, etc. If you've got a little bit about their odd cooking habits, sure, throw it in.

I think the basic problem here, and the basic problem I have with a lot of modern adventure writing, is that realistically a module has to be either in a 32, 48 or 64 page format in order. If you've tried to write in the frame work, you know how challenging it can be. In order to have a price point that is close to the entertainment value the module is going to provide, there is very little room in such a format for wasted space (on that I think we can agree). So the odd cooking habits probably just need to go, and the critical motives, methods, and mistakes have to be confined to a paragraph or two at most. In my opinion, the biggest problem of modern modules is that they have too much fluff in them, and not enough crunch. The author spends too much time trying to tell the DM how to run the module, which I think is a reactionary result from the fact early modules often told too little.

I could write forever on organization. Suffice it to say for now that I think column and a half stat blocks for a single wizard automatically fail on organization.

I partially agree with you here. A column and a half for a monster can be justified, if its intended to be an introductory module that is instructive to the DM. Inexperienced DM's can't just read a stat block and figure out how to run the monster. So Paizo does a good job of using a stat block to provide the sort of crunchy bits of information about running the encounter that a novice needs. But yes, I agree that often times more space is given to stat blocks than is needed. I prefer a 1e style condensed stat block, with 3-7 lines of text.

I thought Monte Cook's work in Ptolus was as good as a 3E-ish product could be organized...

Honestly, I'm not fond of Monte's organization. In particular, I detest moving all the stat blocks to a key'd list at the end of the module. I want as much information as necessary for running an encounter on that page, and if there is any space saving to be had it should be by referencing something in the core rule book. For example, it's perfectly fine organization to write: 1st level orc warrior, and bold it. I'll know what that means and where to look it up. If its a 3rd level orc warrior, then I'd like a 5 line condensed stat block where if you write out 'Initiative', 'Armor Class' or 'Attack' you've failed. Where it can get tricky is complex monsters with lots of special powers, especially if they are in an obscure book. You can probably expect any DM to have the MM or at least access to the SRD. It's a bit much to expect them to have MMIII or a third party book. Then you need a fuller stat block.

I continue to use organization inspired by Tracy Hickman's best work. I think that's fairly definitive and has been unsurpassed.

I want source material that meets my preferences (naturally). Since I don't like horror, anything smacking of trenchcoats, tieflings, Ravenloft, Dark Sun, DragonLance, Planescape, and a bunch of other stuff, I'm probably forgetting--the universe of adventure writers that sometimes cater to my tastes is somewhat limited.

This I can partially agree with depending on what you mean. I don't like adventures where critical plot elements depend on highly specific elements of a particular campaign world. However, things like trenchcoats, tieflings, horror, psionics, and so forth are often little more than window dressing that has no real impact on the plot and which can be suitably and easily switched out for something that suits you better: cloaks, hobgoblins, pulp adventure, and necromancy if you like. I did this with PiCat's otherwise excellent module, 'Of Sound Mind'. It's a module about Psionics, but really nothing about the module depends on psionics and the whole thing can be dressed as black magic without harming the core of the module. A few reworkings of the map, some changes in a few of the descriptions, and me and PiCat were on the same page - which is a pretty remarkable thing if you think about it.

I think complaining of a trench coat is a very small thing. Call it a great coat or a buff coat and you get back at least 300-400 years; the 16th century may well be appropriate to some settings. Change it to a cloak, and you've gone back as far as you may like.

Suffice here to say that I find much of the hard work put into making everything "gray" rather banal and shallow, with a strong dash of faux sophistication which I find amusing, if not useful. I find that the Pazio products generally favor sophistication over depth. When they are praised for depth, it is usually, IMHO, because the reader has mistaken the former for the latter. A not unusual thing, nowadays.

I think you are mistaking the marketting for the substance. Try as the author might to cast things as a edgy, simplistic, all shades of gray world, in the hands of a mature GM the story can I think gain more depth provided that the underlying conflicts provide actual oppurtunity for depth. And besides which, I generally incorporate a module not to provide a source for the deep intellectual concepts of the campaign, but to provide a source for the specific locations of the action and, if you would, some of the stories action scenes. When Kevin wrote, 'Of Sound Mind', I'm fairly certain one of the things on his mind wasn't whether or not the gods are worthy of worship, or to what extent the ends justify the means. 'Of Sound Mind' does not directly illuminate such questions, and you won't get that directly from the text. Nonetheless, thats the sort of uses to which the interludes therein were being employed by me. What you do get from 'Of Sound Mind' is a dungeon interlude with a challenges from the full spectrum of RPG challenges - combat, social, problem solving, investigation, dungeoneering, evasion etc. tied up in a package and exportable with a little work. It has its problems, but I wouldn't put among them that it has flavors I don't like - although in fairness, it was probably the psionic flavors that kept the module from recieving the success it was due.

 

[Lanefan]

As a GM, I find it way easier to, well, GM, then it is to fully write a new rules system.

Speak for yourself.

Part of a DM's job, to me, is to (re-)write the rules to suit the game she wants to run.

And yes, it's a lot of work - which is why I stick to the rules I've already (re-)written from 1e rather than jump to a newer edition and rewrite that instead.

You are missing the oh so important detail, which is that none of those adventure paths, none of those modules, none of it would have existed without the rules system.

They wouldn't have existed without *a* rules system. But if Paizo hadn't developed 3.75 they could just as easily have written the same adventures to suit any other system out there - like 1e (hint, hint) - and as adventures seem to be what they do best I'm sure the results would have been quite successful.

But Pathfinder - the system, Pathfinder - is 3.5 repackaged and sold with a few modifications. This is by design. It is inherently taking someone else's created rules system and re-selling it.

Which is why I pretty much ignore it - it's a re-do of a rules set I'm not interested in in the first place. But the adventures are generally still worthwhile.

Lan-"if Pathfinder comes out with a new edition will it be called 3.9e?"-efan

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I think complaining of a trench coat is a very small thing. Call it a great coat or a buff coat and you get back at least 300-400 years; the 16th century may well be appropriate to some settings. Change it to a cloak, and you've gone back as far as you may like.

It is a small thing, by itself. OTOH, I rarely find that it shows up by itself. It's a symptom of a larger, more substantial and pervasive irritant. Though I admit that sometimes it isn't. Sometimes, it is just a coat.