Mike Mearls comments on design

[Hussar]

Maybe. But if you downplay the importance of something as fundamental as core classes and races, then what flavour's important to the game at all? Nothing? Is it only the crunch which is important? How many dice you roll for task resolution? The number of "steps" in combat? Yes, that must be it...

Well, I play almost exclusively from the SRD, so, obviously flavour doesn't mean a whole lot to me.

But, besides that, how often do your players actually stick to the flavour that's actually IN the 3.5 books. Do your elf players wax longingly about the forests? Or, are they like my players and play the characters they envision for themselves and pretty much ignore the books.

My problem is that people are saying that the books were generic. They're not. 3.5 hardwires flavour into the game. The races of D&D are only generic because D&D made them generic. I mean, how often do you see elves in S&S fantasy? Halflings only appear in the works of one author, they're hardly generic. D&D made all these races generic fantasy.

The same way that D&D will make Golden Wyvern Adepts generic fantasy.

 

[rounser]

My problem is that people are saying that the books were generic. They're not. 3.5 hardwires flavour into the game. The races of D&D are only generic because D&D made them generic. I mean, how often do you see elves in S&S fantasy? Halflings only appear in the works of one author, they're hardly generic. D&D made all these races generic fantasy.

The same way that D&D will make Golden Wyvern Adepts generic fantasy.

You've lost me there. Elves are from mythology, and fantasy draws heavily on that for the kind of mythic resonance that makes fantasy so popular in the first place. Golden Wyvern Adepts are arbitrary and sound like they're from a specific campaign world, whereas elves are "public domain fantasy", and thick with archetype and assumed knowledge. Therein lies the difference.

WOTC even admits that this is why they're proper nouning things and turning to specific D&Disms rather than fantasy conventions - purely for legal reasons, and obviously they see no harm to the game in it. There are some compelling reasons not to do this, IMO, and I do see it harming the game's overall worth.

It goes from "Sim Fantasy Worlds" to "Sim This Quirky Specific Fantasy World" moreso than it already is. (I mean, admittedly we have clerics and other, more minor core D&Disms already, but they're adding a whole lot of fuel to the fire this time around with a bunch of new classes and races made core. Warlock fits, it has a strong archetype, whereas Warlord appears to be a bunch of abilities strapped to a misnomer, in search of an archetype.)

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It's a matter of scope. Single spells? Artifacts? Very little screentime. Easy to ignore. Negligible impact on worldbuilding. Easy to exclude or rename.

Core races, core classes? Massive amount of screentime. In your face. Everywhere. Hard to rename, because referenced so much. World-defining.

Sparking your imagination.

Not "WoW, did you see what Spell Shaper does! Cool, I want it for my Wizard. Only 500 XP and counting!"
"Gold Wyvern Adept. Who are these gold wyvern? I want to know more about them!"

 

[rounser]

Not "WoW, did you see what Spell Shaper does! Cool, I want it for my Wizard. Only 500 XP and counting!"
"Gold Wyvern Adept. Who are these gold wyvern? I want to know more about them!"

Actually, I don't want to know about them. They have a silly name.

 

[Dalamar]

You've lost me there. Elves are from mythology, and fantasy draws heavily on that for the kind of mythic resonance that makes fantasy so popular in the first place. Golden Wyvern Adepts are arbitrary and sound like they're from a specific campaign world, whereas elves are "public domain fantasy", and thick with archetype and assumed knowledge. Therein lies the difference.

The first thing that most people think of when you say "elf" is the guys who help Santa Claus. Does that mean we should make elves into crafters? Many mythologies have them as tiny, sprite-like spirit creatures, yet DnD elves are clearly from tolkien's vision of them.

WOTC even admits that this is why they're proper nouning things and turning to specific D&Disms rather than fantasy conventions - purely for legal reasons, and obviously they see no harm to the game in it. There are some compelling reasons not to do this, IMO, and I do see it harming the game's overall worth.

Where have they confirmed this? I have only seen people theorizing that this is the case, not anybody at WotC confirming it.

 

[rounser]

The first thing that most people think of when you say "elf" is the guys who help Santa Claus. Does that mean we should make elves into crafters?

I think you're being facetious.

Many mythologies have them as tiny, sprite-like spirit creatures, yet DnD elves are clearly from tolkien's vision of them.

Tolkien didn't come up with elves in this form. There's celtic mythology (the Tuatha De Danan or something) and at least one fantasy book I know of that predates him. I'd like to know of these "many mythologies" you refer to.

Where have they confirmed this

There's a quote from Mearls to this effect.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Maybe. But if you downplay the importance of something as fundamental as core classes and races, then what flavour's important to the game at all? Nothing? Is it only the crunch which is important? How many dice you roll for task resolution? The number of "steps" in combat? Yes, that must be it...

Yes, that IS the important thing in the game, strangely enough. That's why I buy a game system and not make it up myself. I could run generic fantasy in GURPS, Paladium Fantasy, Hero System, Big Eyes Small Mouth, Rolemaster, or any number of other games.

I buy D&D because I like the rules in it better than the other games. In each and every one of those games if I want to run a fantasy game I'm going to have to make a lot of changes to the rules to get away from some of the default setting elements unless I want to run a game in the implied setting that each game supports. And because of the math involved, it will assume people in that world miss a certain percentage of the time(and the amount that it varies from creature to creature). A world in which the PCs hit 95% of the time and kill most enemies in 1 hit will come across as an entirely different game that one where PCs hit 5% of the time and require 20 hits to kill an enemy. Elves may have the ability to see in the dark in GURPS and not in Paladium Fantasy. This changes the implied setting.

Rules of a game HEAVILY define an implied setting. From the big to the small. I could see getting just as worked up about the fact that there are rogues in the game(implying that some people sneak around and use stealthy tactics when such a thing might not exist in my game world) as I could getting annoyed at Golden Wyvern. It's simply a matter of taste and tradition. Golden Wyvern hasn't existed before but rogues have.

 

[rounser]

Yes, that IS the important thing in the game, strangely enough.

That is, indeed, very strange. D&D's rules have always been one of it's weaker points, IMO, and yet other things attract people to the game. I think we'll have to agree to disagree on this one.

 

[Remathilis]

It goes from "Sim Fantasy Worlds" to "Sim This Quirky Specific Fantasy World" moreso than it already is. (I mean, admittedly we have clerics and other, more minor core D&Disms already, but they're adding a whole lot of fuel to the fire this time around with a bunch of new classes and races made core. Warlock fits, it has a strong archetype, whereas Warlord appears to be a bunch of abilities strapped to a misnomer, in search of an archetype.)

Sounds to me that you don't want to play a game of D&D, you want of game of "Generic Fantasy Role-Playing Simulator d20."

I play D&D to play D&D. I don't whine about the appropriateness of the name "cleric" (why not priest? its what is it) or "fighter" (warrior, warrior, warrior) or anything like that any more than being upset garlic doesn't effect a World of Darkness Vampire or that my Jedi can't throw fireballs in Star Wars Saga. D&D is drifting away from being catch all of every possible fantasy trope and moving toward a unique (if slightly generic) setting that all the core books will support.

After playing the absolutely dirt-bland 2e core and the slightly-more flavored (Greyhawk) 3e, I'm interested to see what this moderately spicy 4e will taste like. So far, I'm liking it. YMMV.

 

[rounser]

Sounds to me that you don't want to play a game of D&D, you want of game of "Generic Fantasy Role-Playing Simulator d20."

No, that doesn't come with enough implied setting.

I like D&D's implied setting, but I want it to stay like a comfy sofa, table and chairs - usable, comfortable, but also somewhat in the background - and solid fantasy tropes like elves and dwarves deliver on that. Not like an elephant in the living room, blocking out the other furniture I want to put in there, just because someone at WOTC really likes elephants (or dragonmen, or whatever). It does have the odd D&Dism in the core, but a little ungraceful design which is there for purely gamist reasons (i.e. cleric) is not an invitation to open the gates to a lot of it.

And you try to make me sound like I'm an isolated outsider, when the surveys suggest that for once I'm in the majority. Do you really, truly think that D&D would be anywhere near as popular as it is if it shut out homebrews? A strongly flavoured implied setting will by definition do that. Sure, some will have no problem and just incorporate the kitchen sink into their setting, while the rest of us will be left bailing out material we don't want or need.