Mike Mearls comments on design

[Tquirky]

D&D has never ever been world neutral.

Neither has it's core cleaved very far from mythology (and don't bother to trot out Tolkien again, he didn't invent elves and dwarves, just tapped into a mythological vein). There are D&Disms like clerics, but that's not an invitation to make it more "out there" based on this precedent. D&Disms are fine when optional, but too many in the core become obtrusive.

WOTC may want a "plays out of the box" game, but are they mindful of D&D's role as a world construction kit? They seem to be compromising the latter for the former. And it's a shame, because the goals aren't mutually exclusive if they'd just take more care with their "flavour" in PHB1.

 

[Tquirky]

I can't seem to find that bat now. Tquirky, did you steal mine?

They're somewhere around here. Can't find them amongst all these tanglefoot bags and pots of greek fire, and I'm not sure which is worse - direct references to real world in the core or contrived D&Disms in the core which are somehow deemed appropriate for every D&D world purely based on some designer's whim.

 

[Rechan]

Neither has it's core cleaved very far from mythology (and don't bother to trot out Tolkien again, he didn't invent elves and dwarves, just tapped into a mythological vein).

So, the land of fairie where the dark unseelie play is cleaved far from mythology? Or the plane of the dead, where souls go to waste and drift is cleaved far from mythology?

Please. The Great Wheel, with its "Plane of robots" and "Plane of unbending laws" and "Plane of just air floating out there in the middle of everything" was far more cleaved far from mythology. The only thing that was mythological about it was that every single spiritual destination was crowbarred into it.

 

[Rechan]

contrived D&Disms in the core which are somehow deemed appropriate for every D&D world purely based on some designer's whim.

I too hate that some designer deemed elves and dwarves, barbarians and bards appropriate for my campaign, purely on their whim.

What if my campaign doesn't have orcs? The designers have forced me to include half-orcs.

 

[Remathilis]

Mandated Crunch + Mandated Fluff = Bad in my book. I may as well play a video game.

I guess you've never tried to play a Bela Lugosi style vampire in Vampire: the Masquerade eh?

Is it Ok for Traveler, Palladium, World of Darkness, Deadlands, and countless other RPGs to define its world in the core books using deities, organizations, and plays on mythic creatures, but if D&D doesn't make the game generic, its bad?

 

[DaveMage]

D1e PHB has the known planes, including the Great Wheel. Ah, that was an appendix you say. However Dimension Door and Astral Spell both refer to the astral plane and they're not in the appendix.

The Astral Plane is in the 1E PHB appendix.

 

[mach1.9pants]

And oh yeah. Page 37. Weapons table. Bohemian ear-spoon. WTF!!!? All our games gotta have Bohemia now!!?

Bring back the Bohemian Ear Spoon, now that name (and it is a real world one) beats Golden Wyvern Adept anyday!
and yes I have taken the Godwin Wyvern Adept (Metaforum) feat....

 

[The Little Raven]

The Astral Plane is in the 1E PHB appendix.

He's saying the spells that stated that you use the Astral Plane (which is in the appendix) in order to travel are not in the appendix, but in the meat of the text.

 

[Tquirky]

Please. The Great Wheel, with its "Plane of robots" and "Plane of unbending laws" and "Plane of just air floating out there in the middle of everything" was far more cleaved far from mythology. The only thing that was mythological about it was that every single spiritual destination was crowbarred into it.

Yes, and there's one heck of a lot of mythology in those spiritual destinations. The bits you're complaining about are just there to reflect a D&Dism: the law-neutral-chaos bits of the alignment system.

You've made my argument for me.

 

[Rechan]

Yes, and there's one heck of a lot of mythology in those spiritual destinations. The bits you're complaining about are just there to reflect a D&Dism: the law-neutral-chaos bits of the alignment system.

You've made my argument for me.

I think it hurts verisimilitude to have every single destination possible crammed into the planes system.

And I don't seem to recall much mythology for plane of robots and air.