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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Little Raven" data-source="post: 3924691" data-attributes="member: 10095">Okay, I did some cleanup of this post. All the stuff I have in quotes from now on is the forum poster to which Mearls is responding, and all of the "normal" text from now on is Mearls' response. Enjoy.This is the heart of the matter. I can't write rules that say "And as a reward for defeating this encounter, the DM does some really good roleplaying."I can't do that. I have no control over the DM. I have no input into his abilities. I can put DM advice into a book, which frankly based on reviews and comments everyone ignores anyway. I can put suggestions on how to DM, which based on how people have reacted to the quest card *suggestion* gets taken as the One True Way and villified.What I can do is stick XP and treasure at the end of the mouse maze du jour, be it combat, social encounters, or bringing a pizza to the game session, and hope that's enough to get most gaming groups moving in the same direction as the rules.First, the cards are not a system, but I suspect you're talking about the quest mechanic anyway. The cards have nothing to do with the mechanics of how a quest work, just like paper and pencil don't determine how hit points work. They are tools used to implement a mechanic, but not a mechanic. You can use the mechanic without those tools.Second, what's to stop the DM from asking the players to create quests?Third, I think there's something of a cognitive dissonance at work here. Beginning DMs need some structure to help them learn the game and learn how to DM. Yet, isn't part of DMing learning how to improvise? Isn't it logical that we'd cover that in the DMG and make some effort to address that?The central message of the DMG for 4e is pretty simple: make the game fun for everyone. Communicate with your players. Make expectations clear. Work with the players, not against them. True, a DM who mindlessly applies the quest mechanic can cause problems, but that's not what anyone wants.From a purely mercenary POV, it is in WotC's best economic interest to do whatever it takes to make more good DMs. Good DMs create interesting worlds and fun adventures. They work with the players to create a fun game. They listen. They adopt a funny voice when portraying a kobold. They bring the game to life.We expect DMs to exercise their judgment when applying any rule, and we do what we can to help that.As for player initiative, that's not something we can necessarily force on to people. Some people are perfectly happy playing D&D with a DM who leads them through adventures by the nose. These guys want to be entertained while bashing monsters.Their style of play (or lack thereof) has no effect on players who want to be more active. Just as I can't force people to be good DMs, I can't force people to become "good" players, by whoever's standard of good we want to apply. What I can try to do is take the doorway into D&D and force it as wide open as possible, to let as many people at least try this hobby, and maybe get more people playing it.See, here's the thing. Down below (and I'll get to this) you ask if we're making a 4e a game that gamers want, or a game that I want. Well, I'd ask you the same question: do you want us to make a game that gamers want, or do you want us to make a game that you want?We all have different styles of playing D&D, and that's the beauty of the game. I'm not going to design a game that forcibly evicts anyone from playing it. If a bunch of mindless couch potatoes can now enjoy D&D, I don't mind. They're not going to effect how anyone else plays the game. If Joe in Peoria doesn't roleplay, that doesn't stop Barbara in San Jose from playing her character to the hilt.See, again, I have to turn that question around to you. I don't like putting a lot of detail into my campaign worlds, but you do. Which of us is right? The answer, to me, is neither, as long as we and our groups have fun.There are no mechanical elements that allow player input into story in 3e. In 4e, we have mechanics that have that potential: allow you players to make up their own quests.You want to encourage players to think? Here are some quotes I've pulled from the DMG. I hope they stay in, because if they don't I'm going to look really stupid in a few months:"When a player puts forward what you consider a plausible countermeasure for a trap, the next step is to determine the best resolution method and a suitable action cost for the countermeasure—even if that countermeasure doesn’t exist in the trap’s presentation. ...In short, always find ways to reward quick thinking and fun when it comes to traps and hazards.""Corollary to the Second Principle: Thinking players are engaged players: reward clever ideas.In challenges as freeform as these, players will come up with uses for skills that you didn’t expect to play a role. Try not to say “No.” Instead, let them make a roll using the skill but at a high DC, or make the skill good for only one victory. This encourages players to think about the challenge in more depth and engages more PCs by broadening the range of applicable skills."When it comes to DM "chores" we want DMs to only do as much work as they want to do. Again, I have to turn the question back around to you: is it good for D&D as a whole if DMs need to do a lot of work on building a world, or is that how *you* like to DM? If there are DMs out there like me who don't like designing worlds, does that hurt you?D&D is not a religion or a social movement. We're all just DMs and players doing our own thing in our own way. Not every D&D player is a good match for every D&D group. There are groups that I'd never want to game with, yet they have an awesome time every week, and vice versa.I cut the paragraph about mechanics because no one outside of playtesters have seen the full mechanics yet. A lot of people are assuming that we're adding X or Y without counterbalancing it, or they don't see everything in the context of the full system yet.Suffice to say that there are still plenty of hard choices to be made. If the game was easy, no one would play.What is easier is all the bookkeeping and mechanics that had a poor return on fun. If you think that ability score loss a la 3e is the only possible way to model a weakening effect, then I think that 3e is the only game you'll like.I'm serious. If you look at 3e and think that its mechanical definition of various effects is the only valid expression of those effects, just stick with 3e. We are not going to hold on to mechanics for the sake of holding on to mechanics. When we can achieve the same goal with less work, we will always do that.The Diplomacy skill and similar abilities are no more abusable than they are in 3e. Social challenges, and other non-combat challenges, are mechanics added to the game to make skills more useful and to broaden the types of encounters DMs can have in adventures.Essentially, a non-combat challenge turns skills from a pass-or-fail check into a series of checks made toward achieving a larger goal. Rather than make on Diplomacy check, the group needs to make a number of differnet skill checks, including Diplomacy, to forge an alliance with the dwarf king. Players can't simply say "I want to do X with a skill" without the DM saying that's OK.I'll let the DMG design notes speak on the issue of roleplaying and skill challenges:"For “pure” RP, if you say the perfect thing that the duke would absolutely agree to, then the DM gives you a +arbitrarily high bonus on the roll—and it’s OK if the bonus is so big that it makes the roll irrelevant."I don't think your example for party roles holds water. Whether a role is there or not, if the fighter stands at the back of the party the rest of the group will yell at him. The roles are there so that players have a better understanding of what they are supposed to do. Mechanically, it simply calls to attention the reason why wizards in 3e can't cast healing spells. Every class needs a unique role to foster teamwork and to give everyone a chance to shine. It also helps enforce class balance in design.And yes, we are telling people what they are supposed to do. If we get more people playing D&D because of that, then we've succeeded. Roles have no mechanics attached to them. They simply serve to inform players about a class and help people make clear, understandable choices.I think you're contradicting yourself here a little. On one hand, you don't like the exact feat names, yet on the other you want players to create details on the game world. Don't those names encourage exactly what you want? None of those names come with fleshed out backgrounds. They might have some pointers, but they are there precisely to get players to think of the skills their characters learned as coming from somewhere or something.Again, this is purely subjective. Nothing in the rules stops you from running whatever campaign you want. The core background is in the game to give beginners something to start with. If anything, it encourages DM and player creativity because it sets up the core D&D world as a huge, blank cavnas waiting to be filled with ideas.I think at times your thoughts are a little contradictory. You want a lot of player input, roleplay, and DM creativity, yet you don't like the steps we take to help foster that. Maybe there's a better way to do it, but I'm not sure it makes sense to want DMs and players who are creative world builders while dismissing the point of light concept.The core thrust of the PoL is pretty simple: it lets the DM invent what he wants. It gives room for players to create stuff in the world, with the DM's OK of course. If I sit down at a DM's table and say, "I want to play a Thor-worshipping Viking-style cleric" it's a lot easier to accomodate that if the DM hasn't detailed every inch of his campaign world.We are never going to make D&D more complicated than it needs to be. Roleplaying is not some sacred hobby that requires a minimum mental or creative requirement. There are few enough outlets for creativity in the world that I'd never stoop to make D&D less accessible.The core of D&D is roleplay and the DM as creator/judge/actor/storyteller. Those two tools are the advantage that we have over every other form of game out there. They are awesome advantages, powerful enough to keep D&D going for over 30 years. We'd be insanely stupid to get rid of them or de-emphasize them.EDIT: I wanted to add that I think your original post was very interesting and well thought out. It's good to have a dialogue with someone that doesn't become mindless anger or frustration. You ask a lot of good, hard questions, and you have many of the same concerns that I would have were I not in the seat I currently occupy.</blockquote>

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