Mike Mearls is a Genius

[scourger]

I found this link interesting because it makes me ponder the core story for my next campaign. Despite 25 years of D&D, I am tired of the kill-loot-rinse-repeat cycle. Also, while I love d20, it just gets too complicated too fast. It's manageable and fun at low levels, but everything gets really complicated somewhere between 6th-10th levels. I think it's the proliferation of magic, both spells and items, that mainly does it. Even hit points get to be a drag, though, as the characters and the foes duke it out in a slow war of attrition. As I ponder a new Savage Worlds game, I'll keep a campaign story in mind. It will have to involve some gain for some players, but some players will just go with the story.

 

[fanboy2000]

Actually, Mike says that Eberron has no core story that he can see, and then goes on to propose a core story that could fit. Big difference.

Well, if he proposes a core story, then obviously he can find one. The core story he proposes does fit, he's used it himself and others have used it. It's like covering your eyes up and then saying you can't see. Then uncovering your eyes and describing the world around you to the amazement of others.

Also did he coin the term "core story?" Becuse he claims every sucessful RPG has one. I'd like to see him back up that claim before he tackles a spicific setting. He uses Greyhawk and Fogotten Realms to back-up his claims, but thouse are sucessful settings, not sucessful RPGs. He needs to apply the term to other RPGs. In the other RPG department he applies CoC and Vampire have one, GURPS dosen't. I'm curious about other WoD games, the new WoD game, Traveller, and Paranoia. How does he view the core stories in thouse games? Does he think it's changed from Vampire: The Masquade to Vampire: The Requiem? Paranoia seems to have one. As it stands, it seems like Mearls coind the term specificly to find an exception in Eberron. Why is the term needed? Also, the word story seems to only fit a few play styles.

I find the artical strange. He coins a term and finds an exception to it in one stroke, implying the exception is doomed to failure. I thought only talking heads on cable news did that.

 

[Varianor Abroad]

I'd like to see him back up that claim before he tackles a spicific setting.

Did you read the blog and the replies? Mike did back it up. Or rather, Ryan Dancey and some other insightful folks provided support for this thesis before fully formed, and other core stories were detailed (Ravenloft is particularly well done). I think this is an important insight that has been seen before in the world of RPGs, it's just recast in today's terms.

Mike can answer on the core story of Iron Heroes, but I take it to be "We go out, kick ass, come back covered in glory, and eventually take over the world."

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Wow! That one sounds like a rip-off of Bladestorm (setting for the miniatures game - Bladestorm - by ICE - it is a small continent on Kulthea (Shadow World) that is completely surrounded by the Bladestorm - an impenetrable wall of storms). On Shadow World, the continent is called Folenn.

Ha! That's funny -- even the ones I like turn out to be derivative.

 

[Odhanan]

thought the core story of Eberron was:

PCs are hired by a patron to find something, kill monsters and take their stuff (and the original thing), but an opposing force comes to stop them - and the patron might not be a nice guy anyway.

That's the concept of the Forge's campaign, yes (ECS+Shadow of VB+ Grasp of EC etc), but that isn't the base concept of the setting itself. The setting itself is defined by very blurry references to "epic" and "pulp" literary genres while trying to drag all the D&D material into it. This doesn't make for a defined core story, IMO.

The one that Mike suggests is actually strongly hinted at in the ECS... as well as a few others. I think his suggestion makes sense: The ECS needs to focus somewhere. The marketing argument of creating a loose mix of genres plus core D&D plus psionics etc was perhaps making sense when it was launched (and I have strong doubts about that), but once it is launched, the line of products needs to focus. That's not happening for the moment.

 

[fanboy2000]

Did you read the blog and the replies? Mike did back it up. Or rather, Ryan Dancey and some other insightful folks provided support for this thesis before fully formed, and other core stories were detailed (Ravenloft is particularly well done).

I sure did. Ravenloft is a setting for an RPG, D&D. He claims every sucssful RPG has one, not every sucessful D&D setting. Here's a bit from Ryan Dancy that stood out:

Greyhawk is "stone soup": The bare minimum is provided, and the expectation is that the DM will add ingredients to taste, with little regard for the impact that design will have on other DM's expressions of the world, or other Greyhawk materials.

Forgotten Realms is "cup-o-soup": Everything is provided, and the expectation is that the DM will just "add water" - the bare minimum required to get a game up and running. Because so much is provided, the flexibility of the DM to make changes to the world and remain consistent with other DMs and with other published material is minimal.

These two approaches are designed to target two specific DM psychographic profiles we uncovered as a part of our market research. And WotC has done a good job, by and large, of staying on these targets.

My problem is that I'm in the middle. I want more detail than Grayhawk and less than Forgotten Realms. Eberron is in the middle. I think Ryan's lost sight of the fact that some people want a middle of the road approch to setting detail.

Also, how does he define sucess? I have a problem calling many of TSR's setting failures when the problem wasn't so much quality, but quantaty.

 

[Odhanan]

Greyhawk is "stone soup": The bare minimum is provided, and the expectation is that the DM will add ingredients to taste, with little regard for the impact that design will have on other DM's expressions of the world, or other Greyhawk materials.

Forgotten Realms is "cup-o-soup": Everything is provided, and the expectation is that the DM will just "add water" - the bare minimum required to get a game up and running. Because so much is provided, the flexibility of the DM to make changes to the world and remain consistent with other DMs and with other published material is minimal.

Nope. I don't agree with that.

As the default setting, Greyhawk's core story is the one of D&D.

The FR's core story would be: A band of adventurers discovers that the world is ancient, full of lost kingdoms and empires of all sorts, and populated by various powerful individuals, deities and factions they either decide to befriend or fight. Of course, to discover the world, its history and factions, they need to go to various locals, kill monsters, loot them and sell their stuff every time they're back to town.

One should not mix up "core story" (concept) and "background" (everything giving its dimension to the concept besides rules), IMO. Perhaps FR has too much background, but its core story is simple enough.

 

[fanboy2000]

I think his suggestion makes sense: The ECS needs to focus somewhere. The marketing argument of creating a loose mix of genres plus core D&D plus psionics etc was perhaps making sense when it was launched (and I have strong doubts about that), but once it is launched, the line of products needs to focus. That's not happening for the moment.

Here's an idea: why don't we see we see if we can find the core story of FR in the Old Grey Box? How focused were the FR products that came out a the first year of release of Forgotten Realms? It seems unfair to say Eberron lacks focus when it's only been out less that one year.

 

[Odhanan]

What do you think of the FR core story I just wrote above, fanboy?

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The marketing argument of creating a loose mix of genres plus core D&D plus psionics etc was perhaps making sense when it was launched (and I have strong doubts about that)

You have strong doubts about the wisdom of creating a setting that explicitly has a place for all the stuff in the core books plus psionics (which many people view as core)? Short of adding in an official psionic culture to Greyhawk or Forgotten Realms, I think it's about the smartest move around.

(And no, I don't personally like psionics, but if they're going to be used in a setting, they should actually BE in the setting.)