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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Dungeonosophy" data-source="post: 7519158" data-attributes="member: 6688049">Mike, if you're gonna make D&D Tactics, then how about Simply D&D?4E was basically a different game than D&D. Like the other D&D-branded offshoots, such as the D&D Cooperative Board Games, D&D Parlor Games, or D&D Miniatures games, it was basically a D&D branded MMORPG-inspired tactical game. It was boldy and well crafted in that regard, but it just wasn't D&D, as such.If Mearls and WotC want to craft other games which bear a D&D brand, but are actually different games than the TRPG, I'm all for it. But what I'd personally like to see, rather than an even more granular tactical game, would be an even *less* granular "D&D Storytelling Game" with a complexity akin to Hasbro's Tails of Equestria RPG. A fully-fledged, but ultra-streamlined TRPG experience, and not just for kids. Let's call it, say, "Simply D&D" or "Tales of the D&D Multiverse--A Storytelling Game."Design parameters for this D&D Storytelling Game:*It looks like D&D...if you blur your eyes. It uses all the poly dice, has 6 ability scores, HP, AC, maybe a Saving Throw, and not much else.*Possibly no math at all. Except for maybe adding and subtracting Hit Points. (Like Tails of Equestria.)*Battles are designed to be resolved in possibly just one (or a few) rolls. Fights last no longer than the real time it takes for a typical fight scene in a film or novel to be resolved.*PCs don't die when defeated, unless a story twist calls for it. Perhaps all PC deaths are consensual.*Characters begin with only two or three powers (maybe: culture power, class power, + one chosen power).*All choices can be randomly rolled if the player wishes. There's a random table for character creation.*Gain exactly one power each level. A spell is a power. By 20th level (20 sessions), a character will still only have 22 powers.*Spell lists either trimmed to iconic Basic D&D list, and/or synthesized and somewhat abstracted like True 20 spells or DDM spells.*No XP bean counting - just level up after every session.*Except for marquee items, treasure is abstracted as Treasure Level or something.*Simply D&D is kinda like Lone Wolf or Super Endless Quest, but still a TRPG.*Except for special equipment. a party (or solo character) is assumed to have "coincidentally remembered" every kind of ordinary equipment necessary for the adventure. Including a 10' pole, if there is a hazard which calls for it. Its presence is retconned in the moment: "Hey, good thing I carried this 10' foot pole with us."*No counting of rations, water, or arrows. Only starve or run out of ammo if a story twist calls for it.*Encumbrance similarly streamlined.*Designed for a complete story to last no more than 1 or 2 hours. In fact, there could be a timer with the game to make sure! (Or maybe not.) <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />*Is presented as a comprehensive and legitimate "lens" on the entire D&D Multiverse, which is distinct from the "5e lens."  (Like how BECMI D&D was officially held to be a different "reality", wherein there were only four human classes and three demihuman races in the whole world.)* However, unlike BECMI D&D, this D&D Storytelling Game would theoretically include every race and class ever seen in the D&D Multiverse (because it's fun to choose race & class, and to see new races and classes to chose from)...but each race and class would be streamlined into a much less granular "one power per level."*Any class can be multiclassed at any level. Just choose Class Power from that class list and voila!*Perhaps (like PF2), all or some racial/cultural powers can be chosen at any level, to form "multiraced/multicultural" characters. And justified by a retcon: "Hey, I just learned that my great grandfather was a dwarf. I'm going to start exploring that heritage."*Setting wise, the classic dungeons of the D&D Multiverse are represented as 1-to-2-hour long "television episode / novella / film"-sized stories, completable in a single session. Even mega-dungeons are narratively condensed, where various key scenes of the iconic dungeon are played out, but separated by "cut scenes" which are just retroactively narrated in a quick paragraph of boxed text.*World hopping from the start. Everyone is a member of the Adventurer's Guild (from AC1: The Shady Dragon Inn). (Like Pathfinder Society.) The Adventurer's Guild spans the entire Multiverse, including the more inaccessible worlds such as Athas. The Adventurer's Guild has planar teleportation (and chronomantic time-travel) resources to get the players anywhere, in any time. It is an assumed trope that the party is sent on adventures throughout the Multiverse, even from first level. That's just part of the game.*As for products: the modules are printed in a small format (say, 7x10-inch). Could be softcover (cheaper) or hardcover (if Hasbro's business model requires a bit higher price point). Either way, the Simply D&D product line should be a lower price point.*All modules are scalable from 1st level to 20th level (or possibly 36th level like BECMI or 40th level like 2e Epic), so that any series of Simply D&D modules could be used in any order of play. Has an appendix which gives scaled stats for every encounter. For example, the 1st level Tomb of Horrors, where Acerack is hardly more than a Skeleton with Wizard spell or two. (Sacrilege?! Well, that's pretty much how the Lich of the Fantasy Forest gamebooks was portrayed. Same for the Skeletor-looking Lich which Strongheart and the Kids easily defeated on the way into Castle Venger in the D&D View-Master story.)*Besides the usual dungeon crawl modules and wilderness modules (Isle of Dread), there could be a sort of World Sampler (or "Worldbook") module, which takes the characters on a whirlwind adventure to iconic sites throughout a single D&D World, such as a Mystara Worldbook module which gives the players a map of the whole world, and has a plot hook which takes them to a scene or two in Threshold, then to Castle Amber, to Alphatia City, to the Savage Coast, to the Hollow World, to the Immortal City of Pandius on the moon, etc...all in one session! And the module comes with  a "splatbook" appendix consisting of power options covering the unique races and classes of that world: "Hey, now that you've visited Mystara, you might pick up a level in Atruaghin Shamani or Darokin Merchant. Hey, and you discovered, when you picked up the Scent power, that one of your ancestors was a Lupin! Bow-wow!" *Make a Simply D&D module for each of the iconic D&D novels (Icewind Dale, Dragons of Autumn Twilight, etc...or maybe even condense a novel trilogy into a single session! The War of the Lance in 2 hours!). Module comes with Simply D&D stats for the iconic characters of the novel (Drizzt, Raistlin, etc), scaled to the difficulty level seen in the novel, or you can play it with your own character, and scale all the encounters up or down using the appendix.)*Really tie together the timelines of the D&D Multiverse, and play on that in a clever, "meta" way, using the existing concepts of "paraverses" or "tangents." Like: "For this module, we're going to visit the Curse of Strahd timeline of Ravenloft. Next module, we'll visit the Classic Timeline of Ravenloft!" See: <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/timeline" target="_blank">https://sites.google.com/site/dndphilmont/timeline</a>That's the kind of D&D i'd like to play. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Lastly, I'm glad Mearls mentioned his Nentir Vale home game. I was averse to Nentir Vale during the 4E era - not because it wasn't a thoughtful and innovative campaign setting - I rather liked the Points of Light them and the synthesis of the various planes; but rather, because it purposely pushed out all other settings, and so it grated on me like FR. Yet now, I'd like to see Nentir Vale given the full campaign setting treatment, with a World map and everything - but as an equal peer of the other Classic worlds - Oerth, Mystara, and so forth.</blockquote>

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