Mike Mearl's on simplifying skills in D&D

[Aus_Snow]

Exactly! In my experience, the more comprehensive rules there are, the more players tend to conceptualize their in game actions in terms of those rules.

In my experience, that is not true. I do not doubt your own experiences, but yes, mine are at odds entirely.

Creativity is either there or not there in the gamers themselves, IME, totally irrespective of system.

 

[Raven Crowking]

For my own house rules, I added to the skill list (including weapon skills). Put me on the side of not liking Mearls' idea.


RC

 

[Plane Sailing]

True 20: Automatic advancement of skills, no cross-class skills. (Someone correct me if I'm wrong.)

The released version of True20 is different to that.

At 1st level you get 4 ranks in the x skills you choose (no cross-class skills), at subsequent levels you get skill points to spend just like normal in D&D (but with the no cross class skills)

Cheers

 

[Thurbane]

When speaking of "dumbing down" anything, spelling can make or break your point...

I was waiting to see how long it took for someone to pick that up. In my defence, it was in the middle of the night while I had insomnia.

POint the second - I believe that "dumming" is actually an accepted regional variant of "dumbing", at least here Down Under.

 

[Thurbane]

TWEET!

Moderator's Notes:

Discussing the mechanics of this proposal is totally acceptable. Referring to someone's posts as crap, or to someone's ideas as "dumming down the game," or otherwise discussing anything in an incivil, impolite, or disrespectful manner is NOT acceptable.

Picture us mods, lurking in the background, swinging little three-day banhammers, with the bigger ones ready at hand. We're serious about this.

Daniel

Sorry, not to be adversarial, but surely we are allowed to make the comment that an editorial posted at the WotC site is, in fact, "dumming down" of the game? Perhaps I could have phrased it a little more politely, but in essence my point still stands - I have found most of Mike Mearl's articles to consist of simplifying the game rules at the cost of both flavour and established, functional rules.

Are WotC articles not "fair game" for criticism?

 

[buzz]

When taken together, these contradict as to the relevance of DM input.

My intent was to say that both the player and GM have meaningful input. If the input is 99% on the side of the GM, then, IMO, there's not much meaningful input going on. I roll the die, and then the GM makes whatever he wants happen.

What's wrong with just rolling the dice and letting the chips (and the character) fall where they may? A good DM will (usually) let you succeed when you should, fail when you should, and cling to the edge on a borderline roll...and will have a good reason when "usually" isn't the case.

If the whole of the system is "a good GM will make it work," then it begs the question of why we're using a system at all, not to mention why I'm paying $30 a pop for stacks of rulebooks.

Again, some people like this sort of play. That's cool, but it doesn't really speak to what I would consider good design worth paying for. Mearls himself once said that good rules are ones that make the game more enjoyable than if they weren't there. If I want to just do freeform where it's all about being told a story by a privileged player or collaborating on a story via negotiation, then I can do that for free.

(P.S., the jumping onto illusory terrain example is a strawman, as there are rules to deal with this in D&D 3.5 that are more than, "Trust the DM and do what he says.")

 

[Hawkshere]

Are WotC articles not "fair game" for criticism?

The topic is in regards to a short post on Mike's personal LiveJournal blog. It has nothing to do with WotC whatsoever. (Say that three times real fast...)

First off, the ideas on my LJ have nothing to do with how we develop D&D. This was purely something I thought of while cleaning my apartment on Sunday afternoon while listening to the Seahawks game.

 

[Pielorinho]

Perhaps I could have phrased it a little more politely

This is absolutely the point: at ENWorld, politeness is absolutely key to keeping the tone we wish to keep. Adversarial points may be made, but they MUST be made in a polite, civil, and respectful fashion.

Also, while I'm not faulting you for it this time, please reread the rules. Specifically, if you have a problem with a moderator call, we ask you to take it to email, not to discuss it in-thread. (I'm writing this here because a reminder of the rules is often helpful; we've recently had to ban someone for neglecting the civility rule, and we hate having to do that)..

You can find my email, or that of any moderator, in the sticky in the Meta forum.

Daniel

 

[Thurbane]

The topic is in regards to a short post on Mike's personal LiveJournal blog. It has nothing to do with WotC whatsoever. (Say that three times real fast...)

OK, my bad - I thought this related to a WotC article. Apologies to Pielorinho and everyone else - I wen't off "half-cocked".

Back to the discussion then...

 

[Nyeshet]

You are not alone . . .

Sometimes I feel like the only person who wants MORE skills not less.

I like the skill system as is. . .

Personally, I would like the current d20 system far more if the combat and magic were reduced to skills - the former being opposed offensive / defensive skills, with armor as DR to cover instances where defense fails, and the latter as something akin to EoM,ME tweaked a bit with the idea of complex skill checks from UA for more potent / complex spells. In turn, there would need to be different skill pools for combat, magic, and general skills - each class having a variant number of each to reflect its roles, with Int based bonus skill points becoming more versatile due to being able to be assigned to any of the pools.

Needless to say, however, this would be a more complex and in some respects almost completely different system. Personally, I don't like the simplified skill system - or any simplified skill system. Combining Listen and Spot is often suggested, but I personally dislike such - perhaps because I wear glasses but have fine hearing.