D&D General Mike Mearls sits down with Ben from Questing Beast

[Henadic Theologian]

Ok finally watched it. Fascinating analysis.

He's right about the distance between decision markers & fans, I think instead of cutting folks like Dan Dillion, they should have removed all the VP positions that D&D didn't need previously and move those folks to accounting or something.

When it comes to the issue of less flavour in the core for the most part and generic humaniods, cultures, setting flavour, etc..., and the little true innovation in the core vs refinements, and such is that Mike Mearls had left before I think the decision to shift alot of that stuff to Setting books like E: FotA, L-S, FRPG, FRAG, etc..., reducing the Core to pure scaffolding with some exceptions. But the mistake WotC made was not to advertising this fact soon, so stuff like Drow Priestess of Lolth isn't gone, it's shunted to Setting books, along with innovative mechanics that are not universally applable, and cultures and all that stuff. This is a bit less true of the DMG.

And lastly subclassless classes already exist in 5e, why did everyone forget Sidekick Subclasses where are perfectly playable?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Do any OSR games have monster creation guidelines? There weren't really in 1e or 2e and I wondered if OSR games followed. I ask because I just realized that my assumption that they don't has kept me away from getting into those games. Making monsters it one of my favorite D&D things to do!

ACKS II has a system built into its monster book for making monsters, along with other systems in the GM book for making literally everything else (classes, spells, items, etc). But in general, OSR monster-making is pretty bare-bones I believe.

 

[TiQuinn]

It struck me just now you may find Idle Cartulary's Advanced Fantasy Dungeons (you can find it at their itch) of interest; well-considered decisions on 2E.

Thanks, I’ll check that out!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Do any OSR games have monster creation guidelines? There weren't really in 1e or 2e and I wondered if OSR games followed. I ask because I just realized that my assumption that they don't has kept me away from getting into those games. Making monsters it one of my favorite D&D things to do!

Shadowdark goes over it briefly. It's also (speaking from personal experience) really easy to reverse engineer a monster or two, see that the math works just like it does with PCs, and then be all set from there.

 

[dave2008]

Your classic D&D games (OD&D, AD&D, B/X, etc.) have tremendously simple monsters but they also have a "simple" system to work out the threat level of them - what in 3E and later got termed "Challenge Rating" or "Challenge".

So, in OD&D and AD&D you were meant to only get full XP when fighting monsters of a similar challenge. The basic system was 1 HD balanced 1 player level, with special abilities adding on extra hit dice.

But the other side of it was that classic D&D tied almost everything to hit dice. No ability scores or anything like that. If you wanted to build a "broken" monster, you did it with special abilities or massive damage. There are a lot more moving parts in 3E+, and thus the need for better systems to calculate the monster's threat level became necessary.

I keep forgetting all the to hit rolls came from HD tables - it has been so long!

 

[Maxperson]

Ok finally watched it. Fascinating analysis.

He's right about the distance between decision markers & fans, I think instead of cutting folks like Dan Dillion, they should have removed all the VP positions that D&D didn't need previously and move those folks to accounting or something.

When it comes to the issue of less flavour in the core for the most part and generic humaniods, cultures, setting flavour, etc..., and the little true innovation in the core vs refinements, and such is that Mike Mearls had left before I think the decision to shift alot of that stuff to Setting books like E: FotA, L-S, FRPG, FRAG, etc..., reducing the Core to pure scaffolding with some exceptions. But the mistake WotC made was not to advertising this fact soon, so stuff like Drow Priestess of Lolth isn't gone, it's shunted to Setting books, along with innovative mechanics that are not universally applable, and cultures and all that stuff. This is a bit less true of the DMG.

And lastly subclassless classes already exist in 5e, why did everyone forget Sidekick Subclasses where are perfectly playable?

Evil drow that worship Lolth originated on Greyhawk. With this being the 50th anniversary and Greyhawk being the setting they put in the DMG, evil drow really should have been in the MM. They could have put different NPC drow types in the FR book.

 

[aiouh]

Well it's hypothetical but basically they create complexity.

Imagine you are the poor bastard that has to write them.

You can clone B/X for example in around 100 pages.
2024 1000 pages?

It's not really a judgement call over what someone likes but if you're adding feats, kits, powers, subclasses it's more work.

My homebrew version 3.2 or so is 8 classes iirc to level 5, races use 5E ones, feats maybe 50 odd, 2 or 3 talent trees per class (locked ones are basically archetypes ). My bestiary is a few monsters mostly low level ones.

How To Surprisingly Turn D&D 5e Into An Old School OSR Game

I decided to strip Dungeons & Dragons 5th edition down to its core to see how close I could replicate the "old school" or OSR editions of the game.

yumdm.com

 

[dave2008]

Evil drow that worship Lolth originated on Greyhawk. With this being the 50th anniversary and Greyhawk being the setting they put in the DMG, evil drow really should have been in the MM. They could have put different NPC drow types in the FR book.

I prefer they had put a basic stat block (any alignment) for each humanoid species (perhaps even non-humanoid PC species too) that could then me modified by NPC templates.

 

[SlyFlourish]

I'm honestly struggling to even guess what Mearls could even be referring to beyond Weapon Masteries, which are welcome but a very minor change overall seeing as only a few classes get them and those that do don't have to use them.

D&D 2024 definitely added complexity on top of weapon masteries. Several classes now have “free action” sorts of abilities like the paladin firing up channel divinity and inspiring smite off of a normal attack + smite and the rogue trading in sneak attack dice to do other things with their attack. There are several of these cascading style actions that feel like they should be bonus actions but instead just trigger off of attacks.

The whole debate about how many draws and stows characters get between attacks is a conversation that only comes up with the added complexity of D&D 2024.

In practice, it doesn’t seem to break the game but it’s definitely changed it and pushed it towards more complexity.

 

[dave2008]

D&D 2024 definitely added complexity on top of weapon masteries. Several classes now have “free action” sorts of abilities like the paladin firing up channel divinity and inspiring smite off of a normal attack + smite and the rogue trading in sneak attack dice to do other things with their attack. There are several of these cascading style actions that feel like they should be bonus actions but instead just trigger off of attacks.

The whole debate about how many draws and stows characters get between attacks is a conversation that only comes up with the added complexity of D&D 2024.

In practice, it doesn’t seem to break the game but it’s definitely changed it and pushed it towards more complexity.

It is a tough nut for sure. I think I want a simplified game, but I also want interesting choices at character creation, advancement, and during play. I am not sure how to achieve that. OSR / Shadowdark are to simple for my tastes (though the have ideas I like) and PF2 is to complex for my tastes (though it has ideas I like). 5e14 & 5e24 are somewhere in the middle, but I seem to want something that is both simplified and more complex (compared to 5e) at the same time!