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

[darjr]

Heh. I was in that conversation he talks about at Gameholecon

And yes the OGL thing was radioactive.

 

[overgeeked]

Around 2014, I was in the middle of a long break of RPGs. Yet, with the announcement of D&D Next I was reading news and keeping up with what was happening. I remember vividly tons of old-school players saying that D&D was finally going back to it's root after the high-abstraction of 4E and the high simulationism of 3E. It was my first contact with a huge crowd that still played older editions (2E, 1E, B/X, etc). I definitely remember what Ben describes, this so called call to victory by the old school players.

What I remember about that is it was mostly in the context of 3X and 4E building up lots of rules, having rules for everything, complex rules, going heavy simulation in 3X, going tactical skirmish game in 4E, etc. So with 5E doing natural language and a return of rulings not rules, some of the OSR crowd claimed victory. History has shown that to be premature.

 

[Gradine]

Do you have a YouTube channel with a solid following, a love of clickbaiting (but I repeat myself), and an apparent bone to pick with current D&D/WotC? Have I got the interview guest for you!

 

[TiQuinn]

Do you have a YouTube channel with a solid following, a love of clickbaiting (but I repeat myself), and an apparent bone to pick with current D&D/WotC? Have I got the interview guest for you!

He's been critical but not overly so. More he's been exposing what he encountered as a lead designer, where he disagrees with current design thought, and he's the first to drop the silence bit, that's all. If you want some anger, Greg Tito and Dan Dillon had plenty of that and hey, that's their call, too.

 

[Gradine]

He's been critical but not overly so. More he's been exposing what he encountered as a lead designer, where he disagrees with current design thought, and he's the first to drop the silence bit, that's all. If you want some anger, Greg Tito and Dan Dillon had plenty of that and hey, that's their call, too.

I'm just remarking the general tenor of the YouTube channels he's popping up on, not just what he himself has to say. Though how much of that is the clickbaity nature of actually being successful on YouTube ("D&D is over!" "Wizards of the Coast DISASTER!!" kind of stuff) and how much of it is the actual position of the channel's main face can vary.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, it is closer than at least 4e was to the OSR, but 5e is still pretty far removed from being old school, not that I actually want to go back to 1e

I agree with most of the OSR that B/X is the best old school rulebase to iterate from, but I loved 1e and 2e too (played both for decades).

 

[Micah Sweet]

What I remember about that is it was mostly in the context of 3X and 4E building up lots of rules, having rules for everything, complex rules, going heavy simulation in 3X, going tactical skirmish game in 4E, etc. So with 5E doing natural language and a return of rulings not rules, some of the OSR crowd claimed victory. History has shown that to be premature.

(edition) War...(edition) War never changes.

 

[Micah Sweet]

He's been critical but not overly so. More he's been exposing what he encountered as a lead designer, where he disagrees with current design thought, and he's the first to drop the silence bit, that's all. If you want some anger, Greg Tito and Dan Dillon had plenty of that and hey, that's their call, too.

I actually love that we finally have designers who can talk about WotC without an NDA or a need to stay on their good side hobbling them.

 

[darjr]

Scratch that. Need to confirm.

 

[TheAlkaizer]

What he says aside, I love interviewee that go on unending rants; and interviewers that lay them go on.

Having just finished the video, I chuckled a few times as I couldn't recall the question a few minutes earlier.

Ben: "It seems like in 2014 [...] bla bla bla [...] perception has changed?"
Mike: "Yeah, what I think happened, is that the expectations..."
A few minutes later.
Mike: "...and the secret is putting a carrot in the sauce, the sweetness cools down that bite from the tomatoes."