Miniatures and Madness - Legends and Lore by Mike Mearls

[Olgar Shiverstone]

I'm thinking that Mearls can only really say this now that the DDM have been canceled. It may even be that this is the first sign that WotC is (hopefully!) moving back to a "minis optional" approach. If they aren't going to produce their own minis, they almost have to.

Or they are just clearing the deck to switch from collectible minis to collectible counters and cards.

*ducks*

 

[Mark CMG]

I think I know basically what you meant with your post and I agree with you. I would be very worried about D&D done without a DM, especially given the combat, combat, combat style of WotC adventures

Yet, Descent has a "GM" aftera fashion, and is a boardgame with a focus on combat, so there is a rather interesting grey area to consider.

 

[Beginning of the End]

Wow... this review is actually kinda ironic when you look at the early module releases from WotC... just saying

I'm not sure "ironic" is quite the right word. It's pretty easy to read Keep on the Shadowfell as Mearls' version of what Keep on the Borderlands should look like.

The comparison, unfortunately, is not kind to Mearls, IMO.

B2, like B1 before it, was a teaching module. The approach taken by these modules was to provide a basic creative scaffold and then require the DM to exercise their world-building skills: B1 covers the dungeon by asking the DM to key the dungeon map to pre-designed monsters and treasure.

B2 uses a similar "incomplete key" approach when it comes to the PCs' home base. For the keep, the DM is given a roster of NPCs to flesh out and guidance on how to build floorplans for oft-visited structures (along with samples). Unlike B1, the dungeon is fully-keyed, but it's teaching other lessons: The caves are explicitly designed to make the factions of the dungeon clear, and this is paired with advice to the DM on how to use the rivalry between factions as part of the game.

Meanwhile, from a larger design standpoint, B2 is all about emphasizing player choice: When the PCs walk into that valley, the first thing they have to do is make a choice about which of the dozen caves to explore first. There are quite a few other lessons for the players hidden within the design of B2, but that's the big one: The adventure is yours to choose.

Now, let's compare that with Keep on the Shadowfell. This is also a teaching module. What does it teach? Linear encounter design. Linear dungeon design. Designing adventures according to a script.

B2 isn't perfect and Shadowfell isn't without virtue. But they do present two diametrically opposed visions of what RPGs are about.

 

[Mark CMG]

Another often overlooked thing Keep on the Borderlands does is get the DM to begin to think about the larger issues of world building. It is impossible to have these various creature types close together and not think what would happen if the controls were not in place. This is a scaled down version of the world building the DM will soon want or need to do to run a successful campaign. It's a microcosm, a warped template, for sandbox campaign design that forces DMs to ask tough question in order to be accountable to a world design logic and in order to know just how much knowledge is the province of players and what is the province of DMs. It teaches a DM to fish while a linear designed adventure merely gives the DM the stats of the fish he will need for one day.

 

[pemerton]

Wow. Is that a serious review?

I linked to that review on the recent B2 discussion thread and didn't get any responses. This is more like what I was expecting! (And yes, I think it is a serious review. And like I said on that other thread, I think it gives a reasonable account of the limitations of that module for an inexperienced GM. For another RPGnet review along similar lines, see here. There is also what seems to be - based on its date and contents - a counter-review to Mearls' review here.)

There are a number of really great rpgs out there that don't require a DM or GM at all.

<snip>

I say might because it could be argued that for some of these there is a DM, but one who rotates across the players, or that these are not RPGs, but rather "story games".

Please keep calling them RPGs! I get anxious when the RPG label starts to get withheld from games just because they depart in various ways from the more traditional examples.

 

[pemerton]

B2 is all about emphasizing player choice: When the PCs walk into that valley, the first thing they have to do is make a choice about which of the dozen caves to explore first. There are quite a few other lessons for the players hidden within the design of B2, but that's the big one: The adventure is yours to choose.

It's been a long time since I played B2. And last time I GMed it - which was also quite a while ago - the PCs never left the Keep.

But I don't recall being given much information on which to base my choice as to where to start. And I don't think a choice between unknowns (or near-unknowns) is very significant.

I think Mike Mearls' Penumbra module In the Belly of the Beast is a much better module for giving the players choice.


*SOME SPOILERS*


The PCs in this module find themselves trapped in a sewer with a variety of competing factions, and have the opportunity to build or break alliances and determine who (if anyone) will escape, and on what terms. From my point of view, that's more significant choice.

 

[ExploderWizard]

*shrug* Fine. I'm not particularly attached to the term "old-school," so I'll revise my statement: Mike Mearls is up-front about his enjoyment of TSR-era D&D.

I am content to wait patiently and see how serious Mr. Mearls is about old school playstyles with regard to support and recognition of them in WOTC offerings.

In the meantime I will play in the corner with my old collection of TSR era D&D stuff and not hold my breath.

 

[Beginning of the End]

But I don't recall being given much information on which to base my choice as to where to start. And I don't think a choice between unknowns (or near-unknowns) is very significant.

99 times out of 100 this is a spherical cow. Such is the case with B2. If we assume that:

(1) Additional information has not been sought out by the PCs.

and

(2) The PCs don't adopt some strategy for seeking out additional information on site (checking the valley for tracks, setting up an ambush to capture an inhabitant to interrogate, placing themselves in hiding and spying upon the valley, or any number of other possibilities).

Then one can notice that most of the entrances can actually be penetrated to a depth of one or two rooms without risking combat, which means that scouting of the various choices is trivially possible.

In a similar vein, the presence of alternative choices doesn't vanish once the PCs engage with one of the caverns. Many of the caverns contain clues to what the other caverns include, and the evolving dynamics of a scenario will continue to inform future choices (even if they are as simple as "let's go some place else, it can't possibly be as bad as this" or "that was easy! let's tackle another cave right away!").

But if we lay all such considerations aside and hypothesize a beginning group that simply chooses at random and bulls their way through each complex room-by-room without much thought or interaction, the interconnected layout of the caves and the fact that they could have chosen a different path (even if they would have done so at random) may still teach them an important lesson. (Which will take either the form of, "Holy , we died. Let's do better scouting next time." or "We sure got lucky that we came up on that ogre from behind instead of via the pit trap. I wonder if we could make our own luck next time?")

 

[The Shaman]

Wow. Is that a serious review?

See, that's what I'm talkin' about.

 

[pemerton]

In a similar vein, the presence of alternative choices doesn't vanish once the PCs engage with one of the caverns.

<snip>

But if we lay all such considerations aside and hypothesize a beginning group that simply chooses at random and bulls their way through each complex room-by-room without much thought or interaction, the interconnected layout of the caves and the fact that they could have chosen a different path (even if they would have done so at random) may still teach them an important lesson. (Which will take either the form of, "Holy , we died. Let's do better scouting next time." or "We sure got lucky that we came up on that ogre from behind instead of via the pit trap. I wonder if we could make our own luck next time?")

I've cut some stuff in this quote not because I disagree with it but because I think it speaks for itself.

I just wanted to pick up on these parts of what you said because, for me at least, they raise the question of "What is the dimension of significance in respect of which player choice should be encouraged?" One possible dimension - the one that seems to me to be at work in what I've quoted - is that of operational optimisation. And for the reasons you say, the Caves give the opportunity for the players to make operationally more or less optimal choices.

I imagine that the KotS allows players to learn, as they work through it, how to make tactically more or less optimal choices. That would be another potential dimension of significant choice. I don't have an opinion on whether it does a better or worse job of this than B2.

Belly of the Beast, which I mentioned upthread, allows for meaningful choices in the domain of politics/personal morality - choices about which factions to align with, or oppose, for what sort of reasons. I will voice the opinion that Belly of the Beast does a better job than either KotS or B2 of permitting players to make meaningful choices in this particular domain of signficance. I know KotS offers something here, because of the ghost of the dead knight, and (I think) some Orcus cultists in town. I don't think that B2 offers any more of this than KotS, and as written - without very extensive embellishment by the GM in respect of the Keep at least - may offer less.

Maybe Mearls just doesn't care especially for operational play. I think that that would fit with The Shaman's view that he doesn't get old-school play. I don't think it follows that he can't design adventures.

(I know of one Mearls adventure that does focus on operational play - it comes bundled with the Ghost Machine and I think is called Swords Against Deception. It focuses on infiltrating the island on which a cult is living, and then entering their fortress and killing their leader, without getting caught. Even this differs a bit from classic operational play, in that the goal is not open-ended looting operations but a single successful raid with a tightly defined goal.)