Evenglare
Adventurer
With the recent announcement of feats and classes gaining them at different rates brings up the question of modularity. Now, I have not heard in a while about the modularity of 5th edition, so I'm not sure if it's actually still a design goal. Assuming it is, I have doubts about how they will pull this off especially when you start tieing different elements of games together in an intrinsic way, such as classes and feats. To me modularity can satisfy a couple of different goals to be integrated successfully. Either it's a part of the game you add to, or it's a layer of the game that you can add or take away from. Those are my definitions of modularity and as such I will be speaking from a viewpoint of these axioms.
Let me first address adding or subtracting parts of the game. A module in this sense is what 4th edition (in my opinion) excels at. You can allow or disallow fundamental parts of the game and when you play that game it works like the basic game. For example, you could introduce or take away a power source. Once this happens more or fewer classes are added or taken away but it does not detract from the overall gameplay mechanic. Pathfinder has done this with Kingmaker, adding another "part" to the game in which you build and manage kingdoms, which does not infringe on any other part of the game. Modularity in this sense adds something to the system that does not detract from other parts of the system. In 5th edition, they began doing this early on with skills and backgrounds. In the early drafts of the game it said something to the effect of "don't use this if you would like to experience and old school feel". I LOVED this, absolutely LOVED it. The fact that skills and backgrounds could be added or taken away from the game was a fantastic idea and felt very true to this type of modular design. Skills added another part to the game. As far as I can tell skills and backgrounds have been integrated into the fundamental game, but I digress as a gamemaster it would not be hard to simply abolish this and sever the limb of the game.
Now we get into the other part of modularity. An overlay to the game to make the game more or less complex. I believe that the "feat idea" lies in this realm of modularity. In 3rd edition 4th edition, and pathfinder feats were gained at an advancement rate that was non class specific. In other words you gained a feat every so often (this precludes bonus feats, in this case bonus feats are simply taken as integrated class features and not actual feats themselves). Now 5th edition had a very unique opportunity to address this explicitly with modular game design. In all the above mentioned games you COULD have removed feats from the game entirely effectively removing a layer of complexity to the game. The games would still have been playable without impacting the games fundamental rules. As an aside pathfinder does this layering extremely, extremely well with their class design. Since classes gain things at regular intervals these abilities can be overlaid with OTHER abilities thus giving us these archetypes, which I think is an INGENIOUS move on their part. This is modularity at it's finest. Now I'm personally a 13th age player, but pathfinder is the model of modularity that I would look to should I want such a thing in my game.
So with 5th edition deciding to marry feats to classes, does this further their modularity goal? I tend to think it does not. This is saddening to me as I know many older edition players were looking forward to a game where they would not even NEED feats. Is modularity one of the parts of 5th edition they still have in their sights? Is there anything to suggest this or otherwise? I have not heard anything recently about this goal. It seems to me if modularity were to go away it would destroy one of the most fundamental goals of the game which is unification of players across all editions.
Let me first address adding or subtracting parts of the game. A module in this sense is what 4th edition (in my opinion) excels at. You can allow or disallow fundamental parts of the game and when you play that game it works like the basic game. For example, you could introduce or take away a power source. Once this happens more or fewer classes are added or taken away but it does not detract from the overall gameplay mechanic. Pathfinder has done this with Kingmaker, adding another "part" to the game in which you build and manage kingdoms, which does not infringe on any other part of the game. Modularity in this sense adds something to the system that does not detract from other parts of the system. In 5th edition, they began doing this early on with skills and backgrounds. In the early drafts of the game it said something to the effect of "don't use this if you would like to experience and old school feel". I LOVED this, absolutely LOVED it. The fact that skills and backgrounds could be added or taken away from the game was a fantastic idea and felt very true to this type of modular design. Skills added another part to the game. As far as I can tell skills and backgrounds have been integrated into the fundamental game, but I digress as a gamemaster it would not be hard to simply abolish this and sever the limb of the game.
Now we get into the other part of modularity. An overlay to the game to make the game more or less complex. I believe that the "feat idea" lies in this realm of modularity. In 3rd edition 4th edition, and pathfinder feats were gained at an advancement rate that was non class specific. In other words you gained a feat every so often (this precludes bonus feats, in this case bonus feats are simply taken as integrated class features and not actual feats themselves). Now 5th edition had a very unique opportunity to address this explicitly with modular game design. In all the above mentioned games you COULD have removed feats from the game entirely effectively removing a layer of complexity to the game. The games would still have been playable without impacting the games fundamental rules. As an aside pathfinder does this layering extremely, extremely well with their class design. Since classes gain things at regular intervals these abilities can be overlaid with OTHER abilities thus giving us these archetypes, which I think is an INGENIOUS move on their part. This is modularity at it's finest. Now I'm personally a 13th age player, but pathfinder is the model of modularity that I would look to should I want such a thing in my game.
So with 5th edition deciding to marry feats to classes, does this further their modularity goal? I tend to think it does not. This is saddening to me as I know many older edition players were looking forward to a game where they would not even NEED feats. Is modularity one of the parts of 5th edition they still have in their sights? Is there anything to suggest this or otherwise? I have not heard anything recently about this goal. It seems to me if modularity were to go away it would destroy one of the most fundamental goals of the game which is unification of players across all editions.
