KidSnide
Adventurer
I like this article because it breaks out play-style from character type. A choice of spell system is really one of play style. Folks who want to play Vancian casters want to do so because it adds an interesting strategic challenge in being able to anticipate the spell needs for the day and to expend limited daily resources where they are most effective. Folks who hate Vancian magic either don't want to deal with these strategic issues or just don't want it in their game altogether because it isn't consistent their aesthetic sense of how magic "should work." These are play style issues.
On the other hand, lots of folks -- regardless of their preference in play style -- want to play a bookish wizard character because that's an archtype of the game. The clever part of this design is that the wizard (and presumably cleric) class serves the correct range of character type without locking a player or campaign into a specific play style.
The article notably didn't say how warlocks and sorcerers would work under this new system, but it's actually not that important. These secondary classes are supposed to cover a narrower range of character types. If the mechanics that work with that story are flexible enough that DMs can swap out the spellcasting mechanics, then that is a useful lever to provide. But if the mechanics are more closely tied to a specific structure (like the current version of the warlock), then a few non-modular spellcasting classes won't ruin the advantage of this system.
-KS
On the other hand, lots of folks -- regardless of their preference in play style -- want to play a bookish wizard character because that's an archtype of the game. The clever part of this design is that the wizard (and presumably cleric) class serves the correct range of character type without locking a player or campaign into a specific play style.
The article notably didn't say how warlocks and sorcerers would work under this new system, but it's actually not that important. These secondary classes are supposed to cover a narrower range of character types. If the mechanics that work with that story are flexible enough that DMs can swap out the spellcasting mechanics, then that is a useful lever to provide. But if the mechanics are more closely tied to a specific structure (like the current version of the warlock), then a few non-modular spellcasting classes won't ruin the advantage of this system.
-KS