New Legends & Lore (Rules, rules, rules)

[avin]

It's up: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Rules, Rules, Rules)

 

[Vascant]

I wonder if he is going for a balancing act between what was Basic D&D and Advanced D&D during the late 70's. Truthfully it is impossible to get this right in my opinion because what is good and fun for one table will not be the case for all perhaps even most. I know I loved the original AD&D, rules just overflowed and could sink your teeth in. So what I love and enjoy clearly does not work for all...

I do wonder if we need to take a hint from this, 3.5e + 4e = 5e

 

[Bedrockgames]

At first I liked this entry but on second thought he really isn't saying much of anything beyond the assertion that rules impact gameplay (which is the source of some debate in a few places online---not terribly controversial in regular gaming groups IMO. Really after that he is just telling us stuff we already know and fishing for info. It is beginning to feel like they are building the game through polls and I am not sure this is the best way to go. Take tge example in the article, he offers three examples and asks which one you prefer: simple, medium, complex. In isolation, without any other context, i may gravitate toward simple...that doesn't mean it is the option that will please me most in play or in the context of tge new system. This is how we ended up with new coke (people prefered sweeter colas when you gave them a small taste but not if you have them drink the whole can or glass). At a certain point I would rather see them present a clear vision for tge new edition and design a game to meet that concept. Something about the current approach gives me the impression that they don't know what direction to go.

 

[DEFCON 1]

At a certain point I would rather see them present a clear vision for tge new edition and design a game to meet that concept. Something about the current approach gives me the impression that they don't know what direction to go.

And yet they did this with 4E... and there's been a hue and cry about it ever since.

Don't believe the idea that they are building 5E by polling the populace. They might head down certain avenues of design based upon what people say they prefer... but they will certainly stop any designs that just doesn't work, regardless of how many people said they wanted it in some poll.

 

[avin]

Don't believe the idea that they are building 5E by polling the populace. They might head down certain avenues of design based upon what people say they prefer... but they will certainly stop any designs that just doesn't work, regardless of how many people said they wanted it in some poll.

100% agreed.

I don't know, I got this feeling Monte is talking about how rules will be described on book more than making a poll about how people want it to be.

Honestly I don't care that much about crunch... what is killing me inside is what will be the cosmology (dibs on a 3E/4E mix) and how monster ecologies will be handled on Monster Manuals.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I do appreciate that they've moved away from the binary polls. There's even an "other" option.

I found the statement that "rule takes away the DM's ability to make a judgment call in her game" jarring. This is not at all how I think about rules when I run the game. I see them as tools that I can use to help me make judgements.

I don't make PCs roll to climb a ladder. At the same time, I've never climbed anything more difficult than the trees in my backyard when I was a kid. How am I going to judge if the halfling thief can climb the wall of the wizard's tower? I'll take a rule for that any day.

 

[Bedrockgames]

And yet they did this with 4E... and there's been a hue and cry about it ever since.

Don't believe the idea that they are building 5E by polling the populace. They might head down certain avenues of design based upon what people say they prefer... but they will certainly stop any designs that just doesn't work, regardless of how many people said they wanted it in some poll.

My impression of 4e is it was designed around online complaints about 4e and they used focus groups. I could be completely wrong just basing this on what I heard at the time and what was being discussed on the wizards boards prior to 4e.

I am not suggesting they will make a broken game by polls but these colums have basically been pollings on different mechanical options. Could be wrong, but i am just not getting the impression that they have a clear vision of the game. It just feels like they are throwing everything at tge wall to see what sticks. Still hopeful since cook is involved. But a little dissapointed so far with the legends lore.

 

[ExploderWizard]

The amount of rules structure desired is divided along so many lines that choosing any general level of crunch detail is bound to miss the mark for more players than it hits.

D&D went from a simple set of guidelines to help people build they game they wanted all the way up to a Byzantine rules codex with option overload and endless updates on whats "right" streaming in via the internet at various intervals.

These approaches along with several in between have all brought in new players, created fans and also caused others to give up on D&D.

There is no longer a single vision for D&D that will be universally accepted by all at this point. Throwing ideas at a wall and seeing what sticks is of limited usefulness.

At some point, decisions about the core feel of the game have to be made and the feedback of the wailing masses will be too diverse to be helpful.

 

[P1NBACK]

There's no mention of how the original iterations of the game did such things, which is contrary to the previous poll (where 76% of people were interested in preserving history).

"Let's preserve history! Woooh!"

"Ok, onto how D&D presents climbing rules. Let's talk about the approaches 3E and 4E take!"

Wtf?

People rag on the Thief percentage skills of early editions, but most of the time they are taken out of context.

Using Monte's "scheme" for determining a grade of complexity, the early editions fall between the 1st and 2nd examples, and I find are a perfect balance of rules and judgment.

[I've been playing a lot of old school D&D lately...]

For example, most climbs are assumed to be automatic: climbing a rope, a tree with branches, a wall with handholds, etc. This is similar to his example 1.

This keeps the action fast-paced and keeps the game from devolving into a series of mundane skill checks.

"Oh, wait. You rolled a 1 to climb that 10 ft wall? Ummm. Yeah, you don't go anywhere.... Uh, try again."

Then, difficult climbs, defined as "sheer surfaces" require special training (i.e. a Thief skill).

Less than his example 2 because not every climb requires a check. And, not everyone can even attempt those extremely dangerous climbs.

This gives the DM a solid judgment point to declare whether someone can climb or not, and if they have special training to climb those dangerous cliffs, there are mechanics in place for that. The good thing is, the DM doesn't have to set any sort of DC, it's simply rated as "Hard enough to require special training" - a simple judgment call - and is therefore set against the skill of the person with the actual training.

This poll doesn't even have the option for something like that. It's "Other" options are: radically different and nothing.

For talk of preserving the past, I guess I expected more discussions about how each iteration of D&D has handled things like this, not just a look into how 3E and 4E presented the rules...

 

[Bedrockgames]

There's no mention of how the original iterations of the game did such things, which is contrary to the previous poll (where 76% of people were interested in preserving history).

"Let's preserve history! Woooh!"

"Ok, onto how D&D presents climbing rules. Let's talk about the approaches 3E and 4E take!"

Wtf?

People rag on the Thief percentage skills of early editions, but most of the time they are taken out of context.

Using Monte's "scheme" for determining a grade of complexity, the early editions fall between the 1st and 2nd examples, and I find are a perfect balance of rules and judgment.

[I've been playing a lot of old school D&D lately...]

For example, most climbs are assumed to be automatic: climbing a rope, a tree with branches, a wall with handholds, etc. This is similar to his example 1.

This keeps the action fast-paced and keeps the game from devolving into a series of mundane skill checks.

"Oh, wait. You rolled a 1 to climb that 10 ft wall? Ummm. Yeah, you don't go anywhere.... Uh, try again."

Then, difficult climbs, defined as "sheer surfaces" require special training (i.e. a Thief skill).

Less than his example 2 because not every climb requires a check. And, not everyone can even attempt those extremely dangerous climbs.

This gives the DM a solid judgment point to declare whether someone can climb or not, and if they have special training to climb those dangerous cliffs, there are mechanics in place for that. The good thing is, the DM doesn't have to set any sort of DC, it's simply rated as "Hard enough to require special training" - a simple judgment call - and is therefore set against the skill of the person with the actual training.

This poll doesn't even have the option for something like that. It's "Other" options are: radically different and nothing.

For talk of preserving the past, I guess I expected more discussions about how each iteration of D&D has handled things like this, not just a look into how 3E and 4E presented the rules...

This is an interesting point. One thing to consider, to truly grasp the mechanics of previous editions one needs to play them. I don't know how much free time (or paid time) Monte has to run through old mechanics, but if he is interested in preserving some of the 1e or 2e feel I would definitely encourage him to run some campaigns using those editions before moving onto design choices (something he likely has done, but who knows).

After I stopped playing 2e (when 3E came out), I recalled most of the old rules by memory. Then I purchased the book again and read it over. But it wasn't until I ran a full length 2E campaign again that I actually grasped how the rules worked and interacted (sometimes I liked how 2E functioned, sometimes not). I think this is especially true with things like climb...since those rules are easy to miss until you have a need to look them up.