No hold barred - how I would develope 5e

[Glade Riven]

Well, to add on and clarify a few things...

Minis - if I would have them, they would be rare collectable items - like a random mini in a peripheral product. They wouldn't be part of the core box. Monsters and Characters would be done as cardboard tokens.

Levels - the beauty of breaking up the classes into their tiers is that power levels can be controlled. Paragon you would pick your Path - and as this is the expansion set, we can even cut down the levels from 10 to 5. Same with Epic, where you gain the ability to do a couple of really awsome things. Perhaps the setup could work along the lines of e10 - you gain feats or a few special abilities instead.

DDI - Several keys to DDI: 1. Pay to Playtest. 2. Character Creator 3. Access to all the rules with the subscription 4. Custom POD products.

Now, on the Custom POD products: the concept works like LEGO's Digital Designer, except for a print products. DDI subscribers can pick what rules, optional systems, magical items, classes, monsters, adventures, etc. to include in a printed product.

Using DDI to engage the community: a DDI subscription allows for submissions for new rules, monsters, etc. to be givin to WotC through an official channel. A DDI employee could then sort through the submissions, pick the most promising, and then have them playtest the reader submissions and vote for what can be included in future products.

If the custom POD books proved viable, I'd even drop the paywall for DDI, since POD would be supporting it. Novel idea, I know - giving a product away for free...but that is to make money off other means.

So we have two overlapping consumer bases - a collectable physical product and a DDI supported by POD. And instead of spending a crap ton on splats with only a few things you like in each book, you get to pick what you want and leave the rest.

 

[pemerton]

4e is an excellent skirmish boardgame with a few skills bolted on to your combat stats to move you between fights. That's how the game design looks to me.

I think 'depth' comes from social mechanics, and here RPG design has moved on. Lots of games have found mechanical ways of creating tension in social situations - whether it's the duel of wits in Burning Wheel, escalation in Dogs in the Vineyard or the GM's fronts, threats and moves in Apocalypse World.

<snip>

I'd like to see the game move away from pass/fail task resolution to 'gains and losses' conflict resolution.

If I was WotC, I'd be getting my team to streamline all the combat powers and magic item bloat and hiring Robin Laws to write me a new D20 conflict system of skills, goals, beliefs and relationships.

Aren't skill challenges meant to achieve some of what you're looking for here?

That said, I've got nothing against WotC hiring Robin Laws to improve the skill challenge mechanics and guidelines!

 

[Glade Riven]

Never really understood the supposed importance of having mechanics for social encounters...any attempts to use them in groups I've played/DMed, it always fell apart into actual role playing and the mechanics were quickly side-lined. At most it was a couple of skill checks back-and-forth (this is 3.5, 4e, Pathfinder, Saga).

 

[ProfessorCirno]

Never really understood the supposed importance of having mechanics for social encounters...any attempts to use them in groups I've played/DMed, it always fell apart into actual role playing and the mechanics were quickly side-lined. At most it was a couple of skill checks back-and-forth (this is 3.5, 4e, Pathfinder, Saga).

I'll agree that I never liked there being one (or two or three) "talking skills," in that it signifies that the other people without it are just bad at talking to others. Jokes about D&D nerds aside, most people don't really find it that hard to make friends, but if you look at, say, 3.5, your average 10's-in-their-stats person has only a 1 in 4 chance of doing so. People must be grumpy.

It also reminds me of something mentioned by Obsidian in their PAX East '10 panel involving player choice. It was directed towards video games, but I think it applies to tabletop games too. The statement was about how "no brainer" choices aren't really choices, and the examples given were video games where your social skill mean you would basically always choose that, because why wouldn't you?

I think having a social mechanic in tabletop games should either be fully developed, or left bare bones, because otherwise it leads to the same problem - you just throw your diplomacy at people.

 

[pemerton]

Never really understood the supposed importance of having mechanics for social encounters

Well, I can't speak for chaochou, but for me they do three jobs - the first in relation to character build, the second in relation to the affect of character build on action resolution, and the third purely in relation to action resolution.

First, they make it possible to have a picture of the PC which extends beyond his/her combat abilities, to mechanically express also his/her personality and social inclinations. This is purely an aspect of character build.

Second, they make it viable for players who aren't themselves terribly fluent or charismatic to play PCs who are. This is where character build feeds into action resolution.

Third, and purely at the action resolution stage, they do the same thing as good combat mechanics: they introduce tension, drama and the possibility of unanticipated outcomes into the game. LostSoul gave a good example of this on another thread: even though the PC in question had no chance of failing a diplomacy check against the relevant DC, playing through the skill challenge still produced and interesting result, because as part of the give and take of the conversation in the course of making those 4 diplomacy rolls the PC made some concessions to the NPCs he was negotiating with.

Without a mechanical structure, it can become too easy for the GM to simply say "auto-success" or "yep, that sound reasonable, they agree". Conversely, a mechanical structure provides these points at which something surprising or unexpected gets injected into the encounter and taken up and run with by everyone at the table.

 

[Bluenose]

Never really understood the supposed importance of having mechanics for social encounters...any attempts to use them in groups I've played/DMed, it always fell apart into actual role playing and the mechanics were quickly side-lined. At most it was a couple of skill checks back-and-forth (this is 3.5, 4e, Pathfinder, Saga).

All those games have in common one thing; the mechanics for social encounters are extremely limited. It's hardly a surprise it 'fell apart into actual role-playing'. A more engaging system might have given you different results. Although if you're enjoying it the current way there doesn't seem much reason to look for one.

 

[chaochou]

I don't think the fact that D&D has peripheral 'talking skills' which people then find redundant makes the concept of social mechanics irrelevant. It just highlight how little they achieve in D&D.

As I said before other systems have created rich, interesting mechanics which support and enhance social encounters.

For example, in HeroWars my group were desperate to borrow some horses from a neighbouring clan. They used Persuade as the base skill, but throughout the scene said and did other things to augment that with Intimidate, Relationship: PCs Clan, Relationship: Neighbours Clan, Horsemanship, Hate Lunars, Steady Gaze, Leadership and Diplomacy.

By the end of that scene we'd knew that the tradition was for borrowed goods to be returned in five days or be considered stolen, that the steadholder had a missing brother, that there had been cattle raids in the woods close the two clans' border which were being blamed on the PCs clan, and that the steadholder was fiercely opposed to the Lunar occupying forces and might co-operate with the PCs in activity against them. All from talking round the table - no prep, just then and there.

No-one is going to tell me that that wasn't 'actual roleplaying' simply by virtue of the fact that it was supported by numerically defined skills, traits, abilities and relationships - and the mechanics for how they enhance one another.

The skills and numbers didn't reduce the situation to a dice roll - they created a framework which allowed every character to contribute, to generate arguments, threats and counters and create a whole load of new knowledge about the world into the bargain.

That's what a good social system does.

 

[Aus_Snow]

I don't think the fact that D&D has peripheral 'talking skills' which people then find redundant makes the concept of social mechanics irrelevant. It just highlight how little they achieve in D&D.

Personally, I don't think the fact that some people (on the internet, anyway) find "D&D social skills" - yes, that would be an ironic phrase, right there - redundant, means that a large number of gamers necessarily do. It could be that it highlights how little some gamers have in common with some others, in particular ways. If anything, that is.

As I said before other systems have created rich, interesting mechanics which support and enhance social encounters.

And yet, mileage varies. Greatly.

There are many gamers who find the shackling of social scenes to some kind of elaborate minigame does in fact "abstract" the whole thing out to something less immediate, compelling, meaningful... well, you get the idea. Not to mention, it might just bore the crap out of them.

A very simple system, on the other hand, mostly so's to avoid the otherwise potentially looming "Yes I did! / No you didn't!" scenario, might suit them just fine. Whether that's ability checks (e.g., Cha/Int/Wis), reaction rolls, Bluff and co., or whatever - if it does the job and gets out of the way, that is exactly what a lot of people (so they say, at the very least!) are wanting from the mechanics. That very phrasing, or something very similar, you will see/hear often enough, that's for sure, if you but look/listen a little.

Don't get me wrong - I hear what you're saying, and for some (such as yourself, it would seem! ) that's totally the way to go.

But I do wonder where the majority comes down, on this issue...

 

[EvilDwarf]

I may get trounced here, but if WoTC were to produce a D&D 5+E that Transbot9 described in his OP, my group and I would buy it in heartbeat.

I started playing with the "White Box" set in the 70s with essentially the same group I play with now, so I'm no newcomer to the game (and very blessed to have the same gaming friends all this time--we've gone away for education, jobs, etc.--but most of the original gang has come back through various means and purposes).

But our story is one we've all heard before. We went and did dumb things, like got jobs, got married, had kids, taken on responsibilities like households, and grown up (well, some of us ). As the years passed, and the editions, we had less and less time to get together, much less to prep. DMing became a joyous chore--fun, creative, ways to create and live out our own fantasy tales (we have done probably less than 5% of purchased modules as our campaigns and adventures because we prefer our own stories) but a burden to pull off.

But, we just ran out of time to play and to prep. Then play time became prep time when we got together. Then we ran out of prep time between play times. We tried some modules, but, meh. You know our story.

Then 4E hit and we were a bit renergized. More modular, seemed like less time to prep, etc. The 4E adventure/delve format hit us just right it seemed. Easy to run and little reading ahead, etc. No more huge burden on the DM.

But even with that, time pressures remained, 4E combats took too long, times between play sessions broke campaign and adventure continuity....

We knew what we needed--a game that played fast. Required little prep for characters. Required NO prep for the DM. And, SOMEHOW, a campaign/adventure arc that could withstand long dry spells and didn't require certain characters present each week. What, we puzzled, could it be?

I eventually tinkered around with a rule set for DMless, self-contained scenario play that could lead into a longer story narrative. That was working, but gawds, who had time to write and playtest that? (I know the DM guides have such guidelines, and they were a big help).

Then....and this is where I'll get nailed....Castle Ravenloft appeared. It was the ruleset I was working for. And it's been great for our gaming: modern ruleset (we really like 4E); no prep for characters, players, or DM; self-contained scenarios that play out in an hour or so, depending on if we have pizza delivered or pick-up; challenging play.

Now, imagine CR expanded with more classes, rules for advancement, WoTC/DDI support for involved and expanded ongoing scenario support. Rules packets to add on. Character classes to add on. Tokens for monsters, etc.

That is, pretty much what Transbot described, but I would even go a little further than I think Transbot does, and go DMless.

What we would buy the heck out of? Transbot's idea, made DMless, with a more open, larger world and modular, ongoing expansion. That would do it for us. I can't imagine how exciting it would be to see a Castle Ravenloft-type RPG/boardgame hybrid with an "adventure-path" series of scenarios and challenges, treasures, powers, modular rules expansions, etc. I think it would appeal to older groups like ours, and to younger, newer players. Don't like the DMless aspect? Give optional rules for a player who likes to play the monsters, NPCs, etc., like some FFG boardgames do now.

Ok, I'll shut up and duck now

 

[Glade Riven]

Hrm...well, I guess it is just my luck at my first (and longest) group being really good at roleplaying coming back to haunt me.

I suspect 4e's skill challenge issues result more from powergaming through it rather than people taking the time to roleplay it, and the roleplaying portion of the skill challenge didn't seem to be explained too well in the first printing of the DMG.

Some people like dice charts for everything, some people don't, and some people like to use them on occassion. So for the core products it would probably be something simple as a baseline while having something complex as an optional splat.