In some ways, this Design Diary makes me less hopeful than I was with the package itself. Some things that were not implicit in the packet are spelled out here and are likely to meet resistance. The biggest of these, to my eyes, is the description of talents.
we had seen that talents were replacing feats. What we are now told is this:
Talents are divided into three categories: Martial, Magic, and Technical. Each class is tied to one of the three talent categories. Characters that gain a talent for their Improvement must choose it from the list that matches their class talent list.
The division of talents is in itself fine, but assigning each class to one of them, and limiting choice to that one, is a needless straightjacket. Let Fighters take a magical or technical feat; let Sorcerers take a martial one. Allowing choice gives a great opportunity to allow players design choices that suit their own style. It might not always be optimized, but it would be fun, and it would cut down on multiclassing (which is not in itself bad, of course).
Sure, there is still the background feat; but I'd much rather have a mundane character with a dash of magic from a feat (talent) like Ritual Caster than have to MC for a level to get a small handful of spells.
I was also struck by the animus against One:
But I don’t want to toss the baby out with the bathwater.
I don’t feel great about what I have seen and speculated about One D&D thus far. I seriously doubt that One D&D can fulfill the promise of true backward compatibility.
I could be wrong, of course. I hope I’m wrong. But it’s safe to say the community has learned a lot this year that would be foolish to forget.
There's a blending in this of concerns about bad corporate citizenship with bad design, and that feels, to me, sloppy. I too doubt there is going to be "true backward compatibility" (as I've discussed elsewhere), but it feels to me to be a mischaracterization to say the One playtests are throwing any babies out with bathwater.
Indeed, I had hoped that Black Flag was going to be more innovative, and take more risks. This diary entry suggests that is just not going to happen.
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