RPG Codex Interview w/Mike Mearls

[Tovec]

No, it really just heaps confirmation onto my suspicion that 4e failed not because it's a bad game but because the man placed in charge of it hated it. He's just spouting off the same tired long-since-rebutted-a-thousand times edition war cries. If he actually believes what he's saying I think less of him as a game designer. If he's just saying it to win over the disaffected pathfinder players who refuse to play Babby's First Paper MMO because it's "Not my D&D" then I think less of him as a product lead and figurehead.

I suppose I am one of those "disaffected pathfinder players"... but I never disliked 4e because it was "babby's first paper MMO". I have a list of reasons I'll give you if you like but it being my first paper-MMO has nothing to do with it. That isn't even what Mearls is saying. I think what he is saying is that trying to take any specific game and model DnD after it is a bad idea, regardless what that game is. DnD should be its own game and should model after itself FIRST and then take inspiration from other games as needed. When it tries to be something is isn't then it is going to hit bumps.

It's just the shock that the MAN IN CHARGE OF SELLING 4E would debase himself with this kind of rhetoric.

Also what kind of rhetoric? Also, he isn't trying to sell you 4e anymore. At the time of the article, from what I can tell, he is trying to sell everyone/anyone on 5e not 4e. Admitting a flaw (perceived or real) of 4e doesn't really do anything to anyone either way, people who like 4e are still going to like it and people who dislike it are still going to dislike it. What it does do is tell people who disliked 4e what he saw as an issue, not necessarily the issue, and saying that they are not going to repeat it with 5e.

I don't see many problems in D&D borrowing from MMOs or from pure videogames. They are a big industry with a lot of money and ideas and have been developing a lot in the last decade.
The fact that 4e combat system has been developed taking into consideration an MMO possible conversion gave me the best combat system I have experienced in D&D (personal opinion, YMMV), precise, clean, solid, and full of options.

I don't see any problems with DnD borrowing (or outright stealing) from video games. The problem is that MMOs are in general a poor example on the RPG sliding scale of games. MMOs are usually very light on the story and very high on the crunch. Saying that 4e tried to get into the MMO sphere becomes a problem when it does so by adopting MMO-isms and making them its own.

A couple of months ago I was playing Skyrim and got to the main quest final scene where all the dragons are meeting after Alduin's death. It was awesome, and felt really immersive. Clearly a videogame can just deliver a moment here or there where you get that immersion, but they are getting better and better every year and borrowing the good things while still keeping up the inherent qualities of a table-top RPG is not a bad idea at all.

I, and I don't think I'm alone here, think that Skyrim is an EXCELLENT example of what RPGs WotC should be looking at for inspiration. Good video games and certainly good RPGs should always be inspiration, MMOs aren't good RPGs. It is debatable if they are even good games. They are prosperous and highly money making games but good is probably far off for a lot in the industry.

A good comparison would be saying that DnD should borrow from film. But not all movies are made equal. In this example, it is like saying that they look to action movies as their primary example. Action movies are debatable as to their goodness, and they certainly aren't universally loved. I enjoy them but not everyone else does. A good mystery, scifi or rom-com are going to interest others. Some of these will be obtainable for the action-movie-DnD but a lot of other styles aren't. The same thing goes when Mearls said that early talks pointed to MMOs.

Personally, I like the idea that rogues have schemes, wizards have traditions, clerics have spheres(?), fighters have styles(?), etc. It would get rid of a lot of repetition amongst the classes, which would be a good thing, IMO. Especially in splat material, where it would help eliminate the need (and thus temptation to alter) the basic core of the classes.

The terms like this really do nothing for me. That is a personal thing, but I don't see why we need a unique term for every base class. If we were just going to have 4 base classes then I could understand unique terms like spheres or domains but we are almost certainly going to end up with a lot more, just in the PHB alone. Once again, that's just a personal thing.

I have suspected for some time that 5e is actually the "Farewell Edition" that will be shelved until the other IP licenses revert to Hasbro, or they feel that they can revive it effectively. I will not be surprised if, in 10 years or so, we see a line of D&D toys (prolly monster and adventurer action figures aimed at kids 8-13 and collectors) that is a big tie-in to the newly rebooted D&D franchise.

Only time will see. I've heard this more than once though so it will be interesting to see how it turns out.

Also, of course, Mearls makes the insinuation that taking inspiration from videogames is a bad thing, and kind of implies that 4E is somehow MMO-like in of itself or is somehow inferior because of all of this. That kind of thinking just baffles me.

MMOs are kind of inferior in a lot of ways when discussing RPGs as a whole. See above for why I said that. AT BEST if 4e was MMO-like then it only caters to one specific segment of the population, and for that making a MMO-like DnD is a bad thing.

Why is taking ideas from video games bad or good? I really don't understand the angst over using ideas from other successful genres.

See above, but I want to say I don't think taking ideas from video games are bad. I don't even think taking ideas from MMOs are bad, in and of themselves. I think it is bad any time DnD tries to make a MMO-like game, or a JRPG-like game, or any videogametype-like game. It becomes poor to try and make DnD into any kind of game that isn't DnD. Which Mearl's comments reflect. DnD excels at being itself. It can take ideas from a number of sources, and needs to in order to stay fresh and diverse. It does it poorly when it tries ti emulate those other types of games.

That there is wishful thinking. A non-plan. Moving a "moderate fraction" seems fair. However, expanding "over time", while desirable, is an empty goal without a concrete plan to drive the expansion. As well, planning to move a moderate fraction contradicts an expansion goal: Getting a moderate fraction to move means losing a majority of players, with a view of that as acceptable losses. Hard to turn a downward trend upwards. Hard to get back the graces of the folks who were lost.

Who were you replying to or quoting? I do happen to agree with the last couple of sentences.

 

[pemerton]

4e took it's inspirations from a number of sources including video games, Euro games, indie RPGS, other traditional RPGS, etc.

Frankly if 4e was designed to be an MMO the designers did an absolutely horrible job. There are way too many decision points, builds are too diverse, too strong an emphasis on conditions, healing too limited, etc.

The first paragraph rings true to me. I don't know much about MMO design, but I don't see how a skill challenge could be run in an MMO - it depends very heavily upon narrative logic for adjudication. And even 4e's combat rules have many non-algorithmic aspects, from the use of forced movement (especially sliding) to the interaction between keywords and fiction (freezing things with [cold] damage, setting fire to things with [fire] damage, shattering glass wtih [thunder] damage, etc).

How suitable 4e might be for a digital tabletop I don't know either - having never used one - but that seems a pretty different question from running it as an MMO.

I think Magic had a stronger influence on 4e than any video game. Both games thrive on preselected discrete actions chosen from a wide pool of options using a consistent resource management paradigm. Both games involve a number of strategic decision points that have far reaching impact on how the encounter/match will play out. Interrupts, Key Words, Exception Based Design, and a rigorous action economy are all concepts directly lifted from Magic.

I don't see how any of those points are problematic for a game where they intend the computer to do the accounting for you. To me, it looked like they were trying to leverage some of their design experience from Magic and use it for an rpg. I mean, really, the powers lists bear a stunning resemblance to a cardlist, as do the wordings of powers.

<snip>

Given that they intended the DM to still be scripting/running the adventure, the important thing would be to make sure everything fit the power structure in a way that could be implemented easily online. I think they succeeded in that. The constant condition toggling, tracking marks, triggered reactions, all would get easier if a computer is doing the accounting for you. The flavor or fluff, is just the graphics that happen on screen.

I don't agree with the last sentence - it implies that "flavour or fluff" is not relevant to action resolution in 4e, and that's not true either in or out of combat (I've given counterexamples above).

The rest of what you say seems highly plausible, though, but doesn't seem to have anything to do with 4e as an MMO. It seems to be about the use of digital tools to support the mathematical and condition-tracking aspects of action resolution. And frankly 4e is not the only RPG I've played that could benefit from that - Rolemaster, played with sophisticated players and a large suite of options, can easily soak up a page of scratch paper per player per combat!

After my 4e campaign finishes I'm keen to GM Burning Wheel if my group will go along with it, but that also looks like a game that will be scratch paper heavy (scripting, tracking checks and artha expenditure etc), and could benefit from electronic tools support. Heck, even classic RQ requires keeping track of ticks next to skills for advancement purposes, which an electronic PC management tool would help with.

I agree that there's a big difference, but looking at 4e, I think its obvious that those influences weren't equal. Personally, I feel the influence of Euro games and Indie rpgs is so minimal as to be academic.

I see a bigger influence from indie games than you - in skill challenges, in the attempt to tightly integrate mechanics and fiction/story elements, and even in the way that different PC story elements (race, class, paragon path, epic destiny) are so squarely aimed at locating the PC within a thematically rich fiction.

But I also agree with you and Campbell that M:TG is a clear influence on power design - clear templating, at least the attempt at crisp wording and keywording, etc (even if it sometimes falls short). In many cases - especially in the first PHB - WotC didn't go far enough with the power template. Many Epic Destinies and Paragon Paths have abilities that clearly should be formatted as powers, but haven't been so formatted because the are classified as "features" rather than "powers". This is true even of some class abilities (eg Fighters' combat challenge, which would be clearer to run if formatted as powers, like Wardens in PHB 2; and Warlock pact boons, which are formatted as powers in Essentials but not in the PHB or FRPG).

the strength of tabletop rpgs is that there are living, creative, flexible, adaptive humans playing and running it. Taking that out of the equation (or trying to) wasn't the smartest move, I guess. Just to be clear, I see 4e as merely a continuation of 3e's direction in this regard.

This is very interesting. I can't really comment on 3E because I haven't played or GMed very much of it. But for the reasons I stated above, I don't see how 4e is meant to be run without a GM. How can skill challenges be adjudicated? How can combat be run (it's nothing like the Castle Ravenloft-style boardgames, for example, which have algorithms to run monsters and in which I assume you can't use Thunderwave to shatter the windows)?

I agree that the mechanical parameters for adjudication are more defined than (for example) B/X or AD&D: not only is there the power formatting that you've noted and I agree with, but there are DCs-by-level, the various damage spread, skill challenge complexities, etc. But these don't make a GM unnecessary. HeroQuest revised similarly has very tight mechanical parameters of this sort as part of its pass/fail cycle, but that doesn't mean you could run HQ without a GM - that would be ridiculous!

when you mistake the fobs for the point of the game, and design towards the fobs, things get messy, be that card-like powers or grid-based combat as the essential D&D experience, or whatever.

I think this is very tricky. The "D&D experience" runs together story elements, themes and tropes, techniques of play (including but going far beyond particular mechanical approaches), etc.

I've never used grid based combat before 4e (when I GM classic D&D or Rolemaster it's "theatre of the mind", with drawings on paper when its necessary to make things clearer). So for me, the use of grids is a distinctive technique for 4e, but it doesn't spoil my "D&D experience". Nor does the fact that, as a general rule, powers can be resolved by reading a short, crisp M:TG-style text rather than a prose-style AD&D description.

For me, the "D&D experience" is much more about the tropes, themes and story elements than the particular techniques. Maybe that's because I've GMed non-D&D as well as D&D systems while still running thematically very similar heroic fanasy RPGs. Or maybe it's because I enjoy mechanics, and experience them as tools for play and "immersion" rather than obstacles to those things.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

I'm not a huge MMO player, but from the few hours I put into WoW it seemed to me that its classes showed considerably more variety in their playstyle, abilities and choices than the 4E classes.

4E started from a strong standpoint, the four core classes playing these roles, but then just moved mechanics wholly from one class to another. The Warlord heals in exactly the same way as the Cleric. The Ranger and Warlock are given once per turn bonus damage, just as the Rogue. Marking showed a little more variety but had the same basic effect. As the number of classes grew, they stuck to these core effects rather too rigidly for my taste - I don't know if this was due to the AEDU structure or a fear of knocking something out of balance.

I particularly noticed that they were MMOing with the Warden, and their use of Con for AC - they couldn't handle a class requiring more than two good abilities and didn't want there to be a trade-off or choice, so they covered up the hole in the design with a special class ability. Simulationism quickly went out of the window with that other feat that allowed you to choose any ability for basic attacks (to compensate for the Swordmage). Like WoW classes, the majority of abilities did absolutely nothing for a character unless they deliberately skilled themselves that way. Were one to revise 4E ala Pathfinder, I could see attacks/AC becoming entirely a function of your two key class abilities and skills being independent of abilities. Heck, why not ensure the math is always right by dictating the relevant scores in a class-level table.

 

[pemerton]

I particularly noticed that they were MMOing with the Warden, and their use of Con for AC - they couldn't handle a class requiring more than two good abilities and didn't want there to be a trade-off or choice, so they covered up the hole in the design with a special class ability.

<snip>

Were one to revise 4E ala Pathfinder, I could see attacks/AC becoming entirely a function of your two key class abilities and skills being independent of abilities. Heck, why not ensure the math is always right by dictating the relevant scores in a class-level table.

There is a widespread (maybe not universal) view among 4e players that the game would be better with fixed attack bonuses (stats would still affect damage).

AC also has a similar issue - it's not just Warden's but other primal classes too (eg Barbarians have their AC kludge that then breaks when it intersects with the DEX-based two-weapon barbarian in MP2).

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

There is a widespread (maybe not universal) view among 4e players that the game would be better with fixed attack bonuses (stats would still affect damage).

AC also has a similar issue - it's not just Warden's but other primal classes too (eg Barbarians have their AC kludge that then breaks when it intersects with the DEX-based two-weapon barbarian in MP2).

Hm, seems like a good idea for any 4E clone that might emerge post 5E. Attack bonuses are fixed across all classes. Reduce the skill training bonus to narrow that spread. Fix defences to be entirely based on class, level and equipment. Combine +defence items with armour so that armour choice has only a small influence on defences (ie: Cloth is +2 Will, Leather +2 Reflex, Hide +2 Fort, Heavy versions are the same +2 AC, Shields are +2 AC but nothing else affects AC, or something).

 

[pemerton]

Combine +defence items with armour so that armour choice has only a small influence on defences

You would still want to preserve the scaling of the current armours ie Leather is +2 on cloth, Hide +1 on leather; and each of the heavy armours 1 better than the previous. Just replace the stat bonus for light armour, and the masterwork armour kludges, with a regularly-progressing bonus.

 

[Chris_Nightwing]

You would still want to preserve the scaling of the current armours ie Leather is +2 on cloth, Hide +1 on leather; and each of the heavy armours 1 better than the previous. Just replace the stat bonus for light armour, and the masterwork armour kludges, with a regularly-progressing bonus.

I suppose greater armour proficiency should give greater something, but with the goal of removing ability bonus it'd be easier to give everyone the same AC in light armour, the same AC in heavy armour. Maybe no bonus for cloth/chain, +1 to any non-AC defence for the next one up, +1 to a second, different defence for the next one up from that, heavy is +2 AC.

 

[tomBitonti]

Who were you replying to or quoting? I do happen to agree with the last couple of sentences.

Sorry. Quote of a quote. See post 20 of this thread:

http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-ho...ex-interview-w-mike-mearls-2.html#post5976147

Thx!

TomB

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I'm not a huge MMO player, but from the few hours I put into WoW it seemed to me that its classes showed considerably more variety in their playstyle, abilities and choices than the 4E classes.

I'm not a huge MMO player either, but I've played enough of them, and enough hours, and read enough of the theory and practices to know that it depends on how you look at it.

WoW was never very varied in playstyle, abilities, or choices, and has gotten steadily less so with every version. What WoW did was spend a lot of time reskinning the same thing over and over, with new art and new names. Basically, they did what 4E is often labeled as. (And they do it well, the common "charge" against Blizzard having some justice that they never innovate, but test and polish to the max.) Whereas, 4E certainly has some limits to its range, but the classes play a lot more different than is first apparent. In fact, WoW looks more varied on the surface but is highly similar once you scratch past the gold paint, whereas 4E looks more similar on the surface, but reveals more variance when you dig.

Then you look at something like Lord of the Rings Online. Turbine is the AD&D-like company of the MMORPGs, in that they have got it well enough together to be successful, but they don't really design games. They make art and game elements and host them on a MMORPG engine, which they constantly throw things into. Underneath it all is the same kind of limits and decisions that any computer game will deal with, but they have so many moving parts that they don't really fully understand, you get some variety by sheer accident. Though I suppose thowing a lot of stuff against the wall to see what sticks is a strategy and method, even if it isn't much of a design. So you get charming variants like a hobbit minstrel that is mainly intended as healbot, but when he turns on "war speech" for solo play, he goes around like a holy terror, shouting monsters into the ground--especially the various wights who are suspectible to his "light"-based damage. It's totally ludicrous, but certainly different.

 

[dd.stevenson]

WoW was never very varied in playstyle, abilities, or choices, and has gotten steadily less so with every version. What WoW did was spend a lot of time reskinning the same thing over and over, with new art and new names. Basically, they did what 4E is often labeled as. (And they do it well, the common "charge" against Blizzard having some justice that they never innovate, but test and polish to the max.) Whereas, 4E certainly has some limits to its range, but the classes play a lot more different than is first apparent. In fact, WoW looks more varied on the surface but is highly similar once you scratch past the gold paint, whereas 4E looks more similar on the surface, but reveals more variance when you dig.

Side note: I'm going to have to disagree with your assessment of WoW, at least as far as the vanilla content goes. (I stopped playing pre-raid in TBC, so what you say may be/probably is true now.) For me, the experience of playing a shadow priest was vastly different than playing a mage. Likewise, playing a pallie felt a ton different than playing a warrior. Same with warlock vs. hunter.

Compared with vanilla LOTRO, I would say that my WoW experience felt at least as varied, albeit with more professional polish. (Although I liked Lotro's "over the edge of the wild" feel. A lot.)

I don't really tend to stick around for xpacs, though, so this is only a comparison of the vanilla experiences. YMMV and all that.