Should game designers remain neutral when designing D&D?

[innerdude]

Should game designers remain neutral when designing D&D?

In a word, no.

In multiple words, hell no.

The entire RPG ecosystem is built on the basic premise of, "Here's a cool way we thought we could pretend to be an elf/vampire/alien/demon/human/sentient mushroom. Maybe you'd like it too!"

That said, any project as big as D&D Next is obviously going to have some compromises from within relating to the designers' personal tastes. And when one designer isn't willing to compromise, that designer is going to not end up contributing much to the project. There's a reason Monte Cook left the D&D Next development process very early in the proceedings --- because it's clear he was looking for something much more freeform and slightly less traditional than "D&D," and we as the gaming community now have another great gaming option in Numenara because of it.

But in my opinion it's some pretty wishful thinking to believe that D&D Next won't be influenced, possibly heavily so, by the perceptions and biases of the people creating the game. I'm going into the D&D Next launch fully in mind that it's probably going to have a lot of "Mike Mearls" in its design. I don't particularly care for "Mike Mearls" design, so I'm not holding my breath that D&D 5e is going to blow me away.

You want an RPG catered EXACTLY to your tastes, go make your own.

Don't have enough time, desire, or expertise, you say?

Dang, guess you'll just have to pay money for one, and hope that the designer(s) include more of what you like, and less of what you don't.

 

[Obryn]

Assuming that interpretation of your claim, I very strongly disagree with it. There is nothing remotely playstyle neutral about a game whose action resolution mechanics aspire to the emulation or modelling of the laws of physics.

Well said.

the point was that the designers know that some rules are tightly integrated with other parts of the game, and that others are not. And that it is helpful when they share this knowledge with their player base.

My view is that WotC are very poor at doing this (and TSR also before them). I would contrast (say) 13th Age, where the book is full of commentary about why certain rules are how they are, and what the logic of those rules is....
I think it is helpful for designers to point these sorts of things out, because it makes life easy for RPGers. It can also have other benefits, too. For instance, developing a version of 4e that eliminates the encounter/daily distinction would be quite a big deal (on a par with what Essentials did). Whereas including a note that you can change the ingame time required for the two sorts of rest, and that this will have no mechanical impact, would have added about 10 minutes to the time required to write the PHB and DMG, had an utterly marginal impact on layout, but probably headed off as much as 10% of the criticism that edition has been subjected to.

Also very well said.

I also find it problematic that you think reality and heroism are compatible. Is there no such thing as a hero? Are there no wondrous things in this life?

Oh come on.

 

[pemerton]

Yes, but those are neutral decisions. Characters die as easily as people die.

How is this playstyle-neutral? It is clearly more compatible with playstyles that want characters to die, in the fiction, in circumstances comparable to those where they would die in real life, were they real people. This already rules out the traditional D&D playstyle, in which for most PCs (depending on edition, 1st level may be an exception) don't die in such circumstances - unless they are poisoned, in which case they're more likely to die than a person in real life would in comparable circumstances.

And that's only looking at outcomes, before we even get to other important aspects of playstyle - such as translating mechanical results into fictional outcomes - which are clearly different in a rules-as-physics engine compared to (say) a scene-resolution engine like HeroQuest revised.

 

[Ahnehnois]

How is this playstyle-neutral?

Because it's clear. Given that the rules describe the durability of a person, one can then build a person that is twice as tough by simply doubling the requisite numbers. The point is that those numbers have a clear and transparent and singular meaning, not that one can't use them to describe any scenario one likes.

The model of rules as physics is completely silent on the playstyle issues you're describing. The lethality of challenges, like any other facet of the game, is determined by the individual operators (i.e. DMs), not the rules.

 

[pemerton]

Because it's clear.

So is HeroQuest revised. One of the clearest rulesets out there. That doesn't make it playstyle neutral.

Given that the rules describe the durability of a person, one can then build a person that is twice as tough by simply doubling the requisite numbers.

This already makes assumptions about playstyle: for instance, it assumes that action resolution cares about a rules element that corresponds to a person's durability. That rules out all playstyles that don't take such an approach to action resolution.

The model of rules as physics is completely silent on the playstyle issues you're describing. The lethality of challenges, like any other facet of the game, is determined by the individual operators (i.e. DMs), not the rules.

This is bordering on the absurd. Just to give one example - how would a rules-as-physics-emulation game (eg GURPS) possibly deliver a playstyle comparable to Marvel Heroic RP? Which is an example of a resolution system in which action resolution does not depend upon any rules element corresponding to a person's durability, and in which all PCs have a common scale for measuring the severity of the consequences (including physical consequences) of action resolution.

 

[Ahnehnois]

This is bordering on the absurd. Just to give one example - how would a rules-as-physics-emulation game (eg GURPS) possibly deliver a playstyle comparable to Marvel Heroic RP?

It couldn't. Much the way the rules of football will not allow one to play a decent game of chess. Those are different games altogether, not playstyles. Within each of those games is of course a certain spread of styles.

 

[pemerton]

It couldn't. Much the way the rules of football will not allow one to play a decent game of chess. Those are different games altogether, not playstyles. Within each of those games is of course a certain spread of styles.

The question in the OP was "should game designers remain neutral when designing D&D?" And your answer is (i) that they can do so by adopting a "physics engine" approach to design, and (ii) that such a design will exclude certain ways of RPGing but that's not a lack of neutrality because those other approaches are different games.

I don't see the neutrality. You've already settled on a playstyle at (i), and then at (ii) declare all those other approaches that it doesn't suit to be different games. Who are you being neutral towards? I mean, it's not as if there are no D&D players who adopt non-physics-engine approaches, or whose games more closely resemble Marvel Heroic RP than they do GURPS.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I don't see the neutrality. You've already settled on a playstyle

No, I haven't. I've been conspicuously silent on playstyle.

Who are you being neutral towards? I mean, it's not as if there are no D&D players who adopt non-physics-engine approaches, or whose games more closely resemble Marvel Heroic RP than they do GURPS.

That may be, and that would be a problem if it were true, reflecting a failure in communication either on the part of whoever wrote the game or whoever is reading it. The neutrality I'm getting at applies to all playstyles, but not to people who don't accept the fundamental precepts of the game; I don't think there's any box big enough to capture people who are trying to use the physics engine as something other than a physics engine. And indeed, that's why I advocate making it clear that that's what the rules are and removing extraneous or metagame elements, to avoid such conflicts.

 

[Obryn]

No, I haven't. I've been conspicuously silent on playstyle.

That may be, and that would be a problem if it were true, reflecting a failure in communication either on the part of whoever wrote the game or whoever is reading it. The neutrality I'm getting at applies to all playstyles, but not to people who don't accept the fundamental precepts of the game; I don't think there's any box big enough to capture people who are trying to use the physics engine as something other than a physics engine. And indeed, that's why I advocate making it clear that that's what the rules are and removing extraneous or metagame elements, to avoid such conflicts.

If you don't see the second part of your reply as a playstyle decision (or a game design decision which directly leads to playstyle considerations) then you're using some extremely slippery definitions, here.

But because there's few things worse than a dumb internet debate full of pedantic nerding about the meanings of words, can you postulate that to pemerton (and for that matter, to myself) something like "removing metagame elements" is a very important playstyle (and game design) decision that blocks out RPGs like Fate Core?

 

[Ahnehnois]

can you postulate that to pemerton (and for that matter, to myself) something like "removing metagame elements" is a very important playstyle (and game design) decision that blocks out RPGs like Fate Core?

I suspect any version of D&D is going to exclude things that aren't D&D. As I understand it, Fate is already a pretty playstyle-neutral version of what it is. So are many other 'generic' rpgs. I think the OP was suggesting that D&D should be a generic game as well, given the breadth of its audience.

But yes, it's impossible for a set of rules to be neutral on the issue of what the rules themselves mean. The neutrality I'm getting at is with regards to things like genre conventions, tactical balance, and of course the basic elements of plot, character, and setting.