Something Old, something New, something Borrowed, something blew...

[howandwhy99]

Old: Move the focus of play at the game table to the players interacting with each other rather than to the DM. In other words, design the game to enable and promote player interaction without interference from the DM. Have interaction with a DM be secondary, and make turn taking 1-on-1 time with the DM more detrimental to play.

New: Keep online access and customization to the core rules and all the published add-ons a la DDi.

Borrowed: Adventures and campaign settings from all the different fantasy games around.

Blew: Treating anything about the game's design or play as if games were narratives.

 

[Tallifer]

Old: Classes, hit points, paladins, lawful good, skills from 3rd edition, schools of wizardry and domains.

New: Healing surges, Powers, rituals, feats, swordmages, artificers, wardens, avengers, balanced math, wish lists, the easy-to-run and readable delve encounter format, slots for items, boons, action points, warlords, runepriests, seekers, themes, the Feywild, Eberron, unaligned, at-will magic, paragon paths, epic destinies, minions, elites, solos, simple formulae to balance encounters, daily magical items, bloodied, shardminds, wilden, dragonborn, satyrs, playable hamadryads, shadar kai, twin strike

Borrowed: magical herbs and natural items from Rolemaster and Powers & Perils, virtues and passions from Pendragon, archetypes from Pathfinder

Blew: level limits because of race or ability scores, critical fumbles (never core but so many killer dungeon masters love them)

 

[Tallifer]

Old: Move the focus of play at the game table to the players interacting with each other rather than to the DM. In other words, design the game to enable and promote player interaction without interference from the DM. Have interaction with a DM be secondary, and make turn taking 1-on-1 time with the DM more detrimental to play.

Please explain. That sounds like players roleplaying with each other which can happen in any system or edition. As far as I can see, combat, NPCs and puzzles have to involve the dungeon master. I want to defeat and loot the enemy, not my fellow party members.

 

[howandwhy99]

Please explain. That sounds like players roleplaying with each other which can happen in any system or edition. As far as I can see, combat, NPCs and puzzles have to involve the dungeon master. I want to defeat and loot the enemy, not my fellow party members.

Just to be clear from my end, I take role playing to be the entire enterprise wherein we play with stuff that exists solely in our own minds. Role playing can also mean portraying a fictional personality, but confusing the two can make it harder to communicate.

A lot of play I've been a part of is 1-on-1 Player to DM turn taking. This is especially prevalent in combat or whenever in-game time slows down. I see this like swapping off turns with a console's game controller while everyone else watches and waits. To me that directly leads to boring play and is poor design, but... I would not remove it from the game altogether. I would simply make it an option. (Perhaps in terms of design boring, slow play could be its own detriment?)

When the locus of a game is moved from the corner of the room where the DM sits to the center of the table surrounded by the players, then everyone is in place to engage as they desire and the DM is afforded the opportunity to hang back and referee - watch, listen, and quickly relay judgement calls and results.

I enable optional group or grouping of initiative, even advocate it at times, while suggesting the strategic use of a Caller whenever the players become really confused. Neither technique is mandatory, but neither are they automatically "against the rules". I use them because they are designs which routinely lead to more enjoyable play.

 

[fenriswolf456]

Old: Sense of exploration. Perhaps just playstyle, but I miss the sense of feeling like I'm exploring a dungeon, say, rather than running from one encounter to the next.

New: Balance and accessibility. I like feeling that I can pick any race and class and be successful with it.

Borrowed: Ars Magica magic system. Allow magic users to actually be manipulators of magic. Rather than just knowing static spells (which they can still learn), casters have skill in the various base components of magic, both in how (creating, destroying, manipulating, etc.) and what (fire, earth, healing, illusions, etc.).

Blew: Mile long Feats list. I do like being able to tweak my character with Feats. I don't enjoy taking hours to do so. Generalize and let players define the specifics.

 

[Hussar]

Old: I want morale rules back. I still love some sort of mechanic that lets me let the baddies run away without it feeling cheap.

New: 4e's approach to the game - Say Yes. I love making the game more player-centric.

Borrowed: Life-path chargen systems. There's a number of them floating around. Spirit of the Century is one of my fav's. Not only builds your character but builds the group and their role in the world at the same time.

Blew: Mundane/caster disparity. I do not want the muggle characters to be the wizard's caddy any more.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Old - 3rd character customization options.

New - 4E clarity of rules and presentation.

Borrowed - unlimited advancement - HERO. You can play a 75 pt beginning fantasy character or a 1000+ pt cosmic superhero. In some cases the same character with 10 years (or more) of play. Set the game up with no formal "This is it you are done playing this character" point.

Blew - level limits on classes or races - character concept shouldn't mean you have to stop advancing.

 

[Lanefan]

I could list many under each category but I'll stop at one each:

Old: magic items, to-hit matrix (and-or BAB), and various other mechanics put back behind the DM screen where they belong.

New: 4e's combat movement system, but very much scaled back.

Borrowed: VP/WP from Star Wars or BP/FP from our own homebrew system.

Blew: Overly-fast level-up rates in 1e (if using x.p. for g.p. rules) 3e and 4e.

Lanefan

 

[vagabundo]

Old: Race as a class from Basic DND.

New: 4e transparent math and DM tools.

Borrowed: Multiclassing and talents from Star Wars Saga. The muticlassing was just beautiful. Blows all DND multiclassing away.

Blew: Multiple attacks/complex higher level play and terrible NPC caster creation from 3e. Really dragged the game to a halt for me.

 

[steenan]

Old: Lighter rules, with fast character creation and gameplay focused more on player-player (including player-DM) interactions than player-rules interactions.

New: Truly abstract HPs and healing surges. Naming must change, but the general idea is great.

Borrowed: Negotiated conflict stakes and using the same rules for each type of conflict - from FATE and a lot of indie games.

Blew: Multiclassing rules that encouraged single-level dips for some classes and discouraged any muliclassing for other classes, instead of supporting flavorful combinations.