The New Design Philosophy?

[Remathilis]

I concur. If I invite you over and tell you you MAY have a beer, and you MAY have some chips, that does not mean you MAY sleep with my daughter just because I didn't expressly forbid it.

Ah. I believe this is slippery slope: If X, the Y WILL/WON'T occur.

I always read Command 3.5 as "utter a command. Below are common examples. These work as written. Other commands are up to the DM's Whimsy, and may fail utterly."

Otherwise known as: I may have a beer, I may have some chips, (since you've already given my expressed consent) but I COULD ASK if I could sleep with your daughter, seeing the options are "Yes", "No" or "Get out of my house" (utter failure). Utter nonsense of the example aside, it never hurts to ask what you can/can't get away with in an RPG, esp BEFORE you try it.

 

[Hussar]

Ignoring the command discussion for a second, I posted this in another thread and I think it's germaine here as well.

Why have niche creatures?

Let me explain. A niche creature is only good if you need that particular niche filled. An Ogre Mage, for example, really only worked as a background puppet master type monster. You couldn't toss it in anywhere else because it's hp's and whatnot were just too low for its CR.

I would much, much rather have generic creatures that I can then template/class level/add equipment to to make a niche creature. Mearl's rework of the Ogre Mage points to this. I can now use the new Ogre Mage in pretty much any stock situation. If I want to use the new Ogre Mage as a puppet master creature, I can simply whack on some class levels and a few magic items and I'm golden.

Thus, the Ogre Mage becomes far more useful to more DM's. Instead of a monster having a very narrow appeal and filling that narrow appeal well, why not have a monster with general appeal that can then be tweaked using existing mechanics into a niche?

The new design philosophy, while you may or may not agree with how it falls out in the end, does seem to be geared towards making things simpler to use out of the box. The goal appears to be a reduction in the amount of work a DM has to do.

If I want to use an original ogre mage, I have to pretty much tweak the entire adventure to make the ogre mage the centerpiece. I can't really use an OM as a mook for instance since it's cone of cold is out of line and it doesn't have enough stand up power to take a beating. A mook that blows a cone of cold, turns invisible and buggers off is not a good mook.

So, I have a creature in the MM that can only realistically be used one way. With the new set up, I have a creature that can fill multiple roles.

Shouldn't creatures, or anything in RPG's for that matter, maximize utilization?

There are any number of extremely niche creatures in the MM that probably almost never see the light of day. I used a tojanida for the first time in six years a few weeks ago for example. I'm willing to bet that I'm a minority DM for actually using one. There are obviously others but, I think I've made my point.

On a side note, I notice people calling for more fey. I think my point above is why you don't see a lot of fey. Rightly or wrongly, people view fey as very, very niche. If you're not in a forest or a bog, you can't use fey. (I know, that's not completely true, but that is the perception and a LOT of fey do fit that bill) So, there are a large number of areas where fey simply don't fit. Or, at least, in my mind, they don't fit. Niche creatures are only great if you actually use that niche.

While there are always going to be monster niches, particularly terrain/climate niches, I don't think it's a bad idea to broaden narrow niche creatures into wider game play.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Right but you want a Ferrari, somebody else wants a SUV, the other guy wants a small economical car, and I want something inbetween all of them. They can produce one model or they can produce several*. Current design philosophy seems to be towards making it one single model without any attention to the others. You are completly right that this does not satisfy us. Remember that is possible to adapt and die also as one can specialize to a niche that is too small or disappears.

*Car annolgy fails, but suffice to be said that I think it would be possible to build one game that would fit many different people's requirements, rather than specialize.

I don't think D&D can ever be more than one type of car. That's for d20 -- the d20 system is the basic chassis, engine, and wheels. You can take that system and play a game in it, any kind of game, really. But D&D, with it's own particular monsters, treasure, character creation schema, etc. needs to be more specific than that. Few people have the time or inclination to take the d20 system (the D&D rules) and add on the kinks, knots, options, and ideas that make it a good game themselves, and those people are not the ones the design should be catering too. Rather, the design should be catering to those who DO NOT have the time or inclination to tinker with the system, because those people are more common than the others. Car companies would get nowhere fast if they only catered to those who liked to tinker with cars. What they do is satisfy the end user -- the consumer, the person who wants to drive off the lot with a working machine. And if they do it well, the mechanics and autophiles love it, too.

EVERY market has it's share of rabid tinkering fans. For ANY item, it would be foolish to cater only to them by making an incomplete machine you had to cobble together by yourself later. The tinkerers will still take apart whatever you design, but for the use of the consumers, you need to have it work right away.

And gaming, unlike automobile sales, is not a big enough industry to support much in the way of specialized product.

I concur. If I invite you over and tell you you MAY have a beer, and you MAY have some chips, that does not mean you MAY sleep with my daughter just because I didn't expressly forbid it.

Depends on the rules. If going over to your house was a fantasy gaming experience, I may have a beer, I may have some chips, and I may very well sleep with your daughter because I simply have the high Charisma and bardic music abilities to get away with it while you pat me on the back and start calling me "son."

And in a fantasy RPG, things that are not expressly forbidden are possibly up for grabs. "Can I run accross the football field and save the princess?" is answered by "Move your speed." "Can I multiclass barbarian and monk" is answered by "You'd change alignment and not be able to go back to Monk." And "can I use this spell to command the man to stand on his head?" is answered with a DM judgement call that will depend on the campaign.

How long is a turn? A round is six seconds. In AD&D a turn was ten minutes. I was being facetious anyway.

So the answer to your facetious question is, of course, yes, because the rules don't say you can't, you can try, and the DM will arbitrate on if it's appropriate, using the guidelines of what the spell and similar spells are already capable of. "Conquer Europe" would probably fail. "Hit me!" probably wouldn't.

As it stands, the rules actually work pretty well. Change for change's sake is not a virtue. Change for a specific reason (ie. something is broken, or no longer competes well against other games on the market) *is*.

Last I checked, D20/D&D 3.0/3.5 has a pretty thorough dominance of the RPG industry...and it's stronger now than it was 10 years ago.

To establish how quickly the game must evolve to compete against others, you'd likely have to determine whether D20/D&D has lost popularity against other alternative games in the industry....which is completely separate from whether it's selling as well as it was in 2003, for example, given that the entire industry is not selling as well.

D&D isn't just competing with other RPG games, first of all. It's competing with STRATEGO, with WORLD OF WARCRAFT, with TIVO, with posting on internet message boards -- it's competing for your free time.

And as it does that, it does not do it well. "Twenty minutes of fun squeezed into four hours of gameplay" comes to mind. There's also the idea that you need to coordinate five people's schedules and bring them all together in one place, and that's difficult as well. Change would be good, allowing more people to have more fun with D&D as opposed to watching TIVO.

Besides, change for change's sake may not be a virtue, but it is an inevitability. Continents drift, our axis wobbles, stars explode into life or death, you're not nearly as spry as you once were....change happens. That which does not change, dies.

Change is happening all around D&D. Computers grow to popularity, videogames gain eye-popping graphix, the internet revolutionizes human interaction, iPods appear, robots land on mars, Conan goes out of style and Harry Potter comes in, movies are made about LotR that don't suck...D&D must embrace and adapt with these changes if it is to continue to exist. If it does not, it will be played only by contented grognards until they die, at which point D&D will die with them.

Some things from the new design philosophy are a direct result of D&D trying (mostly successfully, IMHO) to adapt to this changing world. Paladin's mounts no longer are a hassle. Command no longer REQUIRES interpretation. If mearls' rust monster became the new standard, now adventurers wouldn't be brought to a screeching halt. The combat round is one of the parts of D&D most people enjoy, so emphasizing that would make that part more enjoyable.

I may polymorph into an aberration, animal, dragon, fey, giant, humanoid, magical beast, monstrous humanoid, ooze, plant, or vermin. It doesn't explicitly say I may not polymorph into something else. May I polymorph into undead?

That would depend on the DM, who must interpret the vagaries in the rules. In my game, I'd say no, the living can't transform into the dead. But to rule yes would be a valid judgement (though somewhat scary).

You lost me. You seem to be saying that anything the rules don't expressly forbid is allowed?

Anything there are not rules for is up to the DM to allow, invent rules for, or disallow.

"Can I swing from the chandelier onto the bar?"
"Can I play a half-orc paladin of Mother Theresa?"
"Can I break the lock off this door?"
"Can I arm wrestle Cthulhu?"
"Can I save the princess?"
"Can I light the campfire with Fireball?"
"Can I Command someone to attack me?"
"Can I polymorph into a golem?"

All of them require that famous DM judgement. Which the rules can never eliminate, but should provide a good framework from which to judge from.

"Make a Tumble check."
"No, there are no half-orcs in this setting."
"Attack an object. It's AC is 18, hardness 8."
"...you can TRY."
"That depends on if you kill this dragon before it kills you."
"No, the flame doesn't linger long enough to light anything. You could blow a charred patch of ground there, though."
"No, that's too specific. You can command them to attack, though."
"Golems are made, polymorph works only with semi-biological life, not artificial constructs. No undead, either."

 

[Mark CMG]

Anything there are not rules for is up to the DM to allow, invent rules for, or disallow.

But the design philosophy you support is meant to make things easier which I do not believe it does.

 

[I'm A Banana]

But the design philosophy you support is meant to make things easier which I do not believe it does.

What's easier to arbitrate? "One word command that is followed," or "A command such as W, X, Y, Z, which is acted out in A, B, C, D ways"?

The former is vague, and can be difficult to judge ("fly!" could mean fly straight up, fly into attack, fly away, fly straight down...). The latter has a few definate effects and always possibly more. The former takes time to think of a command, time to consider it's effects, time to enact it, and all must be done with reference to the rules and balance of the encounter. The latter has a few clear-cut effects that are already considered. If you want to do more, you can, but you don't have to take time in consideration because it's already done for you.

The same is true of, say the Ogre Mage redesign. It's easier to look at a small list of abilities that have an obvious use -- invisibility is obviously useful, as is lightning bolt, as is being able to melee attack well, as is sneak attack -- than it is to look at a longer, more vaguely defined list and pick something to use. Charm person doesn't need to be in that list -- a high Intimidate skill or a high Diplomacy skill can achieve much the same results without calling attention away from the better tactics of sneaking and attacking in combat. Out of combat, when many skills are their most important, you can look here to find out what would be a good social and campaign scenario for the OM. Effectively, the idea is that combat information and "social"/"ecological" information is seperate, and is easier to read and discern from each other so that when running an OM as a combat, it's easy to see what it would actually do (how to role play it well) and when paging through the MM in search of adventure ideas, you can see how the OM would fare in setting up a plot rather than in combat.

The goals seem to be to make it easier to run -- to put more than 20 minutes of fun in 4 hours (indeed, to try to put 4 hours of fun into 4 hours). And so far, they seem to be succeeding at that quite nicely, as evidenced by the new MM4, by the Warlock class, by Mearls's design and development articles. All seem to be steering in the direction of putting more fun in your average span of D&D time, so that you spend less time accounting and considering and arbitrating and discussing and more time beating up things and taking their stuff. Streamlining the ogre mage makes that eaiser. Nerfing the rust ability made that easier. Giving me pre-classed monsters makes that easier. Having PC's who fire spells at will rather than have to do detailed accounting makes that easier.

 

[Mark]

Make things easier to run without boiling all of the fun out of it in the process.

 

[Mark CMG]

The goals seem to be to make it easier to run -- to put more than 20 minutes of fun in 4 hours (indeed, to try to put 4 hours of fun into 4 hours).

That's the goal no matter which side of this debate you are on.

And so far, they seem to be succeeding at that quite nicely, as evidenced by the new MM4, by the Warlock class, by Mearls's design and development articles.

Many believe the evidence you site points to failure, not success.

All seem to be steering in the direction of putting more fun in your average span of D&D time, so that you spend less time accounting and considering and arbitrating and discussing and more time beating up things and taking their stuff.

This might be getting closer to the heart of the matter as many find simply "beating up things and taking their stuff" as an unsatisfying way to spend their time.

 

[FireLance]

Many believe the evidence you site points to failure, not success.

This might be getting closer to the heart of the matter as many find simply "beating up things and taking their stuff" as an unsatisfying way to spend their time.

"Many" also seem to believe the opposite. I think that there is a deep divide in what gamers want, and it seems to be a trend that is not just limited to gaming. It seems to me, at least, that opinions on practically every issue are becoming more and more polarized.

 

[Mark CMG]

"Many" also seem to believe the opposite.

Of course, you're right. Hence the debate, as you know. The point I am trying to make with KM is he keeps presenting his opinion as fact and it isn't really leading to much of a fruitful exchange between us.

I think that there is a deep divide in what gamers want, and it seems to be a trend that is not just limited to gaming. It seems to me, at least, that opinions on practically every issue are becoming more and more polarized.

This often happens on the declining side of a sales cycle for a game or edition of a game as its flaws are more universally clear and the player base fragments more and more. Often players (mostly DMs in RPG games) have their individual fixes for gaps in the rules or changes and house rules that patch real or imagined deficiencies. Once a game has moved this far along it is harder and harder for producers of supplements to gain a significant market share.

 

[FireLance]

This often happens on the declining side of a sales cycle for a game or edition of a game as its flaws are more universally clear and the player base fragments more and more. Often players (mostly DMs in RPG games) have their individual fixes for gaps in the rules or changes and house rules that patch real or imagined deficiencies. Once a game has moved this far along it is harder and harder for producers of supplements to gain a significant market share.

I suppose a clearer understanding of the flaws might account for part of it, but I suspect the fundamental problem is one of different playstyles. If the rust monster changes had been made when 3e was just released, for example, I'm sure it would have created a similar furore.

What I wonder is why it is not possible to have a single system that caters to a variety of playstyles, perhaps along the lines of painandgreed's idea of a basic game plus supplements that are built around the idea of different gaming philosophies.