Uniting the Editions, Part 2 Up!

[pemerton]

That's why I said the cornerstone of D&D was "alignment" and not "the nine alignment system."

I was picking up on your reference to "lawful good" - I started playing (with Moldvay Basic) in 1982, and did not come across the notion of lawful good (as opposed to lawful) until 1984, when I switched to AD&D.

 

[JohnSnow]

I was picking up on your reference to "lawful good" - I started playing (with Moldvay Basic) in 1982, and did not come across the notion of lawful good (as opposed to lawful) until 1984, when I switched to AD&D.

Yeah, that's what I get for using examples.

 

[Alzrius]

By these lights, I can say "an at will wizard is just a pacing thing - ensure only one encounter per rest period, and your wizard can cast all his/her spells in each encounter."

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here.

Even if you have only one encounter per rest period, a normal wizard won't necessarily look like an at-will wizard. It's entirely possible for that encounter to see a normal wizard going "nova" and have enemies still on the field afterwards, in which case your normal wizard's effectiveness has dropped considerably. That's never going to be the case for an at-will wizard.

One way to try and deal with nova-ing (assuming it's causing a problem) is to change pacing. Another is to change mechanics to make nova-ing less unbalancing. I mean, if I like the current pace of my game, but nova-ing is causing headaches, than nova-ing is a rules problem, because (ex hypothesi) I don't want to make it go away by changing my pacing.

It strikes me that if wizards who go nova are causing a problem, then you don't like the pacing of the game, per se, because that's what's causing the problem. Now, you can try and change rules to deal with a pacing issue, but changing X to solve Y tends to be problematic - it's certainly doable, but it's a more difficult way of solving the underlying issue, and it's likely to have unforeseen consequences.

 

[Mournblade94]

OD&D is not the style I want to play -- I want simple character generation (BD&D), unified mechanics (3e/4e), and the option for 4e style cinematic tactical combat. What Monte wants to do is give me the option to build on the skeleton of OD&D to make the kind of D&D I want to play. If he succeeds, the game I want to play will not "feel" like OD&D, though the core game may look like it.

Od&D is not my style either, I really grew up with AD&D but then 3rd edition grew on me and it became my favorite.

I am interested when you say you want cinematic combat. Here I beleive is where there can be some disjunction. I think cinematic combat is the job of the DM not the rules. It is all fine to have rules state what the cinematic effect is, and than have it desribed by the players, but if I am not onboard with the cinematic combat, it will be meaningless.

So you attack with a fancy power, and describe it well, then I as DM say the goblin stabs you, and you take X damage. AND I do it not to be jerk vs. cinematic combat, but because I might be a DM that does not enjoy cinematic combat and just want to run combat tactically, or efficiently, or quickly. The game is no longer cinematic.

This I beleive will be a tough hurdle to cross.

 

[Scribble]

I am interested when you say you want cinematic combat. Here I beleive is where there can be some disjunction. I think cinematic combat is the job of the DM not the rules. It is all fine to have rules state what the cinematic effect is, and than have it desribed by the players, but if I am not onboard with the cinematic combat, it will be meaningless.

I think this is primarily what the new system is trying to accomplish. To serve as a rules source for whatever you believe X should be.

Some get bored when the rules don't in their eyes "support" the flavor of what they're describing. IE I can describe crazy actions all I want, but if I'm only rolling to hit and damage there's not really anything to it. They want the rules to indicate they move X amount, or push the guy back, or whatever...

Others find that many rules to be too limiting to their imagination. They just want the to hit and damage dice rules, the rest they can do in their own heads and describe at the table.

This game will try to present both schools of though with a set of rules they can use at the table together.

We can (and you know we will) still argue about which way to do it is best... But at least the rules won't try to tell us, and we won't be able to point to the current edition and say SEE I'm right and you're wrong.

 

[Ratskinner]

It's not contradictory because my hope for this is realistic; I don't want the rules to have lacking areas, but I recognize that there's no way for any game system to cover everything - that's simply impossible.

I see a difference between my original statement of "I don't want them to have lacking areas" and "I want nothing excluded." It's certainly possible for rules to act as guidelines without having to necessarily expound upon everything (I didn't play 4E, but from what I hear the "page 42" rule was a lot like this).

I'm not sure what you mean by "disqualify it as a valid area of concern." If there's something I want the game to do, it should ideally provide a framework for how to do it, or they'll cover a given idea to the extent that any gaps are so small that they can be covered by flavor text alone (e.g. there's no "solder" class specifically, but the fighter is so close that you can just say your fighter is a soldier - if there's no class that lets you possess other people's bodies, that's harder to fill with a reskinned existing class).

Now, the latter example there is a fairly extreme one, but I've had players ask to play a sentient couch before, so these things come up. I'm not saying these aren't understandable gaps, but gaps do happen (which is another reason why I want 5E to be under the OGL - so someone can cover these odd corner-cases).

Okay, so you really mean "I don't want them to leave significant gaps." How would you go about determining what gaps are generally significant? Personally, if the game lacked a magic class that specialized in possessing people, I wouldn't consider that a gap. I'm hopeful that the majority of DnD DMs and players would consider the sentient couch thing an extreme corner case. But there's always that one guy... However, given that that guy exists when somebody suggests:

If there's something I want the game to do, it should ideally provide a framework for how to do it, or they'll cover a given idea to the extent that any gaps are so small that they can be covered by flavor text alone
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to use as a standard for evaluating mechanics for inclusion. Well, that's highly variable depending on the "I" in question. How does a game designer or editor decide what should or shouldn't be there? Personally, I've come to think that there isn't any objective way of determining it. Since its all subjective, I prefer making that subjectivity as easy to support as possible.

Depends on who you ask. A 1E-style wizards is pretty basic to me, but I play Pathfinder, so take that with a grain of salt.

Sure, but compared to a 1e fighter...

I don't think this is necessarily true. While there is a connection between rules and playstyle, I think that an expansive playstyle doesn't necessarily "lock down" the system from smaller changes or additions. Now, if you want "significant deviation" then I'll grant you that it is harder to do so under an expansive system...but if I wanted significant deviation, I don't think I'd be playing that game to begin with.

Of course, that was another benefit to the OGL, in that it let other companies deal with those problems and resolve them when they offered a significant deviation of the game.

I'd agree with the OGL sentiment, but I think it makes even more sense to make the core simple. Back in the halcyon days of 2e, campaign worlds varied wildly, and even more wildly as they added more "options" books. Individual DMs (to start with) had to make several decisions about how various spells worked. Seeing unique classes and spells was very common. A simpler core may require more houseruling, but it makes it much easier at the same time. (Also, simpler games are generally much harder to "break".)

I understand your sentiment about playing another system, but this is a social activity. I cannot go off and play FATE by myself. I belong to a gamers meetup group for my area. Its currently (last time I checked, anyway) dominated by Pathfinder games. Hopeful players of other games rarely manage to arrange a group, even though I live in a pretty densely populated area and people seem willing to drive for games. 4e players were even having a time of it for awhile.

D&D is "the granddaddy" of rpgs. At least for fantasy, I'd like it to be a flexible, central point for everybody to converge on. It needs to cover a wide variety of playstyles. In that aspect, anyway, it needs to be more like 2e than later versions of the game.

I didn't feel that it was there, at least not very much, in 3.5.

It was, but it was not a design goal like 4e, just a side effect of the rules being written the way they were. To be fair, it did play to the dominant type of DnD games out there at the time 3e came out. That's explored in plenty of other threads, though.

That said, we seem to be talking about slightly different things...you're talking about adding house rules because you want to (e.g. you feel you can do X better), whereas I'm talking about adding house rules because I (perceive a) need to (e.g. because X is broken, or simply absent altogether).

See, from my perspective, you too are talking about adding house rules because you want to. Adding a separate class of magic users that work differently isn't a gap in the rules, its you making your campaign unique. How many different ways are there to make Magic Users? I dunno, but I don't want to carry the rulebook that covers all of them. (I can think of at least 4 from the 3e era that collectively would make a book larger than the PHB.)

I'm talking about having my campaign/gameworld to run the way my group wants it to (at least within the realm of DnDish fantasy). However, I also want your group to run the way it wants. If one of our preferences interferes with the other, then I prefer that to be the exception (a module, a houserule, or whatever). The more expansive and comprehensive the "core" of a game is, the less flexible it is that way. I've played a lot of Indie/alternative games and that just seems to be the case. (Although extreme simplicity or minimalism has its own problems, and "wouldn't be D&D" to most people.) Its far easier to start with a very simple core and add modules or houserules to suit than it is to start with a system of everything and ask the simple or alternative folks to pare it down to the game they want. It also works with their preferences to do it this way. The designers hit this one spot on.

The big difference (I think) is that I don't view a houseruling as a bad thing or indicative of a broken or incomplete system. As you said, no system can (or should) cover everything. The GM will have to make decisions, judgement calls, houserules (even as specific as "No, Invisibility and Fly cannot affect the same whale he targetted with Animal Friendship. You may not have an invisible sentient 30-ton flying battering ram... ...again." Don't laugh, that was my first 3e game). The guy at the head of the table making those kinds of decisions is part of the game, not a failsafe external to the game.

 

[pauljathome]

Would you consider that you are playing a version of D&D that differs from "core D&D" in ways X, Y, and Z (which you enumerate above)?

No, I wouldn't.

I am not at all sure that "Core D&D" really exists at all. If it does exist, then I am fairly sure that it is NOT what Monte thinks it is.

D20 rolls, classes, levels. Those are probably in most everybodies "Core D&D".

Maybe "Dungeon crawls will exist". But there are lots of counter examples to that.

But old style D&D as core D&D? No.

 

[Ratskinner]

This will be interesting to see.

Both HeroWars/Quest and Burning Wheel have simple and complex resolution options that are meant to work side-by-side. In HW/Q the default assumption is that the GM chooses, of any encounter/situation, which way it is handled. In BW the default assumption is that the player chooses. In either system, the thought is that you can zoom in and out depending on how much attention some particular event in the course of the game deserves.

Oh yeah, there's lots of interesting mechanics out there in the Indie world. Aspects from FATE spring to mind. To me, though, it sounds like they're sticking closer to the D&D model. I think it would be really neat to see a D&D with that kind of stuff in it (one game called it "Bringing Down the Pain"), but I'd be reluctant to put it in the "core" for historical reasons. Given their talk of playing all the editions and trying to get a feel for the essence of the game, I'd be very surprised to see something like that as a default.

 

[pauljathome]

Not medieval fantasy? If you're just claiming it's "not medieval fantasy" because it's not a stereotypical Tolkien-esque world, then you misunderstand what i mean by the term. "Medieval fantasy" means that the game is set in a world where people wear armor and fight with melee weapons, and firearm use is rare. It's encapsulated in the middle ages, but encompasses roughly f real world development from the days of ancient greece up until almost the American Revolution. So, your setting deviates from that how?

By that definition my campaign is medieval fantasy. But that is a VERY broad definition. A LOT broader than I'd interpreted it.

The other way to approach the whole "D&D core" topic is from the other direction.

What other games would be "D&D core" by these guidelines? How many D20 variants? "Blue Rose" would be. Mutants and Masterminds with the Fantasy RPG module would arguably be (classes is a little problematic).

But I'd consider neither of them to be D&D. They "feel" different to me in hard to articulate ways.

Is a game of pirates using Pathfinder rules D&D? I think that Monte is saying no. I think that I'd say yes.

 

[Hassassin]

No, I wouldn't.

I am not at all sure that "Core D&D" really exists at all. If it does exist, then I am fairly sure that it is NOT what Monte thinks it is.

D20 rolls, classes, levels. Those are probably in most everybodies "Core D&D".

Maybe "Dungeon crawls will exist". But there are lots of counter examples to that.

But old style D&D as core D&D? No.

You could use 3d6 instead of d20 and (other things equal) it would still be D&D.

The point isn't that your game needs to use all the things listed to qualify as D&D. The point is that a new edition needs to include and support those things for it to still have the D&D core. Whether some are optional or can be houseruled out is beside the point.