Were people's expectations of "Modularity" set a little too high?

[Umbran]

We still have the play experience of /all/ editions, and the individual experience in the hands of the players. Modules that are nothing more than pre-made house rules for the DM to aren't exactly in the players' hands, are they?

Sure they are.

Give a cook a pantry full of ingredients, and what dish they finally prepare is in their hands. Give players a bunch of things to choose between, and the final arrangement of those pieces is? In their hands!

There is no such thing as a "house rule for the DM". It isn't like DMs work in a vacuum, and can do whatever they want, not caring what the other players* want.



*note the "other players" - the DM is taking part in play, so the DM is also a player, just in a different role. The DM is as much a player as, say, the goalie on a soccer team.

 

[underfoot007ct]

I've hinted at it in my first post, IMHO it's quite hard to imagine how 5e can get close to a BECMI-era style.

Things that at the moment go against the style might be:

- classes and races being separate concepts
- the human race many bonuses to ability scores
- the average damage output of every class at 1st level
- cantrips/orisons at will
- rituals at will

Are you looking for a 'BECMI play style" or to be able to have every aspect of 'BECMI' rule duplicated, one for one. Which I am not sure If that is possible, nor what 5eNext will probably be. Some compromises MUST be made by ALL of us. I'm sure many of us don't like compromising, but nothing can stop anyone from playing their favorite edition, If we choose to.

As the playtest is now, I cannot have a '4e play style' but Merals promised a 'tactical module' which you could include any amount of, as so you could have a '4e play style' (which I do want). For an 'old school play style' you would use none of the rules from the tactical module.

Several people have already stated this is a framework (foundation) which the rest of the game is built off of. Also remember this is an early playtest, years away from being finished. Many changes are ahead of us.

The current play test rules are nothing that I would want to play (as is), but I am waiting for for modules & more rules. Paitantly Waiting is very frustrating for myself & I'm sure, many others.

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

I think WotC did some of that expectation-setting.

For instance, in L&L:

"Game Design
The new system must create a mechanical and mathematical framework that the play experience of all editions of D&D can rest within. One player can create a 4th-Edition style character while another can build a 1st-Edition one. Complexity and individual experiences rest in the players' hands. That experience is more important than the specifics of the math..."

My playtest experience using slightly tweaked pre-gen characters fit what WoTC stated. The Wizard felt and played like a 4e Mage. His magic missiles where flying all over the place and his burning hands 'daily' took out a mess of centipedes. The Cleric, swapping out Radiant Lance for 'light' and played with a dangerous habit of charging into the fray against undead, felt very 2e ish.
I didn't play 1e enough to recall a 'feel' to it.


I think 5E is headed in the right direction and that the promise of modularity will come to pass. However there are some paradigms that have to be tossed out of the window to achieve this.

The first of these is the idea that classes have to be balanced against each other and that removing cantrips requires either replacement or removal from all other classes. Classes will have their thing that they shine at, and areas they might not be so good at. And that's okay.

 

[Azgulor]

I've come across complaints about the modularity of D&D Next and I feel like the problem is, people have basically set their expectations way too high.

I think what these people expected was to be able to sit down at the table and play a game of 4th edition or 4rd edition or 1st/2nd edition using Next and that just isn't going to happen.

I think the whole idea was to use bits and pieces of all those editions into the creation of D&D Next in order to give people the "feel" of these editions while being something new.

I like the direction the game is going and I hope they iron out the "clunky" parts that I don't agree with.

I think the problem was more one of people's assumptions of what modularity meant and how they imposed those assumptions with little or no basis beyond some vague WotC platitudes about modularity.

Speculation is normal, but some folks were taking a sentence from Mike Mearls or Monte Cook that had insufficient context and started talking as though they had a Rosetta Stone to translate WotC teasers into design criteria...

 

[UngeheuerLich]

OK, does this really sound that much different:

"Game Design
The new system must create a mechanical and mathematical framework that the play experience of all editions of D&D can rest within. .... Complexity and individual experiences rest in the players' hands. That experience is more important than the specifics of the math..."

We still have the play experience of /all/ editions, and the individual experience in the hands of the players. Modules that are nothing more than pre-made house rules for the DM to aren't exactly in the players' hands, are they?

"One player can create a 4th-Edition style character while another can build a 1st-Edition one."

Sums it up concisely, but the context is just saying the same thing. And, at this point, there's no sign of that particular bit of vaporware being delivered, FWIW.

we have already seen two kinds of fighters. With and without fighter expertise dice.
The first one was more or less 1st edition. The second one rather 4th edition. So take both playtest together and now you have modularity. We are playtesting possible modules.

 

[Lanefan]

This...

I think what these people expected was to be able to sit down at the table and play a game of 4th edition or 4rd edition or 1st/2nd edition using Next ...

...and this...

... particularly, I think some people took 'modularity' to mean something along the lines of 'we're not going to publish a game, we're going to publish a kit for building a game'- like when you flip through the core book, the first few chapters are going to be on selecting the combat system, magic system, skill system, etc., that you are going to use, with no 'default' assumed.

...are exactly what I'm expecting; and I'll be very disappointed if it's anything else.

I should be able to use it out of the box to play - in effect - 1e. I'd also like to see it useable to play - in effect - 2e, 3e, 4e, or any other e you can think of; or a combination of elements from any and all the various e's. My preference would be for a 5e where I can take a 1e-like framework and tack on some of the better innovations from the later e's and still have it all work.

In other words, 5e gives me all the pre-fab bits and I decide which ones I'm gonna use to build my game.

EDIT: reading this over, a thought strikes: I should, when building the game I want out of 5e's various parts, be able as part of that process to unbalance it to suit my preferences. If I want a sword-and-board heavy game with minimal magic but lots of cinematic fighting I should be able to build that; ditto if I want a game to favour Thieves and sneaks, or psyonicists, whatever. The system, however, has to clearly state what's balanced with what before I and others start messing with it.

Lanefan

 

[GX.Sigma]

While I largely agree that we're seeing the foundations laid now for lots of modularity later on, I do have to wonder how the balance of the rogue changes if the background system is ripped out?

They have a class ability called 'Skill Mastery', after all. And a large part of the point of a rogue scheme is that you get a second background. If there *are* no backgrounds, what do rogues get to compensate?

One background. With a minimum result of 16 ("difficult" DC) on all skill checks.

 

[ZombieRoboNinja]

I think some people were expecting to be able to take a single build of a single class (eg "evoker wizard") and have it play 4e-style or 1e-style based solely on which rules modules the party was using. I think it's fair to say that this is very unlikely to happen.

Instead, I think they are using "kits" and different classes to enable different styles of play at the same table. So a 1e fan can play a wizard with a particular arcane tradition and specialty, and hopefully be more or less happy with their Vancian glass cannon, while a 4e fan would instead play a warlock. The 4e fan who is dead-set on casting Bigby's Hand without learning to love Vancian spell memorization to SOME degree may well be out of luck, short of some significant house-ruling.

This is actually a completely separate phenomenon from rules modules, IMO, which seem likely to be almost entirely non-class-specific. At the most, I'd expect to see modules to eliminate at-will Cantrips, turn CS back into a static damage bonus, and so on.

 

[Argyle King]

When I heard "modularity" in regards to D&D, my initial thoughts were something similar to this: GURPS Dungeon Fantasy

I did not expect exactly that or anything near the modularity which is possible with those books, but I felt they were a good example to look to. A few steps less than what I linked to; with some d20-isms added is what the modularity language made me originally expect.

 

[slobster]

I don't think it's too much to ask to have a system that lets me play gritty old-school sword and sorcery one night, mythic practically-superhero fantasy the next, then swap out a few rules modules to play monopoly followed by a game of backyard badminton the next. It's a simple matter of designing a robust base system along with enough pre-vetted and balanced modules to get the game of your choice. You'd think after 40 years of design experience we would have learned a thing or two by now.

I could do it myself but I just pledged on the Reaper kickstarter, and have a bunch of minis to paint. But that's what we pay them for!