Why D&D Should Be More Like WoW

[mattcolville]

I posted this on my forums, which have, like, 10 users total. But they're almost all game developers of one stripe or another.

My friend John responded with "D&D should not try and be more like WoW." Here's my reply;

There are lots of ways in which D&D should be more like WoW. Though I don't think they're evident to the average player of either.

In D&D, when you make a character, even a level one character, you have a lot to learn and a lot of decisions to make. You have to buy your stats. In an official RPGA game, this means spending points on stats, and the points are not linear. a 16 STR is not 6 more expensive than a 10 INT. Then you learn that the stat doesn't do anything, it's just the input for a lookup table. Then, for some stats, the result of the lookup table is applied to a secondary stat called a Saving Throw.

You pick your race and your class. You then get to customize your class with feats, and there are dozens in the PHB alone. Thousands if you use all the official supplements. Dozens, and it's not clear which are good and which are bad. A wizard might think Cleave was cool. Because while Cleave is a feat Fighters can take with a Bonus Feat, Wizards can take it too. A first time player might think a Wizard with Cleave is a cool idea. Experienced players know this is non-viable or suboptimal, but character creation keeps that secret.

You have to learn the difference between class skills and cross class skills and then learn the difference between skill points and skill ranks and that sometimes there's not a 1:1 ratio between them. And, of course, you've never used any of these skills before. You might think Ride would be super useful, even though 90% of your skill checks will happen in dungeons.

If you're a caster, you have dozens more spells to choose from, again having never cast any before if you're a new player.

Compare this to WoW. You buy the game, install it, and make two decisions before you're in the game and playing. Class and Race and that's it. No other game-play related choices. This means you're in and playing the game in...seconds. Maybe a few minutes if you spend a while reading all the descriptions.

You can customize your character, but you do it through play. You don't get your first talent until 10th level. By which time you've been through hundreds of battles. And it's only taken you 2-4 hours to get there.

So WoW beats D&D on three critical levels.

1. Character creation is vastly simpler.
2. With the exception of class and race; no decisions that you can only understand through many many hours of play. Video game players have long moved away from the model where making a dude takes a long time because of all the decisions you have to make. Customization and specialization come as you learn about the game and this is superior.
3. You get into the game faster. You're in WoW much, much, much faster than any other pen and paper RPG. In and playing. People who buy a game want to play it. They don't want to then spend 30 minutes making a dude. Remember when we made dudes for Houses of the Blooded at Strategicon? Took maybe 2 hours. An experienced player might be able to make a dude in 10 minutes. That's still 20 times longer than it takes a WoW player to make a dude.

The first 30 minutes of play in WoW result in several encounters, and 3 or 4 levels. You are rewarded very quickly. It eventually levels out. It can take MANY hours to gain a level once you're 60. Much longer than in D&D. In D&D, they imagine it takes 4 sessions to level, even at first level. The "power up" mechanic is a proven winner. Players like the sense of accomplishment and having discreet levels to gauge their progress. You can argue that players need time to live with their new abilities, I won't argue that. But why give them abilities so powerful or complex it take 16 hours just to get used to them? Why not give them small increases early on, so they feel good about playing early on. Maybe not a level every 30 minutes, but at least at first level, why not one level a session?

Players like being rewarded for play. WoW and D&D both do it, but WoW does it better.

WoW has roles for characters in groups. This is something I think D&D will do better than WoW with their Defender/Leader/Attacker/Otherthing breakdown, and the ability for anyone to do any of those things.

In WoW, there are "jobs" in the party. In D&D there's only two jobs; heal and fight. Thieves can disarm traps, but that happens mostly out of combat. Rangers can track, but that happens mostly out of combat. In WoW, you need a Tank, a Healer, a DPS character, there are secondary roles; Crowd Control, Buffs, DeBuffs.

I don't think WoW does this very well, the roles aren't clearly defined, nor ever made explicit to the player. But unlike D&D, WoW does have clearly defined roles for the team. Players like feeling like they know what they're supposed to do. They like knowing what's expected of them. It takes an experienced player to understand why a Warrior in WoW doesn't do more damage than a Rogue.

D&D4, I think, will take this idea and improve on it, I think. Imagine the players making their dudes, and then choose Role Cards with special abilities printed on them. The Defender can make a bad guy concentrate on
him, keeping everyone else safe. The Leader can grant teammates bonuses and exploit weaknesses in the enemy. And anyone can do it. Maybe it can switch from session to session. Some classes will be better at it than others, but unlike WoW, anyone will be able to take on any role.

Now imagine the monsters having roles. Makes it easier to build encounters. The GM knows what roles to fill.

Because it's online, and uses technology, WoW makes it easy for friends anywhere in the world to hook up and play together. Because there's content you must have a group to do, there's a way to make new friends through playing WoW. The next patch has built-in VOIP, they're testing it on the Test Servers now. So everyone will be able to play and talk to their friends.

D&D requires you to not only know 3 other people who want to play, but have a place to get together. That's a barrier to entry. Using some simple web tools, they can remove that for anyone with a computer and the internet. Why not do it? Why not allow people to play online with anyone in the world?

In all these arenas, WoW beats D&D. But I don't see any reason D&D can't beat WoW pretty easily if they put their mind to it. And I don't see any reason these changes will make D&D less like D&D. None of these things are things I particularly associate with the D&D experience. They're all improvements. The stuff that makes D&D the best game I've ever played across any category or genre...with the possible exception of NetHack, in only improved by these changes.

 

[Abisashi]

I thought this was an excellent post. Hopefully I'll have some more insightful feedback tomorrow.

 

[Delta]

My two cents:

- I totally agree with simplifying character creation; but I do not think that 4E will be generally going in that direction. I've suggested that on these boards before, and the overwhelming response (here at least) is that people want more, more, more customization options for their new character.

- I disagree with the predefined roles issue.

- I think that playing any time online is a definite win for WOW, and that's the nature of a successful MMORPG. However, I think that D&D attempting to compete for that business, trying to straddle the tabletop/online-software worlds, is potentially very damaging: see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Core_competency

I think more generally what you dont address is 4E starting to borrow specific game mechanics from WOW -- moving towards matching races, classes, levels, combat, magic system, etc. That will be hard for some of us to watch.

 

[Arashi Ravenblade]

Good post. However, What if you like spending hours or days making a character. I can make a 3e character in 5 minutes, but If i like I will take days. I took a week making the character for my brothers DL game.

I think the simple option should be there but not mandatory.
I dont like the idea of roles either. They are limiting.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

I agree. When cracking open a new phb - no matter the edition - one of the things I look forward to is creating the character. Should I play an elf? A dwarf? A magic user this time or a ranger? I'd like it to be simple, 3e was a bit too much imo, but not TOO simple.

Good post. However, What if you like spending hours or days making a character. I can make a 3e character in 5 minutes, but If i like I will take days. I took a week making the character for my brothers DL game.

I think the simple option should be there but not mandatory.
I dont like the idea of roles either. They are limiting.

 

[mattcolville]

Good post. However, What if you like spending hours or days making a character.

There are lots of players like this. Here's my response;

Making a character is not playing the game. It's stuff you do outside the game. Now, many games make a lot of money because they deliberately engage the player outside the game. GW built their whole business on the fact that teenagers like painting armies more than playing the game and will spend many times more hours outside their Warhammer games painting armies than inside the game playing. GW sells the craft of making armies, the game is almost incidental. Don't believe me? Read some of their internal memoranda.

CCGs make a lot of money in part because people like building decks as much as playing them. There's a strategic element as well as a tactical one.

I submit that D&D should not be selling the craft of making characters outside the game. Even as an option. It should concentrate on it's core competency, the in-game experience that can only come with live players and a GM.

There's a *lot* of customization in WoW, but it happens *during* play. It's a game, you should want to play it. Any game-related desires you have should take place during gameplay.

 

[F4NBOY]

4E - Why D&D Should Be More Like WoW

Better, relevant, simpler and funnier crafting rules!

For a very insightful and professional answer, you really should ask to Sean K. Reynolds!

 

[outsider]

The idea of pushing back most of the character creation choices could work, in theory. The first few levels though would have to go by quickly. I'd say a level per session for about the first 5 levels would work. Problem is, most DMs seem to want to -slow down- progression rather than speed it up. Also, alot of games start above first level anyways, so it renders the idea moot.

I do agree on having more defined roles. To a degree, D&D has had defined roles since the beginning, but I think it could be done better.

Overall, D&D shouldn't be trying to make itself into WoW. That doesn't mean though that they should ignore good gameplay ideas just because they come from WoW. Believe it or not, WoW does alot of things right.

 

[F4NBOY]

To a degree, D&D has had defined roles since the beginning, but I think it could be done better.

I think the same. To me, being a Roleplaying game was all about that, maybe I was just wrong all this years, of course.
I don't think they are creating roles, just defining them better. If they use WOW's parameters it's fine. I think much of the WoW parameters to create their roles were inspired in RPGs, mostly D&D anyway.

Believe it or not, WoW does alot of things right.

For what concearns a MMORPG, WoW does everything right and even more!

 

[Wayside]

I submit that D&D should not be selling the craft of making characters outside the game. Even as an option. It should concentrate on it's core competency, the in-game experience that can only come with live players and a GM.

There's a *lot* of customization in WoW, but it happens *during* play. It's a game, you should want to play it. Any game-related desires you have should take place during gameplay.

And besides, with 30 levels playable out of the box (and the possibility--some would say likelihood--of more to come) there's no reason a person can't indulge their character-building whims simply by starting their game at level 3 or 5 or 10. That added granularity opens up some fun possibilities. I'm curious to see what SHARK's game* will look like if he chooses to move to 4e, for example.

* With many thanks to the person who saved that post from the void.