Libramarian
Adventurer
[MENTION=21169]Doug McCrae[/MENTION] and [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION]
There's a big difference between compartmentalized advice and a narrative.
Narratives are very efficient in getting across information, but at the cost of implying that the way it describes is the right and true way, and the others are badwrongfun. You "cut corners" by using moralistic and sort of inspiring language, right.
The HM style is a narrative. It DOES imply that it's the One True Way to run an RPG. It's very high level stuff about the DM being responsible for fortifying the boundary between them and the players, "defending his honor" and stuff like this.
If you give a newbie this narrative, there's no way they're going to allow a player to start narrating that they're going to get hit with an arrow around the next corner but it won't kill them and then they'll find a treasure parcel. The 4e text presents this as an epiphany about the "true nature" of D&D as a cooperative storytelling game.
It's really difficult to have two different narratives in one book without the book as a whole having a schizophrenic feel to it. You can write advice, but then that doesn't have the power and efficiency of a narrative.
I doubt that the author of the 5e DMG is going to try to present different playstyles at this level of abstraction. I think they're going to bite the bullet and present a pretty unified take of what sort of game D&D is.
You can see this already in the PAX East video, Jeremy Crawford mentioned "High Fantasy" a few times, which is a pretty significant narrowing of the field, if he meant anything at all by that. The AD&D DMG by contrast specifically says that "sword & sorcery" fantasy is what the game is about.
I mean it would be possible to write an essay at the beginning of the DMG about the differences between high fantasy and sword & sorcery fantasy, but how much space do they actually have for stuff like this?
I'm just amusing myself thinking about how difficult writing a truly comprehensive Next DMG could be if they don't narrow the field significantly.
Here's another HackMaster passage:
"Now there are those who hold up role-playing games as some sort of artsy fartsy mystical new age tool. Yeah, they are out there and it is best you leave such theatre and art school dropouts to their own devices. They do not seem to cotton to our way of gaming and to be honest we like it that way. If they were any good they would not be sitting around trying to modify an already perfect game with their weak-ass theatrics. They would be in a movie or on Broadway. So leave them out of it until such time as they can grow up and face reality."
There's a big difference between compartmentalized advice and a narrative.
Narratives are very efficient in getting across information, but at the cost of implying that the way it describes is the right and true way, and the others are badwrongfun. You "cut corners" by using moralistic and sort of inspiring language, right.
The HM style is a narrative. It DOES imply that it's the One True Way to run an RPG. It's very high level stuff about the DM being responsible for fortifying the boundary between them and the players, "defending his honor" and stuff like this.
If you give a newbie this narrative, there's no way they're going to allow a player to start narrating that they're going to get hit with an arrow around the next corner but it won't kill them and then they'll find a treasure parcel. The 4e text presents this as an epiphany about the "true nature" of D&D as a cooperative storytelling game.
It's really difficult to have two different narratives in one book without the book as a whole having a schizophrenic feel to it. You can write advice, but then that doesn't have the power and efficiency of a narrative.
I doubt that the author of the 5e DMG is going to try to present different playstyles at this level of abstraction. I think they're going to bite the bullet and present a pretty unified take of what sort of game D&D is.
You can see this already in the PAX East video, Jeremy Crawford mentioned "High Fantasy" a few times, which is a pretty significant narrowing of the field, if he meant anything at all by that. The AD&D DMG by contrast specifically says that "sword & sorcery" fantasy is what the game is about.
I mean it would be possible to write an essay at the beginning of the DMG about the differences between high fantasy and sword & sorcery fantasy, but how much space do they actually have for stuff like this?
I'm just amusing myself thinking about how difficult writing a truly comprehensive Next DMG could be if they don't narrow the field significantly.
Here's another HackMaster passage:
"Now there are those who hold up role-playing games as some sort of artsy fartsy mystical new age tool. Yeah, they are out there and it is best you leave such theatre and art school dropouts to their own devices. They do not seem to cotton to our way of gaming and to be honest we like it that way. If they were any good they would not be sitting around trying to modify an already perfect game with their weak-ass theatrics. They would be in a movie or on Broadway. So leave them out of it until such time as they can grow up and face reality."