Will the Magic System be shown the door?

[Arkhandus]

Errm, I got three points/comments to make here, sorta.

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(edited a bit out) I think most D&D players, like myself, are not as well-versed in a broad menagerie of fantasy literature like the rest of you apparently swim in. Most of us haven't heard of much that you've mentioned so far in terms of fantasy literature, or just haven't read any of it. Even I, relatively knowledgeable compared to most folks I've met in-person, only recognize about half a dozen of the books you've mentioned, and only by name, not by familiarity. Much of it isn't quite as mainstream as you may think; popular maybe, but not entirely to gamers.

Also, some of what you've mentioned isn't the kind of fantasy stuff D&D would derive from; I hardly think Harry Potter and The Dresden Files qualify as medieval fantasy fiction, they're rather modern and of a different flavor. And I dunno about you, but from what little exposure I've had to those, I don't think either Harry has gone around flinging Fireballs at will any time danger reared its ugly head.


I've never known a single D&Der face-to-face who had even heard of EN World or had anything else to do with online D&D discussion. I'm serious. I get blank faces any time I mention EN World or RPGnet or the like; I have to explain it every time. I've known maybe 2 D&Ders so far who have read some of the fiction you folks have mentioned. Most of the people I've met who play D&D, or used to, are not obsessive fantasy fiction readers, and have only read a bit of non-D&D fantasy literature, like Tolkien's work, and the Wheel of Time series, and I think a bit else. Many have read the Drizzt novels or the original Dragonlance trilogy or the like, and some other bits of fantasy fiction here and there, but they generally read other stuff too, like science fiction.

Most aren't big-time readers like me or you. I have a fairly small collection of books besides my more-abundant D&D, BattleTech/MechWarrior, and Shadowrun novels; yet I've read as much or more fantasy fiction than many other D&Ders I've met. Many were introduced to fantasy as much by D&D as by actual fiction. Especially the younger folks I've met playing D&D; they may've read Harry Potter or the Drizzt novels, but nothing else before being introduced to D&D and starting to play.

The active online community is not the majority. Most D&Ders I've met spend their online time playing RTS games or similar, and occasionally an MMOG of some sort (not necessarily MMORPG; they've mentioned Planetside and other such things too).

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I still think D&D will no longer be D&D, though, once you ditch the psuedo-Vancian spellcasting system that D&D has used for so long. If you kill all the sacred cows that make up D&D, what you end up with is a generic fantasy RPG that is no longer truly D&D, but a completely different system built upon the ashes of a perfectly good game.

Even if you keep levels and classes, despite how many very vocal people rabidly oppose them out of personal preference, and maybe even keep the turn-based combat system.....it won't really be D&D anymore once you replace the magic system with something out of another game (which is basically what many are proposing, whether they realize it or not; they want D&D to be like X game and Y game combined, but with the D&D label on it just because of the support D&D gets and the relative ease of finding people to play D&D with). It will just be generic fantasy roleplay.

That's not to say the new game won't be good itself, but it will not really be D&D except in name and settings (after the designers have to do a serious overhaul of the settings' background and composition, to accomodate the drastic changes in how magic and economics and such would work in the game after that.....)

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As thedungeondelver and others have said, basically, if you want to use a particular game's system, then play it. Don't insist that D&D has to become that game when all you really want is D&D's settings, or a scant few of D&D's trappings; you can import the settings into your preferred game system if you really want to, but most D&D players probably wouldn't agree with your particular choice of what other game system D&D should be molded into with the next Edition. Most D&Ders will either have a different game system in mind as their preferred system for it, or will just be fine with D&D having its own system.

When I wanna play Shadowrun, I play Shadowrun. I don't try to shoehorn it into D20 System mechanics. I don't try to adapt it to Mutants & Masterminds or something else. If I owned a copy of Earthdawn, I'd love to play that too. But when I wanna play D&D, I wanna play D&D, not a bastardization of D&D, GURPS, HERO, M&M, Palladium, Grim Tales, Ars Magica, Magic: The Gathering, and World of Warcraft. As it stands, D&D has a good mix of older and slightly newer concepts integrated in it, and it's reasonably unique in its blend and personal styling.

I like D&D remaining distinctly D&Dish and distinctly not entirely generic.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I don't think it matters whether a system of magic appears in fiction a lot, or never. What matters is what works in a game. The makers of WoW weren't looking to recreate fiction. They were concerned only with what works best in a MMORPG. As a result WoW works very well indeed (the levelling part, anyway), and is very popular.

 

[phoenixgod2000]

I was just thinking that a nice addition to any new magic system would be some kind of magical sense that pinged when others used magic withing a certain distance of you, with more powerful magic being much more identifable.

How many fantasy novels have we all read where the mighty wizard rarely unleashed his full power because he was too worried about drawing attention to himself. How often did Belgarath cut loose in the David Eddings series? Once? Twice in 12 books? How about Gandalf or even Jedi in the star wars novels. They all have mightly powers but are careful when they use them, not because they will burn resouces but because a bigger, badder enemy could sense the use of magic.

I think that could definitely be of use to DMs to temper excessive use of reality bending spells.

 

[WhatGravitas]

I like D&D remaining distinctly D&Dish and distinctly not entirely generic.

Yep. But to argue that the Vancian is so inherent to D&D is similar to arguing, that THAC0 is inherent to D&D.

The basic concept of THAC0 (roll to hit) is still in D&D, but streamlined.

And I also think, that Vancian doesn't mean inflexible "spells per day"-table. I think the D&Dism of the Vancian is:
a) Pre-packaged spells: A fireball is a fireball. It's an effect, pre-set and idiot-proof.
b) Preparation: Mages prepare spells (as a whole) and can later cast it by expending the spell.
c) Resting: Mages must have a down-time to regain an expended/cast spell.
d) Advancement: The higher the level, the better and the more spells, you get.
e) Spell levels: Spell levels are an unit of measuring spells and they're fixed and tied to the preparation.

This is the concept of Vancian magic. The exact implementation, however, can be different from the current one. If you read the list above, even the ToB is very Vancian - but it is completely differently flavoured. The sorcerer is Vancian flavoured, but violates b).

If the list above is maintained, it'll be recognized as D&D-magic. And now, we can search for a nice implementation - not only to emulate novels, but also to increase the fun.

This is also the reason, why I don't see a spellpoint system as a possible replacement, because it violates to much of the "preparation"-principle. But I can totally see a strange merging of the ToB-system and the classic spellcasting system:
To get the flavour and resource management of Vancian and to get the "on-the-fly" feeling of ToB.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

There are a great many things I know I can't change back about D&D. God knows if I was calling the shots a great majority of you folks would be mighty unhappy with me. But I tell you what - and you can roll your eyes and say "WHATEVER, grandpa" or "There he goes AGAIN" but you yank out too much more and no, it won't be D&D any more.

Honestly, why do you care what 4th edition is? Its already deviated from the one true system. Never mind that the creator of that system doesnt even use it. So why would you care how terrible it is?

Every single one of your posts drips with edition war comments and negativity. Your very SIG is a walking edition war. So why do you post on 3rd/4th edition threads at all? Just to constantly threadcrap?

 

[JohnSnow]

As thedungeondelver and others have said, basically, if you want to use a particular game's system, then play it. Don't insist that D&D has to become that game when all you really want is D&D's settings, or a scant few of D&D's trappings; you can import the settings into your preferred game system if you really want to, but most D&D players probably wouldn't agree with your particular choice of what other game system D&D should be molded into with the next Edition. Most D&Ders will either have a different game system in mind as their preferred system for it, or will just be fine with D&D having its own system.

When I wanna play Shadowrun, I play Shadowrun. I don't try to shoehorn it into D20 System mechanics. I don't try to adapt it to Mutants & Masterminds or something else. If I owned a copy of Earthdawn, I'd love to play that too. But when I wanna play D&D, I wanna play D&D, not a bastardization of D&D, GURPS, HERO, M&M, Palladium, Grim Tales, Ars Magica, Magic: The Gathering, and World of Warcraft. As it stands, D&D has a good mix of older and slightly newer concepts integrated in it, and it's reasonably unique in its blend and personal styling.

I like D&D remaining distinctly D&Dish and distinctly not entirely generic.

But there's no reason to have sixty different gaming system mechanics. That's a ridiculous artifact of a game that hasn't figured itself out yet. Mechanically, the games that survive have simple mechanics, relatively easily translatable from one game to the other. For the hundreds of board games, dice games, and card games out there, the mechanics are all still reasonably standard.

Roleplaying is one type of game (maybe two, if you want to separate action heavy games from social interaction heavy games), regardless of whether you're playing in a D&D fantasy world, Shadowrun, Star Wars, RIFTS, or something else entirely. As such, roleplaying games should have pretty much ONE system. Because the limiting factor in getting a game together is finding people who know how to play it, either the game has to be ridiculously easy to teach (and RPGs decidedly are NOT), or it has to be that once you learn to play one, you can play them all. Variants are fine. But totally new systems are BAD for Roleplay GAMING, period. Why? Because they take a small market (that's already hard to make money on) and make it even smaller. That's bad.

Since D&D is the "World's Most Popular Roleplaying Game," it stands to reason that something about it caught people's attention and held it. My personal guess (and I'm pretty sure WotC agrees with me) is that it was the very simple combat system and the equally simplistic game premise (overcome challenges and get rewards) that did it. Other games had better skill systems, better magic systems, and so forth, but it was D&D's oft-derided "simple" combat system that won the day. Basically, D&D was REALLY good at resolving the most common situation that came up in game.

So with d20, they chose to apply that same resolution mechanic across the board. Except for situations where the game has gotten burdened with its own baggage, that approach seems to have worked quite well.

The only people who want Vancian magic to remain in D&D are people who already play, and are fans of the system. The rest of the people who play, and other potential gamers, if they could be persuaded to play, just want a magic system that works in the game. Preferably something simple and understandable.

They don't care if the game works like classic D&D, Palladium, Shadowrun, or what. But I bet you'd find more of them interested if it was more familiar to the other magic systems they've had interactions with. Since (I'm pretty sure) nobody actually does "real" magic, that means emulating what they've witnessed in fiction of some sort.

Millions more people have watched The Dresden Files on TV than play D&D (yes, I know it's a novel series, but more people have seen the show than read the books). Millions more than that have probably read a Harry Potter book, seen a Harry Potter movie, or gone to see The Lord of the Rings. I can't say I know the statistics on players of World of Warcraft vs. Dungeons & Dragons.

There's no way of knowing how many D&D players exist. Most of them aren't on Enworld. I imagine most people would be perfectly happy if the magic system changed, assuming that change made the game easier to learn and more fun to play.

In the end, they may decide to keep it, but they shouldn't keep it just because it's tradition.

 

[Arkhandus]

K, separately.....

First, basically I don't expect people to leave D&D just because they don't like part of it; but I also don't expect D&D to just be changed to suit some vocal minority's personal preference with the game, whereas most gamers aren't very vocal about their preferences, and/or won't generally agree with that individual's preference if the core game itself is changed to suit that preference in its next Edition. Revision is good, but alienating a large chunk of the consumer base through excessive change is not.

(a bit edited out) Personally, like the average gamer, I do not have barrels of cash to spend on reading half the selection at my local Borders.




Secondly, I just wanted to present an alternative to what's been suggested by me and others around here, as something that might be a reasonable compromise for what D&D might become in its next incarnation.

Retain the basic spellcasting mechanics and such. Spell slots too. But change the nature of spell slots a bit and assign each spell a Recharge Time.


Each time a spell is cast, the slot used for it becomes unuseable for a while, but will be reuseable after a certain length of time. This is the Recharge Time, and is based on the spell just cast. A Fireball may have a long RT, being unavailable for an hour or more, but still castable a few times each day from the same slot. Whereas a Detect Magic probably has a Recharge Time of only 5 rounds (30 seconds), so it only inconveniences you to cast it if there's a battle going on, but otherwise the slot will refresh itself in a matter of moments. For example, I dunno what exact RTs should be assigned. But for example, Teleport may have a Recharge Time of 8, 12, or 16 hours; so you only cast it once or twice a day from the same slot. Whereas Magic Missile might have a Recharge Time of only 1 minute (10 rounds) or perhaps 10 minutes (100 rounds). Feather Fall could, perhaps, have a Recharge Time of 1 round, on the other hand, or maybe it's too useful for that and should have an RT of 1 hour or 10 hours instead.

You can still prepare a spell in multiple slots, or cast it from multiple slots if you're a spontaneous caster, as normal; that just means you can cast it more than once after each recharge period. Example: you prepare Fireball in 3 slots, one of them Quickened; you cast a Quickened Fireball and a normal Fireball in the first round, then another normal Fireball in the second round, then you have to use other spells for a while. After a few hours or whatever, your 3 Fireball spell slots will have Recharged and become available once more.


The Recharge Time would begin to count down after the spell has finished casting and its duration has completed. So a Fireball slot begins Recharging immediately after casting, since it is Instantaneous and has a short casting time; but an Identify slot doesn't begin to Recharge until after its 8-hour-long casting time (or whatever; I forget if 3.5 changed it, I think it did but I don't recall how much), and a Mage Armor slot doesn't begin to Recharge until after its entire duration of 1 hour/level or whatever has completed (or you've Dismissed it to end the duration early, or it's been dispelled prematurely).

Also, metamagic effects and other stuff might increase the Recharge Time of any spell it is applied to. For instance, Quicken Spell may add 4 hours (or 4 increments, or whatever) to the Recharge Time of any spell it is applied to. If you go with increments, then for example, if Fireball were to have a normal Recharge Time of 8 hours, then a Quickened Fireball would have a modified Recharge Time of 12 hours. This might also be a useful (or even a necessary) method of balancing metamagic a bit more while decreasing the number of levels it would increase the required spell slot by, or whatever.


Spontaneous casters don't have to use the same spell slot to cast the same spell each time; if a Bard casts Charm Person with a particular spell slot, and if Charm Person has a Recharge Time of 16 hours (since it's a major, long-lasting utility spell), he or she doesn't have to use that same slot for another Charm Person; but he or she does have to wait for the Charm Person RT to finish before they can re-use that spell slot for anything.

Prepared casters, on the other hand, retain the same spell (and metamagic, when applicable) applied to the same spell slot, until they prepare their spells anew on the next day. So your Wizard prepares 3 Fireballs, one of which is Quickened; alrighty then, once he casts them and they finish Recharging after a while, they are once again 2 normal Fireballs prepared and 1 Quickened Fireball prepared.


Reduce spell slots for each class, and simplify it a bit. I.E. Wizard gets 2 Primary Spell Slots at 1st-level plus a bonus Primary for high Int, Bard gets 1 Primary + 1 bonus Primary for high Cha;
by 4th-level the Wizard has 2 Primary and 2 Secondary, plus bonus slots for high Int, while the Bard has 1 Primary and 2 Secondary plus bonus slots for high Cha, and the Ranger now gets 1 Primary + a bonus Primary Slot for high Wisdom perhaps;
by 20th-level, Wizard has 3 Primary + 1 extra Primary for high Int, 4 Secondary + 1 extra Secondary for high Int, and 5 Tertiary + 1 extra Tertiary for high Int, while Bard has 3 Primary/3 Secondary/3 Tertiary plus the bonus slots for high Cha, and Ranger has 2 Primary/2 Secondary/2 Tertiary plus any bonus slots he might've gained for high Wis. Frex.

Bonus slots would be gained slower; say a 14+ in the key score gives 1 bonus Primary Slot; an 18+ gives 1 bonus Secondary Slot as well; a 22+ gives 1 bonus Tertiary Slot as well; a 26+ gives another 1 bonus Primary Slot in addition; etc. Only the most learned of Wizards would have multiple bonus slots of all three types (Intelligence 34+, likely from level advancement + Tome or Wishes + Headband of Intellect), for example. So even an archmage would likely have 18 spell slots or fewer; most would have more like 14-15. Rangers, Bards, and such would usually have 7-12 slots at upper levels.


Spell slots would all be divided into Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. These are different 'levels' of spell slot, but do not correspond directly with the spell levels. You use Primary slots to cast your highest-level spells, but they could also be used to cast lower-level spells. Secondary slots are used to cast your next-highest level of spells (i.e. a 5th-level Wizard uses Primaries to cast Lightning Bolt, and Secondaries to cast Acid Arrow), and can be used to cast lower-level spells when needed. Tertiaries would be used to cast only lower-level spells (a 5th-level Wizard would use them to cast 1st-level spells). Preferably 0-level spells would be gone, and covered simply enough by 1, 2, or 3 multipurpose spells of 1st-level (like the old Cantrip of 2nd Edition).


Metamagic in that setup would, of course, have to change required-spell-slot-level less drastically. Quicken Spell might increase the required level of spell slot by 2, and so may Maximize Spell and the like; Empower Spell may increase it by 1 instead, along with some other metamagics; while Extend Spell, Silent Spell, or whatnot may incur no increase in spell slot level. But would still require the character to have access to spells at least 1 level higher (or maybe 2 levels higher?) than the level of the spell being Stilled, Silenced, Extended, or whatever. And of course, multiple metamagic effects applied to the same spell would have a higher adjustment; Empower Spell + Enlarge Spell may increase the level of spell slot needed by 2, instead of just the 1 for Empowering; a combination of Still Spell + Silent Spell may increase the level of spell slot needed by 1, instead of 0; etc.

This would be simple enough to adjudicate. Each metamagic could have a value between 1/2 and 2; this would be how much it would increase the required level of spell slot needed, rounding down; so a Still Spell by itself, with a value of 1/2, would not increase the level of slot needed, but when combined with Empower, with a value of 1-1/2, it would require a spell slot 2 higher than normal. Quicken Spell + Still Spell could be used despite having a combined value of 2-1/2, since this rounds down, but only if the caster has access to spells at least 5 higher than the level of the spell being metamagicked (for instance, to Quicken + Still a Magic Missile, they'd need access to at least 6th-level spells, as normal for 3E). Casters still couldn't Quicken or whatever any earlier than in 3E, because they'd still need access to higher-level spells first, but the actual spell slots used would be much simpler.


For lower-magic games there could be an optional rule to increase the base Recharge Time of spells by a goodly amount; for higher-magic games there could be an optional rule to reduce the base Recharge Time of spells by some amount. And there you have your sorta-kinda-per-encounter system integrated with your kinda-Vancian-reasonably-traditional-D&Dish magic system.

For standard games the Recharge Times may be so long that it is almost indistinguishable from older Editions of D&D; for high-magic games it may be really short on RTs so you have most of your spell slots available during each encounter; and for low-magic games you may have Recharge Times that are measured in days or whatnot, so you have mages carefully hoarding their spells since they won't be able to regain their spell slots or prepare new spells until after their previously-cast spells' Recharge Times have completed.

It's not quite what I'd like, as I prefer the current D&D magic system, but I'm pretty big on compromises and getting along with folks.

 

[WhatGravitas]

...but I start to take offense when people begin to ignore the guidelines of a query and then proceed to also make sleights against me by insinuating I'm a stupid caveman rather than considering that maybe, they're just more well-read than the average gamer. Personally, like the average gamer, I do not have barrels of cash to spend on reading half the selection at my local Borders.

Mkay, while I posted some stuff (like the Earthsea example), I neither wanted to offend you, nor to imply that you're "a stupid caveman". Just wanted to be helpful, and show different point of views. :\

Sorry, if you felt offended...

And I'm pretty sure the other posters didn't want to offend/insult you, though I cannot speak for them.

 

[Arkhandus]

I get your point, JohnSnow. But if the system is extremely streamlined and simplified, it becomes a simple question of "Why don't we just play an MMORPG then? This one looks really simple too, and I don't even have to leave the house or spend hours together with my smelly friends in-person."

And no books to buy, and possibly more cost-efficient than a tabletop RPG, and playable any time.

I'd prefer if tabletop RPGs retained some appeal beyond "it's really simple like the online game I already play in my free time for a small monthly fee."
(no, I myself don't play WoW or the like; I used to play UO, EQ, AO, and Shadowbane at different points)


And I would have no problem with WotC releasing a "D20 Universal Roleplaying Game" or the like some time after 4th Edition, that was based on 4E's revised d20 system (assuming it uses that at all, which it probably will), but with some altered mechanics here and there, such as a purely-skill-and-feat-based magic system. Or if they released something like that in a 4E Unearthed Arcana. But I still feel the core mechanics should be distinctly D&Dish, even if an alternate casting mechanic is provided in a supplement some months later.


ehren: I know you're addressing thedungeondelver, but some of us who criticize the folks clamoring for big change in 4E, are folks who actually want to continue being D&D customers and actually have some faith in Wizards of the Coast.


Lord Tirian: Makes sense, and I suppose I'd agree. (Edited in: And sorry, but that's the impression I got from some, not all. I did not request a library's worth of examples. :\ But really, a lot of what was posted were novels no one I know has ever heard of. Ergo, they're not as 'mainstream in common parliance' as some folks may think. I'll edit my post I guess)

phoenixgod: Yeah, I've seen that too, and it would be an interesting addition.

 

[JohnSnow]

First, basically I don't expect people to leave D&D just because they don't like part of it; but I also don't expect D&D to just be changed to suit some vocal minority's personal preference with the game, whereas most gamers aren't very vocal about their preferences, and/or won't generally agree with that individual's preference if the core game itself is changed to suit that preference in its next Edition. Revision is good, but alienating a large chunk of the consumer base through excessive change is not.

The initial thread topic was whether I felt the magic system would be shown the door in 4e. Personally, I don't see any reason why it should be retained other than the "sacred cow" argument. And that, to me, is a bad one. There are a LOT of problems with the magic system in play. The fact that some people are happy with it doesn't change the fact that it imposes limitations on the game that may not be conducive to attracting new players to our hobby.

I didn't mean to imply that anyone was stupid, or insane for preferring something else. However, I do feel that there is a legitimate argument that can be made that if the magic system could be made:

- easier to learn
- more fun
- more accessible to people not familiar with the "Classic D&D paradigm"

Then more people might be willing to play. I hate the elitist notion that's crept into RPGs. It reminds me of the early days of computers when geeks wanted everyone to learn to use DOS shell, because icons were for people who didn't know how to use "REAL" computers.

That's a dumb premise for something that you're trying to interest more people in.

I feel that a legitimate argument can be made that many potential gamers might be more familiar with the way magic works in Harry Potter books or movies, or even, yes, The Dresden Files, since it's a show on TV, than the arcane system currently in use in the Dungeons & Dragons game. Thus by making magic function similarly to how it does there, and therefore more familiar, you've potentially removed one barrier to entry for a prospective customer.

And if the system is good, I'd bet most D&D gamers wouldn't abandon the game over the loss of the classic system. Some would sure, but people left over THAC0 too.

I get your point, JohnSnow. But if the system is extremely streamlined and simplified, it becomes a simple question of "Why don't we just play an MMORPG then? This one looks really simple too, and I don't even have to leave the house or spend hours together with my smelly friends in-person."

And no books to buy, and possibly more cost-efficient than a tabletop RPG, and playable any time.

I'd prefer if tabletop RPGs retained some appeal beyond "it's really simple like the online game I already play in my free time for a small monthly fee."

The difference is that I don't perceive the existent Vancian magic system as part of the "appeal" of D&D. I never have. I hate it. It's a necessary evil I've tolerated for almost 30 years of gaming.

However, I'm stuck with it because D&D is the game most gamers play. Convincing people to play with houserules, or variant rules can be done, but only after you've gotten a regular group together for a while.

My old group's DM abandoned 3e in favor of Castles & Crusades because D&D had gotten too complicated for him. I took one look at C&C and realized it had removed most of the things I saw as improvements in 3e but retained the same kludgy magic system Gary Gygax invented in his basement in 1973. No improvement there for me.

People are bailing on D&D (or not even starting to play) because it's gotten too complicated. There's a D&D for Dummies, a Complete Idiot's Guide to Dungeons & Dragons, and an upcoming Rules Compendium. There are Prestige classes and feats designed to patch screwball multiclassing rules. There are 73 BASE classes - in official sources! The game is staggering under its own weight. Something needs to be done.

That said, I don't think anything except the d20 Mechanic, attributes, classes, and levels should be considered a sacred cow going into a new edition. There are a lot of classic elements (former "sacred cows") and some more recently introduced ones (like feats) that I expect would survive after a long hard look. I'm just not sure the current magic system is one of them.

And the resulting game would still, in my humble opinion, be D&D.

That said, I don't think it needs to be dumbed down completely. But streamlining the combat and encounter elements to be play friendly is good. Because if you could allow people to have good resolution mechanics for that, and combine them with the appeal of face-to-face roleplaying, which I think there IS a value too, you have a winning combination. Even in the era of computer MMORPGs.

But that's just my opinion.