D&D 5E Will there be such a game as D&D Next?

[sheadunne]

No more or less than what you seem to find scary about the notion of DDN with them, lol. While I am perfectly willing to entertain people's ideas in that regard I don't feel a desire or obligation to invent those mechanics myself. I also don't say that they with absolute certainty exist or will be found, just that all parties should keep an open mind on the subject. If you want to suggest some, that's great. I actually HAVE made MANY concrete suggestions about how I would approach building classes. If you would provide input beyond "no that mechanic can never work for me, can't do that" then we could get somewhere I'm totally happy to do the same.

I don't entirely disagree, we could also limit our discussion to simple core mechanics like AC, defenses, saves, and the most basic low level aspects of class design. That's fine, there's plenty to talk about there in a game design. OTOH WRT to DDN that stuff is largely settled. Some may be revisited slightly, but there's nothing radically controversial there, outside of some few things that might inhibit a more 4e-like design on top of that. Of course Mike HAS stated that he's not going for various different either/or options like different magic systems (there's been some back and forth on this sort of thing, but the most definitive statements have been more on the no side IMHO). So, we'd be more probably speculating when it came to say "modules that work like 4e" etc on 3PP content I would think.

I think part of the issue is that discussion of individual mechanics are being discussed in the larger context of editions and not on their own. When someone says they don't like a specific mechanic, it is often interpreted as not liking an edition or disliking all aspects of an edition just because that mechanic exists within the edition. I don't like 3e because TOB introduced encounter-based resources. I don't dislike 4e rituals because I don't like encounter-based resources. I don't dislike 1e because I like stances. But since we're talking about all of these things in the context of 5e everything gets jumbled together.

I would love to see a layered approach to 5e. I would love to see each edition be accurately embraced by 5e in a way that doesn't prevent anyone from playing their game. I still firmly believe that there are more similarities between editions than differences and I love being able to pick and choose parts of each edition that I like, without feeling a need to only play one particular edition. I enjoy different flavors of D&D.

 

[Obryn]

You're absolutely right. It says that D&D Next does not currently have a mechanic for non-magical healing...and that's all it says. Any other conlusion is pure speculation, and any negative conclusions can only be the result of negative bias.

To be fair though, I know I have a positive bias; but I'm careful to express such things as opinions, rather than making statements like it's obvious, or it's evidence of, or this means they don't like X, etc., etc.

"Evidence" is just evidence.

As to non-magical healing, well, we were right about Warlords, and in that podcast, Mearls talked about how William Wallace couldn't scream limbs back on, so...

-O

 

[Iosue]

As to non-magical healing, well, we were right about Warlords, and in that podcast, Mearls talked about how William Wallace couldn't scream limbs back on, so...

And in that same podcast, Rodney Thompson disagreed with him and explicitly stated, "I think if you liked the Warlord in 4e, you should be able to recreate that in Next," so...

 

[Campbell]

Of course we can only draw conclusions and comment on what we have seen thus far. There is a lot of time between now and D&D Next's release. That does not mean we should not pass judgement on what we've seen, talk about it here, or take on blind faith that WotC will deliver what we want out of 5e. I don't see what's so contentious about that when D&D Next play tests seem to be trended to more conservative mores in each batch. I can only go off of what I see. Show me* commitment to narrative play. Show me* that D&DN has elements that serve my interests. Don't tell me and expect me to take it on face value.

*If you want my business.

 

[Obryn]

And in that same podcast, Rodney Thompson disagreed with him and explicitly stated, "I think if you liked the Warlord in 4e, you should be able to recreate that in Next," so...

Okay. I maintain my skepticism. If the Next pseudo-warlord can heal - actual healing - I will admit my wrongness.

-O

 

[pemerton]

Perhaps you could enlighten me with a link if this has changed.

I'm thinking of the podcast that is currently the subject of an active thread, and is referenced above by Obryn and Iosue.

 

[Bluenose]

"Evidence" is just evidence.

As to non-magical healing, well, we were right about Warlords, and in that podcast, Mearls talked about how William Wallace couldn't scream limbs back on, so...

-O

He seems to have few problems with being able to sleep limbs back on, though.

I really wish they'd have the courage of their convictions and actually make hit points into "meat points". Then they could implement a real wound system that wouldn't leave people arguing about what hit points are. Reduce people's capabilities as their hit points go down (Star Wars Sage did that) so that you aren't leaping around swinging your weapon happily when you're down to two hit points out of fifty. When you're reduced to zero, you drop, and then you get to make a roll on the Permanent Injury table to see which body part you end up lacking. It won't happen, but at least they'd be showing consistency in their treatment of hit points, and I'd rather have that than permanent arguments.

 

[Iosue]

He seems to have few problems with being able to sleep limbs back on, though.

To be honest, the more I think about it, I have a theory that one of Mearls' roles as Team Lead is Devil's Advocate. As in, the design and development guys' job is to freely innovate and try things out. Mearls' job is to act as a voice of conservatism, of those players left behind, of the ephemeral "feel" of old editions. One of the problems of 4e, completely apart from its quality as a game, was that for a subset of players it didn't "feel" right, or it didn't easily support their style of play, or at least seemed that way on first glance. So Mearls' job is to say "Okay, is this simple enough for B/X players? Will this cause dissonance for those who've played hp as meat (despite explanations to the contrary in every edition)? Will this ability break immersion? Is it abstract enough for all to enjoy, or has it tipped into the area a significant number of fans find dissociated?" Things like that. That's essentially the only explanation I find for the Mike Mearls who once coined "Mother May I?", took the piss out of Keep on the Borderlands, and was a member of 4e's design team virtually from inception to now, would now be touting rulings not rules, core simplicity, launching the playtest with the Caves of Chaos, and now talking about shouting severed hands back on. Unless he's Born Again Old School. And basically, that dynamic was on display in the podcast.

It's just a theory, though. Not trying make excuses or persuade anyone. It could just as easily be bunnies.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

"Evidence" is just evidence.

As to non-magical healing, well, we were right about Warlords, and in that podcast, Mearls talked about how William Wallace couldn't scream limbs back on, so...

-O

Yeah, it is hard to imagine something more downbeat on the concept of Warlord as a class ala 4e than that podcast. I found it almost edition war in the narrow pedantic interpretation it had of hit points and other meta-game aspects of D&D. If that's the general mentality and position from which DDN design is coming then there's not the least scrap of hope of anything that suites me.

I mean sometimes I hear these statements from Mike etc that sounds like "Oh, yeah, and there's those guys over there that have different tastes, we should serve them too" but then they don't. When they talk about game design they virtually troll the concepts we play by, so pardon us if all we can do is roll our eyes and go design some new games that aren't stuck in 1974.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

And in that same podcast, Rodney Thompson disagreed with him and explicitly stated, "I think if you liked the Warlord in 4e, you should be able to recreate that in Next," so...

Yes, Rodney, and now and then James, though he's pretty quiet, seem to evince some level of consciousness that there's a huge gulf between what Mike is visualizing and building as DDN and what D&D has become since 2008. If they actually seem to have some real impact on the design of the game, write me. So far it has been a few feeble token statements and then the next packet arrives and we're further than ever from anything we can play.