open_letter_regarding_d_d_5e_priorities
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| open_letter_regarding_d_d_5e_priorities [2012/03/07 07:09] – created Mike Holmes | open_letter_regarding_d_d_5e_priorities [2012/03/07 08:28] (current) – Mike Holmes | ||
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| Having been a player of D&D off and on since 1977, I would like to re-iterate the corporate admonitions given to Tweet, when creating 3rd Edition D&D, that the brand identity be maintained through carefully conserving the best parts of the original RPG as it has existed over time. But what are these elements that create said brand identity? Well I humbly propose the following items to be crucial to maintaining the core brand identity of D& | Having been a player of D&D off and on since 1977, I would like to re-iterate the corporate admonitions given to Tweet, when creating 3rd Edition D&D, that the brand identity be maintained through carefully conserving the best parts of the original RPG as it has existed over time. But what are these elements that create said brand identity? Well I humbly propose the following items to be crucial to maintaining the core brand identity of D& | ||
| - | === Races === | + | ==== Races, Culture and Alignment ==== |
| - | - First you need to ensure that races are kept to just a few sketchy details that relate to their abilities and how one is superior to another, because to do more will mess up attempts to fit these races into previously generated worlds. And because most players can't claim inherent racism is involved when the details are kept relatively abstract. Whatever you do, ensure that the black-skinned matriarchy of the elves (Drow) remain objectively evil... we don't want to give in to political correctness. | + | - First you need to ensure that races are kept to just a few sketchy details that relate to their abilities and how one is superior to another, because to do more will mess up attempts to fit these races into previously generated worlds. And because most players can't claim inherent racism is involved when the details are kept relatively abstract. Whatever you do, ensure that the black-skinned matriarchy of the elves (Drow) remain objectively evil... we don't want to give in to political correctness. You would lose much of the coolest stuff about D&D. |
| - Similarly, please ensure the ambiguity surrounding the cultural notes that you DO include about each race, especially the Deities associated with each race. For example, which deities each race worships in each world. Doing so ensures that players can't look up the pertinent details on the internet without confusion, keeping them from attempting to forge an understanding of their character' | - Similarly, please ensure the ambiguity surrounding the cultural notes that you DO include about each race, especially the Deities associated with each race. For example, which deities each race worships in each world. Doing so ensures that players can't look up the pertinent details on the internet without confusion, keeping them from attempting to forge an understanding of their character' | ||
| - | === Class/Level System === | + | - Alignments... just brilliant. Again, please do not allow players |
| - | - There must be classes to create "niche protection." Players should | + | |
| - | - Levels, of course are a given. No other system yet devised by any other game, more accurately reflects the progress of humans from one level of asskicking ability to another, both in real life, and in the source material. Think of all of the levels that Frodo went up during the War of the Ring! Or how I leveled up when I got my last promotion at work! It's such a great reward to have gained so much skill after I got my promotion. Make sure that stays in the game! | + | ==== Class/Level System ==== |
| + | - There must be classes to create "niche protection." | ||
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| + | - Levels | ||
| - Oh, and to combine the last two, please make sure you bring back level caps for demihumans. Everybody knows there were no elven clerics in LotR! It's important to punish players who try to game the system by coming up with such obviously abusive combinations, | - Oh, and to combine the last two, please make sure you bring back level caps for demihumans. Everybody knows there were no elven clerics in LotR! It's important to punish players who try to game the system by coming up with such obviously abusive combinations, | ||
| - | - Oh, and definitely be sure to keep the restrictions on Demi-humans from multi-classing, | + | - Oh, and definitely be sure to keep the restrictions on Demi-humans from multi-classing, |
| - | - EXP! And how does one level? Experience Points, of course. Please, let's have none of this non-sense about characters getting EXP for " | + | - EXP! And how does one level? Experience Points, of course. Please, let's have none of this non-sense about characters getting EXP for " |
| - | === Hit Points and Combat! === | + | ==== Hit Points and Combat! |
| - | - Hit points are, of course, | + | - Hit points are just as impossible to do without as levels and classes. Not only has no other RPG ever come up with another way to simulate character injury and death, but no other system COULD possibly do justice to the way in which a character like Conan manages to stay alive. I'm not sure how he got to second level, frankly (nor any of us, really!), but I'm thinking it must have been an evolutionary process, combined with a really high constitution. Which again explains why he's so darn asskickin! It just makes so much sense! |
| - While we're on HP, we shouldn' | - While we're on HP, we shouldn' | ||
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| - Saving Throws. Please go back to when we had more of these, and it wasn't clear which one pertains. I don't want my creativity hindered by having to go with a save that my players are likely to make, when it would be more fun to pick one that they' | - Saving Throws. Please go back to when we had more of these, and it wasn't clear which one pertains. I don't want my creativity hindered by having to go with a save that my players are likely to make, when it would be more fun to pick one that they' | ||
| - | - And whatever you do, please do not make it clear what these saves represent, as I'd rather just make it up each time. Especially because I can often make the PCs look like dolts with clever descriptions of save fails (there' | + | - And whatever you do, please do not make it clear what these saves represent, as I'd rather just make it up each time. Especially because I can often make the PCs look like dolts with clever descriptions of save fails (there' |
| - | - To me, the best part about D&D is how combats are extremely detailed affairs in which we see the back and forth of characters and monsters missing each other, making each actual hit an event that deserves a burst of exuberance. Players who complain that this makes their characters look like retarded jackasses in play simply have never watched one of the many accurate Hong Kong action films out there, that show just how combat really goes. Yes, D&D combat takes roughly 30 times as long to conduct as one of those long HK action combats, but that just makes these details all the more exquisite to watch unfold. Oh, and players have to realize that a lot can happen in a one minute combat round. Yes, it's even more dodging and evading blows than most people imagine! | + | - To me, the best part about D&D is how combats are extremely detailed affairs in which we see the back and forth of characters and monsters missing each other, making each actual hit an event that deserves a burst of exuberance. Players who complain that this makes their characters look like retarded jackasses in play simply have never watched one of the many accurate Hong Kong action films out there, that show just how combat really goes. Yes, D&D combat takes roughly 30 times as long to conduct as one of those long HK action combats |
| - | === Magic and Wizards === | + | ==== Magic and Wizards |
| - | - Spells! Why have thou forsaken the vision of Gary! Please, do away with other-literature-emulating ability to cast spells repeatedly... I just can't do without something that emulates the only interesting magic from literature, ever, that of the most masterful Jack Vance! OK, so it doesn' | + | |
| - And while we're at it, you need to go back to wizards having only one spell per day at first level. I mean, come on, we need to keep that whole dynamic where it's more fun to play a fighter at low level, and more fun to play a wizard at high level to balance out class selection. Any more spells at first level, and ALL of my players are going to play wizards! I mean given that they can just take turns casting sleep and then retreat to rest and re-memorize... what are you trying to do to my game! I actually had a player who had the gall to ask me how it was that he had learned a first level spell at a wizard college or something, and then couldn' | - And while we're at it, you need to go back to wizards having only one spell per day at first level. I mean, come on, we need to keep that whole dynamic where it's more fun to play a fighter at low level, and more fun to play a wizard at high level to balance out class selection. Any more spells at first level, and ALL of my players are going to play wizards! I mean given that they can just take turns casting sleep and then retreat to rest and re-memorize... what are you trying to do to my game! I actually had a player who had the gall to ask me how it was that he had learned a first level spell at a wizard college or something, and then couldn' | ||
| - | - Oh, and please, the last thing I want to hear is somebody telling me again about how Gandalf uses a sword throughout the LotR. What is this, the LotR RPG? The restriction on mages not using armor and only using staves and daggers matches exactly to almost | + | - Oh, and please, the last thing I want to hear is somebody telling me again about how Gandalf uses a sword throughout the LotR. What is this, the LotR RPG? The restriction on mages not using armor and only using staves and daggers matches exactly to very nearly |
| - | === So Called " | + | ==== So Called " |
| - whatever you do, do NOT include a system for general universal resolution of events! 4th got close to this, and we all know what sort of Imagination annihilating play that created! It's far, far better to just have GM fiat be the method for resolution of most things in the game. Because this way I can always just force play to go the way that I as the DM think is interesting. And if a few malcontent players complain about this, I'll just use Gary's old "Blue Bolt" to put them back in their places. | - whatever you do, do NOT include a system for general universal resolution of events! 4th got close to this, and we all know what sort of Imagination annihilating play that created! It's far, far better to just have GM fiat be the method for resolution of most things in the game. Because this way I can always just force play to go the way that I as the DM think is interesting. And if a few malcontent players complain about this, I'll just use Gary's old "Blue Bolt" to put them back in their places. | ||
| - | - OK, I'm just kidding about the above one. Oh, no, I don't want a resolution system. What I'm really fond of as a GM is the actual core D&D system of having players shout at me when they don't like my fiat adjudications, | + | - OK, I'm just kidding about the above one. Oh, no, I don't want a resolution system, I'm kidding about the Blue Bolts. What I'm really fond of as a GM is the actual core D&D system of having players shout at me when they don't like my fiat adjudications, |
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| + | - Obviously we'll have to keep in the skill-like rules for special abilities, like all of the thief abilities. I can extrapolate from these other character' | ||
| - | ==== Conclusion ==== | + | ===== Conclusion |
| Obviously anyone who points out that any edition of D&D has flaws is simply possessed of green envy of the sort that refuses to allow for rationality. We have all had nothing but great times with D&D in the past, and they know it. They just wish that they were making the millions that WOTC rakes in with the one great RPG line in existence. | Obviously anyone who points out that any edition of D&D has flaws is simply possessed of green envy of the sort that refuses to allow for rationality. We have all had nothing but great times with D&D in the past, and they know it. They just wish that they were making the millions that WOTC rakes in with the one great RPG line in existence. | ||
| - | What's more, any so-called " | + | What's more, any so-called " |
| + | |||
| + | Keep D&D what it is, so we can all enjoy it's wonders in perpetuity. | ||
| + | |||
| + | This Moment of Zen Brought to You With Great Love (and apologies to Stephen Colbert) by, | ||
| - | This Moment of Zen Brought to You With Great Love by, | ||
| Michael Holmes, RPG Gourmand | Michael Holmes, RPG Gourmand | ||
open_letter_regarding_d_d_5e_priorities.1331132994.txt.gz · Last modified: 2012/03/07 07:09 by Mike Holmes
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