Looking at the Past and the Future
This week’s Legends and Lore doesn’t really give me much to talk about. It’s a rehash of the D&D Next announcement, so I’ll just take this Indies & More post to discuss the ways this whole thing could head.
There biggest question on my mind: Is D&D all about one thing (fantasy adventure, say) or is it many things to many people (character drama, guided story, etc.)?
Option #1: The Adaptable Fantasy Adventure Game
This is the option where WotC comes up with a core of what D&D is about and makes a game that’s about that with modular systems to add detail as needed. They key bit is that WotC makes this a game about one clear thing, not just a collection of subsystems that you do whatever with.
In a lot of ways this looks like Burning Wheel, which is understandable. Burning Wheel is a very successful game in a number of ways (financially, design-wise) so it’s a solid starting point. Just like Burning Wheel is about fighting for what you believe, D&D would have some core statement of what it’s about that fuels the most basic rules and then subsystems that add detail to various areas. The GM’s role too would be clearly stated in a way that serves what the game is about.
Of course defining what D&D is involves a lot of work. Is D&D about how the heroes overcome challenges, or if the heroes can overcome challenges? Are D&D characters the focus of the action, or interchangeable participants? Any answer to these excludes some people who only want (or think they want) games of type T.
In some ways this is a stealth 4E. The common wisdom is that 4E is a failure because it only serves one style of play. This approach to D&D Next would be testing that: is it really that D&D has to be more than fantasy adventure, or does it just have to be able to approach that fantasy adventure in many ways?
Option #2: Multiple Games In One
I already went on at length about this one. The basic gist is: give just enough core similarity to make several different games effectively one “game.” Make everything modular, including the basics of what the game is about. Let each group choose from a few preset options, easily tweak those a bit, or completely build their own to their playstyle.
The interface design problem is tough to say the least. The complexity also has to be easily swept under the rug at times, so that not every group has to go through the process of building a game. This is the most complex approach I can see, a real daunting design problem.
It’s also the most rewarding. WotC gets to make the D&D that serves both the people who want a game about how the heroes succeed and those that play to find out if the heroes succeed and those who don’t play to find out anything at all. Of course those are really different games, but by sharing some core mechanics and a common interface so detail can be added on, they get to call it one game for marketing purposes.
Option #3: The Everything Game
More and more this is the game that the comments made by the designers sound like. This is the game where D&D still doesn’t really tell you what kind of games it supports, but it includes subsystems that appear to support all kinds of play.
This is the system where there’s, say, a modular subsystem for debates. This gives the appearance of a game that can do a courtly lords kind of game, where the player characters weigh their beliefs and convictions with the cost that pursuing them will incur. The problem is, if the core elements of the game (and the GM’s toolkit) are all about test-your-mettle challenges, it isn’t really set up for that game, no matter how much detail it can give to social situations.
On the front of making the game that makes money, this may be the best bet. It keeps the 3E-style do-anything attitude, but gives a modular rules detail that lets people customize their game to be as heavy or light in various areas as they want. They can advertise it as “D&D for everybody” but not actually go through the trouble of really serving the market for character-driven roleplayers or whatever.
This falls down in the same way some previous editions—most notably 3E—have, but the fall is softened by endless mechanics that give the appearance of the game you want. If you really want a game where you find out if you can build and play a character well enough to save the world it gives you lots of meaty subsystems that allow for complex characters with serious synergy, but the basic structure of the game never changes. In particular the GM’s toolkit doesn’t include anything about how to effectively run a challenge-based game.
One thing 4E did well was to make a game that effectively served one agenda, they just didn’t do a good job of communicating that agenda. 3E had endless forum threads for “How do you do Game of Thrones with 3E?” or “How do you do Harry Potter with 3?”, a problem which 4E largely avoided. These threads are usually fruitless because doing Game of Thrones or Harry Potter requires some fundamentally different approaches, not just a good (modular?) subsystem for learning spells or rallying armies. 3E gave the appearance of doing anything by effectively doing nothing, and that’s a tempting path for D&D Next.
Monty Hall Problem
Those are, at the highest level, the approaches I see: one solid game with modular subsystems that support it, many games under one name, or one aimless game with modular subsystems to give the appearance of serving different agendas. So we’re left with three doors. Two of those doors (options 1 and 2) seem strong to me, but they may challenge audience conceptions a little. The last door is an easy approach that has money potential in the short run, but isn’t actually going to serve many gamers.
The difference between these three approaches is that 1 and 2 acknowledge that rules matter: that they communicate insight and aid play. Option 3 on the other hand says that rules have no effect on the game actually created, that they’re just personal preference.
Coming back around to this week’s Legends and Lore, Monte says:
imagine a game where one player has a simple character sheet that has just a few things noted on it, and the player next to him has all sorts of skills, feats, and special abilities. And yet they can still play the game together and everything remains relatively balanced. Your 1E-loving friend can play in your 3E-style game and not have to deal with all the options he or she doesn’t want or need.
That either supposes some fundamental similarity between 1E and 3E that I don’t see, or implies that the rules don’t really matter. If the difference between a 3E and 4E player is really just in preference for presentation and level of mechanical crunch, why are those games different?
This kind of design presupposes that 3E’s skill system or 4E’s powers were chosen entirely as a matter of taste, and not even taste in how the game’s actual agenda. If 1E and 3E characters can really play the same game, why allow both? What purpose does the extra weight of a 3E character serve?
“3E gave the appearance of doing anything by effectively doing nothing…”
Yes!
You know, to add another level of crazy, WotC has actually said that these modular options will be selectable not just by the group, but by individual players at the same table at the same time.
I’m using the detailed combat rules, buy you’re just using an ability check. You’re using the XP for Keys rule, but I’m using XP for GP rule. Like that.
My brain hurts to even think about it.
Yeah, so far I’ve chosen to treat the “per player” rules thing as a bit of an exaggeration, but they keep talking about it.