Community

After my first session with my D&D group, I found the rules bare enough to leave breathing room and flexibility for interpretation. It didn't make the game feel templated and allowed it to be geared more towards imaginative play which is the very point of D&D opposed to most video games and their "Button Mash" mentality. This is where 4E fumbled IMHO. Now, even though the rules are still being modified as we speak and things were a bit more streamlined, it provided rules that had a lot of fundamental thinking built into them. No longer did my players have to become huge number crunching machines, they now just did what they did and allowed the few simple core flexible rules to take over. You can cover a LOT of ground with the advantage/disadvantage system. You cut out a lot of specificity that a lot of the later games seemed to creep into their books. Why do I need a rule for a set number of situations when a simple rule can cover an infinite number of situations?

The point here is by streamlining the rules into a few simple, abstract, and broad reaching sets, we accomplish very base ideas in the game while leaving mental room for the DM to add his own twists to the game. It isn't "check your sneak, add the points, half your level, blah blah blah" but simply do a check with your stat and add some bonuses. This takes away the very specific layout of skills and leaves it abstract so as to open more possibilities. What if this was a world where magical hacking was possible? or a number of other things.

I think the point I am getting at with these new rules are they provide a nice broad base that doesn't try to attach themselves to any set of ideals in the gaming world, keep the players from rule tunnel vision, and leaves room for DM additions to the game.  

I think it would be great for players/DM's to be able to contribute modular rules on top of the base rules. Sort of a pluggable system. Need a system for how to deal with forging elemental weapons? look to a section in the community for that or build it yourself. Need a system for dealing with managing a town? Again, look to the community or contribute yourself. 

I hope I am articulating myself properly. If not, I will try my best to elaborate. 

Exactly. This is a problem with the gaming community as is what is currently creating a schism among players with regards to editions. The problem arises when the rule sets become too specific in their base. The current skeleton that D&D Next has so far is simple and elegant IMHO. It provides a lot of flexibility and adaptability to further add group specific rules on top of them by a community of players/DM's or the players/DM's within the group itself.

By doing it this way, you provide "enough" of a base to allow extendability of rules by the consumers of the game themselves and the base itself so far seems to cover a lot of ground and is abstract enough and maleable enough to meet the needs of almost any D&D situation.

This is how most elegant systems work. You provide an abstract system with tools that the rule set provides, and then extend upon that system with specifics to tailor said groups needs. This happens even in software development. A great base with good tools allows a system that can have many uses and be compatible with many other systems. 

This most definately is just the beginning of a "layering on" process.  At the very least, they will add on more tactical options for groups that want to run the game with miniatures and battlemats or tiles.  That will do a lot to satisfy the 4e fans, and it will give each DM more options so that if the group wants to do some combats on mat, some in the mind, it can be done.

They have admitted that they are still futzing with hitpoints and I'm sure monsters and character building has really just begun.  

What I like so far is that so many playtest groups already feel that there are a number of very positive aspects in this simple core.  Universally people seem to like the speed of play and the fluidity.  Yes, some players and groups want more direction with improvised actions or a list of possible actions that may help newer players (in combat and non-combat situations), but that can be developed quite easily.

I am very optimistic, and happy to be part of this process.   I have played all versions of D&D from basic to 4e (I started in 70s as a teen), and I am liking how this version is trying to make it feel like D&D, but also include what people like from all of the versions.  

 

May 28, 2012 -- 7:23PM, tpamwow wrote:

I'm firmly with you on this one. These are just the bare bones and I like what I see so far. The simpler skill system and checks makes sense to me. There is a point when using 3.5, 4e, and other d20 systems when the high DCs and skill bonuses become ridiculous. 
DM:"Your DC to swing over the ravine only holding on by your toes then do a double back flip and land on the Orc's shoulders is 30."
Player: "Ok, my Acrobatics bonus is a total +18..."

 

Yes. This is what they attempted to fix in 4E but did it poorly. They tried to fix the speed and complexity issue by templating abilities and having hard set skills/powers/etc. This took a lot of the power out of D&D and made it more of a miniature war game with light role playing elements. Now that they are (hopefully) keeping a slim backbone of rules that players/DM's can build upon, they can avoid arbitrary sets of data that would otherwise require an even bigger nesting of rules to explain. The motto is KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid). If we keep the tools and rules for the game slim but powerful, we provide the scaffolding for the DM/Players/and the community to build great optional supplement rules and content for the game.