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I also dislike the constant reminders of "the rules don't really matter, the DM will just handle everything!"  I understand that a big part of the appeal of 1e is that you're not "chained down" by rules and the DM is allowed to just make things up and not worry about balance or mechanics.  But I don't really find that a selling point.  I already have an awesome book that lets me make up my own rules and do whatever I can imagine: it's called a blank notebook, and I can buy it at Walmart for 50 cents.  If I'm going to spend money on an actual game book, it needs to contain rules that actually make a good game, not a whole bunch of encouraging prose telling me to make things up on my own.  When I see things like "These DC's are all just estimates, feel free to change them to what works for your game!" I don't think "Wow, how freeing, I'm so glad this book is letting me change the rules as written", I think "Crap, the designers have realized the math behind these numbers is total crap, and I'm going to have to fix it for them to make this game playable."

I think the problem here is that you are trying to make static what is inherently dynamic.  Role-playing and the worlds we envision, create and play in are not static places.  There is no "Long Swords do 1d8 damage".  How could all Long Swords in the entire universe all function exactly the same?  What exactly is a DC10 compared to a DC15?  Are all wooden doors with metal locks in the universe either "easy" to unlock or "moderate"?  Nothing in between? Really? 

Dynamics.  This is what role-playing is and this is what role-playing systems need to offer.  I need to know how to determine a difficulty rating on the fly using the rules, I don't need you to give me a chart.  This is the difference between 1st-2nd edition and 3rd- 4th edition.  Mearls understands that, though I don't agree with everything he says and implements, this is one aspect of the game that makes 4th edition completetly unplayable to me. 

May 27, 2012 -- 9:37PM, 5Efan wrote:

You know, apart from the stuff about the realms I'm with you on the design goals.

/digression/

... I never did understand why WotC changing the FR setting upset people - it is pure setting fluff and all settings can be folded, spindled, and mutilated as the DM decides fits his or her game. So WotC moved the setting ahead chronologically - so what? The DM can decide to keep going with old fluff and new crunch with no impact on the game (excepting to ignore fluff-crunch like spellscarred because it never happened in the game being played at the table)...

/digression/

If Mike dosn't get what Grognards didn't like about 4e he might also not understand what 4e players (or "NeoGrogs" now I guess) like about 4e, as evidenced by the core 'balancing' precept of 3-pillars design as opposed to balanced class design. In which case adding all the 4e-power-alike and tableu-vivant optional modules in won't help.

Still, like I said, playing it tomorrow and we'll see.

You're right about the Realms, WotC moved on and I stayed back 100 years, no big deal and it wasn't that that kept me fron 4ed. I guess I didn't like the fact that there is little continuity and 100 years were simply hand-waved away with little or lacking explanations. 

"NeoGrogs", I like the sound of that. Anyways, the problem with modular design is that you need a solid core to be able to do what they want to do, plus I don't think it will help to unite the fan base...  every group will have their set of favorite modules and you will have players that want to use a specific module and will be left out or unhappy. I don't think that an at will/encounter/daily wizard will be able to play with a Vancian caster, same thing goes with a detailed feat based fighter with the simple move-attack-move fighter. They are just too different.

What they should do is make basic choices, balance the numbers and give us a base system that is nearly finished. I don't like the fact that they stated that the number do not matter because it isn't true. If number do not matter then it's all down to "what a DM feels is right" and I don't want to sit down and crunch numbers because that's what a game designer is supposed to do. Likewise i dread the return of the "Dm, can I do xxx? Come on I have YYY and ZZZ plus I'm your girlfriend" approach we got rid of 10+ years ago.

Xguild said and important thing: "I need to know how to determine a difficulty rating on the fly using the rules". That is exactly what we need, at least a rough estimate so that we have an idea of what is supposed to "feel right". The 3ed PHB gave a list of DC for a variety of skills, that is more useful to me because I can see the difference between an easy task and a hard task and I can position the DC between these two values as needed. 

Unless they DO have something and this first playtest is just combat, but in this case they should have told us straight away "This playtest is for the basic combat aspects of the game" or something similar.

Disclaimer: I still haven't played the game, this is all speculation from my part based on the numbers on the documents.

^ To continue on this - I'm noticing this seems to be a trend in a lot of the 1e and 2e fans coming out of the woodwork to support a return to unbalanced rules.  They keep bringing up memories of awesome things they did which pretty much flew in the face of the official 1e and 2e rules, and most of the time when talking about DM freedom, they seem to be talking about DM's who just ignored the rules that were laid out and made stuff up.  That's what we did when I played 1e and 2e as well; a lot of the rules were unweildy, annoying, or just downright bad, so we excised entire portions of the books and made things up instead.  It's important to remember that the rules you made up and the games you played that abandoned the rules weren't "original D&D" - they were your own creations.  You can still do that with pretty much any RPG.  You don't need a poorly written rule explanation to get the "freedom" to ignore it and make up your own.  I think part of the reason so many people felt "chained" by the rules in 4e is because they were actually written fairly clearly and simply and made sense, so they felt they didn't have as much of an excuse to say "Let's just ignore this whole chapter, it's dumb".

May 26, 2012 -- 9:11AM, arderkrag wrote:

This is like saying, "Hershey's has to change their chocolate bars if they want a new audience." It's nonsense. Keep the core concepts of the game the same, and it will appeal to people consistently, and at roughly the same percentage rate.

There is no place for logic here. How dare you suggest that the foundations that made D&D successful for 34 years are actually well suited to attract gamers.