http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20120319
if you threw out your additions, you might have even got MORE done with Basic.Replaying the 1981 Basic Set recently has been eye opening. Even including the rules I've added to the game, character creation took somewhere between 5 and 10 minutes. In about 45 minutes of play, we created an entire party of adventurers (dwarf fighter, human magic-user, halfling thief), kicked off an adventure with the characters just outside of a ruined keep, and explored six different rooms in a small dungeon. That exploration included two battles with goblins and hobgoblins. We played at a fairly relaxed pace. There was plenty of roleplaying between the characters and frequent questions on the rules as the players navigated both basic D&D and my house rules.
In my mind, D&D must absolutely support this type of play. By no means should it be the only way to play D&D, but it must be an enjoyable way to play the game that doesn't come across as a crippled or incomplete experience.You should be able to play a complete adventure in an hour.
why does this sound like the heralding of tournament play? 60 minute rounds are there for MtG and their ilk...condensing the game down to play in an hour isnt a bad thing, and basic should run quickly... but with WotC...i smell store focus here not game focus. something isnt just sitting right somehow with what this might mean, and i really feel it will be to get people into a store, try some D&D, and back out and another group without having to take up ALL the store space like past Game Days could do. Maybe even a hour type of thing. sure good to get people into it, but recapturing those lost this wont work for, only try to get new people in which is what the returning or continuing players are best served for else the 3.x crap begins again where novices have no idea what they are doing and spread that incorrect ideal of playing even further to once again create a new 4th edition.
also with todays tech it doesnt even really make sense to play for JUST an hour outside of a store or library or something. you have to drive 30~45 minutes both ways for a game, and travel time is more than play time? stay home put in LotR and just get your fantasy fix that way since the cost of gas will outweigh any benefit form playing for an hour only.
4th edition encounter budget crap? kiss my ass. published adventures are pretty much going to such for 5th. i might be able to stomach XP per module or something where it is gained at the end of a published adventure, but that ENCOUNTER BUDGET crap is just crap. illogical groups of monsters that appear again with minions to pad seats in the monster party makeup....The DM needs rules that can allow for adventures with as many fights as needed, from a single big brawl to a number of shorter fights. I'd like to see an adventure design system that gives me a suggested total XP value for monsters and traps to use so that I can push the characters to the limit of their abilities. I can then spend that XP for one battle, lots of little battles, or just sprinkle monsters in an environment as I choose.
ever heard of overarching story lines Mike?By focusing on an adventure—or a play session, depending on how you approach things—we can build a system that is more flexible and better matches the different styles that DMs bring to the table.
Basic built the game in those various editions (which version is Mike using again?) from a ramshackle miniature wargame. it was fast to play because it didnt include much...depending on which version of "basic" you played.
the modules were ALL meant to be one-shots that COULD tie together later, but still people would make their own longer adventures.
also you have the problem of people running one-shots and burning through every class/race/whatever combo with hour-long games/sessions/adventures and run out of thing to play that interest them as oft gamers are to do by getting bored with the same thing.
NEVER set a time-limit to something like an adventure because you will ALWAYS fail, as plenty of people will destroy that time-limit either going over or under by large margins.
sure if you can finish a game of Cataan in an hour and want to play again, this works, but D&D isnt a fucking board game that people want to have another round of. people will not want to sit down for 1-hour blocks for all day gaming, they want something continuous.It's much easier to create a game that supports a one-hour session, and then use that to build out to two-hour, four-hour, or day-long gaming.
you are WAY oversimplifying the concept of just making the core simple enough to allow groups to do things within THEIR time frames.
so if ALL of this of for the "core" with a few additional house rules, that will become "core" when released...what happens as more Rules Modules are added to your hour long sessions?
do your characters still take only 5~10 minutes to create a party?
the article REALLY said nothing. they played an hour worth of TSR Basic D&D w/ Mearls houserules, and got some gaming in in that hour. all-in all just stating again a goal was for quicker play with less hassle while trying to play. 3.x Troll Grappling anyone?Road to Hell wrote:I am paved with your good intentions Mike Mearls.
So Mike is saying the work Monte did on 3rd was a failure because it was all too sluggish and the whole game suffered from rules bloat? People have been telling WotC that for nearly 12 years Mike!
pulled from the vaporware thread that has become a "Something Awful forum is just a bunch of trolls" thread, to hopefully continue actually discussing 5e.
all a new level is afterall is some extra HP, and more class abilities in ALL the versions. 
