Chat stream with M. Mearls and M. Cook on D&D

[wotmaniac]

Also it's been said before around here, but the whole thing smacks of Mearls trying to shoehorn GNS into D&D.

Which, when you look at the whole picture, is pretty mind-numbing.
(regardless of what one might think of GNS) They seem to have put themselves in an impossible position -- they are explicitly trying to be all things to all people; yet, according to The Big Model, this is definitionally impossible.

Yet another example that Mearls needs to find another line of work. Maybe something that doesn't involve abstract concepts or critical thought.

[hogarth]

. But 2e players want "well-developed stories", which is weird because I associate it with "Gygaxian dick waving".

I associate 2E with trying to support fifty different campaign settings at the same time.

[ishy]

I associate 2E with Shadzar.

So loads of bullshit with the occasional less bull wrapped in a confusing, weirdly written package.

[JongWK]

Some interesting points:
- Vancian magic is core, for wizards and clerics at least
- 'common' and 'uncommon' classes ??
- Magic items are not part of the balanced core math and not expected
- No power sources

1) I love Midnight enough to run a standard D&D campaign with the spell energy system instead of Vancian magic, but I can see why removing the latter could be a no-go for the developers.

2) Generalist v. Specialist: there are more thieves than assassins, more fighers than paladins, etc. I am not sure how they want to do that in D&D, though...

3) Fuck yes. About time someone at Wizards discovered that not everyone runs games handling out magic trinkets every session.

4) No more artifical divides between arcane or divine magic, as in Shadowrun? Interesting...

[Username17]

4) No more artifical divides between arcane or divine magic, as in Shadowrun? Interesting...

Nothing that interesting or drastic. 4th edition had this kind of neat idea where every class was arbitrarily placed into a category of "power source". So Wizards were "Arcane", Clerics were "Divine", and Fighters were "Martial". They were originally going to go all out with the classplosion and have lots of power sources. Elemental, Hippie, Emo, Chinky-Eyed, and so on. They got as far as adding "Primal" (Druids) and "Shadow" (Assassins) before they scrapped the entire system.

So really what we're looking at is the admission "The 4e class categorization system that we scrapped already is still scrapped".

But honestly, I think that it was salvageable. They just didn't deliver the classplosion they promised. Also, "Chinky-Eyes" is not a socially acceptable power source and I have no idea why they ever thought it was OK.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

Also, "Chinky-Eyes" is not a socially acceptable power source and I have no idea why they ever thought it was OK.

What did they call it? Ki/Qi/Chi?

[nockermensch]

Also, "Chinky-Eyes" is not a socially acceptable power source and I have no idea why they ever thought it was OK.

What did they call it? Ki/Qi/Chi?

I'm okay with the "anime" power source.

[ishy]

I think one of the problems between the different power sources in 4e was the fact that they didn't feel any different on first glance. I probably would have liked them better if they were more distinct. Something like: Only martial can knock people prone etc.

[OgreBattle]

But honestly, I think that it was salvageable. They just didn't deliver the classplosion they promised. Also, "Chinky-Eyes" is not a socially acceptable power source and I have no idea why they ever thought it was OK.

-Username17

I thought it would be salvageable if they made the power source the pool you draw your powers from (hence 'power source'...) Sort of like colors in M:tG deckbuilding.

Monks were made a Psionic class though, not sure what you mean, or do you refer to 3.PF using Chi for monks and ninjas?

[tzor]

My guess? 2e sucks as a game and sucks at simulation, so he calls it "narrativist" because narrative is subjective enough that it's really hard to definitively prove that a game is bad at it.

As the old man in the forum ... 2E wasn't all that bad as a game.

It was definitely a move away from Gygax's simulationist rules.

(In part because there were better more mind numbingly annoying simulationist games that the simulators liked better than AD&D anyway, especially Role Mater. Percentage dice, even if you had to use d20's was a very common notion at the time among the simulationists to the point of the "open ended d%" where if you roll 99 you kept on rolling to determine the complete fraction. So you could roll 99.999999999999999950% if you were really insanely lucky.)

Back in 2E there was no open game license, so the only possible "expension" to the game was through generic adventure modules. This might explain a trend towards the narrivist angle, although that was really a result of copyright rules and not the actual game mechanics. As a narrivist game 2E is crap.

[Koumei]

They were originally going to make Monks Chi-based, and it looked like Chi would be reserved for "Asian Classes". So you'd have Monk, Samurai, Ninja, Shugenja, Wu-Jen and Sohei all using Chi. Because they're Asian. And Asians all have mystic chi powers.

[RobbyPants]

They were originally going to make Monks Chi-based, and it looked like Chi would be reserved for "Asian Classes". So you'd have Monk, Samurai, Ninja, Shugenja, Wu-Jen and Sohei all using Chi. Because they're Asian. And Asians all have mystic chi powers.

That's what I assumed. It doesn't seem too terribly racist if you focus on the abilities of the classes being based on culture and training rather than race. So, this group of people invented/discovered their power source, but now anyone can do it with training.

[Username17]

Other Power Sources: Additional power sources and techniques provide characters of different classes with powers and abilities. These will appear in future Player’s Handbook volumes. For example, barbarians and druids draw on the primal forces of nature, monks harness the power of their soul energy (or ki), and psions call upon the mind to generate psionic powers. Future power sources include elemental, ki, primal, psionic, and shadow.

They dumped Ki and Elemental before printing a single class for them. Which in the case of "Ki" is because people were actually angry that they attempted to make some classes get the "Asian" power source, on the grounds that that is totally racist. Which of course, it is.

Now there were a number of problems with the way they handled it, over and above having "Asian" as a list item for where your powers come from. For starters the power sources didn't do anything. A guy swings his sword so hard that the target catches on fire, is he a Swordmage (Arcane), Psionic Warrior (Psionic), Barbarian (Primal), Blackguard (Shadow), Paladin (Divine) or just a Fighter (Martial) who happens to have a sword that does that on its own? The fact is, from that description, you have no idea. And since 4e is completely bereft of setting or character elements that would give you more information, that's that. And since nothing really interacts with those power sources in any way, it doesn't even matter.

The second problem was that the first book to come out was "Martial Power", that just gave a bunch of options and power creep to Fighters, Rogues, and Rangers. This meant that right away, any new power sources (and even any new classes in the power sources they already had) were by definition thin and weak. Unless they came equipped with an exploit people would complain about, they were a priori worse than what was already available.

And the third problem was that they just never delivered the kind of classplosion that that kind of categorization would justify. The fact is that they had 4 "roles" and every single power source should have been fleshed out to have more than one class for each role. Right away. There should have been 35 classes in the first year. Considering how procedurally generatable 4e content is, that wouldn't even be hard.

-Username17

[RobbyPants]

2E wasn't all that bad as a game.

It was definitely a move away from Gygax's simulationist rules.

I'm not a fan of GNS theory, but how would you say Gygax's version was simulationist (alone or in comparison to 2E)? I've never played anything prior to 2E.

[tzor]

2E wasn't all that bad as a game.

It was definitely a move away from Gygax's simulationist rules.

I'm not a fan of GNS theory, but how would you say Gygax's version was simulationist (alone or in comparison to 2E)? I've never played anything prior to 2E.

I'll start with the combat system. The full Gygax rules for combat involved:

• Facing rules, the AC of the charater depended on the facing relation between them and their opponent.
• Weapon type vs Armor type adjustment tables, for example the adjustment for a mace vs chain.

I don't think these elements added to the "gamist" and they certainly wasn't narrivist. They are crude attempts to "simulate" some degree of random complexity to the game.

This occurs throughout the rules. There is an attempt to vaguely simulate things, with annoying levels of detail in some cases. The whole Infravison / Ultravision was simulationist. Infravision, for example, took a while to kick in, could only be used in dark cconditions, and pretty much worked like infrared goggles. All of this was removed in later editions.

Sometimes the simulation isn't direct. The potion miscability table is probably an attempt to simulate ones annoying chemistry lab days. But it's neither gamist nor narrivist.

[hogarth]

2E wasn't all that bad as a game.

It was definitely a move away from Gygax's simulationist rules.

I'm not a fan of GNS theory, but how would you say Gygax's version was simulationist (alone or in comparison to 2E)? I've never played anything prior to 2E.

1E AD&D is a morass of weird little rules that E.G.G. added in for "realism". E.g., the weapon-vs.-armor table where every weapon gets a bonus or penalty against each type of armor, or the rules for knocking people to the ground, or the rules for how often your torch gets extinguished by a stiff breeze.

EDIT: Think about it -- Gary Gygax actually spent some time thinking to himself: "In real life, how effective would a fauchard-fork be against an enemy wearing ring mail?"

[RobbyPants]

I'll start with the combat system. The full Gygax rules for combat involved:

• Facing rules, the AC of the charater depended on the facing relation between them and their opponent.
• Weapon type vs Armor type adjustment tables, for example the adjustment for a mace vs chain.

I don't think these elements added to the "gamist" and they certainly wasn't narrivist. They are crude attempts to "simulate" some degree of random complexity to the game.

This occurs throughout the rules. There is an attempt to vaguely simulate things, with annoying levels of detail in some cases. The whole Infravison / Ultravision was simulationist. Infravision, for example, took a while to kick in, could only be used in dark cconditions, and pretty much worked like infrared goggles. All of this was removed in later editions.

Sometimes the simulation isn't direct. The potion miscability table is probably an attempt to simulate ones annoying chemistry lab days. But it's neither gamist nor narrivist.

Okay. I know none of those were in core 2E, but I know infravision and AC vs weapon type rules did exist as blue sidebars in the DMG. As for facing, that was all introduced in a splat book.

Still, I'll admit that that wasn't part of the actual rules. I didn't realize it was core for 1E. My impression was that 2E took a lot of 1E house rules and Dragon material and made it part of the official rules. Was this also the case?

[tzor]

Still, I'll admit that that wasn't part of the actual rules. I didn't realize it was core for 1E. My impression was that 2E took a lot of 1E house rules and Dragon material and made it part of the official rules. Was this also the case?

It’s hard to say. A lot of things from 1E Core was dropped (one can note that these rules tended to be simulationist). Some things from Dragon was added but they tended to be mostly gamist ideas like THAC0. Very few of the really cool things in Dragon was incorporated. The 1E Dragon addition of 0th level spells (cantrips and orisons) where 1st level (and below) wizards were allowed a number of 0th level spells every day was replaced with the lame 1st level Cantrip spell. Gem dragons got effectively buried for years in the edition grave. And the anti-Paladin … well he deserved to die anyway.

Remember the real reason for 2nd edition was to scrub the name of Gygax off of the game completely. This is why the edition is so close to 1st edition; there was no driving reason to change any of the rules in a significant way. Instead rules were dropped and merged to remove original writer’s influence.

In addition 1st edition was based on the assumption that a whole line of miniatures (we called them figures back then) would be made. Gygax even had a line in the DMG about how only TSR figures could be counted on to be the correct scale. The fact that he never managed to pull off (or really even attempt) what GW would later do does not mean that the rules reflected that. Those rules were subsequently dropped from 2nd edition.

[hogarth]

Okay. I know none of those were in core 2E, but I know infravision and AC vs weapon type rules did exist as blue sidebars in the DMG.

The 2E version is ultra-simplified, isn't it? I think it's just modifiers for blunt, piercing and slashing.

1E had a separate set of modifiers for every possible weapon, including a dozen pole arms and so forth.

Other "simulationist" stuff in the DMG:

• a list of legendary properties of gemstones
• a list of different types of insanity
• a list of different types of prostitutes
• a list of different types of alchemical apparatus
• a list of rules for different dice games the PCs might play (in-character)
• a table delineating how much the different PC and humanoid NPC races hate each other
• rules for how fast different races can dig through different materials (dirt, clay, stone, etc.)

There's a lot of stuff in there!

My impression was that 2E took a lot of 1E house rules and Dragon material and made it part of the official rules. Was this also the case?

They also dropped a lot of the idiosyncratic stuff that nobody really cared about, and they made some effort to make a more unified system. For instance, the pummeling rules in 1E had little or nothing to do with the regular combat rules; I think you rolled a d% instead of a d20, didn't you?

[RobbyPants]

2E pummeling was pretty crazy, too.

But wow! I had no idea about the rest of that stuff!

[Lokathor]

[tussock]

2E also scrubbed Devils and Demons from the game for the sake of the people who didn't play it and didn't even know what it was (crazy people who think Demons are real and books can bring them into your house), removed references to alcohol and tobacco and prostitution because kids might see them (but not the genocide and looting, because kids love massacring Orcs), took out half-orcs because that implied inter-racial sexual intercourse existed (but not half-elves, because they're fair-skinned blondes too), and removed half the stuff from Unearthed Arcana that powered up Fighters (because fuck Fighters; hurriedly fixed in the first splatbook).

It folded the Illusionist spell list into the Wizard one, massively powered up a few of the spells with little numerical tweaks (Stoneskin in particular) despite leaving the spell text almost word-for-word identical. Capped fireball and improved magic resistance against very high level casters (by not varying it any more).

Monsters got huge text section additions to fill out their page, and a lot of information from other places was spread out into the individual entries, like personal climate-terrain entries rather than climate-terrain tables.

It made the initiative system comprehensible, but also incredibly stupid (though mostly as optional stupidity). Oh, and then they accidentally cut the speed of progression to about 25% of 1st edition when they removed XP for GP without adding anything to replace it.


The style of writing changed from encouraging the DM to challenge the players so as not to bore them, to telling the DM to say no every time the players tried anything the DM wasn't expecting. Everyone who complains their DM is a dick probably has a DM that started by reading the 2nd edition DMG, but the rules can be quite liberating if you ignore all that.

I have no idea how 2nd edition is narrative focused, it's a game that tells the players they can do anything but must ask the DM and then tells the DM to say no all the time, even when the players are just using the basic rules. That's where 3e's idea of limiting the players more tightly and asking the DM to say yes to everything comes from (and 4e's idea of making the DM chair trivial seems to be the end result of that chain of thought).



@Harlot table: Gary enjoyed a laugh at the table. Having various women chasing the new money in town was an obvious trope to follow in the 70's.

[Doom]

It's worth noting that the same chart where you could randomly meet a harlot had a good chance of also rolling up a seriously powerful demon or devil.

[tussock]

No there's not, Doom. It's a tiny chance of any Fiend among night encounters in random cities (where the DM hasn't personalised it). Only 22% of what's encoutered at night are actual monsters, though more may be up to no good.

Demon or Devil encounters must be carefully restricted, and they may be ignored entirely if desirable. For example, near an evil temple there well be a demon or devil, a succubus may be roaming at night, a wizard may have conjured a demon, etc. Treat these encounters as highly special. Only 1 demon or devil will be encountered.

The idea, you see, is so that saucy tart may be a goodwife, or she may be a succubus, but she's probably just a harlot.

[wotmaniac]

2E also scrubbed Devils and Demons from the game for the sake of the people who didn't play it and didn't even know what it was (crazy people who think Demons are real and books can bring them into your house), [...] took out half-orcs because that implied inter-racial sexual intercourse existed

Sorry to nitpick, but ....
Well,de-emphasizing the demons devils was probably a way to deal with the PR shit-storm brought on by THIS guy.
Half-orcs are products of rape -- removal had nothing to do with the inter-racial aspect. The Religious Rite had a lot of influence in those days (they were practically running the gov't at that time); so the idea of a kid-friendly game that had rape babies as one of the main player options was rather looked down upon.

just sayin'.