First, I'm doing this because clearly there is another game of Dungeons and Dragons in the works - and I want to make sure that they read at least once what really would re-reinvigorate the hobby. Also: I want to clarify that although 'comprehensive robust' rules systems are part of the problem that I'm not advocating bad rules.
The WotC thinking here is as follows (and please, correct me if I'm wrong):
- We want people to play our game and continue to play it
- Therefore we have to provide lots of incentives and carrots with progression to keep people playing
- So we have to design the game to limit the vast majority of actions (firing into combat, attacking additional opponents) so that we can reward the players with these abilities when they level.
- This design by limitation causes players to believe that if they don't have something written on their sheet that they are unable to do it.
- This leads to them trying to solve problems by looking at the sheet.
These are the reasons why.
- It is more fun to describe the room, and think of places to search, rather than rolling a search die ten times.
- It is even less fun to just say - "We take 20"
- Making the game scale from schmoe, to hero, to superhero, to god causes a very specific list of problems
- The wide power range and the emphasis on power limits which opponents are appropriate
- Magic items and magic and other things become required facets of character power and become ho hum
- Embrace the abstractness of the game, instead of creating dissonance when trying to make things more concrete.
- The issue of 'Character Builds' is eliminating millions of people from playing Dungeons and Dragons.
- In a given night, playing a modern game (Pathfinder, or 4th edition) we spend on average a third of our time either looking up rules in the books (Pathfinder) or using various online utilities (4e) to decipher how things work.
- The moment by moment tactical combat is an entertaining minigame, but it is unsatisfying as actual role-playing, and as an always DM, I find it extremely unsatisfying to play a tactical game I'm expected to always lose.
Taking a bunch of polls and doing a bunch of research asking people what they want, and then trying to design a game that appeals to everyone will result in a middle of the road piece of shit that no one wants to play. Setting out with per-existing 'monitization' schemes without any actual value or content will not result in a profitable enterprise. Dungeons and Dragons does not compete with my computer/video gaming time and money, and the corporate insistence that is does is what drove me away from the newest modulations of it.
If you want to make a game that will reinvigorate the hobby, if you want to make one that will be a smashing success, then do what was done for first edition or third edition, go beyond.
Make the books so interesting and powerful that even people that aren't gamers can't help but pick them up. Fill them not with pages and pages of rules, but pages and pages of ideas! Come up with simple mechanics that don't require any references to the work.
Allow someone to be able to engage in play in under five minutes.
Give them not the carrots back that you took so to hook them, but tools to the DM's creativity so that they can't wait to discover what happens next.
Create a book that no matter which "edition of the famous fantasy role playing game that we know and love" we play, we will purchase because it will improve our game.
Oh, continue to release totally awesome and separate boardgames like Ravenloft to fill that other niche.
If you want to make a game that will reinvigorate the hobby, if you want to make one that will be a smashing success, then do what was done for first edition or third edition, go beyond.
Make the books so interesting and powerful that even people that aren't gamers can't help but pick them up. Fill them not with pages and pages of rules, but pages and pages of ideas! Come up with simple mechanics that don't require any references to the work.
Allow someone to be able to engage in play in under five minutes.
Give them not the carrots back that you took so to hook them, but tools to the DM's creativity so that they can't wait to discover what happens next.
Create a book that no matter which "edition of the famous fantasy role playing game that we know and love" we play, we will purchase because it will improve our game.
Oh, continue to release totally awesome and separate boardgames like Ravenloft to fill that other niche.
Instead of codifying rules for endless different situations; how about they codify abstract systems that we can apply as we wish for various things. (i.e. here are a dozen ways to resolve conflict in the game, ability checks, modifiers, percent chances)
How is the possible? Look at the creativity and output of the OSR! Dragons-foot! Blogs! Almost all of that labor is being done for free, and as the premiere fantasy gaming company with budget you can't take advantage of that? How can you not have the money for that when you've got so much available for free! Crowd-sourcing anyone?
To be clear, I'm not saying that you only use our resources, or that you try to crowdsource everything - but with the variety and quality of stuff is being produced for free, how come the stuff that gets paid for is lackluster?
Imagine a 'players handbook' that has dozens of classes, each with a hundred variations. Instead of page after page of powers, how about adventure hooks and motivations, ideas for warlocks and wizards, summoning circles, rune knights, adventuring companies, sky pirates, dragon infiltrators, dashing rogues and knights of the realm. Not 1000 classes, but few classes with a lot of ways to differentiate character. Set the limits that allow our creativity to shine.
Imagine a 'monster manual' that instead of stats, one lousy picture, and some dull flavor text, instead has multiple beautiful illustrations, legends of the beasts, differing and conflicting stories on its' capabilities, and legends and lore of the creature. A true bestiary in the classic sense! Since the game isn't about the next tactical challenge, you won't need 1000 different monsters, though as the shepherds of the greatest role playing game license in history, you could exhaustively cover every monster ever released for the game. (How will you make your money? If each book is beautiful and unique and useful with new ideas, instead of the same old stats, I bet I'd buy the whole 'set' - I know I did for Hackmaster.) What an opportunity!
Imagine a 'Dungeon Masters Guide' that took some of the best essays and advice on the web, from the Alexandrian, to Ars Ludi, to Monsters and Manuals, and gave us the tools we needed to create a sandbox, to handle low level play to high level play, to empower player agency. Make a book 1/10th as legendary as the 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide and you'll sell a million copies. (The game masters guide by Paizo is a bit like this)
How is the possible? Look at the creativity and output of the OSR! Dragons-foot! Blogs! Almost all of that labor is being done for free, and as the premiere fantasy gaming company with budget you can't take advantage of that? How can you not have the money for that when you've got so much available for free! Crowd-sourcing anyone?
To be clear, I'm not saying that you only use our resources, or that you try to crowdsource everything - but with the variety and quality of stuff is being produced for free, how come the stuff that gets paid for is lackluster?
Imagine a 'players handbook' that has dozens of classes, each with a hundred variations. Instead of page after page of powers, how about adventure hooks and motivations, ideas for warlocks and wizards, summoning circles, rune knights, adventuring companies, sky pirates, dragon infiltrators, dashing rogues and knights of the realm. Not 1000 classes, but few classes with a lot of ways to differentiate character. Set the limits that allow our creativity to shine.
Imagine a 'monster manual' that instead of stats, one lousy picture, and some dull flavor text, instead has multiple beautiful illustrations, legends of the beasts, differing and conflicting stories on its' capabilities, and legends and lore of the creature. A true bestiary in the classic sense! Since the game isn't about the next tactical challenge, you won't need 1000 different monsters, though as the shepherds of the greatest role playing game license in history, you could exhaustively cover every monster ever released for the game. (How will you make your money? If each book is beautiful and unique and useful with new ideas, instead of the same old stats, I bet I'd buy the whole 'set' - I know I did for Hackmaster.) What an opportunity!
Imagine a 'Dungeon Masters Guide' that took some of the best essays and advice on the web, from the Alexandrian, to Ars Ludi, to Monsters and Manuals, and gave us the tools we needed to create a sandbox, to handle low level play to high level play, to empower player agency. Make a book 1/10th as legendary as the 1st edition Dungeon Masters Guide and you'll sell a million copies. (The game masters guide by Paizo is a bit like this)
Please don't let me open the next book to find page after page of boring options that are necessary for me to 'build' a character that is not useless in comparison to another 'build' and that reduces all play to rolling dice.
Stop putting the burden on the DM to ignore the rules for better play, and make some rules that I don't need to ignore.
