Wednesday, February 8, 2012

One Edition to Rule Them All...and in the Basement Emulate Them

So, I thought Cook's Legends and Lore column had some interesting items this week.

I'm still not exactly sure whether the notion of multiple edition characters at the same table is correct or incorrect. Either that was very poorly communicated on their part, or it was interpreted wrong. Cook felt the need to clarify with:

"To be clear, we're not talking about creating a bridge so that you can play 1E and 4E at the same time. Instead, we're allowing you to play a 1E-style game or a 4E-style game with the same rules. Also, players at the table can choose the style of character they want to play."

Wow, that's so much clearer now.

Another interesting notion:

"Some choices then—such as whether a character has a long list of skills and feats; or skills, feats, and powers; or just ability scores, hit points, Armor Class, and an attack bonus—are up to the player. Some choices are up to the DM. If miniatures and a grid are used, that's a DM choice."

No, after the basic building blocks DMs make choices (or are cajoled by their players). If I don't want feats at my table, there won't be feats at my table - that's not a player choice. Actually, I'm more open to discussions re: minis, grid, etc. than I am some of these other things.

Perhaps the most interesting quote was the following:

"So, the game is actually a matrix of these choices, with some made by the DM and some by the players, which will end up determining the feel of the overall game and might allow the group to "emulate" a prior edition. More importantly, though, these choices allow people to play what they want to play. In effect, the group can make their own edition of D&D. And that's really the most exciting part of it, I think."

So the One Edition to Rule Them All (which I argued against a couple weeks ago) is merely rising to the level of an emulator? One Emulator to Rule Them All? Just imagine the profliferation of splatbooks for all the various mechanical modules. Most imprtantly, all this really does is restate the edition wars under the same umbrella, rather than have them under their various edition umbrellas. It will result in the same thing, just in a different form. OSR emulators - stand over here, 3tard emulators - stand over there.

Tell me I'm wrong.




5 comments:

  1. YOU'RE TOTALLY WRO... uh, no, I guess you're not. You heard it here at the Yaksmen's place folks, the edition wars will just find a new way to express themselves within the unfriendly confines of 5E. Funny stuff.

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  2. Modular, Optional, Addons...like Lego.
    One of the reasons I'm optimistic about it.

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  3. Don't worry, you're wrong about something else. And when what that is becomes obvious, We'll Be There!!!

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  4. "Some choices then—such as whether a character has a long list of skills and feats; or skills, feats, and powers; or just ability scores, hit points, Armor Class, and an attack bonus—are up to the player. Some choices are up to the DM. If miniatures and a grid are used, that's a DM choice."

    No, after the basic building blocks DMs make choices (or are cajoled by their players). If I don't want feats at my table, there won't be feats at my table - that's not a player choice.


    My take on this:

    A stunt like that can only work if feats are going to work a little differently from what we've seen in 3e. I guess feats will be giving some positive (circumstance/advantage) modifier to some specific actions. Some feats will be meta-skills, some will be fiddly, specific skills.

    The player may choose whether he wants a global "huntsman", 1e-secondary-skill-like "theme", giving a bonus of +3 on all outdoor actions (in addition to the stat modifier), while another player chooses skills like "set snares +2", "climbing trees +4", "sneak in forest +3", "marksman +2".

    When the DM asks for a roll because both players want to sneak up on a camp in the woods they all roll d20+DEX bonus+[huntsman OR sneak in forest OR a freeform "my character was raised by syvlan elves, what do I know from that time?"].
    As long as the skill/feat bonuses are in the same ballpark I'd have no problem with a system like that, DM-wise.

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