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Hawkins
Great Reader
USA
2131 Posts |
 Posted - 19 Mar 2012 : 21:23:42
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Article, by Mike Mearls.
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Errant d20 Designer - My Blog (last updated January 06, 2016)
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back. --Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
"Mmm, not the darkness," Myrin murmured. "Don't cast it there." --Erik Scott de Bie, Shadowbane
* My character sheets (PFRPG, 3.5, and AE versions; not viewable in Internet Explorer)
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My game design work:
* Heroes of the Jade Oath (PFRPG, conversion; Rite Publishing)
* Compendium Arcanum Volume 1: Cantrips & Orisons (PFRPG, designer; d20pfsrd.com Publishing)
* Compendium Arcanum Volume 2: 1st-Level Spells (PFRPG, designer; d20pfsrd.com Publishing)
* Martial Arts Guidebook (forthcoming) (PFRPG, designer; Rite Publishing)
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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader
USA
2717 Posts |
Posted - 19 Mar 2012 : 21:53:39
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Wow...I like it!
Right away I'm glad Mearls said the one hour benchmark wasn't an absolute, just something to shoot for in order to meet certain design goals.
I know I've been through my share of seemingly never ending adventures, so if they could get the basic essence of the game down to one hour but still include monsters, NPC interactions and problem solving, well I'm all for it.
Still not sure how the heck they'll do it though. But I hope they do. |
Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver). |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36863 Posts |
Posted - 19 Mar 2012 : 22:17:31
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| I dunno... I think one-hour is reasonable for low-levels, but after maybe 4th or 5th level, I'm not sure you could put enough challenge into that timeframe to be truly satisfying. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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Lord Karsus
Great Reader
USA
3745 Posts |
Posted - 19 Mar 2012 : 23:21:10
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-I see no reason why the "average" adventure should be clocked in at about an hour, or any length of time, at 1st level, 10th level, 100th level. This is an area that, as a ruleset, D&D has no relevance. If people play a type of game where they detail every little encounter and act it out, it's going to obviously take more time than a game where people are only really interested in finding monsters/traps/whatever else and dealing with them, glossing over the minor details in the process. That's something that falls outside of the realm of rules, and is neither good nor bad, here nor there. If people like spending 45 minutes flirting with and seducing a merchant to get a better price on equipment, more power to them, I guess. Likewise, if people want the only details of a game to be what kind of enemies are in the room with them, and want damage described numerically instead of 'poetically', that's how they like it, and that is what it is. As long as everyone is in agreement that that's how they want to play- and, if there are people that aren't, that's not something that rules or game design is going to help.
-Characters not being needlessly complex is fine, but I think that falls more on players than the rules themselves. There's always a learning curve involved, but I've seen people playing complex characters resolve complex actions (a specific feat, or a spell, or whatever else) in quicker time than people playing relatively basic characters resolve relatively basic actions. I touched on this in another thread, when I first started playing D&D I didn't have the rules fully down and messed up a lot playing a Fighter, forgetting how many points I got to add due to BAB, or bonus damage, or whatever else. The 3e Fighter is pretty basic and streamlined as is, and there really isn't much the rules can do there making it simpler.
-The idea that, behind the DM screen, rules should be streamlined to the degree that time isn't wasted looking up whatever is fine, but it's not as if that hasn't existed in 1e, 2e, 3e, and doesn't currently exist in 4e. I always write down relevant things to know from the Monster Manual- HP, Saves, Initiative, AC, Attacks/Damage, Special Abilities, Spells (if applicable)- and that's that. If I need to know how many skill points it has in some skill, I'll wing it. For the life of me, I don't get why people will waste the time and throw off the groove of the game digging into a book to find out how many skill points an Ettin has in Knowledge: Geography.
-Knowing how many EXP a player needs to go from one level to another is a useful thing to have. I don't really see how relevant that fourth point will be except in things like pre-published adventures or whatever. If you're making up your own stuff, you're more or less doing this on your own, tailoring encounters and whatever else at a pace that you want. |
(A Tri-Partite Arcanist Who Has Forgotten More Than Most Will Ever Know)
Elves of Faerūn
Vol I- The Elves of Faerūn
Vol. III- Spells of the Elves
Vol. VI- Mechanical Compendium |
Edited by - Lord Karsus on 19 Mar 2012 23:22:26 |
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crazedventurers
Master of Realmslore
United Kingdom
1073 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 08:54:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Hawkins
Article, by Mike Mearls.
Thanks Hawkins for updating Candlekeep with all the new L&L articles, it is much appreciated.
The one hour game sounds very much like B/X to me which is a good thing in my opinion. Keeping things simple allows for players and DM to add complexity if they wish rather than the complexity being put into the ruleset from the off and essentially making gamers follow the rules as written.
It is easier to add to, than to take away.
Cheers
Damian |
So saith Ed. I've never said he was sane, have I?
Gods, all this writing and he's running a constant fantasy version of Coronation Street in his head, too. .
shudder,
love to all,
THO
Candlekeep Forum 7 May 2005 |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4458 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 11:40:56
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I like the option of doing quick, 1 hr adventurers with the likes of which Mearls says. But I'm also a fan of character complexity, which sounds like Mearls is somewhat less fond of if it takes a bit linger to resolve at the table. But this is much more a problem of not knowing on the player side than the rules side.
What had me at a loss was last weeks Turn Undead voting results. Really, nothing Mearls said about Turning excited me to use that mechanic.....like ever. Might as well just fuel feats and combat abilities with ur turning attempts than what he suggested. |
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crazedventurers
Master of Realmslore
United Kingdom
1073 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 14:23:25
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quote:
Originally posted by Diffan
What had me at a loss was last weeks Turn Undead voting results. Really, nothing Mearls said about Turning excited me to use that mechanic
What disappointed me about the turning article was it was based on hit points - as a DM I don't want something else to track and remember, I just want something that works or doesn't. I still don't see what is wrong with turning as a concept against the undead, as that is what a cleric is about 
Anyhoo I like the 15 min character generation method, though it is still about 10 minutes too long for me  - just roll up 3d6 rearrange to suit and get playing 
Also I think the 1 hour concept is a good idea on paper but I suspect that most games last 4-5 hours or so, shouldn't that be the benchmark they are working to? oh and please please please WOTC ditch the mathematical approach to gaming with XP per level/adventure/combat within the specified timeframe, it just really grates on me. Go back to xp for treasure acquired rather than just monsters slain, that way you don't need the balanced approach to play as the intrepid 1st level adventures can steal the ogre lords treasure without having to fight him and his clan and still get XP for doing so, there is more than one way to go up a level
Cheers
Damian |
So saith Ed. I've never said he was sane, have I?
Gods, all this writing and he's running a constant fantasy version of Coronation Street in his head, too. .
shudder,
love to all,
THO
Candlekeep Forum 7 May 2005 |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 16:25:36
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I find that this design goal runs contrary to my tastes in gaming and requirements for a game system.
I tend to play long-running campaigns and I schedule sessions in advance, only on days when everyone can commit to 4+ hours of gaming. If I have an hour to while away, I'll spend it jawing with friends, not trying to fit in a game session.
In general, I'll start new campaigns less than once per year and I've found that the more consultation and colloboration between players and GMs, the better the play experience. I would no more begin a campaign with 45 minutes of prepwork than I'd go into trial with no more than a couple of notes on a bar matchbox, without meeting the client or reading the paperwork.
The collaborative process of creating the characters to fit the setting and intended themes of the campaign is vital to a good play experience, in my view. Even if the rules were almost non-existent, discussing points of connections between their characters, shared backgrounds, seperate backgrounds, dramatic niches, contrast in characterisation, etc. would still take hours and is best done by meeting over drinks one evening, with everyone concerned being well aware that gaming will not start until some later date, when all that is settled and the final versions of the characters are ready.
A campaign needs more than a group of PCs. Even if working with a published game setting, the GM usually needs to detail a lot of things for himself, breathing life into a host of NPCs and establishing current clack as well as a mental outline of what's really going on and what will happen in the near future if the PCs do not affect it with their actions. All this takes a lot of time.
When a new campaign takes a month of work anyway, why should it be significant to be able to cut a few hours off the process? It's not like the mechanical aspects of character creation are more than a tiny fraction of the time it takes to start a campaign.
This isn't saying that unintuitive complexity is a good thing. By all means, the language of character creation ought to be simple to use and work well in describing the character and translating the concept into mechanics. It's just that every attempt I've seen to make character creation fast and easy has involved one or more of randomisation, a choice between several cookie-cutter concepts* and leaving off rules for a lot of important things which frequently come up in play.
If the character creation system doesn't allow for matching the abilities of the character to the background, making sure that he has all the skills and speaks the languages indicated by his prior history, it is no good to me. If you simplify something so much that it no longer does what your customer needs it to do, you've failed, at least in regard to that customer.
All this, however, is at most of academic interest to me. I was a dedicated AD&D gamer**, but after buying and playing D&D 3.0, I found something lacking in the experience. I continued to buy setting supplements from WotC, but at some point, probably D&D 3.5, I stopped buying rulebooks. I found that the design philosophy of GURPS suited me much better and the versatility of the toolbox approach inherent in that system allowed me to play in any setting I wanted, with any tone or power-level desired.
D&D 4e didn't tempt me to come back, given its clear focus on a different demographic and a different style of play, and I doubt very much that the apparent design goals of D&D 5e are in tune with what I want from roleplaying games. On the other hand, I do like the mental exercise of game design, at least far enough to critique it***.
I think, despite my personal reservations about such a style, that D&D is well served by an emphasis on pick-up games with standardised assumptions about genre, tone, metaphysics and even setting details, to some extent. The sacred cows of the system, classes and levels and so forth, are in many ways artifacts of an earlier era of gaming, but D&D wouldn't truly be D&D without them. So rather than scrap them entirely and design an entirely new game without much in common with older editions, I think it's a sound design philosophy to play to what strengths these archaic concepts encourage.
To some extent, it is possible to make assumptions about the content and desired feel of the vast majority of D&D games and adventures, much more than such assumptions can be made for players of GURPS, Champions/Hero, FUDGE or Savage Worlds. This makes it simpler to create pre-packaged adventures and more practical to have a short list of archetypical characters to choose between at the start.
A well-designed D&D edition would support both gamers who liked to add a simple coating of 'paint' on top of a Generic Warrior or Generic Mage and call that their characters as well as those who wanted to emulate the concept they had in mind more precisely, sacrificing certain abilities in favour of others more suited to the concept. GMs and players could choose before sitting down whether to use only Basic rules or whether to allow tinkering from the Expert rules and so forth.
*Where, yes, the player could still write his own background and superficial description, but anything which had a mechanical impact on the game was pretty much identical to any other character of that type.
**In fairness, I used all kinds of optional rules and eventually a folder of house-rules the size of 2 Players' Handbooks. I don't want to give the false impression that AD&D was an elegant system. It wasn't. I played it because I was used to it and because with constant tinkering, it was able to do what I wanted it to do.
***Trying to make a living from it would demand a level of obsessive love that made poverty and overwork combined an acceptable sacrifice. |
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36863 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 17:40:53
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| I think the one-hour goal is because someone finally realized that part of why PnP games are losing to MMOs is because MMOs don't require someone to set aside several hours to do nothing but play. Getting people to the table for an hour is a lot easier than getting people to the table for 3 or more hours. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
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Icelander
Master of Realmslore
1864 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 17:53:00
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I think the one-hour goal is because someone finally realized that part of why PnP games are losing to MMOs is because MMOs don't require someone to set aside several hours to do nothing but play. Getting people to the table for an hour is a lot easier than getting people to the table for 3 or more hours.
That's fair.
On the other hand, few social commitments in my life or that of most people I know are as short as one hour.
If one is to take the time to go somewhere at all, it might as well take more than one hour. No matter what it is; cocktail party, dinner, drinks at a pub, a movie, watching the game, playing football, working out, when all things are considered, it usually takes more than an hour.
I rarely take the trouble to get four friends together just to watch one episode of a hour long drama. Well, we do watch Game of Thrones together, but once the episode is over, we don't just get up and all go to our seperate homes. Rather, we plan the event of watching it around something like cooking a meal together (or at least sharing take-out) and then after it finishes, we may sit around chatting or we might watch something else.
I don't think that comparing a social activity like roleplaying with friends to a MMORPG raid is quite fair. They are different things and people might enjoy both, but usually for different reasons. The fact that for face-to-face social interactions, people have to deal with travel time, babysitters, etc. will always make such social events more difficult to schedule than something that everyone can do while still comfortably esconsced in their respective domiciles.
It doesn't really matter whether it's an hour or three, parents are still not going to leave their young children alone, so they'd have to get a sitter anyway. And when the location of an event is an hour's drive away, you'd probably prefer the duration to be more than half of your total transit time.
Nothing will ever make gaming face-to-face as convenient or as accessible as computer gaming. In my opinion, traditional roleplaying games are not well served trying to provide a pale imitation of what CRPGs do, but should rather aim to emphasise their own strengths, recognising that people can and do play both and enjoy the different elements that make each fun. |
Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!
Forgotten Realms fans, please sign a petition to re-release the FR Interactive Atlas
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36863 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 19:00:25
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| Oh, I very much agree with you, and I think WotC has been vainly (and clumsily) chasing the MMO market for years, now. I'm just saying what I think is the idea behind the one-hour session. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
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I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
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Diffan
Great Reader
USA
4458 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 19:40:31
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I'm not sure if they're gearing the game FOR an One-Hour session or even using that as a springboard, but making it an easy, viable option for players who don't have the time. A good example is my game last night, which we really could only spend an hour playing before my daughter's bed-time and my friend's late Hockey Game. In that hour (or so), we got through one battle. It was v3.5, there were 12 scrub Orc Warriors (5 HP each), and one tough Orog and yet, the battle still took that long to finish. So If I could've gotten thrugh that battle with say....only 20 minutes, maybe into another battle or even do some RPing/looting/adventuring afterwards with the other 40-45, then that would've been a lot better.
Since the whole approach of D&D:Next is to be modular, I think it's a good bet that they like the idea of a One-Hour game session IF that is something a group can do OR go much, much longer if that's desired as well. Think about how Living campaigns work at public places, my mall runs a few groups a week but I could never get there due to my wife's work schedule and other responsibilities. If I had the opportuinity to go there and play a solid game with combat, adventure, and RPing in about an hour, I'd sign up now. But no one wants to invite a guy who's just gonna sit there making a character the whole first time and get in 10 minutes of Roleplay in. Espically if that group can run multiple adventures. When I'm there, they could go into "short-mode", pull out different characters and go at a different campaign for about an hour. When I leave, they can go back to the more heavily invested campaign. |
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Lord Karsus
Great Reader
USA
3745 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 23:00:50
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quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I think the one-hour goal is because someone finally realized that part of why PnP games are losing to MMOs is because MMOs don't require someone to set aside several hours to do nothing but play. Getting people to the table for an hour is a lot easier than getting people to the table for 3 or more hours.
-I fail to see why this is something that should fall in the purview of the rules to begin with. If people like quick games, the rules have always allowed for relatively quick games. If people like long games, the rules have always allowed for relatively long games. Outside of streamlining some stuff that always could have been streamlined in past rules, I'm not sure how, building rules from the ground up, they think this is something that can be achieved via rules. |
(A Tri-Partite Arcanist Who Has Forgotten More Than Most Will Ever Know)
Elves of Faerūn
Vol I- The Elves of Faerūn
Vol. III- Spells of the Elves
Vol. VI- Mechanical Compendium |
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Wooly Rupert
Master of Mischief
USA
36863 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2012 : 23:30:02
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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
quote:
Originally posted by Wooly Rupert
I think the one-hour goal is because someone finally realized that part of why PnP games are losing to MMOs is because MMOs don't require someone to set aside several hours to do nothing but play. Getting people to the table for an hour is a lot easier than getting people to the table for 3 or more hours.
-I fail to see why this is something that should fall in the purview of the rules to begin with. If people like quick games, the rules have always allowed for relatively quick games. If people like long games, the rules have always allowed for relatively long games. Outside of streamlining some stuff that always could have been streamlined in past rules, I'm not sure how, building rules from the ground up, they think this is something that can be achieved via rules.
Agreed. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with WotC; I'm just offering what I think is the rationale for the one-hour game idea. |
Candlekeep Forums Moderator
Candlekeep - The Library of Forgotten Realms Lore
http://www.candlekeep.com -- Candlekeep Forum Code of Conduct
I am the Giant Space Hamster of Ill Omen! |
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Jeremy Grenemyer
Great Reader
USA
2717 Posts |
Posted - 21 Mar 2012 : 17:46:24
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quote:
Originally posted by Lord Karsus
If people like quick games, the rules have always allowed for relatively quick games.
Would you say this is true in the sense of the complete game Mearls was talking about in his article?
When used as is the Third Edition rules, for example, simply dont allow for a quick one hour game where you make characters, interact with NPCs, get to the dungeon, solve puzzles, slay monsters and complete the adventure.
Could a DM do it? Yes, but it would take work. He or she would have to shorten things up by creating pre-generated characters, skipping out on exposition, descriptions and NPC dialogue, lowering the power level of monster(s) in an encounter, reducing the size of a dungeon and so on.
I see a benefit in what they're doing; in getting all the basics down to where people can play fast, but still have fun with the option of adding in more complexity later.
I think 4E did this pretty good, but it simplified things too much without allowing for more complexity, while 3E was baseline-complex to begin with and assigned the DM the job of simplifying things. |
Look for me and my content at EN World (user name: sanishiver). |
Edited by - Jeremy Grenemyer on 21 Mar 2012 17:50:15 |
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Mace Hammerhand
Great Reader
Germany
2296 Posts |
Posted - 21 Mar 2012 : 23:08:14
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Y'know, if they're looking back at Basic D&D, why re-invent the wheel? True, my now-defunct (A)D&D campaign ran on and off for 7 or 8 years, the reason why I decided to switch to 3e was because I was tired of arguments, and, had all of my players read the rules instead of relying on me to explain to them what they could have looked up themselves, it would have been more fun than it was, from a DM's standpoint.
What's needed is a rule-set that is simple, so that even folks too lazy to read can play the thing decently enough in a matter of minutes. It has nothing to do with the length of a "game day." One does not need artificial complexity in areas that are not really game decisive. If the players are crazy, like my favorite group was years ago, they won't let sleep get in the way anyways, and, if they do, it is because of lack of coffee. Don't let the rules decide what's what. The one thing I absolutely loathed about 3e was the 13 encounters for level-up guideline. Still makes me wanna vomit. |
Mace's not so gentle gamer's journal My rants were harmless compared to this, beware! |
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Legends & Lore: The One-Hour D&D Game
