# Interview with Mike Mearls



## LostSoul (Aug 21, 2008)

Didn't see this anywhere, so:

Theory From the Closet interviews Mike Mearls.

A good listen.  He talks a lot about 4e.


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## John Q. Mayhem (Aug 21, 2008)

Interesting. I've downloaded it and I'll listen when I get home tonight. Thanks


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## Rechan (Aug 22, 2008)

I like how Mearls talks. He is really in the point, and doesn't go in tangents. 

Also I think this directly addresses to the MMO and Gamist issues. At least, it satisfies me. I know it won't assuage those who have those issues, but.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 23, 2008)

Very nice, lots of interesting questions and answers. 

I found the bit about campaign settings interesting - about how you need a strong theme and shouldn't feel forced to cover every possible topic and culture just to appeal to everyone. (I wonder a little bit if Mike thinks the same about game systems  ). I tend to agree - it appears to me as if the settings that were always highly acclaimed (Ravenloft, Dark Sun, Eberron, Midnight) seemed to have a very strong theme. If you like that theme, the setting is perfect, if you don't, you'll search for something else.


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## LostSoul (Aug 24, 2008)

Bumping this because it's a really good interview.


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## That One Guy (Aug 25, 2008)

Bumping for great justice.

Also, great ENWorld mention.


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## Charwoman Gene (Aug 25, 2008)

Forgot to sync my ipod this morning to listen to on the way to work.


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## Caliber (Aug 25, 2008)

Does anyone know of a manner in which a transcript of this can be found/created for those of us podcasturally challenged? 

Thanks!


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## guivre (Aug 25, 2008)

Caliber said:


> Does anyone know of a manner in which a transcript of this can be found/created for those of us podcasturally challenged?
> 
> Thanks!





You can't listen to an mp3?


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## darjr (Aug 25, 2008)

If you google podcast transcription services you'll find some for a few cents a minute.

I was sure that there was an automated free one used by the gizwiz twitt podcast but my google foo is broken.


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## Andor (Aug 25, 2008)

guivre said:


> You can't listen to an mp3?




I don't know about him, but Vista refuses to believe my sound card exists, so, no.


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## mach1.9pants (Aug 25, 2008)

Andor said:


> I don't know about him, but Vista refuses to believe my sound card exists, so, no.




There is no cake spoon soundcard!


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## That One Guy (Aug 25, 2008)

The soundcard is a lie?


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## Mouseferatu (Aug 25, 2008)

guivre said:


> You can't listen to an mp3?




I can't speak for him, but in my case, it's not that I _can't_. It's that, under most circumstances, I _won't_.

Not only do I _prefer_ reading, but it takes a lot less time than listening to a podcast. So if there's a transcript available, yeah, I always prefer that route.


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## mrswing (Aug 25, 2008)

Very good interview which proves 100% that my gut feeling was right:

Mike Mearls is my personal RPG nemesis. 

Everything he's designed from Iron Heroes on is just anathema to what I want from an RPG, and certainly from D&D. I shudder when I hear that a party of PCs is like a Magic deck... M:tG is not a RPG and should not be influencing RPG gameplay. The whole interview is laced with explanations and reasoning which makes me yell 'No, No, NO!!!'  But that's just me, thousands upon thousands of gamers do really enjoy the new direction. 

The ironic thing is that, starting with  IH, MM has designed games I WANTED to like. I was totally on board with what he was going for with IH, until I read the book and was completely turned off. Now, with 4e, he again (together with the rest of the development/design team of course) addressed almost all the problems I had with 3.X. But the solutions offered now are on the whole completely unpalatable to me. Everytime the new design goes left, I would have gone right and vice versa... I wish I could get behind the new approaches, but I just can't. 

So after almost 30 years, I now have to let D&D go. It's totally irrational to be upset about this, I know - D&D was never the best game around IMHO and all previous editions and materials are still useful, and developing new campaigns and adventures is still perfectly possible (never mind the backlog of hundreds of books and modules I've still got to read, let alone play). But somehow I feel as if a very good friend has changed beyond all recognition, taken on a life style which I cannot agree with, and so a parting of the ways is best for all concerned. 

And that makes me really sad.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 25, 2008)

mrswing said:


> Everything he's designed from Iron Heroes on is just anathema to what I want from an RPG, and certainly from D&D. I shudder when I hear that a party of PCs is like a Magic deck... M:tG is not a RPG and should not be influencing RPG gameplay. The whole interview is laced with explanations and reasoning which makes me yell 'No, No, NO!!!'  But that's just me, thousands upon thousands of gamers do really enjoy the new direction.




I think you are wrong. The gameplay of an RPG can be a lot of things. An RPG is not a dice game, or a card game, or a board game. Yet they can involve the use of all that, and more (after having read the thread on _Dread_ using the Jenga tower, I am intrigued on the possibilities!)
Of course, that's mostly talking about the resolution system.

The M:tG comparison is mearlymerely a metaphor for certain game aspects. When playing the game, you can visualize the use of powers with the use of cards interacting with each other - or whatever, I don't know Jack about M:tG. 
(I wonder what metaphor might fit the 3E style party buffing... )
In anyway, it is about how game mechanics interact with each other. On a more basic level, and in some simpler games, you might just use a metaphor of both sides of a conflict starting with a big pile of chips (hit points, and maybe spell slots), and each action of one side costs the other some of its chips. The one that ends up with no chips first loses. 

Of course, there are gameplay styles some people just don't enjoy. 

---

But I like to ask: What specifically is so wrong about the approach? How do you see does it result in a bad game? So far, I can only see it as a "philosophical dislike", something like "but we shouldn't use ideas from other game types", without anything _showing_ how it's wrong.


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## Roman (Aug 25, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> But I like to ask: What specifically is so wrong about the approach? How do you see does it result in a bad game? So far, I can only see it as a "philosophical dislike".




I think you already know what many of us who don't like 4e dislike about it. Since you asked, though, just a brief summary (not in order of importance): 

1) Drastically altered flavor that does not befit D&D as we imagine it in our minds 
2) Purging of simulationism from the ruleset (this has several effects for me: reduces my sense of verisimilitude, removes one of my major incentives for DMing and makes DMing a simulationist game more difficult for me, since I have to make up and adjudicate everything) 
3) Abandonment of OGL more or less precluding the possibility of correcting the above through third party support 

I guess many of us who don't like 4e simply disagree with the WotC's most recent vision regarding what is fun about D&D and what we expect from D&D. As such, it is easier for us to simply stay with 3.Xe or with something similar, such as Pathfinder. Maybe 5e will draw me and my players back to the contemporary edition again, but that is surely a long way away. 

Then again, this is not really a productive discussion and I posted only because you asked. In reality, all sides of this argument have been heard before and debating it further is going to lead us nowhere other than leading me to procrastinate on what I should be doing. Oh well, back to my work I go.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 25, 2008)

Roman said:


> I think you already know what many of us who don't like 4e dislike about it. Since you asked, though, just a brief summary (not in order of importance):
> 
> 1) Drastically altered flavor that does not befit D&D as we imagine it in our minds
> 2) Purging of simulationism from the ruleset (this has several effects for me: reduces my sense of verisimilitude, removes one of my major incentives for DMing and makes DMing a simulationist game more difficult for me, since I have to make up and adjudicate everything)
> 3) Abandonment of OGL more or less precluding the possibility of correcting the above through third party support



That was totally not what I was talking about. I did quote _mrswing_s post for a reason!


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## filthgrinder (Aug 25, 2008)

mrswing said:


> I shudder when I hear that a party of PCs is like a Magic deck... M:tG is not a RPG and should not be influencing RPG gameplay. The whole interview is laced with explanations and reasoning which makes me yell 'No, No, NO!!!' But that's just me, thousands upon thousands of gamers do really enjoy the new direction.




I think you really missed the mark with what they were talking about here and let your preconcieved notions cloud your listening. The INTERVIEWER brings up M:tG, and Mike just doesn't crap on the interviewer, he turns it around and uses to discuss party roles, and teamwork. He basically says, he prefers to use different analogies, but he'll have fun going with making a Magic analogy work. 

I think that section of the interview was really good in understanding how a party should work in 4e. 

However, I think you should have realized that the interview brought the topic up and Mike just politely used it to get across his current talking points. If you read/listened to Mike's other Gencon interviews, he covers similiar gorund in talking about party roles. He uses a basketball analogy in those, so I assume you want to shake your fist and scream, "D&D isn't basketball!"


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## Charwoman Gene (Aug 25, 2008)

Actually, Mike REALLY likes the basketball metaphor and brought even the discussion here into that milieu, unless Michael Jordan and Dennis Rodman are also professional M:TG players.

D&D is better for more people by abandoning the semi-simulationist trappings.  Unfortunately, it sucks to be on the other side of the axe.


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## Deadline247 (Aug 25, 2008)

Mearls is always great to listen to...but the guy conducting the interview was painful and woefully unprepared.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 25, 2008)

Deadline247 said:


> Mearls is always great to listen to...but the guy conducting the interview was painful and woefully unprepared.




I am not sure, but I think it was during GenCon? I suppose no one was entirely fit at the time of the interview. But I must admit, the long pauses were bad. Maybe he should have edited them out, at least.


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## cangrejoide (Aug 25, 2008)

mrswing said:


> So after almost 30 years, I now have to let D&D go. It's totally irrational to be upset about this, I know - D&D was never the best game around IMHO and all previous editions and materials are still useful, and developing new campaigns and adventures is still perfectly possible (never mind the backlog of hundreds of books and modules I've still got to read, let alone play). But somehow I feel as if a very good friend has changed beyond all recognition, taken on a life style which I cannot agree with, and so a parting of the ways is best for all concerned.
> 
> And that makes me really sad.





Its a very sad day when a gamer of 30 years has to abandon D&D just because an edition change. I don't even know how to address this statement, it's totally wrong to my perspective. 


As for the OP and the interview:

It was a very informative interview, and actually made me understand a lot of the changes in 4E.


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## Caliber (Aug 26, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:


> I can't speak for him, but in my case, it's not that I _can't_. It's that, under most circumstances, I _won't_.
> 
> Not only do I _prefer_ reading, but it takes a lot less time than listening to a podcast. So if there's a transcript available, yeah, I always prefer that route.




This. Listening to a podcast is intensely distracting to me. I either give all of my attention to it (which can be difficult since my eyes are otherwise disengaged and will likely seek stimulus) or have it run in the background and miss every other word. I'd like to listen to neat-o podcasts but I just can't figure out how to do so that works for me. 

If I had a transcript though, I could read at my leisure, start and stop when I wanted, and even skim ahead if I hit some rough patches of boredom. Podcasts just don't offer service like that.


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## jeffh (Aug 26, 2008)

mrswing said:


> M:tG is not a RPG and should not be influencing RPG gameplay.



Even setting aside the fact that you're taking these remarks out of context (as has already been pointed out), this is a complete non sequitur. _The Lord of the Rings _isn't an RPG either, and I assume no-one who's into D&D would say that means LotR shouldn't be influencing RPGs.


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## Dausuul (Aug 26, 2008)

jeffh said:


> Even setting aside the fact that you're taking these remarks out of context (as has already been pointed out), this is a complete non sequitur. _The Lord of the Rings _isn't an RPG either, and I assume no-one who's into D&D would say that means LotR shouldn't be influencing RPGs.




Actually, from where I'm sitting, LotR's pernicious influence has tainted D&D ever since elves, dwarves, and hobbits were jammed willy-nilly into a game whose true heritage lay with the swords-and-sorcery tradition of Howard, Vance, and Moorcock.

It's not that I don't love LotR, but its themes were never a good fit for D&D.


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## darjr (Aug 26, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> Actually, from where I'm sitting, LotR's pernicious influence has tainted D&D ever since elves, dwarves, and hobbits were jammed willy-nilly into a game whose true heritage lay with the swords-and-sorcery tradition of Howard, Vance, and Moorcock.
> 
> It's not that I don't love LotR, but its themes were never a good fit for D&D.




What about that dive through Moria? What about that escape from the goblins caves under the mountains?

Dungeon delves by a ragtag, oddball mix of characters.

That is a whole whopping serving of D&D right there. Do Howard, Vance, or Moorcock ever really get THAT close to the game?

Or, in your opinion, is that part of what is wrong with D&D?


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## HalWhitewyrm (Aug 26, 2008)

Deadline247 said:


> Mearls is always great to listen to...but the guy conducting the interview was painful and woefully unprepared.



Nah, that's just the way Clyde does his shows. If most of us doing interviews didn't edit, you'd find similarities. Even with full notes for an interview, those moments happen.



Caliber said:


> Listening to a podcast is intensely distracting to me. I either give all of my attention to it (which can be difficult since my eyes are otherwise disengaged and will likely seek stimulus) or have it run in the background and miss every other word. I'd like to listen to neat-o podcasts but I just can't figure out how to do so that works for me.



My best podcasting listening time is when I'm driving.



Caliber said:


> If I had a transcript though, I could read at my leisure, start and stop when I wanted, and even skim ahead if I hit some rough patches of boredom. Podcasts just don't offer service like that.



Trust me, many of us would like to, but audio transcript services are way too expensive. There's more food for thought on the whole issue of text vs. audio, but that's a different thread.

As for Clyde's interview of Mike Mearls, this was, and I don’t think I exaggerate, the most important interview on 4e out there, period. Especially for those who instinctively did not like 4e, Mike’s explanation of the design philosophy behind it, his elaboration of the way the game was built up and how it’s meant to work, sheds a ton of light that was simply not made clear at any previous point. I mean, simply stating that the elimination of simulationism from the game was a driving goal of design was a sudden flash of realization for me as to why I was having problems with 4e.

If this kind of information had been released prior to 4e’s release, a lot more people would have been able to make an informed decision, whether pro or con, in full understanding of the differences in design, mechanics and philosophy inherent in the two rules systems (3e and 4e). 

I, for one, found many of my complaints with the system answered once I realized what the design conceit behind them were, and I know I wouldn’t be alone. I'm still in the fence, but I can at least now examine the options with a better understanding of what they are. I imagine I'll end up just liking each system for what it does best and keeping both options as viable.


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## Nebulous (Aug 26, 2008)

Mouseferatu said:


> I can't speak for him, but in my case, it's not that I _can't_. It's that, under most circumstances, I _won't_.
> 
> Not only do I _prefer_ reading, but it takes a lot less time than listening to a podcast. So if there's a transcript available, yeah, I always prefer that route.




I can't stand listening to podcasts.  Here's another vote for a transcript.


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## Rechan (Aug 26, 2008)

darjr said:


> That is a whole whopping serving of D&D right there. Do Howard, Vance, or Moorcock ever really get THAT close to the game?
> 
> Or, in your opinion, is that part of what is wrong with D&D?




Not to put words in the person you quoted, but IMHO, what's "wrong" with D&D is that it can't get "away" from those things. Yes, LotR/Howard/Morcock had nice things in there. 

But D&D for the most part has been shackled to that. It has refused to get away from a tidier version of Middle Earth. 

Lord of the Rings was great. But it is not the beginning and end of Fantasy. It should not be.


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## D'karr (Aug 26, 2008)

Rechan said:


> But D&D for the most part has been shackled to that. It has refused to get away from a tidier version of Middle Earth.
> 
> Lord of the Rings was great. But it is not the beginning and end of Fantasy. It should not be.




I agree that LoTR should not be the ultimate measuring stick.  However, I see nothing preventing anyone from "unshackling" from that trope.  I do it routinely and mostly without any problem.  Eberron seems to do that too.  But the party of heroes doing heroic things trope should not be something D&D distances or separates itself from.  I think that is one of the main reasons D&D has been so successful for over 30 years.

I think the problem with D&D might be that it will try to emulate itself rather than generic fantasy tropes.

For specific campaigns the campaigns settings should change the tone.  D&D Core should stick with mostly generic fantasy/sword & sorcery.


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## Rechan (Aug 26, 2008)

D'karr said:


> I agree that LoTR should not be the ultimate measuring stick.  However, I see nothing preventing anyone from "unshackling" from that trope.



There's nothing preventing except the expectation of keeping it that way. Oh sure, you _can_ - but if I just did not offer Dwarves/Elves/Halflings in my games, it would turn people off - because that's what's _expected_. 

To paraphrase Mearls, "You could count into the billions the number of settings that have been published which are 'Here is Fantasy England, next to Fantasy France, next to Fantasy Germany, not far from Fantasy Russia'. That's not helping either.

Eberron did do good, but it didn't go far enough. For instance, dwarves are... still dwarves. There's no real change there. 



> But the party of heroes doing heroic things trope should not be something D&D distances or separates itself from.



Wait, what? Who's advocating that? I don't think anyone is suggesting "Hammer and Chisel: the Commoner and Tradesman Roleplaying Game".

But then, D&D has been able to simulate more than just "Go, save the world/slay the dragon/go into the dungeon". Anti-Heroes, mysteries, noir/pulp, there's more to the genre than Heroes being Heroes; Elric was an anti-hero.



> I think the problem with D&D might be that it will try to emulate itself rather than generic fantasy tropes.



Trying to get away from "Generic fantasy" is good, imho. Because it's _generic_. There are a ton of game systems you can do generic with. Gurps, Fantasy HERO - if D&D = Generic fantasy, then why aren't the other generic fantasy systems doing so well?


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## TerraDave (Aug 26, 2008)

thanks for posting, and bumping.

Ya, it could have used some editing, and it was a testament to Mearl's patience, but it has some good stuff.


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## D'karr (Aug 26, 2008)

Rechan said:


> There's nothing preventing except the expectation of keeping it that way. Oh sure, you _can_ - but if I just did not offer Dwarves/Elves/Halflings in my games, it would turn people off - because that's what's _expected_.
> 
> To paraphrase Mearls, "You could count into the billions the number of settings that have been published which are 'Here is Fantasy England, next to Fantasy France, next to Fantasy Germany, not far from Fantasy Russia'. That's not helping either.
> 
> Eberron did do good, but it didn't go far enough. For instance, dwarves are... still dwarves. There's no real change there.




If your players already know that your campaign does not have X,Y and Z then they are making a conscious decision to play in a game that does not include those, or changes them significantly.  And that is why I mentioned that changes of tone should be limited to campaign settings and homebrews and not the core.

If you are having problems getting players when you remove X, Y and Z, then it is either that they prefer to play with those tropes available, or that you have not entirely made it clear that those are the expectations from the beginning.  If they believe the campaign has those, then they might feel "bamboozled" by the changes and think that there was a bait & switch.



> Wait, what? Who's advocating that? I don't think anyone is suggesting "Hammer and Chisel: the Commoner and Tradesman Roleplaying Game".
> 
> But then, D&D has been able to simulate more than just "Go, save the world/slay the dragon/go into the dungeon". Anti-Heroes, mysteries, noir/pulp, there's more to the genre than Heroes being Heroes; Elric was an anti-hero.
> 
> Trying to get away from "Generic fantasy" is good, imho. Because it's _generic_. There are a ton of game systems you can do generic with. Gurps, Fantasy HERO - if D&D = Generic fantasy, then why aren't the other generic fantasy systems doing so well?




Nobody is suggesting that.  Your original post was too broad, so in case that is what you meant, I added that statement.

Why are other games not doing so well? Because they are not D&D.


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## JeffB (Aug 26, 2008)

Very good interview-or rather, Mike's info was excellent. 

The interviewER on the other hand


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## Charwoman Gene (Aug 26, 2008)

The interviewer really just needed a quick edit pass.


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## Rechan (Aug 26, 2008)

D'karr said:


> If your players already know that your campaign does not have X,Y and Z then they are making a conscious decision to play in a game that does not include those, or changes them significantly.



Again, I said that I would exclude them but that would make gaining players harder. Because I hate them but acknowledge that it would alienate players. And so I despise that, especially in a town where I can barely get anyone together while bending over backwards to accommodate any player.



> Nobody is suggesting that.  Your original post was too broad, so in case that is what you meant, I added that statement.



I don't understand. You added something that had nothing to do with what I said or had anything to do with the argument whatsoever? Because... why? 



> Why are other games not doing so well? Because they are not D&D.




So it doesn't matter WHAT D&D is, as long as it has D&D on the front.


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## rounser (Aug 26, 2008)

> I think the problem with D&D might be that it will try to emulate itself rather than generic fantasy tropes.



That's already begun.  The result is an irrelevant cypher to anyone but established hardcore fans who are jaded with the classic tropes as well.


> For specific campaigns the campaigns settings should change the tone. D&D Core should stick with mostly generic fantasy/sword & sorcery.



Bingo.

Or release a supplement to support it.  Don't do it to the core - and that's arguably what's being done to the core this time around.


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## D'karr (Aug 27, 2008)

Rechan said:


> I don't understand. You added something that had nothing to do with what I said or had anything to do with the argument whatsoever? Because... why?




Because you said this:



Rechan said:


> Lord of the Rings was great. But it is not the beginning and end of Fantasy. It should not be.




Which is a broad enough assertion to prompt my original response.  That the heroic journey and the fellowship trope are pretty good things to keep and D&D should not distance itself from it.

I hope that is clear enough now.


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## D'karr (Aug 27, 2008)

rounser said:


> That's already begun.  The result is an irrelevant cypher to anyone but established hardcore fans who are jaded with the classic tropes as well.




That is one way to look at it.  It can also be seen as a way to attract a much broader base.  Those that did not necessarily grow up weaned on Moorcock, Howard & Leiber.  Even Gygax posited that he included a lot of the LotR tropes because of the popularity of the novels at that time.  Nowadays with the movies that popularity is probably even greater.  So should WotC just ignore that potential avenue because it is popular?



> Bingo.
> 
> Or release a supplement to support it.  Don't do it to the core - and that's arguably what's being done to the core this time around.




Maybe or just maybe those things that are being "done" can easily fall into the category of fantasy / sword & sorcery.

Personally, I don't see much difference in the way I'm running my games now than when I was running BD&D & 1e.  Many of the rules are different, the same can be said of when I was running 3e, but the gameplay and the fun we are having at the table is still pure D&D to me.

If the game experience is not the same for some, I feel sorry for them, but I don't feel the need to apologize for the things I like.  The same way that I don't expect them to do so about the things they like.

In the end it is just a game and I have better things to do with my time than spend it commiserating about what was done or not.  I have fun playing and when I don't I find something else to do.


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## Imp (Aug 27, 2008)

rounser said:


> That's already begun.  The result is an irrelevant cypher to anyone but established hardcore fans who are jaded with the classic tropes as well.



For serious. You know how, even here, when the discussion of "what is your ideal D&D movie like" comes up, and so many people are like "ok. One: don't call it D&D. Two: don't have a cleric, wizard, fighter, and rogue. Three: don't have a human, elf, dwarf, and halfling" and so on? Welp. There you go. The D&D that is D&D is strange and off-putting. Now, the D&D you can make out of D&D, that can be something.


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## mhensley (Aug 27, 2008)

mrswing said:


> Very good interview which proves 100% that my gut feeling was right:
> 
> Mike Mearls is my personal RPG nemesis.
> 
> ...





Wow, you're like my long lost twin.  I'm with you 100%.


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## rounser (Aug 27, 2008)

> For serious. You know how, even here, when the discussion of "what is your ideal D&D movie like" comes up, and so many people are like "ok. One: don't call it D&D. Two: don't have a cleric, wizard, fighter, and rogue. Three: don't have a human, elf, dwarf, and halfling" and so on? Welp. There you go. The D&D that is D&D is strange and off-putting. Now, the D&D you can make out of D&D, that can be something.



Yup.

Ideally, IMO 4E should have made the D&D core _more_ generic, to improve it, rather than less.  Rename cleric to priest and paladin to knight, that sort of thing - people understand what they are.  No eladrin/dragonborn/tiefling bollocks as new races, but rather mythological stuff like fey and trolls (not that that would work in D&D by default, as the D&D troll is lifted straight out of three hearts and three lions, and far too savage to play).

That doesn't preclude flying the freak flag of dragonborn-like original creations in supplements, either.  It just offers a good mythological fantasy baseline for those of us who don't like WOTC's style _all_ the time.

But I get the feeling they were thinking "must be like WoW to stay current" and "need marketable and trademarkable distinct brand identity", plus their surveys of what was popular*, and that got in the way.

*: Maybe people were playing half-dragons for the stats, and tieflings because they felt special _because they weren't_ a core race?  Or maybe for the rather superb +2 int, +2 dex?  Who knows.  I do know that the new baseline looks like arbitrary and random, though, and though it would be fine as a specific homebrew or setting, as a baseline for all campaigns IMO it kind of stinks.


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## ScottS (Aug 27, 2008)

"Design for effect" (DFE) is the phrase that's used in wargaming/boardgaming circles for some of the stuff Mearls is talking about (e.g. picking a minimum-crunch rule mechanic which gives a 'correct' result, like Second Chance = halfling, instead of a possibly more complex rule which simulates whatever piece of the world is responsible for the result).

I'm actually sort of suprised that I haven't seen anyone throwing the DFE meme around in any of these 4e discussions.


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## rounser (Aug 27, 2008)

> I'm actually sort of suprised that I haven't seen anyone throwing the DFE meme around in any of these 4e discussions.



DFE appears to ignore that boardgames are at a very high level of abstraction compared to RPGs.  Wargames less so, but still abstract.  RPGs have to make sense in a sense of visualising what's going on in a way that neither boardgames nor wargames players really need to.  

In other words, getting the right result isn't good enough in an RPG if you can't suspend disbelief for the process of getting there, whereas in a boardgame it's fine.

That's why DFE probably doesn't make as much sense for D&D as it does for M:tG.  I wonder if this has been considered.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 27, 2008)

mhensley said:


> Wow, you're like my long lost twin.  I'm with you 100%.




My sisters are twins. One of the studies mathematics, the other Egytology/Philology. Twins can be very different. 



			
				rounser said:
			
		

> Ideally, IMO 4E should have made the D&D core more generic, to improve it, rather than less.



It appears that is pretty popular, and I think I was thinking along that way, too. And I expected that might happen (before we saw the first excerpts and design thoughts).

But I think generic games are not suited for a mass market. Without strong flavor, what's left on an RPG? You only have a basic rule system, and the players have to make up all the flavor on their own. But why would they do that?
You need to create an emotional appeal, and rules alone just don't do that. And without that appeal, you can target only  a subset of people - those that already know what kind of flavor they like, and only want a rules system that helps them recreate that. But that's not the majority of gamers. That's not the beginning players. You don't invoke a sense of wonder in them, and they won't magically add it on their own without some kick-start help.


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## Samuel Leming (Aug 27, 2008)

rounser said:


> In other words, getting the right result isn't good enough in an RPG if you can't suspend disbelief for the process of getting there, whereas in a boardgame it's fine.
> 
> That's why DFE probably doesn't make as much sense for D&D as it does for M:tG.  I wonder if this has been considered.



The designers of 4e certainly considered it. A large chunk of that interview was on their decision to cut out rules that were only there to support verisimilitude and role-playing.

Sam


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 27, 2008)

Samuel Leming said:


> The designers of 4e certainly considered it. A large chunk of that interview was on their decision to cut out rules that were only there to support *verisimilitude* and *role-playing*.
> 
> Sam




Are you sure that's what they say, or that's what you feel they did? Because they certainly did want to go away from some simulation aspects and henceforth "verisimilitude", but did they also want to avoid rules that just exist for role-playing?

Hmm...
Maybe you are right. Craft (Basketweaving) certainly is only usable for simulation or role-playing (or rather: to give some role-playing color to your character by mechanically representing a part of his "personality". The skill itself is not needed for actually role-playing out your character). 

Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, Insight are mechanics that are useful for conflict resolution and role-playing, and stayed.


I began to like the DFE or blackbox approach more and more during the initial reveals of 4E. It feels more goal driven and helps you achieving exactly the result you want. Using simulation feels more and more just like going a long-winded road.

As an example - A 3E character at 12th level might have several buffs (let's include magical items) active on himself, typically for the entire encounter or several hours. Effectively, the actual numbers that define this character in play are the buffed statistics, not the unbuffed. So, why not just cut the chase and create a system that automatically creates the buffed version of the character? (That's basically what Iron Heroes does).
Of course, there are some cases where the unbuffed state matters. For example during an ambush at night, or if the buffs are being dispelled.

An "effects driven" approach would be to define these stats the other way around. Dispel Magic might just cause the character to become "weakened". In an ambush situation, the attackers might automatically deal extra damage and get an attack bonus. (Or again, the victims are just weakened)

The end results will look very similar, but from a gameplay perspective, the simulation approach gives you a lot of work to arrive at your typical state, and have you reverse that work in an atypical state, while the effects driven approach gives you only work when in an atypical state. 

To some degree I can understand that it doesn't feel "right" on a philosophical level (or from the verisimilitude point of view) to go this approach, but is it really worth bogging the game down for that? 

The more you have to simulate, the more complex is running or playing the game. You get bogged down in details. While from an outside perspective, everything might make sense, but while playing the game, you are not immersing yourself in your character and his thoughts, you're busy doing the math for your character. 
I don't feel closer to my character when I recalculate my attack bonus and damage after taking some strength damage, even though this nicely simulates how my character is losing strength. It makes sense, but do I _feel_ it while I am (re)running numbers? 

People have different views on this - they value different parts of the game experience. If running numbers is required to make the game world simulation work, so be it. If you can't map every part of the game model to the game world, or vice versa, the game just doesn't feel like it's really about that fictional world. 

In the end, both sides might see that if the rules don't follow their mental model, they will lose their immersion - they will be reminded that it's just a game, nothing more.


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## Goumindong (Aug 27, 2008)

rounser said:


> DFE appears to ignore that boardgames are at a very high level of abstraction compared to RPGs.  Wargames less so, but still abstract.  RPGs have to make sense in a sense of visualising what's going on in a way that neither boardgames nor wargames players really need to.
> 
> In other words, getting the right result isn't good enough in an RPG if you can't suspend disbelief for the process of getting there, whereas in a boardgame it's fine.
> 
> That's why DFE probably doesn't make as much sense for D&D as it does for M:tG.  I wonder if this has been considered.




Frankly, the less DFE things are, the harder i have "visualizing" things, since i end up spending so much time working through more and more arcane rules which don't have an end result.

Its not hard to visualize "the wizard throws a fireball that explodes terribly, scorching a number of the kolbolds, one of them is burned horribly" when you throw a fireball, get a critical and hit the rest.

Similarly, for an example that came up today.

Its not hard to imagine when i tell my players that the beast has grabbed one of the K.O. members of the group and is trying to drag him down under the earth with him. One of the players ran over and grabbed him as well to keep it from happening. 

Now i've got a tug of war between the player and the beast. If you can imagine what your players look like and what the creature looks like, imagining the tug of war is not difficult.


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## Imp (Aug 27, 2008)

rounser said:


> Ideally, IMO 4E should have made the D&D core _more_ generic, to improve it, rather than less.  Rename cleric to priest and paladin to knight, that sort of thing - people understand what they are.  No eladrin/dragonborn/tiefling bollocks as new races, but rather mythological stuff like fey and trolls (not that that would work in D&D by default, as the D&D troll is lifted straight out of three hearts and three lions, and far too savage to play).



I don't actually mind the tiefling. Well, I hate the art, but a tainted race, that's something I can work with. As far as cleric and paladin go, those names have bled enough into the general culture that they're ok, and at least 4E has taken steps to alleviate the "off we go on an adventure, let's be sure to bring along a clergyman" D&Dism that is one of the game's weirder aspects.

Funny, I've never been at peace with the stock D&D troll either. I've always replaced it with one that plays off of Tolkein's version.


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## rounser (Aug 27, 2008)

> But I think generic games are not suited for a mass market. Without strong flavor, what's left on an RPG? You only have a basic rule system, and the players have to make up all the flavor on their own. But why would they do that?



Well, my Big Idea is to up the customisation and improvisation aspects of the game, to really pile on the worldbuilding creative self-actualisation thing that D&D is so good at, and people have been doing since it's inception....and to make the game really friendly to running on the fly.  Cutting prep time is a must for competing with other media, though I don't know how.

What I mean is, an edition that takes the DM by the hand and says, "here's the Knight, now here's how to make Knightly Orders for your world", or "here's the wizard, and here's how to customise your own schools out of the spell list to suit your world."  "Here's an elf.  Here's how you can carve elven subraces out of this basic template for your elven kingdoms, and give them names."

This is a MUCH bigger hook than "here's something we named an eladrin.  Here's our ideas for eladrin.  Go play with the eladrin."  If you stat, name, and decide on the flavour for a "jungle elf", perhaps taking example names from some lists and building solid balanced stats from some tables, then you're invested in the game, hook, line and sinker.  They're not just anyone's elf....they're *your* Jungle Elves, complete with green skin, +2 to dex and wis, shuriken proficiency, leaf armour, and wacky background flavour, all because you made them that way.  Ask any 13 year old, and they'd say that's pretty damn cool.  Pretty tricky to balance, though.  Hard enough to balance rules...balancing metarules, even moreso.

That sort of thing is a huge draw for the kind of people who are drawn to a game like D&D in the first place, IMO.  It's a real headscratcher that there aren't already rules for making rules, like this, to a greater degree.  Monster creation rules count, I guess.

Back that up with a system in the DMG that supports improvisation and on-the-fly gaming, and you have a game which is working to D&D's strengths.  It came as a "duh" moment to me to work out that the game within the game which really *attracts* people to D&D is the *chance to make a world of your own*.  The other pillar of D&D's power over people and other games is the *possibility offered by playing with improvisation*, which a computer cannot do.

So yeah, that'd be my dream edition - a D&D with rules keyed to improvisation and world construction.  A D&D of customisation, and on-the-fly convenience.  A solid generic baseline to depart from, and a whole heap of rules to customise that.  A DMG which is all about helping you run a campaign with little or no prep - which takes the wandering monster table as the incredibly primitive ancestor of something incredibly useful and adaptable to running the game on the fly, and stats, traps, treasures and monsters keyed towards running the game that way.  A hugely tall order, to be sure, but that's my Holy Grail for the game.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Aug 27, 2008)

The question is, though, how many people do want to make up all their own flavor? You need to learn to walk before you can run. 

World-Building can be awesome, but basically requiring it from the start can be overwhelming. 

The 4E PoL (but also to some extend Greyhawk in 3E, or the Diamond THrone for Arcana Unearthed) sparked my imagination. I got setting elements, character ideas, story-lines. They evoke a certain feel in me that makes me want to create more.

I don't know if I could feel the same way with GURPS.


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## rounser (Aug 27, 2008)

> The question is, though, how many people do want to make up all their own flavor? You need to learn to walk before you can run.



That's what the baseline's for.  I didn't say you still don't have a default, baseline implied setting.  And if the improvisation aspect of the game was good enough, worldbuilding would be optional (you could improvise tonight's game without paying attention to setting).


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## Goumindong (Aug 27, 2008)

rounser said:


> That's what the baseline's for.  I didn't say you still don't have a default, baseline implied setting.  And if the improvisation aspect of the game was good enough, worldbuilding would be optional (you could improvise tonight's game without paying attention to setting).




That is the trick. You can always just strip the name and flavor from something and use something else. Part of the power sources and racial function is to give players are baseline of what they can expect. Everyone is already free to simply strip that away and make what they want with it.

So what difference does it make if you call it a knight or a paladin if all it takes to make it a Knight is to change the name to "Knight" and the power source to "personal"(or Ki).

In the end, it ends up being a nudge towards ideas and a basis for shared expectation(E.G. You expect dwarves to be "dwarfy" and not "7 dwarfy") which help push the game along.

Personally, I have always found that the further you stray from these shared expectations(aside: and they are always very archetypal, hinging on deep rooted fantasy expectations that have been building over the centuries from mythology and literature) the harder it is to bring people into a game.


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## ScottS (Aug 27, 2008)

Re: DFE



Samuel Leming said:


> The designers of 4e certainly considered it. A large chunk of that interview was on their decision to cut out rules that were only there to support verisimilitude and role-playing.




Besides this podcast, one other notable example of the 4e team talking about DFE ideas, is that rather annoying Heinsoo quote someone has sig'ed, concerning "picky and esoteric" rules, and older editions/gamers favoring "potentially slightly tedious [simulation] over having fun."  I think it's pretty safe to say they're in the DFE design camp.

As to why that may be, again, if they were looking at wargaming at all, they probably thought that a DFE approach was a roadmap to better sales.  A short history of the wargaming market over the past decade or so, would probably go something like: "The design-for-effect philosophy (as exemplified in 'card-driven games' like We the People, Paths of Glory, etc.) broke the hold of hex-and-counter, phone-book-sized-rulebook nerds over the hobby, and assured its continuance into the next generation (via revived sales)."


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## HalWhitewyrm (Aug 27, 2008)

Charwoman Gene said:


> The interviewer really just needed a quick edit pass.



Nah, Clyde doesn't roll like that. I found it jarring when I first started listening to the show, but now I like it; it gives me a sense of veracity and of "being there" that is lacking in edited interviews (and mind you, I edit the interviews I do for my shows).


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## ScottS (Aug 27, 2008)

Goumindong said:


> Frankly, the less DFE things are, the harder i have "visualizing" things, since i end up spending so much time working through more and more arcane rules which don't have an end result.





Yes and no. For Fireball, "I roll to hit your Reflex, X damage if I hit and 0.5X damage if I miss" is clearly more DFE and better than trying to model the explosive shock wave, thermal effects, etc., if all you care about is the bad guy taking damage. 4e Grapple beats 3e Grapple in the "Concise Mechanic for Grabbing and Holding a Guy" contest. Let's assume that simpler is in fact better in both these cases.

But consider the following counterexamples:

There are at least 3 different ways they do 'poisoning' in the 4e MM:
A) attack vs AC, hit does damage and allows secondary attack vs Fort, which then applies the poison effect
B) attack vs AC, damage + poison effect on a hit
C) attack vs Fort, damage + poison effect on a hit
If I go pure DFE in my rules design, I shouldn't ever use option A to describe being poisoned, because it's the most 'sim' and you have to make two rolls where one would do. However, A gets used rather a lot in the MM. Even worse, there's no 4e 'game physics' or any other explanation as to why A, B, and C all show up in the book. Is there a specific effect the 4e guys were trying to design for, when something spits poison at me and it's just a Fort attack, but something biting me and injecting poison is AC followed by Fort? Spitting is a 'touch attack' and biting is a 'regular attack', so it's probably a holdover/legacy distinction from 3e, but if this is 4e then why are we simming even that much?

Same story with falling down. If I set off a pit trap, it makes an attack vs my Reflex, and a hit knocks me in. If a rogue tries to judo-throw me off a cliff with Flying Foe... I make a saving throw to not fall. Why does my Reflex defense help me in the former case but not the latter? They're equally simple fall-avoidance rules, so DFE doesn't tell me why I'm using two different types of rolls. Is the intended effect supposed to be that rogues have an easier-than-normal time of making me fall if my Reflex is high, but a harder-than-normal time if it's low? If the only effect I care about is "you fall and take damage if you don't catch yourself", why am I not either rolling Reflex attacks in both cases, or saving throws in both cases?

I'm also using these examples in reference to a related issue from the podcast. Mearls mentioned something about the 4e-doesn't-do-simulation concept leading to the end of 'canonical' rules for describing game situations (don't remember what the exact context/question was). My immediate thought was about rules drift: if you avoid simulation in your design, then you can't use simulation considerations to tell you whether a proposed rule for something 'works better' than another.  So as different people work on your system, you may end up with multiple resolution mechanics for one 'effect' and no clear way to pick between them (as seen above, DFE doesn't necessarily help you at this point).  Long-term result, your system starts to unravel.


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## Spatula (Aug 27, 2008)

The proliferation of different ways to resolve the same situation was a problem in 2e, and one that 3e tried to specifically address.  I think 4e is better off than 2e was, in that there's a common resolution mechanic that everything is based on.  Whereas in 2e you might get mixtures of % rolls, ability checks, 1 in X chances, each with their own specific situational modifiers.

But if it does get out of hand, well, that's a good excuse for publishing a new edition!


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## Nom (Sep 1, 2008)

HalWhitewyrm said:


> As for Clyde's interview of Mike Mearls, this was, and I don’t think I exaggerate, the most important interview on 4e out there, period. ...



Not trying to be picky, but this is, for me at least, old news.  I can't provide precise references, but in the stuff I've been reading and watching it's been abundantly clear for _at least_ 6 months, and maybe a lot longer, than D&D 4E was about "game" and "imagination", and everything that implies from a design and priority viewpoint.

But you're right in identifying it as a fundamental break between 3E and 4E.  4E is quite deliberately _not_ about representing the gameworld; it's about resolving events with respect to its own framework and whatever story the players may choose to layer on top of that.  Any representational mapping between the mechanics and the gameworld is at the discretion of the players, though the rules do provide flavouring to get the process started.

As such, the D&D 4E _mechanical_ ruleset is more like a very broad version of Monopoly or Settlers of Catan than it is a wargame simulation.  And this is a natural and deliberate result given the design philosophies.

But the other trick is that D&D 4E has _two_ independent but parallel "rulesets".  There's the raw mechanics, and there's the story-game.  _Un_like Monopoly or Settlers of Catan, D&D encourages you to leap off from the basic mechanics and invest the gameplay with your own personality and story.  This is indeed true of all editions.  But 4E differs from immediately prior editions by providing rules to calibrate the events in the story-world, rather than rules to evaluate them.  In that sense, it harks back to very early (mechanics-lite) editions of the game and then takes a different development path.  Not in remaining mechanics-lite, but by retaining and enforcing a distinction between the resolution mechanic and the activity the mechanic is resolving.

2E -> 3E: can't we just model everything using one fundamental system?
3E -> 4E: let's just use the resolution engine and leave the description up to the players.


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## Baron Opal (Sep 1, 2008)

HalWhitewyrm said:


> As for Clyde's interview of Mike Mearls, this was, and I don’t think I exaggerate, the most important interview on 4e out there, period. Especially for those who instinctively did not like 4e, Mike’s explanation of the design philosophy behind it, his elaboration of the way the game was built up and how it’s meant to work, sheds a ton of light that was simply not made clear at any previous point.




I usually disregard audio files, podcasts, &c. out of hand for reasons Mouseferatu mentions above. But given what Dan said, I think I'll check this one out.


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## charlesatan (Sep 2, 2008)

HalWhitewyrm said:


> As for Clyde's interview of Mike Mearls, this was, and I don’t think I exaggerate, the most important interview on 4e out there, period.




As far as 4E game design goes, I'll second this assessment. =)


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## mhacdebhandia (Sep 2, 2008)

Caliber said:


> This. Listening to a podcast is intensely distracting to me. I either give all of my attention to it (which can be difficult since my eyes are otherwise disengaged and will likely seek stimulus) or have it run in the background and miss every other word. I'd like to listen to neat-o podcasts but I just can't figure out how to do so that works for me.



I burn all the podcasts I listen to onto CDs and listen to them in the car. It helps that I have an hour-long drive to and from work, and that my radio antenna was snapped off by a jerk a while back, of course, but I find it works well.

Of course, I find that I *need* my mind occupied by something while I drive, or else my attention starts to wander from the road out of sheer boredom. Before podcasts, I used to listen to talk radio (even the reactionary crap we get on the major stations in Sydney) for the same reason - unless it's music I know and like, I can't listen to music stations. So for me, it's either podcasts or music, and I prefer talk to music to keep my mind occupied (though music with smart lyrics I enjoy singing is also good).


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## Baron Opal (Sep 2, 2008)

I just listened to the podcast. It was very informative to hear where Mike was coming from. If this had been available three months ago there would have been a lot less angst in the gamer world, I think. HalWhitewyrm is right on the money with his assessment.

I would have dearly appreciated, however, Clyde editing out the dead air a bit. While there wasn't a lot of it, it would have been nice to have been able to just skip over it.


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## Clyde L. Rhoer (Sep 3, 2008)

Hey folks,    

Thanks so much for listening to my show. I just wanted to address a few things.    

*On Magic the Gathering* 
My point in bringing up Magic the Gathering was to point at how 4E seems to be focused more on team creation, than individual creation. It was an allusion which to my ear is how Mike took it. You can still make your unique snowflake I think, but effectiveness is no longer bound up in the individual in 4E. In my mind this is good for a game that has always focused on the players as a team.    

*On transcripts* 
I haven't checked since early this year, but if memory serves the cheapest transcription service I could find would charge somewhere around $60 to $100 to  transcribe this episode. I'm just a janitor, and have already sunk several grand in equipment, with more costs to come as I seek to improve on my hobby. Not to mention the careful saving i do to go to conventions... but I'd do that podcast or no podcast. I can't afford transcripts. I release my podcasts under a creative commons, share alike 3.0 license, so if any individual or group wants to foot the cost you are free to do so. Send me a link, so I can link to it. This might sound snarky, but it isn't. I use that license because I hoped people would find other uses for my stuff.    

*On my shoddy-ness* 
Folks complaining about my preparedness are absolutely right. I apologize, I've been sliding and frankly it's great to hear so many folks call me on it. I'll make sure to do it the old way in the future, where I have a clipboard with my reminders.  To give you an idea where I was at.... If I sleep four hours per 24 hour period at a con I'm doing well. This interview was on Saturday I believe, and I hadn't had four hours sleep since Tuesday. I just finished my ashcan which I was bringing to the Ashcan Front booth, on Monday, which means I was lacking sleep the weekend before. I was about ready to experience the Mad City I think. 

As an additional problem internet access at my hotel was $10 a day, so I had to spend $10 to pull up the questions I had got from Rob Donahue.    So what I'm trying to say is I dropped the ball, but I'm just a game-fan, like you, so hopefully you'll cut me some slack.    

*On lack of editing* 
I don't edit the content from the point I choose to drop the listener in the conversation. This is an aesthetic and practical decision. The practical part is that editing this would add, based on previous experience, at least four hours, which would bring editing time up to 6 or 8 hours. This is in addition to the 8 hours I've put into planning the show, including email coming up with questions, etc.  

The aesthetic side is even more important to me. I personally hate the cleanliness of our media, especially radio, and I'm not seeking to emulate that. I could edit to try to make myself sound smarter or better prepared, but I'm not interested in doing so. I want to hear real conversations, flaws and all. I want the equivalent to a punk show where the microphone might be giving feedback, but the show goes on because we've got a stage to dive off of, or invisible ninjas to fight, or a circle to run around in. Ugly, loud, but honest. I'm wanting to bring you a moment with all it's flaws, because I think that has more integrity. That's what I'm shooting for.  It's cool if you disagree.  I'll try to peek back in, I wanted to wait until the thread seemed to be winding down, as I wanted to see what people honestly thought. Thanks again. 

(Sorry, I can't get this to keep my spacing... I'm unsure of why but have spent too much time on it. Edit2: Strange this site loses my carriage returns when I use Linux, and Firefox but not OS X, and Safari.)


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 3, 2008)

Thanks for chiming in, Clyde!

I really like reading design diaries and designers talking about the "philosophy" behind what they created (or want to create), so I welcome your podcasts (even with the flaws mentioned in the thread). I am looking forward to see, err hear more of it.


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## Samuel Leming (Sep 3, 2008)

Baron Opal said:


> It was very informative to hear where Mike was coming from. If this had been available three months ago there would have been a lot less angst in the gamer world, I think. HalWhitewyrm is right on the money with his assessment.



Yeah, that would have been quite neighborly of them, but they wouldn't have sold as many core rulebooks if any of the designers had been this explicit before the launch.

I would certainly have canceled my preorder if I had heard this interview back then.

Well, anyway, it was a good interview and a great window into what the designers were considering.

Sam


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## lutecius (Sep 3, 2008)

yes that explains a lot, and it's consistent with M.Mearls' previous references to board games.

I didn't buy the books because i had the chance to read them beforehand but clarifying these design goals earlier would have spared us endless threads with comments like "oh, i don't see a change, dnd has always been that gamist /abstract"...


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 3, 2008)

lutecius said:


> yes that explains a lot, and it's consistent with M.Mearls' previous references to board games.
> 
> I didn't buy the books because i had the chance to read them beforehand but clarifying these design goals earlier would have spared us endless threads with comments like "oh, i don't see a change, dnd has always been that gamist /abstract"...




Sure? If people don't agree with the design goals, they might also disagree with the observations of Mike. 

What's interesting about these discussion is how different people perceived the D&D ruleset. I would never have expected "simulationist" gamers (if I had known this term already before the entire discussions came up) to see D&D belonging into that category, or being good at it. But I didn't begin my adventuring role-playing career with D&D and its hit points, levels and vancian magic. I started with Shadowrun, with the injury/damage system distinguishing between penetration and damage, nonlethal and lethal damage boxes, degrading explosions, recoil and stuff like that.
Getting over the entire level/hp system was a small feat in and on itself for me. (Though the vancian system proved to bother me most, for a variety of reason - and none of them was the fact that vancian spells itself are more interesting and varied then the stuff I knew from Shadowun).


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## Samuel Leming (Sep 4, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I would never have expected "simulationist" gamers (if I had known this term already before the entire discussions came up) to see D&D belonging into that category, or being good at it.



D&D is the original game of that category. Until the late nineties there were simply no other categories.

One problem is that the term "simulationist" enters our vocabulary by way of GNS theory and that theory defines simulationism in a very non-intuitive way.  Instead of using it to always mean some kind of adherence to reality, they used it to refer to players who only played RPGs with the goal of some kind of role playing. Players who wanted mainly to do thing in addition to or instead of role playing were Gamists or Narrativists depending on what those additional goals were.  They would have been better off using 'Roleplayist' instead of 'Simulationist', but that would have gone against their goal of claiming that Narrativism is legitimately role playing.

Anyway, using the term 'simulationist' has become a good way to NOT get one's point across because it's so likely that someone will have a differing definition from yours.

Getting back to the point, all those weird quantum rules from OD&D and AD&D were used as abstractions(abstractions do not automatically make a system  gamist) to resolve actions and keep things moving. They weren't put in there specifically to support players 'gaming the system' like what we see in 4e.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> But I didn't begin my adventuring role-playing career with D&D and its hit points, levels and vancian magic. I started with Shadowrun, with the injury/damage system distinguishing between penetration and damage, nonlethal and lethal damage boxes, degrading explosions, recoil and stuff like that.




Almost every subsequent RPG coming out soon after D&D was an attempt at better support for role playing by introducing more verisimilitude, usually through rules. Champions, Role Master, Gurps, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu... The only exception that quickly comes to mind is Palladium and that's more of a copy cat situation.  D&D was sold as the original role playing game, and almost everything that followed, until recently, were attempts at improving upon different aspects of that.

Sam


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## Fenes (Sep 4, 2008)

Shadowrun (which I started roleplaying with) is an abstract system, same as D&D. I don't really see wound levels ("So, a 5 cm cut to the hand is a light wound, meaning 1 box of damage. And I am dead at 10 boxes, meaning, 10 such cuts to the hand or arm?") as that more realistic (or "logical", or "simulationist" for some) than hit points. Both require a suspension of disbelief. And the less said about the relation between Shadowrun's firearm rules and the real world the better.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 4, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Shadowrun (which I started roleplaying with) is an abstract system, same as D&D. I don't really see wound levels ("So, a 5 cm cut to the hand is a light wound, meaning 1 box of damage. And I am dead at 10 boxes, meaning, 10 such cuts to the hand or arm?") as that more realistic (or "logical", or "simulationist" for some) than hit points. Both require a suspension of disbelief. And the less said about the relation between Shadowrun's firearm rules and the real world the better.




Well, I will not claim that Shadowrun was actually good at what it aimed to do, but it seemed to pretend it a lot better then D&D.



			
				Samuel Leming said:
			
		

> <snip>
> Almost every subsequent RPG coming out soon after D&D was an attempt at better support for role playing by introducing more verisimilitude, usually through rules. Champions, Role Master, Gurps, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu... The only exception that quickly comes to mind is Palladium and that's more of a copy cat situation. D&D was sold as the original role playing game, and almost everything that followed, until recently, were attempts at improving upon different aspects of that.



The question is - why did D&D never try to get "better" at this? Why did it keep mechanics that are so "in-the-face" lacking of verisimilitude like hit points or levels around? I can get classes in this context, because class and role are obviously closely related (well, at least they used to be), and you want to facilitate playing a role...


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## Fenes (Sep 4, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The question is - why did D&D never try to get "better" at this? Why did it keep mechanics that are so "in-the-face" lacking of verisimilitude like hit points or levels around? I can get classes in this context, because class and role are obviously closely related (well, at least they used to be), and you want to facilitate playing a role...




Because like Shadowrun, it needs to strike a balance between realism/simulationism and ease of play/fun/valid options. Ideally, the method and rules chosen allow for a wide range of playstyles. Shadowrun's 4E does this really well with their optional rules, IMHO. D&D has fallen behind in that point, with the options for different playstyles getting reduced. It remains to be seen if they'll open the system, or keep it as narrow and rigid as it currently is.


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## Samuel Leming (Sep 4, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The question is - why did D&D never try to get "better" at this?



They did try. Remember Non-Weapon Proficiencies   D&D 3.0 was a major step forward too.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Why did it keep mechanics that are so "in-the-face" lacking of verisimilitude like hit points or levels around?



Neither is "in your face".  They're just abstractions.  I've become tired of them at several times, but neither really snap my suspenders of disbelief.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> I can get classes in this context, because class and role are obviously closely related (well, at least they used to be), and you want to facilitate playing a role...



That's not quite what I mean by role. Usually by that I mean another person in another world.

Sam


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 4, 2008)

Samuel Leming said:


> They did try. Remember Non-Weapon Proficiencies   D&D 3.0 was a major step forward too.
> 
> Neither is "in your face".  They're just abstractions.  I've become tired of them at several times, but neither really snap my _suspenders of disbelief_.



 I see the term is catching on. 
They were a great disconnect for me at first, though I quickly got over it. And these days, I appreciate such abstractions. Of course, if I was to make my own perfect RPG system (and who active gamer doesn't sometimes want to do that?), I would try something else. 



> That's not quite what I mean by role. Usually by that I mean another person in another world.



Classes tend to define who you are in that world. They give "hints" on what or who you are. 
It's interesting how differently roles can be defined or understood in context of RPGs.
I remember reading a citation from Gary Gygax in the context of rewarding XP for role-playing - he seemed to closely associate roles and classes, and that playing a cowardly fighter or a cleric unwilling to heal his comrades should be "punished" with less XP. Which is certainly not how many other people would understand role-playing. A coward fighter or a priest unwilling to use his faith to the benefit of unbelievers would certainly not be associated with "bad role-playing" by some. It seemed as if Gary focused more on the "role in the party" then "role in the world" when he refered to role-playing, and regardless of whether you agree with him (or my description of his stance) or not - this sure has always been a certain conflict/confusion in the definition of what role-playing or what the "role" in role-playing games means.
This might also be a difference in the "GNS" debate.

Gamist might say "role-playing refers to the role I play in the party/game"
Simulationist might say "role refers to the role or kind of person I play in the RPG world"
Narrativist might say "role refers to my characters place in the story of the game".
The difference between "Sim" and "Narr" might seem an artifical one here  - if you're in the world, you're also in the story, and your role relates to both. The difference is certainly subtle and might be superficial. 
The "story" approach concludes a certain element of predetermination in what kind of stories and situations the PC will find himself, and where his experiences will lead him.
The "world" creates the background and motivations of the character (not that of the player) and sees how he will react to any situation handed to him. 

There is always a lot of overlap - if I am playing a Fighter, I can assume that my role in the party is to, well, fight. In the context of the world, I will be seen as a man that uses weapons and violence, and will be able to cope best with combat situations. In the story, I will be the one that will be involved in a lot of combat and will lead any battles that are to be fought.


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## lutecius (Sep 5, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Sure? If people don't agree with the design goals, they might also disagree with the observations of Mike.



hmm no. Not considering the fanboi attitude of many posters who defended that.
That would be implying 4e is not what the designers intended and that they screwed up somehow.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> What's interesting about these discussion is how different people perceived the D&D ruleset. I would never have expected "simulationist" gamers (if I had known this term already before the entire discussions came up) to see D&D belonging into that category, or being good at it.



I don't think dnd was that good at simulation before. The point is now it's worse.
Each previous edition was a step away from its wargamey origins, 4e is a step back. 
It bothers me precisely because dnd wasn't "sim" enough to my taste, even though i liked the base mechanics.
4e may be more streamlined, more balanced, more "fun", but it's definitely more abstract and gamist too.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> But I didn't begin my adventuring role-playing career with D&D and its hit points, levels and vancian magic. I started with Shadowrun, with the injury/damage system distinguishing between penetration and damage, nonlethal and lethal damage boxes, degrading explosions, recoil and stuff like that.



I'm not very familiar with shadowrun or the GSN definitions but to me "simulationism" doesn't necessarily mean detail and complexity, just that the rules represent something consistent "in game" and justifying them doesnt involve jumping through a series of hoops like 4e's Vancian combat and many powers do.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> Getting over the entire level/hp system was a small feat in and on itself for me. (Though the vancian system proved to bother me most, for a variety of reason - and none of them was the fact that vancian spells itself are more interesting and varied then the stuff I knew from Shadowun).



Like you must know by now, I loathe Vancian casting but i believe it was actually meant to simulate, well... Vancian magic, or at least it could be easily justified by "the quirky nature of magic".
From a purely gamist pov, a system that didn't require the whole party to rest every hour would have made more sense and a magic point system would have been more obvious.

Levels are not that hard to rationalize but the way xp were earned in AD&D, the multiclassing restrictions and skills being tied to your level certainly were.
The subsequent editions tried to alleviate these inconsistencies but 4e brought them back with the rigid classes and the new skill system.


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## pemerton (Sep 5, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> What's interesting about these discussion is how different people perceived the D&D ruleset. I would never have expected "simulationist" gamers (if I had known this term already before the entire discussions came up) to see D&D belonging into that category, or being good at it.



Have you read Ron Edward's essay on Dungeons and Dragons? It makes for an interesting read. He argues that there was recognisably narrativist play in D&D from the beginning, and obviously also gamist play, but that both mainstream D&D play, and also system design, gradually drifted in a recognisably simulationist direction.

However, I think most people who accept and deploy the GNS framework would argue that AD&D and 3rd ed D&D were, as published rulesets, "abashed" - that is, unable to deliver a coherent play experience unless drifted in one or another direction (either gamist or simulationist) in the course of play.

As a simulationist game, 3E involves a trade-off between "purist for system" (eg skill points, monster design rules, grapplilng mechanics etc - the mechanics are ingame causation) and "high concept" (eg levels, hit points, etc which deliver a cinematic experience via the mechanics without the need for metagame intervention/narration of the sort that 4e requires). I think the tension between these two design goals probably helps explain many of the love/hate feelilngs people have towards 3E.



Samuel Leming said:


> D&D is the original game of that category. Until the late nineties there were simply no other categories.



Leaving aside the fact that D&D was never an obviously simulationist game until AD&D, there was also Tunnels & Trolls, a self-consciously gamist game.



Samuel Leming said:


> Almost every subsequent RPG coming out soon after D&D was an attempt at better support for role playing by introducing more verisimilitude, usually through rules. Champions, Role Master, Gurps, Runequest, Call of Cthulhu...



Champions was played in a narrativist and a gamist fashion as well as in a simulationist fashion. Call of Cthulhu is simulationist, but not by way of verisimilitude ("purist for system"). It's goal is to deliver, via the mechanics without the need for metagaming, a certain genre experience.


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## ProfessorCirno (Sep 5, 2008)

> forge-isms




This is the TRUE face of The Forge and ALL that comes from it!

:3


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## pemerton (Sep 5, 2008)

That cartoon sent me to a Forge essay I hadn't read before ("The Nuked Apple Cart"). An interesting essay. I think Edwards is spot-on with his reference to "fiction thinly disguised as source material". This is an annoying feature of a lot of RPG supplements - there is no meaningful discussion of how to use the "source material" to actually play a game.

There is also the following final pragraph, which I found interesting:

As a final note: I am a customer as well as a designer of RPGs, in fact, far more so the former than the latter. As customers, too, each of us faces a personal decision: are you a practitioner of an artistic activity or a consumer of a advertising-driven product? I urge you to consider your role in roleplaying economics, and to consider whether a shelf of supplements and so-called source material really suits your needs, as opposed to a few slim roleplaying books with high-octane premises and system ideas.​
If my RPGing is art, it's not particularly good art. I don't think myself as particularly a victim of commercialism either. But because RPGing is a group activity, I am certainly constrained in the direction I can take my gaming by the tastes and preferences (genre, thematic, "artisitic") of those I game with.

Btw, I don't really understand the Forge-hate. The essays are comprehensible. Whether or not they're mostly true or mostly false is a matter of opinion, like so much else in the cultural sphere. But blatant attacks upon the Forge, or upon theorisation in general in the domain of RPGs, reminds me of attacks upon serious reviewing and theorisation in other domains of culture - a little bit knee-jerk and anti-intellectual.

If you don't like the New York Review of Books, don't read it. There's no real need to hate it. I'd say the same about the Forge.

Also, and just to come back on topic, the most recent discussion of "Kickers" - a Forgist technique set out be Edwards in his Sorcerer RPG - that I saw was one by Mearls, talking about his use of the technique in a 4e game.


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## ProfessorCirno (Sep 5, 2008)

People dislike the Forge for the exact reasons given in that comic - the "forgisms" are complete rubberish, the attitudes are pretentious _at best_, and there's always that hang over of "We SERIOUS gamers write SERIOUS essays on SERIOUS games; you should listen to us because we're SO IMPORTANT."

Gaming is a hobby.  Writing _several_ essays and coming up with your own silly terms that are ultimately meaningless is, well, silly.  Doing it and taking yourself seriously is REALLY silly.  Doing it and expecting others to take it seriously is insulting.  Doing it, expecting others to take it seriously, and then getting upset when they don't?  That's jerk behavior.

I mean, look at that paragraph you quoted.  What a joke!  Roleplaying economics?  "high-octane premises and system ideas?"  I find it immensely difficult to respect anyone who can use that paragraph with a straight face.  How much easier would it have been to say "D&D is the MAN.  FIGHT THE MAN.  FIGHT THE POWER!"  And hey, it's just as stupifyingly dumb, but without all the access baggage and wordage.


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## pemerton (Sep 5, 2008)

Prof Cirno, I assume you know that there are some people who go to arthouse cinemas and pay to see independently-produced films not because they always prefer those particular films to studio-produced ones, but because they support the notion of cultural diversity.

I myself subscribe to more political and cultural magazines than I have time to read, in order to support the existence of those magazines.

Ron Edwards is suggesting the same sort of outlook for RPGs. That is not remotely absurd or incomprehensible. Do I agree with him? In principle I have some sympathy; in practice I own a lot more mainstream than indie RPGing material, and I don't have a copy of Sorcerer.

As to high-octane premises and system ideas - obviously the 4e design team think there's something to be learned about system ideas from indie games, because skill challenges (and, to a lesser extent perhaps, other aspects of the 4e mechanics) incorporate some of those ideas. Likewise the idea of an explicit and metagame-heavy endgame (via Epic Destinies).

As to high-octane premises - in my view one thing that Ron Edwards underestimates in his discussion of the role of premise in roleplaying is that in many cases (especially, I think, fantasy RPGing) the premises that are easily addressed are closer to the aesthetic (or perhaps the ethical, in a broad sense of that word - what sort of life can be worthwhile?) than the moral premises that Edwards tends to focus on.

I think that 4e is better suited than earlier versions of D&D for addressing these sorts of premises, because the mechanics (of powers) automatically present the PC as a particular sort of heroic figure. Likewise for monsters - their powers automatically present them as a certain sort of villain. I think that these features of the system make an adventure like Heathen (Dungeon 155) more viable in 4e than in earlier versions of D&D (though I still think the designer squibs a bit at the end when he says "If one of the PCs decides to accept Naarash’s offer, the adventure is over and you’re on your own" - some suggestions here would help).

Finally, I don't see why it would follow from the fact that RPGs are a hobby that it is silly to try to engage in criticism of them (let alone why it is insulting to you that someone might expect to be taken seriously in doing so). Reading novels is a hobby for some, painting is a hobby for others - it doesn't follow that literary and art criticism are silly, nor that they are insulting to hobbyists. (Btw, do you regard all the langugage of criticism - "modernism", "abstract expressionism", "minimalism", etc - as meaningless, or only its use in the context of RPGs?)

Finally, and once again to stay on thread topic, Mearls has some interesting things to say in the podcast about the importance to him of thinking seriously about RPG design.


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## Delta (Sep 5, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The question is - why did D&D never try to get "better" at this? Why did it keep mechanics that are so "in-the-face" lacking of verisimilitude like hit points or levels around?




It definitely did. Consider OD&D Supplement II Blackmoor, 1975 -- it's got an entire system for Hit Locations and breaking down hit points/injuries by location on the body. Whole bunch of tables for different body types, attack direction, relative attacker/defender sizes, etc.

Of course, people found that too complicated to play, didn't use it, and it was discarded from the system. My experience of reading Dragon throughout the 80's was that the primary design debate was "realism vs. playability" (pre-"balance") -- people proposed adding pieces to make things more "realistic" until it bumped up against being infeasible at the play table. 

Hit points are, all things considered, a pretty easy-to-grok abstraction that's been used over and over in hundreds of RPGs and video games without the mass market complaining too much about it. (Seems like 3.5UA/SW had to learn the lesson over again with the Vitality/Wounds idea that came and went.) What we have with the core of AD&D/3E is a system, battle-tested over time, that's about as complicated as normal people can deal with at a table.


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## Samuel Leming (Sep 5, 2008)

This isn't a GNS terminalogy thread. There have certainly been enough of those so I'm not going to nitpick that garbage terminology here anymore.



pemerton said:


> Leaving aside the fact that D&D was never an obviously simulationist game until AD&D, there was also Tunnels & Trolls, a self-consciously gamist game.



A fact? Bullcrap!
D&D has ALWAYS been a role playing game!

I started playing back in 1977.  All we had were the little booklets and supplements, the AD&D Monster Manual & a bunch of coppies of stuff I really can't remember where it came from. Even back then, D&D was played as a RPG.

I've never played Tunnels & Trolls or even read it, but I've heard it was a RPG too.



pemerton said:


> Btw, I don't really understand the Forge-hate.



What? Really? You've stated a good reason for the recent bout of it right here:







pemerton said:


> ...the need for metagame intervention/narration of the sort that 4e requires



Add that to GNS/Big Theory being a steaming pile of nonsense and anyone should be able to understand it.



pemerton said:


> The essays are comprehensible. Whether or not they're mostly true or mostly false is a matter of opinion, like so much else in the cultural sphere. But blatant attacks upon the Forge, or upon theorisation in general in the domain of RPGs, reminds me of attacks upon serious reviewing and theorisation in other domains of culture - a little bit knee-jerk and anti-intellectual.



Don't you mean anti-pseudo-intellectual? I'm sure real honest attempts at theory are better received.

Really, Permerton, I do not object at all to your playstyle and I don't see where you say you object to mine. I do, however, object to this theory and the damage it has now done to our hobby.

That said, I can't see anything more that I can add to this thread that would be worth my effort.  I'll leave you guys to it. I'm out.

Sam


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## pemerton (Sep 5, 2008)

Samuel Leming said:


> This D&D has ALWAYS been a role playing game!
> 
> I started playing back in 1977.  All we had were the little booklets and supplements, the AD&D Monster Manual & a bunch of coppies of stuff I really can't remember where it came from. Even back then, D&D was played as a RPG.
> 
> I've never played Tunnels & Trolls or even read it, but I've heard it was a RPG too.



I didn't deny this.



Samuel Leming said:


> Really, Permerton, I do not object at all to your playstyle and I don't see where you say you object to mine.



I don't know what your playstyle is. If you've read a lot of my posts you might know a little bit about my playstyle, but I haven't said anything about it in this thread.



Samuel Leming said:


> I do, however, object to this theory and the damage it has now done to our hobby.



Are you referring here to 4e D&D? Or to something else that I've missed? If the former, I don't agree that 4e is damaging to the hobby.


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## Greg K (Sep 5, 2008)

mrswing said:


> Very good interview which proves 100% that my gut feeling was right:
> 
> Mike Mearls is my personal RPG nemesis.
> 
> ...




You pretty much described my reaction.  I loved the first two things that I had seen by Mike- The horribly named Myrmidon class from AEG's Mercenaries (still the best Warrior Mage class I have seen, imo)  and Malhavoc's Book of Iron Might.  Some of his other early stuff for the third party companies were also decent.  So, when he went to WOTC, I thought it was a good thing and he would improve their products (and like others I thought he was brought in to work on 4e DND).

 Word of Iron Heroes had me excited.  The Book of Iron Might was a starting point and it the design goals had me interested. 

My excitement regarding IH was shortlived. I actually saw Iron Heroes and one of Mearls's design journals at montecook.com (or was it a link to one on his journal?) and, suddenly,  I had a feeling that I was going to regret his going to WOTC.  That has turned out to be the case.  Since Iron Heroes, I haven't seen anything from him that  I like. Furthermore as you mentioned, he and the design team identified many of the problems of 3e, but their solutions, imo and that of my gaming friends from various groups as with your opinion, is that they almost always went completely in the wrong direction and were "unpalatable".  However as you also point out a number of other people disagree, but online I am beginning to see a growing number of people online (not a majority) becoming disenchanted with 4e the more they play it ( I really want to see polls in a year to see where people on these boards stand one way or the other).


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## Greg K (Sep 5, 2008)

Delta said:


> What we have with the core of AD&D/3E is a system, battle-tested over time, that's about as complicated as normal people can deal with at a table.



Speak for yourself.  The only thing that you can be sure of is that it's as complicated as you and your friends want to get.  The gamers I have met generally prefer Wound levels,  Damage/Toughness Saves (Mutants and masterminds/ True20) or other conditions tracks once they have some experience with it.  Who are either of us to actually say which group comprises normal people.


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## Fenes (Sep 5, 2008)

Greg K said:


> Speak for yourself.  The only thing that you can be sure of is that it's as complicated as you and your friends want to get.  The gamers I have met generally prefer Wound levels,  Damage/Toughness Saves (Mutants and masterminds/ True20) or other conditions tracks once they have some experience with it.  Who are either of us to actually say which group comprises normal people.




Almost every MMORPG uses hit points to track damage, and a lot more people play MMOGs than pen and paper. That doesn't mean those are normal and the others are abnormal, but one can safely say that hit points are far more known and accepted than wound levels.


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## Greg K (Sep 5, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Almost every MMORPG uses hit points to track damage, and a lot more people play MMOGs than pen and paper. That doesn't mean those are normal and the others are abnormal, but one can safely say that hit points are far more known and accepted than wound levels.




Correct, and if the person I had responded to had said that it was more common I would have had no objections. My objection was to the claim that hit points are as complicated as *normal* people can deal with at the table.


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## Fenes (Sep 5, 2008)

Greg K said:


> Correct, and if the person I had responded to had said that it was more common I would have had no objections. My objection was to the claim that hit points are as complicated as *normal* people can deal with at the table.




I think it's more about what normal people _want _to deal with at the table. hit points are common, well known, and very easy to understand, and people generally tend to favor the familiar over the unfamiliar.

That doesn't mean that normal people actually want hit points instead of wound levels because wound levels are too complicated. But it explains why punlishers and developpers would think so.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 5, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Almost every MMORPG uses hit points to track damage, and a lot more people play MMOGs than pen and paper. That doesn't mean those are normal and the others are abnormal, but one can safely say that hit points are far more known and accepted than wound levels.




"Ablative Hit Points" as in D&D, or just a measure to determine damage taken? I was more talking about this ablative concept. IIRC, Warhammer uses the term "hit points", too, but in Warhammer, at every level a single hit can easily kill or drop you. 

---

I am not sure I like the whole GNS system. I think it provides some interesting hints, but sometimes I fear it's also locking down alternatives views. 
What I don't agree with is the idea that games need to be "pure" in any of these regards. I think most good games mix all aspects to some extent. 

The perfect game for me would probably use a "simulationist" framework - trying to model something we can relate to in the real world, without getting overly complicated, and adds a gamist/narrative layer to establish themes and game balance. 

Torg is pretty close to that - wounds and shock points seem to model something more or less "realistic", but possibilities are a gamist resource (but also a narrative concept, since it basically allows you to describe your "stake" in any situation - though the "plot" cards from the drama deck are more so) that allow you to negate it, circumventing the normal "physics" of the world.


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## Delta (Sep 5, 2008)

Greg K said:


> Speak for yourself. The only thing that you can be sure of is that it's as complicated as you and your friends want to get.




This isn't about what I want. It's about looking at the history of what games have been most successful, and retained their core injury model over the greatest amount of time (in the face of experimentation).


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## AllisterH (Sep 5, 2008)

I will point out again, Wound levels do NOT work well with the heroic-nature of D&D.

Pendragon, hell yeah.

D&D where you start off as a peasant and a dog can be a legitiame threat but eventally kick enough butt to slap down a god?

Hell no.


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## Fenes (Sep 5, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The perfect game for me would probably use a "simulationist" framework - trying to model something we can relate to in the real world, without getting overly complicated, and adds a gamist/narrative layer to establish themes and game balance.




The perfect game for me would be flexible enough to allow a great number of variants to allow players to pick the sort of game they want to play.


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## Dausuul (Sep 5, 2008)

lutecius said:


> Levels are not that hard to rationalize but the way xp were earned in AD&D, the multiclassing restrictions and skills being tied to your level certainly were.
> The subsequent editions tried to alleviate these inconsistencies but 4e brought them back with the rigid classes and the new skill system.




...Oh really?  How exactly do you rationalize levels, then?  In particular, how do you rationalize PCs gaining ten or twenty levels in a matter of months, with all the attendant benefits?

To me, the level system has always been the single most verisimilitude-breaking element of D&D.  One really has to just avoid ever thinking about it, because if one stops to give it even a moment of consideration, it's patently ludicrous.


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## Dausuul (Sep 5, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Almost every MMORPG uses hit points to track damage, and a lot more people play MMOGs than pen and paper. That doesn't mean those are normal and the others are abnormal, but one can safely say that hit points are far more known and accepted than wound levels.




The irony here is that MMOs could handle wound levels and hit location tracking without a hiccup, since the most complicated PnP system ever devised is child's play for a computer.  But MMOs are still very much stuck in the D&D mold - hit points, levels, classes, XP for killing stuff, and so on - and have yet to really break out and explore the options the new medium offers them.

I think I'll go on the Blizzard forums and start grousing about how WoW is just like D&D.



pemerton said:


> As to high-octane premises and system ideas - obviously the 4e design team think there's something to be learned about system ideas from indie games, because skill challenges (and, to a lesser extent perhaps, other aspects of the 4e mechanics) incorporate some of those ideas. Likewise the idea of an explicit and metagame-heavy endgame (via Epic Destinies).




Have you ever read the BECMI rules (also known as Basic or Classic D&D)?  Epic Destinies are a direct rip-off of the "paths to immortality" from that ruleset.  It's got nothing to do with indie gaming - it's a throwback to old-school D&D.  Unless there was an indie game scene in 1985.

I don't know about skill challenges; those may in fact have been taken from indie games.  Or they may have been the result of experiments within WotC.

I see nothing wrong with RPG criticism and theories of gaming per se, but most GNS discussion strikes me as incredibly pretentious and vague, throwing around a lot of big words and trying to avoid giving a clear definition of anything.  Add to that the fact that GNS has an extremely high ratio of theory to data, and I can't help but suspect that it's all a lot of hot air.

Contrast this with what Mike Mearls and other WotC designers have said about the craft of game design.  It's easy to understand what they're saying, because it's grounded in actual play experience and is concentrated on getting specific and visible results.  You may or may not agree with their results, but you can at least understand them.


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## Dausuul (Sep 5, 2008)

Fenes said:


> Almost every MMORPG uses hit points to track damage, and a lot more people play MMOGs than pen and paper. That doesn't mean those are normal and the others are abnormal, but one can safely say that hit points are far more known and accepted than wound levels.




The irony here is that MMOs could handle wound levels and hit location tracking without a hiccup, since the most complicated PnP system ever devised is child's play for a computer.


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## pemerton (Sep 6, 2008)

Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> What I don't agree with is the idea that games need to be "pure" in any of these regards. I think most good games mix all aspects to some extent.



I don't know that I agree entirely with the second sentence, but I think that much of what makes a game suitable for gamist play (ie player empowerment, either in the character build or action resolution mechanics) also facilitates narrativism - though reward mechanics don't necessarily straddle this divide well.

EDIT: Another cross-over mechanic is RM melee combat resolution. A player may allocate some of his/her PC's combat bonus to defence, using the rest to attack. This is, in effect, a conflict resolution mechanic: the player "sets the stakes" by choosing the degree of defence, and by staking more (ie taking the risks of low defence) can get a bigger payoff (ie by attacking with a bigger offence bonus). Thus the very same mechanic satisfies purist-for-system instincts and facilitates a (very narrowly focused) narrativism.



Mustrum_Ridcully said:


> The perfect game for me would probably use a "simulationist" framework - trying to model something we can relate to in the real world, without getting overly complicated, and adds a gamist/narrative layer to establish themes and game balance.
> 
> Torg is pretty close to that



HARP is also like this - simulationist mechanics (resembling RM in many respects, although very streamlined) but with a narrativist Fate Point mechanic and reward system. (Though the design of the game has certain minor incoherences eg it can't decide if character build rules should be understood as simulationist a la RM, or as purely metagame as would make sense for narrativist play).

TRoS is another example, though it doesn't use Fate Points/Possibilities - the Spiritual Attributes are more tightly integrated as both action resolution and reward mechanic.


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## pemerton (Sep 6, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> Have you ever read the BECMI rules (also known as Basic or Classic D&D)?  Epic Destinies are a direct rip-off of the "paths to immortality" from that ruleset.  It's got nothing to do with indie gaming - it's a throwback to old-school D&D.  Unless there was an indie game scene in 1985.



Yes, I've read them. I've never really got an "endgame" vibe from the paths to immortality, but I imagine they could be played that way (as could the stronghold rules from 1st ed AD&D, I guess).



Dausuul said:


> I see nothing wrong with RPG criticism and theories of gaming per se, but most GNS discussion strikes me as incredibly pretentious and vague, throwing around a lot of big words and trying to avoid giving a clear definition of anything.



Fair enough. I find the major essays reasonably clear, myself. As is fairly typical for criticism, the definitions tend to emerge in the course of use rather than in the glossary. The glossary is in my view not all that helpful.



Dausuul said:


> Contrast this with what Mike Mearls and other WotC designers have said about the craft of game design.  It's easy to understand what they're saying, because it's grounded in actual play experience and is concentrated on getting specific and visible results.  You may or may not agree with their results, but you can at least understand them.



Mearls I find quite clear, especially in the old Monster Makeover columns. Rob Heinsoo I don't find all that clear. W&M I found pretty clear, but I don't know who wrote that.

I guess for me, the bottom line about the Forge essays is that they give me a framework better than any other that I know for understanding my own gaming preferences (mostly "purist for system" simulationism in action resolution, but vanilla narrativism supported by character build rules and a high degree of player participation in shaping the story of the campaign - hence, despite all its flaws, RM has for a long time been my main RPG) and how various sorts of mechanics work for or against those preferences, for understanding new games, and for working out where people are coming from in the 4e design debates. When a framework for analysis pays off, I keep using it.

I know you didn't use the language of "insult", but I'll say something about that as well. I play one of the most hardcore simulationist games out there, namely, Rolemaster, and I've never felt remotely insulted by Ron Edwards' essays on the relationship between mechanics and payoff from gaming. Perhaps its because of the vanilla narrativism my group uses RM for - I don't know. But I find this "insulting" thing strange.


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## radferth (Sep 10, 2008)

darjr said:


> What about that dive through Moria? What about that escape from the goblins caves under the mountains?
> 
> Dungeon delves by a ragtag, oddball mix of characters.
> 
> ...




I'm a big LotR fan, and have no problem with the Tolkien-characters-have-Vance/Howard/Moorcock-adventures that pervades much of D&D, but I must assert that nothing I have read puts me in mind of a dungeon crawl half as much as Howard's Red Nails.  The PCs (Conan and Valeria) stumble across a lost city that is one big building, and discover 2 waring groups who scavenge the lower chambers for magic items to use against each other.


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## Mustrum_Ridcully (Sep 11, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> The irony here is that MMOs could handle wound levels and hit location tracking without a hiccup, since the most complicated PnP system ever devised is child's play for a computer.  But MMOs are still very much stuck in the D&D mold - hit points, levels, classes, XP for killing stuff, and so on - and have yet to really break out and explore the options the new medium offers them.
> 
> I think I'll go on the Blizzard forums and start grousing about how WoW is just like D&D.
> 
> ...



I haven't played enough games or long enough, but Torg (release 1990) is the oldest one I played that a skill challenge like mechanic. 

[sblock=Torg Skill Challenges]
It is different from D&D 4 or other similar approaches, I suppose, since it relies on the Drama Deck. Basically, you run normal initiative, drawing one initiative card each round as usual. The card also notes one or more of the letters A,B,C,D,E. You must get all letters in order, and roll one skill check for each. If you get a B without an A, you don't get further. If you get an ABC, you can get all 3, assuming you take 3 actions that round (which you can, you take cumulative penalties for each action) and succeed all 3 checks (you don't have to succeed all 3).
Initiative Cards have a few side effects - you can get a setback, which will remove your progress and might even lead to it becoming impossible to finish the challenge.
As far as I know, Torg usually doesn't use multiple skills per dramatic skill resolution, but that could be easily done.

Not too seldom, skill challenges happen as part of a combat encounter. (One of the last example I have in mind was one where we had to stop the deletion process for data we wanted to acquire while being attacked by two heavily armed robot drones, forcing one of the characters (interestingly, the mage, who had no idea about computers but was the only one with some scientific understanding) do deal with the challenge instead of the robots. 
[/sblock]


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## Nom (Sep 11, 2008)

If we're talking "Sim", we really should make a distinction between what I term "Concretism" and "World Sim".  "Concretism" is when the game rules are in some way defining how the world actually works ("simulating" it).  "World Sim" is purity of setting, maintaining an idea of realism regardless of the underlying mechanics.  Edwards seems more interested in the latter than the former, though he certainly mentions both.

Mearls refers to this in the interview also, when he talks about pre-4E limiting the spell recharge mechanic (resting) in Sim rather than mechanics.  That is, spell recharge is limited by how the gameworld works rather than any rules metric.  He also notes that this fails if you're not engaging in some sort of purity of setting (ie Sim-focused) play.

It seems to me that D&D4 takes the view that it's better to build a good game than a clunky world model.  Get the game mechanics (and Gamist) play solid, and let players branch off into Sim or Nar play as they like.  This makes for a game that is very non-concrete, but I don't think it actually makes D&D4 any worse for "purity of setting" than prior editions.  In this I agree with Edwards; using rules to force Sim play on Gamist play ends up with an overblown and clunky ruleset, and creates more loopholes for gamist play to exploit.  Increasing the amount of concretist modelling just complexifies your mechanics without actually doing much to achieve "realistic" gameplay.

I see an analogy here to miniatures historical Wargaming.  At some point, you need to decide whether your system goal is to model what would have happened historically (Sim) or to make a robust game (Gamist).  If primarily making a game, you want simple, robust and predictable mechanics with plenty of room for tactical exploration.  If primarily Sim, you be up front that you expect the game to be played with certain "realistic" biases and that powergaming the rules will almost certainly break them.


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## Goumindong (Sep 11, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> The irony here is that MMOs could handle wound levels and hit location tracking without a hiccup, since the most complicated PnP system ever devised is child's play for a computer.  But MMOs are still very much stuck in the D&D mold - hit points, levels, classes, XP for killing stuff, and so on - and have yet to really break out and explore the options the new medium offers them.




Actually they cannot. The servers are not powerful enough to cope with the strain that it would cause. They have problems enough coping with the current load, let alone increasing the complexity and number of calculations and client-server data transactions.

Single player RPG's and sims can do it, and single player RPGs sims sometimes do, but that is just a question of the type of game you want to be playing rather than any limitations based on computational power.


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## Dausuul (Sep 11, 2008)

Goumindong said:


> Actually they cannot. The servers are not powerful enough to cope with the strain that it would cause. They have problems enough coping with the current load, let alone increasing the complexity and number of calculations and client-server data transactions.




Really?  MMOs have been around for a good ten years or so now.  Seems like computers have advanced enough in that time that they ought to be able to handle a bit more number-crunching.  (Though, admittedly, they also have many more players.)


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## The Little Raven (Sep 11, 2008)

Dausuul said:


> Really?  MMOs have been around for a good ten years or so now.  Seems like computers have advanced enough in that time that they ought to be able to handle a bit more number-crunching.  (Though, admittedly, they also have many more players.)




It's less a matter of computer processing power and more a matter of information transfer, especially here in the States.


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## wedgeski (Sep 11, 2008)

The Little Raven said:


> It's less a matter of computer processing power and more a matter of information transfer, especially here in the States.



Exactly. The more processing the servers do of the world, the more bandwidth is required to communicate all those complexities to the clients, and the more vulnerable the game experience becomes to latency. The internet itself is the throttle, not the power of the server.


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## pemerton (Sep 11, 2008)

Nom said:


> If we're talking "Sim", we really should make a distinction between what I term "Concretism" and "World Sim".  "Concretism" is when the game rules are in some way defining how the world actually works ("simulating" it).  "World Sim" is purity of setting, maintaining an idea of realism regardless of the underlying mechanics.  Edwards seems more interested in the latter than the former, though he certainly mentions both.



I enjoyed this post - thanks. On "concrete" vs "world" simulation, I think that, to an extent, this can depend upon the details of the action resolution mechanics. The more inticrate the action resolution mechanics, the more that "world sim" become unnecessary, as the "concrete sim" of the action resolution mechanics forces the same sort of outcomes onto the game (for example: 1st ed AD&D relies upon "world sim" to make the PCs refrain from marching or fighting through heavy rain; Rolemaster uses "concrete sim" action resolution mechanics, namely, penalties to the dice roll, to bring about the same ingame result).

But I agree with you that trying to use "concrete sim" to force "world-sim"-like outcomes is prone to produce a clunky ruleset.


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## Abisashi (Sep 11, 2008)

Does anyone have a link to the black-box thread Mearls talked about in this interview?


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## Beginning of the End (Sep 12, 2008)

darjr said:


> What about that dive through Moria? What about that escape from the goblins caves under the mountains? Dungeon delves by a ragtag, oddball mix of characters. That is a whole whopping serving of D&D right there. Do Howard, Vance, or Moorcock ever really get THAT close to the game?




Howard's "Red Nails" is pretty much a D&D dungeon crawl.

But I basically agree with your point. A lot of people seem to be heavily invested in Gygax's denial of LOTR's influence on D&D's design... based entirely on an editorial he wrote _after getting successfully sued by the Tolkien Estate_.

My two cents on the general topic of Mike Mearls: I knew something had gone seriously wrong when the guy responsible for designing some of the best 3rd Edition stunting systems was suddenly posting blog entries talking about what a waste of time stunting systems were.


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## amethal (Sep 12, 2008)

Nom said:


> If we're talking "Sim", we really should make a distinction between what I term "Concretism" and "World Sim".  "Concretism" is when the game rules are in some way defining how the world actually works ("simulating" it).  "World Sim" is purity of setting, maintaining an idea of realism regardless of the underlying mechanics.



This kind of thing is the reason why I find the Forge jargon so confusing.

So Sim actually has two opposite meanings, and what I thought of as "Sim" was actually "World Sim".

And if someone says "purity of setting" what they mean is World Sim, which is what I thought was simulation(ism).


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## VictorC (Sep 12, 2008)

While I enjoyed hearing Mearls discuss 4e, the interviewer was the worst ever. I will never listen to another "Theory's Form the Closet." I forget his name, but he seriously needs to work on being prepared for interviews... just dreadful.


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## Nom (Sep 13, 2008)

amethal said:


> This kind of thing is the reason why I find the Forge jargon so confusing.
> 
> So Sim actually has two opposite meanings, and what I thought of as "Sim" was actually "World Sim".
> 
> And if someone says "purity of setting" what they mean is World Sim, which is what I thought was simulation(ism).



Yeah, the use of the term "Simlulationism" wasn't the best choice by Edwards.  As he uses it, it's primarily focused on "pure" roleplaying, without a metagame agenda like challenge / winning (Gamism) or exploring a theme (Narrativism).  But most people use "Simulation" to mean "mechanics map directly to world model".

The concepts are related, but they are not the same thing.  It took me quite a while to figure out what he meant by "Simulationist".  It's why I coined the term "concretist" to talk about closely coupled mechanics and model, as distinct from "abstractionist", which is where the world model and the resolution mechanism don't try to mirror one another.


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## Stalker0 (Sep 13, 2008)

VictorC said:


> While I enjoyed hearing Mearls discuss 4e, the interviewer was the worst ever. I will never listen to another "Theory's Form the Closet." I forget his name, but he seriously needs to work on being prepared for interviews... just dreadful.




Glad I wasn't the only one who thought so.


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## Jhaelen (Sep 15, 2008)

VictorC said:


> While I enjoyed hearing Mearls discuss 4e, the interviewer was the worst ever. I will never listen to another "Theory's Form the Closet." I forget his name, but he seriously needs to work on being prepared for interviews... just dreadful.



I think you'd dislike pretty much every interview if it wasn't edited.

I agree that listening to an edited interview is more convenient but I respect the interviewer's choice to give us the 'real thing'. I think it's such an interesting interview precisely because it isn't a staged one, like the once you get on WotC's web site.

Besides he already gave an explanation for his lack of preparation on this one.


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## VictorC (Sep 17, 2008)

Jhaelen said:


> I think you'd dislike pretty much every interview if it wasn't edited.




Maybe, but probably not as much as I disliked this one.



Jhaelen said:


> I agree that listening to an edited interview is more convenient but I respect the interviewer's choice to give us the 'real thing'. I think it's such an interesting interview precisely because it isn't a staged one, like the once you get on WotC's web site.




Ummmming and Uhhhhhhing is just as far from the 'real thing' as you can get. If lack of any sort of production value is a benefit in your opinion, I wager you find yourself in the minority.



Jhaelen said:


> Besides he already gave an explanation for his lack of preparation on this one.




His excuse was the perhaps saddest excuse I may have ever heard anybody give about anything. He couldn't have taken five or 10 minutes before hand and written his friends questions from the e-mail on index cards.

No, his explanation was hardly acceptable.


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## Toras (Sep 17, 2008)

I am pretty certain that Mike is pretty much left me and mine in the dust.  I could not articulate it more clearly than what he has said.   He is my anti-designer to make it a quip.   Angrys up the blood.  

No offense to anyone who likes what he does, but gah.


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## Fenes (Sep 17, 2008)

Anyone got cliff notes of his interview?


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