Five Generations of D&D Design

Here's your seminar on 5 Generations of D&D Designer @mikemearls https://t.co/vZb5FieTtF pic.twitter.com/VVs5Pac4P1

— Benjamin Riggs (@BenRiggs_) March 20, 2018

I had the honor of moderating a panel at Gary Con with designers who worked on every edition in the AD&D design tree. Check it out.
ladies and gentlemen boys and girls
small children and gifted woodland
animals welcome once again to Platt
points I and then Riggs here with you as
always live as the Internet can be I’m
here today dropping some audio I
recorded last week at Gary Khan in ye
olde Lake Geneva Wisconsin home of TSR
birthplace of dungeons and dragons I
recorded a seminar called five
generations of Dungeons & Dragons
designers and it was amazing it had it
had luminaries from every era of
Dungeons and Dragons the seventies the
80s the 90s of the aughts
and the present-day furthermore it
contained a number of nuggets of wisdom
for example the designers observed that
Dungeons & Dragons art has really
dramatically changed over time and how
early on the art was instructive and
Jodee players often running away from
things and showed characters in peril
and over time it grew to be more and
more triumphant so that you know by the
time you have the second edition players
handbook coming out the illustration
that you see first inside the book is a
party that clearly just killed a small
dragon and they have a box of gold and
they all look happy and excited there’s
wisdom about the accretion of rules and
supplements and how problematic that
gets to be over time the designers also
chew over the changing definition of the
word campaign but the most interesting
thing that happened to me was 95 minutes
in Mike Merle’s the current fifth
edition designer very casually mentions
that they aren’t gonna do psionics rules
until they do dark Sun and the way he
phrased it is very very clear he said
not if they do dark Sun but when they do
dark Sun later an audience member asked
him a follow-up question about it and
Morrell said okay I don’t have any
product announcements to make today
but that’s not a denial I certainly
think it’s a little slip-up which may
have given us a peek into what is coming
from Wizards of the coast so if you’re a
Dark Sun fan I think that you have
reason to get very very excited if
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enjoying the show with that five
generations of D&D designers bye bye
okay all right so welcome to five
generations of DME design or four or six
or everyone a slicing so the idea behind
this panel is no skips here we go it’s
good you know so the idea behind the
panel was just get together people who
worked on DMV over the years and try to
get his comprehensive a stretch from the
games days in the 70s when it started
out to today so I’m Mike Morris I’m the
current creative director on hip
addition I thought why don’t we start
with skin and I’m gonna pick intro and
we’ll just skip Williams these great old
column called save advice we’ve had a
few readers did not work on original DNA
but did something on every other edition
of 33.5 and actually actually hey since
this is like all the editions when did
you start working with TSR okay so yeah
we got to establish the bona fides very
good say something or I’m only a one
maybe the mistake of saying online we
didn’t like the Lord of the Rings I
don’t think that’s really true
as we talked about fantasy or a lot cuz
we’ll talk about that later that’s gonna
be one of the topics it is the influence
yeah because I’m throwing that it’s
moving on my name is John Vince I kind
of the editorial end of things I went to
work 40s are the year 1980 I was active
as a gamer with the indie ever since it
came out in 74 or was actually
anticipating it because the 1973
chainmail was the hit of the Gen Con
convention I know I brought that home
and we had heard that D&D was on the way
and I next year I bought that I maintain
correspondence rules questions a lot of
them with Gary over the over it’s about
game before the Internet
yes letters and Gary’s would scribble
back he’d answer the questions in pencil
on my little typewritten letters these
people back notes and pencils and it was
kind of interesting so when I was when I
was in college I was we basically you
know brought the D&D to the college
campus and that’s where Bob wait you
like some of you might know got involved
in the game and let’s move through the
introductions right we get on the
reminiscing thank you for coming
so I started in 1979 basically back when
they really decided they needed to
actually have a design department and so
it’s like about the second or so
designer that they hired which was you
know kind of interesting because they
had no concept of what it really what
you know what they really needed to hire
for a designer until I got lucky and I
worked there through 95 I believe and
obviously worked did the second edition
stuff and left before Watts he bought up
everything and the world changed so I
started playing D&D as it was coming out
I should say her name I’m ed Stark I
started playing being the banker started
coming out and we picked up the the hard
covers and as they were being released
it’s tough when I lived in northeastern
Pennsylvania so I had no concept of the
idea of coming to Gen Con or doing
anything at like that that was just like
oh we see the dragon magazines with the
schedules and be like oh I’d love to do
this but after I went and spent my waste
of my education getting a couple of
master’s degree in unrelated fields I
decided to become a game designer and
worked for from 1990 to 95 at company
called West End games doing Star Wars
toward paranoia all that sort of stuff
but then I went to TSR where I was
recruited to be a lead designer in the
worlds group working primarily on
birthright occasionally Planescape stuff
like that that’s very good to meet John
and skip and I replaced Zeb and Jeff
because they they got out of there when
as soon as I heard I was coming and I
got the I was the creative director for
the third edition and three point five
design teams skip failed to mention he
was the lead designer on the monster may
know there and John if it had the word
compendium in it the man was in charge
you know so just just keep that in mind
and then about the time I worked on some
fourth edition stuff pre-release and
then I moved into the computer game
industry where
no I’m Steeve winter
I started at TSR in 1981 and I was there
through 97 I started as an editor and I
kind of did a whole lot of different
things managing editor I was the
creative director a D&D by the through
most of the 90s it was human a lot of
the second edition yeah rectory
and then the company moved to Seattle
and I stayed in Wisconsin but eventually
I wound up in the Seattle anyway and
worked for Wizards of the coast for
quite a few years as well in various
capacities so Joe I gotta ask you
mentioned working on the DNA open and
skip you mention you you were oh yeah
sorry I’m Mike burrows I’m the creative
director on fifth edition I started
working on D and E on oh five worked on
three five fourth and then led dip so
and Here I am today Mike actually led
the development team which we didn’t
have prior to that really I mean we’ve
done development kind of as a yeah but
it became much more formalized when you
were there
yeah and it’s funny cuz then I was the
one who got rid we had a development
team and then we decide the idea design
designers create stuff developers refine
it so that it work to the rest of the
system and we kind of hit a point where
like Dedes getting steamy so complicated
you need an entire team to track the
rules that we’re probably doing
something wrong with how the game
involves over years yeah but I just it
was kind of funny again but it was it
was necessary then because we’re also
putting out like like 90 so what do you
want to ask I can do Jesse as you’re
talking about like where you started how
many of you do know each other before
working at s-sarah know like through Gen
Con or anything no no I I knew none of
these people beforehand I I had met skip
and John but not until I got into the
computer into the actual game design
industry like at various Jenkins and
things but no I don’t think I don’t
think Zeb and I actually met until after
he left TS are in fact okay
I’m thinking maybe skipper tonight why
you’re seeing each other
somebody early Jed Khan’s before I went
to work for the company if you see him
in the hall basically type of thing
well yeah remember that yeah our part of
cultural hall is a lot bigger than this
what I wanted to start with was skip you
mentioned this about with Lord of the
Rings stuff so when you’re working on
DMV starting in the 70s and across the
years what did you feel we’re some of
the biggest influences on the game from
outside of gaming Howard I think it was
gave us more D&D I mean I think over the
years particularly at the start but even
over the years we always were taking
stuff from other things because you
figure people read or see the fiction
you want to play that that’s that’s what
you want to do so yeah Elric makes an
appearance and yeah so Elric I never got
the impression was big with Gary but he
was certainly big with some of other
people like in the early design
department i mauvais it was Tom MoBay
was a very big kind of Pulp and science
fiction and fantasy fan of especially if
early period so you got a lot from him
you got a lot of like Clark castien
dismissed and and a lot more of The
Weird Tales kinds of things the weird
fantasy Lawrence who was the design
director kind of for a while at the time
and round 1980 through 81 or 79 to 81
yeah he was also very much that and so
introduced a lot of a lot of us too to
these kinds of things me I was I was
very much a a pulp and you know again
all this kind of classic fantasy that’s
already been been mentioned and that’s a
prog decamp to was a you know I’ve read
a lot of that sort of thing in my
opinion no one is really qualified to
discuss the AED plan magic system unless
you have read the Jack Vance
particularly the book the dying earth
that title there are two things of great
note in the dying earth in addition to
the magic system number one there’s this
wonderful little story called liang
liang the wayfarer which is and i think
it’s kind of an essay in player
arrogance and the belief that having the
right equipment loadout we’ll let you
triumph in the end another really fun
one is the first story the book is
called
turgid Turgeon and yeah he’s one of the
mages and he is trying to create life
and in his quest
to do so he essentially has an encounter
with an alien entity of like demigod
powers and their conversation is very
very classic highly recommended reading
another fun thing about Jack Vance is
that even the monsters in his books are
very very civil you know you’ll get an
encounter where you’ll have a wizard and
a deep demonic character chatting away
it sounds like they’re in an English
drawing room until you realize what’s
actually being discussed is whether that
demon is going to eat that wizard do you
think that influenced the idea of D&D as
a control playing games like a good
going beyond just you know starting with
chainmail on the side a discount yeah
because if you if you were to play Jack
Vance you’re putting up fancy and truly
dancing in game everything we’d be a
role-playing encounter you’ve met
there’s combat yeah so from your
perspective so Steve and Zeb you work on
second edition and then Edie coming in
in the 90s did those in a second as well
they work on the actual oh yeah a lot
yeah but the influences change over the
years did you feel like that those were
still really driving what influenced the
game or do you feel like there were that
started to evolve like was there more I
know my impression of second dition was
there’s a lot more attention paid not
necessary historical accuracy but
thinking about historical roles and how
that would influence the game like them
well I was I was kind of a history nut
yeah I mean I’ve commented places Zeb
you know hardly ever saw Zeb what he
didn’t have a paperback edition of like
Viking sagas or something tucked in his
back pocket was so or you know the book
of the Khazar Zand things like that yeah
and so yes I was something fifty note so
I don’t know is it attentionally
happened but it you know it was in part
I think trying to give a little more you
know
oh here’s Lacan eight here you can be a
con eater and so it was a little bit
more of an effort to explain to people
who didn’t necessarily understand all
the terms and everything you know kind
of what those were about and how how you
could use in a way to make sense I also
got really easily offended by you know
bad sloppy world-building that put down
the video oh here I’m gonna put a bunch
of monks here right now you know even
monks here right next to this you know
massive european culture and not really
you know consider that you know it
doesn’t work that way
something I noticed late in second
edition you’re coming in from another
gaming company and then getting work on
it was toward the end things became very
campaign world specific you know and
very much trying to like let’s make
Forgotten Realms more Forgotten Realms
like you had dark son you had birthright
like the one that I worked on the most
was trying to be very sort of alternate
historical sort of fantasy you know
because each of the each of the realms
was very thinly you know taken from the
existing worlds and history and it was
in a lot of ways you know we had a novel
that was basically you know Catherine of
Aragon and you know we had stuff
replaying the War of the Roses and
everything so there’s a lot of stuff
taken from history to try and do that
and I think the other worlds did some of
that extents like you know dark Sun you
guys can probably speak to more but that
seemed to me like be very much sort of a
mal gyum of Edgar Rice Burroughs and a
number of other say something to go back
to the difference between first and
second edition is the game developed in
the first edition works they’re written
in a very high level in terms of the
language use the vocabulary used it’s
almost like college-level and it’s more
of a guideline and because you get
almost anything you would want to do in
the game you can find probably at least
one sentence that will give you a
direction when we moved in someone was
finding that sensation
that’s what’s up yeah but that’s what
developing the ability to have chapters
and when we book was originally planned
the discussion was not are you gonna
write a piece of it it was are you gonna
write it would you write an article for
the dmg so it was almost plant like a
magazine which is why you get these
little individual self-contained little
bits right there’s like one there’s a
quarter page on ships there’s a half a
page is the dungeon geo more section
yeah going back to the point that the
language in the first edition is
extremely inspirational I mean you can
read a couple passages and you will you
know for me at least get really really
pumped and want to do the kinds of
things that those languages is pushing
you to when we get the second edition
again as M said there was an effort to
explain more and it’s sort of like if if
the first edition dmg is kind of like
the King James Version Bible it’s like
second editions Revised Standard and i
think i know i don’t i don’t necessarily
maintain the first edition was like this
massive inspirational i found it for
many people including me at times it was
obtuse it was occasionally completely
incomprehensible because it it frankly
at points was not well put together
that’s what lapis lazuli is yeah there
was a lot of gap filling in there and i
want to tell a little story about you
know myself and Steve Peron who is a
another designer of note who worked on
you know games I grew requests and so
forth the back in the day we were both
played D&D
and when I had problems with a DD rule
my kind attack was this made sense to
somebody when they wrote it so it’s not
making sense to me maybe I’m not reading
it right and I would try to try to move
my perception about two points off plumb
to try to see if it would make sense if
I looked at it slightly differently that
plus my correspondence up with Lake
Geneva after a while I began noticing
that the kind of answers I was mentally
plugging in on the questions when I was
sending them up we’re actually kind of
matching the answers that were coming
back on the other hand Steve parent
would take a look at the D and E stuff
and he would say this makes no sense so
he would write a rule that made sense to
him and so the result of that is I
became an editor for TSR and he wrote
requests how much letter writing there
was just so I said I was looking through
someone had a cache of letters between a
couple of King Gary and a few other
designers and there really was the sense
of a very proto Internet the US postal
system there’s a the speed of someone
driving it from one in the country to
the next right the so there’s some but
seven you mentioned you found the dmg
obtuse did that I mean how much
obviously that had to play a role in
second edition and how your approach did
well yeah I mean – though frankly the
whole the whole second edition project
starts because Steve I think lobbies
that we we needed to redo the stuff not
because we needed a new edition but we
needed to redo it so that we could make
it basically a much better organized and
and wasn’t to redo the rules it was to
get the rules organized and clarify the
contradictions and and you know these
sorts of things and then it you know it
grew out of that the whole the whole
process was the general feeling among
the people running the company was that
basic D&D was the starting point if you
didn’t know anything about D&D you would
pick up basic and you would play that
and that was for younger players you
know who were just getting into the game
and advanced was the advanced version
and once you were an experienced role
player you would move up to
but our own experience told us that that
was completely wrong that it was new
players coming into the game we’re going
straight to advanced because they want
the rules to tell them what to do right
and it was really only players who had a
good grasp on all of this an experience
with the game who were playing D&D basic
and expert because that gave them the
freedom to do what they want and I think
the skip can almost certainly attest to
the fact that an awful lot of the
questions that came in – – sage advice
the answers were in the books they were
just really hard to find hard to find is
hard to parse yeah yeah sometimes hurry
yes right and so you know the feeling
was if people are gonna go straight to
the advanced version of the game then it
for purely commercial reasons we need it
to be accessible to new players they
need you’re weaker though we could spend
an entire week actually spend an entire
day on what what the function in basic
no I’m not sure any about solely don’t
go to that panel that was translated
outside of North America and ultimately
if he can’t a complete game right
because you can go all the way – yep
what it really became is not necessarily
a gateway yeah which then in third
edition that one of the ideas was – we
were trying a big one of the we had a
couple of tag lines for a third edition
but one of them was back to the dungeon
and what that in a lot of what that’s
supposed to summarize was as complexes
third edition was is it going to sound
kind of funny but it’s sort of back to
the basics we wanted to have rule system
that people could learn and use to
adjudicate their games one of the things
you’ll notice
third edition is that it’s actually kind
of role playing rules light it’s very
tactically oriented it’s very much
written almost in the way it’s same way
you might write a miniature as a board
game I mean I’m simplifying a little bit
but the idea was to provide a rules set
and it was it was supposed to appeal to
gamers who wanted to play with the
numbers and and create their characters
and DMS who wanted to build these things
now there are good and bad things about
that but at the time you know second
edition had been out I mean was what
eleven years between editions yeah
something like that and and there was a
lot of stuff around here and as Steve
had said and and other people said
second edition was done in a lot of ways
to sort of rain stuff in but then you
rein it in and it starts to grow again
and third edition was again like we put
in lots of mandates like hey you know
you only need the three core books and
possibly a campaign setting to play you
can have all these other books but their
accessory their accessories there
they’re never gonna be required you
we’re gonna pick up an adventure that
says you need this half-dozen and the
best thing is we started saying the same
great right yeah
you only need these three core books and
you don’t need all these other like you
know but looks I started to grow out of
that and and again there were definitely
definitely different philosophy Lusaka
qila proaches the third edition one of
the things I always like whenever we
look at each edition of the game it’s
looking at it in the context of time
period we were talking a little bit
earlier about how you learned the game
but you know in all honesty how many of
you seriously taught yourselves how to
play D&D not with a friend but like you
sat down with books okay so that’s
probably a much larger percentage my
agency most audiences but still yeah you
usually learned it from a friend and one
of the things we did like with third
edition for example and skip you know
worked heavily on this and John when
Kelly on it is like we tried to put on a
basic set that you could actually hand
to somebody and say here we did like all
this focus group testing and I remember
Jonathan tweet and the focus tested in
there ripping the heads off of little
stuff
England’s people would lose their minds
trying to figure out how to do it but
that’s what a focus test works and we
tried to get into the point where you
could actually learn how to play the
game from the basic set and from the
rules and and and things like that and
expanded the audience gets early doesn’t
mean there’s not many a lot of
improvement I was just trying to get in
the same philosophical I like as we move
into the third edition I’d like to give
a little shout out to the art staff who
are really good one of the things we did
when we were doing third edition is most
of the interior interior art pieces are
in color but one of the things that we
set up was we wanted that art to evoke
the art of the earlier editions so if
you go back and you pull up your first
edition book and you pull out your third
edition book you will see some stuff
that thematically is very very close
because we wanted to catch about that
particularly we wanted to get some of
the subtle humor of the art that
transferred you know between the two of
them and one of the things that that
I’ve always thought was a real huge
thing at TS ours we had a really really
good art staff yeah I want to I want to
expand on that just a little bit because
it I know we’re looking drifting a
little off topic but this became clear
to me when I had a conversation with
Greg Gillespie he was the one who really
pointed this out that if you look at the
the illustrations in early D&D and you
compare them to the illustrations that
we you know from the last ten years and
maybe even more than that in the early
illustrations they’re almost always
player character types being really
menaced by monsters player characters in
really severe trouble and in later as it
evolved the illustrations now tend to
show player characters in very
triumphant situations they are defeating
the monsters as opposed to being chased
or crossed or torn apart by them that’s
probably something of a generational
shift boomers are all about being active
going out and getting rich and you know
like the month I felt on that apparently
but the the the gen-xers tend to be a
lot darker grittier and the Millennials
coming up tend to be like you know
heroic types in you talk about the way
the game has evolved over the years I
think I think the focus of the
illustrations says something about that
as well it’s just the text we definitely
took it as a point of view for a third
edition and you can see even just the
basic way character started if you look
at earlier editions a lot of your first
little characters survived mostly by
luck and GM Fiat in a lot of ways I mean
I’ve got a d4 hitpoints and a spell eeep
you know but you know in we’ve made a
conscious decision in third edition to
say okay we’re gonna make the characters
a little more survival we’re getting a
few more options I’m gonna do things
like that again not saying better just
saying a different perspective and so it
did evolve into more of a we want the
players to feel heroic sort of game
rather then we want to feel the care
players feeling like they’re you know
overcoming a struggle or something it
and you know certainly there are
struggles earning but it was differently
its whole shift I wanted to ask you in
order to set it up way back in the early
70s when I was not attached to TSR
just for fun and because I wanted to
know I sent a questionnaire around to a
bunch of different conventions in which
I asked a bunch of questions because I
was curious about how people were
playing the game later on when we did
second edition we can do a little formal
and one of the dragon magazines that had
like 400 questions of it but some of
those questions were the same ones that
that I had asked previously and then
when we did the third edition there were
other surveys done and some of the same
questions were asked but one thing was
pretty consistently was that never
changed which is kind of weird because
we kept going through the different
editions is how many people are playing
low level mid level and high level games
and it generally tends to break up from
the 70s as
our forward as I’ve seen data for about
25% play level 1 2 3 or the equivalent I
guess the current addition problem is
level 1 to 5 yeah
and then the the middle block bike from
level 4 to level 9 and then the high
block you know 10 + + middle blocks
about 50% high blocks about 25% so is
that 25 50 25 is that holding now it’s a
little bit skewed so what we’ve seen is
it’s gone down a bit basically everyone
playing it’s not it’s made me more like
15% playing above level 10 again
everything’s kind of flowed down and
what so this is actually a funny moment
saw after carnival or D and E so we do
all disturbing and get all this to this
feedback from players and what we found
was the average DV campaign was only a
few months long and when I saw that I
was horrified it’s like oh my god we’re
hemorrhaging customers people come in
they play for a few months and then they
leave so then we added another server oh
no way we know it’s the same service
means I have this Oh wrong question then
I flip the page to let you know the PDF
to the next question it’s like okay when
your campaign ends and like thank God
can you ask this because you’ve seen it
from all this anxiety when your campaign
ends do you start keep playing D and E
and if so when does your next campaign
start and the answer is overwhelming
like 97% yes and we start a new campaign
within two weeks so it was this constant
cycle of and I think a lot of it is just
because in today’s world you have a lot
more people moving around you have a lot
more than the school schedule or just
social commitments people you know a
little bit in some ways in part because
of the way you guys have constructed
release material post release control is
the definition of campaign has changed a
little bit a campaign now seems much
more like here is what we would call
like a big box module thing it’s like
here is eros an adventure a story arc
that is gonna run through you know it
might take months to get through and
then great you know it’s all wonderful
and then you go look for a new story arc
and that’s that’s a new campaign I
totally agree with what said saying
there cuz I’ve experienced it actually
if we played through a few of those nice
hardcover campaign
things you guys have done that’s exactly
what we did I also think it is
structured again generationally like I
keep saying about the different editions
sort of structured for the people there
they’re you know they’re intended for if
you look at the way people do fiction on
for example television now you know back
you know when I was a kid if you had
like an hour-long drama TV show ever it
was just like a episodic non serialized
thing now things are much more serialize
and you expect like oh there’s gonna be
a mid-season finale and there’s gonna be
a season finale and so I think people
are used to having a story with a
beginning middle and end and that can
translate to their campaign it’s like we
defeated the big bad the campaign is
over yeah that doesn’t mean we won’t
have season two of the campaign but it’s
gonna be a completely different campaign
and could have new characters or
whatever and I think that it helps a lot
it certainly makes it easier on the GM
yeah we see very few groups like with
this idea of like the multi-year
campaign yeah you see you see now you
see like the you know it’s amazing these
people have been playing D&D for 30
years same campaign and everybody goes
like oh my god and and really back when
we were when I started a campaign was
literally I play with the same people
right and that’s really what it meant I
play with the same people and we’ve
basically are in some kind of usually
very amorphous and badly to find world
because nobody really big about world
building at that point and you know
we’ll do adventures and we do you know
this time we’re gonna look we found this
blimp and it took us off a wait we you
know we went into a dungeon you did you
know they all can be completely randomly
weird but they’re all same people same
place same kind of conceptual space and
then we went to campaign box sets where
it was like became more of an emphasis
about building the world space and then
it was oh I play in the Dragonlance
campaign or I play in the Forgotten
Realms campaign and now it’s more of I
play the story of a journey a dragon why
well I think yeah I think that’s really
cool because back in the days that Zeb’s
talking about when we had the box sets
and things like that we thought of what
today’s big release the campaign like
the Ravenloft book you guys
put out as more like something like you
know skips route of seven parts you know
which was really a campaign I mean we
called him a super adventure you had
that you had things like return to the
Temple of Elemental Evil during through
those would have today been released as
a campaign yeah exactly you know and not
first a time and we just wouldn’t stick
setting on the end of it if you like no
this is a adventure we expect you to
play for a number of a large number of
sessions and then when it’s over it’s
done and you do another one yeah anyways
it was kind of like the way you played
Call of Cthulhu games because they were
all dead I’m saying structured exactly
that way where it’s got this big
hardcover thing and everything is a
section and I like it because the
players I can sort of tell the players
okay we’re about a third of the way
through the campaign you know and they
sort of know all right cool that means
cool stuff exciting I mean there was
kind of a shift there too when I think
back to the plain D&D in the 70s it was
more of a case where everybody had you
had a few characters thank you yeah you
might have I don’t but you had a few
that you played regularly but he wasn’t
like these are my characters that I play
in Ben’s campaign right and I have these
camp these characters to play in this
campaign you took those characters
everywhere you played those same
characters in everyone’s campaign you
took them to a convention and you’ve
just jumped into pickup games I don’t
know that anyone does that anymore
though it’s funny we’re trying to bring
that back with the adventurers League
like it kind of started out as this very
structured way and now we’re trying to
simplify it to the point where people
feel they can do that if you have a
favorite character the ventures League
is more of the guidelines you can use to
bring the character from campaign a
campaign or table to play yeah I mean if
you think about a way back like in the
early Dragon and even in the lot of
times the advice that we had to give or
was given was how do you deal with some
guy who brings a character that is
completely over balanced for what your
for your game right
because yeah he got something from
another GM the concept of that happening
now is you just wouldn’t yeah from my
campaign living
you play like the Pathfinder society or
something you have to have all these
things that are really structured and I
think in a way it sort of strips out
some of the flavor again not trying to
you know criticize that but for me I
would like the idea of I sort up and you
know I had a character in some guys
campaign that was that had a lightsaber
there’s a whole story behind how he got
this things lightsaber and it worked in
a totally weird way and I’d have to show
up at any game and be like oh yeah I’ve
got this thing and it’s kind of like a
short of sarcana sharpness but I can
turn it on and off and most the ends are
like yeah okay let’s go the game for
different games yeah different games we
handle things differently and if you’re
existing from campaign to campaign as a
player remember your guests in the DMS
world if you’re a DM you realize that
the player may come from a completely
different playing experience and make
allowances for that one thing that would
that I used to do to deal with now it
was not common in my area for characters
to switch between between campaigns very
very rare very rarely happened pretty
much the characters in the campaign if
you play did somebody else’s campaign
you made another character so my
experience is totally different from
what Sam had i but there was a time when
it had to deal with you know I would let
I experiment with letting people come in
from other campaigns and the way I
handled it as a DM is I simply said well
you’re sort of coming through the Twizy
field as you wobble into this world and
any changes that happen to your
character will kind of be as a result of
the field and that let me massage
whatever was too powerful for my
campaign and bring it down and I said
for example if you were wizard and you
were going into my like modern campaign
world you might end up kneel at that
time with a slide rule in your pocket
instead of a magic wand in the same way
you know what you get is sort of as as
I’m the DM you’re getting my campaign’s
version of what you had in your old
campaign now it might be less powerful
in some cases it might be more powerful
it might manifest perhaps a little
differently but I always tried
prepare the characters for things like
that another thing I’d like to do with
the characters is I say yeah if you’re
starting above first level you know you
might have a minor magic item I pick one
out and run it past me and I’m like good
okay stuff like that so so but much of
that like I know back reading in a B&E
you especially have the the Gygax
railing against the Monty Hall DM how
much that drove that this idea that
there’s a lot of interconnection or not
if you are doing very really good people
without naming them turning in is hard
you know Gary was doing things because
there’s always been attention there’s
always been lots of diametric forces and
I think if what we get to the end of our
two hours we’re gonna get a sense of
that pendulum always 20 yeah that’s I
want to ask about what so the next topic
was like when you thought think of the
challenges you faced and especially you
know you working on so many additions
across the years how did you how did you
see the challenges evolving and in what
shape did the thing the toughest thing
to do was to forget what wasn’t going to
be in the role look down hands down that
was a most difficult challenge that I
had because you get exposed to so many
variations of so many rules that
sometimes it’s hard to keep straight
which ones actually got published yeah
one of the one of the challenges I
remember a big part of my job as I
started when I started as a creative
director for D and E it was under second
edition it was after Steve had left and
Keith would take it I think took over
for you move to brand team is I had to
work with the second edition design
and editors on product that was still
coming out but we had the small third
edition design team where they were
working on a never a role evolving rule
set and I can remember sitting out with
skip and Jonathan and Monty and in rooms
doing play tests and having to keep that
straight in my head and trying to keep
people focused and then while in that
last year where we were pretty much
finished writing second edition stuff
had to get the rest of the team up and
running on 3rd edition stuff and John
you remember we used to run all those
team play tests all the time you were a
big you and skipper both a big part of
like we’d go up to the wizard Center and
we have little game days and we do that
and and the idea was to try and get
people thinking it’s like okay you got
to start thinking about this transition
but you’ve still got to be able to have
their second edition mindset and we had
a couple of we people were given
permission but we had a couple of
preview products like a couple of
Grayhawk products that got put out at
the end of second edition that sort of
snuck in some third edition rules like
the monk made a preview and I think a
few other yes yes but that was really
weird because I had you know things on
my harddrive and I had this this whole
pockets ion thing that I was actually
sitting there trying to read through all
the third edition stuff just to you know
keep up the speed on it and I’m still
doing all these second edition proofs
and layouts and something that was
really kind of funky lots of fun I have
to do a call-out about half hour ago
somebody dropped the name Kim you guys
are ever wandering around here he’s here
this week Kim Mohan he was the managing
editor for the longest time and if
you’ve ever used an index just go up to
him shake his hand and say thank you and
you know buy him something to drink
because he was going to index all the
third edition materials freaking amazing
so so actually for for second edition
actually the our biggest challenges in
some ways Steve and I talked about this
a little bit earlier we were one was a
marketing issue which was we were told
hey we’ve got all this first edition
material out there we’ve got a whole lot
of first submission material in the
warehouse
you can’t invalidate it you know it’s
you have to we had to do stuff that
basically didn’t just me and everybody
goes okay you know never going to buy
one of these products again never you
know we’re going to you know this thing
that you sold me three months ago before
this came out has to be at least to some
extent you have to be playable in in
second edition so we were bound by by
that one so that forced us to not do
certain things that we we thought about
we wanted to do and so that was that was
a big challenge for us Steve always
actually wanted to you know just change
the armor class system to the logical
projection progression that it is now
yeah it would have made things a whole
lot easier but I would have made all
those old products a lot harder
yeah very fortunate on third edition
that we had two advantages one we were
pretty much told you know that the
market for secondary products had
defined was extend where it wasn’t that
big of a deal but also we had the
internet obviously dungeon & dragon
magazines all that stuff so if something
was really important like oh my god I
desperately need a conversion for this
monster now-now-now or whatever we could
just put it up an Internet and point
people at it skip was our official hand
wave well yeah I bet you maintained a
lot of sage advice questions that were
right on that topic at the time I expect
well what I was doing with sage advice
is I was sort of enhanced one second I
did some questions with sort of a third
edition mindset so I was trying to push
people a little bit and we did have a
whole year long ramp up and we ran demos
and all the other the other big
challenge that we did have was that we
were the first edition that wasn’t they
basically Gary
was not involved and so so we had to
tread very lightly in some ways because
of that we had to you know we had that
we had to prove in to or something else
that you know that we weren’t going to
destroy you know there have never been
and this whole idea of like we’re going
to do a whole new edition of the thing
and so I spent a lot of time actually
going to conventions explaining to
people that no no you know we’re not
doing that thing that you heard and in
fact most of stuff we’re doing is stuff
you already do we’re just kind of like
getting it out of your home rules or or
whatever ends and candle putting it into
the into the rule books itself well that
wasn’t really aided much by I recall it
very early in the process
you wrote a little article for Dragon
mega it was kind of the pre-internet
version of breaking the internet I seem
to remember I was instructed to put this
together by war say a whole bunch of
outrageous things we’re going to get
people talking about it so there’s a a
D&D first edition group on Facebook I
stay away from appear anyway simply
started talking about illusionist Lich’s
what do you do with the original edge
and I said well obviously you should use
shadow magic because necromancy an
illusion are traditionally balanced are
traditionally opposed did something
immediately came back I said no no no
you’re thinking about second edition in
first edition there were no opposition
school so they went yes yes yes we have
to understand the whole idea of
opposition schools came out of the
community
it didn’t just we
just sit down and play she’d even come
up with that idea the idea was out there
so people who were playing for its
additional games were already
experimenting a lot I mean the community
has always been the best driver and
producer of ideas yeah
along those lines a very early story
from the 70s when I was not employed at
his art but I was active and I was
writing for Dragon magazine when I
eventually went up and and interviewed
with Lawrence chick who was the head of
design at that time he asked me a
question was totally floored me because
I was like green his grass at at
interviewing for a job he said well how
many articles did you write for Dragon
and I looked at him and it was like deer
in the headlights clan Sakai what I gave
him he knew the answer and I didn’t but
at the time I interviewed with him it
stood at about nine and one of them was
actually garnered a response from Gary I
had done this little short article on
weapons expertise and the idea was that
a dagger in the hands of a sufficiently
high level character will do more you
know in the in the melee than a the same
dagger in the hands of someone can
simply level so the idea was that that
as you could specialize in a weapon and
increase its damage so it would be
comparable with some of the upper tier
weapons as you advance and so that one
it was an idea because dragon is always
looking for ideas from from the player
base Jerry came in with a rebuttal I
guess editorial response a couple issues
later he said no no no not part of the
gate and that will be part of the game
so and then weapon specialization that
is the other piece of the story I wrote
back up to him and said well instead of
giving out bonuses
what happens if you treat it and so in
that letter actually kind of generated
the idea I think for the weapon
proficiency bonus so that he’s that kind
of that kind of
that kind of correspondence basically
you know happens and so that’s I don’t
know that’s just a lot of things come in
come in from the player base that but on
the other hand one thing you do deal
with is the whole thing of parallel
development sometimes everybody plugs
into the cosmic switchboard at the same
time and and when you ever you’re
dealing with a company that deals with
create creation of products like this
be aware that an idea what you think may
be the greatest thing since sliced bread
maybe three or four other people come up
with a simultaneously we had one year
where all of the Opposition in the in
the ad and E tournaments turned out to
be Lizard Men it says five six people
writing in different parts of the
country
we got Lizard Men another time it was
vampire magic users and probably the
capper was the season that we got three
or four submissions and the ultimate end
of scenario challenge for the party is
they fight mirror images of themselves
which turned out to be the climactic of
encounter in the ad and he opened that
here so you know as an acquisitions
editor you know we ran into parallel
development in a number of cases and
sometimes you know you just have to deal
with it yeah so riffing off that but
especially that the weapon
specialization article and how it went
from your idea to being cast down from
Dax himself to now being a core part the
game are there any elements that you see
when you think of your time and working
on the game
from when you started or aren’t at any
time to today like do you see anything
that you really wish that you had back
in the day either something in the game
that had been added
because there’s something that’s been
added to the game that you kind of feel
like should have been there for the
beginning over the whole other course
that’s history or when you were working
on it something you think of that
there’s occasionally things that have
disappeared from the game
that I kind of like one thing that
happens when we went from first edition
to second edition how first edition yeah
it was kind of obtuse but you could find
a line on just about everything if you
looked hard enough when we went to
second edition once you start explaining
everything and laying it out and making
it clear on the record concepts certain
things got passed pushed back – later –
later products for example the whole
castles and sieges so this is why a
couple years later after second edition
came out there was a certain product in
which the two-man ballista had no less
than three different sets of stats in
the same adventure because we had we had
suits we had systems in the castle
supplement and so there were official
rules for how the sub two-man ballistas
but because it was no longer part of the
core dmg you can and it kind of got lost
one of the things that I know that I
like from the current edition of D&D
actually the way the skill system is
handled it’s very simplified system
using a proficiency system I’m a skip I
think you and John probably would
remember I don’t know Steve if you were
around for this discussion but we
proposed almost something identical to
that for third edition and we fought
really hard to try and make that happen
and we lost that are you’re absolutely
correct addition skill system very much
well very much like what Monty and I
wanted yeah boy third edition and yeah
cuz we because we kept trying to make
the argument that these are things that
are sort of you know emphasizing your
character but shouldn’t be critical to
them so let’s try and make it simple and
fun and all the things that come out of
the characters history right you have an
adventurer you pick these things up
sorry guys great we went to school
they’re not necessarily under the
players control
yeah and it took two it took two dishes
the other thing also that was one of the
things we really came across working on
it was the idea that because I remember
this very vividly when I started playing
third before really designing was that
the skill system when I started playing
was like okay whatever this is was the
skills move on and then I realized once
I start playing that the skills chapter
was actually the core mechanics of the
game it wasn’t it’s the mechanics for
everything that you need to do in the
world it is not specifically tied to
your play
yeah and and one of the things that was
a little frustrating to us working on
third and knowing what we could have had
was that there were certain skills that
if you’re of a particular class you had
to have if you’re if you’re playing a
rogue and you’re not tumbling then there
you were making a mistake but then there
were other skills where it’s like wow
this should just be like a class ability
you know this would just or this should
just be something I can do and I
shouldn’t have to be worrying about
putting points in it’s just making it
longer and harder and I liked in a way I
think fifth edition took a lesson from
first and second addition away where
it’s sort of simplified but I think it
had a little bit more of the clarity
that did come along with third edition
by dividing stuff up so it’s interesting
to see how these things all evolve yeah
I’m not sure well to some extent I think
I think fit has other ways of doing it
yeah you’re right there are the third
edition in a lot of ways was all about
dials we had lots and lots of dials and
the problem is too many right who those
dials probably should have just been
toggles and fifth edition I think took a
lot of that stuff and made them toggles
and you can argue whether this one or
that one should have been a dial or but
it’s a lot it’s it’s zeroing in you know
in a lot of ways and it’s so like yeah
maybe it’s not quite as easy for me me
to make that unique character concept
but it makes everything else
some cases it’s literally the equivalent
of what color do ya make the interior
yeah yeah it’s not for most people it’s
really not that important and that’s
when the Avengers we had in fifth
looking back at all the work that you
could you guys are done and then being
able to essentially take that body work
and realizing the DND had changed so
much over the years the idea was this
isn’t like say taking world warcraft and
trying to do a sequel to it
well there’s one game that’s been pretty
consistent in changes but you have a
game experience it’s been built D&D had
such a wide breadth of experiences with
it that we could just do a lot of
studying of the audience and say what
parts did you guys like and then
essentially pull that out it needs the
disease and desires and the focus of the
community is it’s always changing yeah
and so that led us calibrate like what
is that point we’re talking about you
know they’re not just the the color of
the interior but like the color of the
steering wheel there’s where I call it
and you just could see where the
audience most players just didn’t care
yeah they they had made enough choices
they’re ready to play their character
but that wasn’t possible without the
changes from first to second it’s their
fourth and seeing how those of all so I
think for second it is may touch steep
touch down we touched on a little bit
the whole business about my biggest kind
of wish I could go back and do it now
was the the flipping of the armor class
rank numbering because that would have
led us then do a whole bunch of other
systemics like my big gripe with a D&D
systems up through quite for a while is
that you’re your primary stats are
actually kind of the least important
part of your character you know you
never you know great I’ve got a you know
15 dexterity okay what’s that do I don’t
know it you know it does it gives me a
+1 to this thing over here
but the +1 is the important thing it’s
not the 15 then if we had been able to
do armor class so the combat
from 1 to 20 enough then it becomes
everything works that way in the end
you’re injured so we could start saying
yeah check against your ability score
which would have provided us with a
built-in system that’s just kind of
organic to to the whole character and
everything to accommodate everything
that there wasn’t a rule for yeah and we
said we never had a clean fallback for
when you don’t have a rule what do I do
yeah makes things like the DMS best
friend
just give it a plus 2 or a plus 4 am i
his – where – 4 it makes that possible
we all have and I wouldn’t kill I was
probably the worst example of of how
that was a stumbling block with second
edition was we had some things that had
developed over the course of original ad
D and the the barbarian is the example
there were there were a lot of just
mundane things that you assumed everyone
could do and then a class like the
barbarian comes along and I think wasn’t
it that he had an ability to climb trees
yeah and it was like something like I
thought we could all climb how do I
check to see if I can climb a tree right
clearly I can’t do it as well as a
barbarian because of his class ability
but how well can I do it well it had
never been a question before sudden it
was and so we were trying to you know
non-weapon proficiencies was about as
close as we could get to some of that
but because we had to remain
backward-compatible you know I remember
having long discussions about plus there
was no
once you’ve got out of the combat system
adjudicated anyway there was another
thing I really did like about third
edition development is in addition to
all the numbers everything going up you
know it’s like always roll high always
roll up we also decided that it was much
better to give things bonuses a lot of
the earlier editions had a lot of things
where it’s like oh you’ve got a – – to
this or mind support of that or a level
and the level limit to this or something
and one of the things we found through
play testing and this really wasn’t a
big innovation but the fact somebody
actually stood up and said it was that
people tend to forget the minuses yeah
you know oh I forgot to add that – – is
a much more for something like that
it’s like whereas you know now I’m not
talking about like the one time thing
like when you generate your stats and
it’s done and it’s in there but what we
could do is we could sit there and say
oh well if we give somebody a plus two
or somebody a plus four to something
they’ll remember that and we give them
applause ooh zero they don’t have to
remember that but if we give them a
negative it’s a problem so if you look
through like third is and stuff there’s
not a lot of non-gm adjudicated things
where it’s like oh you get a minus for
something and and that seemed to also
get taken out a lot and fifth as well I
mean you’ve got disadvantage but again
count when those things where the player
has to remember it the GM says oh yeah
the kind of philosophy for it was just
to give players things they should try
to do and then let everything else just
fall away so rather than say
specifically like you are bad at this we
just try to avoid that because we’d
rather stay someone else in the group is
good at it yeah so you’re trying to
sneak past the GAR the Paladin with the
eight dexterity wearing full plate isn’t
the one who tries to do it it’s the road
okay well anyway
and I think that’s nice emphasize what
players can do and hopefully you avoid
the barbarian things we pointed out yeah
well I was going to say I’m a slight
change of topic one thing that kind of
has stayed the same at least through the
first three editions I can’t speak so
much two four and five and that is from
a design standpoint in an editorial
standpoint one thing that stayed
consistent throughout the period one
thing you always had to watch for if you
were actually working on material is
reverse is the concept of reverse
engineering somebody will will put in a
rule or a concept in some other work
they might submit that would completely
work its way back through the game
system and change things I’ll give you
an example
we did a product one time that was it
was like a complete book of dwarves when
that management came in every single
door kitten specialty in there had been
given the proof I guess it was the
proficiency endurance and you have to
realize that the proficiency things are
there for their to emphasize what’s
different and if every kit in this
expansion book comes out and says all
dwarves in this entire book have
endurance as a core trait
that’ll work its way back into
everybody’s campaign and a lot of DMS
will started something well all the
doors okay we should start giving it to
every door all the time 24/7 so in
reviewing and doing the editing on that
particular book oh one of the things
that you know goes through my mind as a
developmental editor case are is no you
have to make sure that that endurance
treat proficiency stays special and so
instead of having in some 25 different
variations of the door we took the five
in which it was most appropriate and
tapped it and so that was a change
the original manuscript and so is that
kind of still having you bring up
actually a great point which is that
expansions are the bane of every of
every edition sooner or later your
Edition becomes it happened with us with
the complete books god I hate kids and
eventually things just was flotsam and
jetsam piles up the the third edition
design team originally believed that the
only prestige classes we would have in
the game are the ones that appeared in
the dmg and then we’d probably introduce
a couple in you know exist in like new
campaign settings and then we started
putting out all those class books yeah
you know became because people wanted to
buy it but that doesn’t mean it was good
for the game yeah well that’s a case for
having all that history helps fifth
edition because we can see how how
everything of all you know and we do see
things whenever we print print something
new players there’s someone out there
who’s gonna try to pull it apart and
figure out what it means for the game
and like oh it’s tasty you gave this new
subclasses ability so shouldn’t it
appear here or we’ll have things happen
where players will establish patterns in
their mind of how things should work
that we never intended so I can’t think
an example off the top of my head but
you might have someone will sometimes
get feedback like well the warlock as we
know based on its spell list can never
deal thunder damage and we never said
that but like you’ll find some thread
somewhere we’re so well because this
spell is on the wizard list and not on
the warlock list and this spells on the
sorcerer list and it shows up in the
cleric list but it’s not in the what so
therefore there must be a hard and fast
rule that warlocks cannot do thunder
damage or something like that I think in
the the original third edition Monster
Manual and skip you chiming if I’m
misremembering I think there was like
one monster that was vulnerable to sonic
damage yes you know or something like
that so right well we tried to cover all
these bases but again we were creating
all these different things and I think
that that issue that you’re talking
about my manifest itself in various ways
for example
there used to be a spell in the game
called animal friendship and you can
spin a spell and you captain time one or
more animals and you have this little
troupe of very well trained animals you
do it on your horse so you could do it
it was it was just a way to have an
animal that would help you or help you
buy your first edition you could catch
them on your barbarian alright defying
the fellows in the book now so then we
did equipment list for all the
characters well druids and rangers have
the spell so of course they’re gonna
have any animals in pinion yeah because
it’s something that the character which
is okay so now essentially it’s a class
feature we didn’t really intended to be
that way it was actually a piece of gear
but it’s effectively a class feature and
then people came back and said well how
this my companion anna will get better
well it doesn’t get better if you want a
better one
please take it in a new you have to
break up with your animal class ii do it
in person
Franco that’s that’s the classic it’s
the classic Paladin warhorse problem
that was from first edition which
basically comes from chainmail origins
where basically you know you were
playing a miniatures game and stuff and
you know you had a horse and you know
people didn’t necessarily worry about oh
my horse died when I went into combat
kind of a thing yeah and and then you
know people don’t get talon warhorse and
furs and in in a D&D and the first time
they could battle their horse get
slaughtered and there was never a
solution for that well so there was a
lot of hand-wave that was the fun thing
we did in in third edition with all
these creatures that you summoned were
like these celestial beings and the idea
was that if it died it just went back
but see we had that we have it right
dumping the India vessel and that was
the funny thing because we found out
that in 3.0 and we did nerf this for
three points why thank God that you
could have a wall of stone which was
like a fifth level spell and had like 80
hit points or something like that
or you can have a wall of Orca yeah yep
because you’re good some of the dire
Orca that was as big as the wall and had
way more hit points and because of the
way you drowning rules are working
everything it wasn’t gonna suffocate
until long after this fella you
mentioned this got changed in 3 or 35
what are a little bit ripping off that
starting with Steve what’s something
that you would add D&D that’s never been
an official part of the game like what
anybody wants to jump any big idea
because this is kind of a nice one there
yeah I mean the game has touched on
almost everything over the decade to an
existence of officially or unofficially
that’s a tough one
I guess the thing that I would like to
see more of is because the game is that
there are there are numbers at the Edit
score and numbers are so definite it is
very often difficult to to play an ad
indie game that really captures like
imma be Clark Ashton Smith was mentioned
earlier right and that is his fiction is
just so weird
so almost psychedelic and at times and
its really atmospheric yes and and it’s
difficult to you can you can tell a
story like that but then to make the
numbers on your character sheet function
within that setting and not immediately
pull you out of though the weird and
wondrous atmosphere of that setting
right when you have something really
bizarre really outlandish going on in
the story and then it’s like oh I have a
plus 3 versus that it really sort of
pulls you out so it would be nice if
there was a way within D&D to I’m not
sure really what I’m shooting for here I
mean I guess maybe something you know in
Marvel superheroes we didn’t everything
had names rather than numbers attached
to it you know your strength wasn’t 50
your strength was amazing maybe
something I don’t know but that’s it
that’s a really good that that’s it’s
not what I was gonna say but I’m gonna
riff off of that a little bit and then
do mine so I get to again I played a
number of game systems where they
encourage you not to describe like oh
you took six hit points but rather like
oh you’re hitting the arm and now you’re
gonna stinger and you know you reel back
and you’ll be much more descriptive and
I think that if there were a way for D&D
to have more of that you know more more
the feeling and and try and make it
easier for the GM and the players to
instantly come to an understanding that
like oh I got hit or I got tired or I
got scared or whatever and have have
effects that yes they’d have to have new
American mechanical things because we
are gonna roll some dice at a certain
point but to have it more feel like
oh why I understand more of a from a
role-playing perspective and different
editions like the DM screen or the first
DM screen for fifth edition does have
things like here what your conditions
are but I’m thinking about more less
dramatic conditions in a way like I took
a wound you know what’s what’s what’s a
cool way for me to roleplay that you
know and have a mechanical thing the and
this does dovetail into what mine was is
an D and v has a little bit of this and
we’ve done it optionally is I came from
a background again of working on games
like Star Wars and touring and stuff
where we had more sort of player driven
mechanics things like hero points action
points possibilities I have always liked
that and I’ve evolved a rather detailed
version for my home campaigns where I
allow the players mostly therefore the
player to overcome bad luck sometimes it
can be to emphasize good luck like oh I
want to get a really great role so I get
to spend this action point or something
but mostly it’s there so that you know
dramatically every once in a while you
can as a player not necessarily worry
about that die role you know you got to
be careful because like when we working
on Torg and possibilities you would end
up getting so many that the die roll
almost didn’t matter and that’s a
problem but this was for like the you
know once first session I do something
kind of cool or I keep something really
bad from happening and you know isn’t
that neat okay I think what I would say
the closest I could say D&D has come to
what I’m aiming for here is with like
fifth edition has the conditions yep
then fourth edition had those as well
and if you had a vastly expanded you
know that the conditions are almost all
related to combat in one way or another
but that sort of thing could be expanded
a lot to create you know much more
situational based condition I really
like what I’m aiming I really like games
like they’re games like Call of Cthulhu
or something that actually mechanically
reward you for role-playing negative
conditions like if so get wounded and
then you riff off that and make yourself
actually perform worse you get a benefit
yeah so in many ways my my answers are
going to kind of sound similar to theirs
because they I was going to mention the
whole
the whole hero points kind of a system
it is it is a great way in other games
to empower the players to do things that
are amazingly stupid in a really good
way because you know yet yes you can
dive across the table and try and
grapple that guy and throw him over the
deck over the side of the deck and it’s
gonna be really impossible when you see
how he’s got eight tentacle octopus arms
and you might roll you over with her but
you’ve got this little kid that says it
might be worth trying that in some ways
is a little bit of the problem it that
D&D has is it’s because it’s McKenna
mechanistic that you uh you just look
alike oh that’s not gonna work so I’m
not going to do that yeah but that’s
like then the DM feels like he’s bribing
the player to do that and I like the
idea that it sort of gives the DM
actually an excuse to say well he spent
an action point so I’ll let it yeah the
the other thing which touches also to
what Steve was talking about is what
what I’ve always kind of railed against
is the lack of a sense of wonder at
times it’s the oh look it’s a demon okay
kill it it’s it’s the you know if you
think about fairy tales and folklore and
all that sort of stuff it’s the oh let’s
go make a magic on okay here’s the
shopping list go do it but no the
shopping list is like oh you need the
Sai of a cat you need you know you need
all the I put that into into uh I think
the book of artifacts I think is that
here you know to to make this you need
to get and they are completely
impossible things right and everybody
good like well how they suppose do that
not go I don’t care don’t figure
something you go and that’s the
adventure is how do I do that
weapons that was that crossed that with
the idea of improving your your animal
familiar where you had to sort of level
up your weapon and at certain break
points it’s like oh you got to go find
this weird spring of fire and stick your
sword in either yeah and and and the
answer and the answer those things well
that’s you know they’d go a like how how
are people supposed to do that and
that’s the point was that’s for them to
figure out that’s part of the that’s
part of the wonder yeah I remember
clearly having that conversation when we
were working on section and that you
know sigh of a cat was actually the
example he used at the time and my
reaction was that’s the worst idea I’ve
ever heard but the more we talked about
it and you know over weeks and weeks and
I go away and think about it and
eventually I came around when they say
sigh of a cat is anybody else picturing
a kitty cosplayer ninja point out like
one of the things I wanted to add to
fifth a wouldn’t let me was this idea of
trying to pull players into danger
whenever I’d encourage players because
you know the numbers you know that you
know Han Solo says never tell me the
odds a really player until says I know
the odds always and it will pay a lot of
attention in our first play test of diff
the very first session I ran to the
proto system the players meet this
obviously skeezy merchant who has a map
to offer them you know it’s straight out
of a Latin the mood that the Disney
cartoon me write the guy entices Aladdin
go on this quest it’s obviously a bad
idea and when the players are hell about
hemming and hawing and basically saying
we don’t want to go on the adventure I
had the rogue make a Christmas saving
throw and he failed it and I said well
you can’t help giving your greedy rogue
it says in the character sheet your
flaws greedy you you know that’s the
parties debating you slip the merchants
a few gold coins and take them out you
know and like this is because this is
what you know and as the idea was and
parts cuz my favorite Dini players the
ones who leap into danger but I think
there is that tension between we want to
be heroic as long as we have a 70%
chance or higher success if we don’t
someone
use the eating other action and
healthier can someone throw a bless
spell on me and that’s always in toward
we had these great cards in the drama
deck when you get something like
mistaken identity or every and every one
of these was a detriment to you but if
you role played it successfully you got
this huge reward at the end but
everybody’s always looking at and go oh
god nemesis again yeah we’re gonna run
into that robot aren’t we well I would
say that for me personally I kind of
liked the idea of the
get-out-of-jail-free cards you know will
really help out those of us you can’t
make a saving throw you know and just
things that would you know keep people
in play when the otherwise would have
been eliminated yeah I think that helps
the flow of things any mechanics along
those lines would help I think the best
diems are raised things so that they
sort of fall out that way anyway and on
the other hand it is you know
conceptually useful and you know it
electively it is electrically attractive
to occasionally have some you know to
have concrete limits for example what it
will not skip it I were running a Frank
benders campaign the one public role
that always got made and never got
fudged was did you make your
resurrection survival role and there
were some times that would change the
course of the campaign when they didn’t
come in but but as a player you know I
mean the last character I actually had
we were playing a fifth edition D&D we
were going out we were forming our own
Little Kingdom I had a wonderful
half-hour character but he got killed
and the reason he got killed were by
character reasons he deliberately put
himself in a bad situation he who was
dangerous because he was kind of garden
the party and he paid the price of the
person who made the you know errors of
course dead loss scot-free
so yeah and so yeah if you’re a DM and
you’re more interested the story you
know having things that will rescue
players from in
several situations I have call it the
Brigadoon effect if you’ve ever seen the
play or the movie Brigadoon
you have the impossible situation you
have the school village it wakes up once
every 100 years or the guy from outside
comes in and falls in love with one of
the one of the one of the village girls
and then he goes out of town the night
ends and he’s stuck a hundred years no
shot no chance and he comes back a
little while later and he finds one of
the guys in the village and it was one
of these true love cases you know he
said la dia woke me up and the guy let
him back leads him back into the village
so it part of the sense of wonder we
were talking about here you know when
the dice say the players die if there’s
something that would let a DM say know
anybody would die but your character
here or the story now that you know it
was well known with the indie everything
leads to consequences the consequences
will lead to is that you will lose your
sense of danger in the campaign if you
overdo it yeah and so everything is a
balance you you don’t make any gains
without giving something up that kind of
a life lesson type thing so I guess
that’s my little contribution from
somebody who’s gotten historical game
so what would you look for a skip
something that I’ve tried a couple of
times and have abandoned each time
because it’s daunting and that is I
would really love to have a superstition
oh god yes we tried that Dirty Bird yeah
Jonathan that we and I spent the better
part of a week just talking about how it
would work I would love to do omens I
would love to deal with the effects of
cold iron I would love to we did all the
damage you know work severe role that
would keep snakes away I love all of
that stuff because I loved folklore I
mean I’ve got the client got through
words of God when stuff the problem is
it’s just so mechanically daunting yeah
and you know you’re stuck with and
that’s you’re stuck essentially with
other if you list them then it’s very
different it becomes as well d and it’s
always going to be in really but and one
of the reasons I think I want to do that
is because it touches on your own
wonderful thing and part of the problem
I think with that too is yes you can you
can sit down and do the mechanical part
of it yes it’s usually daunting but
folklore superstition works because
people believe it how do you get the
players to buy into them the closest we
talked about belief points you know
because they work in the off that
philosophers would Club sort of riff
that that Planescape add as close as
anybody’s ever coming yeah yeah but I
would love to say did you just walked
under a ladder guess what in third
edition that’s where a lot of the like
damage reductions and stuff like because
we had cold iron and silver and all this
other stuff and the problem is of course
as soon as you turn it into mechanical
losses that wonder and it’s more fun to
be able to have it little whippy you
know you also this white lump of D&D
it’s a game that physicists and math
heads can enjoy and storytellers and
poets could enjoy but when you have
something aimed at one group the other
group gets a hold of like oh there’s a
curse for walking under the ladder well
that’s when the party deploys the
ladders the immediate matter in play
right come
I’m building the dungeon which is
basically you have to go down the hall
of ladders anything that folkloric
element one of my more systems players
turns it into here’s the device that
shoots you know when it rissalah’s
garlic right every was the face of
everyone even though I’ve done you know
we find a vampire I was 14 and like I
said I was playing the game as it
released and I still remember one of the
we used to have all these additional
things you could buy and we’ve worked
out prices I had sling bullets with holy
symbols crossed into them and laced with
silver and we had a price for it and and
we even I think we had we had hollow
ones that you filled with holy water and
Carol Johnson when it was word PS are
used to go into a to go into dungeons
with ceramic sealed ceramic pots of
green slime so he could throw it at
thing we were playing we had arrows of
healing the cleric could only heal you
right across the room could only do it
by touch but if you had an arrow that
did 2d6 healing and 1d6 damage worship
cupid
so we’re at about 130
so I’ll start of the any questions you
guys wish me and hit or want us to hit
before we turn over to I thank you most
of them or that we know you guys want to
hear any weird anecdotes or but I’m okay
here and you know what what they are
interested in here we got a whole
collection of wacky right so we’ll start
with we do we wait about 10 right over
here yeah at least 4/5 with Carly
screaming what we really found is we
talked earlier about the tension between
first-edition having this really depth
of the language and being interesting
explore but hard to get into so second
edition corrects I think the streaming
has kind of solved that problem for us
in that you can now just watch people
play the indie and just be instantly
understand what’s going on and how the
game works
and I think a lot of us are really
enormous growth in the past few years
has really been enabled by that because
you have not only just the idea of
watching someone play D&D to be fun but
if you don’t understand how the game
works it does it looks nothing like any
other game you’ve played so and that
always the hardest thing I think of
teaching people D&D is just that concept
of you know you’re in a dungeon it’s 10
foot by 10 foot room you see a door what
do you do you know especially when we’ve
done some of the focus groups players
the first question is like well what can
I do you know like they just understand
the concept of like should we check for
traps like they don’t know that yet
necessarily do I roll a d6 and see how
far I can move yeah exactly yeah right
because it’s a I I wish to God we’d had
the Internet and streaming really when I
look back when I’m looking now the kind
of things are that are done and being
used and how people can play all across
country this sort of frankly in many
ways the the death of players for second
edition was graduating college and then
you next thing you know you don’t have
any of you you’re not playing with
anybody because there was no way to
connect once you went all over the place
yeah yeah and I think that’s been
another huge part of Jamie’s growth of
pastor years you know the tool the
online tools have gotten much much so
much better yeah of course then Steve
her Thomas probably would have left
earlier then though cuz today they
wouldn’t have had to be in an adjoining
office when things maybe perhaps a
little off topic but there’s this
relationship between the literature in
the books a lot of times the
role-playing games will generate their
own kind in-house literature but
sometimes you get responses back to the
greater community of like science
fiction and fantasy writers and
sometimes they will give gamers and
players a great deal of help but by what
they’ve chosen to write about the poster
child for this is Elizabeth moon’s book
the deed of Paxson Aryan it’s a trilogy
and it will answer just about every
question except one that you might have
about pallidus so Impala’s have ever
given you a problem in your campaign go
read this trilogy and she covers
everything except perhaps one point and
that is the one point she probably
doesn’t cover is can you have a paladin
of an evil race and for that one you
have to go to David Webber’s work out on
what were God’s own but you know these
are these are you know established
science fiction writers and fantasy
writers that are giving really good you
information for people who are playing
the game and you should be reading their
works a lot of times to you know part of
her being in the Mojave I was thought
was you keep up on the reading and you
read the office see if there’s new stuff
coming up
played my first Valley Thursday night so
thank you yeah considering you know just
the rich background of having to be part
of teams creating things and knowing the
realities of problems and issues and
just aware of what’s going on now kind
of asking you all to kind of step in the
role of prophets what what you know what
is your best prediction for the future
oh boy talk about the generational
changes like now we have I would say
frankly I’m stunned that no one has yet
at least that I’m aware of
put out an RPG that is entirely mobile
based right more like all I need is
their app on my phone you know when I
roll dice I do it and everybody else
who’s connected into that game see in my
dice roll you know that all the
information is just shared through that
mobile platform I did see something
about a week ago on YouTube that totally
blew me away
now it’s related it’s not exactly
role-playing but it has to do with my
tabletop war gaming and there is
currently has been developed there’s a
system where you have glasses that are
computerized and you can look at a blank
table and it will show you the miniature
set up you don’t need miniatures to play
a miniature game anymore
this is like breaking glass and they
would show through the glasses you could
see a table stuffed with miniatures
beautiful terrain everything like this I
love the way blank bare table all right
trying to play weird techno profit here
but but it but it’s going to be it’s
going to be I think it’s a part of it
I think I think the discussion of
streaming and frankly combined with the
line of work that like ed and I are now
in which is mmo’s I think that the
boundaries between those things
somebody’s going to figure out how to
make the boundaries between basically
really playing kind of dedicated things
with people you know but in a fully 3d
kind of environment that you that you
have a lot more construction controller
but edit but putting you much more into
it I mean right now a memos are great
but I’m just you know I run around and
there’s like 10 billion people running
around and you know and it’s not you
don’t feel connected to it yet and
somebody’s gonna figure out the gap
there so mine is maybe a little bit
smaller vanilla rodders I think it’s
gonna be it’s gonna tie in to sort of
what Steve is saying it’s gonna be
convenience quite frankly everyone in
this room including all of panelists
we’re all consumers and we consume
content we consume ideas we consume
while we consume food and stuff but
whatever it reverses this we we could
sue all these things and in a lot of
ways for many of us cost is a factor but
not a major rajah object we all spend
money to come here we spend money on our
games on our hobbies cost was never a
huge issue even when we were publishing
when I was in tabletop publishing a lot
it was more a matter of how can I make
the consumer feel like they are happy
for their purchase and part of that is
convenience the idea that not only can I
sell you something that is
cost-effective
but that you have time to consume and
for a lot of us when we’re working we
have other leisure activities we used to
say that you weren’t competing with a
person’s ability to you know you know
spend money for for the game it’s like
well they’re gonna spend money on I can
buy this role-playing game or I can go
out to dinner or I can buy a six-pack of
beer or whatever but now I think in a
lot of ways we’re competing more with
time
so the more the more we can do in the
future to make it easier for you to get
into the game to play the game to
interface with your friends do all these
things the better so I think things like
you know mobile apps virtual tabletops
any of those sorts of things are going
to be in the way it’s you know virtual
reality right now has such a high
barrier to entry that it’s not so much
the idea that you can’t afford to do it
but are all your friends engaged as well
you know because most people drop out of
the game not because they don’t like the
game because their friends dropped out
and it snowballs if you can come up with
ways like augmented reality which you
can do on your mobile phone right now
that you can make the game more
convenient for people that know more
people will stick with it because it’s
easier to play so I think the future of
of tabletop games is to be more
convenient easier to do and that doesn’t
necessarily mean high tech but I
certainly would be you know crazy if I
didn’t think it part of it was going to
be well you know you brought it up with
kids which I understand and I love them
at the same time with like fit that down
obviously I’m a second dead guy the
third and I love on him first at in
second at Adventures the fifth is so
easily relatable backwards but I also
don’t feel like it’s gonna get his come
out of control as third at is with some
of the prestigious
archetypes are brilliant interests given
the time I love the kids because they
give you options but yes they also cause
you to get way too many options and out
of control are there things like that
that you want to implement into future
of like 5th ed and bring back or are you
just looking to stay with what it is
right now keep it small yeah I think
mechanically we want to keep the
footprint small it was like I mean like
you pointed out right like the more you
add
more problems potentially can cause and
the one of our it’s so funny how you
know when you’re mentioning third
edition we’re gonna launch when after
they do do press these classes beyond
the court rules right one of the things
we did with v was we knew all those
aspirations that didn’t pan out and then
caused issues for the game leader and so
we are very much aware of learning from
how things developed I think if you see
us do mechanical expansion
it’ll be very much tailored to settings
so like one of these you talked about
last year released the mystic character
class the muses psionics and we’ve
already thought about what we decided we
really don’t need that class until we do
dark Sun because that’s such an
important part of it so why just make
this generic class that’s floating out
there that maybe doesn’t have a clear
home in the universe of D&D where if you
do at this then you can say and what
makes a statement is here’s this new
system of power uses and then then you
can export it out to your playing and
you did that successfully with Ravenloft
do you introduce some new smaller
systems yes still yeah the idea horror
checks yeah so keeping that where we’re
letting the DMS who want to tinker
tinker but we’re not expecting anyone to
think like The Player’s Handbook is the
game what draw drives it home for me is
the idea when I played third and 3/5
that I very verbally remember this we’re
at my apartment in Boston playing D&D
this person a friend of a friend wanted
to play D&D they came by and I was
prepping my session the player is like
okay you figure out you want to play a
druid so here’s the boom six books go
ahead and make your druid will help you
but really like I just idea that if you
made a druid just using the players
handle you’re doing it wrong you know
like because it just yeah so we really
want to avoid that question yeah I guess
I want to relate to issues in the the
broader community about about the
diversity of their consumers the
diversity of the players frankly my
sense is that they’re probably more
African Americans who listen to country
music than are engaging in the Hobby
and you might have a sense of that what
what extent is that heart to is
increasing the diversity increasing book
and the
international audience so not just not
just North America but an international
audience how is that how do you see that
as being pop is that part of oh yeah of
what you guys are trying to do and how
how are you trying to accommodate a
broader audience and appeal to a broader
group yeah I mean it’s right now 4/5
what we’ve done and the start you want
to make the art be more diverse the idea
being no matter who you are you can see
yourself somewhere in the game we did
that with third – yeah yeah yeah the but
it’s very much directed and then a lot
of it comes down to how we handle the
marketing like where are we and who are
we talking to and I think that’s
something that is much more possible now
with the Internet and much more possible
now with social media and finding like I
think a lot of our success has been we
have people who are surfacing as D&D
fans who have big followings and then
they start talking about the indie which
then generates interest in there and
people fault if you follow someone and
they call this person is really
interesting and they say oh I like D&D
then it almost makes it safer for you to
go why be nice always seem a little
interesting but now I feel more
confident and check it out and so I
think a lot of that is right now
just the nature of the game over time
will you know it start in Wisconsin and
how its spread it just there were just
groups that it just passed by so for us
it’s about how can we build that bridge
in a way that’s authentic and will make
people feel like oh yeah this is
something that that can connect with me
I don’t think it’s a matter of like
going to someone and just like you know
you know getting you know if you’re
talking but you know how can you
increase ethnic diversity right you just
you pay someone to say they like the
indie that’s not gonna work
you know it’s yeah it’s gonna be funny
but that authentic connection and it’s
probably something that takes a lot of
it take a lot of time right it’s
something you can only build slowly I
one thing that bodes well for the future
of diversity in DMV is the explosion
I think what I mean like reading as
reading levels have been traditionally
going to bury her they just have done
for various reason they don’t need to be
an avid reader anymore to get a good
healthy dose of fantasy yeah I think
naturally and I’d like to add that if I
was reaching out for example to the
african-american community I would look
beyond like Western culture for things
to write about there’s a very good book
was written by a Zulu chairman and it’s
called Induna my children and it is the
oral history the Zubin people something
that the that deep that the Chairman’s
have been sworn throughout you know the
throughout history never to reveal but
about I probably about 15 years ago it
the last shamon says if we don’t write
down this oral tradition it won’t be
around so he wrote a book and go look
but I don’t remember his name offhand
but I do know my children is the Zulu
equivalent of once upon a time and this
has essentially the story of the trek of
the Zulu people from sub-saharan Africa
down to where they ended up down around
the Cape but while you’re doing that
it’s very very important in the
tradition of the 18d game not to just
reproduce the historical traditions
deemed the DD game has always been about
the synthesizing of many different
traditions into kind of a unique fantasy
Gestalt this is for example when Zeb did
the oriental adventure book the
in the first edition he did an
incredible job of merging together
Chinese and Japanese traditions into
making this wonderful oriental setting
that is it’s not straight Japanese it’s
not straight Chinese but he he pulled
off the trick I doing the same thing
with Eastern Eastern culture and and
mythology and tradition that the AD&D
set had done when wouldn’t Garry and and
and when Gary wrote it so so you know if
you’re going forward to do plans you
know yes by all means
go seek out and go to those traditional
sources but also keep in mind that one
of the traditional approaches of an EDD
has been synthesis into something new
one thing I’d like to point out is right
now just through sort of luck of the
draw we’ve got six old white guys on
this panel one of the things that’s
worth noting is when I was at wizards
and we’re working on third edition I
would say if not half of the apartment
like 40% of the apartment was female
including a large chunk of our editors
editorial staff and some of the best
setters I’ve ever worked with at one
point our entire brand team was female
was a female vice-president leading that
and are one of our best art directors
many or artists anything like that so we
always have to strive for diversity
particularly in hiring and getting the
voices behind that but just because this
panel just happens to be six old white
guys don’t think that there haven’t been
a lot of women who have contributed over
the years to every edition of D&D
so the I can’t make any product
announcements the one of the things
we’re we’re doing now internally is we
do consider every setting ever published
for D&D that TSR owns the with the that
it’s somewhere out there and in the the
Multiversity indeed right after barrier
Peaks so it’s obviously we have a bit of
we have an internal roadmap but we don’t
have any product to announce now we will
I mean one of the hallmarks of pimp
Edition I know it can be frustrating but
we take things slowly and we try to get
it right and we don’t release it until
it’s right you have also just discovered
the the secret conversation of game
designers when they get together hi what
are you doing I’m doing I think I know
question here here and their product put
out that tells you what being what
playing the indie feels like what what
it’s actually like to sit around and
imagine these worlds together and what
you can’t you can’t tell someone how to
do that
so when you’re putting together a new
edition when you’re putting together a
fifth edition or a third edition or to
have you
how much do you mean on the sort of just
the cultural idea is the assumption that
okay if you’re picking this book up you
know what you’re doing already you know
what the India is you already know not
only what what is a party what is it
dungeon but things like you know what a
paladin is you know what a wizard it you
know how how do you balance leaning on
those things and actually say well no
let’s explain these coal
ideas I can grab that one first at least
on second edition we made a very
specific decision that we could either
design these books to teach you the game
or to be useful as reference books
during the game and that the reference
angle was far more important and so we
basically went into with the assumption
that the best way to learn to play D&D
is to watch or join in a game and we put
a little example in there but the thrust
was these are reference books for people
who already know how to play and they
just need to look things up during the
game and the third edition because it
was a new addition we went with the core
books for exactly what Steve describes
but we created and playtested the hell
out of a basic set that was doing
exactly what you’re talking about where
it’s like we we actually had a paper and
this is one of the reasons Jonathan was
ripping heads off a penguin that said
you know that you know read this first
and and we made sure that it when it was
boxed it was on top and everything
because people wouldn’t if we didn’t and
it explained those very very basic
concepts when we tried to tell people at
GenCon because we did have it for sale
we’re like have you ever played a
role-playing game
yes this probably isn’t for you but it
has these cool miniatures yeah but you
don’t need it but I need those cool
miniatures okay fine it was like 10
bucks so there’s a good good easy
example to see if the difference between
the two which is go take a look at the
the red cover the red book basic set
which is completely dedicated to
teaching go take that and then say okay
I know how to play B and I know how to
play basically and then try to find
things quickly yeah it’s you know it’s
really it’s really cumbersome to use
once you know how to use how to play the
game and which is why they wind up
coming up with a like so cool cyclopædia
thing for the whole thing
the game a girl’s guide is an entire
story about a woman who joins her
companies the night when what it’s like
for her to learn okay I have to have a
miniature of me and I have to buy boots
and I have to buy these things and we’re
doing these things in Toronto
but it really explains so we have the
question here the more question handle
wrap up okay all of you are developers
some edition of D&D but presumably fans
and players that you went I wish I could
have stolen that and put that in my set
see I would have asked which one did you
steal I was always impressed there’s a
set of Western rules out there that I
thought was very thematic the title kind
of escapes me at this point but one of
the mechanics is that you have cards
that effect play that essentially turns
out to be a poker hand and it was dead
last thank you very much yeah credit
where credit’s due the other thing one
thing in that game is their chips that
pass back and forth but completely play
over the dam and it as a player you get
into trouble you can cash it your chips
I’m talking about a hero points the fade
point thing that’s that’s a big one I
think we’d all like to be able to steal
at some point yeah or have stolen in our
own games the the other ones there a lot
of times are just you know arcane little
bits though like oh look they did a
really really cool way of kind of
handling you know generation of this
thing or that you know that sort of
stuff
it’s there’s so many and yeah and we do
steal them everybody does when I was 14
I designed a spell point system for use
with D&D and when you get to get made
creative director you get to horn that
into here and it’s so it’s in there that
was I wouldn’t exactly say that was
stolen from any pratik
game system but it was certainly glommed
on from a lot of different ones there
was a company called in the early days
of D&D there was a really active
community of players in California and
there was a company called the balboa
games company and i think put out a lot
of great supplements for original TV and
when we were working on second edition
they had a book that was called the
complete warlock and in it there was a
completely different approach to the way
thieves worked that was in my opinion
vastly superior to the way eighty and he
handled thieves and i had but i had
tried to push this out in that direction
you know multiple times and clearly we
couldn’t just take what balboa had done
and use it but it eventually it turned
into the the point system that thieves
used for assigning their skills but yeah
that was I always kind of thought that
was I would have loved to have steal
that thieves system right out of
complete world I’m really passed that
exact thing over to be equal we were
getting that check the Senate yeah never
gonna let it’s more it’s not one game is
just to this lobby or early 90s and war
story focused role-playing games did
this the idea of traits blonde blondes
was really rather than just having a
lineman be what guides your character’s
personality using as a starting point
and then really fleshing it out so that
was something which was like my kind of
I’m putting this into uni whether you
guys won they wouldn’t let me put
charisma saving throws to avoid doing
dumb things did put in getting a
personality whether you like it or not
so we had one final question back here
and then Mike in the spirit of the fact
that you’re now standing on the
shoulders by the way appreciate it
greatly
since 83 and constantly love there was a
huge emphasis on story development and
that television which I had not seen in
previous editions could you expect you
out of it no it’s actually to give
credit word to do the when we were going
back and delaying 8080 no this is so I I
have to admit when ii came out i was all
salty about it but then when I realized
a year after ii came out I was playing
dean the more often and I understood the
game better than I ever had before and
when I went back it did yes so when I
look back that second ition dmg really
made a big impression on me because of
the its approach to the system and how
it really laid out here’s how the game
works like there’s the the character
class design system
yeah which wasn’t perfect but to give
you a starting point and then there was
another book for second edition the it
was what the campaign resource in
catacomb guide dmg r1 the what seriously
okay so that was the work where we
decided I want the technician dmg with
that book added right so right let you
wanted to put it in and that was exactly
what we wanted to do because what I
realized looking back was yeah that’s
technician dmg was really what taught me
about how the system worked of D&D and
then then that that Kant that first DM
expansion was what taught me how to be a
storyteller it was like we need to just
lets fuse those and then James Wyatt and
Jerry Crawford did a fantastic job
bringing it all together yeah I have the
easy job I just told them give me this
so many times I heard in the second
edition days all you eat is Player’s
Handbook we don’t play with the dmg I
heard that a lot but my answer was
always I’m sorry
well in the spirit of the sage getting
asked questions that have answers we get
that all the time and people like
hoddan’s I want to design a spell how do
I do that it’s like the DNG literally
gives you a step-by-step process how to
do that we show you all the math behind
spell creation we show you all the math
behind monster creation and it’s not
exact it’s a lot like that character
creation system from second edition
works like it’s your starting point now
you need to play test you more fine but
yeah it’s
interesting how that I think the BM III
did a podcast on TV about six months ago
and hard got I’m Mike Shea does lots of
great stuff podcast publisher and he had
to admit to me that he had he had just
started reading the monster manual form
if he’d had it for three years he’s like
there’s lots of great stuff in there my
good note to the people who are leaving
we have here a series of not series a
page of handouts which is essentially
the appendix reading list from the
original dmg and on the flip side are
some rather obscure but interesting
Goodreads and anyone who wants to copy
that just come and grab one before you
leave okay what I think that just brings
us up to our end
https://t.co/blauaCfE25

— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) March 26, 2018