You Had Me At "Bounded Accuracy"

I'm starting to get interested in this new D&D Starter set that Wizards is putting out in July.  The adventure included sounds like a blend of wilderness hex crawl and mini-dungeons; the latest column from the Mearls reveals it has 4 dungeons and 5 adventure locales, enough material for a party to advance from levels 1 through 5.  On the interwebs, folks have mentioned it's inspired by B10 Night's Dark Terror (although I don't have a WOTC direct source to quote).

The new edition appears to swing the pendulum back towards supporting the types of adventures and campaigns I want to run.  The biggest philosophy shift is the idea of "bounded accuracy".  Monster armor class doesn't scale with level, and player character accuracy stays within a narrower band as well.  You no longer have the 4E problem of a marauding troll with an armor class over 30, literally impossible for the levies of peasant archers to damage using the rules as written  4E didn't lend itself to fantasy simulation.

A commitment to bounded accuracy implies the new edition will support world builders, and that makes me happy.  World building is the best part!  So what combat attributes are going to scale with level?  Damage is going up, and hit points are going up.  That means the levy of peasants is going to be able to protect their village against the marauding troll through numbers - but if the troll lays a hand on one of them, it's going to tear them apart.  Flipping it around, you can picture battles where a high level fighter cuts through a large swath of lower level mooks because the fighter's attacks are powerful and damaging, but the mooks are still tagging the fighter and wearing away resources.  It feels like a better implementation of the "minion" concept from 4E.

It'll be interesting to see how damage scaling applies to inanimate objects and structural hit points - is chopping through a wooden door with an axe any different for a beefy peasant compared to a skilled fighter?  From the little I've read, it sounds like those types of activities would be handled as skill checks, and bounded accuracy applies - leveling the field between the strong peasant and the fighter.

I also really like that they're releasing Basic D&D as a free PDF.  Kudos, WOTC.  Between the starter set and the free Basic game, we'll have plenty of opportunity to evaluate new D&D before the hardcovers start shipping.  I'm even fine with a delay in learning about an OGL or other 3rd party creator license - the books aren't going to be out until the fall anyway.

Where are you at with the upcoming new edition - interested, indifferent, or actively hostile?

A Challenge For 5E

There was lots of recent chatter on the old school blogs about 'dissociated mechanics' and how this doomed 4E.  The hanging question, is WOTC still doing the same thing in 5E?

I have a different requirement for 5E:  I want a set of rules that support simulation of whatever fantasy world I'm building for my campaign.

I know the word "simulation" is loaded; I don't want a game that simulates real world physics.  But I want the rules that define the game elements to follow some internal consistency, and apply equally to players and non-player characters and the world at large.  I want a rules set that is coherent for simulating an interesting D&D world for placing adventures.

4E is littered with examples where the rules of the game lead to a game setting that has zero internal consistency or logic.  Monsters have ridiculous armor classes that make them impossible for the ordinary inhabitants of the game world to damage them.  Other monsters have 1 hit point each (as minions) and die when someone gives them a good push.

Just look at the subjective logic of treating dragons as "solo monsters" in some instances, or "elites" based on the combat role the DM wants them to possess, in the next.   The monster has no objective reality in the setting; its role and mechanical footprint is completely subjective, and based only on how it's defined in relationship to the chosen ones, the player characters.  I wouldn't be surprised if there were eventually dragon "minions", too.

I was stubborn with that game system - we gave it a long leash, trying multiple campaigns and getting deep into the 'paragon tier', against my better judgment.  I drank multiple cups of the kool aid.  I won't be nearly so gullible with 5E.

So this is my personal criteria for a successful 5E.  The rules and mechanical bits need to present a world with internal consistency regardless of the presence of player characters.  The mechanical styling of a 4E game world only made sense when viewed from the perspective of providing a perfectly balanced challenge for a set of player characters of superheroic stature with manifest destinies.  It was basically West World, Future World, and any one of those Yul Brenner theme parks (Medieval World, Roman World).  It drove me nuts.

I haven't looked that closely at 5E yet to know if it passes the test.  We probably haven't seen enough regarding the roles of monsters and NPCs in the setting.  I've heard the buzzword "bounded accuracy", which seems to mean The Mearls has abandoned scaling armor class and gone back to the older approach, where armor classes exist in a consistent range across the game setting.  That's really a great first step.  But I've also heard that level 1 characters have super high hit point totals and wield the crazy at-will powers.  (Like, dude, where's my first level?).  If NPC opponents have the same ridiculous hit points and the laser-beam clerics and the zap zap zap wizardy powers, then perhaps the system will have some internal logic.  It might be a good system for gonzo high magic fantasy where all the clerics walk around shooting lasers out of their holy symbols and all the wizards shoot ice rays out of their fingers, and that's just how the world works.

I don't see that happening; I have to think the final version of 5E will keep the players as the super heroic chosen ones of destiny, with over-the-top abilities no one else in the game world seems to possess.  This will probably mean I'll skip 5E entirely.  I can live with some dissociated mechanics.  I won't buy into another incoherent WOTC game that panders to power gamers.  I truly hope to be proven wrong!