Monte Cook’s inaugural Legends & Lore column is an inauspicious beginning. Taken as a whole, the column introduced Monte Cook to readers and discussed his take on the skill system proposed by Mike Mearls in his August 16 Legends & Lore article Difficulty Class Warfare. As if rehashing used topic wasn’t bad enough, Cook didn’t present it nearly as well Mearls did a month earlier. If you haven’t yet read Monte Cook’s first Legends & Lore column, Very Perceptive, I encourage you to do so before reading my running commentary and opinions on the highs and lows.
The purpose driven column
Cook began by giving a description of the job he is undertaking; he is working with the Research & Development department at Wizards of the Coast as a remote consultant. His primary role is to explore options. The reader can only assume this is research for a future edition; however, it seems likely that his writing could lead to new 4e D&D content long before a future edition.
Cook attests to D&D as an evolving game that must move forward and remain true to its roots. That sounds like an excellent morgue file for future topics. What makes up the identity of D&D? Have any 4e D&D mechanics, systems, or lore become a necessary part of the D&D identity? Unfortunately, this is not the topic he chose for this column.
That was no swan dive
Cook dives right into his perspective on skills and role-play. This is the system he proposed to Mearls only a few weeks ago. However, Cook’s presentation appears distinctly less developed. It comes away as a lost opportunity. This column is a good place for Cook to write his own article describing how to implement the system in place of 4e’s skill system and provide guidance on using it in play. But, the result sadly lacks strength by forgoing mechanics in favor of an example based on the cover art from the first edition’s PHB.
Moving forward, there is a distinct lack of bite with regards to adventure design. It is true that a DM acts as the sense of the PCs; if a DM doesn’t give description, the PCs are left unaware. What is missing in Cook’s analysis of adventure design is a depiction of a DM choosing to include content. A designed adventure has already generated the rewards, hidden traps or hazards, secret doors or levers, and set dressing. The what ifs and maybes of players attempting to open every nook and uncover every stone doesn’t generate things which the DM didn’t choose to include.
Cook suggests rewarding role-play with special secrets or stunts. Why are readers being told to reward role-playing in a role-play game? One would not expect a baseball player to gain a bonus for talking about baseball? Role-play is the method of driving a story forward in the adventure. The reward of role-playing should not be a mechanical bonus. It should be the benefit of telling the characters’ tale and participating in a collaborative story.
Furthermore, this kind of benefit rewards the player’s skill and imagination more than the character’s. This creates an unfair platform for those that have little role-play talent or inclination. It removes player capacity to depict their character as written (unless it is a roughly equal copy of the player). Lastly, Cook bemoans the truth that a bad dice roll could cause all that good role-play to fail. Dice provide an unbiased equal footing for all participants. The dice create a bridge for players to embody their character while erecting a wall between player’s stats and character’s stats.
What is seen in Cook’s attitude is a fear of permitting failure to exist in a role-play game. His proposed system removes failure in one of two ways: first, those without sufficient chance of success are excluded from failure by not allowing a roll; second, those with an overwhelming chance of success are not required to roll at all. Thus, the chance to permit failure is reduced to only the smallest range of possibility. The risk of failure is not a system flaw to be corrected. Attempting to do so is a user error. Role-play needs to include the response and decisions of a character faced with failure. Perhaps if he had started with the debate of storytelling vs. game playing this would have been covered. Unfortunately, this debate is postponed until further notice.
The worst two paragraphs
In the limited description of a word-based skill ranking system lies a serious question: Does Monte Cook have any comprehension of 4e D&D? His writing leaves one with an impression that he has no comprehension of the core rules. The proposed skill reimagining appears far too similar to the existing 4e skill system. What is the purpose of replacing a functional system with a new system that appears little different?
There was a need for Cook to give a more developed presentation of the system and methods of implementing and testing the ideas for readers of Legends & Lore to parse and respond. The conceptual suggestion is a lost opportunity for the lack of a defined system of implementation.
Open to what comes next
Despite the troubling first column, there are several good topics already alive in the piece which can be approached during the coming weeks. A more inclusive debate of the identity of D&D could spur fantastic research of what content should be provided. A strong debate of storytelling vs. game playing would lead to improved guidance for DMs and players for better campaigns; it could also show where rules can step back to allow better stories or better games.
However, the discussion of the skill system is burnt out. It is time to move on and time to let go of force-feeding the idea of word-based skill ranks over number-based skill scores. Readers have seen two presentations of the concept. The forum threads have discussed it. Some readers will quickly attest it is not as good a system, especially without more development and possibility of play-testing.
As a readership it is time to hope for the best of Monte Cook and plan for the best. Yes, we should plan for the best of his work. During the weeks and months that Cook is permitted to write Legends & Lore we are certain to see his best work come forward.
What are your thoughts on the identity of D&D as a game? Has 4e presented elements that should be included when speaking of D&D’s roots? What topics are you interested in from Legends & Lore?
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1 2 3 Next »I thought the same thing. As I posted on my facebook page a couple days ago, how can he add to game or improve it if he doesnt know the mechanics. I also posted on his page he needs to be put in the adventure creation department,lol. He clicked "like" on that statement.
My reaction to his article was almost completely opposite. I felt his skill system seemed to make more sense than what 4e has in place, and I felt it made more sense than Mearls'. And I'm a huge fan of 4e and never even played 3 or 3.5, but the way he described skills happening seemed more natural to me. Say a party discovers a magical tome. The wizard rolls a 1 on his arcana check, the ranger rolls a 20. Why in the heck would a ranger know more about magic than the wizard? Intrinsic skills make for good role-playing in my opinion, and allows the people who are supposed to be good at their respective skills shine at the appropriate time.
@Thorynn- a check like that should usually be a trained skill check,so the Ranger shouldnt get one anyway. Its also completely possible that the Ranger has heard legends of the magical tome and the wizard has absolutley no knowledge of it. Its like when the weather man says its gonna rain and I look outside and tell my wife its not gonna rain and end up being right.(yes strange example, but true ALOT )
@DM Johnny - I see your point, and I agree in some respects. To me it just lets people shine in the roles they chose to play. It's no fun when I'm the cleric in the party, and I fail all the religion checks, meanwhile the happy-go-lucky gnome passes them. If you choose a particular class its because you think aspects of that class are cool and you want to be good at them. Monte's checks would allow people who want to be good in something take ranks in things they want to be good at, and succeed much more often than they do now.
While i agree with pretty much everything you say, i strongly disagree with this:
"The reward of role-playing should not be a mechanical bonus. It should be the benefit of telling the characters’ tale and participating in a collaborative story."
The actual result i have been seeing more and more is a reliance on rolls over role-play as THE defining way to solve problems and advance situations; this also builds into itself, as roleplay takes more work that rolling a dice, thus RP should be rewarded with mechanical bonuses IMHO; also note that is a reward (as in bonus), not a penalty for the others (both roleplay challenged and tired players).
But thats a topic for another time.
this t-shirt may become more poignant than we know right now:
http://d20monkey.myshopify.com/collections/frontpage/products/monte-tee
@Thorynn
This is the first time I'm seeing this T-shirt. Love it!
he bravely suggested the exact same system we already use
“Why are readers being told to reward role-playing in a role-play game?”
To encourage role-playing. Most often what I see is people just rolling dice and expecting the DM to tell them what they did, and what the result was. I’m not saying that the player needs to be the best actor in the world, but I do think that something more than “I bluff the king. (Roll dice.) I got a 32. What happens?” is required. At least give me something like, “I try to bluff the king into believing that I’m a member of the Royal Court in my city.” So, to encourage that, you get a +2 to your roll just for trying. If you don’t want to do that, you just go with your straight roll, and take the results you get from that. There’s no penalty to the player who doesn’t role-play.
“Furthermore, this kind of benefit rewards the player’s skill and imagination more than the character’s…The dice create a bridge for players to embody their character while erecting a wall between player’s stats and character’s stats.”
I think this is a bit of a false dichotomy. Yes, there are things the character can do that the player can’t (cast a magic missile for example). But, decisions about whether a character should move, where he should move to, whether to attack or try to talk, what power to use, etc. are made by the player, and all involve tactics, even if the player is not very tactically minded. Sometimes the player has his character do something that is tactically unsound. That’s the way it goes. But we don’t allow the player to just roll a d20 and let the DM decide for him. And players often (if not always) tend to draw on knowledge that they personally have when making decisions about what their character does. For example, a player who has never done any climbing, in describing his character’s actions, might say, “I use a rope to climb down the cliff side.” Whereas a player who has lots of experience with climbing, might describe how he ties the rope around his legs and waist so that he can repel down the side. In other words, the player’s personal knowledge colors what his character does.
I found Monte's article sadly lacking. It didn't bring anything new to the table, nor was it a particularly good read.
I agree with Pedro that role-playing should be rewarded. We're playing an RPG after all. I wouldn't punish someone for not being good at role-playing, but the people who put in the extra effort deserve an in-game benefit. In the aforementioned case of searching for a hidden door, it makes sense that the guy who is looking for scratches on the floor will have a better chance of success than the guy who say "I'll seach for secret doors", as the latter might not even think to look down.
The 3.5 D&D PHB has a table of modifiers for Bluff attempts based on how believable your bluff is. I think that's a great way of combining player and character skill. Similar modifiers could easily be created for almost all skills.
I echo the sentiment that good role-playing should be rewarded. It can be mechanical, as in a bonus, or story oriented. This encourages more role-playing over roll-playing.