So by now, unless you live under a rock, you have heard the announcement that there is a new edition of D&D in the works. Also that this time the designers will be consulting the gaming community during the design process. Pardon me if I remain a bit dubious. I have signed up to participate, but the design club tends to be exclusive. This is a fact of life, you can never get anything 100% the way you want it, unless you do it yourself. Especially in the land of role-playing games. So I will keep a weather eye on the horizon, and hope maybe they don't let the inmates run the asylum.
If you really are listening however, please take note of a few minor requests....
Please give the game back to the DMs. By defining a rule for every situation in the past couple of editions, you have encouraged the worst tendencies in Rules Lawyers. We didn't have that many problems when playing Basic or 1st Edition. The law of the land was "Rulings not Rules". We would hear a description of a players actions and make a decision based on our experience. A rule to cover every eventuality is ok, if you're just an automaton wandering through a stone tunnel, killing anything that moves. Not such a good thing however when you are trying to encourage a collaborative story environment.
Point the second... Please try and keep the game world generic. There are alot of us out here that enjoy creating our own worlds of adventure. By defining a world down to the last blade of grass, you encourage the players to try and slap the DM with the "But the published game world, is the only official world" argument.
Third, but by no means last, don't be afraid to introduce a little complexity. We as gamers will introduce the next generation to gaming. Don't try and dumb things down to attract a younger crowd, we'll bring them into the gaming fold, you just have to give us a good reason.
