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Decades ago, Monte Cook helped design my favorite grouping of D&D editions, the "3.x" ones — 3.0, d20 Modern, 3.5, and Pathfinder 1e — for lack of a collective name that wasn't stolen. However, years ago, he turned his back on the sorts of design principles 3.x works off of. He wasn't alone; a lot of 21st Century TTRPGs basically entailed recoiling against everything 3.x, and the generic systems that inspired it, stand for. A few days ago, he wrote a blog post about his current thinking. My rebuttal was going to be a Mastodon thread, but it turned out kind of long for that, even with my thoughts abbreviated as much as possible. Here, I can at least unpack my thinking more. I admit this TL;DRs into "I like what I like", but I still want to say it.
Honestly, I like the simulationist near-parity between PCs, NPCs, and monsters in 3.x, even with the extra work it makes me (or my current DM) do. Heck, I wish the game leaned a bit more into statting stuff like Pots of Boiling; as I understand it, a big reason it doesn't is because of the higher-ups demanding that as much game-mechanical material as possible be player-facing. Unfortunately, since the 2010s, TTRPG designers seem to have collectively decided that game mechanics should either be for combat only, as handwavey as possible, or be as implausibly limiting as possible lest players abuse their character being part of a larger setting. That a simulationist approach is considered "bad game design" now is why I take for granted that there'll never be a game that dethrones 3.x for me (unless maybe I make it myself, but that's a can of worms I'm not sure more than half a dozen people want me to open).
That being said, I also appreciate that one of the specific ways 3.x helps ease the burden of that aspect of its design is that the Commoner, Expert, Warrior, and Aristocrat are clearly specifically designed for "oh shit" usage. Remember the nonelite array, the elite array, and what each of those classes can do, and assign full or half points to skills instead of getting detailed, and you can improvise any nonmagical NPC. Heck, I'd even give serious consideration to a single additional complication: a subsystem based on d20m's Occupation mechanic. If one wants to take that step, there's a convenient early third-party one for PF1 as far as that goes. Sadly, the Adept, and later Magewright, aren't "oh shit"-friendly like that. I suspect an NPC caster class that was would have to use the full-list spontaneous mechanic that the Warmage, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, and 3.x Artificer do... and none of those are open content.
Where the "everything works like PCs do" principle starts to break down is monster HD, which work just differently enough to be awkward, and are tied to the excessively assumption-loaded creature type mechanics. Fundamentally, monster HD changes the concept from what a creature does to what a creature is. Honestly, I think 4e had the right idea here: "plain" monster HD should be based on combat role, not on jumping to the conclusion that every artificial being is essentially a golem. And yes, I love the fact that intelligent "monsters" in 3.x can have actual class levels! That, to me, entails a fundamental acknowledgement that all peoples are equally valid, in a way D&D often otherwise fails to say.
Concerning the idea of being freer to make NPCs do arbitrary stuff, honestly the example Monte Cook gave got me thinking about exactly how I'd do it in 3.x. One of the biggest pieces of wiggle room in the system is magic item creation; in particular, rods and wondrous items clearly operate on a principle of "close enough". Furthermore, one of the easiest ways to keep a magical effect out of a PC's hands is for it to be an entire room that's been enchanted — the ultimate expression of being "nailed down". Therefore, just enchant the library itself with Animate Objects and Fly, and the wizard can command any books there to attack whenever he wants.
To move past the pure pedantry of that last paragraph and on to why I care about it, "How does this work?" and "What would really happen?" are, to me and my friends, empowering questions. Thinking like characters in the setting is easier if there's an actual logic they could be using, and that the game mechanics help players approximate. It dismays me that nowadays the very idea of pursuing an understanding of a fictional setting, or indeed the idea that a setting should be understandable at all, is considered at best passé and at worst evil. Even those modern games that still try to have broadly encompassing game mechanics turn the entire reason why I want them on their head, taking such measures as making it impossible for PCs who craft items to turn even a modest profit doing so, in the name of either "game balance" or trying to deliberately control or limit PC behavior or options.
Ultimately, I think I have a difference of opinion with Monte Cook, and the current majority of designers who think like him, about what makes a TTRPG worthwhile. I've done a lot of freeform RP, and because of that, I'd rather that games with actual systems provide lots of inspiring game mechanics, handholds, internal consistency, and a common language for discussing possibilities. If they don't, then why am I playing a TTRPG at all and not just playing freeform pretend with at most some loose storygame safety and authority-regulating mechanics?
It would be wrong to say I'm a pure simulationist, mind you. I'm also very much a performatist — but my railing against The Angry GM's attack against that aspect of how my friends and I play is another, far longer rant for another day. (Seriously, what ever happened to mocking the concept of "badwrongfun"?)
Honestly, I like the simulationist near-parity between PCs, NPCs, and monsters in 3.x, even with the extra work it makes me (or my current DM) do. Heck, I wish the game leaned a bit more into statting stuff like Pots of Boiling; as I understand it, a big reason it doesn't is because of the higher-ups demanding that as much game-mechanical material as possible be player-facing. Unfortunately, since the 2010s, TTRPG designers seem to have collectively decided that game mechanics should either be for combat only, as handwavey as possible, or be as implausibly limiting as possible lest players abuse their character being part of a larger setting. That a simulationist approach is considered "bad game design" now is why I take for granted that there'll never be a game that dethrones 3.x for me (unless maybe I make it myself, but that's a can of worms I'm not sure more than half a dozen people want me to open).
That being said, I also appreciate that one of the specific ways 3.x helps ease the burden of that aspect of its design is that the Commoner, Expert, Warrior, and Aristocrat are clearly specifically designed for "oh shit" usage. Remember the nonelite array, the elite array, and what each of those classes can do, and assign full or half points to skills instead of getting detailed, and you can improvise any nonmagical NPC. Heck, I'd even give serious consideration to a single additional complication: a subsystem based on d20m's Occupation mechanic. If one wants to take that step, there's a convenient early third-party one for PF1 as far as that goes. Sadly, the Adept, and later Magewright, aren't "oh shit"-friendly like that. I suspect an NPC caster class that was would have to use the full-list spontaneous mechanic that the Warmage, Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, and 3.x Artificer do... and none of those are open content.
Where the "everything works like PCs do" principle starts to break down is monster HD, which work just differently enough to be awkward, and are tied to the excessively assumption-loaded creature type mechanics. Fundamentally, monster HD changes the concept from what a creature does to what a creature is. Honestly, I think 4e had the right idea here: "plain" monster HD should be based on combat role, not on jumping to the conclusion that every artificial being is essentially a golem. And yes, I love the fact that intelligent "monsters" in 3.x can have actual class levels! That, to me, entails a fundamental acknowledgement that all peoples are equally valid, in a way D&D often otherwise fails to say.
Concerning the idea of being freer to make NPCs do arbitrary stuff, honestly the example Monte Cook gave got me thinking about exactly how I'd do it in 3.x. One of the biggest pieces of wiggle room in the system is magic item creation; in particular, rods and wondrous items clearly operate on a principle of "close enough". Furthermore, one of the easiest ways to keep a magical effect out of a PC's hands is for it to be an entire room that's been enchanted — the ultimate expression of being "nailed down". Therefore, just enchant the library itself with Animate Objects and Fly, and the wizard can command any books there to attack whenever he wants.
To move past the pure pedantry of that last paragraph and on to why I care about it, "How does this work?" and "What would really happen?" are, to me and my friends, empowering questions. Thinking like characters in the setting is easier if there's an actual logic they could be using, and that the game mechanics help players approximate. It dismays me that nowadays the very idea of pursuing an understanding of a fictional setting, or indeed the idea that a setting should be understandable at all, is considered at best passé and at worst evil. Even those modern games that still try to have broadly encompassing game mechanics turn the entire reason why I want them on their head, taking such measures as making it impossible for PCs who craft items to turn even a modest profit doing so, in the name of either "game balance" or trying to deliberately control or limit PC behavior or options.
Ultimately, I think I have a difference of opinion with Monte Cook, and the current majority of designers who think like him, about what makes a TTRPG worthwhile. I've done a lot of freeform RP, and because of that, I'd rather that games with actual systems provide lots of inspiring game mechanics, handholds, internal consistency, and a common language for discussing possibilities. If they don't, then why am I playing a TTRPG at all and not just playing freeform pretend with at most some loose storygame safety and authority-regulating mechanics?
It would be wrong to say I'm a pure simulationist, mind you. I'm also very much a performatist — but my railing against The Angry GM's attack against that aspect of how my friends and I play is another, far longer rant for another day. (Seriously, what ever happened to mocking the concept of "badwrongfun"?)
