My apologies to D&D

After skimming bits of the new Dungeon Master's Guide, and having read bits of Mike Mearls' (one of the developers) blog and comments, I have to apologize to a large chunk of the D&D crowd… they aren't all playing the game I thought they were.

Mearls talks about Sorcerer and bangs and kickers. The new DMG is obviously drawing from principles in the storygames movement. Apparently there are not only people playing D&D with a story focus, but the developers and writers are concerned about the story as well. And I thought everyone was just killing monsters and taking their stuff.

Now, they haven't quite taken it all the way… the D&D mechanics still reward you for killing monsters, with rewards for story stuff being vague and almost an afterthought. I strongly believe that mechanics should reward the kind of play you desire to create, so stuff like The Shadow of Yesterday's keys mechanic really trip my trigger. But thanks to D&D 4E having both action points and healing surges as potential foundations for bonus economies (in addition to plain ol' XP), I think grafting in keys would be pretty simple.