Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

Morrus said:

3.5 and 4 were very much driven by an anxiety about controlling the experience of the game, leaving as little as possible to chance. They aimed for consistency of play from campaign to campaign, and table to table. The fear was that an obnoxious player or DM would ruin the game, and that would drive people away from it. The thinking was that if we made things as procedural as possible, people would just follow the rules and have fun regardless of who they played with.

The downside to this approach is that the rules became comprehensive to a fault. The game’s rules bloated, as they sought to resolve many if not all questions that arise in play with the game text.

At the same time, 3.5 and 4 were driven by the idea that D&D players wanted as many character options as possible, presented in a modular framework meant to encourage the search for combinations that yielded characters who broke the power curve.

These two aims play together in an extremely terrible way, at least from a design perspective. Your core system has to cover everything... meanwhile you are adding more cases and content to your game. Good luck with keeping those things in balance!

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For Mearls, this seems to be lacking insight. The central mechanical fault with 3rd was the way it scaled. They (partially) fixed that. It had nothing to do with an attempt to cover everything. The reason extra content broke the game is that there was too much of it, and you could combine it in so many different ways. Again, nothing to do with an attempt to cover everything. Honestly, this feels like willful amnesia.

Morrus said:

With 5th, we assumed that the DM was there to have a good time, put on an engaging performance, and keep the group interested, excited, and happy. It’s a huge change, because we no longer expect you to turn to the book for an answer. We expect the DM to do that.

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Is one really expected to believe Mearls is not aware of Gygax's caveats in even the earliest editions of D&D?!

Morrus said:

In terms of players, we focus much more on narrative and identity, rather than specific, mechanical advantages.

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This is a plain falsehood. You can count the abilities that characters have in 5e and contrast those with 3e. Factually, 5e gives characters more, and more specific, mechanical advantages.

I have to say these quotes for me really raised an eyebrow. They seem to represent the work of an historian, rewriting history to ennoble the current regime. 5e is one of the most mechanically sophisticated versions of D&D to have ever existed. It is a large step more sophisticated than 3e. The mechanics are woven amazingly tightly across the system, in a fashion that feels almost always natural and expected. It's a tremendous piece of work. But to call its hundreds of pages of rules less mechanically focused than previous editions is myopic at best, deceitful at worst.

If Mearls had said something like - with 5e we're trying to write more natural rules with more flexibility in expected interpretation - I would find that believable. To go out dissing history to make now look fab, is frankly disappointing.

clearstream said:

This is a plain falsehood. You can count the abilities that characters have in 5e and contrast those with 3e. Factually, 5e gives characters more, and more specific, mechanical advantages.

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I think you're misunderstanding the thrust of it.

For example - When asked about a regret Mearls has pointed to the design of the fighter, specifically the subclasses. The Champion and Battlemaster have no identity, they're just bundles of mechanics.

Most of the classes and subclasses in the game are designed narrative first rather than mechanics first. It's a design philosophy.

clearstream said:

They seem to represent the work of an historian, rewriting history to ennoble the current regime.

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Thats pretty much how Enworld operated since 4E was announced. You cant believe how fast 3E was denounced as complete garbage as soon as the announcment was made and how hostile the moderation became when someone didnt like 4E.
And then the same thing happened once 5E was announced.

ad_hoc said:

I think you're misunderstanding the thrust of it.

For example - When asked about a regret Mearls has pointed to the design of the fighter, specifically the subclasses. The Champion and Battlemaster have no identity, they're just bundles of mechanics.

Most of the classes and subclasses in the game are designed narrative first rather than mechanics first. It's a design philosophy.

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Wouldn't this require that Mearls has helped himself to characterising Cook, Tweet and Williams' motives? When I look at Numenera I see the work of a designer who is profoundly interested in narrative.

The Battlemaster is very popular in our group, one of our most distinctive characters is the Dwarf Battlemaster. I think the Champion has some identity issues due to insufficiently good mechanical design: it's the weakest of the core fighter archetypes. Greater mechanical payoff for its athletic focus would bring it more to life narratively, at the table.

In an RPG, rules formalise a player's leverage on the narrative. This can go from very simple, powerful rules, which you see in storytelling games where players can rewrite the high-level plot, to the complex of levers in D&D that let players nudge the plot in different directions. Most of D&D remains focused on fighting: if Mearls wanted to address a failing in D&D mechanics, he should address that! If he really feels that previous versions of D&D failed to prioritise narrative sufficiently, where then are the 5th edition rules that are as detailed and sophisticated as fighting rules, that address exploration and social pillars? FCS the non-combat skills dimension of D&D was only salvaged because the D&D Next beta testing community rallied around them!

Golly, I'm ranting. However, my take on it is this. If you look at Mearls work he has been as heavily invested in combat as the rest of us. His Iron Heroes system seems to me to build on the Book of Nine Swords (which I don't think he was involved in, so perhaps some parallel innovation was happening there). What he is describing is possibly his own growth as a designer. I am critical of revisionism, and I am critical of a claim to be focused more on social etc while still selling books almost wholly devoted to fighting. That said, I would argue that "imagined fighting" is not fighting. It's something else, and it is important to understand the symbolism involved and realise that killing a guard, and persuading one to step aside, are much closer than they superficially appear. Save that the killing is better supported by the mechanics of <insert edition of D&D>.

Stacie GmrGrl said:

I just dislike the foundation of the "Rulings not Rules" approach, which leads to a very non-transparent game. Its lazy design.

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Or conversely... the other way to look at it is that the design isn't lazy, but rather you are. You want everything codified so you don't have to think or do any work.

Now, is that statement of mine unfair and unnecessarily hurtful? Most likely, yes. And I apologize for that. But at least you can see why you calling their work lazy is unfair and unnecessary too.

You want to say you prefer 4E's design to 5E's, that's great. You'll have a bunch of people who will agree with you. But denigrating 5E's design just because you don't prefer it serves no point and the mirror can be turned and reflected back on you just as easily.

DEFCON 1 said:

Or conversely... the other way to look at it is that the design isn't lazy, but rather you are. You want everything codified so you don't have to think or do any work.

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I haven't found either mode of DMing less effortful, with rules is about as effortful as without. For me that's not the point here: 5e has hundreds of pages of rules. It's as much constituted by rules as any other edition of D&D.

DEFCON 1 said:

denigrating 5E's design just because you don't prefer it serves no point and the mirror can be turned and reflected back on you just as easily.

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I think one can be critical of a design, that one nevertheless values highly. I like 5e more than previous editions, and I can speak critically about it or its designers even so.

Rules and rulings, captures D&D far better than prioritising either.

billd91 said:

Same as anything else - because you chose to learn other techniques when that choice was presented to you. That’s not simply metagame disconnected from in-character decisions. That’s the opportunity cost of the choices you made.

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What techniques has a champion fighter mastered? Where does the narrative of the class tell me that? I think you're just reading it straight of the class-build rules.

Reynard said:

That's not really true though, nor has it ever been. The fighter can't try and cost fireball or turn undead. Why? Because those are class abilities.

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I'm not sure how that contradicts what I'm saying (or either of the things I said).

For a class system to work, the archetypes really need to be pretty strongly drawn. AD&D mostly does this, though thief and assassin and MU and illusionist are counterexamples. But the former are differentiated mostly by their numbers; and the latter mostly by their spell lists, which are somewhat arbitrary in any event. But mechanical variations that fill the same archetypal space (like champion and battlemaster) prompt the question, why can one do it but the other not?

As to "doing anything you want to", I think that's one of the least helpful things that people can say in trying to explain what RPGs are - apart from anything else, as you point out, it's obviously not true of the best-known and most widely played RPG. Yet it's a frequently-repeated mantra.

Reynard said:

So is being able to take a complex action (knocking an opponent prone) AND being able to try and hurt them in the process.

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The only way we know that that is a "complex action" is because of the mechanics. Strictly from a fiction point of view, there's nothing especially complex about knocking someone prone and hurting them in the process. It seems like something that eg a mace might be pretty handy for, or maybe - with a different fighting style - a quarterstaff. The "complexity" comes from the fact that D&D treats status infliction and hit point attrition as distinct mechanical processes.

Reynard said:

Once you accept the limitations inherent in the character class system, complaining that you don't automatically have access to the abilities of another class, even if it seems thematically similar to the one you chose, is kind of weaksauce.

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I'm not complaining. I'm observing. This feature of a system pretty strongly contradicts the idea that it is "naturalistic" or "free flowing" or not mechanically complex. You can't really know what your PC can or can't do until you know the full spectrum of class features.

Which in D&D includes spells: for instance, we can't know how to adjudicate an attempt by a tough fighter to scare an opponent witless without thinking about how it balances with the limited-resource Cause Fear spell.

DEFCON 1 said:

Or conversely... the other way to look at it is that the design isn't lazy, but rather you are. You want everything codified so you don't have to think or do any work.

Now, is that statement of mine unfair and unnecessarily hurtful? Most likely, yes. And I apologize for that. But at least you can see why you calling their work lazy is unfair and unnecessary too.

You want to say you prefer 4E's design to 5E's, that's great. You'll have a bunch of people who will agree with you. But denigrating 5E's design just because you don't prefer it serves no point and the mirror can be turned and reflected back on you just as easily.

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You can't apologize for intentionally being as disrespectful and insulting as you just were. You don't know me and you calling Me 'lazy' because I voiced my perspective... Yeah you don't know me or how I see things.

Was it necessary for you to be so insulting to me? I find it amazing that while I did give credit towards 5e on a couple of really cool things you decide to insult me anyway.

And while I was talking about a game from the perspective of game design, you decided to attack me directly. I don't know you, but there is a difference in talking about a game compared to directing an attack on a person for them just voicing their perspective. You don't know me so don't presume to think you know anything about me from a couple of internet comments on a couple of opinions.

I can give credit to 5e on some of the great things that they did do with it that has made it a great game, or did you miss that in my comments when you singled me out?

I respect what 5e has done for the hobby and industry. Its been a boom. I think its great so many like it.

Popularity has nothing to do with actual design, or how game mechanisms function, or that there is a lot of stuff presented in the game that has no mechanical foundation.

Is 5e good? Yes.
Does it have a lot of meat ideas? Yes.
Is it fun? As a DM yes.
Does it try to introduce ideas and options? Yes.
Is it presented in an easy to read presentation? Yes.


None of that detracts away from the fact that while it does have a lot of cool stuff in it, it doesn't provide players the tools to have any real agency. Because of how much focused is put on allowing the DM to make rulings about so many things, just about every action a player does is a process of asking the DM if its okay, leading to a game of DM-May-I.

A good, fair DM will make it fun and fair... But a bad DM can suck the fun out of it and use this authority to strip any kind of agency from the players because the entire game is designed on this premise of allowing SMs to make up so much as they want it to be.

There is no narrative identity in the game as per the rules as written. There are no encoded rules on how to manage non-combat XP. There are no rules on how to give out Inspiration. There are so many things left open to interpretation because they didn't want to design it.

So, yes, in a way it is lazy design.

4e takes a lot more work to DM. WOIN takes a lot more work to GM. Apocalypse World takes a lot more work to MC. 13th Age takes more work to GM. Dresden Files takes a lot more work to GM. Torg takes a lot more work to GM. Hero System takes a lot to GM.

You don't know me. Please don't presume to assume I am lazy.

Stacie GmrGrl said:

You can't apologize for intentionally being as disrespectful and insulting as you just were. You don't know me and you calling Me 'lazy' because I voiced my perspective... Yeah you don't know me or how I see things.

Was it necessary for you to be so insulting to me? I find it amazing that while I did give credit towards 5e on a couple of really cool things you decide to insult me anyway.

You don't know me. Please don't presume to assume I am lazy.

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You are absolutely correct, I don't know you, so I have no idea.

But at the same time you don't know Mike, Jeremy, or the others who designed 5E. So you have no idea the choices or decisions that were made to go into how they chose to create the game, or the work they put in to do so. So to call their work lazy is just as disrespectful. Now you may think "Well, they were never going to see my comments about them anyway, so I can just say they deliberately chose to ignore whole parts of them game that I think they should have put more work into and thus call their design lazy..." but I'm sorry... there's a whole bunch of people here on the boards very willing to defend their work as anything BUT "lazy". They did not slack off in the slightest, and to insinuate they did is just as insulting.

As I said, I was just turning the mirror around and showing how your comments about their work could be reflected in another way. If you don't appreciate it, perhaps you'll understand why your original comment might've been out of place as well.

pemerton said:

I don't think both these claims can be true.

This isn't true. I won't comment on 3E, but 5e doesn't differ from 4e simply in terms of options.

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It is true, because every version of D&D, (as I've documented with appropriate references in other posts) has made it very clear that the DM is the designer of last resort for his or her table.

I can and have for example.

1. Hand waved an entire combat (from personal one on one to entire armies) as a plot device meant to further the story or at the least to simulate a true butt kicking when it's obvious rather than spend hours simulating it.

2. Rewritten entire classes to balance them against each other or flavor them for the area the character is growing up in.

3. Added magical spells, and rewritten monsters from the canon to keep players guessing and restore some wonder to the game when everyone owns the books.

So in a game where I can do all of that as a DM and have it be legal, I really don't see the counter argument standing.

Note: I'm all for system mastery and options, but if I have a player at my table who wants to be a DM I'll just invite them to do so on occasion. (Note: Players who must be in control, and must have tight rules that aren't changed have either had really bad experiences socially or want to be a DM - IMHO)

Additionally, I think every person who is either big on options or big on following RAW has done every one of these as a DM at some point in time. The absolutist stance on forums works great, but it never works in practice.

Peace
KB