D&D (2024) In Interview with GamesRadar, Chris Perkins Discusses New Books

[TwoSix]

"Subclasses, as far as I'm concerned, [are] the Wild West," he adds. "There is no end of subclasses that we can do to basically explore a niche within a world."

I think this is correct, but I think they've taken it in the wrong direction.

The desire to break the character creation down into several bite-size pieces, that all have dependencies and constraints, is what causes analysis paralysis. The game should instead present subclass as the exciting, first choice you make. 50 options of 1-2 page spreads explaining the subclass (which should just be renamed "class"), and all the distinct features it gets, with some cool art to provoke interest. You don't want new players to be analyzing their choice, you want them to be flipping through the book, seeing something that catches their eye and makes them say "I want to play that".

Then that subclass gives them everything they need to start. Stats are listed, skills are listed, weapons and armor, AC, etc. Then race and background let you add a little color and a special ability or two.

"Class" is just "class type" and lists the core mechanics your class gets at certain levels, like feats and extra attack and spell slots.

Then the DMG exists to explain how to reverse engineer everything and do swaps for stats, skills, etc.

And you can do this while maintaining full backwards compatibility with characters built the 2014 way. It's just a rearrangement of how the information is presented, with slightly edited class progressions and racial features.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The reference back to what they wanted to do in 2012, which was reduce the number of Classes to 4 (and the paraphrase in this article does point towards the Warrior and Priest Class Groups, which match up with what WotC wanted to do in those early playtests). The voting in 2p12 were the player surveys: if the designers them had their druthers, 4 Classes with choices to modify them along the line seems likely how they would have gone. And that seems to be what Perkins is saying here.

I see.

I personally don't think that's a good understanding of the early playtests. I don't think the designers were remotely as enamoured of the 4 class approach as you're suggesting - I think they just put it out first so it could get rejected first and to eliminate any suggestion that that was how they should have gone. They certainly didn't make a strong or compelling argument for four classes.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think this is correct, but I think they've taken it in the wrong direction.

The desire to break the character creation down into several bite-size pieces, that all have dependencies and constraints, is what causes analysis paralysis. The game should instead present subclass as the exciting, first choice you make. 50 options of 1-2 page spreads explaining the subclass (which should just be renamed "class"), and all the distinct features it gets, with some cool art to provoke interest. You don't want new players to be analyzing their choice, you want them to be flipping through the book, seeing something that catches their eye and makes them say "I want to play that".

Then that subclass gives them everything they need to start. Stats are listed, skills are listed, weapons and armor, AC, etc. Then race and background let you add a little color and a special ability or two.

"Class" is just "class type" and lists the core mechanics your class gets at certain levels, like feats and extra attack and spell slots.

Then the DMG exists to explain how to reverse engineer everything and do swaps for stats, skills, etc.

And you can do this while maintaining full backwards compatibility with characters built the 2014 way. It's just a rearrangement of how the information is presented, with slightly edited class progressions and racial features.

This is certainly supported by the games I've played, both TT and video, that have genuinely large numbers of classes, vs. those that have fewer - I've never seen "analysis paralysis" in Rifts, for example (not in choosing a class, anyway - choosing what part of a mech to shoot at, maybe!).

 

[TwoSix]

This is certainly supported by the games I've played, both TT and video, that have genuinely large numbers of classes, vs. those that have fewer - I've never seen "analysis paralysis" in Rifts, for example (not in choosing a class, anyway - choosing what part of a mech to shoot at, maybe!).

Yep. I think the game is still hindered by the old school concept of "I'm a normal person, and I have these stats, let me pick my class based on these stats." The game can certainly allow that via some optional rules, but I don't think that's how most modern gamers conceive their characters anymore. Pretty much everyone starts "concept first".

 

[Parmandur]

I see.

I personally don't think that's a good understanding of the early playtests. I don't think the designers were remotely as enamoured of the 4 class approach as you're suggesting - I think they just put it out first so it could get rejected first and to eliminate any suggestion that that was how they should have gone. They certainly didn't make a strong or compelling argument for four classes.

It got shot down pretty fast, sure, just like Mearls personal favorite, proficiency dice: but that doesn'tmean nobodyon the design team wasn'trooting for it. It seems to me that Perkins is saying here in response to a question about why they didn't expand the Classes, that if he had abdolute control he would have gone with the 4 Class iteration, not gone over 12.

 

[Jer]

I've never seen "analysis paralysis" in Rifts, for example (not in choosing a class, anyway - choosing what part of a mech to shoot at, maybe!).

You now have me wanting to break out Rifts for my group just to see what my one player who has the most extreme form of analysis paralysis does when presented with the core book.

(I would never do this to him. The class system in Rifts may or may not cause him grief but oh my god I wouldn't want to inflict the skill system on him. He's my friend!)

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The problem with 5e is that it falls between two stools. The existence of subclasses implies broad class categories to place them in, but in reality, some classes are broad, some are narrow, some (ranger, druid) have hyper-specific attributes that no-one can agree on because there is no referent outside D&D-land, etc.

The reason 5E has some narrow classes is essentially cowardice.

They were too afraid of being tarred with a 4E brush, so instead of being willing to deviate from how classes traditionally were, several of the classes are basically just "throwbacks" to 3E, and very narrow and odd as a result. Sorcerer, Druid and Ranger are - I'd argue Monk also was. Bard is remarkable in that it is absolutely not a throwback to 3E, but a genuinely bold decision with mostly-novel abilities. And they seem to be much more popular in 5E than previous editions.

If they'd done what they did with the Bard with Druid, Ranger, Sorcerer and Monk, I think we'd be in a much better place. Druid and Ranger might have merged, with a slightly more developed Nature Cleric taking over the "pure caster" Druid, and a Fighter subclass taking over for no-magic Ranger via a subclass (with more skills etc.), and we could have got a class with subclasses that let it end up as focusing on either being a warrior with some nature magic, a partial-shapeshift warrior like a 4E Warden, or a shapeshift-centric character. The class design could have been Warlock-like.

It seems to me that Perkins is saying here in response to a question about why they didn't expand the Classes, that if he had abdolute control he would have gone with the 4 Class iteration, not gone over 12.

Yeah I don't think his thinking is that advanced. I think he's just making very basic observations of a trite kind. However, we're both reading in from an interview where they didn't drill down on this, so it's hard to really say.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You now have me wanting to break out Rifts for my group just to see what my one player who has the most extreme form of analysis paralysis does when presented with the core book.

(I would never do this to him. The class system in Rifts may or may not cause him grief but oh my god I wouldn't want to inflict the skill system on him. He's my friend!)

Oh god the skill system and the stuff people did to get the right skills! Argh!

 

[mellored]

I don't think the designers were remotely as enamoured of the 4 class approach as you're suggesting

Agreed.

I think they want less classes, but no where did they say 4.

Maybe like 7 classes.
Martial (Fighter, Barbarian)
Half Caster (Ranger, Paladin, Artificer)
Monk
Rogue
Magic User (Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard)
Divine (Cleric, Druid)
Warlock

 

[Clint_L]

Agreed.

I think they want less classes, but no where did they say 4.

Maybe like 7 classes.
Martial (Fighter, Barbarian)
Half Caster (Ranger, Paladin, Artificer)
Monk
Rogue
Magic User (Wizard, Sorcerer, Bard)
Divine (Cleric, Druid)
Warlock

Question: if barbarian, for example, becomes a sub-class, then what is, say, an ancestral guardian? The sub-sub-class?

Because that's sort of what they've already done with category, class, sub-class.