Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

First of all, thanks [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] for collecting this. I generally avoid Twitter because, frankly, it's full of a$$holes.

That aside: this is an interesting way of looking at it, and underscores the difference in design philosophies between the WotC team and the Paizo team. There is a lot of room for both philosophies of design, and I don't think there is any reason for fans of one to be hostile to fans of the other, but those differences do matter. There are ways in which I like the prescriptive elements of 3.x era games (I like set skill difficulty lists, for example) but I tend to run by the seat of my pants and the effects of my beer, so a fast and loose and forgiving version like 5E really enables me running a game the way I like to.

 

[Hussar]

Ok, I've been dancing around this, but, here's my reason why you folks that want greater mechanical complexity in 5e will not see it from WotC:

Time.

That's it in a nutshell. Xanathar's took what, about a year of playtest material? More? I think there were UA articles being chucked out, and on a weekly basis for a while there, for more than a year to make Xanathars. And Xanathars isn't really adding any complexity to the game. Sure, a bunch of sub-classes and a handful of spells, but, really, that's about it. Some expansion on downtime activities. No new subsystems, no psionics or artificers or any new mechanics at all, AFAIK.

Over a year for WotC to produce that.

Now, you folks want an "Advanced PHB". How much lead in time do you think they'd have to spend to make a book, say a couple of hundred pages long, with the changes that you folks claim to want? We're talking major rewrites to fundamental systems - new feat systems, new class systems, new resolution systems. If something as pretty minor as far as rules changes go like Xanathar's takes the better part of two years to get out the door, something like what you want is probably going to take double that.

And that's IF you can actually work the kinks out of it.

Do you honestly think that WotC is going to spend 3-4 years developing a book for D&D that only a minority of gamers actually claim to want? Seriously?

Look, I get wanting new options. But, given how WotC approaches books now, it's just not going to happen.

 

[Sadras]

Besides the obvious mechanics, Xanathars introduced additional character moulding points for roleplaying which can be stitched into ways to earn inspiration or incur disadvantage on checks similar to personality characteristics. These additional roleplaying aspects may further define and differentiate characters of the same class and/or subclass.
It really is good stuff.

i.e. the Barbarian for instance has tattoos, superstitions and personal totems;
the Bard has embarrassments, defining work, instrument, and their muse...etc

 

[pemerton]

when the mechanics insert themselves into the decision-making process any more than that they cannot help but move that process away from simply deciding based on what the character would naturally do and toward deciding based on what the mechanics expect it or want it to do.

Why would those two things - what the PC would naturally do, and what the mechanics expect it or want it to do, be different? In my view the better designed the game, the closer these will align.

 

[Sadras]

Why would those two things - what the PC would naturally do, and what the mechanics expect it or want it to do, be different? In my view the better designed the game, the closer these will align.

Well, in grid-combat flanking provides bonuses or advantage depending on the system, enough so to make characters take non-realistic routes to enter combat and assist their allies who have already engaged in the combat. It becomes very gamist (i.e. not necessarily natural) because of mechanics.

And that is just one example, there are so many more where natural character tendencies are stamped out by mechanics. And this is understandable given that it is a game, where natural choices have a tendency to become increasingly less the more game-y the rpg becomes.

EDIT: I first notice this strong gamist tendency with 4e, it certainly existed in the previous editions, but the grid combat was forced during 4e play and that is where it became all too obvious for me how the roleplaying (at least in combat) had taken on a much more gamist avenue.

 

[Maxperson]

First, yes, they feel different. Fighters and Paladins are very different, and a Fighter/Cleric would also be very different from a Paladin. There are at least three ways to make some kind of assassin (not hit man. "Guy hired to kill people" isnt what assassin means, archetypally). You've got Shadow Monk, any Rogue (most are just better than assassin, TBH, but if you want to infiltrate socially Assassin rogue is good), Gloom Stalker Ranger, and you can build a Warlock or Bard pretty easily to be an assassin. Even if we break that down to "stealth focused, quick, agile, assassin, that is specialized in coming from nowhere to gank fools and then disappear", we've got rogue, shadow monk, and gloom stalker. The three play completely differently.

Just as an addition to this. I often went with a class/wizard or sorcerer when making an assassin. A sprinkling of spells like invisibility, knock and a few other spells to aid an assassin made for a fine assassin. I haven't tried it yet in 5e, but I don't see where it wouldn't work well in this edition.

 

[Maxperson]

That's funny because that's exactly what it seems like to me. All the participants in combat roll initiative because they're all trying to go before everyone else. The thing is it isn’t just one contest. Each participant in combat has a separate contest with each and every other participant in which each is trying to go before the other. The outcome of all of those contests is what establishes initiative order. The participant who wins all his/her contests goes first. The one who lost all his/her contests goes last.

Again. It's a "contest", but not a CONTEST. The rules spell out what a contest is with regard to ability checks, and it isn't a situation where people are jockying for a place in order. It's a directly opposed check where you have one winner and one or more losers that fail completely at the attempt. For initiative to go from "contest" to CONTEST, it would have to allow only the highest person to act, and everyone else doesn't get to go. You may not agree with that, but that is what RAW says and gives for examples. When you have 10 people all vying to act in a round and all 10 get to go, they all SUCCEEDED, which contradicts the CONTEST rule that only one can succeed. It doesn't matter if that success came after another person's success, it's still a success.

 

[Charlaquin]

At the risk of using inciting language, would generalising capabilities that are (in the 5e context) primary located in the spell/magic systems be something like what you've got in mind?

Sure, if I’m understanding the question correctly, that would be one way to accomplish what I’m talking about.

 

[TwoSix]

Ah the last thread on these boards that I really invested any headspace and vigor too. It was a good one as well, with a lot of diverse and interesting angles in conversation about game design generally and 5e resolution specifically. Unfortunately, the crash killed it (and a long DW PBP thread I had) and sucked the last vestiges of interest I had in this forum.

However, I would be interested in your thoughts on this subject [MENTION=205]TwoSix[/MENTION] . I think you participated in that old thread a fair bit. How do you think your thoughts above interface with various GM approaches (earth-centric causal logic vs various types of genre emulation) to task resolution at the epic tier of play, particularly where martial characters are vying for relevance of (or at least the realization through play of their archetype) with spellcasters in non-combat conflict resolution.

I'd observe that the dictates of traditional "immersive" storyline play (self-imposed by practice and tradition, usually, but dictates nonetheless) push strongly against any narrative use of capabilities outside those granted specifically by the game's mechanics.

In the immersive game, the spellcaster is already granted, within the fiction, the knowledge that with the expenditure of some time and resources that she can reliably generate a supernatural effect. Indeed, to not use a relatively trivial resource that the character has spent in-character years learning to harness would be a violation of that immersion!

The non-spellcaster is granted no such surety of supernatural capability in his immersion. The critical aspect of a character imposing a non-resource gated narrative onto the fiction is the imposition of risk, such that the non-gated narrative cannot be attempted over and over again. (This is the "why can't I just trip someone over and over again" problem, slightly restated). Additionally, to the immersionist, the nonspellcaster may have no rationale to assume that any awe-inspiring feat is actually within his grasp, until (DM driven) events conspire to allow the demonstration. Maybe the nonspellcaster can lift up a castle gate with a DC 30 Athletics check, but until he needs to escape an onrushing army, there's no particular need to try.

I'd also argue that even the tropes presented in the original games push towards a "spellcaster is active, nonspellcaster is passive" paradigm. I'll reference 2e here, since I know it better than 1e or OD&D. At high levels, spellcasters gain abilities that require active events in the narrative to occur. A wizard CAN attempt spell research to broaden their capabilities. A wizard CAN attempt to enchant a new magic item. Heck, the 2e DMG rules on how a spellcaster can make a magic item are almost strikingly modern. The wizard sets a goal of "making magic item X", and the DM and player have a negotiation on what narrative steps must occur in order for that item to be made. (Granted, there's still a lot of random rolls and DM has overall final say, but hey, 1989!)

Contrast that with the fighter, for whom an army just kind of shows up if he has a castle. The army, at least, gives the nonspellcaster some broader control over a larger narrative, but it still functions at mostly cross purposes with a game whose fundamental drive is to challenge larger and larger supernatural threats.

CC: [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]

 

[Hriston]

I dunno, do we think of races as having opponents? Tennis? Sure. But the 100m? They’re competitors, but not opponents?

Yes, we do. Here's an example of such usage from the Wikipedia article about the board game Hare and Tortoise. Notice that it uses the word opponent when speaking about characters in a German fable, not about opponents in the game itself:

In Germany, there is another fable by a similar name, Hase und Igel (Hare and hedgehog), made popular by the Brothers Grimm, in which the hedgehog wins because his wife is at the finish line, and the hare mistakes her for his race opponent.​

"Hare's race opponent" has also been seen as a crossword clue, for which the answer of course is tortoise.

Here's a quote from an article titled "10 Racing Strategies to Run Your Best" from active.com:

If there is a specific opponent you want to beat, learn his racing strengths and weaknesses.​

Someone asked the question on quora.com, "How can I beat my opponent mentally in a running race?"

Clearly, it's common usage to identify contestants in a race as opponents.

Are they?

Yes, all the participants are trying to perform the actions and movement of their turns as soon as possible. That's why it's a DEX check. It's about moving quickly.

Sometimes not acting first can be advantageous - you can see what the foes are doing and react with intention, rather than having to guess.

In D&D, 5th Ed., that's called taking the Ready action. You still want to take that action first so the opportunity you're waiting for doesn't pass you by.

The initiative rolls are simply to sort out what happens when, and to ensure that each participant (including the foes) gets a chance to do something each round should they so desire.

I might accept this if initiative was decided by a random roll, but it isn't. It's a DEX check, so it represents an effort to move and act quickly.

Again. It's a "contest", but not a CONTEST. The rules spell out what a contest is with regard to ability checks, and it isn't a situation where people are jockying for a place in order. It's a directly opposed check where you have one winner and one or more losers that fail completely at the attempt. For initiative to go from "contest" to CONTEST, it would have to allow only the highest person to act, and everyone else doesn't get to go. You may not agree with that, but that is what RAW says and gives for examples. When you have 10 people all vying to act in a round and all 10 get to go, they all SUCCEEDED, which contradicts the CONTEST rule that only one can succeed. It doesn't matter if that success came after another person's success, it's still a success.

You're ignoring that I said an initiative roll can be many contests. If there are only two participants in combat, there's just one contest. But if there are ten participants, there are 45 separate contests all happening simultaneously. The outcome of each contest determines which of the two involved participants goes before the other. The other participant fails to go before his/her opponent. To reiterate what I'm saying here, the participants are not contesting with each other for the ability to act. They are contesting with each other for the ability to act before the other participants when considered one at a time.

I know that Jeremy Crawford answered that initiative is not a contest, but keep in mind that it's much easier for him and the rulebooks to treat it as a special case than to explain it the way I have, especially considering his answer has to fit in a tweet.

 

[Shardstone]

Ok, I've been dancing around this, but, here's my reason why you folks that want greater mechanical complexity in 5e will not see it from WotC:

Time.

That's it in a nutshell. Xanathar's took what, about a year of playtest material? More? I think there were UA articles being chucked out, and on a weekly basis for a while there, for more than a year to make Xanathars. And Xanathars isn't really adding any complexity to the game. Sure, a bunch of sub-classes and a handful of spells, but, really, that's about it. Some expansion on downtime activities. No new subsystems, no psionics or artificers or any new mechanics at all, AFAIK.

Over a year for WotC to produce that.

Now, you folks want an "Advanced PHB". How much lead in time do you think they'd have to spend to make a book, say a couple of hundred pages long, with the changes that you folks claim to want? We're talking major rewrites to fundamental systems - new feat systems, new class systems, new resolution systems. If something as pretty minor as far as rules changes go like Xanathar's takes the better part of two years to get out the door, something like what you want is probably going to take double that.

And that's IF you can actually work the kinks out of it.

Do you honestly think that WotC is going to spend 3-4 years developing a book for D&D that only a minority of gamers actually claim to want? Seriously?

Look, I get wanting new options. But, given how WotC approaches books now, it's just not going to happen.

It's telling that everyone ignores this absolutely true post to keep arguing about minutia.