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.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Likewise in a commentary on a concert, one performer might stand out as having delivered something better, more interesting, etc than the rest.

I'm not sure where you're trying to push with the "reflect on them" - it's generally a goal of commentary and criticism to avoid personalising it, and to focus on the work rather than the character of the creator/performer. If Dangerfield was performing better, he can take some pride the others can't - but that doesn't mean the rest of them should feel ashamed. Judgement, and response to judgement, aren't dichotomous in that sense.

Because you said it was an “evaluation of a team’s performance rather than their individual degrees of personal effort”. But by pointing out that Dangerfield was not being lazy, it specifically points out the others were. Now, I’m not saying that’s insulting, but it’s certainly a negative criticism of their work.

But hey....we’re far afield of the discussion on this little tangent.

 

[billd91]

I think at this point, I'm going to define criticism that uses the term "lazy design" or "lazy writing" as hole criticism. And if anyone feels insulted by it, gosh, I don't know why.

 

[Madhey]

D&D 5e has a focus on "player narrative and identity"? How exactly? Everything unique about your character you'll have to make up yourself, outside the rulebooks. Then Chess also has a focus on narrative and identity.
D&D 5e is okay for dungeon crawling type games, but not great for anything else, IMO.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

And for people too poor to have a computer?

this is a good reason that essential stuff like a copy of the character sheet should be in the book, I guess, but stuff that isn’t necessary at the table can safely be online.

The vast manority of folks folks who don’t have access to a computer due to being too poor, also can’t afford to buy game books.

To me, this still seems to be relevant only to pick-up/club/organised play games.

What the norms are at a table of people who aren't otherwise strangers to one aonther seem to me to be influenced by their past dealings and mutual undertandings, not a label used at the bottom of a published book.

I don’t know what to tell you, man. Were you not around during 4e? If you were, do you not remember the discussions about this very topic?

Its also certianly relevant to new groups of players, and to many groups I know who’ve played for years, bc none of us ban options “because we don’t like Dragonborn” or whatever, so we come to session zero assuming that anything from the core books that we aren’t told is banned, is allowed, and that we have to ask about non-core options.

In 4e, that meant we discussed concepts, and then just built characters, because the entire game was open. The only restriction in most campaigns was “don’t cheese, and ask about feat taxes before taking them, bc there might be a houserule that obviates them”.

Either way, we just play what we enjoy playing as a group, but it changes the unspoken assumptions of, IME, most groups.

But in 5e they don't?

what? You readin what you’re responding to? Where did I claim or imply any such thing?

No it's not, for two reasons.

First, what I decribed is a system that can be used to resolve beating someone in a sword fight, jumping out of the way of a scything blade, or persuading someone to sell you a used chariot at a good price. The 5e skill system does not do the first of these things (that would be an attack roll instead), probably does not do the second of these things (that looks like a saving throw to me), and is ambivalent at best in relation to the third of those things (which falls within the domain of social conflict).

Second, succeeding at a skill check in 5e does not guarantee that the PC achieves what s/he hoped to. As per p 58 of the Basic PDF, "The DM calls for an ability check when a character or monster attempts an action (other than an attack) that has a chance of failure. When the outcome is uncertain, the dice determine the results." Action declaration in 5e is in terms of task attempted, not conflict to be resolved. As the game is written and presented, whether succeeding at the task results in success at the conflict, or failing at the task results in losing the conflict, is a further matter that depends entirely on GM adjudication.

All checks in 5e use the same resolution system, and it’s exactly hat you described. The only difference is what “relevant modifiers” specifically refers to. For attacks, it is attack stat mod, for “ability checks” it is the appropriate ability mod for that activity, to saves it is the mod of the stat being targeted. In all cases, you add proficiency mod if you are proficient.

That is the resolution system. Attacks and skills aren’t two different systems.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

See here is the rub, in 5e or any game system, the impact of "fine clothes" should be very situational and setting dependent. So, how many tables of rules chart of clothes vs situation vs gp cost do you want.

As gm, off the cuff, I can think of quite a few ways fine clothes could be useful - and since my character recently had hers stolen by rampaging gruesome, more clothes will be bought soon.

Yes an advantage for certain social checks in the right setting.
Simply being able to blend in at certain circumstances.
Helping with disguises.
Helping with cons.

That's just off the top of my head. I guarantee my players will find more.

But in my experience, once you take something as mundane as clothing choices and distill them down to "other ways to get a plus" you typically wind up heading towards the Christmas tree of pluses.

What's next? GP rates for food for +1 plus to hp rolls? GP rates for better shoes for +1 to stealth or 5' dash?

As I suspected the code is "let me convert gold yo plusses" not "gimme rules for what treasure is for"?

My character plans to spend gold helping children in towns we pass thru, setting up allies and contacts in places we leave, staking businesses and using glyphs and sending to help establish a network. Silly me for forgetting that "what treasure is for" is really "another +1 somewhere." The rules for this... in the book.

Now, I have to go find a tailor.

Right. Fine clothes are a factor just like what your background is, what your reputation is, whether you are part of the same social group as someone in a social encounter, whether you’ve seen this sort of puzzle before, etc.

Delending on circumstance, it may get you further into an encounter before a roll is required, where a person in traveling gear would need to Persuade or Decieve just to get in the door, or it may give advantage (or disadvantage) on checks to interact with someone with strong biases regarding how a person is dressed.

It might even allow an attempt at something that otherwise would have simply been impossible, like gaining legal (ie, not requiring sneaking in) access to be aristocratic part of town, or into an establishment, etc.

 

[pemerton]

I didn’t answer because you already gave plenty of examples of what it can be used for. You don’t need me to answer...you already know.

The "you" in my post was being used in the impersonal sense (ie one doesn't answer the question of what money is for in the context of gameplay by producing a mediaeval price guide, which in any event the game includes.) A price list isn't advice on gameplay.

You are correct that I can import advice on gameplay from other games into 5e - but that's not a super-strong defence of 5e's design, I don't think, especially as some advice will probably contradict how 5e is meant to play.

There are no charts or guides for many of the things that wealth can be used for in the context of the game, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be used. I can give you plenty of clntext from my own game....but would that mean anything to you?

This doesn't speak to my point, which is what is the gameplay purpose of imagining my PC spending money on those things?

If the answer is just because it's fun to imagine it - ie the expenditure is colour and nothing more - then maybe the book could come out and say so: the goal of playing a game in which you must succeed at wargame-like challenges to have your PC collect gold from a dungeon is to then imagine your PC spending that gold on whatever you want to.

D&D 5e also answers it by giving you the price to upkeep a keep or castle. Clearly you have to spend money to buy or build one before you will be upkeeping it, or maybe you inherited or married into it. However you get there, it's an answer that 5e gives to you. It just doesn't give you the build prices. The DM can hand those out, though.

As I've already said, in this post and an earlier one, a price list is not advice on gameplay.

Why do I need the game to tell me what treasure is for? I can decide or myself whether I want to give it away, hoard it, use it to build a castle and land, purchase a title of nobility, use it to influence the world in some manner, collect it in order to try and persuade someone with a magic item I want to sell it to me, buy jewelry for a significant other, and on and on and on. I tell the DM what I am doing, and the DM sets the price and difficulty numbers if necessary.

Clearly treasure is for spending!!

But what is the gameplay purpose of that expenditure? It's not unclear in classic D&D (building a stronghold attracts followers and allows an army for engaging in military campaigning, which was an assumed part of the game back in the 70s). It's not unclear in Classic Traveller (buying a starship let's you engage the intersteller travel system, which is a core part of Traveller gameplay). It's not unclear in 3E or 4e (buying magic items expands the list of character attributes and capabilities).

My own view is that if a game is going to make an in-fiction goal, like acquiring treasure, an assumed focus of play, and is going to treat that in somewhat tedious detail (keeping track of all those gold pieces, having all those detailed price lists, etc), then it might address the question of why?

See here is the rub, in 5e or any game system, the impact of "fine clothes" should be very situational and setting dependent. So, how many tables of rules chart of clothes vs situation vs gp cost do you want.

Well so should the effects of praying to a god, or the costs of buying a sword or a suit of mail, but 5e is happy to get pretty precise about those things.

I'm not sure why it's OK to tell me that a + such-and-such-amount to my damage pool, or my defence number, costs this much gp; why being able to repel a vampire with a prayer requires such-and-such details of PC building; but doing something of this sort for social skills is out of bounds.

in my experience, once you take something as mundane as clothing choices and distill them down to "other ways to get a plus" you typically wind up heading towards the Christmas tree of pluses.

In my experience, if making a move in the game ("I spend 100 gp buying a nice shirt") doesn't generate consequences for action resolution mechanics, then players can't make that sort of move as part of engaging the game and its fiction so as to change it.

D&D has never taken the view that "I carry a longsword rather than a dagger" is mere colour (at least since OD&D, and even back then I think that daggers might have been an exception to the d6-for-damage rule, although maybe I'm getting confused with EPT). It's never taken that view about "I wear plate and mail rather than just a loincloth". But presumably you don't think it's tumbled down the slippery slope you're worried about as a result.

I'm not sure why rules that relate finery to certain social interactions would cause the problem when the combat gear rules don't. I can't say I've noticed it, or any hint of it, in my Prince Valiant game. (And more complex games can use other devices also to manage this - eg Burning Wheel has an advancement system which means that a player has a reason not to always want to use as big a dice pool as s/he might want to.)

My character plans to spend gold helping children in towns we pass thru, setting up allies and contacts in places we leave, staking businesses and using glyphs and sending to help establish a network. Silly me for forgetting that "what treasure is for" is really "another +1 somewhere." The rules for this... in the book.

So it's powergaming to improve social skills, but it's not to just ask the GM for favours? Or arw those allies and glyphs and whatnot just for colour?

But putting that to one side, you can write what you're describing into a rulebook as well: eg "You can spend the money your PC has taken out of the dungeon on various social projects, which your GM might then have regard to in setting the DC for interactions with the NPCs who benefit from those projects, or perhaps in deciding that no check is required to have them help you."

 

[billd91]

I think you've missed the point.

What is the purpose of money from the point of view of gameplay? Eg given that gameplay doesn't generally produce the result that armour or weapons ever get damaged; and given that the amounts of money that the game tends to be asume will be recovered make other cost of living expenses trivial; what is the money for, in the game, other than writing bigger and bigger numbers in a box on the PC sheet?

Classic D&D implicitly answers this question by (i) giving me rules about how my 9th-or-thereabout level PC can build a castle or tower or hideout or whatever, and (ii) giving me costs for doing so which are at least within a ballpark order of magnitude of the amonts of money the game will result in my PC collecting.

I think more relevant is that Classic D&D explicitly answers the question by requiring PCs to pay through the nose to train for leveling up. That affects more PCs that the option of building and running a stronghold.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The combat chapter is full of holes and needs a lot of DM intervention.

Let's start with surprise.

"Any character or monster that doesn’t notice a threat is surprised at the start of the encounter."

What does that even mean? In a game where shapechangers abound and illusion magic is common, and where everyone can be an evil villain in disguise, literally everyone and everything a PC sees is a noticed threat. That would mean that it's impossible to sucker punch someone as the threat is noticed so no surprise can happen. However, if you ask people you'd probably get a nearly universal consensus that sucker punches are possible? Does that mean that you have to notice an active threat? It doesn't say active threat. What if the sucker punch happens after the start of the encounter? Is it impossible then? The DM has to decide these things.

that’s a wild premise. Why would people constantly notice threats? People aren’t going around assuming the baker is a vampire, dude. It’s plain, colloquial, language. If you try to find confusion, you’ll always succeed, but I’d wager that 90% or more of players and DMs aren’t.

On to initiative.

"If a tie occurs, the DM decides the order among tied DM-controlled creatures, and the players decide the order among their tied characters. The DM can decide the order if the tie is between a monster and a player character."

The rule for ties between the player and DM is that the DM gets to arbitrarily decide which goes first with no consistency required. DM Fiat in a box!! That's hardly a detailed rule. They might as well have said there isn't a rule for it. They do give an optional rule that can give consistency, but the default is basically no rule at all.

you just described a set of rules options and then claims there (effectively) isn’t a rule. The rule is that ties on a team are decided by the team, and ties between teams are decided by the referee. That is a rule.

Now for your turn.

The most common actions you can take are described in the “Actions in Combat” section later in this chapter."

The most common actions are described for combat. What about the myriad of less common actions? What are they? What are the rules for them? The combat section doesn't tell you. It's entirely up to the DM whether to allow an action, deny it, decide what the rules will be for them, etc.

Hell, that's just the first page of the combat section.

Can you explain what the actual complaint is, here? I don’t see what’s wrong with not having every possible action detailed. You’ve got normal actions, “Interact With An Object” covers a lot of ground, and the examples given provides guidance for improvisation. The game has to have room for improvisation. Period. 4e was so details that they had to include a page of guidelines for improv, while 5e doesn’t need that and relies instead on examples and broad skill resolution mechanics.

None of that makes 5e combat lacking in detail, it just isn’t *as* detailed as 4e.

 

[pemerton]

I don’t know what to tell you, man. Were you not around during 4e? If you were, do you not remember the discussions about this very topic?

I remember a bizarre moral panic, mostly among people who weren't playing 4e, that "everything is core". I remember discussion about what was or wasn't balanced. And I remember discussion about who did or didn't toggle various options on or off in the Character Builder.

I don't rembember discussions about how "everything is core" changed the way anyone played the game.

All checks in 5e use the same resolution system, and it’s exactly hat you described.

So I declare "I draw my sword and cut off the orc's head!" What's the DC? What ability is checked?

In fact in 5e that's not a legal action declaration - or, at best, it will get retrofitted into a declaration of an attack roll that is resolved no differently from a declaration that "I draw my sword and try to hamstring the orc!"

Attacks and skills aren’t two different systems.

A successful attack roll generates a further mechanical process - applying damage, perhaps applying a status effect, etc. A successful ability/skill check generally doesn't generate any further mechanical process - it just generates a change in the fiction (generally as ascertained by the GM). There are exceptions (eg making an ability check to throw off a condition like grappled) but they are (ipso facto) not the norm.

5e may or may not be a good system - I'm not debating that - but saying that it has a uniform resolution system simply isn't true, unless you just ignore all the accreted aspects of D&D (damage dice; hit point attrition; special abilities, especially spells, that inflict conditions; etc). These mechanical intricacies are part of what make it not light, compared to systems that have genuinely uniform and rather simple resolution systems.

 

[pemerton]

I think more relevant is that Classic D&D explicitly answers the question by requiring PCs to pay through the nose to train for leveling up. That affects more PCs that the option of building and running a stronghold.

That's only in AD&D. It's not there in OD&D, nor in B/X. But the strongholds and armies are.