D&D 5E Mike Mearls Interview with the Escapist

[Sacrosanct]

AD&D actually did have quite extensive rules for social interaction, set out in the DMG under Loyalty, Reactions and Morale plus in the PHB under the CHA stat, the Charm spell and the Suggestion spell.

One consequence of both your approach and the AD&D approach is that social interaction is something that you can't get better at by levelling your PC unless you are a caster who gets access to those spells.

EDIT: I'm talking about 1st ed AD&D. I don't know how 2nd ed handled social interaction.

I guess we have different views. I don't consider it a "consequence" that not everything you could possibly do gets better as you level up. Especially when it comes to role-playing social interaction. I for one wouldn't want my higher level PCs to just be able to always talk their way into whatever they wanted whenever talking with 90% of the population just because they had enough bonuses gained from being higher level to the check. Sometimes that level 1 guardsman or level 0 merchant isn't going to buy into your crap, even if you're level 20.

 

[I'm A Banana]

"Sleeper hold"? What are the rules for that? Doesn't knocking someone out require reducing them to 0 hp? Which doesn't sound like it will be very stealthy, if the "someone" is an ogre.

Grapple Rules + "Say Yes" DMing. Not too out of line to Solid Snake this jerk. And it's not that out of sorts, as the difference between an Ogre's Strength and a 1st-level mountain dwarf fighter's Strength is a measly little +1 bonus, so as long as it rolls lower than you -1 on that d20, you'll be able to grab it, cram a dirty bedroll in its craw, and hold it 'till it falls asleep like a baby. A little risky (it always is!), but totally within the realm of things I'd let happen as a DM.

 

[drjones]

Using subclasses is a different topic. I am talking about a mechanic that applies like
spells to martial characters regardless of the class or subclass.

Well, everyone has a subclass after level 2 so.. you seem to be complaining about a lack of something that is not lacking. Unless you want fighters to be able to throw fireballs or make wishes I guess. Which, monks, martial bards, paladins, rangers, arcane fighters, arcane thieves actually can do, as well as a large raft of multiclassing options.

 

[SkidAce]

Well, everyone has a subclass after level 2 so.. you seem to be complaining about a lack of something that is not lacking. Unless you want fighters to be able to throw fireballs or make wishes I guess. Which, monks, martial bards, paladins, rangers, arcane fighters, arcane thieves actually can do, as well as a large raft of multiclassing options.

Your reply seems a little unfair on the surface. Apologies if I misunderstood.

What I think they were trying to say, was that if you have a system for parry or disarm (like the battlemaster), it should on its basic level, apply to anyone that uses a weapon.

Why couldn't a cleric try to parry? He is a combatant and proficient (i.e. trained) with weapons.

 

[drjones]

Why couldn't a cleric try to parry? He is a combatant and proficient (i.e. trained) with weapons.

I may well be misunderstanding the objection here, but in that case the cleric has an action, dodge, that means you are dedicating yourself to full defense this round that could easily represent focusing on parrying.

If you want all maneuvers that a battlemaster gets to be available to all classes you can houserule that, but it really removes much reason to play a fighter, because everyone who is proficient with a weapon is now a fighter.

We all know that D&D fighting is a huge abstraction and part of that abstraction is that multiple attacks, feints and parrys happen each round and are represented by one roll. The cleric or wizard tries to parry all they can but it is not enough to mechanically improve their armor class or reduce damage any more than normal because everyone is doing the same thing all the time. Only those well trained and focused on a particular martial trick get a special rule to cover the special things they can do.

 

[mach1.9pants]

Using subclasses is a different topic. I am talking about a mechanic that applies like
spells to martial characters regardless of the class or subclass.

But that is forcing your preferences on all Fighters. I don't want to play a manoeuvre/4e style fighter. And lots of people are in agreement with me. If you want a simple fighter go champion, if you want a more 4E style fighter go battlemaster. It should not be something that all fighters have to have as class features, thus the popularity of Slayer Fighters in my 4E game.

 

[Haffrung]

But that is forcing your preferences on all Fighters. I don't want to play a manoeuvre/4e style fighter. And lots of people are in agreement with me. If you want a simple fighter go champion, if you want a more 4E style fighter go battlemaster. It should not be something that all fighters have to have as class features, thus the popularity of Slayer Fighters in my 4E game.

Yep. And if you want a spellcasty fighter, take the Eldritch Knight. Those three sub-classes have all the broad types of fighters covered (not to mention the variety offered in fighting styles).

 

[Keldryn]

Good sandbox adventures may take a bit of experience to create but presenting opportunity and a scenario as opposed to a scripted series of events is quite natural. It doesn't take thick book of material to show someone new to tabletop gaming how that is done.

The Moldvay basic DM section, in only a few pages, describes how to construct a basic scenario, pair it with a setting, and fill in the details. I read that with no prior DMing experience at all as an 11 year old and it seemed fairly straightforward and not unnatural at all.

My experience was much the same. My friends and I were all 12 or 13 years old when we started playing with the Mentzer edition Basic Set. We created our own adventures after only having seen the sample dungeon in that set (including wilderness adventures before getting the Expert Set), and it never occured to any of us to simply write a scripted series of events.

We had all read Choose Your Own Adventure and Endless Quest books, but none of us had any experience with computer RPGs (being young teens without computers at home in 1986).

It always seemed obvious to us that the game was intended to be played this way.

As for the interview with Mearls... he described pretty much exactly what I want out of a D&D rules set. At this stage of my life, I consider speed of play to be the most important aspect of D&D. There are many other things that I consider both necessary and important, but if we can't even complete a short adventure (say a small dungeon with a dozen rooms, half a dozen combat encounters, plus some roleplaying) in one four hour session, then something is wrong.

When you're married, own your house (which requires maintenance), work a full-time job, and have young children, it can be very difficult to maintain any sort of regular gaming activities. Thus, every minute of those irregular gaming sessions needs to count. In my gaming group, we share a mutual understanding that we all have to make some sacrifices in order to make these semi-regular gaming sessions happen. Thus, it is disrespectful to waste other players' time by constantly looking up rules, arguing about rules, or spending several minutes meticulously analyzing every possible option every time you take your turn in combat. Everybody needs to do their part to keep the game moving.

I never played or DMed 3.x regularly enough to really gain a comprehensive understanding of the rules. When I did wrap my head around the nuances of a particular rule, we'd end up not playing for six months and I'd forget it by the time we played again. And there were so many things that players could do which had a mechanical bonus or penalty, so naturally players would insist that I do it by the book rather than eyeballing it or making a quick judgement.

Give me a broad framework and some guidelines and let me handle the rest.

 

[pemerton]

I for one wouldn't want my higher level PCs to just be able to always talk their way into whatever they wanted whenever talking with 90% of the population just because they had enough bonuses gained from being higher level to the check. Sometimes that level 1 guardsman or level 0 merchant isn't going to buy into your crap, even if you're level 20.

I don't really understand the logic of making 20th level PCs functionally immune to the physical efforts of level 1 guards and level 0 merchants, but treating social efforts so differently.

But that's probably just me.

Unless you want fighters to be able to throw fireballs or make wishes I guess.

The conversation was about knocking ogres unconcsious with a blow or a stranglehold. I don't see what fireballs and wishes have to do with it. Those are imagined things. Physical prowess in combat is a real-world thing that real-world martial artists possess and deploy.

I don't want to play a manoeuvre/4e style fighter. And lots of people are in agreement with me.

I'm not 100% sure about [MENTION=6775000]Uchawi[/MENTION], but my point is pretty simple: the game very heavily codifies the ways in which casters bypass the hit point system, but seems to leave that up to GM discretion when it comes to martial combatants. And I don't understand the logic of this divide.

If the designers think it is a good thing for fighters, like casters, to be able to bypass hit points, then why not give some mechanical advice?

 

[pemerton]

Give me a broad framework and some guidelines and let me handle the rest.

I completely undertand this. (Or think I do.)

I just don't understand how 5e fits this description. Remarkable athlete isn't guidelines. The rules for spell preparation, spell slots and spell resolution aren't guidelines. These are pedantic, granular rules that emphasise precision of adjudication and resolution over flexibility and guidelines.

That's not a criticism of 5e. It's just a puzzlement about how it is meant to fit a certain description.