Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

Charlaquin · Sep 23, 2018

Parmandur said:
Nothing about the game is "necessary."

But the history, along with the playtest, show what works.

The history shows what has worked, and what has not. It does not tell us whether or not a new approach will work. And I participated in every last bit of the D&D Next Playtest, at no point was heavy use of player-facing options tested.

doctorbadwolf · Sep 23, 2018

Charlaquin said:
They promised up, down, and sideways that 5e would be modular, with the ability to be customized to emulate the style of whatever edition you preferred. But then when the playtest was coming to a close, and we asked, “hey, what about those modular options? Still waiting for something that can let us emulate the style of our preferred edition...” they said, “What’s the matter, the Battlemaster Fighter not enough for you?”

TBF, BM is pretty good. I just wish there were a rogue with similar options, and a variant ranger with manuevers instead of spells. I wouldn’t use said ranger, but other folks would love it.

Also, a Captain class that uses manuevers at a level that assumes the BM is a half or third “caster” of that system would be rad.

Elfcrusher said:
That is kind of an astonishing reason for switching editions....

seems reasonable to me

Satyrn said:
The big trick is giving you those options while letting me express my character without needing those options.

Like, since the Battlemaster can spend Superiority Dice to disarm and shove, does this mean the Champion is prohibited? I'd hope not, but it can be tough to make it work for both players.

champion can do them, they just aren’t as good at it, which is represented by having to concentrate more fully on pushing, disarming, or tripping, someone, while the BM has practiced those things more extensively, and can get more out of them.

Lanefan said:
At the theory level I agree with you.
4e's a different breed of animal - from what I've seen here it seems they'd either all die or all not die, they'd sink or swim as a unit - but it could still be rather deadly in the hands of a DM who let it be so.

A thing folks forget about 4e, that is one of the raddest things about 4e, is that the extremely coherent monster/encounter building rules made it easier than any other edition for th he DM to decide how deadly an encounter would be. Accurately, and reliably. Without he players being able to know because “goblins are low level, no big threat”.

I killed a character for the first time, leading to the first ritual of resurrection in my 4e DM time, with goblins, and a level 12 party. Because the goblins were somewhere around level 17, as an encounter. Had the characters noticed some key factors, and used better strategy/prep, it would have been around a level 14 fight, instead, but at least they didn’t let themselves get flanked...

Parmandur · Sep 23, 2018

Charlaquin said:
The history shows what has worked, and what has not. It does not tell us whether or not a new approach will work. And I participated in every last bit of the D&D Next Playtest, at no point was heavy use of player-facing options tested.

Heavier than what was in the final game: it didn't work for the design intentions (which Mearls was discussing) and the needs of the market. Even since the playtest is over, UA testing has killed some possibilities for heavier use of player crunch, such as Prestige Classes.

What worked historically, along with gathering data on what works in practice, is a decent methodology for rational decision making. Not logically necessary decisions, but reasonable ones.

Charlaquin · Sep 23, 2018

Parmandur said:
Heavier than what was in the final game:

Which packet did you think had more player-facing options than 5e?

Parmandur said:
it didn't work for the design intentions (which Mearls was discussing) and the needs of the market. Even since the playtest is over, UA testing has killed some possibilities for heavier use of player crunch, such as Prestige Classes.

5e is an established game at this point with a fan base that mostly isn’t interested in a ton of options, having driven most of us who are away already, so that’s not surprising. Also, that Prestige Class UA had a lot more problems than just being more mechanical options. Of course more options won’t be popular if the options offered suck.

Parmandur said:
What worked historically, along with gathering data on what works in practice, is a decent methodology for rational decision making. Not logically necessary decisions, but reasonable ones.

To an extent, but that will only get you so far. Between “thing you already know you like” and “thing you might like more, but also might like less,” most people will take the former most of the time.

And still, none of this has any bearing on whether or not getting rid of options was necessary to achieve their goals. You may think it was a good move, and that’s fine, but whether or not it was necessary is not impacted by whether or not it worked before.

Li Shenron · Sep 23, 2018

Mearls' words suit my feelings on D&D perfectly.

I do not think that 5e doesn't support the "system mastery" playstyle. It does! System mastery does not depend on the amount of options available. "System mastery with tons of options" is a substyle. 5e doesn't offer a ton of options officially, but 3rd party publishers do, so even this substyle is possible.

Stacie GmrGrl · Sep 23, 2018

ad_hoc said:
To add to that theme gets lost or watered down as well.

What is the identity of a Warlock, or a Rogue, or a Fighter? With enough options they become more and more interchangeable.

We already have a bunch of subclasses that feel like the theme is tacked on or doesn't belong. Hexblade is the worst offender of course. Celestial Warlock is also not great as it steps into Cleric and Paladin territory. I have no idea what a Storm Herald is and why they are a type of Barbarian. Then there is the War Mage which dilutes the identity of Wizards as students of the various schools. There isn't much that ties the schools to the game, and this erodes it more. The Bladesinger at least had a strong theme and being limited to Elves left the schools of Wizards intact. And others of course.

I do like options. New subclasses are fun, we just shouldn't have that many of them. I would have loved 16 pages on new backgrounds much more than a bunch of the subclasses.

I could get on board with alternate features too as a way of refining already published ones that had poor mechanics. The Undying Warlock is a good theme that was missing, it just doesn't work well mechanically.

I love having more invocations, and it allows them to print 1/long rest spells that don't use up a spell slot. New spells in general are fun.

One of the reasons why I like Mage Hand Press' 5e work is they have created very different classes and class options that really add new mechanics to 5e.

Its because of this I feel they get 5e where many others, including the designers at WotC, do not get it.

Their Alchemist, Craftsman, Witch, Warden and Gunslinger Classes are pure genius in filling a gap in 5e while adding new rules to the game.

They have created a rock solid crafting and alchemy system, various rules for including guns of different tech eras, and their variant spell casting classes all do something different than the 5e core.

And then there is their Dark Matter sci-fi 5e setting. Its pretty amazing. Its more sci-fi than Esper Genesis while still being 5e.

I'd love to see a second Players Handbook done by these guys.

Stacie GmrGrl · Sep 23, 2018

Jester David said:
Kinda...
Here's the thing. It's very much an apples to oranges situation.

There was a tonne of 3PP in the 3e glut, which ran from 2001 to 2003 for the d20 bust. It was a huge surge of material, but it only lasted for 2 to 2 1/2 years. And a lot of that was likely in the initial year or so while there wasn't a lot of official stuff and people didn't realise they should be checking quality. Meanwhile, the economy was high and Magic was doing *very* well, so game stores were flush with cashing and buying whatever d20 products they could. But, very quickly, people realised there was a lot of terrible books out there and stopped buying.
So there was a lot of d20 products, but not as many actually being purchased by fans. That's why so many stores went under in 2003-4.

There were also the side games. At the time every small publisher would quickly use a variant of the d20 system for their product. But most of those weren't true "3PP", as they weren't expansions. They were just separate games that used a variation of the rules.

Meanwhile, RPGNow only launched in 2001. And it was unknown for much of the d20 boom. And DriveThruRPG didn't launch until 2004, after the d20 bust. The option for digital products and PDFs wasn't really as much of an option. People had to physically publish or not at all.

So when you compare the state of 3PP now to the state of 3PP then, you're not only looking at longer period of time, but also PDF options that didn't exist prior. And that's before you consider the rise of e-commerce and more people shopping on Amazon or buying directly from the publisher.

To say nothing of Kickstarter. When you check in Kickstarter, there's over 200-250 5e D&D book projects,
https://www.kickstarter.com/discover/advanced?term=5e&category_id=12&sort=magic&seed=2562739&page=1
And that's before you go onto DriveThruRPG or DMsGuild.

I'd argue there's almost more 3rd Party Products out there than during the d20 boom. They're just less visible as they're not in stores. And, I would argue, the high selling 3PP are probably moving a lot more copies than the early 3e ones.

The big difference is largely the side games. There are fewer small games opting to use the d20 rules. Most opt to just go with a more rules lite system that better fits the desired tone of the game. That's a big difference. But those were never really compatible.

And don't forget Patreon. Patreon has been another route for people to produce stuff month to month.

EN Publishing has made great use of it, coming up with a lot of good stuff for 5e and WOIN.

Stacie GmrGrl · Sep 23, 2018

Tallifer said:
I actually found 4E to be the clearest and most comfortable Edition for me, and I always run my game on the fly. However, 4E had the Character Builder, so I could always assume that my players's characters were 1) legal and 2) fully functioning. Since WotC axed the Character Builder, I switched to 5E, because its comparative simplicity means I can quickly check up on any weirdness. That, and because I can get far more players willing to play 5E.

4e is my favorite edition in part because its mechanisms are so transparent, even if the designers didn't quite understand their own creation.

As a Player I knew what I could do, I could visually See all the action as if it was a movie playing in my minds eye, the rules were fair, which made 4e an honest game.

As a DM I had codified rules on how to manage enemy groups and NPCs, how to try managing Skill Challenges, and a system for using traps and diseases that worked very well. It was easy for me.

The one design of 5e that is very amazing to me is how character level proficiency scales. Shrinking it to just a +2 to a +6 spread has allowed for many creative classes that couldn't be designed in the 4e system. A lot of good 3pp designers have done a lot of cool stuff.

And the simplicity of Advantage/Disadvantage is genius.

So I am not against how 5e was designed. The core game is solid.

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

Zilong · Sep 23, 2018

Psikerlord# said:
I dont hate 5e. The basic system is fine, apart from death and a number of the spells need to be removed. And reset everyone onto the same long rest refresh mechanic. And a few other tweaks. What I do dislike though, are Adventure Paths, which are partly responsible for the rise in importance of "plot", instead of RPGs focusing on open world choices - which after all is what they are better at than any other medium.

Open world games are often overrated. I say this as both player and GM. I'm well aware that this runs counter to the prevailing opinion on many rpg forums. In the groups with which I've GM'd or played the unfocused nature of the "open world" style just gets bogged down with long stretches of nothing.

True, a good GM can mitigate that, but the same can be said about problems with games built around a central plot. In either case, it is usually an issue of GM experience and skill. I just get annoyed when "open world" gets some kind of free pass as the promised land of gaming.

UngeheuerLich · Sep 23, 2018

Charlaquin said:
Which packet did you think had more player-facing options than 5e?

5e is an established game at this point with a fan base that mostly isn’t interested in a ton of options, having driven most of us who are away already, so that’s not surprising. Also, that Prestige Class UA had a lot more problems than just being more mechanical options. Of course more options won’t be popular if the options offered suck.

To an extent, but that will only get you so far. Between “thing you already know you like” and “thing you might like more, but also might like less,” most people will take the former most of the time.

And still, none of this has any bearing on whether or not getting rid of options was necessary to achieve their goals. You may think it was a good move, and that’s fine, but whether or not it was necessary is not impacted by whether or not it worked before.

In some packets, every character had a theme in addition to class and race which was essentially a feat chain. Later it was just feat chains iirc. I really liked those themes. You could be a skulker which got darkvision from level 1 even as a human. It was really cool and quite complex. I liked that iteration.
Also there wer more expanded exploration rules and depending on your pace and formation you had to make a readiness saving throw.
In one packet the rogue also resembled the battlemaster with different powers.

Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)

doctorbadwolf

Heretic of The Seventh Circle

Parmandur

Book-Friend

Charlaquin

Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)

Li Shenron

Legend

Stacie GmrGrl

Adventurer

Stacie GmrGrl

Adventurer

Stacie GmrGrl

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Zilong

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UngeheuerLich

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