Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

dave2008 said:

I don't think he things they are at odds. He states, "If balanaced correctly, every(one) has their fun. Enjoyment isn’t zero sum."

That to me indicates that he sees a benefit to narrative and mechanics. I think you just don't believe they haven't balanced correctly (at least not for you).

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Hmm... Yeah, you’re absolutely right about that. I think my problem is, this series of tweets does an excellent job of explaining to me why they shifted the focus away from making the rules as thorough as possible, and I agree that it was a good move. But then it goes on to say, “and we also shifted away from trying to give players tons of mechanical options,” which I don’t agree was a good move, and I’m not either not seeing the reasoning for that explained here, or I disagree with the justification being given so fundamentally that I’m not recognizing it as an attempt at justification at all.

happyhermit said:

By "Cudos" are you referring to their scientific research principles, or is this just a half-assed, unclear way of saying "Kudos"? Either way, if "getting away with it" means producing an incredibly successful product, they sure have.

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Disclaimer: I like 5e, and despite finding it flawed in some ways, believe it is overall an excellent game.

That said, I could link you to a several minute Mark Hamil rant about why a product being successful doesn’t indicate its quality, which folks who don’t like the Disney Star Wars movies have been awfully fond of.

(Secondary disclaimer: I like the sequel trilogy so far, and despite finding it flawed in some ways, believe it is overall an excellent series of films.)

Charlaquin said:

6e is exactly what I want, so...

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...you might want to start designing it on your own, as I'm not expecting WotC to be designing it anytime soon.

Kindly ... engage with my point, which is that mechanical options can be designed to support narrative identiy.

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They can be, but the point is they don't have to be and don't need to be; one character can still play very differently from another character even if their underlying mechanical chassis - class, race, stats, feats, abilities, etc. - is exactly the same.

First of all, I don’t consider power gaming an inherently bad thing. It’s certainly not at odds with roleplaying.

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My experience differs.

As soon as any player - or any DM, for that matter - is faced with any decision on one side of which lies mechanical advantage and on the other side of which lies roleplaying and-or character consistency then they're at odds. And the best way to ensure this sort of decision arises as infrequently as possible is to file down or entirely remove any mechanical advantages that may be gained, thus putting roleplay and character personality front and center and strongly nudging decisions to be based off of those elements first.

I think I may have miscommunicated to you what I meant by mechanical options. I don’t want more races, classes, and subclasses. There are plenty of those available between official products, 3rd party, and fan-made content. What I want is more than one choice of race, one choice of class, one choice of subclass, and four ability score increases/feats to differentiate one character from another. For all the flack 4e got for “every class feeling the same,” I see that issue much more with 5e.

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Well, in the entire history of D&D you've pretty much always only ever had one choice of race per character; you've usually only had one choice of class-and-subclass* per character; and you haven't always had the choice of feats and skills customization that you do in 5e. So I rather fail to see your point here.

* - including prestige-class progressions where applicable, and including multi-class options.

Lan-"mechanically, I might just be a basic standard Fighter, but get to know me and you'll soon find I'm like no other Fighter you ever knew"-efan

Charlaquin said:

Good point. Yes, I do mean that characters of the same class feel too similar to each other.

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I can see how that may be the case (compared to 4e) at least mechanically and at least for some classes or rather subclasses which is a point in and of itself. PC's of some particular subclasses (ones without a lot of option selection ie; Champion and not Wizard) are perhaps more likely to be similar to one another (on a purely mechanical basis) than their equivalents in 4e, but I think it would actually be pretty close and complicated to compare when you add in things like essentials classes.

Charlaquin said:

Disclaimer: I like 5e, and despite finding it flawed in some ways, believe it is overall an excellent game.

That said, I could link you to a several minute Mark Hamil rant about why a product being successful doesn’t indicate its quality, which folks who don’t like the Disney Star Wars movies have been awfully fond of.

(Secondary disclaimer: I like the sequel trilogy so far, and despite finding it flawed in some ways, believe it is overall an excellent series of films.)

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Thank you for sparing me another rant I need less of those in my life, not more. We likely agree that the relationship between "quality" and "popularity" is a complicated one.

Papa Mearls said:

The downside to this approach is that the rules became comprehensive to a fault. The game’s rules bloated, as they sought to resolve many if not all questions that arise in play with the game text.

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He's talking about 3.5e and 4e, but I feel like there's a subtext here that screams "LIKE PATHFINDER!" as well. They've definitely honed in on the "a rule for everything" demographic, and PF fans seems quite pleased with their product. Mechanics as king vs story as king are where Paizo and WotC respectively have diverged and carved out their territory.

Also (and I expect pitchforks and torches heading my way for saying this)... WotC is releasing too many 5e books right now. I'm in the middle of a Tales of the Loop campaign and dropping around a 100 bucks for a two-book Waterdeep module and a Ranvica setting book a 3 month span is too much to keep up with. Plus that art book looks super sweet.

Whether you like it or not, the design philosophy is important.

The rules become much clearer. I am totally on board with the design philosophy. Most of the rules arguments/confusion comes from people who are not. Understanding the why of the rules is important.

One thing I have noticed is a correlation between people who are upset that 'character building' is more limited than what they are used to, and how boring the game is because they don't have many options during play.

This again comes down to how we approach the game. 5e allows characters to do things without having explicit buttons for them. If you have never played an RPG like that before, then it is likely that you don't even see the possibilities.

I have introduced people to RPGs through 5e and many of them start by thinking the rules are what is on the character sheet. At some point it clicks, either through someone else or by me reminding them that they are free to do whatever, and then the experience entirely changes for them.

There are a multitude of non-combat examples so here is a combat one. Had a player who started with 5e but in a game that I assume was very much about the buttons. She played a ranged Ranger. At our table enemies would run up to her and start attacking. Then she would have disadvantage to shoot. At first she was frustrated, but eventually it lead to all sorts of creative ways and teamwork to prevent that. Combat was no longer 'I do my action routine'. It changes dynamically.

Lanefan said:

As soon as any player - or any DM, for that matter - is faced with any decision on one side of which lies mechanical advantage and on the other side of which lies roleplaying and-or character consistency then they're at odds. And the best way to ensure this sort of decision arises as infrequently as possible is to file down or entirely remove any mechanical advantages that may be gained, thus putting roleplay and character personality front and center and strongly nudging decisions to be based off of those elements first.

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That is the simplest and most reliable way. I don't think there's a blanket "best", for all games and all people. Especially since removing *ALL* mechanical advantages means that all characters are mechanically identical in all ways, and no actions (including roleplay choices) on the part of the PCs impact resolution of events, which is probably not what we want in RPGs...

FATE-based games, for example, give you ways to force alignment between the mechanical advantages and the roleplay. In a game a while ago, I was playing a character who used guns a great deal, but I didn't want the character to be the type to leave a bloody trail of bullet-laden corpses behind him. So, I took an Aspect, "I set 'em up, you knock 'em down." Any time I tried to attack someone directly with a gun, the GM could assign me a penalty (My shot wouldn't be as good, but I'd get a Fate point). But, any time I used a trick shot or otherwise used gunplay for non-damaging effects, or to give another character a bonus, I could spend a Fate point and get a bonus myself. The end result was a mechanical advantage that aligned with my chosen narrative-identity, and a mechanical detriment when I went against that narrative.

This is less simple and unreliable, as it needs a GM actively using the Fate-point economy well to make happen. But, in the case where you have met the requirement, this kind kind of thing performs better than simply removing all possible mechanical advantages.

Umbran said:

With, respect (not that you're showing much, but hey), that is a *fully* assed job of unfinished and unclear rules. Calling it half-done job implies that their intent was to do lots of detail and clarity and then they fell short - but, that's not the case. The vagueness is *by design*, intended, and thought through. And sells really well. It is *well-crafted* unclear rules, because clarity has a cost that many folks don't want to pay.

As Vroomfondel said - rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!

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Touche!!!!...one of the best posts ever!!!!....And I concur

Charlaquin said:

Interesting. I do like most of what he’s saying, but I also wish they would embrace the fact that a lot of players still have a strong desire for mechanical options. Focusing on narrative identity is great, and the goal of those specific mechanical advantages should be to express a character’s narrative identity rather than to break the game’s progression curve. But 5e still offers so little in terms of ways to mechanically differentiate a character. He paints mechanical options as if they’re at odds with the design philosophy he describes here, but I don’t think they are at all.

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Very well put. I agree completely.

This is one of the reasons I've been so disappointed with 5e: too few options. And no, I don't think a rules book that tells the DM and player, 'Just make it up', is a very good substitute.

We're on our third 5e campaign and we've already pretty much exhausted many of our options. When choosing a different weapon for a character just means you'll be rolling the same old d8 for damage, my enthusiasm begins to fade.

I don't mean this as an indictment of those who like 5e; if you like theatres of the mind and fuzzy systems, all power to you. But it is not my cup of tea.

lowkey13 said:

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ........



OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

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The only important question left in this thread is whether you had a bagel or donut in that gap in your "OOOOOs."

neobolts said:

Also (and I expect pitchforks and torches heading my way for saying this)... WotC is releasing too many 5e books right now. I'm in the middle of a Tales of the Loop campaign and dropping around a 100 bucks for a two-book Waterdeep module and a Ranvica setting book a 3 month span is too much to keep up with. Plus that art book looks super sweet.

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No pitchforks or torches from me, but I don't really get this. All you are really saying is that WotC should only release enough books that you yourself can happily play and buy at the pace you want to play and buy, one after the other. The problem is that A) Others go at a different pace, and B) Not everyone plays every single story arc, one after the other.

So what's the problem, again?