Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

Shardstone · Sep 25, 2018

This thread is an incestuous war between people insulting others for liking 5E and the otherside focusing mainly on the fact that they are being insulted for liking 5E. How this has gone on for 56 pages astounds me, and soon it will have gone on for 57. Absolutely amazing.

I like 5E's design goals. I think they could have been achieved better. I think the rhetoric about mechanically-oriented players being jettisoned is unneeded and does nothing to improve 5E's design goals. I don't think we need a 1/5th the splat that older editions did, and I think the pace set this year (Mordekainens, Ravinica, Eberron, +2 Adventures) is enough to keep the game fresh. I don't think keeping so many rules vagued helped WotC achieve 5E's design goals and I'm confident in stating that you can have clear rules and still have interpretation-based culture amongst gamers playing the game.

These are things I think worth discussing. But you people seem to be getting high off of attacking each other, like a bunch of tribal apes warring just to war. Truly a failure on many people's ends that so many people use this thread as a way to attack others instead of discussing ideas.

Lanefan · Sep 25, 2018

Jester David said:
Great example.

You can get deeper still.
How do the players of C and D feel about character death? Have they had a bad week and need a win? Are they new or experienced?

All of these are metagame questions and thus, if I'm playing completely true to my character and thus taking the character-driven option, irrelevant. But if I'm looking at either the tactically-driven or metagame-driven options then these sort of considerations could come into it; though going the tactically-driven route would mean I-as-player am looking more toward what's best for the in-game party, going the metagame-driven route might indicate I'm thinking of what's best for the at-the-table players.

Lan-"typo-ing 'metagame' to 'meatgame' in some of these posts gives everything a whole new perspective"-efan

Satyrn · Sep 25, 2018

Lanefan said:
Hmmm - there's many, many times I've found the price lists for hirelings, servants, etc. in the 1e DMG to be extremely useful as otherwise I-as-DM wouldn't have much of a clue what would be reasonable to charge for such. Guidelines not rules, to be sure, but very useful nonetheless.

5e's PH has a very simple suggestion for these: a skilled hireling costs 2 gold/day, and an unskilled hireling gets 2 silver.

For the real special hirelings, I use a little trick: I determine what the hireling's lifestyle expenses are (using the table in the PH) and multiple that by 5 if the person does steady work, or by 10 if the hireling is that sort tbat only works when he pleases.

So like, say the players hire a private eye.

1) Dixon Hill (as portrayed by Picard on Star Trek) is a working stiff type of private dick scraping by day to day. I'd call that a modest lifestyle (1 gold/day) and multiply by 5, so he charges 5 gold per day.

2) Hercules Poirot, the greatest detective of his time, tends to only take cases that interest him, but sometimes will take a case for pay. He lives a wealthy life (4 gold/day), and I multiply that by 10. The players will be burning through 40 gold every day they employ him.

MNblockhead · Sep 25, 2018

PointOfIsnpiration said:
This thread is an incestuous war between people insulting others for liking 5E and the otherside focusing mainly on the fact that they are being insulted for liking 5E. How this has gone on for 56 pages astounds me, and soon it will have gone on for 57. Absolutely amazing.

I like 5E's design goals. I think they could have been achieved better. I think the rhetoric about mechanically-oriented players being jettisoned is unneeded and does nothing to improve 5E's design goals. I don't think we need a 1/5th the splat that older editions did, and I think the pace set this year (Mordekainens, Ravinica, Eberron, +2 Adventures) is enough to keep the game fresh. I don't think keeping so many rules vagued helped WotC achieve 5E's design goals and I'm confident in stating that you can have clear rules and still have interpretation-based culture amongst gamers playing the game.

These are things I think worth discussing. But you people seem to be getting high off of attacking each other, like a bunch of tribal apes warring just to war. Truly a failure on many people's ends that so many people use this thread as a way to attack others instead of discussing ideas.

Hey now! Don't you go putting your sense-of-perspective chocolate in our internet-zealotry peanut butter! Personally, I love scrolling through this train-wreck. Like a train wreck, I don't want to join in, but I can't seem to take my eyes off it.

Swarmkeeper · Sep 25, 2018

PointOfIsnpiration said:
But you people seem to be getting high off of attacking each other, like a bunch of tribal apes warring just to war.

Cue the monolith!

Satyrn · Sep 25, 2018

DM Dave1 said:
Cue the monolith!

I'll go you one better!
View attachment 101778

Jester David · Sep 25, 2018

Lanefan said:
All of these are metagame questions and thus, if I'm playing completely true to my character and thus taking the character-driven option, irrelevant. But if I'm looking at either the tactically-driven or metagame-driven options then these sort of considerations could come into it; though going the tactically-driven route would mean I-as-player am looking more toward what's best for the in-game party, going the metagame-driven route might indicate I'm thinking of what's best for the at-the-table players.

Lan-"typo-ing 'metagame' to 'meatgame' in some of these posts gives everything a whole new perspective"-efan

The example above is a different side to metagaming.

There’s the metagame of making gamist decisions based on game information the character doesn’t know.
And there’s the ever so slightly different metagaming that occurs due to social contracts at the table. The thief not stealing from other players, the character not hogging the spotlight, setting up an ally for the win rather than “kill stealing”, helping someone kick some ass because they’ve had a bad day and need the stress relief, etc.

Because, while one is (generally) discouraged, the other always has to be considered and is important. The people/player based metagame. Which, I think you just accidentally christened “the meatgame”.

Doctor Futurity · Sep 25, 2018

Madhey said:
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.

I'm going to state it has more focus than any prior iteration of D&D, perhaps moreso even than 2nd edition. And definitely way more than 4th or 3rd. This is the first edition since the 90's where character narrative and identity is baked in to the core book, and is rife with content. 3rd and 4th don't even hold candles to the level of depth 5E achieves, particularly since 5E goes for actual depth and not just "I gotz the bigger number in rope use," depth of 3E.

Hussar · Sep 26, 2018

Meh, I've never understood the angst about meta-gaming. It's impossible to play an RPG without meta gaming. You can try to reduce it, sure, but, even that decision is still meta-gaming. The simple question of, "Given what I know about this character, what do I think this character would do in this situation?" is a meta-gaming question. It's completely unavoidable.

And, frankly, almost impossible to know from the outside. Did the player choose A or B because of meta-gaming reasons? Well, maybe, but, otoh, you can justify almost any action in character, so, does that mean that I'm still meta-gaming?

Me, I figured that I'd just stop trying to police other people's play, play what I want, and be a whole lot happier at the table.

PMárk · Sep 26, 2018

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.

Yup. Honestly, I feel it's a bit of a cop-out. Leaving the bulk of the work to the GMs, ignoring players (and GMs) who do want mechanical differentiation and options, for whatever reason.

There are many merits of the 5e design, but it's not the be-all-end all, since there is no such game that fulfills every expectations of every group and player. I'd be more happy if he's said that simplicity makes the game more approachable and easier to GM. I feel those are much more concrete and straightforward assertions.