Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

pemerton said:

Having multiple overlapping but inconsistent subsystems doesn't make a system light. 5e has multiple overlapping subsystems for STR-related feat: a die roll system (ability/skill checks) and a read-result-of-number system (carrying, lifting, dragging, jumping). Which one applies to arm wrestles?

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From strength checks... "A Strength check can model any attempt to lift, push, pull, or break something, to force your body through a space, or to otherwise apply brute force to a situation."

It doesn't get much more brute force than arm wrestling.

The implication of this, to me, is that if it's a sword rather than a ring that also counts as a house rule!

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You're talking Greek now, because that makes no sense. The rule is "Sometimes one character’s or monster’s efforts are directly opposed to another’s. This can occur when both of them are trying to do the same thing and only one can succeed,"

At no time is the ring part of the rule. It's simply an example of the rule in action, so it's not possible for the ring or a sword or a rope or a <insert object here> to be a house rule.

My view is the converse - that extrapolation from the one-on-one example to three competitors is not house-ruling, but is applying the rules that have been provided.

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Two is the absolute that RAW allows, so an extension to three is a change to the rule, not an extrapolation. Extrapolation is also conjecture and conjecture cannot be RAW, so any extrapolation would fall into the house rule category anyway.

Wow. Just wow.

Hussar said:

Wow. Just wow.

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I know. Who could have predicted a 6th D&D Adventure board game!?

Sadras said:

For me Fate is rules light, D&D is intermediate with various versions like 3.x leaning towards the heavy, while RoleMaster is rules heavy (but it has been a while for me re RM).

But perhaps I'm biased as I've been playing D&D for 30+ years, so...

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I agree with your ranking because I have played RPGs that are rules-lighter than D&D, and I have played others that are rules-heavier. For me Paranoia is an example of the former, and Rolemaster of the latter.

Sheer count of rules gives an initial picture of how heavy a rules system is going to be, but not the whole picture. As discussed up thread, that needs to be separated from page count. D&D, especially 5th, has extensive character development taking many pages, but then the D20 combat system is lighter than those that aim for greater realism. I think the first tiers of character development (where everyone plays) in 5th produces more complex characters than 3rd did, but when you bring in all the optional prestige classes for 3rd you can wind up with more complex later tier characters. I don't find combat in 5th any simpler than combat in 3rd, at the table.

clearstream said:

I think the first tiers of character development (where everyone plays) in 5th produces more complex characters than 3rd did, ...(snip)...

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Why do you believe this to be true? I'm guessing due to backgrounds, personality characteristics and sub-classes.

I don't find combat in 5th any simpler than combat in 3rd, at the table.

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My experience on this is completely the opposite.

EDIT: 3.x has standard actions, full round actions, swift actions, immediate actions, free actions, move actions. It has your standard AC and Touch AC. It has shift. It has confirmation of criticals. If I'm recalling correctly the firing into melee is different. Spell durations change with level.

Sadras said:

Why do you believe this to be true? I'm guessing due to backgrounds, personality characteristics and sub-classes.

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Exactly. Lower tier 5th characters have more they can do. A 3rd level Wizard in 5th for instance has twice as many casts (more if you count Arcane Recovery). A 3rd level Barbarian has twice as many rages, and a few extra abilities compared with the 3rd edition Barbarian's one rage and a couple of passives (one of which was trap sense!)

Sadras said:

My experience on this is completely the opposite.

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I definitely hear this from people. I think part of it is that 3rd edition was clunkier, without being fundamentally more complex. One example is the introduction of Dash. In 3rd you had an Action and a Move, or two Moves, or a Full-round Action, and you had these odd things like Swift and Immediate actions, and finally a Free action. 5th edition drops only one of these, but the rest are handled better. So two Moves is now a Dash and a Move. Swift is a Bonus action. Immediate is a Reaction. They gave fighters a break in 5th... not before time!

And then you have other things such as how 5th handles Surprise. For my money, 3rd handled Surprise in a cleaner way, that was much easier for players to understand. Once you throw in characters with more options in the meaningful tiers (1 and 2), you wind up with fights that are just as complicated. OTOH my group is veteran and it could just be that they make my life hard by how they use all those abilities!

You can even look at a system like Skills and see that it was much clunkier in 3rd than in 5th, but was it more complicated in play? I don't think so: in the end each character has one or two skills they excel at, and that's all they use. Getting to that is more complicated in third, but it's done off-line (or should be!) so it doesn't add to complexity in play.

@clearstream

I think part of it is that 3rd edition was clunkier, without being fundamentally more complex.

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You might be right, I don't know. 3.x certainly wasn't an edition I excelled in as a DM.
Some would argue clunky (i.e. heavy) is complex. If something is less clunky then it is lighter or easier, and likely more user friendly.

Sadras said:

Some would argue clunky (i.e. heavy) is complex. If something is less clunky then it is lighter or easier, and likely more user friendly.

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Yes, I think that's true. I guess there are multiple ways to look at this. To me, 5th edition feels highly sophisticated: it pulls off a lot of complexity with streamlined mechanics that can be traced back to 3rd edition and 4th edition. It was really their experience with those editions, that allowed them to achieve 5th. It offers a great many of the same affordances as those earlier editions.

I think I wouldn't describe 5th as simple or light, but rather using that word "streamlined". Placing it as an intermediate system seems well justified to me.

clearstream said:

5th edition feels highly sophisticated: it pulls off a lot of complexity with streamlined mechanics that can be traced back to 3rd edition and 4th edition. It was really their experience with those editions, that allowed them to achieve 5th.

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I think this is true.

clearstream said:

I think I wouldn't describe 5th as simple or light, but rather using that word "streamlined". Placing it as an intermediate system seems well justified to me.

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Personally I'm a bit struck by what seems to be the predominant view in this thread - that 5e can't resolve a footrace without house rules. (I'm not sure eg about a chess game.) If that's true, then the system is far more narrow than its superficial presentation would suggest. Even if its not true, the fact that its not self-evident one way or another is striking.

Maxperson said:

From strength checks... "A Strength check can model any attempt to lift, push, pull, or break something, to force your body through a space, or to otherwise apply brute force to a situation."

It doesn't get much more brute force than arm wrestling.

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Nor than lifting stuff. But, per p 60 of the Basic PDF, that's a function of raw STR score.