Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

[MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION], I think differences can be meaningful but still expressed in the numerical terms you are less happy with.

For instance, in my 4e game some PCs have +15 or so in their knowledge skills while the invoker/wizard/divine philosopher/sage of ages has around +40 or so. These characters play differently, even though they can both attempt the same stuff. Likewise the invoker sometimes finds himself making melee attacks (once every few levels) and has even hit once or twice, but plays quite differently from the melee specialists.

In Classic Traveller it's a bit different, because some skills are (to use D&D terminology) "trained only" - a person with no Engineering or Pilot expertise can't fill those roles on a starship, for instance. But even where skills aren't trained only, the difference between the ex-marine withe Cutlass-4 (+4 on a 2d6 check) and the playboy with Gambling-2 but no fighting skills comes through fairly clearly.

In our Prince Valiant game the knights with Brawn 4 and Arms 3 or 4 play differently from the squire with Brawn 3 and Arms 1 (recently upgraded to 2). The squire has better Presence and social skills which also reveal themselves in play.

I could also give examples from Burning Wheel.

Is your opinion and experience influenced by 5e's "bounded accuracy" making the impact of different bonuses less significant to the outcomes in play?

pemerton said:

Characterization is the look of a character, the description of his voice, the quirks of habit. Characterization creates the concrete detail of a character through the use of sensory detail and exposition. By "seeing" how a character looks, how he picks up his wine glass, by knowing he has a love of fine tobacco, the character becomes concrete to our imagination, even while remaining nothing more than black ink upon a white page.

But a person thus described is not a character. A character must do.

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Again, I see where you are coming from, and I disagree.

One of my main reasons for playing RPGs, is the roleplaying itself. Deep immersion, in becoming the character, feeling what the character would feel, being what the character is. That can be achieved with nothing but dialog and emotion, and that is the single thing that differentiates Roleplaying games from any other game, to me. I'll admit that happens much more often in solo games than group games, but it comes up in group games too.

But that is straying, almost in the opposite direction of a discussion of mechanics, which is the opposite of what the thread is about.

Charlaquin said:

In D&D 5th Edition, however, that is still interacting with the game’s mechanics. The core mechanic of 5e is that the player describes what their character does, the DM determines the results of the described action, possibly calling for dice to be rolled to resolve any uncertainty in the outcome, and then describes the results. Even if the DM determines that a dice roll is not necessary to determine the results, describing what you do and having the DM describe the results is still interacting with D&D 5e’s core mechanic.

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Well stated. I stand corrected.

Eric V said:

Yeah, I'm sure sometimes that's true. I agree.

Not when I look at the Sorcerer, though (just as an example). That really seems mailed-in to me. I respect that you might see that differently, even if I'm not sure how. I don't remember it from the playtest packets, to be honest.

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I think the sorcerer could need a little overhaul. As do most classes. But that is not the point. We had a very successful sorcerer in the group and the design has valies in a game without feats especially that are easy to overlook.
That said, inspired by a different thread I just want to ask you a question.
Do you have board games? Do you have kids or a job?
When I was studiying I really loved complex games and those were in at the time of the early 2000s. Game of thrones board game comes to my mind, arkham horror.
Problem today: it takes hours to even explain the game to bew players. I and players I met even after playing the game several times we noticed that we interpreted the rules wrong... after years...
Now that I have even less time to play a game that takes hours repeatedly and have no time to explain a game for hours when we only have 3 hours to play at most, I really appreciate games with less rules but still great design. That is as much value as it can be for me.
One example of a game which you could call lazy design might be chess. It is very rules light and still a game that is really hard to master and has nearly unlimited replay value and even tournaments. Not my game for a game day but a good example. Rules light is a feature that in no way reduces value at the table. Your options are unlimited. As long as the game is quite balanced and well designed you can have fun with rules light. Maybe more because you don't have to look up rules mid game (I look at you arkham horror).
What you lose compared to 3.5 or 4e is the character building minigame. That is a loss but a price I am more than willing to pay. But actually I still do play it with 5e... so no loss at all for me.

pemerton said:

@Charlaquin, I think differences can be meaningful but still expressed in the numerical terms you are less happy with.

For instance, in my 4e game some PCs have +15 or so in their knowledge skills while the invoker/wizard/divine philosopher/sage of ages has around +40 or so. These characters play differently, even though they can both attempt the same stuff. Likewise the invoker sometimes finds himself making melee attacks (once every few levels) and has even hit once or twice, but plays quite differently from the melee specialists.

In Classic Traveller it's a bit different, because some skills are (to use D&D terminology) "trained only" - a person with no Engineering or Pilot expertise can't fill those roles on a starship, for instance. But even where skills aren't trained only, the difference between the ex-marine withe Cutlass-4 (+4 on a 2d6 check) and the playboy with Gambling-2 but no fighting skills comes through fairly clearly.

In our Prince Valiant game the knights with Brawn 4 and Arms 3 or 4 play differently from the squire with Brawn 3 and Arms 1 (recently upgraded to 2). The squire has better Presence and social skills which also reveal themselves in play.

I could also give examples from Burning Wheel.

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I see what you’re saying. It’s not that I don’t think having different bonuses can lead to those characters being played differently. It’s more that I don’t find such differences to be as interesting as characters who have different options available to them. Sure, if your character routinely succeeds at a task my character has little to no hope of succeeding at, we’re going to play differently. But that’s not the sort of difference I want out of character building. I want my character to be able to do things other characters just can’t. I want other characters to be able to do things my character can’t. And I want to make lots of decisions about what I want my character to be able to do that others can’t.

pemerton said:

Is your opinion and experience influenced by 5e's "bounded accuracy" making the impact of different bonuses less significant to the outcomes in play?

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I don’t know, maybe? Hard to say for sure. I do know that I like that Bounded Accuracy takes the onus off of statistical modifiers to differentiate characters from another. I just wish that 5e would embrace that and provide more mechanical distinction beyond +1 to this and +2 to that and advantage on these kinds of rolls. Give me more special options for what I can do with my character, not more numbers to make my character better at some of the things she can do.

Ah, that Mike Mearls is a cheeky little monkey.

Charlaquin said:

Give me more special options for what I can do with my character, not more numbers to make my character better at some of the things she can do.

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At the risk of using inciting language, would generalising capabilities that are (in the 5e context) primary located in the spell/magic systems be something like what you've got in mind?

Lord Mhoram said:

But that is straying, almost in the opposite direction of a discussion of mechanics, which is the opposite of what the thread is about.

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Not at all! Isn't this thread about play experience?

Lord Mhoram said:

One of my main reasons for playing RPGs, is the roleplaying itself. Deep immersion, in becoming the character, feeling what the character would feel, being what the character is. That can be achieved with nothing but dialog and emotion

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I prefer to get that experience by engaging the situation, and having feelings about the outcome that mirror those being felt by the character. So if my PC would be anxious or uncertain, I want to have that same experience; if my PC would feel the pull of loyalty, then I want the mechanics to make me feel the same thing.

Some games are more light-hearted than others in these respects: of systems I play/GM, I would say Prince Valiant and Marvel Heroic/Cortex+ Heroic are at the lighthearted end; 4e and Classic Traveller are intermediate; and Burning Wheel is intense sometimes to the point of being hard to take.

pemerton said:

At the risk of using inciting language, would generalising capabilities that are (in the 5e context) primary located in the spell/magic systems be something like what you've got in mind?

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I'm not @Charlaquin, but in a manner yes.
Judging on what he/she had said, I think it is about additional meaningful choice points which have the ability to differentiate characters of the same class and subclass even more than what you can already do with backgrounds, feats, personality characteristics and skills.

Example:

1. As a human variant allowing him to swap out the feat & skill combo for an additional background instead.

The additional background might reflect on the character's age or that the character moves around a lot and has obtained experience in various lines of work.

2. As a fighter he could select Battle Awareness as opposed to Second Wind.

Battle Awareness: As long as the character is not surprised, the character may move up or down the initiative order by 5 after initiative is rolled. Character is still limited to acting once per turn. Rechargeable after a long or short rest.

3. As a Champion, he might drop Improved Critical for Flare of the Champion

Flare of the Champion: Provides the character with an additional interaction with objects around him/her per each of his/her attacks.

Hriston said:

That's funny because that's exactly what it seems like to me. All the participants in combat roll initiative because they're all trying to go before everyone else.

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Are they?

Sometimes not acting first can be advantageous - you can see what the foes are doing and react with intention, rather than having to guess.

The initiative rolls are simply to sort out what happens when, and to ensure that each participant (including the foes) gets a chance to do something each round should they so desire.

Charlaquin said:

Sure, let’s go there. I would define roleplaying as imagining yourself as someone else and/or in a different situation, and making decisions as you think you or the imagined person would in the imagined situation. [***] If you are saying that, in an RPG, the game mechanics and the roleplaying should be the same thing, then you are saying the game mechanics should be an expression of that decision making process. And I agree with that. That’s why I want mechanics that facilitate decision making, and to do that, they need to provide options.

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I agree with you up to where I inserted the '***'. But after that I'd say that the game mechanics should as far as possible stay out of the way of making those decisions, inserting themselves only when needed to resolve a doubtful outcome or to enforce a game rule. Why? Because if-when the mechanics insert themselves into the decision-making process any more than that they cannot help but move that process away from simply deciding based on what the character would naturally do and toward deciding based on what the mechanics expect it or want it to do.

Lanefan