D&D 5E EN World Interview With Mike Mearls, Lead Designer of D&D Next

[Old_Skool]

On a scale of 1 (hated it) to 10 (loved it) how much have you liked:

1. Basic D&D
2. 1E
2. 2E
3. 3E
4. 4E
5. 5E

Obviously I really want to know how much you liked 5E, but knowing your D&D preferences should help to put your opinion in perspective.

P.S. Thanks for sharing.

1. Basic D&D = 10
2. 1E = 9
2. 2E = 2
3. 3E = 8
4. 4E = 1
5. 5E = ?

5E will be an "odd-numbered" edition, so it's destined for greatness.

 

[Bran Mak Morn]

Basic D&D: 3 (deadly and elves ranked supreme)
1st Edition: 3
2nd Edition: 5
3rd Edition: 4
4th Edition: 3 (This was much higher until it was over supplemented)
5th Edition: 5 ( I see brilliance with the melding of mechanics, still too early to really tell how it turns out. I give one extra point for my excitement.

It refers to a scale going from 1 to 5, right? Or shall we assume that no edition was ever worth a solid 8?

 

[Bran Mak Morn]

1. Basic D&D = 9 (nostalgia may be worth a point or even two here)
2. 1E = 7
2. 2E = 8
3. 3E = 6
4. 4E = 5
5. 5E = ? but the goals are just perfect to me.

 

[Brom Blackforge]

I'm interested to see how healing works. (I'm sure I'm not alone in that.)

I didn't mind the second wind mechanic. I've even toyed with allowing a second wind action once per encounter in a 3.5/Pathfinder game. But I absolutely hated the way that healing surges were tied to almost all methods of healing (even magical healing). WotC's recent article on hit points seemed to indicate that something like the healing surge mechanic would apply to mundane healing, so I'm hoping that it will no longer have any relation to magical healing.

The idea of giving the fighter (and only the fighter) a second-wind-like ability, while allowing similar mundane healing for other classes only outside of combat, seems promising.

 

[nedjer]

I remain optimistic until at least Friday. Though the no big ideas answer in this Geekdad interview seems a bit scary

 

[Valetudo]

Can you tell us how skills have changed?

 

[Umbran]

Maybe. I'm not sure the lines cannot be less rigid and the system more integrated.

Oh, sure the lines *could* be less rigid. That doesn't mean they *should* be less rigid.

Rigid lines do serve a purpose. Or several purposes, I imagine -they keep the stacking of these things conceptually simple, help reduce the "system mastery" required to find what you want, and more rigid lines help prevent min-maxing in the stacking process.

What you're describing is a lowest common denominator approach to the design rather than focusing the design on something more...

I reject the idea that combat focus is somehow "lowest". The various desires folks have at the table are not ranked, with some higher than others.

Desire for combat is common, yes. I daresay that it seems to me the most common desire in gaming there is. For a game that is actively attempting to be uniting, those things that are really most common should take the bulk of the design effort and attention.

 

[Ratinyourwalls]

So high level is going to be a mess third edition in a row?

ugh...

 

[infax]

I remain optimistic until at least Friday. Though the no big ideas answer in this Geekdad interview seems a bit scary

What was it that you found scary in the interview?

For me it looked mostly like a rehash of other tidbits released so far. Gilsdorf asked something that hadn't been touched at up to this point, but didn't get straight answers to those.

And I liked the bit about schemes. They had been mentioned, but Mike Mearls offered some specifics in that interview. It sounded stimulating. I may just try a rogue friday evening now!What was it that you found scary in the interview?

For me it looked mostly like a rehash of other tidbits released so far. Gilsdorf asked something that hadn't been touched at up to this point, but didn't get straight answers to those.

And I liked the bit about schemes. They had been mentioned, but Mike Mearls offered some specifics in that interview. It sounded stimulating. I may just try a rogue friday evening now!

 

[Mark CMG]

Oh, sure the lines *could* be less rigid. That doesn't mean they *should* be less rigid.

Rigid lines do serve a purpose. Or several purposes, I imagine -they keep the stacking of these things conceptually simple, help reduce the "system mastery" required to find what you want, and more rigid lines help prevent min-maxing in the stacking process

Flexibility doesn't automatically require system mastery. I think you are giving up on a solution based on fear of one possible outcome that stems from poor implementation.

I reject the idea that combat focus is somehow "lowest". The various desires folks have at the table are not ranked, with some higher than others.

Desire for combat is common, yes. I daresay that it seems to me the most common desire in gaming there is. For a game that is actively attempting to be uniting, those things that are really most common should take the bulk of the design effort and attention.

Rejecting the terminology while agreeing with the definition of the terminology seems like an argument in semantics. Keying on the word "lowest" (as somehow meant to be a prioritization) in the concept of Lowest Common Denominator while acknowledging that it is a "common" factor, then rejecting the idea that the game can accept that something is common but can evolve to focus on some of the less common elements seems like accepting short shrift right out of the gate. Again, it's not enough at this stage for the industry leader to simply put out another decent combat system with some tacked on ways to handle the roleplaying aspects of the game. It's been done repeatedly by the owners of the D&D brand and it only gets them so far. To evolve further there needs to be integration of roleplaying through all elements of the game otherwise it isn't going to be anything we really haven't seen before. No one is arguing that combat is a fairly common element. What is being argued is if focusing yet again on that common element can yield anything fresh or yield better results than the previous times they have focused on combat in their roleplaying game.