Should game designers remain neutral when designing D&D?

[DEFCON 1]

It is obvious they should catter exclusively to my players

Meow meow!

 

[Cadence]

Game designers should remain chaotic neutral when designing D&D.

My interpretation of chaotic neutral or [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] 's interpretation of chaotic neutral ?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I don't even think it's POSSIBLE to do this. Every rule ever written implies one playstyle over another simply because there are SO many playstyles.

Write a rule that says to roll 1d6 for damage? What about those people who like to play freeform with no dice?

Write a statement that people should consider what their character would do before making a decision? What about those people who hate the idea of "getting into character"?

Write a rule that says a character heals from an injury in 4-6 weeks? What about those people who want a more cinematic game where characters recover from injuries in hours? What about the people who prefer more realism than that but less than 6 weeks of recovery? What's the solution to this when making a game? Change the rule so that it says "PCs recover at whatever rate the DM wishes"? If we start writing rules like that doesn't it cease being a game and start being the equivalent of Cops and Robbers where all the rules are just made up by the participants? Why even write the books then?

 

[doghead]

Me neither. They clearly should create games based on my personal preference.

Yeah, this made me laugh. For which I thank you. It has otherwise been a pretty laugh free day.

thotd

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

Depends on the game. Game design is an art; art is subjective. If nobody created art based on their personal preference, we'd probably be lacking most of the greatest works in the world.

tl;dr version: it's OK if some people don't like a thing.

"I've managed to satisfy everyone all of the time!" -- something nobody said ever.

I wouldn't call D&D a work of art. Artists usually create something for them, unless they are hired to do so. By now, game designers should know that not everyone likes the same playstyle. They should create a neutral set of rules that allow you to plug in certain options to create that particular playstyle. This is supposed to be the edition for everyone.

 

[XunValdorl_of_Kilsek]

I don't even think it's POSSIBLE to do this. Every rule ever written implies one playstyle over another simply because there are SO many playstyles.

Write a rule that says to roll 1d6 for damage? What about those people who like to play freeform with no dice?

Write a statement that people should consider what their character would do before making a decision? What about those people who hate the idea of "getting into character"?

Write a rule that says a character heals from an injury in 4-6 weeks? What about those people who want a more cinematic game where characters recover from injuries in hours? What about the people who prefer more realism than that but less than 6 weeks of recovery? What's the solution to this when making a game? Change the rule so that it says "PCs recover at whatever rate the DM wishes"? If we start writing rules like that doesn't it cease being a game and start being the equivalent of Cops and Robbers where all the rules are just made up by the participants? Why even write the books then?

Now diceless isn't a playstyle, it's a totally different kind of game. Some of what you suggested could easily be a plug n play option.

 

[Morrus]

I wouldn't call D&D a work of art.

That makes me sad to hear.

By now, game designers should know that not everyone likes the same playstyle.

Yes, that's why they make different games.

 

[Desdichado]

I wouldn't call D&D a work of art. Artists usually create something for them, unless they are hired to do so. By now, game designers should know that not everyone likes the same playstyle. They should create a neutral set of rules that allow you to plug in certain options to create that particular playstyle. This is supposed to be the edition for everyone.

Let's pick an artist more or less at random. Prince. Or is it the artist formerly known as Prince these days?

Did he create albums solely for himself, or because he was hired to do so?

I don't think so. He clearly wrote "Little Red Corvette" hoping to support himself financially with royalties from sales of his art.

Or is that no longer art, now, because he didn't do it for himself, or because he wasn't hired to write it?

Also; the designers of D&D were hired to design it. So, how isn't it art, then?

I see your point; you don't like the feeling that the risk of death is overly mitigated. Since 5e is supposed to be the next "Big tent" edition that brings people back into the fold of D&D again, from whatever other system they've been playing in the meantime. Therefore, having that assumption so firmly hard-coded into the system doesn't seem like agreat choice, when a more modular suite of options fitting various different approaches to that question would better suit you. I even agree with you.

But you've gotta be careful about swinging around emotional rhetoric and false equivalencies if you want anyone to take your point seriously. Your point will get lost amongst all the baggage you're bringing with it.

 

[TwoSix]

I wouldn't call D&D a work of art. Artists usually create something for them, unless they are hired to do so. By now, game designers should know that not everyone likes the same playstyle. They should create a neutral set of rules that allow you to plug in certain options to create that particular playstyle. This is supposed to be the edition for everyone.

I'm just confused as to what constitutes a neutral option that doesn't favor any edition. Does every rule that appears similar to a rule in a previous edition need a sidebar discussing multiple approaches so that you can sub in a different option as needed?

I mean, any rule that doesn't mimic ANY edition would almost by definition not be very D&D-like.

 

[Mistwell]

Designers should playtest and survey heavily until they get a good sense of what the majority of people want, and then set defaults to that majority, while setting optional rules to cover significant minority opinions.

Simply setting it to "neutral", whatever that might be, is likely to please almost nobody, and read very dry. You can do a lot more, flavor-wise, with a game set to a particular tone. And that tone should be the one the majority most favors.