D&D 5E Design Philosophy of 5e

[tomBitonti]

Bear in mind that Mearls wasn't referring to something like sandbox vs. ap or casting aspersions on dungeon hacks; he was referring to the phenomenon MMO players call "camping": resting to full between encounters with no penalty. That is boring play. (I've grinded out levels and gear drops in MMOs, I know). Yet, if the players want to grind out a dungeon one room and rest, he said they are welcome to.

Sorry for the late reply. This incorrect.

At level, a player will have an idea of how many foes can be handled at once, either as a group or solo. A player rests to prepare for the next set of foes. That ought to take just a few moments, to eat, or use restorative abilities. Perhaps, if the next foe is especially tough, a longer rest is taken to allow ability cool-downs to reset. (A game where recovery takes too long does have a problem, but it's a game engine problem, not a player problem.)

What is usually meant in MMO's when confronting the 1% phenomenon is spending time obtaining extra player power. Usually, that's obtaining a bit of gear that is just slightly better than what is more usually available. Sometimes, it means going for a race or class or spec option which is just slightly better than the alternative.

Note that a "1%" advantage, by itself is small, but if there are several "1%" options available, getting several starts to make a difference. But, very often, the options are more like "0.1%" options.

Also, the complaint is mis-founded: Why not let players spend their game time as they prefer? The real problem is player community issues, say, where a PUG raid doesn't take players who don't have those slight advantages, or when the community is critical to players who don't acquire the advantages. That becomes a complaint to the designers.

And, "camping", in an MMO, is waiting around for a spawn, typically, for a player to rez (PVP camping), or waiting for a rare mob, or waiting for a resource node to spawn.

I don't think the 1% problem translates very well outside of MMO's.

To return to the original comment, it strikes me as quite a bit odd. There are innumerable ways to make play boring, even with the best of rules. The question is rather whether the rules channel play in exciting directions, or, contrariwise, are wabbly and tend to fall off the rails into boredom.

That is, say, does combat bog down, either because of too complex mechanics (trip or grapple), or because of rules interruptions, or because of overwhelming detail (conditions tracking; bonus categories). Or, does a game restrict player choice too much. Or, does a game present too many "hard to grog" rules.

The question becomes, how much do rules promote or enable boring play?

Thx!

TomB

 

[Lanefan]

Wading in late again, as usual...

First off, the root design *philosophy* of 5e - let's build a simple basic game framework and then design lots and lots of different modules and tack-ons that people can choose to add or not - is excellent; as is the corollary goal of making 5e a kitbasher's edition and thus intentionally make the system flexible and forgiving enough to withstand what we're all going to do to it.

However, the more I see of the pre-released bits on the front page of this site the more I wonder if the basic game isn't basic enough. What I'm seeing reminds me more and more of the undeveloped skeleton of a bastard child 3e and 4e should never have had (the monster previews being a fine example), where I'm hoping the root framework will instead more equate to an updated version of basic 0e or basic Moldvay.

That said, I'm still encouraged by the rules-lighter approach and the base philosophy; let's see where it goes.

Lan-"on the brighter side, fireballs in open space are back to being spherical"-efan

 

[ThirdWizard]

I don't think the 1% problem translates very well outside of MMO's.

Think of the 1% problem as a shorthand for people doing things that they'd rather not do if they see benefit to it. Then, to take it a step further, they will do something that they hate in order to see a miniscule benefit, because they aren't good at judging the worth of the loss of fun vs. the worth of the benefit.

Examples from WoW would be spending 2 hours every day on daily quests because you can, or leveling 10 alts to play WoW farmville for a couple of hours every day, even though you dislike these activities. And, by golly, people hate Blizzard for "making" them do these things. So, the question then becomes, what about TTRPGs? Will people play the game with a strict rule reading even though they hate that reading? Or will they play a way that they find fun, because that's what they're at the table to do, presumably.

Okay, having said that, I think I know what my main beef with all this Topic-That-Will-Not-Be-Named thing is.

I think there are two parties at play here. Those who want to come to the Internet and discuss rules and those who want to discuss gameplay, and those two are often on a collision course. If I come to ENWorld, and I want to discuss things that are going to impact my game, with a practical mind toward D&D 5e, and another guy comes along, and he's interested in talking about the rules, how they interact, and thinking as a designer, then we are only going to make each other upset as we talk. Because, I don't care about discussing corner case rules. They don't matter in my actual game. At all. But, to the rule-discussion guy those are the most interesting things to talk about.

And thus you get frustration.

 

[Quickleaf]

While I'm not yet sold on 5e's execution, I can applaud its design philosophy.

Sometimes I wonder if we're fooling ourselves with rules heavy systems like 3e/Pathfinder or 4e into thinking that the rules cover all possible situations (or at least most possible situations). Players are always going to find the corner cases, exceptions, and things the rules flat out do not cover IME. I mean, what exactly happens when you use a throwing pig in those rules heavy systems? What rules heavy systems do is narrow the spectrum of interpretations the DM must make to more technical language; point in case, errata and emails to WotC customer service for rules clarifications. I'm sure, between us, we could come up with a long list of ambiguous rules in 3e/Pathfinder and 4e.

My theory is that rules heavy systems' main function isn't to eliminate any rules interpretation a DM does (though rules may lessen it), but to change the TYPE of rules arbitration the DM does to a more narrow bandwidth.

OTOH, I am concerned about seeing a return to situations with rules utterly lacking for a common game situation...I'm thinking evasion & pursuit / chase rules. I recall reading many 2e adventures (most recently "Baator and Back") which mention a "thrilling chase" and then provide zero rules or guidelines for how to run such an encounter. "The villain flees." "We run after him." has got to be one of the most archetypal RPG scenarios and yet has been woefully neglected in many versions of D&D and so far hasn't appeared in the playtest rules.

 

[Blackbrrd]

...What I'm seeing reminds me more and more of the undeveloped skeleton of a bastard child 3e and 4e should never have had (the monster previews being a fine example),....

Now I am curious, what about the monster previews makes you think this? I think they look pretty basic.

 

[The Hitcher]

Haven't had time to read the entire thread, but I just wanted to thank Thaumaturge for bringing this up. I agree that many of the naysayers who are getting worked up over each individual rule aren't seeing the forest for the trees. I love the direction his edition is going in encouraging DM and player responsibility, and I hope it ultimately does lead to more "rulings over rules" and thus less people being obsessed with min-maxing and exploiting the rules.

Something I've been thinking about lately: competitive games (like tactical miniatures games) really benefit from tight rules that help keep everything as unambiguous and fair as possible, but co-operative RPGs benefit much more from flexible rules that are able to allow for the infinite possible situations and desires of the players. D&D has always had an uneasy foot in each camp, but definitely tipped more towards the "tight" in the last two editions. I think shifting its weight back in the other direction is a fantastic move that will suit the concept of the game much better.

 

[KidSnide]

FWIW I'm far from convinced that a genuinely "rules light" system is ever run. What the published rules don't cover - and this applies whether the "publishing" is done through sales or just sharing houserules around the group - the GM makes up a rule for, possibly in advance or possibly in the moments before the situation is resolved at the gaming table. The only differences are that (a) the players are not privy to what the rules are, and (b) the rules are made by one guy based on their own assumptions, preconceptions, attitudes and beliefs rather than by a team of people thinking through and hashing out what a good rule would be.

My experience with rules light systems involve a lot of situations where the GM works with the table to figure out how a particular situation is resolved. I've seen that as an explicit process (like Dogs in the Vineyard) or more of an implicit give and take (how I've seen Apocalypse World games run). Either way, it differs from the process you describe in that:

1) the "rule" isn't being made by just one guy; it incorporates the opinions of the table as a whole
2) it's not really a "rule" in that it's not necessarily repeatable; the table could easily find it boring to repeat the same resolution the next time the situation comes up
3) rather than a "rule" that's been thought through and hashed out, you get a ruling that is less considered but precisely tailored to what seems fun at the time

I'll grant you that (a) this experience is obviously not for everyone (and for many who like it, not for all the time) and (b) that the player doesn't necessarily know what will happen in advance.

-KS

 

[Lanefan]

My experience with rules light systems involve a lot of situations where the GM works with the table to figure out how a particular situation is resolved. I've seen that as an explicit process (like Dogs in the Vineyard) or more of an implicit give and take (how I've seen Apocalypse World games run). Either way, it differs from the process you describe in that:

1) the "rule" isn't being made by just one guy; it incorporates the opinions of the table as a whole
2) it's not really a "rule" in that it's not necessarily repeatable; the table could easily find it boring to repeat the same resolution the next time the situation comes up
3) rather than a "rule" that's been thought through and hashed out, you get a ruling that is less considered but precisely tailored to what seems fun at the time

Which is great as long as nobody really cares much about internal consistency, because for a consistent game-world environment once a precedent is set it has to be locked in; with the pleasant side effect of only ever having to have each discussion once. If non-random outside-the-RAW event series x-y-z (which usually involve unforseen spell interactions) leads to resolution A the first time, consistency dictates it lead to result A every subsequent time.

Now I am curious, what about the monster previews makes you think this? I think they look pretty basic.

I guess I was in a grumpy mood this morning when I looked at them, but what leaped off the screen at me were the very 3e-looking 6 basic stats and bonuses, the 3e- and 4e-looking keywords, and the quite 4e-looking presentation of the monster abilities. I'm used to - and was hoping for - shorter monster write-ups in paragraphs.

Lan-"seeing an Ogre described as a 'Large Giant' is only going to make all the real Giants laugh"-efan

 

[Sadras]

My theory is that rules heavy systems' main function isn't to eliminate any rules interpretation a DM does (though rules may lessen it), but to change the TYPE of rules arbitration the DM does to a more narrow bandwidth.

Nicely put!

 

[Blackbrrd]

I guess I was in a grumpy mood this morning when I looked at them, but what leaped off the screen at me were the very 3e-looking 6 basic stats and bonuses, the 3e- and 4e-looking keywords, and the quite 4e-looking presentation of the monster abilities. I'm used to - and was hoping for - shorter monster write-ups in paragraphs.

Lan-"seeing an Ogre described as a 'Large Giant' is only going to make all the real Giants laugh"-efan

You wanted 1e stat blocks?