D&D 5E Mearl's Book Design Philosophy

[Zardnaar]

You will not have to wait long before someone tells you that more expensive smaller sizes is actually good for you because that means you will not eat too much and besides I am satisfied with the amount of chocolate that I have already.

Over here blocks of chocolate come in king size blocks which is a half pound of sugary goodness. I have sent NZ chocolate to friends in Texas and they seem to like it.

D&D snacks
http://www.whittakers.co.nz/#/products/blocks/

http://www.whittakers.co.nz/#/products/artisancollection/

D&D refreshments on Sunday, 8 bottles worth. Dice got a bit blurry.
http://www.jacobscreek.com/nz/pip-and-seed/

I think that session cost about $100 and then some as we went out for dinner later.

 

[Maxperson]

How 'bout some kind of compilation splatbook that re-prints the crunch from SCAG, and other setting & adventure bits, fleshed out with some new content?

Better, but still not great. When does it arrive on the shelves from WotC?

 

[aramis erak]

Calling the new stuf retreads is grossly innacurate, at least from the standpoint of running them.

These are on par with OA for 3.5 - yes, it's covering some of the same ground, but not in the same way as the prior OA (for 1E). It is more than just slapping new mechanics (tread) on old setting (tire)... they aren't the same size nor shape.

Retreads would be things like the various editons of Ravenloft Boxed set, or the 4E revision of Dark Sun.

SCAG does take a different approach to being a setting book than did prior editions' materials: It's a 1st person narrative, rather than an objective essay collection. It's a more approachable take on the material.

I would like to see new ground covered, but what's been coming out isn't retreads, more like returns.

 

[Maxperson]

Which is the whole damn point.
With the limited release schedule of 5e, each new (non-adventure) release becomes more special and dramatic. More of an event and less a routine. Something to get excited about and making it a must-buy purchase rather than a maybe purchase. And the limited content becomes more likely to be used. It's also easier to design and balance, and more likely to be playtested.
The books and content are less disposable. Less content for the sake of content.

Unlike 3e where there were literally classes created just to fill space.
There's a fun story about one of the dragon classes for Dragon Magic. It was in development at the same time as the Player's Handbook 2 and both has dragon class that used auras. Created independently but very similar. As Dragon Magic was coming out later, they dropped the entire class and just made up a new one. Why? Because they needed a set number of new classes that filled a specific number of pages. There wasn't a story need, they didn't have a great mechanical hook. It just needed to exist, let alone be good.
(Dragon Magic was just made of bad decisions. The sole reason it existed was a manager saw that books with the words "magic" and "dragons" sold well, and decided a book with both would be a surefire hit.)

This is a False Dichotomy. There is a range in-between the nothing WotC has put out for 5e for general content and the glut of 3e. In that limited in-between range, I will use most to all of the content.

You're not asking for a glut, but even a single book of sole crunch is a ridiculous amount of content.
I broke it down earlier. Because of the small amount of space subclasses and subraces take up, you can cram a lot of options into a small space. A single 160-page book can easily contain enough options to qualify as a "glut". It's an entire edition's worth of options released all at once rather than spreading them out over a number of years.

I disagree, and so do many others. What's more, if YOU don't like the new book, don't buy or use it. What's good for the goose and all that.

Asking WotC to release a big book of options is asking them to cut open the goose that lays the golden eggs to get all the eggs at once...

No it isn't. A single book a year is not going to give me all the eggs at once. That's absurdly wrong........unless......do you think I'm asking for a few thousand+ page book with the combined content of 3e in it?

I'm trying to. You could do the same and actually reply and engage in the discussion rather than just crying "false!" and "fallacy!"

When you actually respond to what I say, instead of making stuff up for me to have said, I respond appropriately. If you don't want me to call you on your fallacies, don't make them.

 

[Jester David]

Or they could have errata'd in balance, even in 3e, in spite of the rapid pace of release, if that had been a priority (instead of 'rewarding system mastery').

Ugh. I hate fixing balance in errata. So much. But that's another conversation.

Rewarding system mastery isn't a bad thing per se. I think Monte Cook gets a lot more flack for that article than he deserves.
After all, concentration is a good rule for rewarding mastery. Targeting the monster concentrating on a spell is basically solid tactics and mastery of the system.

It seems more reasonable than "don't like it, don't let other people buy it."

It's not that....
See, I like D&D books. And I would like more. Heck, I bought the colouring book and I'll likely buy Dungeonology for that reason...
But D&D splatbooks are junk food. And D&D players are generally not good at watching what we eat. So WotC has to limit what the serve us... Because it's better for us and the long term health of the edition and hobby if they do so.

I'd be pissed of McDonald's put people on a burger clock and restricted the number of Big Macs I could buy each year. And switched from fries to kale salads. I'd be so pissed. But... I'd probably live longer...

 

[Maxperson]

The "don't want it, don't buy it" argument always seems poor to me.

First, because I have crap impulse control and like to say "yes" to my players. Which is why my Pathfinder games went off the rails... I like buying new books too much. (That and I do reviews on my website, so I'd buy it for that purpose, like I've done for a bunch of Pathfinder books of late...)

You being weak willed doesn't make that argument a poor one. It just means you are weak willed and will buy it anyway. The fault in that lies with you, not the argument or the options provided by the game company.

Second, because once the books exist, it will also affect the books I do want to buy. If all the go-to warrior subclasses are crammed into Volo's Guides to Pointy Shards of Metal then the fighter content in the books I want become subpar. And they won't have had enough time to playtest that content, since they were busy trying to create the five or six page filling subclasses needed to round out the page count of VGtPSoM.
And once they run out of easy content and good book ideas, we start getting the crap books. Magic of Incarnum or Heroes of Shadow that people don't *really* want, but the company needs to release something or just lay off the entire RPG department. They're not keeping Mearl & co. on the payroll because they run a good Friday lunch campaign.
It hastens the end of the edition.

Slippery Slope. A slow release of books, one per year, would still be able to be thoroughly playtested and would not lead to crap books.

Also, if all the go-to warriors are in the book you don't buy, then it's meaningless to the ones that you do buy, because they aren't in your game. The only things that have meaning in your game are the books that you use.

Oh, and third, "don't like it? Then don't buy it" is probably the exact opposite thing WotC wants people saying about their books.

That's already said about every book they release, including the core three. It doesn't matter of people say that or not. Only if the numbers that don't say it make them enough money.

 

[Tony Vargas]

When does it arrive on the shelves from WotC?

Nevermber 12th, 2024.

Ugh. I hate fixing balance in errata. So much. But that's another conversation.

Rewarding system mastery isn't a bad thing per se.

Nod. Just a different priority.

See, I like D&D books. And I would like more. Heck, I bought the colouring book and I'll likely buy Dungeonology for that reason...
But D&D splatbooks are junk food. And D&D players are generally not good at watching what we eat.

We were just talking about how no one actually goes and uses everything in a given splatbook. 5e, more than any recent edition, is big on opt-in modules. Think of the DM as your dietitian.

I'd be pissed of McDonald's put people on a burger clock and restricted the number of Big Macs I could buy each year. And switched from fries to kale salads. I'd be so pissed. But... I'd probably live longer...

Or, y'know, they could just offer 'healthier options' and leave the cost-benefit of kale vs metabolic syndrome to the customer.

 

[Maxperson]

Nevermber 12th, 2024.

Why haven't I ever seen it on a shelf at the game store?

Edit: Never mind. I read that as 2014 the first time. Haha! Very funny.

 

[Jester David]

This is a False Dichotomy. There is a range in-between the nothing WotC has put out for 5e for general content and the glut of 3e. In that limited in-between range, I will use most to all of the content.

Right. There's absolutely a middle ground between no content and glut.

Like one book a year that's a mix of crunch and fluff. Y'know, like they're doing.

I disagree, and so do many others. What's more, if YOU don't like the new book, don't buy or use it. What's good for the goose and all that.

No it isn't. A single book a year is not going to give me all the eggs at once. That's absurdly wrong........unless......do you think I'm asking for a few thousand+ page book with the combined content of 3e in it?

We're not talking about a thousand page book.

All of the crunch of the races, subclasses, and feats of the PHB fits into 42 pages. And spells cover 82 pages. You could double the amount of races, subclasses, and feats available in the game with just 135 pages. Including art. And the smallest splatbook WotC typically produces is 160 pages.
Again... DOUBLE the possible content. With the smallest book.
And even if you're not giving spells another 82 pages, you can *easily* fit three subclasses into two pages with some small art. With just 66 pages you can give every single class in the game three new subclasses, more than doubling the number of bard, druid, ranger, and barbarian options.

A single 160 page book that is even 84% crunch can have a ridiculous amount of content.

And they had years to playtest the amount of content in the PHB. And the feats and spells were based on the best concepts created over 40 years of playing the game. The doubled content has to be written in a year. And created from far less played material.
There's no way to test that amount of content. To really balance that many new subclasses or spells. And when you're creating that many new options, you're not going to be coming up with your best ideas. You're going to invariably end up making content that is just okay because you need that extra 1/4 page in the cleric section.

So they can double the amount of player options - which is YEARS of campaigns - in a single month with a single book. At that point you don't really need another 5e book ever. Because there's already more content than any single group could reasonably consume. Anything else is just unneeded.

Or they can take that 135 pages of content and spread it out slowly in 30-page chunks over four years.

Slippery Slope. A slow release of books, one per year, would still be able to be thoroughly playtested and would not lead to crap books.

Because....?
Because wishful thinking? Because you really, really don't want it to?

 

[Maxperson]

Right. There's absolutely a middle ground between no content and glut.

Like one book a year that's a mix of crunch and fluff. Y'know, like they're doing.

There are no general content releases for 5e. So no, they have not engaged a middle ground.

All of the crunch of the races, subclasses, and feats of the PHB fits into 42 pages. And spells cover 82 pages. You could double the amount of races, subclasses, and feats available in the game with just 135 pages. Including art. And the smallest splatbook WotC typically produces is 160 pages.
Again... DOUBLE the possible content. With the smallest book.
And even if you're not giving spells another 82 pages, you can *easily* fit three subclasses into two pages with some small art. With just 66 pages you can give every single class in the game three new subclasses, more than doubling the number of bard, druid, ranger, and barbarian options.

There's a lot more to the game than subclasses and spells.

A single 160 page book that is even 84% crunch can have a ridiculous amount of content.

Significant =/= ridiculous.

And they had years to playtest the amount of content in the PHB. And the feats and spells were based on the best concepts created over 40 years of playing the game. The doubled content has to be written in a year. And created from far less played material.
There's no way to test that amount of content. To really balance that many new subclasses or spells. And when you're creating that many new options, you're not going to be coming up with your best ideas. You're going to invariably end up making content that is just okay because you need that extra 1/4 page in the cleric section.

You're assuming a whole lot about what they release and how. Optional rules, you know, the modularity they talked about, would be HUGE. It doesn't all have to be classes and spells.

So they can double the amount of player options - which is YEARS of campaigns - in a single month with a single book. At that point you don't really need another 5e book ever. Because there's already more content than any single group could reasonably consume. Anything else is just unneeded.

Except, you know, the tons of other stuff that you are ignoring.

Because....?
Because wishful thinking? Because you really, really don't want it to?

Or maybe, just maaaaaaybe, it's because it's true. At a rate of one book a year, it would take them like 40 years to hit the 3e/4e mark and go down the tubes. The sky is not falling.