D&D 5E Mearl's Book Design Philosophy

[Parmandur]

Early Mystara was also PoL as well then they fleshed it out later.

Yeah, Greyhawk and the Known World kind of got built piecemeal sand emerged; and by not really supporting Greyhawk aside from some names, they kind of replicated it with 3E by accident I think. 4E was on to something there, I think, but rebooting everything and starting from scratch fid not go over well.

I would say they are actually implicitly supporting PoL style play pretty well with the Corw books, and the adventures mostly support it too, just with more old fashioned D&D-isms.

 

[Parmandur]

What does gish mean?

it's a forum term: the best example would be a BECMI Elf: Fighter/Magic-User.

I would say either a actual Fighter/Magic-User class, or an "Oath of Magic" Paladin would be appropriate at some point. Arcane and Divine magic are nit different things in 5E, recall...

 

[Zardnaar]

Yeah, Greyhawk and the Known World kind of got built piecemeal sand emerged; and by not really supporting Greyhawk aside from some names, they kind of replicated it with 3E by accident I think. 4E was on to something there, I think, but rebooting everything and starting from scratch fid not go over well.

I would say they are actually implicitly supporting PoL style play pretty well with the Corw books, and the adventures mostly support it too, just with more old fashioned D&D-isms.

Nerath was fine as a setting. May have been better as an add on to 4E like Eberron was with 3.5. By tying to to the 4E core (well everything is core) I doubt you will see to much of it again. The Nerath pantheon should also have been in the PHB.

 

[delericho]

I suppose I could have won the roleplaying lottery. Literally dozens of people that I games with bought most or all of those splat books. That or zero. I know of no one that bought one book and stopped. It could be chance, but the odds are probably better that I will winning the real lottery.

It's old information, so may well be out of date, but it used to be the case that the biggest group of RPG players actually bought nothing at all for the game, the next biggest would buy only the PHB or equivalent, and then the next biggest would buy the PHB and one appropriate splatbook.

Buying beyond that was fairly rare - but such people then tended to buy a lot of books.

(I guess that ties up with the "minnows, dolphins, whales" theory that has been discussed here a few times?)

 

[Parmandur]

It's old information, so may well be out of date, but it used to be the case that the biggest group of RPG players actually bought nothing at all for the game, the next biggest would buy only the PHB or equivalent, and then the next biggest would buy the PHB and one appropriate splatbook.



Buying beyond that was fairly rare - but such people then tended to buy a lot of books.



(I guess that ties up with the "minnows, dolphins, whales" theory that has been discussed here a few times?)

Pretty sure that's still accurate; hence the free rules.

 

[MechaTarrasque]

Nerath was fine as a setting. May have been better as an add on to 4E like Eberron was with 3.5. By tying to to the 4E core (well everything is core) I doubt you will see to much of it again. The Nerath pantheon should also have been in the PHB.

I agree. I suspect the closest we will come is if they have a Feywild AP (I imagine the elemental chaos is a little too much for level 15 or below play). I suspect they will put a number of 4e Easter Eggs into that one.

 

[Uchawi]

I don't know if that's very accurate. There seem to be a lot of new players in this edition. I think his point was that they have to tell stories in new ways. He mentions this being a "post Game of Thrones" world. That means today's audience's major pop culture fantasy influence is no longer Tolkien.

So yes, they had an adventure series back in the day about giants. But looking at that series, it's very straightforward...the giants are evil and need to be stopped, and that's about it.

Today's story about giants presents more nuanced characters and a variety of factions all vying for power in different ways.

So they seem to very very much be telling the story in a new way. I don't think that saying they are relying solely on nostalgia to succeed is fair. I do think that is an aspect of their plan, but there is a lot more to it. They are trying to create shared experience games that will have people talking about how they defeated Chief Guh the way the games from 30 years ago have people talking about Snurre.

I will be convinced they are telling stories in a new way, when they actually write stories in a new way, without relying on the nostalgia factor. But I do not believe they are willing to take the risk, since 5E is intended to tug at the heart strings of people that have played before.

For new people, it should be all new. So it boils down to our experience (how long we have played) when responding to the design philosophy. I know Mike has played for a while, and I have. So my responses are taking that perspective.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I will be convinced they are telling stories in a new way, when they actually write stories in a new way, without relying on the nostalgia factor. But I do not believe they are willing to take the risk, since 5E is intended to tug at the heart strings of people that have played before.

For new people, it should be all new. So it boils down to our experience (how long we have played) when responding to the design philosophy. I know Mike has played for a while, and I have. So my responses are taking that perspective.

So you think the design philosophy is one that is purely nostalgic? Not split between appealing to long time or lapsed players and obtaining new players?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I've said this twice now, and it seems to be ignored. It's not just about money. Any time someone says something like that "They have the money, therefore they should churn out the material", it shows they don't understand project management.

I work in project management as my day job. Hopefully after this third time explaining, people will take it to heart as a factor worth considering.

Let's say WotC will release products that people want a lot faster than they are doing. They have to increase staffing significantly to do so. For sake of the argument, let's say they go from 20 people to 100 people, and release the following books within the first 2 years (like a lot of people are expressing, because they have said they want these by now):

PHB and PHB2
DMG
MM, and MM2
Ravenloft setting/campaign
Underdark setting/campaign
Grayhawk setting/campaign
Planescape setting/campaign
Spelljammer setting/campaign
Darksun setting/campaign
Ebberron setting/campaign
Dragonlance setting/campaign
FR setting/campaign

So what happens after that 2 year window? There's nothing left to create that would have the sales #s justifying the cost. I'll tell you what happens. All of that staff you just hired gets laid off and the D&D division becomes just a skeleton crew unless WoTC decides to make a 6th edition. And I for one would NOT want talk about a 6e only 2 years into 5e simply because they already burned through all the 5e products a majority of people will buy.

I've seen this happen before. It's a horrible way to run a business. Absolutely disastrous. Not only because you end up firing a bunch of people (which has a ton of related problems associated with this), but also because your quality will suffer. With a smaller team working on every project, it's easier to manage and you are ensured of getting consistent results and you know what to expect. With several different teams, you have inconsistency.

So yeah, as someone who's been doing project management for years, it seems to me WoTC is doing it just right.

Thank you.

It's almost like they saw how well received smaller games are, and how genuinely freaking good they are, and thought long and hard about why, and maybe thought about how much longer the last couple editions could have lasted if put out with methods similar to a smaller company, instead of churning them out like pulp serials.

Not that there is anything wrong with pulp serials.

Can we bring back pulp serials, actually? I mean, without the trademark misogyny and stuff. Also radio shows. I can't even find any pod casts that do what bbc radio plays or old radio plays do, but I've got a few old The Shadow episodes on vinyl, and they are so good!

 

[Uchawi]

So you think the design philosophy is one that is purely nostalgic? Not split between appealing to long time or lapsed players and obtaining new players?

No, you are correct it is a mix, but with an emphasis on nostalgia as the selling point to keep previous players interested. However, since I have been playing D&D for a long time, I prefer something completely new.