D&D 5E Mearl's Book Design Philosophy

[Sacrosanct]

They stereotypical fighter/magic-user didn't go around laying on hands..

oh contraire mon frere. The f/MU was going around often laying down the burning hands (and chill touch, and finger of death, etc).


I know what you meant, I'm making a weak attempt at humor

 

[doctorbadwolf]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] IMO, you can't just dismiss the powers being set up like they are. It's part of how the edition is structured. So that a player doesn't need the book to understand their character.

More to the point, while the powers do very different things, what they do is straightforward and easy to understand by reading the power. You don't need to relearn the game to play a different class with different powers, because everyone uses the same rules language and structure.

As for action economy, more bits doesn't necessarily mean more complexity. Ten red dots isn't more complicated than four red dots.

The actions are all extremely easy to understand. Standard action is your main action, immediate interrupts interrupt things while immediate reactions happen immediately after, as a reaction to the thing, move action is what you use to move, free action can be used whenever, and is essentially free, "no action" is barely even a game term, it is always explicitly clear when you do a thing that requires no action. They do what they say on the tin. Like I said, I've never seen anyone be confused by it, but I have seen many new players be confused by movement (why isn't it an action?) and bonus actions, and the language of things like using a bonus action to take the Hide action. 4e, worst thing is people forgetting they can use an immediate interrupt power. I've never had to stop and re-explain the entire action system to a 4e player.

Now, using the action economy to destroy life and become the god of Ood is much harder, which is exactly how to make a good game. Easy to learn, harder to master.

Vancian casting just confuses people. You really gonna tell me you haven't seen this?

Not to mention, you do have to basically relearn the game to go from fighter to Druid in 5e. Or even fighter to paladin.

 

[flametitan]

I think you're overstating how hard it is to learn 5e. My own group is completely new to D&D, with myself only starting to really delve into the rules when 5e came out, and nobody's had any problems (aside from a switch from online to offline where everyone forgot how to roll d20s). There's enough resources out there that the actual book terminology isn't going to prevent people who want to learn the game from learning.

Just give them the resources needed to ease them into the game, and they'll survive.

 

[JeffB]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION] IMO, you can't just dismiss the powers being set up like they are. It's part of how the edition is structured. So that a player doesn't need the book to understand their character.

More to the point, while the powers do very different things, what they do is straightforward and easy to understand by reading the power. You don't need to relearn the game to play a different class with different powers, because everyone uses the same rules language and structure.
.

You explained this much more eloquently than I did

 

[Imaro]

I think you're overstating how hard it is to learn 5e. My own group is completely new to D&D, with myself only starting to really delve into the rules when 5e came out, and nobody's had any problems (aside from a switch from online to offline where everyone forgot how to roll d20s). There's enough resources out there that the actual book terminology isn't going to prevent people who want to learn the game from learning.

Just give them the resources needed to ease them into the game, and they'll survive.

Thanks for this, and hope you continue enjoying 5e. I put much more stock in new players stating how easy the game is to learn (without the help of experienced gamers leading them) than in experienced gamers professing the complexity of a particular game or claiming experienced gamers are necessary to grok/enjoy the game.

EDIT: This is much more in line with what I've seen as far as 5e being picked up by new people than what others experiences have led them to believe.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think you're overstating how hard it is to learn 5e.

S'all relative. D&D is harder to learn than chess or checkers, has more depth and takes longer to master than the latter, and arguably less so than the former in spite of the much greater rules complexity. Compared to those differences, a given edition being 'much' easier or harder to learn than another is pretty minor.

But, the difference was still enough to be quite noticeable when its come to retaining completely new players, IMX. Now, it might not /all/ be about being easier to learn, better balance can also have an impact on a first play experience, for instance, as can plenty of other factors.

5e benefits from its appeal to long-time & returning skillful DMs to deliver better first play experiences.

 

[JeffB]

Age of complete newcomers is also a big factor.

My group started up when they were 10-11 year olds.

Much different than a new group of 20 somethings

 

[flametitan]

S'all relative. D&D is harder to learn than chess or checkers, has more depth and takes longer to master than the latter, and arguably less so than the former in spite of the much greater rules complexity. Compared to those differences, a given edition being 'much' easier or harder to learn than another is pretty minor.

But, the difference was still enough to be quite noticeable when its come to retaining completely new players, IMX. Now, it might not /all/ be about being easier to learn, better balance can also have an impact on a first play experience, for instance, as can plenty of other factors.

5e benefits from its appeal to long-time & returning skillful DMs to deliver better first play experiences.

Honestly for my group the hardest thing to teach them isn't the rules themselves; that's all on their character sheets. No, my players seem to neglect looking at the character sheets entirely. On the one hand that's been great as my players are more likely to improvise a number of things (though it tends to be on the sillier end of the spectrum like thriller dancing with zombies), on the other hand it leads to my players asking me questions that could be resolved by looking through their sheets. At some point I might have to talk with them so that we can actually go over their sheets and make sure they know how to read it.

 

[Imaro]

@Imaro IMO, you can't just dismiss the powers being set up like they are. It's part of how the edition is structured. So that a player doesn't need the book to understand their character.

I'm not dismissing how the powers are set up in the book... if you claim you don't use the book for reference but you still reference power cards everytime you invoke a power... what's the difference outside of the aid you're using?

My point is that power cards are an outside tool that are not a part of the simplicity (or lack of simplicity) in 4e. Without powercards or some other reference sheet you would have had to look powers up in the book right? Only instead of it being just the spellcasters it would be every class... To me that's clever use of a tool but has nothing to do with the actual rules and their simplicity or complexity.

More to the point, while the powers do very different things, what they do is straightforward and easy to understand by reading the power. You don't need to relearn the game to play a different class with different powers, because everyone uses the same rules language and structure.

So you have to reference the powers when you use them... for every class. And I'm sorry but you are relearning the game when you choose to play another class in 4e (Unless we're talking general rules which is the case with 5e as well)... Outside of knowing what at-will/encounter and daily are... how does having used Crack the shell with my previous fighter character give me understanding of say... how Consecrated Ground works for a cleric... I mean other than the fact they are both dailies?

As for action economy, more bits doesn't necessarily mean more complexity. Ten red dots isn't more complicated than four red dots.

More bits that are used for different things does add complexity... if not how do you define complexity?

The actions are all extremely easy to understand. Standard action is your main action, immediate interrupts interrupt things while immediate reactions happen immediately after, as a reaction to the thing, move action is what you use to move, free action can be used whenever, and is essentially free, "no action" is barely even a game term, it is always explicitly clear when you do a thing that requires no action. They do what they say on the tin. Like I said, I've never seen anyone be confused by it, but I have seen many new players be confused by movement (why isn't it an action?) and bonus actions, and the language of things like using a bonus action to take the Hide action. 4e, worst thing is people forgetting they can use an immediate interrupt power. I've never had to stop and re-explain the entire action system to a 4e player.

So these are clear and easy to remember... but 5e's actions are confusing and harder to understand/remember. Yeah not seeing it at all.

Vancian casting just confuses people. You really gonna tell me you haven't seen this?

No most new people I've played with use the chart and pick their spells... I've seen people who don't want to manage the over head of so many bits (spells) but the same people didn't want to manage powers in 4e... neither is all that confusing IMO.

Not to mention, you do have to basically relearn the game to go from fighter to Druid in 5e. Or even fighter to paladin.

Same thing in 4e.

 

[Tony Vargas]

On the one hand that's been great as my players are more likely to improvise a number of things (though it tends to be on the sillier end of the spectrum like thriller dancing with zombies), on the other hand it leads to my players asking me questions that could be resolved by looking through their sheets.

Y'know, that sounds an almost ideal 5e campaign.

I've had that experience, too, btw, where a player asks me a question, and I'm like "let me see your character sheet..."