I feel you've not told us what your metric of good design is, other than that 5e has many enthusiastic Amazon reviews. But you also rejected popularity as your metric of success. Which leaves me a bit puzzled.
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D&D General Supposing D&D is gamist, what does that mean?
- Thread starter clearstream
- Start date
Manbearcat
Legend
Just a couple of things in response here:
1) "Ze game remains ze same" isn't something you said. "Rules change but the game remains the same" is a quote from the archives that I can't even recall where it came from, but it was said during 4e (and was obviously not true)1
2) It feels like what you're saying above is trying to mash together "ideate", "iterate", and "speciate" on the strength of shared ancestry (a chain of iteration + a reaction). I don't agree with this conception. Out of 10 (made-up number) design pieces, 4e is probably 2 parts iterate and 8 parts ideate to an inevitable outright speciation...putting it much, much, much closer to speciation than lineal descent from ancestor to descendant. Its much closer to the analogy of a supercar rebuilding from the ground up for an entirely different driving experience (while keeping a very few platform legacy elements and a general aesthetic look) than using most of the parts of the prior platform (chassis, aero package, drive-train, brakes, engine location et al...and maybe just updating the engine and suspension).
The evidence to support that is (i) in the deep disparity of design goals and implementation by Heinsoo et al (my post above), (ii) the extreme 3.x player reaction + trad player reaction to 4e and then the completely different reaction to 4e of a GM such as myself (with very different proclivities and interests than the prior mentioned group), (iii) the profound efforts 5e design had to go to in order to not just (a) remove the constituent genetic signature of 4e but also (most importantly) (b) the integrated design signature of 4e from 5e to make the two experiences entirely incompatible (from the GMing to the playing to the mere experience of reading the texts - the last of which was a hugely stressed part) to slake the thirst for exorcism of the 4e demon from the most vociferous parts of D&D culture (who went to truly staggering lengths to show how aggrieved they felt by 4e's brief, 4.75 year foray as the holder of the "D&D brand" and cultural beatstick), (iv) and the reality that so many 4e players who loved 4e for its "4e-itude" (not its D&Dness) don't run or play 5e or, when forced to, are doing so out of charity (as is my case when I ran it for a year) or just as a (not preferred, but tolerated) social outlet.
EDIT - I forgot a (v) piece of evidence...which happens to be very topical and important to this thread! Edwards just played 4e for the first time about a year ago. Unsurprisingly, he loved it! And he made pretty much the same observations about it that posters like myself and @pemerton and @Campbell have been making forever (while making the same observations about 5e - that it is basically AD&D 3e)! For this thread in particular, that is a pretty intense piece of evidence to overcome. Its also not particularly great for all of the folks out there who have been saying that myself and pemerton and Campbell are delusional when it comes to the Forge/indie-design inspirations we saw in 4e!
EDIT - Simply put, to get back to the main thrust of the thread, 4e plays as an extraordinarily great Gamist experience with the Skilled Play primarily at the site of the Encounter or a game-without-equal (or really even comparison) in terms of hybridizing a particular brand of Gamist (with intricate and dynamic combat)/Story Now agenda.
Meanwhile, 5e is a poor-ish (just south of mediocre at best) Gamist engine at the site of both the Encounter and the Adventuring Day, possesses very little Story Now DNA (making it incompatible without extraordinary hacking) with fun classic puzzle solving in its social conflict rules and is unrivaled in its GM-directed, High Concept Simulation + Power Fantasy capacity in the D&D space.
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It also does tend to confirm @Ovinomancer's view that 5e D&D is not well-suited to "story now" play.
I'm interested in what fair and reasonable mean here.
The latter seems to express a type of process sim concern: what is happening in the fiction, such that accuracy and advantage are cumulative only in this case?
The former seems to express a concern that arises from a conflict between gamist and high concept sim aspirations: why, to get this benefit, do I have to build this flavour of character?
This particular implementation of Elven Accuracy does seem consistent with the game's orientation towards high concept play.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
I mean, I'm pretty openly Gamist/S&A in my interests, so that shouldn't surprise anyone. And the explicit rationale of Ad/Dis was to eliminate modifiers so play would move more swiftly and smoothly, which sounds fairly Gamist to my ears.
My issue with Elven Accuracy is that it breaks an established design pattern (Advantage works this way for everyone, by design) in a way that specifically favors only certain flavor preferences and not others. That is unreasonable design, as far as I'm concerned. There is essentially nothing in the game quite as good as Elven Accuracy as far as feats go. Every character that qualifies for that feat should take it, hands-down, no questions asked.
Well, that seems to resemble Great Weapon Master and Sharpshooter.
What if they rarely make attacks using DEX, INT, CHA or WIS? What if they prefer to be Inspirational and Linguistically competent?
It seem to me that the feat is reasonably defensible from the point of view of high concept sim PC build and gameplay.
The 4e DMG says that players can use whatever skill they wish that fits with the fiction. It's also often the players who set the stakes of an encounter in 4e play.
But those points are crucial to what @AbdulAlhazred has said about the "valence" or "meaning" of skill checks. His point is that each check makes a measurable contribution towards achieving an established outcome. It's not task resolution; it's scene resolution. (Much like D&D's combat rules, only with a fiction-first orientation as far as action declarations are concerned.)
clearstream
(He, Him)
I hope that others will respect my belief that criticising other RPGs is unproductive. Instead I will give two examples of game design concepts underlying my assessement, and explain how those are evidenced in 5e.
Design-space. One way to create design-space is to lean into feature combinations. Suppose I design 3 features and cannot combine them: that's a 3-point design-space. Suppose I allow every permutation including repetitions: that's a 9-point design-space. The latter can be predicted to retain interest in play for a greater number of sessions than the former. 5e uses combinations all through to create design-space, but you should be able to see how that is also in tension with designability.
Designability. One can see that the class structure of 5e both makes available and constrains combinations of features. That increases designability because the test-space is much reduced. Picture by contrast the number of combinations that would need to be tested for each new feature, in the absence of such class structures! Relatedly, a feature of 5e is the soft-allocation of design-space to each class. For example, at a certain level the sub-class feature for ranger will lean toward defensive. That makes it easier to design for - to design in this case a new ranger subclass - because the designer can be given the game bible and know what direction they should be thinking in. Each class has specified "slots" for sub-class features, further aiding designability.
While these concepts are often associated with (predictive of) games that retain interest over hundreds of sessions, it's not the case that a game is bad just because it doesn't apply them. Great games often succeed by challenging convention, and some design concepts might not be at issue for a given design.
It does mean however, that it is right to say that 5e has patterns (controlled combinatorial-ness) and interfaces (sub-class feature "slots") that are efficient and effective, and help sustain interest in play. 5e can be examined by game designers (and players who are interested) to understand deft application of those concepts.
There is no mystery as to the value I place in player testimonials. It is found in the reading or listening to what players are actually saying. There are typically a spectrum of views, from positive to negative, so it is important to read across them. @Thomas Shey introduced a salient observation before: what weight do we give a single view in judging the quality of the design, and by implication what weight do we give to a great many views when they are in accord?
I can see that one could be puzzled by supposing it's only quantitative. To dissolve that, I am not saying that 5e is a good design just because it has quantitatively more players.
"Should take" from an S-A standpoint, would be how I understand @EzekielRaiden here.
clearstream
(He, Him)
Got it. Fair enough then. You accept I hope that I am not the author of that comment.
Okay, well, what can I say? I'm describing best practice product design process*, actually in the context of game design. There's no mashing together. The reaction to 4e was disappointing. I think as we go along more and more folk will see it as the watershed design that it was.
*Hopefully sufficiently emphasising the power of iterative design-cycles.
In case of doubt, I don't think you are delusional on that score! I think you are delusional for other reasons.
I understand your take here, and that is a separate discussion, right? If I had to pick, purely on gamist (per my definition of that term, and not RE's which I find incomplete), then yes, 4e all the way. It's pretty uncompromisingly gamist (which does not rule out it being other things, at the same time.) I hopefully haven't said anywhere upthread that 5e succeeds in being uncompromisingly gamist!?
There is another way to look at that, however, which is to ask not how gamist is 5e, but how deftly does it employ gamist concepts? To my observation, 5e consciously lowered difficulty and increased character leverage over game-world (which is aligned with skill expression.) So that it is relatively easy in 5e to feel one a sense of positive performance. One could caveat that this is - after 1st level - but maybe the 1st level speed bump is crucial in sustaining respect in the achievement?
Player establishes the character's dramatic need. Player establishes the context for the stakes. Player chooses the response, which expresses some sort of judgement/valuation in relation to the fictional situation. The system and social context do not dictate a "right answer".
You mean this?
By "premise" do you mean "genre"? "Subject matter"?
It's a game of Arthurian romantic fantasy. There are no spaceships or beam weapons or radios or railways. If the players feel like engaging with those things, we play other games.
Within the scope of the genre, the system does not tell the players whether to take the side of the nobles or the peasants. Whether to oppose bandits, or by sympathetic to them, or join with them. Whether to be Christian or pagan. Whether to kill or convert their enemies. Whether to be faithful to their spouses, or to follow their hearts. These are the sorts of situations that a game of Arthurian romantic fantasy generates. The players express their own judgements, via the play of their characters.
I've described some of the hallmarks of "story now" play:
* The player establishes the dramatic needs that drive the decision-making, from which the stakes are derived, and which will inform the consequences that follow;
* The player decides what their response is, with no "right" response dictated by system or social context;
* The player's decisions and declared actions are consequential within the scope of play.
* The player decides what their response is, with no "right" response dictated by system or social context;
* The player's decisions and declared actions are consequential within the scope of play.
The scope of play may include the fate of the cosmos (this is typical in some D&D play) or may include the relationship between two characters, played out over the possibility of repairing a breastplate (I posted an example of this from my own BW play).
Note that the above is not synonymous with, and does not even entail, a player making a decision based on the emotional state of their character. It's not synonymous with it, because a player can do that in contexts where the decision is not consequential within the scope of play, or in contexts where the system or the social context makes a particular such decision the "right" one, or in contexts where the dramatic needs and the stakes are all being driven by the GM and the system (I find CoC play to mostly fit this last description - there is emoting by me of my PC's descent into madness, but I'm not exercising any protagonism).
Nor does story now play entail making decisions based on the emotional state of the characer: a player might make a decision based not on the emotional state of their character, but based on their response to some other element of the fiction. They might even then feed that response back into their narration of their PC's emotional state!
Here are, by way of contrast, hallmarks of play that is not story now:
* The GM establishes the stakes by reference to some GM-authored conception of the setting or the situation - "hooks" and "quest givers" are typical here;
* The GM, or the system, or both, establish "right answers" - the starkest example of this is action declarations that lead to PCs ceasing to be playable (eg no evil PCs, no leaving the party, etc), but other examples involve GM-authored responses from temporal or spiritual or cosmological authorities;
* A more subtle version of the preceding, where choices and consequences are muted or downplayed so that there is little or no impact on the character or the setting (@hawkeyefan gave an example of this not far upthread);
* Any GM technique whereby turnabout or failure or reversal is established in advance by planning and prescription, rather than being seen as a consequence of failed action declarations - quest givers who turn out to be villains are a perennial favourite in this respect;
* Any reference to "side quests" and/or to the "plot" of the adventure;
* Players making decisions on the basis of expedience, or "winning", without regard to what they might otherwise mean were the fiction to b taken seriously (in a non-RPG context, I think a fair bit of computer game play is like this; in a RPG context, the famous example in Moldvay Basic of the thief PC dying and the other PC's pausing only to take his useful gear would be another example).
* The GM, or the system, or both, establish "right answers" - the starkest example of this is action declarations that lead to PCs ceasing to be playable (eg no evil PCs, no leaving the party, etc), but other examples involve GM-authored responses from temporal or spiritual or cosmological authorities;
* A more subtle version of the preceding, where choices and consequences are muted or downplayed so that there is little or no impact on the character or the setting (@hawkeyefan gave an example of this not far upthread);
* Any GM technique whereby turnabout or failure or reversal is established in advance by planning and prescription, rather than being seen as a consequence of failed action declarations - quest givers who turn out to be villains are a perennial favourite in this respect;
* Any reference to "side quests" and/or to the "plot" of the adventure;
* Players making decisions on the basis of expedience, or "winning", without regard to what they might otherwise mean were the fiction to b taken seriously (in a non-RPG context, I think a fair bit of computer game play is like this; in a RPG context, the famous example in Moldvay Basic of the thief PC dying and the other PC's pausing only to take his useful gear would be another example).
A lot of 5e D&D play gets described on these boards. I don't see accounts of "story now" play. Maybe they are there and I've missed them.
When I started a thread asking What is *worldbuilding* for?, I got a lot of replies from 5e players which demonstrated that they do not play "story now" 5e. I don't recall any replies from 5e "story now" players.
The only actual play accounts of 5e I recall in this thread came from @hawkeyefan and @Ovinomancer, both explaining how their 5e play is not "story now". @clearstream has agreed that 5e is, at least by default, a vehicle for GM-curated RPGing.
The Iron DM competitions produce, and celebrate, scenarios in which the scenario author sets all the stakes, the dramatic needs, and the possible resolutions. (And this is not a necessary consequence of the format, as was demonstrated by this thread: Not the Iron DM Tournament.)
There are frequent posts on these boards explaining how good 5e GMing involves the GM managing the "adventuring day" so as to ensure the prospect and (sometimes) the reality of 6 to 8 encounters per day.
I am forming my beliefs on the basis of the evidence that I have. The preceding five paragraphs summarise some of it.
I don't know how you resolve these action declarations - looking for spell components, looking for wealthy people, gathering information, and burglarising someone.
I don't know what is at stake in these action declarations, how they speak to any dramatic needs, and what sort of "point" is being made in declaring them.
On the basis of your description, and having to fill in those gaps, it seems to me that you are describing play that is predominantly what I (following Edwards) would call high concept simulationism, but probably with some gamist moments (when the players have to take a chance and in that moment of play - which sometimes might be a relatively extended moment - find out if they win or lose). My reason for making this conjecture is that your description focuses on the setting and situation but says nothing about the characters or the stakes in value-laden terms; and I'm treating your descriptions as an indicator of what you find salient, and then basing my conjecture on that.
Because it's a conjecture it of course might be wrong.
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