D&D 5E What is Quality?

[Lanefan]

So ... classical music is higher quality because you say so? I would say that they're different, it doesn't make one higher quality.

One could - and just for the hell of it I will - argue that the quality of a(ny) piece of music can be objectively rated on two fronts: what degree of musicianship is required to play it well, and whether it is written and-or played in a consistent key at any given point in the piece (i.e. does the sheet music ask for a "wrong" note by mistake [or even intentionally!] and-or does the musician play one).

The perceived quality of the resulting sound, however, is in the ear of the beholder; and can be affected by many things including personal taste, the musician's choice of instrument, the sonics of the place/medium of performance, etc. etc.

Yeah, nothing is perfect. I'm not saying 5E is the highest quality RPG of all time because I don't know how you would measure that. But 5E seems to be a quality product for millions of people, more people play every year. For a game when there's so much competing for our spare time to accomplish what 5E has to me indicates that for a lot of people it is a quality product.

People have voted with their dollars and time.

Voting - by any means - is an indicator of popularity, not quality.

To go back to the example of the Rolex vs the Casio: is the Casio of higher quality because it outsells the Rolex 50 to 1, or is the Rolex of higher quality because it is better made using more robust parts and will - assuming neither watch is mistreated - almost certainly last for many years longer than the Casio?

The Casio is popular. The Rolex, however, is of higher quality.

 

[Aldarc]

The problem seems to be that critique of 5e as a game is countered with facts about it as a product.

Like, inspiration sucks. It’s bland and tacked on and most fans of the game ignore it. I don’t care how many units moved last month… inspiration is terrible.

If Inspiration sucked, then how did 5e become the most popular and best selling version of D&D to date? Hmmm?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

The Casio is popular. The Rolex, however, is of higher quality.

As said before, almost all things have "higher standard of design" as a metric of quality, and physical objects have "better materials" as a metric of quality. In many cases, the things which shoot for the highest standards of design and the best materials available are too expensive to achieve mass appeal, because excellent quality almost always requires big dollars.

Which (just to reiterate) does not mean there's nothing to value in a Casio watch other than "it's cheap." They can still be solid, functional, productive watches, because those are all useful things one might want from watches. The best-selling watch will, in general, be the one that offers sufficient minimums of utility, while avoiding catastrophic failure long enough that replacement cost isn't a major concern.

 

[Morrus]

And ... this is where we get into the argument about what is quality. I disagree. I think the rules work just fine, thank you very much. When it comes to popularity, being the biggest doesn't necessarily mean quality, but I think the TTRPG market is a bit different from many other commodities. D&D hasn't always been the biggest, but in the past decade it not only regained market share and now dominates the market but has also seen double digit growth every single year. If it were a crap game we wouldn't see that.

So if the only way to judge quality is whether or not a person likes the rules, for you it is not a quality game. For me it is a quality game. Based on continued growth, the obvious conclusion is that a lot more people agree with me than you; I don't know how else you can spin it.

You're clearly dug in on this as after 80 posts, you're still arguing that popularity is equal to quality. So I guess this reply isn't really to you, as I have no inclination that I can sway your opinions on this, more to the other people in the thread.

But if I’m in a conversation with you about the subjective quality of something, I don’t care how many people agree with you. I care what you think and why. If you're crowdsourcing your opinions, it's not really a conversation.

Besides, give any indie game developer Hasbro’s multi million marketing budget and watch the ‘quality’ of their product skyrocket.

It’s weird how the ‘quality’ of my last book was directly correlated to the amount of money I spent on Facebook ads.

 

[Aldarc]

It’s weird how the ‘quality’ of my last book was directly correlated to the amount of money I spent on Facebook ads.

And remember that if you didn't spend that money for those Facebook ads, then it would definitely mean that you and your team didn't design a quality product, because it's not as popular as a Hasbro-backed legacy product.

 

[Morrus]

And remember that if you didn't spend that money for those Facebook ads, then it would definitely mean that you and your team didn't design a quality product, because it's not as popular as a Hasbro-backed legacy product.

Especially since we finished the product before spending the marketing budget!

 

[jgsugden]

One complains about the lack of popularity of D&D when one is uninformed as to how well liked it actually is.

One complains about the lack of quality of D&D when one still wants to complain about a great game for attention, but is aware that most people really like it.

 

[soviet]

One complains about the lack of popularity of D&D when one is uninformed as to how well liked it actually is.

One complains about the lack of quality of D&D when one still wants to complain about a great game for attention, but is aware that most people really like it.

You're talking about 4th edition, correct?

 

[Reynard]

If Inspiration sucked, then how did 5e become the most popular and best selling version of D&D to date? Hmmm?

I'm not sure how these are related. Inspiration isn't the whole of 5E. And while I'm not sure it "sucks" I do know that it is nearly always forgotten about, meaning it is pretty much irrelevant to the popularity of 5E.

 

[Aldarc]

I'm not sure how these are related. Inspiration isn't the whole of 5E. And while I'm not sure it "sucks" I do know that it is nearly always forgotten about, meaning it is pretty much irrelevant to the popularity of 5E.