D&D 5E What is Quality?

[Helldritch]

Yes. Was this in question? Improvements that require large changes do call into question "great" though.

This is the same form of argument used in "it's good because it's popular." Here's it's modified to "Some/many people don't have a problem so there's no problem. That I had a problem I felt necessary to change it is not any evidence at all, because I'm assuming it's broadly liked." This is then used to defend 5e (or whatever game) as being "good" even while making changes to it, sometimes very large changes, because it's not working as wanted at the speaker's table.

But you did not answer at all.
I use the standard version in one game. So it is a good rule as is and works as intended.

I use a modified version on two other tables to make the game a little deadlier.

So in one table, the rule works as intended, is not modified, and no complaints from me and my players. In this regard the rule is perfect don't you think?

At the other tables, the rule is slightly modified to reflect the choices in optional rules those table made.

Here, you don't have your claim that the rule does not work as the DM at those tables is the same. That is me.

A rule does not need to be imperfect or badly written to be modified. Sometimes it is just a matter of preference. Here the rule works as intended. But it got modified to suite the tastes of 2 tables out of 3. And if I had an other table, I tight not even be modified.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Not to mention I feel as though you’ve somewhat sidelined the possibility of DMs simply rotating out rules/features over many games for variety’s sake.

lol wut?

Has that ever happened in human history? The bolded bit. This seems like a mega-internet take that you'd never dare say in person because people would laughing at you too hard.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Re: MaccyDs, I think one major factor a lot of people are forgetting is price and availability.

Those two factors + branding/advertising are why MaccyD's is so successful.

If people could:

A) Eat wherever they wanted (say a cheap/free teleporter system)

and

B) Eat whatever they wanted (say we're in the TNG/DS9 future and money isn't being exchanged)

and

C) All restaurants has theoretically infinite capacity (somehow?)

Then I think you'd seen an extremely steep decline in the popularity of a quite a few kinds/brands of fast-food restaurant (maybe the vast majority), and a very steep increase in the number of people ordering from "5 star restaurants". McDonalds wouldn't instantly vanish. It has a peculiar charm all its own and is traditional for some people, but like, about 80-90% of the times I've been to McDonalds in my life, and I think this applies to a very large number of people, the essential reasons have been:

1) It was there and I was hungry.

2) It was cheap. It is cheap. It's a good price.

3) It's a known quantity/reliable (this speaks to a kind of quality, btw).

Maybe also:

4) It's pretty reliably fast - I would say this is decreasingly true in the COVID/delivery era, but KFC and a few others are hit even harder.

In those cases, if I could have just teleported though, and the cost didn't matter, would I have gone there? No. Even if I wanted fast food, that is far from my top option. Most of the rest would been breakfast times and before the pancakes started being so rubbery! Even if price was a factor, if I could just teleport within Greater London I'd only be paying 10-20% more to get stuff that was like 200% more pleasant/fun to eat.

So I feel like ignoring these factors and bringing up restaurants a lot is really confusing the issue. D&D isn't like a restaurant. It's actually much more expensive than most other RPGs, but who even knows that? I know normal people don't. They don't even know how much D&D costs. I've talked to normies - they're always surprised either by how expensive or how cheap D&D is! No of them guess the book prices right, and most of them don't even realize you need three books - I sure didn't when I started D&D, despite having been told about it by multiple D&D players. They missed that bit! It's so dominant and such a peculiar thing that I can't even think of comparison industry that really makes sense.

The other bit is the confusion about what quality control means. Quality control is not about making things good or better or that shading of the term, but about consistency -- are you producing the product within the defined parameters every time. It's a use of quality specific to production and is only concerned with this consistent production, not "goodness". You can produce low quality items with high quality control. Why you would want to is a good question, though.

 

[Ovinomancer]

But you did not answer at all.
I use the standard version in one game. So it is a good rule as is and works as intended.

I use a modified version on two other tables to make the game a little deadlier.

So in one table, the rule works as intended, is not modified, and no complaints from me and my players. In this regard the rule is perfect don't you think?

At the other tables, the rule is slightly modified to reflect the choices in optional rules those table made.

Here, you don't have your claim that the rule does not work as the DM at those tables is the same. That is me.

A rule does not need to be imperfect or badly written to be modified. Sometimes it is just a matter of preference. Here the rule works as intended. But it go modified to suite the tastes of 2 tables out of 3. And if I had an other table, I tight not even be modified.

That was the question --- that you use it one way here and another way there? Then the rule is good in the first case because it aligns to your needs and wants and a problem in the second because it doesn't align to your needs and wants. This isn't a good case to call the rule good in general.

To offer an example, wine used for cooking is good for cooking, but rarely good for drinking. This means that the wine is good in one case and not in the other while being the same wine. Use case is important.

My argument is to stop using "the rule is good" if you can imagine a case where it is so, but rather to discuss how the rule works in your specific case and call it as it is. If you find you need to change the rule, that's good stuff -- say that. You don't need to try and find some rehabilitation for the rule so as to not appear to be criticizing it. Being critical of the systems and how you find is should be more encouraged, no less.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The other bit is the confusion about what quality control means. Quality control is not about making things good or better or that shading of the term, but about consistency -- are you producing the product within the defined parameters every time. It's a use of quality specific to production and is only concerned with this consistent production, not "goodness". You can produce low quality items with high quality control. Why you would want to is a good question, though.

I dunno, ask whoever makes McDonalds pancakes nowadays though re: low quality items with good quality control though, they must have some idea given they're doing it!


One interesting thing re: de facto lack of quality control is soda in the UK. Because we're a weird dumb little country (soz but we are), on the edge of the EU, and we have a lot of shops run by people with connections to supply chains outside the UK, we often get stuff that's branded say Pepsi or Coke, but that tastes significantly different to the UK-made stuff you'll get in big stores. Like my local store is run by Turkish people, and a lot of the cola in there is from Turkey or other countries around/near the Black Sea. My previous corner store was run by people from Pakistan, and we got a different selection of actual origins for the cola. So if you go in a corner store and buy a Coke, say, here in the UK, you're rolling the dice on exactly what it tastes like. Honestly the Turkish full-sugar Pepsi is significantly more pleasant than normal full-sugar UK Pepsi, but the zero-sugar version (which I now must drink if I want cola, having become OLD and no longer wishing to also be fat) is much better with the official UK version.

I don't know why anyone needed to know that. But it's different from most of the US I think, where the cola was pretty damn consistent. Even though if we're talking full-sugar RC Cola was just straight-up better than Coke or Pepsi in the US. I hear it has largely died out though

 

[LadyElect]

No, because if I'm making a change it's because I have an issue -- this is not doing the job I want and that is.

I may misunderstand what you mean with this, but I am struggling to reconcile it as an absolutism. If you believe “good” implies issueless and change inherently suggests the attempt to solve an issue, can any one user ever have more than one conception of good at any given instance? Can two separate games be considered good simultaneously, or does the act of choosing either suggest the other then had issues for an individual’s momentary desire and purpose? I won’t disagree that as an exercise of philosophy it perhaps holds up even when stretched to absurdism (ie: “good” only ever denotes an individual’s ever-changing ideal existence in all facets of being), but I also think that drifts into being extrapolated so far out that it’s likely not your suggestion and I misstepped somewhere instead.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I may misunderstand what you mean with this, but I am struggling to reconcile it as an absolutism. If you believe “good” implies issueless and change inherently suggests the attempt to solve an issue, can any one user ever have more than one conception of good at any given instance? Can two separate games be considered good simultaneously, or does the act of choosing either suggest the other then had issues for an individual’s momentary desire and purpose? I won’t disagree that as an exercise of philosophy it perhaps holds up even when stretched to absurdism (ie: “good” only ever denotes an individual’s ever-changing ideal existence in all facets of being), but I also think that drifts into being extrapolated so far out that it’s likely not your suggestion and I misstepped somewhere instead.

Of course they can. I can consider a game good, and not change it because it's meeting my needs. May not be perfect, but it's good enough.

If, on the other hand, I am actively making a change, it's because the irritation caused by a rule that is not meeting my needs being large enough to engage with effort to correct. At that point, representing the rule as "good" when it's obviously irritating enough to change for you is something I find somewhat irrecocilable.

Also, there's the whole "it's good except for..." Plenty of things hit this for me. 5e is good overall -- in that it meets my needs pretty well -- but has particulars that I'd prefer to be elsewise. In general, I don't houserule, though, because the irritation caused is generally not sufficient for me to correct, but then I'm fairly adverse to managing multiple houserules so that bar is higher for me that others. Still, I'm not going to be creating or even considering a houserule if I feel the rule is good as is. It's clearly not good as is, or I wouldn't be wanting to change it.

 

[Ovinomancer]

To make a different point, we're seeing a goal post shift in many of these arguments, where "good" is moving slowly from actually being good, as in well designed, well executed, and effective in application, to a softer form of "good" where things aren't terrible, or being "good enough." I dunno about you, but I see a pretty distinct difference between a thing being "good" and a thing being "good enough."

 

[Mort]

I dunno, ask whoever makes McDonalds pancakes nowadays though re: low quality items with good quality control though, they must have some idea given they're doing it!


One interesting thing re: de facto lack of quality control is soda in the UK. Because we're a weird dumb little country (soz but we are), on the edge of the EU, and we have a lot of shops run by people with connections to supply chains outside the UK, we often get stuff that's branded say Pepsi or Coke, but that tastes significantly different to the UK-made stuff you'll get in big stores. Like my local store is run by Turkish people, and a lot of the cola in there is from Turkey or other countries around/near the Black Sea. My previous corner store was run by people from Pakistan, and we got a different selection of actual origins for the cola. So if you go in a corner store and buy a Coke, say, here in the UK, you're rolling the dice on exactly what it tastes like. Honestly the Turkish full-sugar Pepsi is significantly more pleasant than normal full-sugar UK Pepsi, but the zero-sugar version (which I now must drink if I want cola, having become OLD and no longer wishing to also be fat) is much better with the official UK version.

I don't know why anyone needed to know that. But it's different from most of the US I think, where the cola was pretty damn consistent. Even though if we're talking full-sugar RC Cola was just straight-up better than Coke or Pepsi in the US. I hear it has largely died out though

In the US, most cola (certainly Coke and Pepsi) is made with high fructose corn syrup. It tastes quite different from soda with sugar (most people say worse) but is much cheaper to produce (at least in the US). Used to be, you could barely find the "real sugar" versions, but now they're around - though more expensive.

 

[LadyElect]

lol wut?

Has that ever happened in human history? The bolded bit. This seems like a mega-internet take that you'd never dare say in person because people would laughing at you too hard.

I repeated it aloud in my cubicle just to make sure (note: he didn’t).

But yes. I don’t see playing separate sets of rulings over time as meaningfully different from playing separate games. Do you consider a group that might play different editions over time unbelievable as well? It doesn’t strike me as odd if you are particularly interested in the game design itself.

Where’s your line for believable public utterance?