D&D 5E What is Quality?

[Aldarc]

I have not, technically, made either claim. But I have laid out my reasons why I think 5e has a lot of weak design in a previous post. Be forewarned, it's my usual logorrhea.

I would say that 5e represents "sufficiently good quality" design. The quality of the core engine and its architecture is strong for its design purpose and primary modes of gameplay, and this is what does a lot of the heavy lifting for the system. The problems or weaknesses tend to come from the variable design quality of the accessories or even smaller nuts and bolts that are attached to that core engine.

 

[soviet]

Yeah, I think it's good enough to be functional but not so good as to be necessarily satisfying to hardcore RPGers. Hence why it can be widely played 'out there' but still face regular criticism here.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Yeah, I think it's good enough to be functional but not so good as to be necessarily satisfying to hardcore RPGers. Hence why it can be widely played 'out there' but still face regular criticism here.

Agreed. This also goes back to what I term the "casual" player versus the hardcore RPGers. For a quick, pick-up style game 5E is ideal, but it still "works" well for more regular play as well (even if it needs tweaking to taste).

 

[Oofta]

While this hasn't been much of an issue, who is actually saying that 5e is badly designed or of bad quality?

I could see making that argument about this or that mechanic. The stealth rules are not well designed. They basically just washed their hands of it and told tables to sort it out. That's not quality design by any metric, regardless of how well someone might like it. You cannot claim quality for something that a thing does not possess. If the mechanics of a game are largely silent on how to resolve something, that's not a quality design.

Claiming that it is is just a rhetorical gambit to shut down conversation. "Oh, well, it's better to not design anything for that bit, because it is better to force DM's to play armchair game designers. Since I don't have any problems with it, you shouldn't either. If you do have any problems, it's just because you are such an inferior DM than me." is the basic message being conveyed.

And then sprinkle that liberally over any conversation that deals with trying to actually come up with mechanics for resolving whatever that bit is, and then double down by claiming that if people actually wanted those mechanics, 5e wouldn't sell as well as it does.

Did I miss anything? It's unbelievably self serving and 100% bad faith.

When it comes to the stealth rules, it's a prime example of how difficult it is to have a conversation. You say they are not well designed because you don't personally care for them. I like the approach. Unlike previous editions, nobody I've ever played with (which has been quite a few over the course of the game) has ever complained about them.

Now you can say "no appeal to authority", "apocryphal evidence doesn't count" and so on. But why is your opinion any more valid than the opinion of myself, the dozens of people I've played with, the people that participated in the playtest or the development team? They had more concrete stealth rules. They chose not to use them and go with what we have now. It's a prime example of rulings over rules, the game can't cover every situation and when they try to get explicit it's a never ending rabbit hole of clarifications.

The fact that you don't personally like a rule does not make it bad design for anyone else than you.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Its a doozy. Over in PF2, the GM is supposed to give out a hero point every hour of game play. They should also award one luck player (arbitrarily) per session a hero point based on play. What is a GM supposed to do? Set a clock?

This pretty much summarizes my experience with D&D inspiration. It is unobtrusive enough that you can ignore it without impacting the game, but clear enough that it isn’t difficult to build out in you want it. Overall “fit for purpose”.

 

[eyeheartawk]

The fact that you don't personally like a rule does not make it bad design for anyone else than you.

Who's arguing that?

How one person perceives the relative "quality" of a thing is naturally a personal value judgement. It's such a self-evident fact, and I'm making an assumption here, most people don't preface their post with "Now, this is only my opinion and not an objective fact". That's kinda how opinions work, you know?

Also that we're on page 16 of a thread on distinguishing between subjective quality vs objective sales data is absolutely astounding to me.

 

[Zubatcarteira]

Inspiration should just be rerolling instead of advantage, actually gives you a reason to do it when you roll badly. That you can only ever have 1 at a time doesn't help either.

 

[Oofta]

Who's arguing that?

How one person perceives the relative "quality" of a thing is naturally a personal value judgement. It's such a self-evident fact, and I'm making an assumption here, most people don't preface their post with "Now, this is only my opinion and not an objective fact". That's kinda how opinions work, you know?

Also that we're on page 16 of a thread on distinguishing between subjective quality vs objective sales data is absolutely astounding to me.

So quality is always in the eye of the beholder? There's never any way to measure it? Suppose for a minute that we could take a survey of D&D players on whether they like the stealth rules or dislike it. The vast majority like them as written. Does that make it a quality rule because it works for most people?

Or should people just, I don't know, instead of saying "The stealth rules are not well designed" say "I don't like the stealth rules"?

 

[Aldarc]

Inspiration should just be rerolling instead of advantage, actually gives you a reason to do it when you roll badly. That you can only ever have 1 at a time doesn't help either.

What Inspiration provides doesn't need to be one thing or another, as it could provide a list of options that the player decides when using it: e.g., a bonus, advantage, a re-roll, etc.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm reminded of the classic discussion of art. The person who has been educated in art can talk about the quality of the brush strokes, the elegance in simplicity, and many other things that go over the lay person's head.

The lay person in question? "I don't know art, but I like what I like."

One can like (or dislike) a thing without being able to adequately articulate why. It's not very helpful for a discussion, sadly.

An experienced game designer can tell you if a game has quality. The end users of said game might not be able to, but they can express that they like it or not.

I suspect that the majority of people who play D&D do so because they have fun playing it, whether or not there are better games out there for them to play. Either due to a simple lack of experience with other games, or the simple barrier to entry- if I want to try Dungeon Crawl Classics or Shadow of the Demon Lord, I either have to find someone who runs the game already, or buy it myself (and then try to rope people into playing it- I'm not so foolish as to think I could purchase the game and then get someone to run it for me!). This is why my Fantasy Age books that I bought a few months ago are starting to collect a fine layer of dust.

Because of this, while I don't think 5e's sales are misleading, per se, they don't tell the whole picture. How many people play 5e because they don't have any compelling reason to seek out another game?

How many play it because they have no opportunity to try other games?

I suspect the percentage is noteworthy in such respects.