D&D 5E What is Quality?

[Ovinomancer]

So how is "it's bad design" also not trying to tell someone they're wrong if they disagree? It's like a wine snob looking down their nose that someone else can't tell the difference between a $20 bottle of wine and a $3,000 bottle of wine.

You consider the stealth rules incomplete. That's fine, I disagree because I like the flexibility to make a judgement call without running to the books every 5 minutes. It's kind of a foundational approach to the design of the entire system. If you run stealth differently than I do, I think that's a positive thing, it means you can evoke a different fiction than I can.

Because it can be refuted with counter arguments. You know, a discussion can be had. I listed the exact reasons I feel it's bad design above. You aren't arguing those, you're questioning if it's appropriate to use 'bad design.' It's a semantic argument that attacks the form of the statement rather than it's merits.

 

[FrogReaver]

I keep hearing people repeatedly asking what makes 5e 'bad quality'. I have a related question for those posters. What makes 5e 'good quality'?

Is the only answer - 'It's popularity'?

 

[eyeheartawk]

So how is "it's bad design" also not trying to tell someone they're wrong if they disagree?

That's the fundamental nature of every difference of opinion. Why is D&D 5e unique somehow?

If I say "I think Volkswagen makes the best compact car in the Golf" and you drive a Corolla hatchback and naturally disagree with me. We both think the other are wrong. That doesn't make it insulting to anybody or anything. It's the nature of literally all human disagreement about anything.

 

[Umbran]

Sure, but being able to totally ignore something doesn’t speak to its quality.

Unless being able to ignore it is, in fact, a desired feature.

 

[FrogReaver]

That's the fundamental nature of every difference of opinion. Why is D&D 5e unique somehow?

If I say "I think Volkswagen makes the best compact car in the Golf" and you drive a Corolla hatchback and naturally disagree with me. We both think the other are wrong. That doesn't make it insulting to anybody or anything. It's the nature of literally all human disagreement about anything.

Just wanted to added 'best compact car' = 'best designed compact car'.

Being good is having good design and being bad is having bad design.

*The only time otherwise is when a product is designed to be good and normally is but the manufacturing process yields a bad batch. (Doesn't happen in art, pc games, ttrgs, etc)

 

[Oofta]

I keep hearing people repeatedly asking what makes 5e 'bad quality'. I have a related question for those posters. What makes 5e 'good quality'?

Is the only answer - 'It's popularity'?

It works well for me. It works well for people I play with. The people in the AL games down the road (pre-COVID anyway) all seemed to be enjoying themselves and the game nights couldn't have had more people because of lack of space. If people try D&D but like the RPG aspect alternatives are but a google search away.

I do think growth in popularity year after year is the best measure we have, even if it is imperfect. But really it just comes down to "I like it" and "is there any better way of judging quality?"

 

[eyeheartawk]

But if you disagree with me how do you judge quality?

In the case of a written roleplaying game? By our interpretation of the written text, its rules and how it meets our expectations and enjoyment at the table. To which, you will see a different answer from every single person on this planet, even if you only sample the most ardent 5e supporters.

In short, you. You judge its quality, yourself, in your mind based on whatever factors and determinations you decide. It really isn't difficult.

 

[Oofta]

That's the fundamental nature of every difference of opinion. Why is D&D 5e unique somehow?

If I say "I think Volkswagen makes the best compact car in the Golf" and you drive a Corolla hatchback and naturally disagree with me. We both think the other are wrong. That doesn't make it insulting to anybody or anything. It's the nature of literally all human disagreement about anything.

I don't care for pickup trucks. That doesn't make them bad quality or poor design, I just don't care for them.

 

[FrogReaver]

Unless being able to ignore it is, in fact, a desired feature.

High level I'd agree, but that doesn't seem to be the case for the stealth rules (at least not any more so than any other rule in 5e). We complain about bad class design alot, saying it's designed so you can ignore it doesn't take away from the default rule being badly designed IMO.

If they had just said, do stealth however you like, I would agree, but they actually wrote a way to do stealth and I don't think i've ever seen anyone happy with it.

 

[James Gasik]

Sounds like a lame excuse in their part. If they had wanted the dm to determine stealth they would have just stated it’s up to the dm as they did in so many other areas of the game.

It could be! And I think that's at least partly true...but that's my personal belief. For a discussion, it might be better to take what was said at face value unless there's good evidence to the contrary.

Otherwise things quickly devolve into "WotC are liars!" "Nuh uh! You can't prove it!", and so on, until a mod chimes in and says "knock it off!".