D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[pemerton]

Sure, and for a hobbyist making a game for just friends and family does make sense. But frankly not wanting to make as appealing a game as possible just seems like...bad design to me? The equivalent of making Plan 9 from Outer Space or something.

By this measure, John Harper's design of Agon 2nd ed is bad design, or Luke and Thor's design of Torchbearer 2e, given that all three would be well aware that there games would be more appealing if they were 5e D&D variants.

I regard this as a reductio on your inference to bad design.

Well, as has been established, "best" is subjective. The metric is: do users by and large like those things? Do they spark joy? If yes, then using them is good game design.

4e D&D sparks joy (in me, and in others too). So do Agon 2e and Torchbearer 2e.

I can see the commercial benefit of sparking joy in more people. But I don't see how that is a metric for better design.

 

[hawkeyefan]

That is really, really not true of cookbooks. Even good cookbooks. And mixing, matching, and adjusting are definitely part of cooking, even with the suggestions in a cookbook.

It’s very true. Even if a cookbook is less about recipes, and more about teaching people to experiment in the kitchen, they tend to provide guidance. Do X if you want Y, do A if you want B, but consider C as an alternative because D.

They donmt just say “some people like to use herbs and spices, some people don’t, and some people do sometimes!!!”

Same with a DIY game like D&D: WotC sells tools that people use to make their fun, it is not a pre-packaged experience in the control of an aueter like a TV show or a movie.

You need to get past the example of TV as a direct one. The point made was that designing to the masses isn’t always good.

We could talk about car design, instead. A car is for transportation. That’s the goal. But yet cars can be designed well or poorly along any number of metrics besides “transportation”. We can and we do evaluate these things all the time.

My Subaru isn’t as well designed as a Jaguar despite that it gets me where I’m going.

I mean, checkers is already a complete game at this point, but...yes. designing for fun is what game design is. The more fun the game provides, and to the widest range of people, is what constitutes good theological design for a game.

So are you really saying that you think game design boils down to “make fun”?

Obviously, designers of an RPG have to handle different things than those of board games or video games, and so on.

What is it that you think makes D&D fun? Why do you play D&D over other RPGs? Or other types of games?

The answer isn’t just “fun”.

Better at achieving what end...? It's still really not clear to me what good game design can consist in other than making ad many people as possible happy.

Answer the above and perhaps we can get somewhere.

 

[Parmandur]

By this measure, John Harper's design of Agon 2nd ed is bad design, or Luke and Thor's design of Torchbearer 2e, given that all three would be well aware that there games would be more appealing if they were 5e D&D variants.

I regard this as a reductio on your inference to bad design.

Admittedly so. I was thinking more RIFTs or something like that with the comparison.

A more apt analogy to understand biche games like that in a poaitive light, since I reject the comparison of RPGs to finished productions of art, might be to a cookbook of ridiculously spicy recipes: the people writing and publishing the book knownthere is an audience, albeit a limited one, and are OK knowing they won't sell as well as the latest Better Honea and Gareen compilation.

But that doesn't mean the Better Homes and Garden compilation isn't a good cookbook because it is offering more "Basic" and popular options than the esoteric spicy foods cookbook.

But both books are going to work to serve as wide an audience as well as they can within their brief.

 

[Parmandur]

It’s very true. Even if a cookbook is less about recipes, and more about teaching people to experiment in the kitchen, they tend to provide guidance. Do X if you want Y, do A if you want B, but consider C as an alternative because D.

They donmt just say “some people like to use herbs and spices, some people don’t, and some people do sometimes!!!”

I mean, assuming all sorts knowledge on the part of thebuser and "spice to taste" are actually both quite common, so...no.

You need to get past the example of TV as a direct one. The point made was that designing to the masses isn’t always good.

Neither is it always bad.

We could talk about car design, instead. A car is for transportation. That’s the goal. But yet cars can be designed well or poorly along any number of metrics besides “transportation”. We can and we do evaluate these things all the time.

My Subaru isn’t as well designed as a Jaguar despite that it gets me where I’m going.

The Jaguar might be better designed as a raving car, but the Suburu might get better mileage and need less maintenance. Different designs for different use cases.

But, yes, a better analogy than finiahed art pieces.

So are you really saying that you think game design boils down to “make fun”?

Straight up, yes.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Straight up, yes.

Okay, then!

 

[Parmandur]

4e D&D sparks joy (in me, and in others too). So do Agon 2e and Torchbearer 2e.

I can see the commercial benefit of sparking joy in more people. But I don't see how that is a metric for better design.

Yeah, just looking at it, I cannot see how trying to maximize fun as much as possible, for as many as possible, can be seen as anything other than the ideal design goal of a game. Clearly there is room for more than one game or type of game, but doing everything to improve the user experience seems to be the major criteria I would identify as "good design" across the board.

 

[Parmandur]

Okay, then!

I mean, seriously...do you have a different paradigm, because I haven't really gotten one from what you wrote above...?

 

[pemerton]

Yeah, just looking at it, I cannot see how trying to maximize fun as much as possible, for as many as possible, can be seen as anything other than the ideal design goal of a game. Clearly there is room for more than one game or type of game, but doing everything to improve the user experience seems to be the major criteria I would identify as "good design" across the board.

This is questionable even as a metric on social policy - see eg the work of John Rawls - and even moreso is not plausible to me in the context of the creation of leisure activities.

If Luke and Thor want to spend their time writing brilliant RPGs like Burning Wheel and Torchbearer knowing that their player base will be in the millions, rather than producing what I'm sure would be excellent 5e supplements with a player base perhaps in the millions, they are not falling short of some ideal. The contrary position strikes me as completely indefensible.

 

[Parmandur]

This is questionable even as a metric on social policy - see eg the work of John Rawls - and even moreso is not plausible to me in the context of the creation of leisure activities.

If Luke and Thor want to spend their time writing brilliant RPGs like Burning Wheel and Torchbearer knowing that their player base will be in the millions, rather than producing what I'm sure would be excellent 5e supplements with a player base perhaps in the millions, they are not falling short of some ideal. The contrary position strikes me as completely indefensible.

I would refer you to the earlier analogy I made of the "Super Spicey Cookbook" versus the "Brtter Home and Gardens" cookbook. Ibthink in both cases, the writers should be working to maximize the number of people being served and delight then as much as possible, even if they have a self-imposed limitation and the spicy writers know they will not be the next Better Homes and Gardens in sales. But in either case, failing to take user needs and desires unto account would be disastrous.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That is really, really not true of cookbooks. Even good cookbooks. And mixing, matching, and adjusting are definitely part of cooking, even with the suggestions in a cookbook.

Same with a DIY game like D&D: WotC sells tools that people use to make their fun, it is not a pre-packaged experience in the control of an aueter like a TV show or a movie.

I mean, checkers is already a complete game at this point, but...yes. designing for fun is what game design is. The more fun the game provides, and to the widest range of people, is what constitutes good theological design for a game.

Better at achieving what end...? It's still really not clear to me what good game design can consist in other than making ad many people as possible happy.

See, I just can't accept that WotC's 5e is the best possible role-playing game, and that conclusion is all I can draw from what you're saying. Popularity simply does not equal quality.