Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Again, you want to refute something I said? Be specific.
D&D 5E (2024) Things You Think Would Improve the Game That We WON'T See
- Thread starter the Jester
- Start date
mamba
Legend
sure, but you cannot really expect WotC, or really any publisher to intentionally do that. At best what they create and you like overlap, but no publisher is creating anything because you like it
With respect, your statement is absolutely an insult...and I think most people would take it that way.
While I disagree with Micah in this debate, I do agree on this point.
mamba
Legend
why is it detrimental? If I change the game in a way that more people like and buy it, how is that detrimental to my plans of earning enough money to feed my family?
At the end of the day I will continue to circle back to this point. We all clearly have different perspectives on what makes a TTRPG "good", and what would improve the game going forward.
Now I would never argue with a game company that creates a product to fulfill a specific niche, that's just good business practice.
But we are discussing changing an existing (and popular) product. From what I can tell, WOTC has done a lot of research into their main audience over many years now, and that audience seems to prefer simplicity over complexity. Not brain dead simplicity, but certainly simpler than what we had in 3e/4e.
Asking them to change the core game to be more complex against the grain of their main audience is just not good business...and no smart business would ever do that. Now devising some optional "crunchy books", sure I can see that. Creating an alternate dnd setting that is more crunchy....yep could see that too. But the core flagship product....no that is both not going to happen.....and it should not happen. Angering the core audience that you have built up over the last 10 years to cater towards a more niche audience is as fantasy as the game we all love to play.
So the notion of a general uptick in complexity is not in the cards. What "might" actually be something worth considering is injecting little bits of complexity in the areas of greatest weakness for 5e. There has been talks about the encounter building model for example, which we all know is just not that great at actually estimating challenge. So perhaps a slightly more complex (but more accurate) model would be worth the complexity cost. But you can't have it across the board, that won't fly....so what are some key areas that a bit more complexity might be worth the cost and therefore could actually be worth considering?
Now I would never argue with a game company that creates a product to fulfill a specific niche, that's just good business practice.
But we are discussing changing an existing (and popular) product. From what I can tell, WOTC has done a lot of research into their main audience over many years now, and that audience seems to prefer simplicity over complexity. Not brain dead simplicity, but certainly simpler than what we had in 3e/4e.
Asking them to change the core game to be more complex against the grain of their main audience is just not good business...and no smart business would ever do that. Now devising some optional "crunchy books", sure I can see that. Creating an alternate dnd setting that is more crunchy....yep could see that too. But the core flagship product....no that is both not going to happen.....and it should not happen. Angering the core audience that you have built up over the last 10 years to cater towards a more niche audience is as fantasy as the game we all love to play.
So the notion of a general uptick in complexity is not in the cards. What "might" actually be something worth considering is injecting little bits of complexity in the areas of greatest weakness for 5e. There has been talks about the encounter building model for example, which we all know is just not that great at actually estimating challenge. So perhaps a slightly more complex (but more accurate) model would be worth the complexity cost. But you can't have it across the board, that won't fly....so what are some key areas that a bit more complexity might be worth the cost and therefore could actually be worth considering?
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Standard, Move, and Minor as action categories. Much simpler and more natural than the cumbersome, circumlocution-filled way 5e currently does it.
Better balance between classes, especially between full-casters and primarily non-casters (like Fighter and Rogue.)
Actual (but optional) rules frameworks for non-combat challenges.
More than 13 classes.
Reducing the number of classes that have ported out key class features into spells.
Actually good, useful, well-made encounter building tools. Which would mean completely scrapping and replacing CR, something that will never happen because WotC has already thrown good money after bad on that front.
I find that this is a trend that has occurred across the game design space--not just D&D, but MMOs, platformers, shooters, the works.
We now live in a world where our "choices" are often reduced to
I've seen multiple games I enjoy fall into this pit, where in the interest of making a game more approachable and accessible, they make it trivial; or, in the interest of making it more deep and engaging, they make it nigh-impenetrable. This false dichotomy is genuinely doing damage to the game design space, driving out any possibility of games that marry being approachable with being deep, of marrying accessibility with high engagement. There are other options--and more importantly, it is quite possible to market by horizontal market segmentation even within a single game, rather than trying to go absolutely whole-hog, all-in for one and only one side.
We don't need every game to be FromSoft difficulty (though it is good to offer challenges on that level). We also don't need every game to be Baby's First Game difficulty (though it is good to offer very high accessibility for those who desire it). We can, and should, expect designers to produce gaming experiences which offer genuine depth, being neither trivial nor forbidding, but intricate and nuanced, rewarding creativity and experimentation while avoiding dominant strategies and solvable systems.
You present this as a dichotomy: either the alleged we-have-no-idea-how-big majority gets what it wants and everyone else gets screwed over or has to wait years upon years to ever see anything they like, or the second group gets what it wants, and the majority gets screwed over or has to wait years upon years to ever see anything they like. This is a false dichotomy. You can make a game which supports a whole space of options in this sense. That's....kind of the whole point of having such a big, chonky system, isn't it? If simplicity uber alles was the name of the game, we should be getting by with ten or twelve page ultralite games, not this "three books with around a thousand pages between them" nonsense.
Better balance between classes, especially between full-casters and primarily non-casters (like Fighter and Rogue.)
Actual (but optional) rules frameworks for non-combat challenges.
More than 13 classes.
Reducing the number of classes that have ported out key class features into spells.
Actually good, useful, well-made encounter building tools. Which would mean completely scrapping and replacing CR, something that will never happen because WotC has already thrown good money after bad on that front.
The problem, of course, is what one considers to be "brain dead simplicity."
I find that this is a trend that has occurred across the game design space--not just D&D, but MMOs, platformers, shooters, the works.
We now live in a world where our "choices" are often reduced to
- Skill ceiling last seen at the bottom of the Mariana trench
- Skill floor last seen near the summit of Mount Everest (read: FromSoft-style games, roguelikes, "ironman" modes)
I've seen multiple games I enjoy fall into this pit, where in the interest of making a game more approachable and accessible, they make it trivial; or, in the interest of making it more deep and engaging, they make it nigh-impenetrable. This false dichotomy is genuinely doing damage to the game design space, driving out any possibility of games that marry being approachable with being deep, of marrying accessibility with high engagement. There are other options--and more importantly, it is quite possible to market by horizontal market segmentation even within a single game, rather than trying to go absolutely whole-hog, all-in for one and only one side.
We don't need every game to be FromSoft difficulty (though it is good to offer challenges on that level). We also don't need every game to be Baby's First Game difficulty (though it is good to offer very high accessibility for those who desire it). We can, and should, expect designers to produce gaming experiences which offer genuine depth, being neither trivial nor forbidding, but intricate and nuanced, rewarding creativity and experimentation while avoiding dominant strategies and solvable systems.
You present this as a dichotomy: either the alleged we-have-no-idea-how-big majority gets what it wants and everyone else gets screwed over or has to wait years upon years to ever see anything they like, or the second group gets what it wants, and the majority gets screwed over or has to wait years upon years to ever see anything they like. This is a false dichotomy. You can make a game which supports a whole space of options in this sense. That's....kind of the whole point of having such a big, chonky system, isn't it? If simplicity uber alles was the name of the game, we should be getting by with ten or twelve page ultralite games, not this "three books with around a thousand pages between them" nonsense.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
No, but I really miss when my preferences and D&D's official products overlapped in that way. Early 5e was the last time really. Some of 3e before that, and then a lot of TSRs work was just perfect for my tastes.
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
Detrimental to making a good game. If the best game you can make can't earn you enough to feed your family, I agree that's a real problem. But not one WotC has. They have good designers on staff, who are occasionally allowed to make good products (less often lately in my opinion).
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Welcome to the club.
Undrave
Legend
Oh god yes! It took me way too long to understand Bonus action when I first read it. It's like 'you don't have minor actions but actually you do!' thing is dumb.
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