D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[Thomas Shey]

Why are people so invested in "proving" that D&D isn't a great game or even a good game? That it's only popular because it's popular. It's baffling.

I'm not. If people want to argue for it on its own merits, that's fine. But the moment it popularity is used as part of the argument for that, I think its entirely legitimate to bring in all the other things that can lead to popularity. But people don't like that, so away we go.

 

[FrogReaver]

McDonalds was first founded in 1940. Does its continual existence say anything about its excellence, or its consistency and footprint?

Yes.

Measure of quality that are based on popularity are, however, conflating too many elements to tell you anything but to tell you're they're popular. I don't think most people would find that a particularly useful metric for it, and really don't in any other area of endeavor, so I don't think RPGs get a pass here.

Measures of quality that are not based on popularity are just subjective garbage, they cherry pick which metrics to grade, excluding a ton of them and then ultimately treat the thing as if it’s not greater than the sum of its parts.

If you have a truly better product and it’s not selling then you either have it priced too high or it’s not clear to customers what’s truly better about it and so you have to spend alot of time and money educating them.

D&D is one of the more highly priced RPG’s. So I doubt it’s the competitors price point being to high. So maybe out of all the RPG’s out there, some are truly better designed than d&d, but none have managed to educate customers that they are.

It’s kind of like a broom. At the end of the day you may have designed a better broom, but the brooms out there already work pretty well for most people. And since their time is valuable then trying to figure out why your broom is better before buying it just isn’t a priority for them. They have a broom that works. If you spend enough time and money more will get your message.

*Assuming your broom is really better.

If D&D is a success entirely on excellence of design, then similar games would be doing as well or better than other styles of games with different design but the same level of footprint, right? If so, feel free to point at an example. Other D&D adjacents sometimes do okay, but they're not exactly beating other comparable competitors. Why would that be?

Why doesn’t any other knock off do better than actual differentiated competitors?

Because that's the only way you can do that; peel off the game's other advantages, and still show its preferred. And the best examples you can find on that don't seem to do so.

If similar products were in a vacuum then maybe, but what you want to do is not possible.

 

[MGibster]

D&D continues to be popular because it's a pretty good game. A lot of people like it. Given that the popularity of D&D was waxed and waned over the years, I'm not convinced hype and name brand recognition are the secrets to its success. While D&D has pretty much been the 800 pound gorilla my entire life, I saw its popularity wane as Vampire took off in the early 1990s, I saw it wax in 2000 with the introduction of 3rd edition, wane again in 2008, and waxing again in 2014. D&D has changed over the years to meet the needs of their player base (to varying degrees of success). I think that's why it has remained popular.

 

[Zardnaar]

D&D continues to be popular because it's a pretty good game. A lot of people like it. Given that the popularity of D&D was waxed and waned over the years, I'm not convinced hype and name brand recognition are the secrets to its success. While D&D has pretty much been the 800 pound gorilla my entire life, I saw its popularity wane as Vampire took off in the early 1990s, I saw it was in 2000 with the introduction of 3rd edition, waning again in 2008, and waxing again in 2014. D&D has changed over the years to meet the needs of their player base (to varying degrees of success). I think that's why it has remained popular.

RPGs are still fairly niche. D&Ds the only one with much crossover appeal.

It's basically hits the tropes that have been popular for millennia.

 

[Hussar]

McDonalds was first founded in 1940. Does its continual existence say anything about its excellence, or its consistency and footprint?

The McDonald's analogy always falls flat since McDonalds is the best burger for what it is. Despite billions of dollars spent trying to knock that off the top, no one has succeeded. Pretending that McDonald's isn't the best at what it is is just ignoring far too much.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

McDonalds was first founded in 1940. Does its continual existence say anything about its excellence, or its consistency and footprint?

"Excellence" means many things. The qualities that make something an excellent apple pie are pretty much irrelevant to the qualities that make something an excellent salad.

This is why, every single time I talk about this stuff, I talk about designers achieving a desired experience. Because that is what the game is for. Rules are tools, designed to achieve some end.

So, what are the end goals of McDonald's? We can take the utterly useless "goals" of "make more money," of course, but I think you would agree that that goal, in itself, is completely unhelpful. Instead, we look at what kind of product it claims to offer: Fast, cheap, tasty, and (perhaps above all else) consistent fare. If you order a Big Mac anywhere in the US, you can be pretty confident that you will know exactly what you're getting. You see the same virtue pursued by several other, comparable products: Budweiser and most other "cheap" beers that are jokingly called "sex in a canoe" (you have surely heard the punchline of that joke before) are what they are in part because they are insanely consistent, both over distance and over time. Hostess snack cakes. Coca-Cola. These things are not aiming to be the most finely-crafted product they can be. Nutrition is irrelevant at best and often avoided because nutritious things that taste good are usually fragile. They are aiming to be reliable, cheap, and flavorful.

What does this tell me about these things? That reliability and consistency, especially for low-cost offerings, are an extremely important consideration. Perhaps the most important consideration. Things which choose lower reliability are, generally, aiming to be boutique, "artisanal", "craft", etc. They accept that their product may not be available in all markets, or may not come out consistently the same way every time, or may be significantly more expensive, etc., and in exchange, they aim to deliver higher quality and technique in the execution of whatever product it is. Craft beer, locally-made snacks, fresh fish, menus that change with the season, etc.

Is the current brand of D&D offering reliability and consistency?

 

[FrogReaver]

"Excellence" means many things. The qualities that make something an excellent apple pie are pretty much irrelevant to the qualities that make something an excellent salad.

This is why, every single time I talk about this stuff, I talk about designers achieving a desired experience. Because that is what the game is for. Rules are tools, designed to achieve some end.

So, what are the end goals of McDonald's? We can take the utterly useless "goals" of "make more money," of course, but I think you would agree that that goal, in itself, is completely unhelpful. Instead, we look at what kind of product it claims to offer: Fast, cheap, tasty, and (perhaps above all else) consistent fare. If you order a Big Mac anywhere in the US, you can be pretty confident that you will know exactly what you're getting. You see the same virtue pursued by several other, comparable products: Budweiser and most other "cheap" beers that are jokingly called "sex in a canoe" (you have surely heard the punchline of that joke before) are what they are in part because they are insanely consistent, both over distance and over time. Hostess snack cakes. Coca-Cola. These things are not aiming to be the most finely-crafted product they can be. Nutrition is irrelevant at best and often avoided because nutritious things that taste good are usually fragile. They are aiming to be reliable, cheap, and flavorful.

What does this tell me about these things? That reliability and consistency, especially for low-cost offerings, are an extremely important consideration. Perhaps the most important consideration. Things which choose lower reliability are, generally, aiming to be boutique, "artisanal", "craft", etc. They accept that their product may not be available in all markets, or may not come out consistently the same way every time, or may be significantly more expensive, etc., and in exchange, they aim to deliver higher quality and technique in the execution of whatever product it is. Craft beer, locally-made snacks, fresh fish, menus that change with the season, etc.

Is the current brand of D&D offering reliability and consistency?

Next up - reliability and consistency don’t count as elements of good design.

What can I say, it’s sarcastic Saturday.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Next up - reliability and consistency don’t count as elements of good design.

What can I say, it’s sarcastic Saturday.

Well, if anyone actually does claim that, I certainly hope the overall thread response is a laugh. Because that would be a pretty laughable claim! At least I should hope so...

Edit: To be clear, I think that they can be elements of good design. But they don't have to be. Sometimes, other priorities may matter more than that. Consider, I absolutely friggin' love SweeTango apples (yes, that is their name, capitalization and all). But...they're extremely unreliable. Their flavor and texture does not survive international shipping, so if you actually want them to be good, you have to buy them at least from your general region if not outright local....and they've got a pretty short harvesting season, maybe a couple months at best. They also don't handle long-term storage very well, becoming mealy, so you're enjoying them in early to mid fall, or not at all. Their flavor is far too delicate to survive baking, too.

Does that make them a "badly bred" apple variety? I wouldn't say so. They taste absolutely delightful! But they really aren't an apple you can rely on the way you can a Pink Lady apple, in part because the Cripps Pink apples from which Pink Ladies are selected (brand name, so they have a quality standard) have a longer harvesting season, are much more storage-hardy, and they work reasonably well in almost any application, being a better-than-average apple for baking, cooking, or eating fresh. Though Pink Lady is noticeably much more tart than SweeTango; best eaten with something to wash it down, like a glass of milk or juice.

Consistency and reliability can be cardinal virtues in design, but they aren't the only ones, nor are they universal. I'd certainly expect them to be a consideration in most cases, but far from all cases.

 

[FrogReaver]

Well, if anyone actually does claim that, I certainly hope the overall thread response is a laugh. Because that would be a pretty laughable claim! At least I should hope so...

Obviously they won't now

 

[pemerton]

Measures of quality that are not based on popularity are just subjective garbage

Yes, this is how I can tell that Transformers films are better than The Seventh Seal; or that The Hunger Games is a better novel than The Wind Up Bird Chronicle.