D&D 5E (2024) Mike Mearls explains why your boss monsters die too easily

[pemerton]

XYZ encounters per day was a bad idea in 3E as well. Idea hung around for to long.

I think it's a pretty natural upshot of combining resource-based play with GM authority over pacing.

Originally, D&D was not designed around GM authority over pacing. You can see this, for instance, in Gygax's advice on Successful Adventures in his PHB; and in Lewis Pulsipher's essays in White Dwarf around the same time. The GM mapped and keyed the dungeon, but it was the players who made decisions about how to explore it, what risks to take, etc. And there was no particular expectation that all PCs would equally useful in a wide range of contexts. MUs who had been carefully and patiently raised to mid-to-high levels were just more powerful - but still benefitted from having fighters on expeditions, to help protect against wandering monsters in particular.

AD&D retained the same approach to player-side resources even as the common structure of play changed, from player-driven dungeon exploration to GM-led adventures. 3E and 5e are pretty similar in both these respects (and there are innumerable posts in this thread that speak to this model of play). And so it's natural to give the GM advice on how many encounters they should include in their adventure, if the goal is to challenge the players without hosing them.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think it's a pretty natural upshot of combining resource-based play with GM authority over pacing.

Originally, D&D was not designed around GM authority over pacing. You can see this, for instance, in Gygax's advice on Successful Adventures in his PHB; and in Lewis Pulsipher's essays in White Dwarf around the same time. The GM mapped and keyed the dungeon, but it was the players who made decisions about how to explore it, what risks to take, etc. And there was no particular expectation that all PCs would equally useful in a wide range of contexts. MUs who had been carefully and patiently raised to mid-to-high levels were just more powerful - but still benefitted from having fighters on expeditions, to help protect against wandering monsters in particular.

AD&D retained the same approach to player-side resources even as the common structure of play changed, from player-driven dungeon exploration to GM-led adventures. 3E and 5e are pretty similar in both these respects (and there are innumerable posts in this thread that speak to this model of play). And so it's natural to give the GM advice on how many encounters they should include in their adventure, if the goal is to challenge the players without hosing them.

Yeah that. And people over exaggerate how useless high level AD&D fighters are.

 

[pemerton]

It requires starting with clear and specific design goals, creating designs which attempt to implement those goals, and then doing rigorous and specifically statistical testing to ensure that those goals are met.

To the best of my knowledge, neither WotC nor Paizo has shown much, if any, interest in actually doing these things. They vastly prefer airy-fairy design "goals" that are little more than abstract aspirations, dream up designs without much regard for whether they actually implement those goals because (more or less) "testing will figure it out", and then their testing is so scattershot, un- or even anti-systematic, and push-poll-driven, little to no useful data can actually be extracted from the analysis.

It's perfectly doable, and two and a half years is plenty of time to do it in. I just haven't seen any will to actually DO it.

I think I'm failing to see what reason WotC has to do all this. What's the evidence that the current 5e rules are causing any commercial detriment to WotC?

They literally don't do actual, statistical testing. If they had, the "ghoul surprise" could not happen, because they would have already known, from doing simulations, that saving throws fail far too often and need to be bolstered.

You don't need statistical testing to tell you that at-will paralysis on any attack, in a game where save success is in the neighbourhood of 50/50, will likely be broken. You can work that out from eyeballing!

 

[pemerton]

Playtests today aren't really for playtesting the game. They have already playtested it to their own fashion in their private groups. The Public Playtests is to make sure it won't offend too many people. This means they can "tweak" something if people show displeasure with it, but that still isn't it's purpose.

The purpose of Playtests today, especially for WotC, is marketing. It is to publicize something and to build hype for it. It makes people feel like they are part of the process and valued (even though they really aren't), that they have a say and then to get excited about the product.

That's the purpose of the playtest today. They don't want to do actual testing as you suggest because (1. Last time they actually did something that changed things so massively brought about a pretty vile lashback and 2. it would disrupt the flow of what they are actually wanting to do. They don't want to change their system back to it's foundations and redraw it after making it already. A true playtest would be open to that, but not WotC's playtests. it's not it's purpose). It's purpose is purely for a marketing viewpoint and that does not require the vigorous testing you are suggesting...and may even be contrary to it's goals!.

Yes. This isn't controversial, is it?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think I'm failing to see what reason WotC has to do all this. What's the evidence that the current 5e rules are causing any commercial detriment to WotC?

This is just a more sophisticated version of the "sales are proof that design is good" argument, which I don't accept.

They should do this thing because it would make a better product--one they don't need to keep issuing revisions of because it wasn't broken in the first place.

I mean, folks talk all the time of the (alleged) benefits of a truly "evergreen" edition. Wouldn't this kind of testing be precisely what does that, so that they never need to do the hard-overhaul work again, and can instead do light-touch stuff, compendium-style collections of previous publications, etc.?

You don't need statistical testing to tell you that at-will paralysis on any attack, in a game where save success is in the neighbourhood of 50/50, will likely be broken. You can work that out from eyeballing!

Evidently you do, because WotC has shown--multiple times--that they're incapable of foreseeing things like this. The "ghoul surprise" is just one prominent example. I mean, remember when they thought Fighters getting extra feats was balanced with the crapload of powerful high-level spells because, from what reports I've heard anyway, they never bothered testing with high-level 3e rules?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Yes. This isn't controversial, is it?

I mean, it pretty clearly was for PF1e. Or did you not hear about the Gunslinger fallout?

 

[Zardnaar]

This is just a more sophisticated version of the "sales are proof that design is good" argument, which I don't accept.

They should do this thing because it would make a better product--one they don't need to keep issuing revisions of because it wasn't broken in the first place.

I mean, folks talk all the time of the (alleged) benefits of a truly "evergreen" edition. Wouldn't this kind of testing be precisely what does that, so that they never need to do the hard-overhaul work again, and can instead do light-touch stuff, compendium-style collections of previous publications, etc.?


Evidently you do, because WotC has shown--multiple times--that they're incapable of foreseeing things like this. The "ghoul surprise" is just one prominent example. I mean, remember when they thought Fighters getting extra feats was balanced with the crapload of powerful high-level spells because, from what reports I've heard anyway, they never bothered testing with high-level 3e rules?

You realize if 4E has an open playtest with your criteria you probably would not have had it at all?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You realize if 4E has an open playtest with your criteria you probably would not have had it at all?

I do not "realize" that, no, because I don't agree with that position!

 

[Zardnaar]

I do not "realize" that, no, because I don't agree with that position!

So you dont think an open playtest would have revealed what people thought of it?

Or thst the math didnt actually work and they had to rewrite the MM in effect?

Can't see any of those possibilities cropping up?

 

[Minigiant]

You realize if 4E has an open playtest with your criteria you probably would not have had it at all?

I doubt that.

If 4e had open playtesting, it would look more like 4e Essentials.