D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition

[Lanefan]

20 levels aren’t exactly open ended though

Designing to 20 looks pretty open-ended from the perspective of someone only playing to 12; even more so if some ongoing arithmetical progressions are given for level beyond 20

they are also the easier ones to balance. I just don’t think a ‘we tried’ gets you much when the game falls apart around level 10 or 12 despite having 20 of those things.

I'd be fine were they to admit they didn't try (or didn't try as hard) with the upper levels.

In 1e Gygax doesn't come right out and say this but the implication that name-level characters are intended to retire into domain management and so forth kind of implies it; and attempts to play 1e at high level (i.e. beyond about 12th-13th or so) largely confirm it.

 

[mamba]

Designing to 20 looks pretty open-ended from the perspective of someone only playing to 12; even more so if some ongoing arithmetical progressions are given for level beyond 20

from the perspectiver of someone playing to 12, yes, from the perspective of a designer who designs up to 20, no. As to arithmetical progressions beyond that, I am not sure anyone expect those to hold up great.

I'd be fine were they to admit they didn't try (or didn't try as hard) with the upper levels.

I doubt they will, even though it is pretty obvious that that is what they did. Can't even disagree with the approach given that you are on a schedule.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't think it was on purpose.

I said that D&D 5e leaned heavily to the whims of the old school crowd due to the Playtest and they don't much care about high level play outside of the monsters.

I mean, that means it was on purpose.

They just didn't specifically set out to do that. They clearly had vision for what 5e would be, more than once, but steadily ceded more and more and more ground over time. That's why they surrendered the playtest Sorcerer/Warlock. That's why they abandoned the "tactical combat module". That's why the "Fighter Warlord" and martial healing were total vaporware despite Mearls giving a full-throated defenses of the latter on Twitter.

I don't know if I was the person who called it an "apology edition" first. But I've definitely called it that many times, and there's a very good reason for it. It is shackled to a bizarre hybrid of 3rd edition structure and old school concepts, not really achieving what either side particularly wanted. They took no action which might offend the delicate sensibilities of the angry 3e and 2e edition warriors who were busy with their victory dance.

 

[Eric V]

Personally, I preferred 13A's Escalation Die.

You can take the risk of going nova on the first round....but it's a big risk and a bunch of your most powerful stuff probably won't land. Or, you can wait to deploy the big guns for when you have the big bonuses...when things will be less efficient and an AoE being party-unfriendly is actually a concern.

I see that as being both more engaging and more tactical than "ope, sorry, the boss had one hundred five hit points, so I'm afraid your disintegrate did nothing, better luck next time!" Even outside of that relatively pointed example, it's just kinda dull to have entirely-arbitrary integer "you must be at least this dead to Save or Die" thresholds, while the Escalation Die actually acts as an incentive to change behavior--on multiple axes, even. If you want the die to increase, you have to actually escalate, for example; you can't just turtle up and pop in and out of Total Cover to accomplish your goals.

Fortunately, 13th Age has both!

As well, hp totals aren't a secret; if your spell wouldn't apply because of a hp threshold, the GM tells you so...it's not a game of GM gotchas!

 

[Zardnaar]

I mean, that means it was on purpose.

They just didn't specifically set out to do that. They clearly had vision for what 5e would be, more than once, but steadily ceded more and more and more ground over time. That's why they surrendered the playtest Sorcerer/Warlock. That's why they abandoned the "tactical combat module". That's why the "Fighter Warlord" and martial healing were total vaporware despite Mearls giving a full-throated defenses of the latter on Twitter.

I don't know if I was the person who called it an "apology edition" first. But I've definitely called it that many times, and there's a very good reason for it. It is shackled to a bizarre hybrid of 3rd edition structure and old school concepts, not really achieving what either side particularly wanted. They took no action which might offend the delicate sensibilities of the angry 3e and 2e edition warriors who were busy with their victory dance.

Wasn't so much that. WotC is constrained by the reality of making a commercial product. D&D tropes matter to D&D fans.

Probably 4E crowd weaponized moderators and built themselves a bubble that popped the hard way 2012.

People like what they like. WotC essentially had to ebuimd the game from scratch. It blew up bigger than expected so they cant do much until the player base organically demands changed.

Posted an interesting thread elsewhere and the only unifying theme is not liking wotc. People are all over the place in what they want. A lot have only played 5E.

The popular ones mentioned are 5.0 and 3.5. No one hates 2E it seems. 5.5 very mixed.

Digging deeper theyre mostly players. They dont have to run them. Personally I get sick of an edition 5-10 years assuming I like them to begin with. One thought 3.5 was the GOAT edition but never ran it.

Some desires are diametrically opposed. Simple vs complex.

Recurring themes were wanting simplicity and 5.0 and 5.0 were to simple. Two different camps. Daggerheart and Shadowdark got mentioned a lot.

Phone was going off. 48 messages in quick succession. I'll dig deeper next week or two.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Fortunately, 13th Age has both!

As well, hp totals aren't a secret; if your spell wouldn't apply because of a hp threshold, the GM tells you so...it's not a game of GM gotchas!

Which is completely unlike 5e, at least for literally 100% of games I've played. Even the actually good 5e GM I have does not disclose HP totals until it's of the form "agh, it has ONE hit point left!!" or the like.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Wasn't so much thT. WotC is constrained by the reality of making a commercial product.

No. They were constrained by "at least 70% of the people yelling at us must be happy with every. single. option. or it's not going to get printed."

That--that right there--is the recipe for Unflavored Oatmeal editions.

 

[Zardnaar]

No. They were constrained by "at least 70% of the people yelling at us must be happy with every. single. option. or it's not going to get printed."

That--that right there--is the recipe for Unflavored Oatmeal editions.

If people want to buy oatmeal sell them oatmeal.

Its the old cheeseburger thing. I want a cheese burger."how about a nice pizza"
"Cheeseburger"
"I'll put pineapple on the pizza"
"Cheeseburger"
How about this steak
"Cheeseburger "
"I'll put peppercorn sauce on the steak"
"F sake give me a lager"
"We have a nice APA and a delicious IPA"
......

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If people want to buy oatmeal sell them oatmeal.

Its the old cheeseburger thing. I want a cheese burger."how about a nice pizza"
"Cheeseburger"
"I'll put pineapple on the pizza"
"Cheeseburger"
How about this steak
"Cheeseburger "
"I'll put peppercorn sauce on the steak"
"F sake give me a lager"
"We have a nice APA and a delicious IPA"
......

Okay.

So you go all in for cheeseburgers. You make ten billion cheeseburgers. They sell pretty well for a while. Cheeseburgers are popular!

And then when people start wanting something else, what can you do when your entire infrastructure is built around selling cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers, and also cheeseburgers?

'Cause the--let's be real--decidedly more mixed response to 5.5, despite it being damn near identical to 5.0 (just as 3.5 was damn near identical to 3.0) seems to be showing that we don't have 100% perfect agreement from all corners that cheeseburgers are all the customer base wants. It in fact seems to show exactly the opposite--that people have had their fill of cheeseburgers and would like a bit more variety, and WotC is struggling to support that because they went all in for a structure that has no ability to support pizza, steak, tacos, fish-n-chips, fried chicken, etc. Hell, it can barely even support near-adjacent things like hoagies!

Unless folks turn to 3PP. WotC has benefitted hugely from the overall anti-3PP culture-of-play in the 5e community. I say "overall" because, from every source I've ever looked into and every effort I've ever made, the general stance on 3PP is one of the following: (1) "Absolutely none, thankyouverymuch." (2) "I like <this one specific 3PP product> and NOTHING else." (3) "I don't actually like baseline 5e and have left WotC behind" (rare, but worth noting, since we have a few prominent members around here who hold that position.) Exceptions always exist, but in my experience they are precisely that--highly exceptional.

Failing to expand is going to do 5e in. But 5e isn't built with expansion in mind. It's built for the weapon of first resort to also be the weapon of last resort, with nothing else to fall back on. That's one of the three reasons why the new UA Psion is literally just "a weird flavor of Wizard with actual class features". That's why Advantage is so rampantly overused that GMs rather quickly run out of ways to actually reward creative behavior once players get to the middle levels, because Advantage is handed out like candy.

As with so, so, so many things in our current capitalist paradise, they chased the short-term dollar and got it good. And now they've reached "long-term", and they're getting caught holding the bag because they didn't plan or prepare or even think about what they'd do in this situation until it was already too late to respond.

 

[Zardnaar]

Okay.

So you go all in for cheeseburgers. You make ten billion cheeseburgers. They sell pretty well for a while. Cheeseburgers are popular!

And then when people start wanting something else, what can you do when your entire infrastructure is built around selling cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers, cheeseburgers, and also cheeseburgers?

'Cause the--let's be real--decidedly more mixed response to 5.5, despite it being damn near identical to 5.0 (just as 3.5 was damn near identical to 3.0) seems to be showing that we don't have 100% perfect agreement from all corners that cheeseburgers are all the customer base wants. It in fact seems to show exactly the opposite--that people have had their fill of cheeseburgers and would like a bit more variety, and WotC is struggling to support that because they went all in for a structure that has no ability to support pizza, steak, tacos, fish-n-chips, fried chicken, etc. Hell, it can barely even support near-adjacent things like hoagies!

Unless folks turn to 3PP. WotC has benefitted hugely from the overall anti-3PP culture-of-play in the 5e community. I say "overall" because, from every source I've ever looked into and every effort I've ever made, the general stance on 3PP is one of the following: (1) "Absolutely none, thankyouverymuch." (2) "I like <this one specific 3PP product> and NOTHING else." (3) "I don't actually like baseline 5e and have left WotC behind" (rare, but worth noting, since we have a few prominent members around here who hold that position.) Exceptions always exist, but in my experience they are precisely that--highly exceptional.

Failing to expand is going to do 5e in. But 5e isn't built with expansion in mind. It's built for the weapon of first resort to also be the weapon of last resort, with nothing else to fall back on. That's one of the three reasons why the new UA Psion is literally just "a weird flavor of Wizard with actual class features". That's why Advantage is so rampantly overused that GMs rather quickly run out of ways to actually reward creative behavior once players get to the middle levels, because Advantage is handed out like candy.

As with so, so, so many things in our current capitalist paradise, they chased the short-term dollar and got it good. And now they've reached "long-term", and they're getting caught holding the bag because they didn't plan or prepare or even think about what they'd do in this situation until it was already too late to respond.

People wouldnt accept a 6R yet.

5.5 is a cheeseburger with extra onions. I'm expecting them to sell less. Could be wrong. Eventually people will want a steak and egg burger (or whatever) but not a pizza or cheeseburger flavored pizza (they exist btw).

Other problem is D&D beyond infrastructure. A radically new edition woukd require a rebuild (probably).

Playerbase isnt there yet.