D&D 5E What is Quality?

Hussar said:

You absolutely can objectively say that one is better than the other. 100%.

Better quality

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Vague.

Hussar said:

better presentation,

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Subjective.

Hussar said:

better nutrition,

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Objective. This can be measured by experts whose training and knowledge give them credence. We can say that one burger is more nutritious than another.

Hussar said:

better taste, etc.

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Subjective.

Hussar said:

Now, many of the things we judge on are based on the common person standard, which can be a bit fuzzy, sure, but, that doesn't make it subjective. There is no Platonic ideal of objectivity where a tiny drop of subjectivity makes something subjective. That's a ridiculous standard.

And, yes, it is absolutely useful to suppose that some judgements are superior. Because if we don't, then we accept bad faith arguments as valid as well as simply uniformed judgements as equally valid. The notion that all judgements are equal gets right back to the whole anti-intellectual thread that pollutes any conversation like this.

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I'm about as pro-intellectual as they come. I support making nutritional decisions based on the informed opinions and research of trained nutritionists. Yes, it's useful to suppose that some opinions about nutrition as superior to others. No, it's not useful (to me) to suppose that some burger preferences as superior to others.

Irlo said:

Vague.

Subjective.

Objective. This can be measured by experts whose training and knowledge give them credence. We can say that one burger is more nutritious than another.

Subjective.

I'm about as pro-intellectual as they come. I support making nutritional decisions based on the informed opinions and research of trained nutritionists. Yes, it's useful to suppose that some opinions about nutrition as superior to others. No, it's not useful (to me) to suppose that some burger preferences as superior to others.

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Well, we're not going to agree on this. Your bar for "objective" is so high that it's basically useless. The idea that better quality of food is "vague" basically rejects every single piece of standardization and study on the subject for the past 100 years. So, yeah, we're not going to see eye to eye on this.

I'm going to say this again, because I think it got buried before.

"Fun" is not a measure of quality. How much you enjoy a thing is not a measure of quality. These are measures of, well, fun and enjoyment. You can fully enjoy things of low quality -- have a total blast with them, even. That you had fun is not a marker of quality.

Quality is a comparative assessment between similar products/services. As RPGs are rather broad in how they target play, direct comparisons are often hard. However, we can clearly look to layout/editing, art quality (again, not if you like it), rules completeness, ease of rule usages, alignment of rules to game goals, and so on. From this, it's pretty clear that 5e is a quality RPG -- it has excellent layout/editing (not perfect), excellent art (not that you have to like it, but it's good art well done, appropriate to the material, and evocative), it's fairly complete (average-ish), it's fairly easy to use (average-ish), it's rules are well aligned to it's game goals (although most people mistake what these are for their game goals). It does what it says on the tin well enough and in a nice enough package to be considered a quality game. But, then, so are so very many other RPGs. In fact, there's nothing particularly special about the quality of D&D compared to many other games. D&D is quality for RPGs, but that's nowhere next to perfect. It's still very available to criticism despite it's quality. And certainly available to criticism despite people having fun with it.

EzekielRaiden said:

13th Age would be a main example. A wonderfully clear system, particularly with how the books are presented (giving direct statements from the designers on how they chose to do things or how they disagree about how the system is best used. It has some of the best design in any d20 system, to the point that people regularly steal from it for other games (e.g. the Escalation Die). And the quality of that design is really easy to see; it's right there on the surface, no obfuscation required.


...seriously? Rolling a few dice and tweaking a couple numbers is "a mountain of work"?

We clearly have very different ideas of what "a mountain of work" is. You sure as hell don't need to rewrite the MM to make it happen. Making CR actually useful definitely would require such a rewrite, and possibly even more fundamental work (that is, adjusting player-side values too).

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You just described 13th Age as having clarity and good design (I've read it and agree), but I didn't read anything in there about evocativeness, which I also asked for.

For the record, I believe 13th Age is a well-designed game, but too narrative and gamist for my tastes.

Micah Sweet said:

You just described 13th Age as having clarity and good design (I've read it and agree), but I didn't read anything in there about evocativeness, which I also asked for.

For the record, I believe 13th Age is a well-designed game, but too narrative and gamist for my tastes.

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What could I point to for that? It's cool, but it's much harder to communicate that coolness with some specific thing.

The setting is great, integrating some unexpected things (like Drakkenhall being a legitimately-recognized city of the Empire, or the Hellholes and their complex relationship with the Crusader and the Diabolist), and enabling much more interesting active politics (e.g. competitions between the High Druid, the Archmage, and the Diabolist, where nobody is necessarily "in the right") rather than the rather passive and static interactions usually filled by gods or nations, while still supporting the older ways if you really like (since the gods of light and gods of dark exist but aren't particularly specified). Though a lot of people find them weird, the Icon Relationship rolls are actually a really cool method of injecting unexpected story stuff.

I think One Unique Things and its approach to Backgrounds are some of the best, most flavorful and, yes, evocative approaches to character creation and skills, both of which tend to be both dry and really anti-evocative. OUTs are delightful, they can span the spectrum from "just a quirk" to "character- or even campaign-defining element," while having essentially no rules (other than "it doesn't give you combat power.") Its Backgrounds are simultaneously very clear and straightforward, and really good at making characters come to life, as their personal, lived experience matters for what they bring to the group.

Even some of the outright mechanical stuff is super flavorful. The Monk, for example, and its whole "opener/flow/finisher" thing is great, feeling simultaneously flexible and technical.

Is that good enough? Have I cleared your arbitrary and unstated threshold for "evocativeness"?

Oofta said:

For something like entertainment, where there is no objective measurement, I think one measure of quality is if the majority of people using a product works for them then it is a quality product. That doesn't mean it can't be improved, of course, everything can be.

We can't know, of course what percentage of people believe D&D is a quality product. The people I play with seem to think so, at a higher rate of satisfaction than the last couple of editions.

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But can you and the people you play with articulate why 5e is a good quality product without engaging in a circular argument that appeals to its popularity as a form of emotional self-validation of consumption?

It would be absurd, for example, for someone to argue, "5e is a good quality game because it is popular." The popularity might suggest that the game has qualities that people find desirable or enjoyable, but the conversation doesn't begin and end with appealing to its popularity. 5e's popularity should invite discussion of what those good qualities are.

Or to ask a different question. Let's say a hypothetical 6e came out that was far more popular than 5e. However, you dislike/loathe many of the changes that 6e made to 5e, so you naturally prefer and enjoy 5e more. But your belief that popularity is the benchmark of a product's quality would suggest that 6e is a higher quality product than 5e. So how would you argue that 5e represents a good quality game if you could no longer appeal to 5e's popularity for support of its quality? Why does 5e work for you? How is it good?

Oofta said:

I think one measure of quality is if the majority of people using a product works for them then it is a quality product.

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Morrus said:

Watches are jewellery, not simple functional devices. Simply telling the time is not the only function of a watch.

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For you, perhaps.

For me, the only reason I ever wore a watch was to be able to know the time. Now that I have a phone that I carry around anyway and that tells me the time, I no longer bother with a watch.

Never mind that the damn things always broke anyway...

EzekielRaiden said:

Your laconic response does not do you credit since the vast majority of clocks aren't there for aesthetic reasons. Clocks ARE tools. Do you deny this?

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Clocks are tools, yes; but the vast majority of them* that we see from day to day are also made with aesthetics in mind. Why? Because if you're making a thing whose primary function is to have people look at it, you might as well make it pleasant to look at while you're at it.

* - thinking here of standalone clocks/timepieces, not timers built into something else e.g. a microwave oven or a computer.

But if that clock doesn’t tell time, is it really a clock anymore? Or is it just a decoration? Is a painting of a clock a clock?

I would say that if we’re discussing the qualities of a clock, keeping accurate time is probably the number one criteria. A beautiful grandfather clock that doesn’t work isn’t really a high quality clock is it?

Lanefan said:

Clocks are tools, yes; but the vast majority of them* that we see from day to day are also made with aesthetics in mind. Why? Because if you're making a thing whose primary function is to have people look at it, you might as well make it pleasant to look at while you're at it.

* - thinking here of standalone clocks/timepieces, not timers built into something else e.g. a microwave oven or a computer.

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And if my statement were "these things are tools exclusively," then this would be a great rebuttal.

I'm not saying that. I'm saying that, because these things are tools, tool-related criteria are relevant. It's others who are acting like even the very idea of suggesting that a clock is a tool, whether or not it also has other (perhaps more important) functions, is an insult to clocks!