D&D 5E 5e and the Cheesecake Factory: Explaining Good Enough

[Campbell]

I don't actually think 5e was "grown in a lab for mass market appeal". I give the designers far more credit than that. I think it's absolutely the result of a cohesive vision. The surveys and focus groups were absolutely about dialing in the design to meet that vision.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Maybe think of it as something like a movie or TV show that a focus group or a test audience reacts to in ways that cause the studio/distributor/financiers to insist on a different edit or perhaps re-shoots, and the conversations as to whether the director/auteur deserves control of his art, or whether the people expecting to make money on it do.

I personally don't think software comparisons are as apt, but that's something I'd pick a fight over.

I have no issue recognizing the feedback loop, but the statement was extremely strong to me, and I don't think the feedback was that strong an impact. Valuable, yes, beneficial, yes, but the main reason for 5e's success? Eh. I think it would have done pretty much the same with the first playtest packet released, honestly. 5e's success as a system isn't really owed to the public playtesting. 5e's success with regards to making fans feel involved, though -- that's the real kicker to the playtesting: it gives fans a sense of investment and goodwill, even if they offer little say in design.

 

[fearsomepirate]

(The restaurant analogy breaks down here, because people generally don't have brand loyalty to restaurants outside of industry niches. You might only go to Wendy's for fast food, but you don't always want fast food.)

After being buried under a sheet of ice in a once-in-a-century snow storm, I would kill for a cheeseburger.

 

[fearsomepirate]

I have no issue recognizing the feedback loop, but the statement was extremely strong to me, and I don't think the feedback was that strong an impact. Valuable, yes, beneficial, yes, but the main reason for 5e's success? Eh. I think it would have done pretty much the same with the first playtest packet released, honestly. 5e's success as a system isn't really owed to the public playtesting. 5e's success with regards to making fans feel involved, though -- that's the real kicker to the playtesting: it gives fans a sense of investment and goodwill, even if they offer little say in design.

Have you seen the early playtest packets? Huge changes were made in response to feedback. One Mearls mentioned at least once was the Champion subclass. He thought nobody would want a simple roll-n-kill Fighter, but requests for one were overwhelming.

 

[pemerton]

Informed design doesn't align with "grown in a lab for mass market appeal" to me. YMMV.

I find the relationship between WotC's market research for 5e D&D, and the "subjects of"/participants in that research, an interesting one. It seems to suggest a very high degree of buy-in, by at least a core group of consumers, to the product and its vendor. I'm sure that analysts of the role of "brand" and "brand loyalty" in marketing would be able to say something more sophisticated. From a different perspective, probably so could someone drawing on (say) Zygmunt Bauman's Liquid Modernity.

I don't remember any of the survey questions asking things like who should control consequences of action resolution or what authority should non-GM participants exercise over scene-framing. We can see some implicit response to those sorts of matters, though. For instance, making Teleport a 7th level spell means that it is unlikely to be used by players in the vast majority of D&D games, which means that the particular problem it creates in a FRPG - ie giving players a very high degree of control over which characters are present in which scenes, and where those scenes take place, and to some extent even what they are about - is quarantined if not completely eliminated.

Part of the science (or art?) of polling is knowing how to extract information from responses beyond simply the content of assertions made by or agreed to by those who are giving those responses.

 

[Ogre Mage]

This makes me wish there was a Cheesecake Factory in this godforsaken town and COVID-19 was over so I could eat there without worrying ...

Anyway, with regards to the popularity of 5E, I think there are several things. Some of which agree with The Cheesecake Factory theory.

--Name/Brand Recognition. D&D is the one TTRPG that even non-gamers know about.

--Livestream explosion. Critical Role became the "D&D" of livestreams, but there are many others. This was big in drawing new players to the game. It also halted a cultural backlash like the 1980s/1990s satanic panic because everyone could watch the livestreams and see those stereotypes were false.

--Nods to previous editions. 5E cherry-picked elements from 1E, 2E, 3E and 4E. Some previous editions made such radical changes they alienated older/current players.

--Extensive playtesting and feedback by the player base.

--Moderate level of complexity. Some hard-core gamers complain 5E is too simple while some noobs find it too complicated. But it sits squarely in the middle between Pathfinder 2E on one end and Cypher/Numenera on the other. Most folks can hang there even if they may be a bit uncomfortable one way or the other.

Now, I have to figure out how to bring a Cheesecake Factory here ...

 

[Ovinomancer]

Have you seen the early playtest packets? Huge changes were made in response to feedback. One Mearls mentioned at least once was the Champion subclass. He thought nobody would want a simple roll-n-kill Fighter, but requests for one were overwhelming.

Yes, I have it on my harddrive. I'm not saying the feedback didn't cause changes, but rather than 5e would have been a success without any. The main impact of the playtesting was psychological in the fanbase -- it garnered a feeling of ownership and that's had way more of an impact than any changes due to feedback. In other words, 5e isn't really popular because of it's system, which is what that feedback tuned. It's popular because, well, it's D&D, the designers executed a masterful PR campaign with the playtests, and it happened to reap the perfect storm of the streaming explosion. Good enough game, but more about right time and good management.


EDIT: I feel like this might again be the time to say that I've been running 5e since launch, I'm currently running a 5e game, and I don't have plans to shelf 5e in the near future.

 

[pemerton]

it happened to reap the perfect storm of the streaming explosion.

I have watched very little streamed D&D (or other RPGing).

What does the entertainment consist in? Given it's such a drawcard for new players, I'm going to guess it's not in demonstrations of technical mastery as in (say) broadcasting darts or snooker.

Does the entertainment come from enjoying the fiction and the participants' exposition? In this case a system like D&D 5e might be a better fit than some others.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I have watched very little streamed D&D (or other RPGing).

What does the entertainment consist in? Given it's such a drawcard for new players, I'm going to guess it's not in demonstrations of technical mastery as in (say) broadcasting darts or snooker.

Does the entertainment come from enjoying the fiction and the participants' exposition? In this case a system like D&D 5e might be a better fit than some others.

Couldn't tell you, not my thing, really. I have a hang up about watching other people play a game I can't ever join in.

EDIT: No, that's not really it, thinking a bit more it's that I don't really find the story of an RPG to be exciting in the retelling, but in the playing to find out what happens.

 

[prabe]

Couldn't tell you, not my thing, really. I have a hang up about watching other people play a game I can't ever join in.

It's not mine, either, but I think @pemerton has the right of it that it's mostly about the fiction that emerges, with--in many instances--reasonably-talented voice actors (in many instances, voice actors start as actors) around the table.

I do know that two of the players at one of the tables I'm DMing were introduced to D&D by streamed play. I'm happy to have them at the table, and I'm pleased to see something serving to attract new players--even if they may think that play is always like what's on the livestreams. Heck, my wife got into play streams a couple years ago (I wasn't in much of a TRPG space) and bought the 5E PHB; I read it out of idle curiosity, and it clicked. So, in a way, I'm gaming again because of play streams, even though I don't enjoy them, for reasons similar to yours, @Ovinomancer .