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

[Ovinomancer]

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 .

That's a pretty cool story. Thanks for sharing!

 

[pemerton]

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.

We're agreed on this.

 

[Blue]

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.

Considering that part of their mandate was to "make it unquestionably D&D and bring back previous gamers who left", questions like that or "should we keep ability scores" or "do we need classes and levels" wouldn't have been options.

 

[TheSword]

I decided to look beyond the forums to get some feedback on D&D 5e to see whether people buying it thought the system was good or not.

I figured Amazon reviews would be a good place to start. After all you might play the game because there’s no other games in town, or because it’s the only game you’ve heard of but you wouldn’t rate it highly because of that.

If D&D was peoples second favourite rpg, you would expect it’s core book, the PHB to have a low rating. Or at least a lower rating than other games core books.

I also figured it might give us an idea of comparative scale of play assuming that a person is as likely to review D&D as any other core game product.

I was genuinely surprised when this was the result...

4.8 across 27,409 reviews. The written reviews are interesting. They don’t correlate with the views people shared about it being a mediocre game, in that they are glowing. It’s worth flicking through.

I thought I had better check some other systems that have been mentioned.

Pathfinder 2: 4.7 out of 1786
Call of Cthulhu: also 4.8 out of 857 reviews
WFRP 4e: 4.7 out of 305 reviews
Fate. 4.7 out of 313
Dungeon World 4.7 out of 325
Blades in the Dark 4.8 from 399

Now it’s possible of course that people get products elsewhere than Amazon. Or there are multiple editions (please do correct me if I’ve picked up an earlier edition by mistake). However is there any reason to think that scoring would be different... indeed could it be much higher?

I then started thinking well the PHB is only part of the results... what does the DMG get? After all it’s frequently slated by the naysayers.

...4.9 out of 15,296 reviews!

Now what surprises me - other than the stark reminder of the volumes - is how everybody likes the core game books they buy about the same irrespective of system. (And not a single person out of 15,000+ logged onto Amazon and gave the DMG 1 star)

I find it very difficult to believe that these reviews can be reconciled with the idea that 5e is simply a ‘good enough’ system and that people are playing their second favourite because it’s the only one they can agree on. In fact the opposite appears to be the case.

If 27,000+ people are rating a product on Amazon 4.8 stars, that is a massive recommendation that goes well beyond simply hearing about something in Stranger Things or having watched the Critical Role team play on stream. Perhaps we should add positive player advocacy and recommendation on a massive scale to the list of reasons why it’s successful.

[Edit: these figures were taken from Amazon.co.uk which does use global figures. Amazon.com has marginally higher volumes - less than 5% more - but identical ratings]

[Edit #2: I a look through the first 20 Cheese-cake factory trip advisor scores. Ratings ran from 3 - 4.5 stars. So pretty mixed bag all told.]

 

[see]

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

Insofar as that's true, one must remember the "streaming explosion" was downstream of the 5th Edition design decisions.

Specifically, Critical Role/Vox Machina was a 4th edition one-shot that then became a Pathfinder campaign; it was still a Pathfinder game at the time the decision was made to start streaming it. So the use of D&D 5th in that stream was not because that happened to be the system of the campaign. Rather, the conversion to D&D 5th was extra work undertaken because of the conscious judgment that D&D 5th would be more suitable for streaming a large group.

 

[FireLance]

Isn't there a joke that occasionally pops up here speaking to that idea that 5e is everyone's second favorite edition?

5E is my second favorite edition. No joke.

My relationship with 5E is like 3E showing up at my doorstep, having lost a third of their former weight, with new clothes and a new haircut, saying that they had learned a lot from 4E, and asking, now that 4E is in a coma after a terrible accident which they assure me that neither they nor their legion of devoted followers were responsible for, whether I would consider taking them back.

 

[Campbell]

I do think part of what overzealous system advocates sometimes get wrong is that often when someone says something like "I want a D&D game that feels like Game of Thrones" they put emphasis on the wrong part. Most people who start such threads mean "I want a D&D game that feels like Game of Thrones" in that at the end of the day they still want to play D&D with some intrigue elements. A lot of us hear "I want a D&D game that feels like Game of Thrones" and focus way too much on what we feel best reflects the attending themes. I think it's vanishingly rare that people asking for suggestions really want a game that focuses almost exclusively on intrigue to the point where things might get violent maybe once every 3-4 sessions.

I think people like me who have had the experience of trying to use games like D&D to try to run such games and want to help people avoid those pain points do not always recognize the nature of those requests.

 

[pemerton]

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.

Considering that part of their mandate was to "make it unquestionably D&D and bring back previous gamers who left", questions like that or "should we keep ability scores" or "do we need classes and levels" wouldn't have been options.

Framing scenes
D&D has had different answers, over time, to who gets to frame scenes. In his PHB, Gygax - under the heading Successful Adventures (pp 107, 109) - argues that skilled player will try and take charge of scene framing, by mapping carefully, engaging in scouting missions prior to looting missions, avoiding getting distracted by the GM's tricks and ploys, etc. Certain important spells, like Spider Climb and Flay and Passwall and Dimension Door and Teleport, all have the function of letting players manage when scenes begin and when they end, and who is in them and who is not.

Of course Gygax doesn't use the language of scenes, but that doesn't stop us understanding what he was talking about, and locating it within the broader framework of thinking about how RPGs can be played.

The idea that it is overwhelmingly the GM who is in charge of scenes and pacing emerges implicitly in DL and post-DL modules, and becomes "official" in AD&D 2nd ed. 3E, 4e and 5e all continue with that assumption, 4e at least calling out expressly as one of the GM's jobs.

Controlling the consequences of action resolution
D&D has traditionally given the GM a strong role in this respect, but the basis on which that role should be carried out has been set out in different ways.

Gygax's AD&D, and even more clearly Moldvay Basic, emphasis free-kriegsspeil norms: the GM should extrapolate consequences based on what makes sense given the established fiction.

2nd ed AD&D talks much more about what is good for the "story". A contrast would be this: nothing in Moldvay Basic or Gygax's AD&D suggests that if the PCs defeat a "big bad" and the GM had in mind stuff that the big bad might do down the track, the GM should manipulate the off-screen fiction to establish a second-in-command who takes up the mantle and does the stuff anyway. Whereas 2nd ed AD&D does tend to suggest this sort of thing; and a clear example is also found in the 3E module Bastion of Broken Souls.

4e is the version of D&D that is clearest in allowing players to establish consequences of action resolution via successful checks or the use of "powers". In other versions there are spells and occasional non-magical abilities like Action Surge that are functionally analogous to powers, but precisely because these don't sit within a broader ethos of player protagonism there can sometimes be an ethos - which Gygax at least seemed to encourage - of the GM trying to use the fiction, both on-screen and off-screen, to subvert player purposes in using those abilities.

Why talk about scene-framing and consequences together?
The relationship between the two is this: if the GM controls both then everything that happens in the game is the GM's decision.

In different ways, Gygaxian AD&D, Moldvay Basic and 4e depart from that state of affairs. Speaking in general terms 2nd ed AD&D, 3E and 5e do not.

 

[MichaelSomething]

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.

Luckily for you, there's a book about that very subject...

 

[turnip_farmer]

If D&D was peoples second favourite rpg, you would expect it’s core book, the PHB to have a low rating. Or at least a lower rating than other games core books.

No you wouldn't. Most people would be expected to give their second favourite 4 or 5 stars; unless there was a huge gulf between the first two. If it's everyone's second favourite, then it's almost certain to have a high rating.

On the other hand, if something is my favourite, but lots of other people hate it, it's aggregate rating will be low.

That's the whole point of the thread.