D&D 5E Are DMs the Swing Vote?

[Abraxas]

I don't know if I'm an edition warrior or not - that's really something for others to judge.

You certainly come across as one. So much so that between you and 3 or 4 other poster's activity in those threads that I am interested in my infrequent posting has dropped to nearly non-existent posting.

 

[Kinak]

I tend to agree that GMs probably end up making more of these decisions. Between being the more common bottleneck on games and the higher monetary investment on average, GMs end up getting weight disproportionate to their fraction of the gaming population.

That said, two of my players would need some serious convincing if we were going to use 4e or go back to 1st/2nd Edition. My group's way more engaged than average, though. We've got two people who've done professional work and everyone's been to GenCon at least once.

It definitely isn't just the people who post on forums or just GMs that have strong opinions, though. In our group, our broader gaming circle of friends, and at our FLGS there are a fair number of people that say stuff that's blatant edition-warring. They just have the common sense not to say it in front of fans of other editions.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Thoughts? Comments? Am I dead on, full of poop, or somewhere in the middle?

Your comments on DMing 4e conflict with my experience, but otherwise I think what you say is reasonable.

I think Mearls' comment about what players want is idealistic; DMs and players alike can most certainly be edition warriors. And while edition warriors aren't the norm among casual gamers, everyone who has played more than one edition has their preferences and the vast majority have a favorite.

I haven't met a whole lot of players who'd turn their nose up at an offered game just because it's not using their favorite edition, but most are more than willing to spout (often ill-informed) opinions of this one or that one, and if the offered game is happening at an inconvenient time or place...the edition might very well make the difference between showing up or sitting out.

Most DMs have better things to do than run campaigns using rulesets that they don't like quite a lot, so if an edition doesn't appeal to a certain mass of DMs, it's not going to get played. And I'm sure 5e will appeal to a certain mass of DMs. I don't find anything noteworthy about it, but it is the next edition of D&D. It'll have its takers.

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

That's why I often copy PC powers, only using monster math instead of PC math. But then I've got lots of experience with this now.

Yeah, when it comes to NPCs it's easy to simply rip class features and powers right out of the PHB.

While special-snowflake monsters can take a while to create due to the need for special-snowflake powers -- and that's true of every edition -- there are two monster roles that are designed to hit the ground running. (Artilleries and brutes.)

So if I need say, a quick jungle encounter, all I need is a couple demonic gorillas (level N brutes) and a dozen demonic monkeys (level N minion artilleries). I can give them the generic variable resistance trait of all demons, but neither need special powers beyond that. In fact I'd probably 'essentialize' them by simply adding a bit of damage to their basic attacks. Give the monkeys a climb speed and a few low branches to sit on, and BAM! The players have an immediate problem to solve, and monsters to defeat.

In addition, I have vanilla go-to powers for most of the other monster roles. For example, my go-to skirmisher power is "Move action: the monster shifts half its speed." It doesn't make for mechanically memorable monsters, but it works fine in a pinch.

 

[Weather Report]

Your comments on DMing 4e conflict with my experience, but otherwise I think what you say is reasonable.

I think Mearls' comment about what players want is idealistic; DMs and players alike can most certainly be edition warriors. And while edition warriors aren't the norm among casual gamers, everyone who has played more than one edition has their preferences and the vast majority have a favorite.

I haven't met a whole lot of players who'd turn their nose up at an offered game just because it's not using their favorite edition, but most are more than willing to spout (often ill-informed) opinions of this one or that one, and if the offered game is happening at an inconvenient time or place...the edition might very well make the difference between showing up or sitting out.

Most DMs have better things to do than run campaigns using rulesets that they don't like quite a lot, so if an edition doesn't appeal to a certain mass of DMs, it's not going to get played. And I'm sure 5e will appeal to a certain mass of DMs. I don't find anything noteworthy about it, but it is the next edition of D&D. It'll have its takers.

Yes, we are well aware of the agenda (so transparent...).

 

[pemerton]

Yes, we are well aware of the agenda (so transparent...).

This wasn't transprarent to me - whose agenda are we aware of (and what is it)?

 

[dd.stevenson]

We are both interpreting. That's a point i was making. I thought, from what was actually said that you were extrapolating many degrees from what was actually said. I'm reading this stuff because I'm interested, and I'm open to ideas about what's going on, for sure. If you do have a convincing argument, I'm more interested in hearing it than hearing that you have it.

I hope that this doesn't sound disrespectful, btw.

Cool. For some reason I took your earlier post as trolling/spoiling for a fight. Clearly that was a misunderstanding on my part.

I think that Mearls' post was just about as clear as it gets when it comes to WotC communication. He is giving playtesters notice that their contributions won't be needed any more, and relaying in broad strokes what he had decided based on their feedback. Since this playtest was really more of a focus group than an actual playtest, it's appropriate that he culminates with some realizations he's come to [i.e., decisions he's made] about Next's target audience. And he explicitly excludes edition warriors from this group.

Why isn't this just venturing an opinion about some interesting things he found in the playtest data?

First, the statement "you aren't edition warriors" is phrased as a fact, not as an opinion. Mike is no stranger to weasel words, and he could have softened this several degrees if he had wanted to. Further, this statement is presented in the context of a list of R&D findings, all of which are phrased as facts.

Second, Mearls is a decision maker (head of the D&D business group), and it's clearly crunch time. So in the bigger context, there's absolutely no reason to assume he meant anything other than what he said.

Third, the tone of this article can be summarized as "Thanks for the help, guys: we've got what we need from you and now we're ready to go git 'er done!" Which again offers no reason to re-frame Mike's assertions through the it's-just-my-opinion lens.

I did make some extrapolations: from "DDN playtest group" to "DDN target audience" and from "not part of target audience" to "not wanted". But these are not outlandish; in any case, they're consistent with the spirit with which the AEW contingent received Mearls' message.

 

[dd.stevenson]

What motivates people to pontificate on discussion boards is indeed mysterious.

Indeed. Since I'm obviously one of those people who is occasionally so motivated, I feel like I should have some understanding of *why* I feel this motivation. But I don't. The best thing I know to compare it to is getting into a friendly, slurry-voiced debate three pints in with a similarly-minded fellow geek. That's forum pontificating at its best, mind; it obviously gets more like eating gravel when I try to argue with someone who's not really a kindred spirit at all.

Also there's the real gems of the forum: the posts that contain new information or old information compiled in a useful way. Posts that contain valuable new ideas. Posts that shine the light on information that has not been widely disseminated. I find that these kinds of posts are (comparatively) rare; but personally I also find that they're the standard I aspire to whenever I start pontificating, and they're also the justification I appeal in my mind to whenever I start question the time I spend on message boards.

 

[dd.stevenson]

I've filled out most of the surveys and I'm not even sure how "edition warriorism" would manifest in them. I generally perceive edition warrior rhetoric as use of (i) willfully provocative, boilerplate language or (ii) snide, drive-by remarks that have little use or explanatory power (they merely serve to malign/troll), or (iii) dismissive language that revokes someone's credibility as an authentic D&D player because they prefer one system versus another.

Whereas I would define it as indulging the "fight the good fight" mentality with respect to D&D editions. The guy who night after night sits down in front of his computer to confront the forum trolls who don't give his favorite edition the respect it's due. The guy who uses a valuable convention time slot to join a game for an edition he doesn't like, merely to harangue the other players for a full hour about why this edition sucks.

etc., etc.

 

[Hussar]

But those bold words, they weren't said. That's your reading of it. For that to be correct, we have to interpret Mike's use of the word "you", which is what you are doing, and I don't know what that is based on other than extrapolation. I think its just as fair to assume that it is inclusive and an opinion he has interpreted from their research and playtesting.

Given the creative interpretations of what people said during the run up to the release of 4e, are you really surprised that people might start spinning things in the most negative way possible?