D&D 5E Design Philosophy of 5e

[BoldItalic]

There are already games with mechanics that are closely defined in the way that CPRGs are defined - and need to be defined to function - but they have the drawback that the closer they are defined, the less scope there is for imaginative play. Ultimately, you can't do anything in the game that the designer hasn't anticipated. CPRGs are fun, but sooner or later they get boring.

It seems to me, that 5e has consciously chosen to face in the other direction - to provide just enough structure to form a platform for play, but then to let the mechanics fade into the background and let imaginative play take over. That's what PnP games are good at, and that's where they are pitching their stall. They have designed the opposite of a CPRG.

Inevitably, giving players the freedom to play imaginatively entails giving them the freedom to fail to play that way. Were it otherwise, the freedom would be an illusion. Most people can be whacky and creative sometimes but not necessarily all of the time. Sometimes, people just do boring things because they've run out of ideas. We don't want the game to grind to a halt if that happens. So the game, as a platform, has to accomodate the boring moments as well as the creative ones. The game has to suggest but not to command.

From what I've seen, on the basis of the playtest and the previews so far, I believe they have got it right. We'll know more in a week or two, when we actually start playing 5e

 

[Tormyr]

Some experience for Thaumaturge for starting a good thread! Wait. What? Ooops.

I came in at a time unique to most of you probably. I am 35 and I just started playing halfway through Murder in Baldur's Gate when the September playtest packet came out. Honestly, I should have started years ago as I have had a blast and totally "get it." I started DMing at the start of the year, and after picking up the second half of Legacy of the Crystal Shard, my group is playing Age of Worms converted to Next/5e.

Since I don't have the baggage of previous editions or much table top RPG in general, I have looked at the rules in and of themselves. And I like them. Our stories at the table have been lots of fun with cool action and zany moments. So by that metric, the design has worked in my opinion.

As these differences of opinion have cropped up on various "broken" rules, I have turned to interpretations based on how that rule works in story. With regards to SWW (sorry!), my thought was originally, "I wish they kept it as temp HP." However, as I thought about it more, I thought, "This is like in an action movie where the good guy gets knocked down, is a little woozy but picks himself back up and shakes it off." Looking at it from that perspective, I think they improved it over the playtest, because it fits even better with how the action would work in a story.

As for your experience points Thaumaturge, we all must aspire to exceed our original hopes and dreams and press on. You will be level 10 soon...

 

[Olfan]

I really like the designer's philosophy, and you can see it in the prose of the game. The Command spell pretty much says "here are the rules, you can use the spell this way for sure" like later editions. But also in the same spell is goes "oh yeah so if your DM is cool with it, he may allow any word at all" like earlier editions. It places the final ruling in the DM's lap, so rules lawyers can use the rules as they want, and then when they want to try something outside the book, the book points at the DM and says "ask that guy".

I've noticed my players changed from "whatever man" players in old editions to "these are the exact rules and we must follow them exactly" when we made the switch to 3rd and Pathfinder. I believe this has to do with the prose in the book. Old editions were written in a "DM is the boss, do this if you like" prose while new editions clamped down the exact rules and strangled the authority of the DM.

I appreciate the return to form.

Also, I totally laughed at Mearls' "boring" dig.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, I wasn't fond of that bit of slightly passive-aggressive BadWrongFun-ing.

"Oh, no, if you want to be BORED, go right ahead and play however you want, by all means, we aren't gonna STOP you from having a lousy game night if you MUST."

Not that I really blame Mearls, it was just a bit of off-the-cuffery in the moment. I'm reasonably confident that's not the tone he was intending, and I don't want to read too much into this offhand little statement. He clearly didn't have time to quite examine what was going on with the "error" that folks maybe pointed out, and that's fine. But it's not a shining moment, because it basically implies that there's ways to play that the design team basically regards as low-quality, dull experiences. And if your goal is to make a big tent and cast a wide net, that's not an implication you wanna give out a lot of.

Bear in mind that Mearls wasn't referring to something like sandbox vs. ap or casting aspersions on dungeon hacks; he was referring to the phenomenon MMO players call "camping": resting to full between encounters with no penalty. That is boring play. (I've grinded out levels and gear drops in MMOs, I know). Yet, if the players want to grind out a dungeon one room and rest, he said they are welcome to.

 

[Halivar]

Bear in mind that Mearls wasn't referring to something like sandbox vs. ap or casting aspersions on dungeon hacks; he was referring to the phenomenon MMO players call "camping": resting to full between encounters with no penalty. That is boring play. (I've grinded out levels and gear drops in MMOs, I know). Yet, if the players want to grind out a dungeon one room and rest, he said they are welcome to.

Yeah, frankly, I do not understand the offense taken to this in the slightest. I do not honestly believe for a second that this style of dungeon grinding, with rests in between every fight, is anyone's idea of fun. I just don't. It's not badwrongfun; someone would have to actively ENJOY it to be badwrongfun. It really is just boring. People just like being offended, especially at the slightest provocation of a game dev. MMO or RPG, all gaming forums trend alike in this respect.

 

[Quickleaf]

When it comes to the letter vs. spirit of the rules, often times I've seen where one stands all come down to their personal experience with Dungeon Masters. Those who've had good DMs are more open to the spirit of the rules, while those who've had bad DMs cling more to the letter of the rules.

What this means for 5e is there needs to be emphasis on cultivating good DMs thru really good advice, examples of play, well-designed adventures, and outreach via organized play. Heck, maybe even start a Dungeon Master School, like Legoland has a "Lego Tech" education program (forget the exact name). IOW don't just put out the books and hope that looser language will generate good DMs. Of course it would be taught by Chris Perkins.

 

[I'm A Banana]

Bear in mind that Mearls wasn't referring to something like sandbox vs. ap or casting aspersions on dungeon hacks; he was referring to the phenomenon MMO players call "camping": resting to full between encounters with no penalty. That is boring play. (I've grinded out levels and gear drops in MMOs, I know). Yet, if the players want to grind out a dungeon one room and rest, he said they are welcome to.

It's boring in an MMO, sure, because it takes time to rest in an MMO.

In D&D, the time it takes to say "We take a short rest." isn't a whole lot different than the time it takes to say "We take three short rests." Resting between dungeon rooms doesn't take up much table time. So in this specific example, I'm not sure I follow that there's some objective measure of quality that Mike was going with.

Given their access to the playtest feedback, I would not be surprised if they have developed some opinions on what the audience generally finds fun, and what it finds boring.

And given the old "If 10% of our audience likes gnomes then it's probably a mistake to pull them out!", I would be surprised if they derived a lot of strong recommendations for all game play from those generalities. And doubly surprised if one such strong recommendation that they did derive was "no one actually engages this exploit because it's boring to do so."

It seems like a lot of posts on ENWorld come from a theorycrafting mindset and not a real world mindset.

One guy's theorycraft is another guy's play experience. Which is to say, just because no one you know ever experience Problem X doesn't mean that someone somewhere isn't absolutely experiencing it all the time. Play experience is subjective -- the more flexible the game, the more that is true. WotC can afford to be a bit more broad in thier statements (though even that is something of a house of sand), but I'm pretty sure no one poster at ENWorld or anywhere else has enough market research data to accurately determine if any individual statement is said in a vacuum or is actually experienced by someone somewhere.

So saying "that's just theorycraft!" functions more as a way to shut down objections in most ENWorld threads. It's an authority gambit: "You don't actually have the authority to say that this is a problem because you haven't shown that it has been a problem in actual play yourself yet!" isn't a very useful response to a criticism of a bad rule.

There's also the fact that it doesn't change the actual rule. If a bad rule is just universally ignored because it's a bad rule, that doesn't mean that it gets a free pass on being there and that folks who object to it being there are overreacting. If no one plays with Weapon vs. Armor Type tables or gender ability score adjustments, this doesn't mean that they're just fine rules and anyone objecting to them is engaged in pure theorycraft. They're not good rules, and it's OK to say that, even if no one ever uses them!

 

[ThirdWizard]

So saying "that's just theorycraft!" functions more as a way to shut down objections in most ENWorld threads.

There's also the fact that it doesn't change the actual rule. If a bad rule is just universally ignored because it's a bad rule, that doesn't mean that it gets a free pass on being there and that folks who object to it being there are overreacting. If no one plays with Weapon vs. Armor Type tables or gender ability score adjustments, this doesn't mean that they're just fine rules and anyone objecting to them is engaged in pure theorycraft. They're not good rules, and it's OK to say that, even if no one ever uses them!

But, when the spirit of the rule is obvious, and the rule is open to interpretation, why must a detailed reading be necessary, or even desired by some? Especially if one way to read it is disliked by someone, what point does it make to argue semantics when it is easier to just take the reading that is the most enjoyable while being a simple way to read the rule? There's way too much analysis and hand-wringing going on that is totally theorycraft at that point, and it becomes a faux-problem similar to the bag of rats.

EDIT: This goes back to the quote given to me in the OP. Someone will know what they want out of the game. That person knows that the rules can be interpreted that way, the way that leads to the most enjoyment for themselves. However, they will inexplicably use an alternate reading of the rules... why? What's the point? Why not say "I like that interpretation. It's in the spirit of the rules. I'll just go with that." In the case of World of Warcraft, it's for power or money or some other benefit. In D&D, there is benefit, but it often comes at the cost of fun. I guess, is that the reason then? It makes for less likelihood of death, so it seems like a forced interpretation? I cannot think of any other reason.

 

[Halivar]

There's also the fact that it doesn't change the actual rule. If a bad rule is just universally ignored because it's a bad rule, that doesn't mean that it gets a free pass on being there and that folks who object to it being there are overreacting. If no one plays with Weapon vs. Armor Type tables or gender ability score adjustments, this doesn't mean that they're just fine rules and anyone objecting to them is engaged in pure theorycraft. They're not good rules, and it's OK to say that, even if no one ever uses them!

In these examples, though, the bad rules are bad even when used as intended. Unlimited short rests are bad if they are used outside of their proper place and the DM doesn't have a good handle on pacing. BUT... they aren't going to implement a rule stopping that because some people will do just that, even if it is a dull narrative, just for the sake of maximizing power every fight. This is the inclusive approach.

 

[Shaangor]

I really like the designer's philosophy, and you can see it in the prose of the game. The Command spell pretty much says "here are the rules, you can use the spell this way for sure" like later editions. But also in the same spell is goes "oh yeah so if your DM is cool with it, he may allow any word at all" like earlier editions. It places the final ruling in the DM's lap, so rules lawyers can use the rules as they want, and then when they want to try something outside the book, the book points at the DM and says "ask that guy".

This is definitely a play style preference. I do not like the block of text style for spell and ability descriptions for the single reason that they combine description (fluff) with rules (crunch). My issue is that reading the spell block it's not always clear if a sentence is a rule or just a description or fluff suggestion. Because spells inherently break rules or introduce new ones, I want to know exactly what the rules are the for the spell and it what it entails mechanically. When I played 3e, the open-ended spells like command were seldom chosen by my players, not out of fear that I wouldn't "let" the spell work the way they wanted, but because the players simply didn't have a concrete idea of what the spell would do.

In my 4e games, that doesn't happen, because the power block explicitly separates the fluff from the crunch. Which for my players is great, because they know what they are getting and can flavor it however they want. You want your magic missiles to be tiny energy fists that punch your enemies? Sure, but they still do 2 force damage. Although the 5e command spell gives examples, I still doubt any of my players will prepare it when we start playing 5e because it's not clear what the potential of the spell is. For some groups that play a more abstract, open-ended game that's great. But for my group and I, we much prefer the rules to be clear and explicit, and we can fill in the fluff details around that.