D&D 5E (2014) Design Philosophy of 5e

[Halivar]

Granularity. Le mot juste. On a scale of 1 to 10, how granular do people think the 5e rules are, and how granular would you prefer it to be ?

Can we move to a scale of 1 to 100?

 

[Boarstorm]

Granularity. Le mot juste. On a scale of 1 to 10, how granular do people think the 5e rules are, and how granular would you prefer it to be ?

Not to be pedantic, but define what you mean by granularity please.

It's my hope that they'll be quite open to house rules and tweaks to suit the needs of each individual table without (somehow) diminishing the shared experience of players as a whole.

 

[BoldItalic]

Can we move to a scale of 1 to 100?

Sure. 1-100 is more granular

 

[Rhenny]

I am very happy that 5e has embraced rules as guidelines that are somewhat open to interpretation in service of more creativity and inspirational play.

I agree that intent is much more important than the letter of the law, and D&D in all its forms (from my experience) is more fun when everyone at the table establishes what works for the table and keeps the story/world in the foreground, letting the rules and crunchy bits of detail fade into the background.

Of course this is a playstyle issue, but from my own experiences it is the only conclusion I can posit.

One thing I'm noticing is that for me, it is far easier to take loosely interpreted rules and clarify them at my table to reach consensus (or plain old House Rules) than to take a highly coded, detailed system and do the same. When I try to modify a highly coded and detailed system, it feels much more like I'm breaking the system. When I try to modify a lightly coded, more globally developed system (like 5e), it is much easier and it doesn't feel like I'm breaking anything. That flexibility is the top selling point for me.

 

[Agamon]

Like you said, I don't think that Mearls' response in the moment is necessarily indicative of this. And of course they should know why people like various options. And then make spell components core. Or else.

We are kinda hanging on an off-hand comment in a preview video. It's wasn't read from script. It's kinda sad what it's come to. But debate brings further debate and it's not surprising the whole thing is wont to spiral out of control. Human nature.

Oh man, I agree. If you've seen me put things that way, let me know, so I can edit those posts. Because playstyle choices I disagree with and find boring say nothing about the people who choose them. Other than I might find the way they play boring, I suppose.

Yeah, I know on forums like this one, I sure try to keep an open mind to others ideas. If you're having fun, game on!

But it's the exact opposite of how I'd react at the game table. It's cool if you like what you like, but if I don't like it, I'm not going to actually waste my time on it.

 

[jrowland]

as an aside (I don't think its a threadjack) I am hoping 5E allows for more "loose" human-centric rules and exacting rules at the same time. A tall order I know, and I doubt 100% fidelity to both is possible.

What I would like is the human-centric for most of a game/campaign/adventure etc and then when the BBEG is finally revealed, a more precise game experience for the Final Battle ala 4E-style fight. I think my players would prefer such a fight to be more hard-ruled and less DM fiat to determine the outcome. I think it would make victory that much sweeter (DM didn't fudge) and loss that much more painful (DM didn't fudge, we failed). But to do that for a whole campaign gets old. For 3E I felt DM = Computer and "I" was irrelevant. It killed my creativity. At the same time, I think my players appreciate DM fiat for the mooks and the myriad plot threads. They grew tired of the 4E fights with even simple mooks and it was Epic-Awesome overload. I think being able to "dial it up" and "dial it down" as needed would be ideal. Not sure I can pull that off with 5E yet, but it is my hope.

 

[BoldItalic]

Not to be pedantic, but define what you mean by granularity please.

Can we agree that granularity means "level of detail" ?

It's my hope that they'll be quite open to house rules and tweaks to suit the needs of each individual table without (somehow) diminishing the shared experience of players as a whole.

I believe they expect us to, and that the DMG is going to have suggestions (but not rules) for how to do it. No problem there, surely.

 

[Campbell]

What seems to be missing here is the fact that a highly codified game, one that is empirical with objective truths allows for Bad DMS. Bad DMs do not LEARN what works well for a great table experience for the people they have played around. They do not become good DMs as the rules do all the work for them. That is compensating for the flaws in the DM.

See what I did there?

It comes down to a difference of opinion, really. I want more good DMs. IMHO, I think the game needs more good DMs to grow and be successful. I don't see how overly codified rule sets create more good DMs. You could argue that to master the rule set as a DM you have to be Good, but that seems more a barrier to entry. I think the 5E is doing the right thing. Yes, there will be MORE bad DMs, but the rule set is flexible, forgiving, and those DMs will get better. They must, or they simply won't be DMs anymore when nobody shows up for their game. The difference in opinion is where you put the onus: On the DM (improve your game to maximize your table-fun) or the developers (improve the game to maximize every table-fun).

I think Monte Cooks comment goes to the the heart of it: Developers just aren't interested in creating the mythical one-game-to-rule-them-all where everyone is satisfied. Here's the bare bones, here are some options we think are popular, here are some guidelines to tweak the game to suit certain popular playstyles. Have Fun! That seems a great approach.

So count me on the side of the flexible, less rules is more side of the opinion. ie "human-centric"

IMO

As a community I really think we need to let go of this particular bugaboo. It's pretty much as useless as arguing that the companies need effective leadership like there's only one way to be an effective leader. Different people thrive in different situations. Some people need more structure than others. Some people are more effective in chaotic situations than others. I could be effective running a intrigue heavy 4e game for a small group of players that I know really well. That doesn't mean I will be effective with a different, larger group running a dungeon crawling game using Next. How effective you are as a GM is extremely specific to the context of the game. A good example of this in the business world are entrepreneurs that are extremely effective at managing a business during the volatile startup period, but can't handle the more formalized structure you need to have in place as an organization grows.

 

[I'm A Banana]

So it seems like one of the big points of contention here is the distinction between a playstyle preference and a "Good Group Fixes Everything" rules patch. I think the latter might be getting confused with the former.

Here's the way I see it:

Playstyle Preferences are ways of using or interpreting the rules for a different experience -- it takes the typical goals of a D&D game, and tweaks them a bit to be different goals, sometimes only slightly. For example:

• "Gods are distant and unknowable in my world, so no divine spellcasters in my campaign."
• "I want something a little more gritty, so everyone only has 1 HP."
• "I am a fan of big epic stories, so no one will face permanent death here, but you CAN turn out to have an unhappy ending to your story!"
• "All fighters in my game belong to the Brotherhood of the Blades and so you cannot take a level of fighter unless you become a member."
• "This is going to be a classic dungeon crawl game, riddled with traps and lethality, so bring backup characters and prepare to save-or-die!"
• "Guys, we're going to kill everything in the Deities and Demigods book. TRY AND HIT THOR'S AC!"

The Good Group Fix happens when a rule, as it is written, would create some problematic effect, so good groups and good DMs interpret the rules so that it DOESN'T create that effect. For example:

• "Fireball is a weaker spell than Magic Missile? Well, Magic Missile is a rare spell that few spellcasters know, so they aren't likely to find it."
• "Expertise feats are required to keep pace with the math? Y'know what, I'm just going to drop monster AC's by 1 point."
• "The Wizard makes the Fighter irrelevant? All right, I'm just not going to choose the spells that offend the most."
• "Man, that weapon vs. armor table looks complicated. Lets....not do that."
• "Those grapple rules are hard to understand so....lets just see if you roll more than 10."
• "Man, Bards suck. Well, lets just have a few more political intrigue missions that she'll be good at."
• "Looks like if you combine X, Y, and Z it could be a problem. So I'm going to rule that Y can't be combined with X because of (insert technicality). I bet that's the intent."

For me, an effect is pretty obviously under the latter camp if it's an unintended consequence of a rules interaction and it produces an effect that a lot of tables will find undesirable -- the effect isn't one you're trying to get, it's an unexpected one you don't want. Nobody's playstyle sets out with the agend of "lets be boring." That's not a goal of anyone's table.

So with Mike's reaction, it's not clear what "playstyle" he's talking about there. There's no real goal served in playing the rule in a boring way, so I don't know why someone would choose to do that.

Though it seems clear that someone just following the rules as they are written could stumble into this negative experience, if they don't manage to fix it somehow.

What seems to be missing here is the fact that a highly codified game, one that is empirical with objective truths allows for Bad DMS.

I think this sets up a bit of a false dichotomy between "A game that is highly codified" and "A game that prevents bad DMing."

DMing trumps rules. Bad DMing as much as good DMing. The rules can't stop bad DMing, but they can encourage good DMing, and rules that produce unintended, negative effects don't encourage good DMing, they just create bad play experiences in the absence of DMs who are specifically good on that metric just as it comes up in play.

Because a good DM knows how to leverage codified rules to support places that will add fun to their game, and how to use their authority to get rid of codified rules that don't. Good DMs are not monolithic, they're snowflakes, they all need different things to support them. A good DM knows what support they need, and what support they don't.

 

[Blackbrrd]

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.

I find that 4e's total separation of fluff and mechanics in power descriptions makes me pretty much ignore the fluff. It has no use, so why should I read it? This already started in 3e when they had clear concise rules for how a "line" type of spell worked.

2e on the other hand had some pretty... interesting spell descriptions. Lightning bolt bouncing off walls like a billiard ball. Fireball trying to fill a certain volume. This simulationist approach really made me get "into" the game. I had to picture how the spells actually looked, instead of just counting squares on a battle map.

I think role playing games should avoid trying to be board games which need very specific rules to handle border cases. A TTRPG has to handle so many more situations that to have rules that covers every border case would just ruin it in my opinion. I am fine with rules being open to interpretation and not formulated as a legal text.