D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[Oofta]

You can check polish and care for quality. There are some significant examples where in the 2014 PHB there was a lack of care and attention paid to actually doing what they were trying to with the class.

• The 2014 Beastmaster Ranger is, oddly enough, not an example of this; instead it's an example of missing the class fantasy and arguably psychotic design. The 2014 beastmaster is balanced ... if you consider your pets to be disposable and throw them into combat without trying to keep them alive.
• The 2014 Warlock is my favourite class in the game. But what is actually put in the PHB was clearly just thrown together with no love and no polish; a full quarter of the invocations just add a spell known to the warlock list (and there are other bad ones), many of the others are bad (there are a few lovely ones in there), and iconic warlock exclusive spells like Hunger of Hadar don't scale with spell slots. And then there's the Pact of the Blade. The 2014 Warlock clearly isn't the class it could be.
• The 2014 sorcerer is a wannabe wizard who knows too few spells - and other than twin spell the metamagic isn't all that and the numbers are very small
• The 2014 monk ... what do I need to say?
• The 2014 barbarian basically stops at level 6 and the 2014 fighter at level 11

In 2024 every single one of these has been patched if not outright fixed (a few were by Xanathar's and many by Tasha's).

But the thing is that the macro level design goals of the 2014 rules, removing the pain points, were pretty good. It set out for and succeeded at mass market appeal and getting in the way the least of any edition. Although the implementation is frequently lacking the structural basics of removing all the pain points and having a very good Tier 1 experience and pretty good Tier 2 worked well.

There is always room for improvement and we should never let perfection get in the way of good enough. Which is all I've been trying to say. I'm not saying that 5E is the tightest, best written TTRPG ever written because that's an impossible standard with no way of being measured. Some people might look at a one page TTRPG like Honey Heist and say that it meets those measurements better because it has no fundamental flaws. It's obviously not very in depth either of course.

I just reject that it's been successful in spite of the rules or that the game is successful for reasons other than that for a lot of people it just works for what they want out of the game.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Then how do you do it? There are only a few measures of quality. You can look at the editing, which overall is excellent. The layout and presentation which was always good but is improved in the 2024 edition. The physical product, which WotC has little control over, has had issues but when I received faulty books all I had to do was send them back to be replaced. They were replaced quickly and they also sent me an additional product as compensation. So by those measures, I'd say it's a quality product.

Note I've limited my comments to design. I'll be the last person to suggest layout, presentation and the like don't matter for usage, but they're not elements of design per se; you can have the same rules and structure laid out well or poorly (and I can think of games where the biggest benefit of some additional editions was that they did a better job with those, even when the design changed minimally). But that's not the actual game, its its presentation. If you want to make an argument that matters and should be part of the overall discussion, I think its at least a valid argument to pursue, but if the most important thing to talk about a game is its presentational strength, that would be damning with faint praise.

Beyond that? How well does the design hit it's goals? While it's in a nice market, it is a game designed for broad based appeal and a game that most people want to continue to play year after year. That's where ignoring popularity is just smacking yourself in the face to ignore the obvious. It's not just that initial sales were good, every version of D&D has had that. It's the number of people that keep playing the game and the number of new people that also choose to play. We measure that how? By popularity and sales, the fact that the game has seen year after year of double digit growth and dominates the industry. There is no other way.

I've noted a way to do that. Find a comparable game, design-wise, but does not have D&D's exposure, networking advantage and first-entry benefit, and see how it does compared to other games that are operating at a similar level of exposure and networking. At that point you at least are dealing with relatively pure revealed-preference issues.

Or forget about all that, and just talk about what features of the game seem to support its theoretical design aim and don't. You can at least at that point have a discussion of the actual design without muddying it with all kinds of things that have nothing to do with that. That doesn't mean you'll get all or most people to agree on all those, but its at least not begging the question.

You like to say that McDonalds isn't any good.

No.

I'm going to make this clear, because people are reading into this statement something I try to firmly state differently repeatedly.

Like D&D, I consider McDonalds very much in the "good enough" land. To the degree I eat fast food I like a couple things from it fairly well. If it wasn't "any good" it would have failed out a long time ago.

People are seriously prone to trying to exclude the middle here, and it does the discussion no favors. My argument is, and has been every time this comes up, that a product that is "good enough" and has enough other benefits in marketing, first-in advantage and other factors, it can very well be at the front of a market over other better products that don't have those advantages. Quality is a factor in success, but its not the only factor, and its not always the primary factor. The best you can say is (at least outside a monopolistic situation) a product has to be sufficiently good to not be dysfunctional.

 

[Thomas Shey]

One way to do it is to buy out the competition and then stop selling their products Very anti-competitive but also very historical. D&D hasn't been in the habit of doing that though.

For a while. Take a look at the history of SPI and specifically DragonQuest some time. Its probably fair to say WOTC has not tended to do that, but I'm not sure it'd be accurate about TSR.

 

[ezo]

It was initially successful and then demand dropped off rapidly. Why do you think they came out with 3.5 and 4E? For that matter why do you think they replaced 4E quickly but have only done a minor update a decade after 5E came out?

It was successful for about 4 years before 3.5 came along, which came along to improve on it--hardly a new edition since it was 3.5, it basically just added more to an already popular system. Most groups IME adopted 3E, enjoying the design of the d20 system and use of feats etc, and didn't go back. New groups also game up because again this was the era when the Internet and its related impacts really took force. Giving it a lifespan of 8 years before 4E was released. This is more than simply getting love from its initial launch.

4E didn't do well as far as I can tell, and I've stated as much--or did you not read that, too? Even so, it had a six-year life span before 5E was released.

As for 5E it could be that the 50th was a great time to plan the minor update?? And for the last ten years 5E has continued to enjoy success not only from its design (heavily based on 3E...), but for all the other reasons I've mentioned.

But ... this is what I'm talking about. You posit something that simply is not true as support for your claims and then state that I'm not reading what you say.

I posit things which are certainly true. 3rd edition had a good run and WotC moved on making changes as it always does. It seems in 4E the changes were too drastic and so they (quickly?) did a turn about and came out with 5E. Nothing untrue about all that. Regardless of how successful either of those was, their benefit from the other factors still don't come close to how much 5e has been and continues to benefit from them.

5E enjoys its success not only due to design (based on work from prior editions), but again (for the umteenth time) to the continued increasing acceptance of RPGs, influencers like CR and YouTubers, being the "king of the hill" in RPGs, etc.

If you go into a hobby shop or bookstore as a new customer interested in gaming, the people there will very likely direct you to D&D. Why? Because it is the number one option and also because you probably went in there because you heard of D&D, saw the movie, etc. Once you start playing it and have a group, you continue to support it if you like it certainly, but if you are even "just ok" with it, you stick with it because unless you really hate it, you are not likely to put in the leg work to find other RPGs and try them out IME.

(Hopefully) we all agree and know there are other great TTPRGs out there, sure, but for a lot of people playing they don't know that. So, they play D&D and continue to buy D&D because it is likely all they know and have experience with. I've had one player drop D&D and start running Vampire (I've even sat in on his games a few times). He prefers it to D&D, not only for the genre but for the mechanics. However, if I had never shown him Vampire, guess what? He'd still be playing D&D because he enjoys gaming and that is all he'd likely have access to.

Like many veteran players, 5E is my second favourite edition. It is good enough for me to enjoy, since it is what's popular and a known entity, with products that are readily available for the people I play with. Sure, like others (including yourself IIRC) there are things I don't like about it (nothing's perfect, right?), but it works. However, I don't support it currently and doubt I will. Nothing new in years has come out for 5E that makes me want to support it through further investment in something I deem just good enough.

I realize (completely) that (especially here!) is not close to the norm view on it, and I have never claimed my view is the norm here. However, I think it is perfecly acceptable to posit that the popularity and success of 5E has more to due with the enomity of all the other factors involved than simply its design. You've disgreed from the beginning, and I've only shown why I don't feel that is the case.

So ... yeah. Have fun!

Ditto.

 

[Oofta]

Note I've limited my comments to design. I'll be the last person to suggest layout, presentation and the like don't matter for usage, but they're not elements of design per se; you can have the same rules and structure laid out well or poorly (and I can think of games where the biggest benefit of some additional editions was that they did a better job with those, even when the design changed minimally). But that's not the actual game, its its presentation. If you want to make an argument that matters and should be part of the overall discussion, I think its at least a valid argument to pursue, but if the most important thing to talk about a game is its presentational strength, that would be damning with faint praise.



I've noted a way to do that. Find a comparable game, design-wise, but does not have D&D's exposure, networking advantage and first-entry benefit, and see how it does compared to other games that are operating at a similar level of exposure and networking. At that point you at least are dealing with relatively pure revealed-preference issues.

Or forget about all that, and just talk about what features of the game seem to support its theoretical design aim and don't. You can at least at that point have a discussion of the actual design without muddying it with all kinds of things that have nothing to do with that. That doesn't mean you'll get all or most people to agree on all those, but its at least not begging the question.

Quality is not a zero sum game. Not sure how often that needs to get repeated. I mean, I've tried or looked into several other games and they've never done anything for me but it's impossible for anyone to know every single game. That, and just because some PbtA game doesn't appeal to me, doesn't mean it's not a great game for someone else since most of what I care about is completely subjective.

On the other hand, D&D has a much larger development budget and history of trial and error than most games. They stand on the backs of giants, or at least really big ogres. But because of that, they have a starting point that's been tested over editions. Sometimes that leads to conclusions I don't care for, but they have the basic concepts down.

No.

I'm going to make this clear, because people are reading into this statement something I try to firmly state differently repeatedly.

Like D&D, I consider McDonalds very much in the "good enough" land. To the degree I eat fast food I like a couple things from it fairly well. If it wasn't "any good" it would have failed out a long time ago.

People are seriously prone to trying to exclude the middle here, and it does the discussion no favors. My argument is, and has been every time this comes up, that a product that is "good enough" and has enough other benefits in marketing, first-in advantage and other factors, it can very well be at the front of a market over other better products that don't have those advantages. Quality is a factor in success, but its not the only factor, and its not always the primary factor. The best you can say is (at least outside a monopolistic situation) a product has to be sufficiently good to not be dysfunctional.

I simply disagree what the primary factor is for 5E because of the growth year after year. Previous editions had the same benefits and we simply didn't see the success 5E has had. Other than the rules and design of the game (which is obviously shooting for broad based appeal) there is nothing else that has set D&D apart from other TTRPGs over the past decade.

But this is all just, like, opinion man.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Quality is not a zero sum game. Not sure how often that needs to get repeated. I mean, I've tried or looked into several other games and they've never done anything for me but it's impossible for anyone to know every single game. That, and just because some PbtA game doesn't appeal to me, doesn't mean it's not a great game for someone else since most of what I care about is completely subjective.

I am not at all sold that even subjective tastes do not set a baseline to be able to talk about design, however. Obviously people who want different things are not going to prioritize the same things, but at least those who theoretically want the same things can talk about how well something meets those goals.

On the other hand, D&D has a much larger development budget and history of trial and error than most games. They stand on the backs of giants, or at least really big ogres. But because of that, they have a starting point that's been tested over editions. Sometimes that leads to conclusions I don't care for, but they have the basic concepts down.

On the other hand, they also are constrained by that very consistency factor I mentioned to Ezekiel. The last thing D&D is ever prone to doing is try to do something radically different, and the 4e experience probably taught them to avoid that even more; with an established brand, staying with a questionable decision everyone is used to is often a more attractive decision than trying to fix it and find out it doesn't go over well.

Long experience in a market is always a two-edged sword.

I simply disagree what the primary factor is for 5E because of the growth year after year. Previous editions had the same benefits and we simply didn't see the success 5E has had. Other than the rules and design of the game (which is obviously shooting for broad based appeal) there is nothing else that has set D&D apart from other TTRPGs over the past decade.

I'll just note other people have mentioned there are factors that are stronger from the mid-2010s on than previously. You may disagree with that assessment or the weight put on it, but its not like it hasn't been brought up.

 

[MGibster]

The fact that the least popular forms of it internally (that is to say within fans of the system) still outstripped virtually all other game systems tells you you can't blow off that brand awareness and networking advantage, however. Though no one is clear to what degree, the fact there have only been two time periods when anything got close tells you how much of an advantage that is (and one of those two was notably an offshoot of D&D that existed to some degree in the same internal ecosystem).

I'm not going to blow it off entirely as I will admit to being more inclined to buy a new product from a company with a history of producing things I like. If WotC released a book with the D&D name on it, even a bad book, it will probably sell much better than books from many other producers. But if WotC kept releasing bad books, eventually people would stop buying them.

And I have to admit, for being my favorite edition of D&D, I haven't bought a lot of books for it. When I had an opportunity to purchase Spelljammer for 50% off at Barnes & Noble I skipped it because I thought it was a bad product. But I might just want something different from what most of WotC's customers want.

 

[Maxperson]

Which was the same pattern we saw with 3.x and 2E before that. Those versions had all the same advertising or more, the same recognition, the same built in advantages. Yet with all those version? Early spike in sales that dropped off quickly. With 5E? Double digit growth that far, far exceeded expectations from the day of release and then continued double digit growth for years afterwards.

I think a huge part of 5e's success is that it was given huge boosts by other media. The popularity of Critical Role on internet streaming, D&D being placed in popular main stream shows like The Big Bang Theory and Stranger Things, and more all contributed to shifting D&D out of a small niche group and into the mainstream.

When you add many millions of new potential players by going from niche to mainstream, you add the ability to grow your sales for a long while. The small niche group would quickly buy the books it wanted and then you didn't need a second or third PHB or DMG unless you destroyed yours somehow.

It's entirely possible that 3e would have done as well or better if it had been the edition released as D&D went mainstream. Or maybe it wouldn't have. There's no real way to know. That 5e is a well made game doesn't mean that the quality is the primary reason for 5e's success. For sure it's a big reason, but we don't really know where it ranks with the other large variables involved.

 

[Oofta]

I am not at all sold that even subjective tastes do not set a baseline to be able to talk about design, however. Obviously people who want different things are not going to prioritize the same things, but at least those who theoretically want the same things can talk about how well something meets those goals.

If meeting design goals means selling well, I think the best selling TTRPG of all time means they met their goal.

On the other hand, they also are constrained by that very consistency factor I mentioned to Ezekiel. The last thing D&D is ever prone to doing is try to do something radically different, and the 4e experience probably taught them to avoid that even more; with an established brand, staying with a questionable decision everyone is used to is often a more attractive decision than trying to fix it and find out it doesn't go over well.

Long experience in a market is always a two-edged sword.

And? Why make radical changes if it's not broken?

I'll just note other people have mentioned there are factors that are stronger from the mid-2010s on than previously. You may disagree with that assessment or the weight put on it, but its not like it hasn't been brought up.

A rising tide lifts all boats. There's never been a better time to create a new game with things like funding from Kickstarter and ease of sales with the internet as well as how easy it is to find other people who want to play the same game with several VTT options out there. We have yet to see a significant competitor from a sales standpoint.

 

[Maxperson]

Depends what you call "social media".

Reddit started in 2005
Facebook and Twitter can be called open for business in 2006.
4e came out in 2008.

So, sure, new-ish. Twitter had only about 6 million users in 2008. While Facebook had 100 million...

However, Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News opened in 1999, to eventually become EN World. RPGNet was out there back in 1996!

It would be reasonable to say that social media wasn't the massive marketing platform it is today, sure. But fans were talking about games online for a decade before 4e.

I ran a play by post D&D game on a BBS in 1987 or 88.