D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[mamba]

I don't accept logical inconsistencies are required because I do this without logical inconsistencies. The only people who keep saying they're required don't seem to have much experience using background features to begin with.

Can it be done without logical inconsistencies? sure. Can that be done in all cases? No. That is really the whole discussion... and you ignoring the inconsistencies / making up things that are factually wrong to explain how it can work is not the same as there not being any

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Oh, right, forgot to source it, sorry.

RPGamer > Feature > Jeremy Crawford Interview

Thanks for this link.

Two things I find very interesting:
1. He things the main achievment is getting rid off miniatures as a requirement for 5e. And he mentions that it is specificially 3.5 that started to use them. This is what makes 5e combat slim again.
I find it this interesting because that is why I always say the shift from 3 to 3.5 was not minor. But quite big. Having miniatures and a battlemap takes away a lot of narrative control from the DM. It makes combar a bigger part of the whole game...

2. Nowhere does he state that popularity is a design goal. He states that certain elements should be in the game for class fantasy (like controlling effects) and that the designed the game
around that (with the concentration mechanic).

Some things need to be in the game. Their goal was bringing classic D&D alive once more. And in my opinion they achieved that. Games started to be fun again. Classes feel right and reasonably balanced. Combats have the right amount of complexity. I guess many people think so and this is why the game became that popular. And narrative combats are also useful for streaming. There is nothing more boring than watching people contemplating how to move their miniatures for hours and hours.

 

[Hriston]

Thank god he had the coffinmaker guild background. Otherwise he would have been short of luck.

I was thinking something much more (or exactly) like Folk Hero.

The abilities are really not the problem. It is how they are written into the backgrounds.

If the adventure has a coffinmaker, I just want a line of text that reads: Because he knows how it is to be looked at by higher people, the coffinmaker is helpful towards adventurers with the following backgrounds: urchin, folk hero, criminal.

So now it is written in the right place. Right where the DM can see it whem they read the adventure.
Also in the DMG there can be general advice how to itilize each background when designing their adventure.

How does the player utilize their background if this advice is followed? Say the PC is a folk hero. How does the player know the coffinmaker will hide the PC from his enemies if he goes to him for help?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I was thinking something much more (or exactly) like Folk Hero.


How does the player utilize their background if this advice is followed? Say the PC is a folk hero. How does the player know the coffinmaker will hide the PC from his enemies if he goes to him for help?

That is the point, he does not. Why should he know the coffinmaker?

 

[mamba]

2. Nowhere does he state that popularity is a design goal.

you could argue the whole point of the playtest is to gauge popularity… it clearly is an important factor, whether he says so or not

 

[UngeheuerLich]

you could argue the whole point of the playtest is to gauge popularity… it clearly is an important factor, whether he says so or not

But it is not a design goal. It is a gauge if the design is accepted.

 

[mamba]

But it is not a design goal. It is a gauge if the design is accepted.

that makes it a direct goal however, an unpopular design would be thrown out, regardless of how good the designers may think it is in other ways than popularity

 

[UngeheuerLich]

that makes it a direct goal however, an unpopular design would be thrown out, regardless of how good the designers may think it is in other ways than popularity.

Nope. By this logic anything that does customer surveys would have popularity as a design goal.

 

[Lanefan]

Nope. By this logic anything that does customer surveys would have popularity as a design goal.

Only if those doing the survey allow the results to dictate what gets included and what does not.

Most of the time, customer surveys are done post-hoc in order to see how an already-released design is faring among those who have bought/used it and-or to determine if there is interest in it among those who don't yet have one.

Here, WotC's doing the surveys side-along with the design process and allowing the survey results to more or less dictate what gets designed and how that design is implemented. And thus, clearly, in this case popularity is their most top-of-mind concern.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Only if those doing the survey allow the results to dictate what gets included and what does not.

...

Most of the time, customer surveys are done post-hoc in order to see how an already-released design is faring among those who have bought/used it and-or to determine if there is interest in it among those who don't yet have one.

It is a public playtest. Like all playtests it decides what staya and what not. That does not mean popularity is a design goal. The goal is making a workable game that people want to play.

Here, WotC's doing the surveys side-along with the design process and allowing the survey results to more or less dictate what gets designed and how that design is implemented. And thus, clearly, in this case popularity is their most top-of-mind concern.

If you want to say that they wanted to make a game that is fun that people like. You are right.

But lets imagine their design meetings. And their flip charts:

"So we are brainstorming our new game. What should we put in. How should we implement it?"

"Ah. Lets make a popular game."

"Thanks guys. Great input. We are done."

So yes maybe their goal was to make a popular game that people like.
But you can't design a good game just by making it popular. They needed to find out, what makes the game D&D first. And what makes people actually lile it.

So they identified, that slim combat so the game can be played in 1h to 2h sessions that has classical D&D elements in it. And that was the design principle by which they tried to achieve positive reactions.