D&D 5E (2014) Dungeoncraft Interview with Mike Mearls

[Malmuria]

The Dungeoncraft channel just posted an interesting interview ith @mearls. (Ignore the clickbait title; the actual interview is good)

 

[Cordwainer Fish]

Any highlights? I don't watch videos.

 

[Jaeger]

Any highlights? I don't watch videos.

At 6:59

Prof DM: "Is it true that the mandate for 4th edition was; make this like World of Warcraft."

Mearls: "Yes."

 

[Shadowdweller00]

At 6:59

Prof DM: "Is it true that the mandate for 4th edition was; make this like World of Warcraft."

Mearls: "Yes."

Yeah, that explains SO much...

 

[tetrasodium]

I feel like this is maybe the third recent interview I've seen with Meals & all of them have really great interviews.

Vaguely knew he was working on a new system, it's interesting to hear him lay out it's goals & makes me look forward to seeing it further along

 

[Minigiant]

No one ever says the complete chain.

4e was made like World of Warcraft
But
World of Warcraft was made to be like AD&D.

Late 90 Early 00 MMOs were all trying to replicate D&D in 3D space.

 

[GMMichael]

No one ever says the complete chain.

4e was made like World of Warcraft
But
World of Warcraft was made to be like AD&D.

Truth. I don't know how many times I cried out, while playing A2e, "kite him! My heals are on cooldown. Did anyone aggro the demon? I need to farm his drops for my daily."

 

[Malmuria]

Any highlights? I don't watch videos.

1:00 - Mearls talks about the problem with bonus actions slowing down combat
2:56 - On how games could have multiple action economies for different character types, influenced by magic the gathering
5:20 - on the lack of tension in 5e fights, and how they are boring. “Spreadsheet design gone wrong.” He describes how he fixes this problem and makes fights more tense
6:57 - World of Warcraft and 4e. The diminishing sales of 3.x and looking to WoW to see what they could learn, and marketing to new audience
9:09 - on games on average ending at 7th-ish level. How most people don’t play very long campaigns, they play until 7th level and start a new campaign. On how high level dnd is not as much fun.
11:15 - Professor DM (the host) talks about how designers don’t often follow the official rules
12:23 - Mearls responds to how TTRPGs speak to a desire for customization
13:33 - Mearls talks about his Patreon and his new game design

I think a theme is that he feels 5e combat takes too long and has stakes that are too low (because it is assumed that the PCs survive).

 

[mamba]

No one ever says the complete chain.

4e was made like World of Warcraft
But
World of Warcraft was made to be like AD&D.

and you forget the ‘and neither accomplished it’ part. This is not a circle, it is a crooked line

 

[Minigiant]

Truth. I don't know how many times I cried out, while playing A2e, "kite him! My heals are on cooldown. Did anyone aggro the demon? I need to farm his drops for my daily."

Aggro is just an artificial method of replicating the fighting men and mercenaries holding the hallway why the wizards, thieves, and archers shoot from behind them.

The issue is you can't just program the orc just not attack the wizards in the video game world.