D&D General GenCon TV: Celebrating D&D

[Oofta]

One piece I found interesting that Rodney Thompson still thinks that making bonus = stat - 10 would have been better for game design (I agree), but in 2014 it was better for a game that wants to be D&D to keep the 3e scores.

After 4e they were very cautious about chnaging too much, even if it would make for a better game overall.

Maybe stat -10 is better in some ways, but it makes bounded accuracy even less attainable and even more of an issue than we have now. If you didn't care about bounded accuracy it works better but that has a lot of ripple effects.

 

[overgeeked]

Mearls talked about 5e PHB sales a bit, which I found interesting. No numbers, but he said the game did well out of the gate in 2014. In 2015, there was a 10% drop off, which they were pleasantly surprised by, since the expected drop off was 50%. Then 2016 sold more than 2014, 2017 sold more than 2016, and 2018 sold more than 2017. This was unheard of; you had to go back to 1e, and its delayed explosion after the Egbert case brought them undreamed of publicity.

Then the pandemic in 2020 caused an industry-wide boom, as everyone’s sales skyrocketed.

On the design front, I was both happy and disappointed. Disappointed because I heavily followed development of 5e in 2012-2014, and there wasn’t anything particularly new said. But at the same time happy because there weren’t any scandalous revelations. Even though Mearls and Rodney Thompson are no longer part of WotC and don’t have to toe a company line, they gave the same goals and design philosophy as they did back during the playtest: not a direct reaction against 4e, but just striving to make complexity something you can opt-in or opt-out of, and let the playtest guide them for class design.

I was really glad they got Rodney Thompson for this, because he’s great at articulating design goals and decisions.

That’s good to know. Lends a lot of weight to the idea that the pop culture fad moment 5E is having was driven by Stranger Things and Critical Role.

 

[Oofta]

That’s good to know. Lends a lot of weight to the idea that the pop culture fad moment 5E is having was driven by Stranger Things and Critical Role.

More likely it was just because it was picked up by a lot of existing players and then started to catch on and grow as those people with previous experience started new groups and invited folks that had never played D&D before to join. Then those new people invited other new players and it exploded from there.

There's still no evidence, no correlation, between CR and Stranger things and sales.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Maybe stat -10 is better in some ways, but it makes bounded accuracy even less attainable and even more of an issue than we have now. If you didn't care about bounded accuracy it works better but that has a lot of ripple effects.

I disagree with your assessment. You can just limit stats to 15 for players. The problem that arises is just that d&d stats should range from 3 (8) to 18 (20), not from 6 (9) to 14 (15).
So the only actual change is that you have easier math, because you just leave out the odd stats. You can directly translate stats to DC. At the cost of making it less "D&D".

On a different note: bounded accurracy is mostly working as intended. We just need a rule that you can't add more than one extra die on top of a role. And we need to eliminate items and spells that add static bonuses (and replace them with either: advantage, a die or a fixed number).

 

[Oofta]

I disagree with your assessment. You can just limit stats to 15 for players. The problem that arises is just that d&d stats should range from 3 (8) to 18 (20), not from 6 (9) to 14 (15).
So the only actual change is that you have easier math, because you just leave out the odd stats. You can directly translate stats to DC. At the cost of making it less "D&D".

Sure you could do a lot of things, but limiting stats to 15 has other ripple effects. It can be done, I'm just not sure it buys that much. It's not like people think about it much other than the first time they're calculating how to write it down on their character sheet.

There's a ton of things you could change, the question is whether or not it really significantly improves the game. I don't think stat - 10 does much.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

More likely it was just because it was picked up by a lot of existing players and then started to catch on and grow as those people with previous experience started new groups and invited folks that had never played D&D before to join. Then those new people invited other new players and it exploded from there.

There's still no evidence, no correlation, between CR and Stranger things and sales.

Still funny how some people go out of their way to explain how 5e (a bad game in their opinion) is only popular because of other things.
Mike Mearls explained how accessability was one of their design goals which they totally nailed down.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Sure you could do a lot of things, but limiting stats to 15 has other ripple effects. It can be done, I'm just not sure it buys that much. It's not like people think about it much other than the first time they're calculating how to write it down on their character sheet.

You just remove every odd number and compress the bonuses. It is still the same range.

There's a ton of things you could change, the question is whether or not it really significantly improves the game. I don't think stat - 10 does much.

No. But it makes the formular even easier. And you can just use stat = DC.
Which was talked about before and Rodney said it was a change they decided not to do, because D&D people are attached by roll 3d6.

Pathfinder 2 just removed stats completely and just uses the bonus.

Of course it is not a lot easier. But odd numbers do nothing. In fact, they do annoy me. And they are trap options for new players. So removing them just makes it more accessible without really changing much.

 

[Oofta]

You just remove every odd number and compress the bonuses. It is still the same range.

No. But it makes the formular even easier. And you can just use stat = DC.
Which was talked about before and Rodney said it was a change they decided not to do, because D&D people are attached by roll 3d6.

Pathfinder 2 just removed stats completely and just uses the bonus.

Of course it is not a lot easier. But odd numbers do nothing. In fact, they do annoy me. And they are trap options for new players. So removing them just makes it more accessible without really changing much.

Yeah, if I were going to change it I would follow PF's direction. There's not really a reason to have an ability score any more.

 

[Nikosandros]

Yeah, if I were going to change it I would follow PF's direction. There's not really a reason to have an ability score any more.

Will you slaughter the cow? Don't you think of the calves?

 

[Oofta]

Will you slaughter the cow? Don't you think of the calves?

That is a truly mooving question, and that's no bull. But it's best not to get going on udderly ridiculous puns, even if I do like the milk them for all their worth. But I'll just cowtow to the masses on this one, they bellowed loud and clear and have been herd.