Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
"Hot" take: Aesthetically-pleasing rules are highly overvalued
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 8112248" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Hoo boy, my hot take really did blow up. I might miss some posts since the time I started quoting things, or that said similar stuff, so...apologies if you felt your point deserved personal attention. Note that for me and I'll gladly provide it. As it is, I'll be trimming posts like mad to conserve space!</p><p></p><p></p><p>I really wish this argument would also stop. While I do recognize that trust is important, neither this issue nor most of my issues are <em>about</em> "trust." And it's really frustrating to be told that my concerns arise from, effectively, being <em>unable to trust people</em>. Like, you're literally disguising an <em>ad hominem</em> attack here. Please don't do that.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Well uh...I don't find it transparent. Not anywhere near as transparent as 4e was, anyway. Like, that was literally a huge beef with 4e, that it showed how the sausage was made, and people <em>welcomed</em> 5e being a little more old-school obscurantist. Not everyone, mind, but some totally did.</p><p></p><p></p><p>That's not a design goal? I'm not sure what your point is here.</p><p></p><p></p><p>The aforementioned Sage Advice stuff about attacks. That is, a "melee weapon attack" and an "attack with a melee weapon" are (almost) completely distinct things, despite being <em>perfect synonyms</em> in natural English diction, and that a "melee weapon attack" can involve <em>no actual weapons whatsoever </em>(e.g. unarmed strikes are "melee weapon attacks" even though unarmed strikes aren't weapons...but see below for more.) That...cannot be understood from the natural meanings of the words alone. "Melee weapon attack" in 5e means a melee attack, which just <em>happens</em> to involve a weapon. If you want "attack with a melee weapon" as a meaning, the Sage Advice compendium specifies that <em>the only difference you make is adding a hyphen.</em> "Melee-weapon attack" means an attack which specifically employs a melee weapon. So you can make a "ranged weapon attack" that is alsoa "melee-weapon attack" (e.g. a thrown dagger), and you can make a "melee weapon attack" that is also a "ranged-weapon attack" (e.g. smacking someone with a crossbow).</p><p></p><p>The <em>contagion</em> spell is another oft-cited example, one which even Crawford explicitly said on twitter "could be clearer." I used to know at least one other spell with similar issues, but I've forgotten what it is and don't feel like pouring through the hundred-plus pages of spells in the PHB right now. As others have said, the common confusion about how Surprise works is something of a borderline case. That is, the rules theoretically <em>do</em> work as written, but the focus on natural-language presentation prevented the authors from effectively communicating how Surprise works <em>differently from previous games</em>, and thus that focus has led to much confusion.</p><p></p><p>Another example: "natural weapons" are weapons, while "unarmed strikes" are not. But there are natural weapons (such as the tabaxi claws) <em>which allow you to make unarmed strikes.</em> So...are they weapons because they're natural weapons, or <em>not</em> weapons because you use them to make unarmed strikes? The text is insufficient to distinguish which of these mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive options is valid.</p><p></p><p>One I only just encountered, which has been often overlooked: Ranger Favored Terrain. It doesn't tell us much of anything about what the terrains refer to, just giving high-level nouns (desert, Underdark, etc.) But "desert" in natural language just means "a place that gets less than 10 inches of rainfall per year." The Antarctic is one of the world's largest deserts, for example, and the Underdark (by definition) gets zero rainfall--thus both are, by natural language meanings, "deserts." Obviously, DMs can always overrule things, but this is a clear place where the "natural language" meaning of terms is reliant on something entirely outside <em>both</em> the text itself <em>and</em> the meanings of the words used. You and I know the understanding that is <em>meant</em>, but it is not actually <em>communicated</em> by the text.</p><p></p><p></p><p>A reasonable, albeit short, summary.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not referring to any of those three things. Sometimes the meta-aesthetic argument pursues a simulationist aesthetic, e.g. skill points and PrCs. Sometimes it is gamist, e.g. condensing all Martial powers (from 4e) into a single shared pool for all Martial classes. I can't think of a narrativist example off the top of my head, but I'm sure one exists. And, again, as I have repeatedly said, meta-aesthetics are NOT invalid! They can totally be a reason to do something. My argument is against any argument where meta-aesthetics are taken to be irrefutable, self-evident proof that a particular approach is not only correct, but <em>best</em>.</p><p></p><p></p><p>1. 4e didn't try to do that, and I find the repeated assertions that it did extremely annoying. 4e defined a set of things that <em>definitely did</em> work, and then created a set of extensible frameworks (such as Skill Challenges and Page 42) that were meant to support DM extrapolation. Should the DM wish to do <em>further</em> extrapolation, the rules intentionally <em>got out of the way</em> because, as 13A puts it for one of its feats, "If you want <such an improvised thing>, you have a better idea than we do what it should look like."</p><p>2. That would be great...if human beings were all that capable of consistency. Thing is, we really aren't. One need look no further than Gygax's D&D to see what happens when you presume consistency from the unbiased referee: you get an unending hodgepodge of unrelated, sometimes contradictory elements. And that's for <em>one person's</em> game; the inconsistency expands exponentially if you have to game as I've had to, where I must seek out groups (usually online) because I don't know anyone who plays.</p><p>3. If that's the case, why do we have stuff like the above, where "melee weapon attack" is explicitly and intentionally different from "melee-weapon attack"? That doesn't sound like a grok thing. That sounds like a blueprint, where precise bits matter.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Perfect example, thank you. A clear "grok" vs "blueprint" situation, which the text alone demonstrably doesn't clear up, given the repeated requests for clarification.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes. I explicitly said so. I'm talking about the cases where anyone--fan playtester, game designer, DM, whomever--argues that it is <em>that look and feel</em>, not of the physical product, not of the experience of play, but purely within the internal structure of the rules, that overrides <em>all</em> other concerns unless the other concerns are truly overwhelming.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't care what meta-aesthetics you go for. I'm saying that there are a lot of people--more fans than designers, but designers too--the meta-aesthetic is far and away the most important thing, and everything else is secondary. That a meta-aesthetic argument, like that (A5E) Knacks should just be condensed into a single list that each class samples from, is nearly unassailable, indeed self-evidently so.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't see why these goals need to be in conflict. This is like saying that a video game has to appeal to new players at the expense of giving old players nothing to do; if you neglect <em>either end</em>, you have a bad game that will do poorly. FFXIV, a personal favorite, struggled with cumbersome slow-burn introduction to a story that got <em>good</em> with the first expansion and has only gone up from there; it has since taken steps to address this problem, and is (almost surely) seeing sustained growth even as the pandemic wanes because of these efforts.</p><p></p><p>If we don't solve for <em>both</em> things--games that play well once they're familiar AND that feel welcoming before they're familiar--we're not making great games. We're making either great games no one will play, or bad games lots of people will play.</p><p></p><p>Besides all that? Stuff like "we should make a single list of all A5E Knacks that each class gets to take a few from" is...entirely orthogonal to being "inviting" or not <em>and</em> to being "experienced-friendly" or not. Only an experienced player could be doing the playtesting to make that request!</p><p></p><p></p><p>I should bloody well hope it results in "a game you can play." A game that isn't playable <em>should never be printed.</em> "It's playable!" is tied for the most pointless defense of any game, TTRPG or otherwise, alongside "you can still have <em>fun</em> with it!" (Because if the game <em>isn't even playable</em> or somehow manages to <em>prevent</em> even the possibility of having fun, it should never even be printed!)</p><p></p><p></p><p>Not interested in your hypothetical alternatives to my lived experience, sorry.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't think I understand your point here. These three sentences seem unrelated.</p><p></p><p></p><p>Thank you! Yes! This is a HUGE part of what I mean by sacrificing the play experience. The meta-aesthetic is more important than people, y'know, actually doing the high-level abstracted actions of playing the game (like <em>taking risks</em> or <em>asking questions</em>, way above the level of even "making attack rolls" or "talking to elves").</p><p></p><p></p><p>Firstly: it is terribly nice to have someone who recognizes the extensible frameworks built into 4e, so that it didn't <em>need</em> "a rule for everything and everything has its rule" <em>a la</em> M:TG, but rather "the codified, the formally improvised, and the informally improvised--and you know better than we do what that last thing needs."</p><p>Secondly: Yes, this is definitely a criticism I have of a meta-aesthetic stance in 5e, "everything must go to the DM." I had to start putting as a disclaimer on <em>every. single. post.</em> of advice for 5e play "if your DM says..." or "Assuming your DM's okay with it" etc. etc. etc. for ANYTHING, literally ANY part of the rules no matter how basal, because 5e <em>really is</em> pretty close to "the rules are suggestions."</p><p></p><p></p><p>The irony was not lost on me.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 8112248, member: 6790260"] Hoo boy, my hot take really did blow up. I might miss some posts since the time I started quoting things, or that said similar stuff, so...apologies if you felt your point deserved personal attention. Note that for me and I'll gladly provide it. As it is, I'll be trimming posts like mad to conserve space! I really wish this argument would also stop. While I do recognize that trust is important, neither this issue nor most of my issues are [I]about[/I] "trust." And it's really frustrating to be told that my concerns arise from, effectively, being [I]unable to trust people[/I]. Like, you're literally disguising an [I]ad hominem[/I] attack here. Please don't do that. Well uh...I don't find it transparent. Not anywhere near as transparent as 4e was, anyway. Like, that was literally a huge beef with 4e, that it showed how the sausage was made, and people [I]welcomed[/I] 5e being a little more old-school obscurantist. Not everyone, mind, but some totally did. That's not a design goal? I'm not sure what your point is here. The aforementioned Sage Advice stuff about attacks. That is, a "melee weapon attack" and an "attack with a melee weapon" are (almost) completely distinct things, despite being [I]perfect synonyms[/I] in natural English diction, and that a "melee weapon attack" can involve [I]no actual weapons whatsoever [/I](e.g. unarmed strikes are "melee weapon attacks" even though unarmed strikes aren't weapons...but see below for more.) That...cannot be understood from the natural meanings of the words alone. "Melee weapon attack" in 5e means a melee attack, which just [I]happens[/I] to involve a weapon. If you want "attack with a melee weapon" as a meaning, the Sage Advice compendium specifies that [I]the only difference you make is adding a hyphen.[/I] "Melee-weapon attack" means an attack which specifically employs a melee weapon. So you can make a "ranged weapon attack" that is alsoa "melee-weapon attack" (e.g. a thrown dagger), and you can make a "melee weapon attack" that is also a "ranged-weapon attack" (e.g. smacking someone with a crossbow). The [I]contagion[/I] spell is another oft-cited example, one which even Crawford explicitly said on twitter "could be clearer." I used to know at least one other spell with similar issues, but I've forgotten what it is and don't feel like pouring through the hundred-plus pages of spells in the PHB right now. As others have said, the common confusion about how Surprise works is something of a borderline case. That is, the rules theoretically [I]do[/I] work as written, but the focus on natural-language presentation prevented the authors from effectively communicating how Surprise works [I]differently from previous games[/I], and thus that focus has led to much confusion. Another example: "natural weapons" are weapons, while "unarmed strikes" are not. But there are natural weapons (such as the tabaxi claws) [I]which allow you to make unarmed strikes.[/I] So...are they weapons because they're natural weapons, or [I]not[/I] weapons because you use them to make unarmed strikes? The text is insufficient to distinguish which of these mutually exclusive, jointly exhaustive options is valid. One I only just encountered, which has been often overlooked: Ranger Favored Terrain. It doesn't tell us much of anything about what the terrains refer to, just giving high-level nouns (desert, Underdark, etc.) But "desert" in natural language just means "a place that gets less than 10 inches of rainfall per year." The Antarctic is one of the world's largest deserts, for example, and the Underdark (by definition) gets zero rainfall--thus both are, by natural language meanings, "deserts." Obviously, DMs can always overrule things, but this is a clear place where the "natural language" meaning of terms is reliant on something entirely outside [I]both[/I] the text itself [I]and[/I] the meanings of the words used. You and I know the understanding that is [I]meant[/I], but it is not actually [I]communicated[/I] by the text. A reasonable, albeit short, summary. I'm not referring to any of those three things. Sometimes the meta-aesthetic argument pursues a simulationist aesthetic, e.g. skill points and PrCs. Sometimes it is gamist, e.g. condensing all Martial powers (from 4e) into a single shared pool for all Martial classes. I can't think of a narrativist example off the top of my head, but I'm sure one exists. And, again, as I have repeatedly said, meta-aesthetics are NOT invalid! They can totally be a reason to do something. My argument is against any argument where meta-aesthetics are taken to be irrefutable, self-evident proof that a particular approach is not only correct, but [I]best[/I]. 1. 4e didn't try to do that, and I find the repeated assertions that it did extremely annoying. 4e defined a set of things that [I]definitely did[/I] work, and then created a set of extensible frameworks (such as Skill Challenges and Page 42) that were meant to support DM extrapolation. Should the DM wish to do [I]further[/I] extrapolation, the rules intentionally [I]got out of the way[/I] because, as 13A puts it for one of its feats, "If you want <such an improvised thing>, you have a better idea than we do what it should look like." 2. That would be great...if human beings were all that capable of consistency. Thing is, we really aren't. One need look no further than Gygax's D&D to see what happens when you presume consistency from the unbiased referee: you get an unending hodgepodge of unrelated, sometimes contradictory elements. And that's for [I]one person's[/I] game; the inconsistency expands exponentially if you have to game as I've had to, where I must seek out groups (usually online) because I don't know anyone who plays. 3. If that's the case, why do we have stuff like the above, where "melee weapon attack" is explicitly and intentionally different from "melee-weapon attack"? That doesn't sound like a grok thing. That sounds like a blueprint, where precise bits matter. Perfect example, thank you. A clear "grok" vs "blueprint" situation, which the text alone demonstrably doesn't clear up, given the repeated requests for clarification. Yes. I explicitly said so. I'm talking about the cases where anyone--fan playtester, game designer, DM, whomever--argues that it is [I]that look and feel[/I], not of the physical product, not of the experience of play, but purely within the internal structure of the rules, that overrides [I]all[/I] other concerns unless the other concerns are truly overwhelming. I don't care what meta-aesthetics you go for. I'm saying that there are a lot of people--more fans than designers, but designers too--the meta-aesthetic is far and away the most important thing, and everything else is secondary. That a meta-aesthetic argument, like that (A5E) Knacks should just be condensed into a single list that each class samples from, is nearly unassailable, indeed self-evidently so. I don't see why these goals need to be in conflict. This is like saying that a video game has to appeal to new players at the expense of giving old players nothing to do; if you neglect [I]either end[/I], you have a bad game that will do poorly. FFXIV, a personal favorite, struggled with cumbersome slow-burn introduction to a story that got [I]good[/I] with the first expansion and has only gone up from there; it has since taken steps to address this problem, and is (almost surely) seeing sustained growth even as the pandemic wanes because of these efforts. If we don't solve for [I]both[/I] things--games that play well once they're familiar AND that feel welcoming before they're familiar--we're not making great games. We're making either great games no one will play, or bad games lots of people will play. Besides all that? Stuff like "we should make a single list of all A5E Knacks that each class gets to take a few from" is...entirely orthogonal to being "inviting" or not [I]and[/I] to being "experienced-friendly" or not. Only an experienced player could be doing the playtesting to make that request! I should bloody well hope it results in "a game you can play." A game that isn't playable [I]should never be printed.[/I] "It's playable!" is tied for the most pointless defense of any game, TTRPG or otherwise, alongside "you can still have [I]fun[/I] with it!" (Because if the game [I]isn't even playable[/I] or somehow manages to [I]prevent[/I] even the possibility of having fun, it should never even be printed!) Not interested in your hypothetical alternatives to my lived experience, sorry. I don't think I understand your point here. These three sentences seem unrelated. Thank you! Yes! This is a HUGE part of what I mean by sacrificing the play experience. The meta-aesthetic is more important than people, y'know, actually doing the high-level abstracted actions of playing the game (like [I]taking risks[/I] or [I]asking questions[/I], way above the level of even "making attack rolls" or "talking to elves"). Firstly: it is terribly nice to have someone who recognizes the extensible frameworks built into 4e, so that it didn't [I]need[/I] "a rule for everything and everything has its rule" [I]a la[/I] M:TG, but rather "the codified, the formally improvised, and the informally improvised--and you know better than we do what that last thing needs." Secondly: Yes, this is definitely a criticism I have of a meta-aesthetic stance in 5e, "everything must go to the DM." I had to start putting as a disclaimer on [I]every. single. post.[/I] of advice for 5e play "if your DM says..." or "Assuming your DM's okay with it" etc. etc. etc. for ANYTHING, literally ANY part of the rules no matter how basal, because 5e [I]really is[/I] pretty close to "the rules are suggestions." The irony was not lost on me. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
"Hot" take: Aesthetically-pleasing rules are highly overvalued
Top