How Important is OBQ in an RPG like D&D?

[FinalSonicX]

I've personally never used the Errata nor cared to look at it - I'm pretty good at spotting horribly written rules and broken powers or what have you and fixing them. I voted a 2 because while I expect a quality product, it wouldn't bother me if there was more interesting content even if some of the rules allowed for exploits or are somewhat vague since I always fix the issues as they arise during play with no real problems.

Besides, I always homebrew a ton of house rules and stuff into my games. I need a solid foundation to play on, and a lot of cool ideas (magic items, spells, classes, etc.) to make this worth my time. I can handle doing a bit of fixing, as long as the product is high quality and I don't need to spend all my time meddling with rules.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

For me it's a 3. I've been playing RPGs long enough that I expect to tweak stuff to my liking even if it isn't broken. Spotting and correcting problems is no big deal.

However if you're trying to attract players new to RPGs, which I suspect WOTC is, then you really want it as close as perfect as possible so the new players don't get confused.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Looks like we have a clear majority for good OBQ.

Even if we have some odd ideas about what that may constitute...

 

[Savage Wombat]

I think we're used to errata, not that we should be accepting of it. Strive for 5.

I also wonder if OBQ, in the context of RPGs, shouldn't be more about whether those benighted souls who have never gamed, can figure out how to play without help.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't mind errata as long as it is not an obvious symptom of "we didn't actually test this under any kind of realistic conditions." Parts of pretty much every product ever done by WotC, since the 3E PHB launch in August, 2000, have failed this test for me. A close second is when you realize the symptom was really, "we did test it under realistic conditions, but too late to do anything about it, and then whoever calls the shots in upper management or Hasbro said, 'ship it anyway'."

Mitigating that some is an appreciation for the conditions under which they work, and how the better they do, the more the goal posts get moved. I'm well aware of the user illogic that says, "How can you botch X when it is 20 years old?" Well yeah, the concept is 20 years old, but the way we are trying to improve it is all new. You try to get a new take on an old thing perfect the first time.

All of the above is why I was saying several years ago that a long, open playtest was crucial to success.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Rereading the topic called to mind an example: Savage Species.

This was a book that came out just before 3.5, and it was an amazing read. The basic principle-putting monsters and PCs under a more common framework to unite the two concepts-was a true advancement for the game, one of the biggest of the 3.X era. It eliminated the counterintuitive methods of generating feats and skills for monsters, and introduced many great new options for nonhuman PCs. My players immediately dived in and started with it, and we've had tons of fun. I played an anthropomorphic owl when I got a turn, which was a trip and one of my best characters. SS also advanced my understanding of monster and NPC design as a DM, and bolstered everyone's sense that the game was fair and that all characters-player and non-were meaningful.

The out of box quality of this book was pretty poor. It's got cool art and great ideas, but all kinds of unbalanced races and classes, and a bunch of feats and spells that don't jive with other supplements. It's full of errata. The 3.5 conversion was not complete. The monster classes were a nice concept, but were horribly designed, with abilities divided in a completely inequitable way among the available levels. The monster class concept was revisited, but many of the rules were ignored and never referenced in any true 3.5 supplements.

In other words, it sucked, but it was still great.

Now, this isn't the ideal I would shoot for, but I think it is illustrative of what D&D and D&D products are about.

 

[the Jester]

Important; however, I like to house rule and modify games, and will eventually even if the game is perfect out-of-the-box.

 

[Mengu]

I kind of wish they would make a version of D&D without books. I don't need any more books weighing down my shelves. I'll pay the bucks for a beautiful e-resource with fantastic art and layout, hyperlinks, search features, and the like.

But even then, I don't want what I read to become invalid two days from now. So I voted 5.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Errata will happen, and that makes things better than they are, but the game I get should be playable without having to change or add whole swathes of the game midstream.

Sadly, 4E is the only D&D game that has failed this test for me.

What about 4e was "not playable?"

And to a greater degree than 3e or 1e? I've never seen anyone run 1e AD&D without modifying or ignoring a lot of rules, and 3.x broke down pretty badly out of the single digit levels.

I ask because I think playability out of the box is a big part of OBQ. If you can play the game, by the rules as presented, it's playble. If the rules are contradictory, terribly unclear, badly imbalanced, and so forth, it might be unplayable, at least without modification. Obviously, if 5e is going to achieve high OBQ, it'll need to be playable, and what that means is important.


A related question is how rules problems are handled. In AD&D, they were generally just left there. In 3e, the game got one big revision. In 4e, it got a constant trickle of errata and the occasional 'feat tax.'

Should 5e publish frequent errata as problems are identified? Kludge problems with feat taxes and replacements that obviate existing inferior elements? Have a '5.5' to fix problems identified in 5.0? Or just leave it to the DMs to tweak anything that's a problem 'for them?'

 

[Savage Wombat]

A related question is how rules problems are handled. In AD&D, they were generally just left there. In 3e, the game got one big revision. In 4e, it got a constant trickle of errata and the occasional 'feat tax.'

Should 5e publish frequent errata as problems are identified? Kludge problems with feat taxes and replacements that obviate existing inferior elements? Have a '5.5' to fix problems identified in 5.0? Or just leave it to the DMs to tweak anything that's a problem 'for them?'

Consider making this a new thread - it's worth discussing in more detail.

I suspect the ongoing correction model works well in the internet age.