D&D 5E Just One More Thing: The Power of "No" in Design (aka, My Fun, Your Fun, and BadWrongFun)

[Undrave]

It reminds me of a Pathfinder GM that I knew, who hated the idea of re-using monsters. By his logic, if we've seen something in action once, then it's time to move on to something else. As though that one encounter was enough to appreciate everything there is about that monster. Even though it didn't even use half of its abilities in that fight.

I mean, I see where he's coming from, and there's a lot of content that we'll never experience if we stop to appreciate everything along the way, but still. It's kind of sad.

Hey, it took a while to go through those levels. We spent plenty of sessions not defeating any kind of enemies and we levelled slowly. Took like two years of infrequent sessions to go through that character. At some points I realized I was relying on the same spells over and over again and none of the other spells were that interesting to me. Heck, I'd probably still be playing that character right now if it hadn't die, but I took the opportunity.

 

[pemerton]

The posts that I see complain about no new stuff posts are primarily in the warlord context. And the ones of those that I see are primarily objecting not to don't bloat it claims but to warlords will spoil my fun claims.

Hence I think @Tony Vargas, upthread, is right on this point: it's not an issue of floodgates but an issue of what to do about those who want a warlord in 5e. Frankly I think they'll never get one, but I think the reason for this isn't because WotC wants to avoid bloat but rather because WotC wants to avoid inciting those customers/players who think a warlord will spoil their fun

 

[hawkeyefan]

There’s a few ways to look at this, I find.

In a perfect world, where WotC had unlimited resources and every product had a sufficient audience, yeah, I’d want everyone to get the options they want, regardless of what I wanted. As long as these things were all suitably organized so that I could easily ignore what I wanted, it’d be great.

Since that won’t happen, I tend to look at things in two other ways.

One is what I think makes sense for them to release. What’s going to have the widest appeal to sell as many books as possible, and to help ensure the game persists. I try to think as if I was publishing the game. What product would be best? Here’s where the question of what is good for the game also comes into play. Limiting rules expansions and so on. These are all factors here.

The other is what I want them to publish. There’s some overlap between this group and the first, but there’s also some differences. I kind of look at this as “if they were only making one more book, what would I want it to be?” To answer that question, I want an updated guide to Sigil. A little streamlined, and modernized a bit, set up like a sandbox and packed with interesting NPCs and plot hooks. Sure, I have several books already that detail Sigil pretty extensively. But that's what I’d love to see.

I think recognizing the difference is the key to discussing these things. I don’t begrudge anyone that wants a PHB2 with 3 more classes, 20 subclasses, and a few dozen feats and spells....I get why they might want that. But do I think it’s a good idea? Not really. Would I rather see the designers spend time and resources on something else? Yes, definitely.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

I have to say I have no interest in beginner boxed sets with tie-ins to Stranger Things or Rick and Morty.

But I'd much, much rather Wizards produce those than something that would appeal to me.

Because THOSE are what bring new players in the door. Those are the sets some 13 year old's cool uncle are going to give him for Christmas. And those are going to promote the hobby and make hard cash for WotC.

Meanwhile, Matt Colville, Wolfgang Baur, Monte Cook, James Raggi IV and many others are making the stuff I want. These are books that would be money-losers (and often way too niche, high concept or risque) for WotC, but provide these fellows with a good living (have you seen how much cash Matt and Monte can pull down on their kickstarters? Those are some NICE advances! But they'd be chump change for Hasbro).

 

[StormbringerAUS]

D&D is a game-- a game that has a "win state" (which is not to die and lose your character)-- and thus making choices that don't advance yourself towards that win state goes against everything that is holy about game playing.

As a result, the only way that person can be happy is if the game itself does not use or offer things that they don't like, thus entirely negating the need to self-nerf. If it's not in the game, then they never have to make the conscious decision NOT to use it. Their problem is solved for them.

Firstly I enjoyed everything Lowkey wrote (well once I reread it a couple of times).

Defcon makes some great points in his post (and does most of the time). But I can't agree completely on winning D&D is keeping the character alive and that though some people may find it difficult to 'self-nerf' this is not a big problem. I have have played in and play in one now and always try to run my campaigns, though not always successfully that the story is more important than the character. A have seen players sacrifice their character for the greater good of the story (in this chase the party to escape) and even though the character died the player certainly felt that he was a 'winner'.

Players limiting things a character might do to reflect their concept of the character again made them feel winners - a simple example is a low Int fighter (int 5) use to roll a d20 and only on a five or less would they put forward an idea from the character, this can't be seen as not using everything possible to make them win, but the player enjoyed it more and I believe the table was better for it.

Winning has many ways of being achieved and certainly what you describe is how some people would see it.

 

[Harzel]

For the most part, I agree with your long and rambling post (welcome to the old man club). You can simply shorten almost everything you've said into: "bloat has killed prior editions; 5E has done an excellent job of keeping bloat minimal. We should not advocate for an increase in bloat."

Lowkey, I really dig your writing style; however, I think you should take some of your own advice and looked for more simplicity and less bloat.

When trying to make a point, start with the rule of 3.

First say what you are going to say; what point you are trying to make.
Then say it. Make your point.
Then say what you said. Say why this justified your point.

In each part, recuse if you need more detail. Repeat the middle part a few times as well if needed.

Don't rant on for 9 paragraphs about the sins of generic other people in generic other threads when talking about this topic without describing the topic clearly, or even saying what position you are taking.

While I, also, noted the irony of a lengthy post that in the end advocated a variety of minimalism, I found it a fairly easy read, certainly easier than some I have encountered that were half its length or less.

As to the specific issue of how best to structure an essay, while explicitly stating a thesis at the outset is an oft recommended and oft used point of structure, it ain't the only way to roll. There are at least a couple downsides to doing so. First, the reader may misinterpret the succinct, up-front assertion in ways that additional context might prevent. Second, it invites the reader who initially disagrees with the thesis (or who is just oppositional by nature, or who is experiencing some distress from the ill-considered consumption of a wafer-thin mint) to dedicate a portion of their mental effort to formulating counterarguments even while reading the arguments in favor of the thesis.

Finally, believing that there is one best way to present an argument, particularly in a rather casual environment such as ENWorld, belies, it seems to me, a certain narrowness of approach that might itself benefit from some rethinking.

All that said, I'll concede that a very long set-up without any hint about what the payoff was going to be could certainly try one's patience. Personally, though, in this case, from the subject line and the initial paragraphs, I did not find it difficult to discern the issue the OP was aiming at, or, in general, what his opinion probably was.

 

[Bohandas]

One of the problems of appealing to wide base of people is that you can't be the "best in class" at most things

Agreed. To appeal to a wide base one must necessarily court mediocrity.

 

[Tony Vargas]

More to the point, and I don't know if this is an issue elsewhere or just in my area, but AL DMs are in short supply. So by the nature of AL, they have to be DM friendly. If you have too many official options, it's hard for DMs to keep up with everything because a DM should be familiar with everything the players are doing or will do.

AL does give DM's less latitude - and thus less to worry about. It's like the decisions a DM faces when opting into optional rules, just with more of a community consensus helping you out.

IDK, it might well be a good idea for AL to be PH-only, or even opt out of Feats & MCing or whatever. Or, provide different player options for each setting or AP. For that matter, AL-special modules like we used to get for Encounters would make things easier - you could sit down and run most Encounters modules with 0 prep away from the table, give maybe two facing pages a once-over, lay out a map, read a text box, and off you go - highly simplified but for a 1-2 hr time slot... easy.

It wasn't the reading level. It was the writing! You'd fail any 8th grade writing assignment like that.

It's a very informal environment.

 

[Horwath]

I do agree that bloating of the content like 3/4E would be a very bad thing, but I do think that 5E is a little bit thin in mechanical sense. But I do think it's the best D&D edition for me.

I do mind that all player choice mechanics is forced into the same resource pool. The ASI.

I would rather see ASIs split into Combat feats, Non combat feats, ASIs and General

1. All feats reworked to power level of current "half-feat".

2. Now instead of default 5 ASIs, you get 3 Combat feats, 3 Non-combat feats, 3 times +1 to one ability, 3 times "general" that means any feat or +1 to ability.

That could be spread out to:
1st level: non-combat feat, combat feat
2nd: +1 to ability.
4th: general
6th: non-combat feat
8th: combat feat
10th: +1 to ability.
12th: general
14th: non-combat feat
16th: combat feat
18th: +1 to ability.
20th: general

Non-combat feats would be Racial feats, UA skill feats and underpowered PHB feats. Full feats would be split into 2 feats.

Combat feats would be: Sharpshooter(half feat, removed -5/+10), Greatweapon master(removed -5/+10), Polearm master(split into 2 feats), Crossbow expert(removed Extra attack), Mobile(split into 2 feats)...

maybe even limit max abilities to 18...

 

[GreyLord]

Besides, what's wrong with a good old-fashioned incoherent rant now and then?

Absolutely.

We all go on a rant sometimes (well, maybe not all, maybe not even most, but some of us).