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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pseudopsyche" data-source="post: 6171631" data-attributes="member: 54600">I don't find Mearls's five lessons learned to be vacuous at all. Is it just me? I'll attempt to illustrate the meaning I see in each lesson by giving an example of a similarly positive-sounding but contradictory lesson."You like simplicity." The designers' emphasis will be on simple character creation, not customizability. They are erring on the side of two first-level fighters being mechanically similar. In other words, not "You enjoy system mastery" or "You prioritize customizability.""You like that every class can contribute in most situations, but you're OK with some classes being better at certain things if that fits the class's image." The designers will not bend over backwards to make very class mechanically balanced in every pillar of the game. They are erring on the side of allowing e.g. the bard to be less capable in combat but more capable in social situations. In other words, not "You want every class to have the same opportunities to shine in combat and out.""You want rules to make it easy to build adventures and encounters." Okay, yeah, it's hard to argue with this one. But he continues: "You want to think about the story or your setting's details, rather than fiddle with math." The design will emphasize flexibility in adventure design, instead of telling you "spend an XP budget in this specific range to achieve interesting combat encounters". In other words, not "You want mathematical tools to create combat encounters with engaging gameplay.""You value flexibility in rules." The designers will lean on DMs to apply some common sense, instead of trying to codify as much as possible. In other words, not "You value unambiguous rules that provide a precisely consistent game across tables.""You aren't edition warriors." The game will be more of a jack-of-all-trades. In other words, not "You want us to support one style of game extremely well, instead of supporting many styles of game pretty well."I honestly don't think that all readers will look at Mearls's five lessons and think, "Yeah, that sounds good to me." I think plenty would prefer the hypothetical alternatives I mentioned.Sure, Mearls could have more clearly identified what features of previous editions he hopes to improve. But identifying "problems" in previous editions sure didn't work well for WotC last time, so I don't blame him for focusing on positive aspects of each goal.</blockquote>

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