D&D 5E Mearl's Book Design Philosophy

[hawkeyefan]

On the one hand, I'm saddened this might mean we don't get a definitive Manual of the Planes that is bigger and better than the last three versions. On the other hand... I have three versions of the Manual of the Planes already.

I don't know how well it applies to the adventures. But I can see that being the desired approach with the splatbooks. A lot of people buying the products have much of the classic material, and need that new hook.

That's the exact book I thought of...I definitely don't need it, but I was eager for that in the new edition. But I get what he's saying. My hope is that we get some kid of hybrid book that details Sigil, the planes, and then provides an adventure. That'd probably be more to my taste than simply an update to the Manual of the Planes.

 

[Shasarak]

Thoughts?

I for one am looking forward to seeing something new and really exciting.

I wonder when he is looking to start?

 

[IgnatiusJ.Reilly]

Well, I guess Mearls never stumbled upon 2e's Monstrous Arcana: I Tyrant, and The Illithiad, or the 3.5e Lords of Madness. Otherwise, he might have reconsidered the content of Volo's Guide to Monsters.

 

[SirGrotius]

People are taking his sentiment a little too literally. Obviously 5E is exploring some new ground, and trying to refresh some older tropes which are nonetheless critical to the structure of the game.

 

[Uchawi]

For D&D, it has all been done before, that is more evident if you consider other games like pathfinder. Since 5e is heavily based on nostalgia, it makes me wonder if there is a design philosophy beyond keeping everything simple and adding more story via the 2E days. 5e is only a hint of D&D's former glory.

But it only really has significant context for those that have played the game for a while, and for anyone else I doubt they care if they are having fun.

 

[TerraDave]

One thing he says is right: "Its risky"

 

[hawkeyefan]

For D&D, it has all been done before, that is more evident if you consider other games like pathfinder. Since 5e is heavily based on nostalgia, it makes me wonder if there is a design philosophy beyond keeping everything simple and adding more story via the 2E days. 5e is only a hint of D&D's former glory.

But it only really has significant context for those that have played the game for a while, and for anyone else I doubt they care if they are having fun.

I don't know if that's very accurate. There seem to be a lot of new players in this edition. I think his point was that they have to tell stories in new ways. He mentions this being a "post Game of Thrones" world. That means today's audience's major pop culture fantasy influence is no longer Tolkien.

So yes, they had an adventure series back in the day about giants. But looking at that series, it's very straightforward...the giants are evil and need to be stopped, and that's about it.

Today's story about giants presents more nuanced characters and a variety of factions all vying for power in different ways.

So they seem to very very much be telling the story in a new way. I don't think that saying they are relying solely on nostalgia to succeed is fair. I do think that is an aspect of their plan, but there is a lot more to it. They are trying to create shared experience games that will have people talking about how they defeated Chief Guh the way the games from 30 years ago have people talking about Snurre.

 

[Jester David]

It will be interesting to see what the next two or three D&D books will look like.

 

[77IM]

I thought the whole point of 5E was to duplicate what has come before?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Weird. I think that's exactly what J. J. Abrams said before he released The Force Awakens.

Well then we can expect excellent work from Mearls in the near future. So, that's good news!