D&D 5E Mearl's Book Design Philosophy

[Sacrosanct]

Awesome. I never said it doesn't exist. What I have said is that it is not a splat book, instead it is a setting book, and I have said that it's absurd to expect me to throw money into a fire to get a bit of crunch out of a setting book. That crunch is unusable by me.



Strawman. I never said what you are claiming, so you are arguing against a fiction you made up.

You said setting books are not splat books. In this case, you are incorrect. They are both. SCAG fits the definition of "splat book" perfectly. Because you find it unusable doesn't mean it doesn't exist and isn't unusable by others or isn't a splat book. Which it is, by definition.

 

[Zardnaar]

You've played a character or characters that use all ten subclasses from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide?
You've played the thousands of characters needed to even use the majority of the crunch from either 3e or 4e? Have you honestly?

Grabbing a random splatbook off my shelf (Complete Adventure in case it matters) I find the 192-page contains 26 Prestige Classes, which could be interpreted as subclasses, 55 feats, a bunch of new weapons, tools, and instruments, 75-odd spells, 30 magic items, and a bunch of other new rules on skills.
There's enough content there for a half-dozen characters mixing feats and Prestige Classes. You could have two or three level 1-20 campaigns just using this book and the PHB with no overlap in character concepts.

I bought the book shortly after it came out in 2005. January actually, since I apparently have a first printing. And even after playing 3.5e pretty regularly for three years (I was heavily into Living Greyhawk and Xen'Drick expeditions games at the time) I used maybe four pages in this book: the tempest prestige class, masterwork instruments, and a spell. I paid $40 CAD (far more than the $30 USD, the exchange rate was pretty favourable then) for those pages. $10 a page! I might have used more, but other books came along that had other Prestige Classes and spells that caught my fancy. The more books that came out, the less valuable the prior purchase was...
If I had been playing a homegame, maybe the book would have seen more use. More people tapping it for content. Or, more likely, they would have looked at the other splatbooks instead.

There is probably content in Complete Adventure that no one used. Think about that: feats, prestige classes, or spells that no one in the history of the game used once. Because they just weren't as interesting as everything else. More time writing and designing a few options than they saw being used at the table.


If you don't want people to talk with you, you might want to avoid online discussion boards. That's kind of their sole purpose.


I go into what I would like to see and think would make a good sourcebook earlier in the thread. here:
http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...osophy/page8&p=6927758&viewfull=1#post6927758



Not sure what I want after that. Or if I'll need much... There's a lot of awesome 3rd Party stuff out there as well.

I don't want a book that is just "here's the fighter book". Or even "here's the martial/warrior book". Those are boring. I can count the number of times I've looked at my copy of Complete Warrior since I stopped playing 5e on a single hand. (Most of them were looking for ideas for designing new 5e subclasses.)
But books of lore and story and information... I still use 1st Edition books like the Manual of the Planes and Deities & Demigods. I still look up monster ecology information from 2e books and the Monstrous Manual. SCAG and Volo's Guide to Monsters will still be useful when we're all playing 7th Edition.

This if I want to be inspired or need a hook I usually default to my TSR era or OSR material not my 3E stuff. The only 3E stuff I read is the FRCS and the monster books like the Hordes of the Abyss type books.

SOme of that 2E stuff can be ported straight to 5E because a lot of it was world building- the villains and castle books, the historical series etc.

SCAG is technically a splat book but its more like the 3E FRCS vs something like Complete Warrior. Lots of fluff not that much crunch.

 

[Pauper]

I regret doing this thread now…

Best laid plans and all that -- when people have a hobby-horse, it's tough for them to get off that horse and consider other perspectives.

I thought the quote was interesting from a book planning perspective, in that they don't sound like they want to do the "standard" books, the Deities & Demigods or Manual of the Planes.

Well, that's an interesting point. From my perspective, they *are* doing those books -- witness the number of comments on how the content of the books is basically just recycled and lightly re-touched material from older editions -- they just aren't *calling* them the same titles that have been used for each previous edition.

I think Mearls and WotC has a vested interest in assuring new D&D fans that this edition will have 'original' work, while still mining their exhaustive cache of D&D lore for material that can be (relatively) quickly regurgitated by a surprisingly small number of editors. In that sense, the comparison between Mearls and J.J. Abrams is fitting -- both are re-skinning old material so that new folks who aren't intimately familiar with it find it original and refreshing, while the folks who do understand the origins of the material view it as more nostalgic and comforting. They're going for a win-win here, and hoping nobody calls them on it.

--
Pauper

 

[Shasarak]

Heh. Okay. Do you have a better corporate blunder to use?

Enron is always fun.

 

[Zardnaar]

Enron is always fun.

That would be TSR under Lorraine Williams and even that is not quite that bad. She was incompetent not an outright fraudster and there was no lifeline for Enron at the end.

The new coke thing is a good comparison for 4E/5E as D&D has bounced back.

 

[Shasarak]

Well 5E isn't done yet, so your point doesn't really make sense, of course it is only a 2 year run so far. Also the 8 years you cite really included "2" editions, 3 and 3.5. Third edition really only last 3 years before they had to reboot it. Then 3.5 lasted for about 5, and then 4th edition lasted for 2, which then gave us essentials, etc. They are trying to stop the edition treadmill (or at least really slow it down). That is good for the brand.

Also the strategies are different, if you can't tell that they are trying to keep 5E around for a long time that is on you. Now it may not work, but from a brand management standpoint it is a significantly better strategy.

Wait, my point does not make sense and at the same time you think 3e lasted for 3 years.

Well that is good enough for me.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Maxperson]

You've played a character or characters that use all ten subclasses from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide?

What's that got to do with it? You said unlikely to use it and I am very likely to use the highly limited 5e general release crunch over the years that I play.

You've played the thousands of characters needed to even use the majority of the crunch from either 3e or 4e? Have you honestly?

Your False Equivalence is noted and rejected for the fallacy that it is. 3e and 4e had a glut of releases that I am explicitly not asking for here.

If you don't want people to talk with you, you might want to avoid online discussion boards. That's kind of their sole purpose.

I don't mind them talking to me, so long as they are having the same discussion I am and not inventing things like you are. How about you try to actually respond to what I'm saying?

 

[Maxperson]

People behave strangely all the time when it comes to the relative costs of items. For some reason, dropping the $30 on SCAG would seem outrageous to some people even thought it lasts for years, while people won't bother changing up their cable or cell plans to save $50/month. Go figure.

That's probably a comfort zone thing. Stay with the provider you know, rather than go into the unknown.

Yeah, I don't understand that. The *systems* are different. Very different. Either you like 5e, or you don't. If you prefer 3e's system, then you should play that. All the 5e "crunch" in the world isn't going to change that.

I like both systems. 3e supports me the way I need it to. Some 5e general support would be needed for me to invest money into the system.

 

[Tony Vargas]

80s TSR had other challenges to their brand that we don't have now. For example, the whole devil worshiping thing

Lol, that probably drove the fad at least as much as anything else.

no access to online communities

Not sure that's a bad thing. Can you imagine trying to fight an edition war against 1e (as a fan of 0D&D playing Arduin, which'd actually be a fair analogy), in the pages of Out on a Limb? Wouldn't be able to get in a whole lot of defaming and nerdrage that way.

Also, if they churned out a bunch of stuff now, that means they would have to really ramp up their staffing and costs.

Yep, and that's upping cost and risk. No point to it when the property has a long track record of exactly such stuff suffering from declining sales.

You've played a character or characters that use all ten subclasses from the Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide?

The idea of moar options isn't that every buyer will use all of them, it's that each will find at least some that are uniquely appealing.

You've played the thousands of characters needed to even use the majority of the crunch from either 3e or 4e? Have you honestly?

That's an argument for not needing 5e, at all - we could all still be playing 4e and not have run out of stuff to do, sure.

There is probably content in Complete Adventure that no one used. Think about that: feats, prestige classes, or spells that no one in the history of the game used once. Because they just weren't as interesting as everything else. More time writing and designing a few options than they saw being used at the table.

There was probably a lot of 3.x content that no one has ever used - it tended to get combed for the 'optimal' stuff and that got used heavily. It'd've required much tighter balance to make all those choice each individually viable & meaningful. And that's probably not achievable for 5e any more than it was for 3e. Even 4e's vaunted balance fell far short of that ideal when it came to feats, for instance.

I don't want a book that is just "here's the fighter book". Or even "here's the martial/warrior book". Those are boring.

And Maxperson doesn't want a book like SCAG, but would probably buy a martial/warrior splatbook. So would I. And I also bought SCAG. Heck, I'd by a warrior splatbook even if it repeated the archetypes from SCAG that I've already paid for once, if it had additional (and, OK, better) material. What we want is a lot more important (and productive) than what we don't want. Don't want it, don't buy it.

Unless you just want to support the game & the hobby, regardless.

Awesome. I never said it doesn't exist. What I have said is that it is not a splat book, instead it is a setting book, and I have said that it's absurd to expect me to throw money into a fire to get a bit of crunch out of a setting book. That crunch is unusable by me.

How 'bout some kind of compilation splatbook that re-prints the crunch from SCAG, and other setting & adventure bits, fleshed out with some new content?