D&D 5E Mearl's Book Design Philosophy

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[pkt77242]

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.

Yep, 3E lasted for about 3 years. Then we got 3.5E. New PHB, new DMG, new MM, etc. Spells got massively overhauled, many classes saw some change, some feats (many?) changed, monsters changed, DR changed, etc.

Now 3.5 lasted for a while if you consider Pathfinder as part of it (as Morrus pointed out) but 3E itself died rather fast, like a kobold fighting a Silver Dragon. Crunch, Crunch, swallow.

 

[Jester David]

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.

Which is the whole damn point.
With the limited release schedule of 5e, each new (non-adventure) release becomes more special and dramatic. More of an event and less a routine. Something to get excited about and making it a must-buy purchase rather than a maybe purchase. And the limited content becomes more likely to be used. It's also easier to design and balance, and more likely to be playtested.
The books and content are less disposable. Less content for the sake of content.

Unlike 3e where there were literally classes created just to fill space.
There's a fun story about one of the dragon classes for Dragon Magic. It was in development at the same time as the Player's Handbook 2 and both has dragon class that used auras. Created independently but very similar. As Dragon Magic was coming out later, they dropped the entire class and just made up a new one. Why? Because they needed a set number of new classes that filled a specific number of pages. There wasn't a story need, they didn't have a great mechanical hook. It just needed to exist, let alone be good.
(Dragon Magic was just made of bad decisions. The sole reason it existed was a manager saw that books with the words "magic" and "dragons" sold well, and decided a book with both would be a surefire hit.)

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.

You're not asking for a glut, but even a single book of sole crunch is a ridiculous amount of content.
I broke it down earlier. Because of the small amount of space subclasses and subraces take up, you can cram a lot of options into a small space. A single 160-page book can easily contain enough options to qualify as a "glut". It's an entire edition's worth of options released all at once rather than spreading them out over a number of years.

Asking WotC to release a big book of options is asking them to cut open the goose that lays the golden eggs to get all the eggs at once...

Books with limited crunch are more of an event and will sell better.
Books with limited crunch mean the options that are released are more likely to be used.
Books with limited crunch are easier to design and playtest, resulting in better crunch.
Books with limited crunch are better for DMs, offering story ideas.
Books with limited crunch are better for DMs, having less material that needs to be learned to manage the table.
Books with limited crunch delay bloat and power creep, prolonging the lifespan of the edition
Books with limited crunch are more usable after the edition ends.

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?

I'm trying to. You could do the same and actually reply and engage in the discussion rather than just crying "false!" and "fallacy!"

 

[Shasarak]

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.

Eh, I bet someone brought their assets. What about the new Samsung Note 7 phones then? We can go one and on about hilarious corporate blunders and that is not even considering the ones closer to home.

 

[Zardnaar]

Eh, I bet someone brought their assets. What about the new Samsung Note 7 phones then? We can go one and on about hilarious corporate blunders and that is not even considering the ones closer to home.

I have a Samsung lol.

Did you hear about Cadbury? That is a New Zealand one but it made internaitonal news. They changed their chocolate product (more palm oil less cocoa).

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/small-business/2719011/Cadbury-may-regret-changing-recipe
http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/2758975/Cadbury-stops-using-palm-oil-in-chocolate

And then they did it again.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/world/75840713/Creme-Egg-recipe-change-costs-Cadbury-13m

Make your portion sizes smaller, put your prices up but if you are selling food that people like do not change the recipe lol. New Coke could have worked as a spin off product IMHO and its not like Coke and Pepsi have not since added new flavours.

 

[Jester David]

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.

It is the other school of thought: provide more options so everyone will find something they like, rather than generic options that people will tolerate or just not hate. The Baskin Robbins 52 flavours vs just chocolate and vanilla.

It doesn't always work like that in practice however. While a few people might prefer a very specific flavour, on average more options tend to make people indecisive. They tend to have two or three choices they like equally and then have trouble picking between. Then they wonder if they made the right choice, feeling less satisfied with their final decision.

D&D has the advantage with the surveys and audience feedback. They can target the gaps where people need the support, providing options where needed. (Like they tried to do with the sorcerer, adding another option to SCAG because people with dissatisfied with the choice between draconic and wild magic.)
Between that and making subclasses flexible and open to reflavouring should be able to satisfy most people. You'll never hit ever mark though. Even in 4e and Pathfinder, there were some characters and options that were never quite possible.

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.

Very true. I like 5e but it's not everything to everyone.

For people who just like options and building characters, there are other games out there. Just like if you want a game really focused around investigating horrific things in a modern setting you might be better off not with D&D. Or if you want to play a space wizard and his smuggler sidekick, there are other game systems.
I'm playing in a zombie apocalypse campaign right now (that is in fall hiatus) and we're not using D&D because it's just not suited for a modern era Romero zombie apocalypse game.

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.

Which is a chicken-egg thing. If the content was released at a rate other than "fire hose" they would have had time to smooth out the balance through playtesting and more concentrated design.

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.

The "don't want it, don't buy it" argument always seems poor to me.

First, because I have crap impulse control and like to say "yes" to my players. Which is why my Pathfinder games went off the rails... I like buying new books too much. (That and I do reviews on my website, so I'd buy it for that purpose, like I've done for a bunch of Pathfinder books of late...)

Second, because once the books exist, it will also affect the books I do want to buy. If all the go-to warrior subclasses are crammed into Volo's Guides to Pointy Shards of Metal then the fighter content in the books I want become subpar. And they won't have had enough time to playtest that content, since they were busy trying to create the five or six page filling subclasses needed to round out the page count of VGtPSoM.
And once they run out of easy content and good book ideas, we start getting the crap books. Magic of Incarnum or Heroes of Shadow that people don't *really* want, but the company needs to release something or just lay off the entire RPG department. They're not keeping Mearl & co. on the payroll because they run a good Friday lunch campaign.
It hastens the end of the edition.

Oh, and third, "don't like it? Then don't buy it" is probably the exact opposite thing WotC wants people saying about their books.

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?

A complication book down the line wouldn't be a bad idea. It'll probably take a while to get enough content though...
(But, then again, all that takes is a smartphone, a scanner app, and $10 on Lulu.com)

 

[Jester David]

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.

I'd say 4e was more like Crystal Pepsi. It was unabashedly different, and had a lot of fans, but wasn't quite enough to stick around...

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Ah 4e. Poorly received (in very, very relative terms, but still quite profitable), but objectively better than what it replaced.

hate all ya want, it's just so good!

definately more New Coke than Crystal Pepsi. Less different than detractors claim, divisive because of marketing and status quo bias/blind traditionalism.

 

[Tony Vargas]

more like Crystal Pepsi. It was unabashedly different, and had a lot of fans, but wasn't quite enough to stick around...

... ah, extending the analogy. Well if Coke = D&D, Pepsi would have to have been Storyteller (did challenge D&D back in the 90s), so Crystal Pepsi might be Hunters Hunted.... maybe AEON/Trinity.

Poorly received, but objectively better than what it replaced.

Though it's not like blind taste-tests are 'objective,' exactly, they're still testing a subjective preference.

( I can't help imagining that Coke vs New Coke taste tests went something like "Yuck! That's nasty!" ... "Ewww, still nasty but not as bad.")

It is the other school of thought: provide more options so everyone will find something they like, rather than generic options that people will tolerate or just not hate.

Generic options aren't all bad, either. A generic mechanic that covers a fair range of player-customizeable fluff can be a nice way for a game to cover more territory, for instance.

And people might tolerate or hate an option whether it's specific and one of many, generic, or specific and one of few.

Really, though, if you can't tolerate or do hate an option, the thing to do is not exercise the option, and leave it for others. Why begrudge someone else their fun?

Very true. I like 5e but it's not everything to everyone.

It is trying to be everything D&D, to everyone who ever loved D&D, though, which is a lot less impossible* than everything to everyone.

Which is a chicken-egg thing. If the content was released at a rate other than "fire hose" they would have had time to smooth out the balance through playtesting and more concentrated design.

Or they could have errata'd in balance, even in 3e, in spite of the rapid pace of release, if that had been a priority (instead of 'rewarding system mastery').

The "don't want it, don't buy it" argument always seems poor to me.

It seems more reasonable than "don't like it, don't let other people buy it."

First, because I have crap impulse control and like to say "yes" to my players. ... I like buying new books too much.

Lol. I put it down to wanting to support the game I love. But, yeah, I buy D&D books even when they have barely any content I actually want (SCAG, as I've already admitted). I get it.










* claims of 'less impossible' not meant to imply actual possibility....

 

[Shasarak]

Make your portion sizes smaller, put your prices up but if you are selling food that people like do not change the recipe lol. New Coke could have worked as a spin off product IMHO and its not like Coke and Pepsi have not since added new flavours.

You will not have to wait long before someone tells you that more expensive smaller sizes is actually good for you because that means you will not eat too much and besides I am satisfied with the amount of chocolate that I have already.