Mearls On D&D's Design Premises/Goals

First of all, thanks [MENTION=1]Morrus[/MENTION] for collecting this. I generally avoid Twitter because, frankly, it's full of a$$holes.

That aside: this is an interesting way of looking at it, and underscores the difference in design philosophies between the WotC team and the Paizo team. There is a lot of room for both philosophies of design, and I don't think there is any reason for fans of one to be hostile to fans of the other, but those differences do matter. There are ways in which I like the prescriptive elements of 3.x era games (I like set skill difficulty lists, for example) but I tend to run by the seat of my pants and the effects of my beer, so a fast and loose and forgiving version like 5E really enables me running a game the way I like to.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

More accurately - "What the game would have to have to scratch the itch of some of these players". Or "What the game would have to have to satisfy me..." or the like.

The game is apparently doing very well, so saying it "needs" these things in the overall objective sense is a bit of a stretch.

Umbran, I respect your opinions, and I’m trying not to get too annoyed here, but I’ve said this already in this thread.

I do not now, and I probably will never, give a single half a damn about nit picking over what “need” means.

Please, respectfully and with all sincerity, don’t bother me with replies that are literally not anything more than completely non-additive nit picks. Please.

it is very easy to see the context of a post, and what the point being made is, and just respond to that.

 

[Satyrn]

But this seems to go directly to @Satyrn's point. As soon as the scope of action declaration is rationed by reference to other mechanical elements of the game, rather than just the fiction, then designing options can become pretty hard.

Unless someone quoted my original comment on this topic, ad_hoc couldn't have seen it (well, he could if he unblocked me). But yeah, you got my point perfectly.

The battlemaster and champion do work beside each other, and I brought them up as an example of getting the design right. But I think that if significantly more mechanical complexity was added to the battlemaster, the champion would become . . . I'm gonna say "untenable," but the right word's not coming to mind.

What counts as "significantly more" depends on just how carefully the added mechanical complexity is implemented, that that's what I originally referred to as the tricky bit (because it's not just about fighter subclasses, but every piece of the whole game)

 

[clearstream]

...they didn't want a game that was as rules heavy as the previous two editions.

The 3rd edition Players Handbook was 304 pages of mostly rules.
The 4th edition Players Handbook was 320 pages of mostly rules.
The 5th edition Players Handbook is 320 pages of mostly rules.

For me, a reasonable definition of "not as rules heavy" would involve having noticeably fewer rules.

 

[Charlaquin]

The issue with mechanical options being used to differentiate characters is that not all mechanical options are created equal with regard to power level. If they were then the complaint would be be that the options "don't really mean anything" because the the options are desired to produce power, not difference.

Please don’t tell me what I desire and why. I would love it if there could be tons of options that were all perfectly mechanically balanced, because I do want those options for the purpose of differentiation, not power. There certainly are players who feel the way you describe (“the options don’t mean anything” was a common complaint directed at 4e), but not everyone who wants more options feel that way. I’m a special snowflake, not a power gamer. I want a character who can do different things than everyone else’s character for the sake of being different, not for the sake of being stronger. I’ll take options I know are mechanically worse if I think they’ll be more interesting, even in 5e with the small pool of options it does offer.

If anything we can look to past editions and the popularity of cookie cutter builds that provide "optimal" outcomes for whatever niche of expertise the player desires. These optimal builds become standardized and soon the entire proposed reason for so many options is rendered null and void because choosing a set of options that is not optimized for performance is a losing proposition.

Yes, that is a negative behavior that some players display. Notably, it is displayed regardless of the number of options (see Coffeelock, Sorcadin, and other 5e builds.) And I thought the whole premise of Mearls’ comment was that they wanted to move away from designing the game to curtail bad behavior from problem players/DMs. I’m pretty sure keeping options low for the explicit purpose of giving power gamers less ammo is the opposite of what Mearls claimed their philosophy for 5e was.

Character differentiation is something that needs to come from the player, not the mechanics.

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[5ekyu]

Which, well... how many of us really know about what work they did or didn't do? We see results, not the work.

And, "It didn't end up the way I like it, so I will ascribe negative traits to them," is a common thing, but a pretty lousy thing to do. The Golden Rule should apply.

Well, again with a partially open and 2 year process with changes along the way, we do see some work being done. Its not like 5e books just appeared on the shelves one chrismas morning with dad and mum keeping quiet.

 

[5ekyu]

When many people played, 4e boards were full of that. And the rules were revised more than a few times between 3e and 3.5 and 4e and still left much to be desired.
Are 5e stealth rules perfect? No. Some things could be a bit more explicit. Especially the distinction between move silently and and hide. (One has advantage in bad light conditions the other of course not... although in a typical noisy surrounding it should. So yes 5e stealth rules need a few moee lines explaining those things and when the DM should apply advantage or disadvantage. But then those should be no hard rules but only guidelines a la "in following situations the DM might apply a/d if..."

Yes, as i commented to someone the other day over dinner...

If they added two pages of stealth, hiding and perception rules we would still have threads on the topic just with different edge cases that require gm ruling being the focus.

 

[5ekyu]

The 3rd edition Players Handbook was 304 pages of mostly rules.
The 4th edition Players Handbook was 320 pages of mostly rules.
The 5th edition Players Handbook is 320 pages of mostly rules.

For me, a reasonable definition of "not as rules heavy" would involve having noticeably fewer rules.

For page count to equate to number of rules, the rules per page has to equate and while i have to confess to not having bothered to attempt this, my off hand knee jerk impression was 5e had more formatting and style fluff space than wither 3e or 4e - significantly so.

So to me the instant impressiin i got was more page space spent on style.

Your conflating pages counting with number of rules is not a concept i would ever have assumed given the many many different approaches to style vs substance and presentation in rpgs over the years.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

*Seriously, the bane of the internet is people trotting out logical fallacies. 95% of the time, they don't know what they're talking about, and 5% of the time, it's from a vaguely-remembered Philosophy 101 course they took 20 years ago. It is nothing more than, well, I'll put it in internet terms. It is nothing more than argumentum ad verdcundium with an unsourced authority, similar to someone attempting to say "hearsay" outside of a courtroom.

The internet is also for ensuring dead horses are thoroughly beaten into submission. Plus cat videos and porn.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Yes, as i commented to someone the other day over dinner...

If they added two pages of stealth, hiding and perception rules we would still have threads on the topic just with different edge cases that require gm ruling being the focus.

Well people on the internet would but I think if they'd added say 12-15 pages helping provide solid guidance (not requirements) on how to use skills and setting DCs, it would help quite a bit.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*