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.

 

[ad_hoc]

It is more elegant, certainly, but...it has a significant number of rules, and most people are going to see it as complex and even a little bit intimidating. I've had to help new people make characters a few times, and they think 5E is pretty heavy and complex. In D&D terms it is light, but for the average person it is very involved.

We have different experiences then.

I'm the only hobby gamer at my table. One person I introduced it to started up their own table after playing a few times.

People I don't know through gaming have either played or have other friends who play.

The millions of new players is substantial evidence for it being a gateway game that new people find easy to pick up.

And by non-hobby gamer, they still play boardgames at boardgame cafes. But they don't attend boardgame meet up groups where people play heavier strategy games. I have seen people go from Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, etc. easily enough to D&D. So not your average person, they do still need to enjoy games and fantasy.

 

[Eric V]

"Me and my ilk?" Good grief. Get over yourself. If I say that everything Bob says is a lie, I'm calling Bob a liar.

But seriously. I don't think 5E is perfect. But saying design decisions are lazy because you disagree with them is just ... well ... lazy.

1) "Ilk" is a perfectly good term to use in this case.

2) "If I say that everything Bob says is a lie, I'm calling Bob a liar." WTF does this have to do with anything? Who said anything remotely like it?

3) I am not saying design decisions are lazy because I disagree with them. No idea how you got that, but then, when 5e gets criticized, that's how the narrative seems to go...hence, the term "ilk." If you're just going to put words in my mouth, maybe don't respond instead?

I also play 13th Age, and that game has things left to the GM as well, but in that case, it's not lazy design, because they outline the reasons, give tons of examples of how it might work, and it stays consistent within the game they've made. Worth noting, the creators weren't afraid to innovate, either.

EDIT: Sorry Morrus, this was being written as you added your response to us.

 

[oreofox]

The core books are what you need to run the game. In all three of those editions(along with 1e and 2e), only the PHB, DMG and MM were core. Even with books like PHBII, MMII-VII(I think), Essentials, etc., those are not core books. They existed as supplements to the game if you bought them.

Technically, according the WotC, ALL 4th edition books are core. I believe that was one of the things they went for when it came to that edition. I could be wrong, as I was not a fan of that edition in the slightest.

 

[Parmandur]

We have different experiences then.

I'm the only hobby gamer at my table. One person I introduced it to started up their own table after playing a few times.

People I don't know through gaming have either played or have other friends who play.

The millions of new players is substantial evidence for it being a gateway game that new people find easy to pick up.

And by non-hobby gamer, they still play boardgames at boardgame cafes. But they don't attend boardgame meet up groups where people play heavier strategy games. I have seen people go from Settlers of Catan, Ticket to Ride, etc. easily enough to D&D. So not your average person, they do still need to enjoy games and fantasy.

No, that also natches my experience. It is very easy for people to get into...but they don't ever tend to think of it as a "light" game.

 

[ad_hoc]

No, that also natches my experience. It is very easy for people to get into...but they don't ever tend to think of it as a "light" game.

To me, "very easy to get into" is basically the definition of a light game.

I think this goes back to needing to define exactly what we mean.

We can point to many things and say it is heavy...but how easy is it to pick up and play? And how light is it in actual play?

The atmosphere at the table is much more like a social game like Codenames than it is a strategy game in my experience. When I play hobby boardgames we spend a good deal of the time concentrating on the game and don't talk to each other much about non-game things during play. In D&D we get off on all sorts of tangents and people come up with all sorts of ways to be creative. Even speaking in the game is light. Compare the social interaction in D&D to discussing a trade of resources in a board game.

 

[Maxperson]

Technically, according the WotC, ALL 4th edition books are core. I believe that was one of the things they went for when it came to that edition. I could be wrong, as I was not a fan of that edition in the slightest.

Pick better, apolitical metaphors, please. Core means center. If everything is core, nothing is core since you can't have everything be at the center. It's quite literally impossible for everything to be core. What they seem to have meant was that all of their books were official, which is only a slightly less ludicrous statement since that applies to every official book from 1e to 5e, with the exception of the Unearthed Arcana books.

 

[Jay Verkuilen]

Again, I don't agree that it's lazy design to leave it open. It's just a different design philosophy. <snip>

My personal preference is for somewhat more in the way of rules, feats, classes, paths, etc. than we've seen so far, but not nearly as much as what we saw in 3e(my favorite edition so far) and 4e(my least favorite edition so far).

We are not in substantial disagreement. I don't want an obsessive level of detail either. I like that things were left more open too. The issue is that there are numerous areas where "left open" seemed to mean "essentially nothing." The economy is an example. I 100% agree I wouldn't want a return of either the 3E or original 4E item creation systems, which were problematic for a number of reasons in different ways. However, the alternative was... first nothing and then a few pages here and there. They didn't provide information on things like spell research. XtGE addressed some of this but in many cases the way they went about it was to put an amount of time that would be relatively unrealistic in most campaigns.

 

[Bawylie]

Um...no?

No.

Youd have ave to give me warlord and artificer as fully playtested phb classes to get me on board with that.

I would be happy to give you both of those things.

 

[Kobold Boots]

The core books are what you need to run the game. In all three of those editions(along with 1e and 2e), only the PHB, DMG and MM were core. Even with books like PHBII, MMII-VII(I think), Essentials, etc., those are not core books. They existed as supplements to the game if you bought them.

I think if you use google to find a list of core and supplemental rulebooks and find the appropriate wiki articles supported by the text that WoTC used to sell them, you'll see where I got my numbers.

The point to be made is there are significantly fewer rules in 5e than there were in other editions. The logic of the person I replied to was significantly flawed. You at least, make sense.

 

[Kobold Boots]

It is not justified to count supplements for several reasons. The obvious reason is that we cannot say today how many 5th edition will go on to have, whereas there likely will not be any further WotC 3rd edition supplements. Then of course, supplements are not essential to play: they're optional. For a group that doesn't include them they add zero rules weight. Less obvious perhaps is the simple implausibility of the position. Hundreds of pages of core rules seems heavy weight to me. A lighter weight system might be something like Savage Worlds... which, of course, has a great many supplements.

That as may be, there are two kinds of argument being made here. The first is that both 3rd and 5th edition are heavy weight rule systems. The second is that they are of roughly even weight as such. Page count and rules density on a page is an indicator, but cannot be conclusive about weightiness in this sense. For instance, one could envision light weight rules, expressed verbosely. The two arguments can be sustained separately or together. In making this judgement, one has to think about where 5th edition D&D sits among contemporary RPGs. Then there is the question of, who for? RPGs that posters here might agree are light weight, could seem heavy weight to someone unfamiliar with the kind of manuals these boards address.

I think the question of weightiness is rightly a relative one - is 5th edition D&D relatively heavier than Savage Worlds? - and is rightly measured from the perspective of the community of hobbyists who are familiar with them. Having DM'd 3rd edition and 5th edition, running weekly sessions for years, I find that the systems of equal weight. That's the bottom line, for me. I've played both for hundreds of hours, and in play, 5th edition is as heavy as 3rd edition. I've played Savage Worlds, and it seems lighter than both to me.

There aren't as many rules in a game with one book as there are in a game with 20. That's pretty much irrefutable.

The argument about core v. supplements is a herring. There are rules in the supplements and they are part of the game. Especially true when everything published in 4ed was defined as core by the publisher.

If you don't like the answer, perhaps think about forming your arguments properly? I'm not big on goal post moving or conversational deflection.

Be well
KB