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.

 

[pemerton]

Since writing has to be done by writers and design by designers, it is disingenuous to argue that your intention to not cast aspersions on the creators in question.

I don't agree. I'm an academic: part of my job is refereeing submissions to journals, advise publishers on book manuscripts, etc. And others have the job of doing that for my work.

If an argument in a piece I'm sent to referee is bad, or doesn't cite existing literature that it should, or is unclear, or has some other flaw, I will say so. I have a variety of critical vocabulary for doing so ("lazy" isn't normally part of it because I'm generally being asked to referee based on technical qualities, not literary merit). I'm not casting aspersions on someone by (eg, as I have done) saying that their submission about a criminal law matter is confused about some fundamental aspects of Australian criminal law. And when I submitted something and was told by a negative referee that my theory of the adjudication of the constitutionality of statutes added nothing to the existing understanding I didn't agree, but I didn't think the referee was calling me a silly, bad, lazy, or otherwise flawed, inadequate or less-than-worthy person.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Does anyone care if Mearls mows his lawn regularly? Or that he takes out the trash every day?

Of course not. Mearls is the topic of discussion because if his position on the D&D design team. So, any and all criticism is in that regard. None of this is about whether Mearls is a “lazy person”.

So, a criticism that 5E has lazy design is in fact a criticism of Mearls’s work. That it is lazy. That he is a lazy designer. I don’t know why the critics are balking about this. Commit to it, people. You’re saying something about the man’s work, and it’s not something positive.

I for one don’t think most of 5E’s design is lazy. I do think there are areas where it is far less specific, far less codified, than prior editions. But I believe that is intentional, and I think most of these areas were given much consideration, and these choices were made deliberately.

Take the “magic item economy” for example. People have very strong opinions about it, based on comments in this thread and many others. It seems to be a big deal to many people. Some prefer a low magic setting, where magic items are rare and only discovered in ancient ruins or mystic locations. Others prefer magic items to be treated like the latest technological commodity, bought and sold everywhere.

So what were they supposed to do? Devote time and space to rules for magical economy that would be ignored by half the audience, unsatisfactory for another quarter of the audience, and of passing use for the remainder? Why do that when it’s clearly better for each type of group to decide how they want to handle this aspect of the game?

Is that laziness or pragmatism? I think it’s the latter.

 

[pemerton]

He lists some in the sentence immediately after the quote. Here's the next sentence which you cut out for some reason, before asking that question.

3E/PF and Hero are not terribly representative of "other RPGs", so I assumed that some others were also in mind.

I mean, Rolemaster II (without supplements) is lighter than PF or Hero, but that doesn't make it a light system, or even a "mid" system. (I think Classic Traveller is a candidate for a "mid" system - PC build is simple, and PC descriptions are very easy to read even for a beginner, but there are multiple subsystems, none too hard in itself, used for resolving action declarations.)

 

[pemerton]

So, a criticism that 5E has lazy design is in fact a criticism of Mearls’s work. That it is lazy. That he is a lazy designer. I don’t know why the critics are balking about this. Commit to it, people. You’re saying something about the man’s work, and it’s not something positive.

I'm saying something about his work. I'm not saying something about him. I don't know him nor much about him.

Likewise the referee who told me that my work added no new ideas wasn't saying anything about me - the refreeing being double blind, s/he didn't know who had written what s/he was reading.

I mean, this is getting ridiculous! Does anyone think that the Beast Quest books aren't lazy writing? Does anyone think that the people who churn them out aren't working bloody hard? Maybe some of them are even great writers, but that doesn't come out in books written to a tight formula under a ridiculous deadline.

 

[pemerton]

Take the “magic item economy” for example. People have very strong opinions about it, based on comments in this thread and many others. It seems to be a big deal to many people. Some prefer a low magic setting, where magic items are rare and only discovered in ancient ruins or mystic locations. Others prefer magic items to be treated like the latest technological commodity, bought and sold everywhere.

So what were they supposed to do? Devote time and space to rules for magical economy that would be ignored by half the audience, unsatisfactory for another quarter of the audience, and of passing use for the remainder? Why do that when it’s clearly better for each type of group to decide how they want to handle this aspect of the game?

Is that laziness or pragmatism? I think it’s the latter.

Here's another way of thinking about this: what is the point of setting up a game where a significant premise is collecting treasure, and then not addressing what that treasure is for - either from the game point of view, or (given that the game involves establishing a shared fiction) from an in-fiction point of view?

An alternative would be to address ways of approaching the game which don't centre treasure acquisition in the same way, but obviously that would generate its own howls of anguish from some legacy players.

I'm not saying their situation was an easy one: imperatives of aesthetics, of coherence, of legacy/backwards compatibility, of commerciality, are all important but don't all push the same way.

In those circumstances a pragmatic choice isn't per se at odds with a lazy one (some pragmatic policy is also lazy policy). One might describe the wisdom of Solomon as pragmatic but not lazy, but it's not clear to me that (to mix my metaphors and my allusions) Mearls et al achieved quite the same squaring of the circle.

And even if one takes the notion of pragmatism (= expedience?) at face value, is that good design? The answer isn't obvious, at least to me.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I'm saying something about his work. I'm not saying something about him. I don't know him nor much about him.

Likewise the referee who told me that my work added no new ideas wasn't saying anything about me - the refreeing being double blind, s/he didn't know who had written what s/he was reading.

I mean, this is getting ridiculous! Does anyone think that the Beast Quest books aren't lazy writing? Does anyone think that the people who churn them out aren't working bloody hard? Maybe some of them are even great writers, but that doesn't come out in books written to a tight formula under a ridiculous deadline.

Yes, that’s what I said....people are speaking of his work.

So, is calling his work lazy design complimentary?

Along a similar vein....is calling someone’s GMing technique lazy insulting?

 

[MNblockhead]

Except those were usually in the DMG, at least in 1E and 2E.

Yeah, the increased expectation of literate players has been deleterious. In 1e we knew how to keep the players illiterate and in their place.~ Now everyone is all uppity and throwing around phrases like "player agency".~

To be clear, I didn't say cut it entirely, just noted that it's an example of something you could move to the web without a lot of loss. Moving it to the web would also mean it could be updated as new and interesting stories get published.

That argument is stronger when discussing the rules. I buy the books and D&D Beyond. I love the books, not just the content but the production values. The Inspirational Reading list works best as something to discovery while browsing and flipping pages.

 

[pemerton]

In 4e, a player is assumed to have access to the full scope of options published for 4e, excepting stuff like dragonmarks and options that don’t exist in a given world.

<snip>

The DM or group can opt out, but the different baseline assumption changes player perception of their own agency during character creation, and is something that was very important to many 4e groups.

In every other edition, only the core options in the PHB are assumed to be available unless specified otherwise. In 5e, even some PHB options are more “opt-in”.

In the end, it’s a matter of what players can generally assume is part of the game unless the DM tells them otherwise.

To me, this still seems to be relevant only to pick-up/club/organised play games.

What the norms are at a table of people who aren't otherwise strangers to one aonther seem to me to be influenced by their past dealings and mutual undertandings, not a label used at the bottom of a published book.

The devs worked hard to keep the game balanced so that this expectation could remain reasonable

But in 5e they don't?

 

[hawkeyefan]

Here's another way of thinking about this: what is the point of setting up a game where a significant premise is collecting treasure, and then not addressing what that treasure is for - either from the game point of view, or (given that the game involves establishing a shared fiction) from an in-fiction point of view?

An alternative would be to address ways of approaching the game which don't centre treasure acquisition in the same way, but obviously that would generate its own howls of anguish from some legacy players.

I'm not saying their situation was an easy one: imperatives of aesthetics, of coherence, of legacy/backwards compatibility, of commerciality, are all important but don't all push the same way.

In those circumstances a pragmatic choice isn't per se at odds with a lazy one (some pragmatic policy is also lazy policy). One might describe the wisdom of Solomon as pragmatic but not lazy, but it's not clear to me that (to mix my metaphors and my allusions) Mearls et al achieved quite the same squaring of the circle.

And even if one takes the notion of pragmatism (= expedience?) at face value, is that good design? The answer isn't obvious, at least to me.

I suppose that they felt that spending pages telling people what money is for might be a but unnecessary. A bit naive on their part perhaps...but I for one am glad they made the decision they did.

And I don’t think lazy and pragmatic mean the same thing. Pragmatism, to me, seems to include consideration. “What’s the best use of our efforts?”

Laziness does not. “What’s the easiest way to get this done?”

 

[pemerton]

Yes, that’s what I said....people are speaking of his work.

So, is calling his work lazy design complimentary?

Along a similar vein....is calling someone’s GMing technique lazy insulting?

If I call your GMing technique lazy, yes that would be insulting. You're not a professional, you don't hold yourself out as one, and we are communicating in the context of a friendly message board discussion.

The same would be true if I said that your golfing is lazy.

But a commentator who criticises a professional sportsperson as having lazy technique isn't being insulting. The context is very different, and professionals who aspire to perform well are expected to suck it up. The same is true for musicisans (performers and campaigners). I've read reviews of concerts, or of albums, that criticise the performers for being lazy or phoning it in or resting on past laurels or simply reworking their old material rather than trying something new or different or exciting. Those reviews may be fair or unfair, sound or unsound; but they're not insults.

When I get criticisms of my pubished work, or rejections of work I would like to publish, that's not insulting (though of course sometimes it stings). That's part and parcel of putting my work out there as an instance (or a would-be instance) of scholarship.

And Mearls as a professional RPG designer is in the same boat. Criticism of his work isn't insulting him. (Of course it's not complimenting him either. But not every remark about someone's work has to be either compliment or insult.)