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]

there is, contra your original statement, an entire world of stuff to buy. From political positions, to henchmen, to bribes, to commissioning art (patronage systems?), to raising armies, to charitable contributions, to luxury goods, to setting up a banking and mercantile system ....

But there is little rules support for spending your money to make your character better at the game of killing more stuff to become more powerful.

Is 5e really that narrow in focus, so that there is no contrast between mechanical resolution and fighting?

D&D 4e had rules for correlating money spent to mechanical effect: 10% of the value of a magic item of your level grants +2 to a check in a skill challenge.

Prince Valiant has a rule for correlating finery to mechanical effect: when you wear your fine clothes, or your fine armour, or ride your fine steed, you get a bonus die in your pool if your action involves impressing others, or otherwise is one where status and prestige matter.

Classic Traveller has a whole subsystem for adjudicating interstellar commerce: economic classifications for planets read off their basic statistica profiles; trade goods charts; broking; etc.

The idea that you reduce your focus on fighting as an aspect of play by having mechanics only for fighting isn't one that seems coherent to me. At least in my experience, no other game generates complaints about "hack-and-slash" or "murder hobos" that D&D does.

 

[pemerton]

Why in the world would I want the game book to tell me the "goals" of my game?

Besides, it changes from campaign to campaign, sometimes session to session.

Most games establish a goal of play, win conditions, or the like.

This is true of many RPGs -Gygax's PHB, for instance, does this (both in the early pages, where it talks about the goal being to use your class abilities to overcome the challenges posed by the game; and towards the end, under the heading "Successful Adventuring", where it gives advice on the best methods for successfully exploring and looting a dungeon).

Burning Wheel gives goals of play (which are different fromm classic D&D): fight for what you believe, where "fight" is being used to mean "struggle", not necessarily "try and physically defeat opponents".

Prince Valiant has a goal of play - wander through an imagined "Arhturian Britain" and become a famous knight or companion.

I guess someone could use AD&D to run a game of courtly intrigue, but the game will give almost no support for it and will exhibit many break points (eg Charm Person, Suggestion and the like will turn out to be broken in such a game). I guess someone could use Burning Wheel to play a dungeon-crawling game, but it won't work super-well: if you like some aspects of the resolution system but want to play a dungeon-crawl, try Torchbearer instead. If you want to play a game of Arthruian-era viking traders, Prince Valiant won't offer anything very helpful.

I know some people think that a RPG is just a system for finding out what happens in the world, but that's an idea I don't take that very seriously even for Runequest or Traveller, let alone any version of D&D.

 

[pemerton]

This line is advice...and would be okay.

A rulebook that doesn't say stuff like this is (in my view) incomplete. It assumes that the players will bring knowledge of how to play the game from somewhere else.

A game doesn't qualify as "light" because it has incomplete rules!

 

[TwoSix]

I know some people think that a RPG is just a system for finding out what happens in the world, but that's an idea I don't take that very seriously even for Runequest or Traveller, let alone any version of D&D.

That's probably a point of contention on this thread; I think for quite a few posters that "D&D as unfocused world-sim" or "wander around and see what the DM throws at us" is the dominant modality of play.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

In a contest the high roller would go, and nobody else would get a turn. Initiative doesn't work that way. Everyone gets to go, because it's not an opposed check.



I wasn't splitting hairs at all. There is a very big difference between only one person getting to act and nobody else getting a turn(contest), and everyone getting to go and simply using a dex check to establish order(initiative). See the link provided by @Ristamar. Jeremy Crawford established that I am correct here, though I really didn't think he would have to rule on something so clear.

A context doesn’t require that the other guy doesn’t go. That’s simply false.

The other guy just doesnt get to get to go first, because they lost the “go first” contest.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Not sure I’d call that a sucker punch. The issue of relying on a lucky initiative roll indicates that the target of your punch isn’t really a sucker. Actually catch him by surprise and he can’t help but give you the first shot at him. That’s a real sucker punch.

Yep, and no amount of knowing that the person you’re talking to is potentially lethally dangerous, in a general sense, prevent you from being sucker punched. In 5e, you have to know that they are a threat to you, right now, in this situation. Becauese in DnD, “threat” means something trying to harm you, not just something that could, theoretically, try to harm you.

 

[Maxperson]

Hmmm - there's many, many times I've found the price lists for hirelings, servants, etc. in the 1e DMG to be extremely useful as otherwise I-as-DM wouldn't have much of a clue what would be reasonable to charge for such. Guidelines not rules, to be sure, but very useful nonetheless.

They can be helpful for sure. I don't think they are needed, though. I also found that too many rules alter the way people think about the game. In 1e and 2e where there were fewer rules and the DMs had to create/change more, the thought was that they could make the game their own and pretty much everyone tinkered with the game. In 3e where rules were everywhere trying to cover as much as possible, the DMs I played with that weren't old school, looked a lot more to the books and tinkered much less with the game. 5e is a move back to making the game your own more than blindly following the rules.

 

[Maxperson]

The basic structure of RPG action resolution is fiction >> mechanics >> fiction.

(By way of contrast: fiction >> fiction is free narration/storytelling; mechanics >> mechanics is boardgaming or wargaming.)

Here is the structure of a knowledge check:

Fiction: "I think I remember learning something about this land - the name of the king will come to me in a moment!"

Mechanics: <establish DC, roll a 20 check, apply applicable modifiers, compare to DC to determine success or failure>

Fiction: Either "Of course, it's King so-and-so the Nth" or "Dash it, I can't remember!"​

Here is the structure of a jump check:

Fiction: "I run to the edge of the chasm and leap!"

Mechanics: <establish DC, roll a 20 check, apply applicable modifiers, compare to DC to determine success or failure>

Fiction: Either "You clear the distance land on the other side" or "Uh oh, . . . ."​

An attack roll doesn't get back to fiction until all the hit points are ablated:

Fiction: "I draw my sword - 'Have at you, foul orc!'"

Mechanics: <a sequence of initiative checks, attack rolls, damage rolls, hit point tracking, etc>

Fiction: Either "You run the orc through - it's dead!" or "You fall to the orc's mighty blow - do you want to roll up a new character?"​

The referee can narrate stuff in the middle stage of the combat if s/he wants, but it would all be just colour. Compared to the ability/skill checks, you don't get back to fiction until a whole series of mechanical processes which have no analogue in the context of an ability/skill check.

If there is movement during the course of the fight, or if either the PC or the orc inflicts a condition somehow, it's more complex - in Vincent Baker's terms there are some box-to-box arrows and some box-to-cloud and cloud-to-box arrows - but the basic point still stands.

You got the mechanics for an attack wrong. Initiative is a separate mechanic that doesn't have to result in a single attack, so it's not a part of the attack mechanics. Damage happens AFTER the attack mechanic if successful, and also is not a part of it. The attack mechanic is...

<establish DC, roll a 20 check, apply applicable modifiers, compare to DC to determine success or failure> Just like skills. Where DC = AC. That's the entirety of the attack mechanic.

 

[Maxperson]

A context doesn’t require that the other guy doesn’t go. That’s simply false.

The other guy just doesnt get to get to go first, because they lost the “go first” contest.

You want to just re-write the Sage Advice and send it to him so we can all know how to really play the game? Crawford would probably appreciate it.

It's not going to be a contest no matter how badly you want it to be. The rules don't support you, and the creator via his Sage Advice doesn't support you(he supports the rule book).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

You want to just re-write the Sage Advice and send it to him so we can all know how to really play the game? Crawford would probably appreciate it.

It's not going to be a contest no matter how badly you want it to be. The rules don't support you, and the creator via his Sage Advice doesn't support you(he supports the rule book).

Which answer are you referring to, because this one literally does not contradict anything I’ve said, but simply clarified that init is an ability check, not a skill. https://www.sageadvice.eu/2016/08/29/is-initiative-a-skill/