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.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I attack the baker and eat all the donut and bagel minions. How many XP do I get?

 

[neobolts]

No pitchforks or torches from me, but I don't really get this. All you are really saying is that WotC should only release enough books that you yourself can happily play and buy at the pace you want to play and buy, one after the other. The problem is that A) Others go at a different pace, and B) Not everyone plays every single story arc, one after the other.

So what's the problem, again?

The topic of bloat (and by extension, release pace) is part of what Mearls was getting at. I was just sharing my personal experience that the pace of book releases has outstripped my responsible spending for the first time in 5e.

The problem is I really really really want to buy $175 worth of D&D modules, sourcebooks, and art books.

 

[Toriel]

So, one thing that many people don't understand unless they are designing things is that there is no such thing as a "free lunch." And this applies to, well, pretty much all design choices.

Or, if design is too abstract, think about going out to eat. There may be 500 wonderful entrees and appetizers on the menu, but you can't order them all. You have to pick and choose what you want to eat, instead of devouring all of them, unless you end up like Mr. Creosote (wafer thin!).

The issue I have with your comparison is that you don't have to order all the entrees and appetizers all on the same visit, and nothing prevents me from trying a new entree and appetizer every time I go there.

Same thing with D&D. Having a multitude of options doesn't mean I have to have them all on the same character at the same time. I can try these options with one character and these other options with another character. It doesn't have to detract from the experience and doesn't have to be unbalanced.

 

[Morrus]

The issue I have with your comparison is that you don't have to order all the entrees and appetizers all on the same visit, and nothing prevents me from trying a new entree and appetizer every time I go there.

Same thing with D&D. Having a multitude of options doesn't mean I have to have them all on the same character at the same time. I can try these options with one character and these other options with another character. It doesn't have to detract from the experience and doesn't have to be unbalanced.

I’m inclined to agree. For me, options speak to replayability.

 

[pickin_grinnin]

>The fear was that an obnoxious player or DM would ruin the game,
>and that would drive people away from it.

That assumption is what made me lose interest in D&D long ago, and what keeps me from buying into a lot of modern "storytelling games." You don't need to bake "protection" from bad GMS into the rules. Just don't play with them.

 

[Jester David]

The issue I have with your comparison is that you don't have to order all the entrees and appetizers all on the same visit, and nothing prevents me from trying a new entree and appetizer every time I go there.

Same thing with D&D. Having a multitude of options doesn't mean I have to have them all on the same character at the same time. I can try these options with one character and these other options with another character. It doesn't have to detract from the experience and doesn't have to be unbalanced.

The problem with that logic is twofold.
First, option creep = power creep. The more options are in the game, the more broken the game becomes. More options are inherently more unbalanced.

Second, replayability is fine, but in 3e and 4e more options were being released than could ever be played. In this analogy, this would be restaurants adding new entrees every few months, making the menu larger and larger.

Look at Guide to Everything. There are 32 or so subclasses in that book alone. That’s enough for six complete five-player tables. Have you run six level 1-20 campaigns in the past year?
And that’s assuming each subclass is a single character. Adding the new races to the mix changes things greatly. A bold elf swashbuckler with a rapier is going to be very different than a cynical dwarf swashbuckler with axes (especially with different magic items).

Options are nice, but they quickly become masterbatory. Content for the sake of content. More choices for the sake of choices, while existing content remains unplayed. I guarantee that there’s feats in 3e that were never chosen by a single charcater. Prestige classes people never took. Options that someone spent more time writing than was spent being played...

 

[ad_hoc]

The problem with that logic is twofold.
First, option creep = power creep. The more options are in the game, the more broken the game becomes. More options are inherently more unbalanced.

Second, replayability is fine, but in 3e and 4e more options were being released than could ever be played. In this analogy, this would be restaurants adding new entrees every few months, making the menu larger and larger.

Look at Guide to Everything. There are 32 or so subclasses in that book alone. That’s enough for six complete five-player tables. Have you run six level 1-20 campaigns in the past year?
And that’s assuming each subclass is a single character. Adding the new races to the mix changes things greatly. A bold elf swashbuckler with a rapier is going to be very different than a cynical dwarf swashbuckler with axes (especially with different magic items).

Options are nice, but they quickly become masterbatory. Content for the sake of content. More choices for the sake of choices, while existing content remains unplayed. I guarantee that there’s feats in 3e that were never chosen by a single charcater. Prestige classes people never took. Options that someone spent more time writing than was spent being played...

To add to that theme gets lost or watered down as well.

What is the identity of a Warlock, or a Rogue, or a Fighter? With enough options they become more and more interchangeable.

We already have a bunch of subclasses that feel like the theme is tacked on or doesn't belong. Hexblade is the worst offender of course. Celestial Warlock is also not great as it steps into Cleric and Paladin territory. I have no idea what a Storm Herald is and why they are a type of Barbarian. Then there is the War Mage which dilutes the identity of Wizards as students of the various schools. There isn't much that ties the schools to the game, and this erodes it more. The Bladesinger at least had a strong theme and being limited to Elves left the schools of Wizards intact. And others of course.

I do like options. New subclasses are fun, we just shouldn't have that many of them. I would have loved 16 pages on new backgrounds much more than a bunch of the subclasses.

I could get on board with alternate features too as a way of refining already published ones that had poor mechanics. The Undying Warlock is a good theme that was missing, it just doesn't work well mechanically.

I love having more invocations, and it allows them to print 1/long rest spells that don't use up a spell slot. New spells in general are fun.

 

[robus]

Talking about options brings to mind how boring I, for one, find the Realms and perhaps a reason why people want more class options, to bring some variety to a tired realm . Rather than mechanical bloat, expanding the range of settings is a much more interesting way to enhance replayability IMHO. Glad that they’re beginning to explore that side of things (CoS not withstanding).

New settings to explore is a lot more exciting to my mind’s eye

 

[The Human Target]

Every time Mearls talks I think "oh that's why I don't really like 5e."

So 4e has rules bloat and is unbalanced now?

Pffffft.