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.

 

[Hriston]

And you are ignoring where the contest has to be a direct opposition where only one can succeed, which initiative isn't.

Please explain how more than one can succeed when two are trying to go first. They can't both be first.

And you are ignoring where one is trying to prevent another from another from accomplishing a goal.

I think both trying to do the same thing (go first) but only one can succeed is closer to the type of contest I'm describing.

Initiative isn't a goal.

The goal is to go before the others. If you fail, you go after them.

You are also ignoring that initiative isn't even about two people against each other much of the time. The goblin over here who is going to attack the wizard rolled lower than the fighter who wants to go after the ogre. The goblin and the fighter aren't even in a contest of any sort, let alone a directly opposing.

You don't know what might happen during combat. Maybe in round three the fighter and the goblin end up toe to toe and their relative initiative scores will matter.

Except that by both RAW and Sage Advice, there isn't even a single contest, let alone 45.



I understand what you are saying, but you are wrong by both RAW and Sage Advice.

I agree that Jeremy Crawford has stated clearly that initiative is not a contest. I'm fine with him saying that, but RAW is silent on the issue. RAW (like Crawford) states that initiative is an ability check, which is a die roll called for when an action is attempted that has a chance of failure. The attempted action in the case of initiative is taking your turn in combat before your opponent. To find out if the ability check succeeds or fails, you compare it to a DC. Except in a contest, "a special form of ability check", you compare it to the result of an ability check made by your opponent. I wonder which of those two forms of ability check most closely resemble what goes on in initiative.

Or multiple tweets. He hasn't shown any shyness about using more than one tweet on a subject. Regardless of the reason, though, both RAW which sets forth the two conditions for contests, which initiative fails to meet, and Sage Advice which says it's not a contest, means that unless you are going to make a house rule, it's not a contest.

If it isn't a contest, what's the DC to succeed in going before your opponent?

 

[Hriston]

Still doesn't convince me away from re-rolling each round, however.

Not trying to do that. I think round-by-round initiative is the way to go too!

 

[clearstream]

That's why there is "contest", which is what you are describing above, and CONTEST which is RAW for the game. They are two different things. The CONTEST mechanic doesn't cover a "contest" like initiative.

For foes who are vying to go first, Initiative is similar to a contest (in the 5e mechanical sense) but its not identical. In a contest, a draw would result in the situation remaining as it was before the contest. That doesn't work as an outcome for initiative.

Similar, but not identical.

 

[pemerton]

I said light as possible design. Specifically, light as possible to reach the desired goal. In this case to tell an EXCITING story about brave adventurers facing deadly perils. In other words, only be as heavy as is absolutely necessary to reach that goal.

<snip>

If you look at every possible rule addition through the lens of “is this necessary to reach the goals of play” it means editing out ideas that can be fun on their own but don’t support the core experience, much like a film editor cutting a scene that is exciting or funny or thrilling because it isn’t necessary to tell the story.

I have to say, by this metric, vast swathes of the spell rules could go. There is absolutley no need for rules that specify range and AoE down to the last foot, that distinguish between a stepped-up fireball and a meteor swarm, etc if the goals is exciting stories about brave adventurers facing deadly perils.

I think a lot of the equipment rules might be vulnerable too. The difference between attacking with a mace and a sword doesn't seem super-important from the point of view of exciting stories about brave adventurers facing deadly peril. (In REH Conan stories the difference between weapons is pretty much colour, for instance.)

the problem with a truly rules lite system such as Fate is that it’s simplicity requires the players to bring the excitement and ideas to the table on their own

I wouldn't class Fate as light. I think it's comparable to Marvel Heroic/Cortex+ Heroic in its handling - maybe even a bit heavier, because its combat uses zones, and it combines descriptors with a slightly more rigid skill system.

By "bringing the excitiement to the table on their own" do you mean that the excitement comes from the fiction, rather than the wargame?

Personally I'm not sure that's true - when I play MHRP/Cortex players get excited finding out how their pools turn out, and similarly playing Prince Valiant (which is genuinely light, I think). But also, in a RPG shouldn't the bulk of the excitiment come from the fiction?

 

[doctorbadwolf]

It's telling that everyone ignores this absolutely true post to keep arguing about minutia.

Is it telling? What, pray tell, does it say?

So similar to powers from 4E?

All I can say is that I would not want that. I like my mundane fighter being a mundane fighter. If I want to keep track of resources (other than second wind) and what my fighter can do then they don't feel very mundane any more. They become just one more variant of a Vancian spell caster with a different label. We already have options for that in the battle master, eldritch knight or other classes.

Yeah, while I agree with them on a lot of stuff, there definitely should be a champion and a battlemaster. There’s no reason to remove either.
I love 4e, and did from the PHB on, but 4e was best in the era between the first essentials book and the end of publication, when my group could have a Knight Fighter, a Warlord, a Gloom Hexblade, a Seeker, and a Bard, and the game ran just fine. It was fantastic. No two characters played remotely alike, in concept or mechanics, and I could get weird with encounter and adventure design while reliably predicting the lethtality within an acceptable margin of error, and I could fiddle with rules, play fast and loose, encourage improvisised actions, etc, without straining the system.

Just to double down on this a bit, Xananthar’s, continued with the same design goals as the core books and remains the 5th best selling D&D book on Amazon a year after its release, being behind the core three and the latest AP. Volos and Mordenkanins follow right behind.

Even the three year old SCAG at #11 is beaten only by the newer guides and APs getting ready to release, being ahead of every older AP.

I think most folks in this thread are imagining a dichotomy where none exists.

We dont need a book full of Warlock chassis versions of rogues and bards. We need new options that allow most basic concepts to be played with most levels having a choice to be made that results in a distinct new way to interact mechanically with the game world.

That can be done with subclasses. We aren’t to get 100% of what I or [MENTION=15729]Charlequin[/MENTION] want, but literally a book with ~3 pages of alternate features for base classes (which they’ve talked about doing already, in some capacity), and a continued flow of more “choice heavy” subclasses, and we're close enough.

Hmm, I rarely get involved in these lovely back-and-forth discussions, but I must admit that this got me a bit stumped.

You do realise that every feature of a character in 4E was in the nature of a power and every power in 4E was in the same format and relied on exactly the same mechanics, right? Roll an attack roll, do damage, apply condition. Rinse, repeat. To suggest that there was somehow "more variety" in character options in 4E than in 5E is, to my mind, contrary to evidence. 4E was the absolute pinnacle of less mechanical variety in character options of any version of D&D yet. Deliberately. That there were ten different powers that attacked an individual creature's Reflex defence, did 3 dice damage, and pushed them 2 squares, is not the definition of "variety". And something that was deliberately moved away from in 5E.

Like many in this overly long discussion, I emphasise I am not making any judgements about the merits or otherwise of the editions, nor of people's opinions. I just gotta call out the "what the..." moment I had reading the above statements.

Cheers, Al'Kelhar

Youve comoletely misharacteruaed 4e. The powers are formatted the same, they don’t do the same things. The customization of 4e is literally beyond compare in DnD’s history. The fact that most (not even all) combat powers do damage, after an attack roll, and often (again, not always) have some secondary effect, doesn’t mean they play out the same during play. They don’t.
I don’t want an edition war argument, btw. I’m pointing this out because it’s salient to th discussion, because 4e powers are literally the model for 5e Battlemaster manuevers, and a ton of other 4e innovations help make 5e what it is.

Really? While the "monk chassis" might not be a perfect fit for everything, IME and IMO, the Open Hand and Shadow are two of the best designed and realized subclasses out there!

In fact, I often think of the Monk when I think of a well-designed class that's a little different and lives up to its design goals.

The Drunken Master is also really well done, and accomplished it’s goals splendidly. It’s a hell of a fun class. Heck, even the 4 Elements Monk would be great if you got the elemental evil elemental cantrips for free, and the powers each cost 1 less ki.

 

[Lanefan]

I have to say, by this metric, vast swathes of the spell rules could go. There is absolutley no need for rules that specify range and AoE down to the last foot

Well, until that last foot makes the difference between your PC surviving or being fried to a cinder...

I think a lot of the equipment rules might be vulnerable too. The difference between attacking with a mace and a sword doesn't seem super-important from the point of view of exciting stories about brave adventurers facing deadly peril.

Though D&D does make some logical distinctions between damage types and how some creatures suffer less (or more) from some types than other types.

Skeletons are the go-to example here. Shooting one with bow and arrow isn't usually going to do much, nor is hitting one with a sword or other implement where the damage is expected to come via the cutting edge - there's not much to cut on a skeleton. Hit one with a mace or club, however, and now you're getting it done.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

The design concept is story first. That is what Mearls was talking about. 5e doesn’t design a class to fit a role or the need for a INT based melee attack, it comes up with a story based idea first, then fits the mechanics to that.

And I didn’t say light design. I said light as possible design. Specifically, light as possible to reach the desired goal. In this case to tell an EXCITING story about brave adventurers facing deadly perils. In other words, only be as heavy as is absolutely necessary to reach that goal.

I’d argue that the problem with a truly rules lite system such as Fate is that it’s simplicity requires the players to bring the excitement and ideas to the table on their own while a game like PF gets so bogged down in minutia as to make combat tedious rather than exciting.

If you look at every possible rule addition through the lens of “is this necessary to reach the goals of play” it means editing out ideas that can be fun on their own but don’t support the core experience, much like a film editor cutting a scene that is exciting or funny or thrilling because it isn’t necessary to tell the story.

"Story first" may have been the design concept, but it's not how the game actually turned out. D&D 5E may not be as heavy on mechanics as 4th or 3rd ed, but it's still very much a tactical wargame at the core, part of the tradition that goes all the way back to Chainmail and beyond.

The vast majority of the rules in 5E relate to combat, while there's not a single rule that directly drives the story. Whether you get an exciting story or a boring one when playing 5E is entirely up to the players and DM.

 

[CapnZapp]

"Story first" may have been the design concept, but it's not how the game actually turned out. D&D 5E may not be as heavy on mechanics as 4th or 3rd ed, but it's still very much a tactical wargame at the core, part of the tradition that goes all the way back to Chainmail and beyond.

The vast majority of the rules in 5E relate to combat, while there's not a single rule that directly drives the story. Whether you get an exciting story or a boring one when playing 5E is entirely up to the players and DM.

It's replies like this that makes me not give up on 5th edition, which MMearls actions are inclined to do.

 

[pemerton]

Well, until that last foot makes the difference between your PC surviving or being fried to a cinder

That exciting outcome can come about in games that don't use measurements in the way that 5e does.

Which was my point.

D&D does make some logical distinctions between damage types and how some creatures suffer less (or more) from some types than other types.

I'm not sure that this is always super-exciting. It seems like it might be a little pedantic.

 

[pemerton]

It's replies like this that makes me not give up on 5th edition, which MMearls actions are inclined to do.

CapnZapp, have you ever tried HARP (High Adventure RP - a type of Rolemaster-lite)? It's not D&D (obviously) but it might satisfy some of your desiderata. (Because not D&D, not so good for pick-up games - I'm not sure what your situation is in that respect.)