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.

 

[Parmandur]

I think that's because 4e is a tactical skirmish game interspersed among freeform roleplaying - or so I've been told.

EDIT: Those games bear the same relationship to 4e as an arena dice-off would to AD&D. They don't involve adjudication of the fiction. They don't have a skill challenge mechanic. They don't involve any sort of PC motivation or protagonism. In other words, they're board games, not RPGs.

*shrug*

I've played both 4E and the D&D Adventure System games, and they felt very similar to me.

 

[ad_hoc]

That is a brilliant insight and sums it up really elegantly. Only thing I’d add...

5e is designed to play out like an action movie rather than a board game or a novel.

Absolutely.

The novel thing is a problem in all RPGs I think. Most commonly people think of it as the DM telling a story. There is also the problem of players creating main protagonists and hogging spotlight rather than ensemble characters.

I think I will make a thread about the action movie thing.

 

[pemerton]

*shrug*

I've played both 4E and the D&D Adventure System games, and they felt very similar to me.

I've played AD&D arena combats and Keep on the Borderlands, and likewise. I'm not sure what that shows, though. In my case, probably that I was not a very good AD&D player - as I have never really got into the exploratory/ASL aspects of that game, which are pretty significant for B2. I don't know about your case, but I'm inferring that your 4e PCs had not motivations, did not act protagonistically, didn't improvise, and never engaged in skill challenges adjudicated in the manner the DMG and DMG2 set out.

 

[SmokeyCriminal]

Initiative is a curious mechanic. During a combat "round" of 6 seconds everyone is taking their turn at the exact same time. But the DM can't resolve all those actions at once. So everyone rolls Initiative to see in which order the actions get resolved, not to see who "goes first".

I don't think you can call it a contest because if you want to go last but you rolled the highest in initiative, then you what?... lost by winning?

If the mechanic was "whoever rolls the highest Initiative gets to choose when they go" then I'd call it a contest.

But your desires don't actually play a factor in the outcome. It's more of a coincidence/Bug/Feature that having your actions resolved first/last can sometimes give you an advantage.

Maybe if they called it Combat Action Resolution Order Roll it might be clearer in what exactly the mechanic is, and does. Even if it doesn't sound as cool as Initiative.

Crap, I just realized Assassinate kinda throws a wrench in the whole thing.

 

[ad_hoc]

Initiative is a curious mechanic. During a combat "round" of 6 seconds everyone is taking their turn at the exact same time. But the DM can't resolve all those actions at once. So everyone rolls Initiative to see in which order the actions get resolved, not to see who "goes first".

I don't think you can call it a contest because if you want to go last but you rolled the highest in initiative, then you what?... lost by winning?

If the mechanic was "whoever rolls the highest Initiative gets to choose when they go" then I'd call it a contest.

But your desires don't actually play a factor in the outcome. It's more of a coincidence/Bug/Feature that having your actions resolved first/last can sometimes give you an advantage.

Maybe if they called it Combat Action Resolution Order Roll it might be clearer in what exactly the mechanic is, and does. Even if it doesn't sound as cool as Initiative.

Crap, I just realized Assassinate kinda throws a wrench in the whole thing.

Think of an action movie.

Everyone is doing stuff at the time but key actions that the camera focuses on happen one after the other (unless we're talking Transformers, in which case it's just a lot of CGI noise ).

 

[clearstream]

The implication of this is that the rules, as presented, don't allow us to resolve a foot race involving three or more contestants. Which doesn't seem right to me - the contest rules (ie mutually opposed checks used to establish a ranking) seem to be applicable here.

Participants in a footrace can come in first, second, third etc, and draw, so a straightforward Strength (Athletics) ability check is a better mechanic to apply. Contests are not for ranking, they're for cases where creatures are directly opposing each other.

Edit to give an example. Five creatures race, getting Strength (Athletics) checks of 11, 16, 2, 12, 11. They place in this order - 16 (wins), 12 (second), 11 and 11 (tied for third), 2 (last). That would be for a short sprint. To play out an endurance race, creatures are allowed a number of Dash actions equal to 3 + Constitution modifier, and must make DC 10 checks for each Dash over that - gaining Exhaustion levels on failure. It's more complicated, but working then from Speed produces a finishing order.

 

[Maxperson]

Note, there are two parts here. The bolded part is the important part though. You can EITHER succeed or prevent the other character from succeeding. Just as in an initiative contest, I succeed at going faster than you. We are both trying to go first. Only one of us will succeed. Thus, we roll Dexterity CHECKS, just as in any contest, to determine who goes first. Now, initiative has the additional caveat (i.e. specific trumps general) that we cannot have a tie in this contest, but, other than that, this is definitively a rules based contest.

Gotta love when people take things out of context in an attempt to win the internetz.

The context for that statement is the first part that you ignored up there...

"Sometimes one character’s or monster’s efforts are directly opposed to another’s. This can occur when both of them are trying to do the same thing and only one can succeed, such as attempting to snatch up a magic ring that has fallen on the floor. This situation also applies when one of them is trying to prevent the other one from accomplishing a goal—for example, when a monster tries to force open a door that an adventurer is holding closed. In situations like these, the outcome is determined by a special form of ability check, called a contest."

Exactly two situations are given that can be called contests by RAW.

The first one involves a contest where only one can succeed, such as snatching a ring off of the ground. If you win the roll, you succeed. The first portion of the part you took out of context. They key part is bolded here, but I'll repeat it for the 20th times since you didn't see it the first 19 times I posted it, mentioned it, and you just quoted it.

The second part comes when trying to prevent someone from doing something, like holding a door shut while the other is trying to open it. If you win, you prevent the other one from succeeding. They key part is bolded here, but I'll repeat it for the 20th times since you didn't see it the first 19 times I posted it, mentioned it, and you just quoted it.

Will you stop pretending you can't understand something so simple, or that somehow your argument overcomes both RAW and Sage Advice that says you are wrong? Or else go learn about context?

 

[Maxperson]

Participants in a footrace can come in first, second, third etc, and draw, so a straightforward Strength (Athletics) ability check is a better mechanic to apply. Contests are not for ranking, they're for cases where creatures are directly opposing each other.

Edit to give an example. Five creatures race, getting Strength (Athletics) checks of 11, 16, 2, 12, 11. They place in this order - 16 (wins), 12 (second), 11 and 11 (tied for third), 2 (last). That would be for a short sprint. To play out an endurance race, creatures are allowed a number of Dash actions equal to 3 + Constitution modifier, and must make DC 10 checks for each Dash over that - gaining Exhaustion levels on failure. It's more complicated, but working then from Speed produces a finishing order.

It seems pretty clear at this point that multiple people in this thread can't tell the difference between indirect opposition like races, initiative, and javalin throws, and direct opposition like arm wrestling, snatching a ring off the ground before the other guy, and preventing someone from opening a door.

 

[Tallifer]

It seems pretty clear at this point that multiple people in this thread can't tell the difference between indirect opposition like races, initiative, and javalin throws, and direct opposition like arm wrestling, snatching a ring off the ground before the other guy, and preventing someone from opening a door.

Or multiple people think it does not make enough real difference to matter?

 

[Maxperson]

Or multiple people think it does not make enough real difference to matter?

Which is perfectly fine. If they want to expand the contest rule to include indirect opposition, they are free to do so. They just can't claim that RAW supports it, and we are discussing RAW here.