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]

That might call your metrics into question, more than the mechanics.

Maybe. But no one has put an argument that it's a good feature of a RPG that the mechanics pull you away from playing your PC in a "natural" fashion.

This post in particular, and this thread in general, are the strongest argument for Fate (or at least Fatelike design) that I have ever read.

Well, FATE would satisfy the metric I posited (that good design will align PC motivation and mechanical incentive)!

 

[Lanefan]

Doesn't this just show the mechanics are poorly designed (by the metric I put forward)?

In this instance yes; but they're the mechanics the system gives us to work with until-unless we a) change them (my preferred solution) or b) find a different system.

 

[pemerton]

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".

What are the 10 powers you've got in mind?

But in any event, I think you've missed [MENTION=6779196]Charlaquin[/MENTION]'s point, because you've misdescribed 4e powers.

Most 4e powers are a distinctive, perhaps unique, combination of actions for the attacker (move, shift, heal, etc) and effects on the target (various conditions and forced movement effects). This satisfies Charlaauin's request for uniqueness.

And you get to make a new power choice at most levels. Which satisfies the request for frequent, beyond-starting-levels, PC build options.

One of the reasons I dislike the encounter/daily power limitation of 4E (or the battle master for that matter) is that it's very much a limit for the sake of "balance". I understand it, but no matter what fluff you add it still just felt artificial. IMHO the fluff reasons were flimsier than the paper they were written on. I can't do a "come and get it" twice because they already fell for it once? But what if we have a second wave or we didn't have time for a short rest between encounters?

It's action economy. It's no different from the fact that a 1st level Champion fighter can't kill puny kobolds at any faster rate than rugged hobgoblins (ie in both cases no more than 1 per round).

As far back as Gygax's DMG, people have been narrating the action economy in ways that make sense to them (eg you only get one good opening each round, and we just choose not to pay attention to its somewhat metronomic character). Come and Get It is nothing new in this regard.

 

[pemerton]

In this instance yes; but they're the mechanics the system gives us to work with until-unless we a) change them (my preferred solution) or b) find a different system.

(b) is certainly not a very demanding threshold. Fate has already been mentioned in this thread, and there are many other systems that achieve a similar reconciliation. And some are lighter than D&D (any version).

 

[Maxperson]

You're ignoring that I said an initiative roll can be many contests.

And you are ignoring where the contest has to be a direct opposition where only one can succeed, which initiative isn't. And you are ignoring where one is trying to prevent another from another from accomplishing a goal. Initiative isn't a goal.

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.

If there are only two participants in combat, there's just one contest. But if there are ten participants, there are 45 separate contests all happening simultaneously. The outcome of each contest determines which of the two involved participants goes before the other. The other participant fails to go before his/her opponent.

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

To reiterate what I'm saying here, the participants are not contesting with each other for the ability to act. They are contesting with each other for the ability to act before the other participants when considered one at a time.

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

I know that Jeremy Crawford answered that initiative is not a contest, but keep in mind that it's much easier for him and the rulebooks to treat it as a special case than to explain it the way I have, especially considering his answer has to fit in a tweet.

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.

 

[Maxperson]

And I'm not seeing combat as a friendly competition.

To jump off from your preference for the word competitor, however, I thought it would be instructive to look up the definition of contestant.

con·test·ant
/kənˈtestənt/
noun
a person who takes part in a contest or competition.
​

And here's a standard definition of competitor:

com·pet·i·tor​

/kəmˈpedədər/​

noun​

a person who takes part in an athletic contest.​

And here's one for opponent:

op·po·nent​

/əˈpōnənt/​

noun​

noun: opponent; plural noun: opponents​

someone who competes against or fights another in a contest, game, or argument; a rival or adversary.
​

So no matter which word you use for the participants in a combat, they all seem to get involved in contests of one sort or another.

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.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6787503]Hriston[/MENTION]'s suggsetion that an initiative check is a multi-character contest to see who gets to go first seems right to me. I can read page 58 of the Basic Rules, which describes contests in terms of opposition between two character. But presumably those rules are intended to be extrapolated in appropriate cases - for instance, if instead of two character racing to grab a ring from the floor, we were trying to resolve a treasure hunt at a birthday party, or an orienteering competiton, the contest mechanic would presumably be the appropriate one, with the mechanical success ordering corresponding to the in-fiction success ordering. (only one can be the winner!)

 

[Greg K]

Going back to a little earlier in the thread, I do want more official class options/variants. For instance, in various episodes of Happy Fun Hour, Mearls has stated that some of the classes should have had their subclasses at 1st level, but those classes were finished before the designers had settled on their design goal. Some of the design goals include the following: First, "When you choose your subclass, ideally, you are not changing your equipment" and your class should support the character you want to play at first level; Second, a subclass at first level should say something about your identity; Third, your base class should support "melding" into your subclass.

1. "When you choose your subclass, ideally you are not changing your equipment." "The character you want to play should be the character you play at first level." The example that he provided was, if they had designed the Fighter class to rely on strength and heavy armor, this would have posed an issue for many fighter types.. Had they did that, the guy wanting to play an Archer has no reason to not use strength and heavy armor until getting a subclass and then switches to bow and leather armor.

The Valor Bard breaks this design goal according to Mearls, in the Kraken episode. If I recall correctly, the feeling was that, as a result, the Bard should have had its subclass at first level.

2. A subclass received at 1st level says something about your character's starting identity compared to a subclass at 3rd.
Mearls stated that Wizard was, originally, going to receive their Tradition at first level. However, it was moved to second level to give the Wizard Arcane Recovery at first level. In a Psion or Mystic episode of Happy Hour, he stated that he now thinks that they should have given the Tradition at first level (and move recovery to 2nd (?)). I am curious as to what moving the Tradition to first level would provide.

3. The core class abilities should support "melding" into the subclass.
In the most recent episodes of Happy Hour, Mike was working on an Urban Ranger subclass. The problem was that the base class does not support a transition to the subclass. Thus, there is an issue of not playing the character you want at the start and changing how you play the character upon taking the subclass.
To resolve the issue, Mike made notes for an urban ranger variant for the Ranger class including a variant of Natural Explorer. Personally, I felt some skill swaps were also necessary (which is what I did for my own Urban Ranger variant).
From my point of view, the Rogue Scout introduces similar issues to the rogue. The subclass was intended to fill the role of a non spell casting ranger. However, using the rogue introduces elements not fitting for someone whose idea is being a wilderness scout or hunter and not a thief that transitioned into a wilderness rogue. The rogue needs a class variant to aid the transition into wilderness based subclasses much like the ranger needed a base class variant to support urban based ranger subclasses (Note: Yes, I have also created my own wilderness rogue variant as a choice at first level. However, it does change the need to officially address these classes failure to meet WOTC's own class design goals).


Personally, I would like to some other classes receive official class variants based upon 1 and 3. I would also like to see some variants for certain class abilities (e.g. the Thief's Use Magical Device and some Monk abilities (personally, I would love to see a complete redesign of the monk, but that is not going to happen)).

Edit: One of the variants that I want is an official no or light armored fighter variant at first level both for the unarmored swordsman and non-mystical martial artist. I may stick with Khaalis's light armored variant, but it would be nice to have an official version and may happen since Mike worked on a Brawler subclass that is intended to be an unarmed Fighter that fights without armor and gets increased unarmored damage (on the downside Mike is basing the Brawler upon WWE wrestlers).

 

[Eric V]

Going back to a little earlier in the thread, I do want more official class options/variants. For instance, in various episodes of Happy Fun Hour, Mearls has stated that some of the classes should have had their subclasses at 1st level, but those classes were finished before the designers had settled on their design goal. Some of the design goals include the following: First, "When you choose your subclass, ideally, you are not changing your equipment" and your class should support the character you want to play at first level; Second, a subclass at first level should say something about your identity; Third, your base class should support "melding" into your subclass.

1. "When you choose your subclass, ideally you are not changing your equipment." "The character you want to play should be the character you play at first level." The example that he provided was, if they had designed the Fighter class to rely on strength and heavy armor, this would have posed an issue for many fighter types.. Had they did that, the guy wanting to play an Archer has no reason to not use strength and heavy armor until getting a subclass and then switches to bow and leather armor.

The Valor Bard breaks this design goal according to Mearls, in the Kraken episode. If I recall correctly, the feeling was that, as a result, the Bard should have had its subclass at first level.

2. A subclass received at 1st level says something about your character's starting identity compared to a subclass at 3rd.
Mearls stated that Wizard was, originally, going to receive their Tradition at first level. However, it was moved to second level to give the Wizard Arcane Recovery at first level. In a Psion or Mystic episode of Happy Hour, he stated that he now thinks that they should have given the Tradition at first level (and move recovery to 2nd (?)). I am curious as to what moving the Tradition to first level would provide.

3. The core class abilities should support "melding" into the subclass.
In the most recent episodes of Happy Hour, Mike was working on an Urban Ranger subclass. The problem was that the base class does not support a transition to the subclass. Thus, there is an issue of not playing the character you want at the start and changing how you play the character upon taking the subclass.
To resolve the issue, Mike made notes for an urban ranger variant for the Ranger class including a variant of Natural Explorer. Personally, I felt some skill swaps were also necessary (which is what I did for my own Urban Ranger variant).
From my point of view, the Rogue Scout introduces similar issues to the rogue. The subclass was intended to fill the role of a non spell casting ranger. However, using the rogue introduces elements not fitting for someone whose idea is being a wilderness scout or hunter and not a thief that transitioned into a wilderness rogue. The rogue needs a class variant to aid the transition into wilderness based subclasses much like the ranger needed a base class variant to support urban based ranger subclasses (Note: Yes, I have also created my own wilderness rogue variant as a choice at first level. However, it does change the need to officially address these classes failure to meet WOTC's own class design goals).

Personally, I would like to some other classes receive official class variants based upon 1 and 3. I would also like to see some variants for certain class abilities (e.g. the Thief's Use Magical Device and some Monk abilities (personally, I would love to see a complete redesign of the monk, but that is not going to happen)).

In a lot of ways, I feel too much was designed into the base class, leaving too little to differentiate in the various subclasses. The reason the Urban Ranger is hard to design as a subclass is an example of this, and I feel paladins have too many of their abilities baked into the core class as well (e.g a Vengeance Paladin doesn't really need Lay on Hands thematically; would have been nice to see that as an option, with something more vengeful to replace it).

Lots of classes would differentiate nicely with more options moved from base to sub-.

 

[Parmandur]

In a lot of ways, I feel too much was designed into the base class, leaving too little to differentiate in the various subclasses. The reason the Urban Ranger is hard to design as a subclass is an example of this, and I feel paladins have too many of their abilities baked into the core class as well (e.g a Vengeance Paladin doesn't really need Lay on Hands thematically; would have been nice to see that as an option, with something more vengeful to replace it).

Lots of classes would differentiate nicely with more options moved from base to sub-.

What's interesting there, to me, is that the Classes in 5E that fall under that rubric, we're introduced in the 70's as Subclasses themselves...