D&D 5E (2024) Mike Mearls explains why your boss monsters die too easily

[AnotherGuy]

There you go. Change the rules to make the game you want!

You may have already seen this, you probably have, since I'm always late to things, but there is a pretty neat free 5e product called Grit and Glory with some awesome ideas within. Just in case you haven't seen it.

 

[tetrasodium]

Some recent & not so recent posts have asserted the idea that the PCs themselves wouldn't be aware of videogamey concepts like how their resting & recovery mechanics play out. I wanted to refute that absurdity with some evidence of my own.


It takes me about 30-36 hours to recover the "necessary stamina" expended from this....

Spoiler

If I don't spend that time recovering it looks very different in entirety predictable ways within a couple tens of calories. If however I take about 4-5 days off I can double the time and almost double calories with something like this 3x/week

Spoiler

At least until more &:more muscle starts melting over 2-3 months. Mixing cardio and resistance may have unbelievable results, but it seems to have a higher recovery threshold than 5e PC's engaging in life and death battle to the death.

It's weird that people would cite realism in asserting that this kind of knowledge is too video gamey for any real world human∆ to notice through experience and expect to see week after week?

I would love to do either of those more often but have had to roll my eyes at reality and say "ok I'll do that again day after tomorrow" in exasperation. Unsurprisingly reality is incapable of convincing me to pace things differently because I very quickly grew to understand how the recovery process plays out.

∆ I could have sworn I was one of those but suppose I'll bow to the experience of others on this and attempt a standard self diagnostic hardware scan followed by an early program integrity CRC check.

 

[bedir than]

Where is that assumed? Page and product please.

Wizards know exactly how they regain spells, as the rules explicitly state (using the Basic Rules on Beyond);

• You can regain some of your magical energy by studying your spellbook. When you finish a Short Rest, you can choose expended spell slots to recover.
• Changing Your Prepared Spells. Whenever you finish a Long Rest, you can change your list of prepared spells, replacing any of the spells there with spells from your spellbook.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

I could not disagree more. Who says the game's rules assume heroism (by which I assume you mean moral heroism)? And there is no reason that the rules can't or shouldn't reflect the setting. Even if you disagree, in what way is that "laughable"?

For the record, I loved Dragonlance's explanation for why wizards use daggers.

Then we have to disagree, I find the story trying to bend over backwards to explain mechanics of the game to be at best worth laughing at, at worst killing the storytelling for me. Wizards only using daggers does not require more explanation than common sense "they are easy toi conceal and relatively simple to learn using, comapred to weapons that would be far less practical"

A perfectly acceptable stance to take at your table. Thank you for making your subjective personal feelings on this matter clear.

This is the second thread I am talking with you, when the moment you cannot argue in a way to "knock down", you say something that dismissive, and with unspoken implication that my opinion is inherently inferior while yours is "objective" and needs to be catered to.

It just seems very strange to me that the world would know that spells come in discrete levels, that they can power those spells only a certain fixed number of times each day (which only increases through specifically training to get better), and that sleeping allows them to use their magic again....when one of the classes in the game is very literally a Renaissance natural philosopher/Hermetic magician.

Like I thought the whole point of wizarding was to study up on when magical stuff happens.

Clerics, though, even worse! There, most of them have a literal deity who can tell them how it works.

I agree that it is possible for a particular character to be ignorant. I find it laughable to consider a world where such obvious facts are totally unknown to almost everyone.

It's called willing suspension fo disbelief. I find it very strange the story forces itself to explain the world through mechanics, even when it directly destroys the fantasy it is trying to build. If the world actually worked on game rules, all wizard education would consist of no studying at all, just murdering rabbits until you level up. World built pretending its in-universe rules have to be defined by the game rules is a ridiculous joke. I also think Lord of the Rings would suck if instead of saying "I cannot carry it for you, Master Frodo, but I can carry you!" Sam said "I do not meet class requirements to equip the ring myslef, master Frodo, but I have enough carrying capacity to add you into my inventory!"

Where is that assumed? Page and product please.

So now suddenly I'm not allowed to explain how I run the game when it is convenient for your argument, huh?

There you go. Change the rules to make the game you want!

But your whole argument is thought terminating-cliche that because we can change the rules, we're not allwoed to criticise them or discuss design theory.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then we have to disagree, I find the story trying to bend over backwards to explain mechanics of the game to be at best worth laughing at, at worst killing the storytelling for me. Wizards only using daggers does not require more explanation than common sense "they are easy toi conceal and relatively simple to learn using, comapred to weapons that would be far less practical"

IMO the setting (ie, the fiction) comes first, so the mechanics have the job of explaining the fiction, not the other way round. Your scenario should therefore ideally never happen at my table.

And more explanation isn't exactly required but IMO it is appreciated.

This is the second thread I am talking with you, when the moment you cannot argue in a way to "knock down", you say something that dismissive, and with unspoken implication that my opinion is inherently inferior while yours is "objective" and needs to be catered to.

I always say, "I think" or "IMO" for a reason: my opinion is just that, no more or less important than yours. If you don't make that clear, you run the risk of folks misunderstanding what you say.

So now suddenly I'm not allowed to explain how I run the game when it is convenient for your argument, huh?

You didn't explain it as your assumption. You explained it as the assumption, as in, objectively true when it in fact isn't.

But your whole argument is thought terminating-cliche that because we can change the rules, we're not allwoed to criticise them or discuss design theory.

You can criticize them all you like, but WotC isn't going to make them better for you. We all have to do that ourselves, either by finding rules we like better, or making them.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

It's called willing suspension fo disbelief. I find it very strange the story forces itself to explain the world through mechanics, even when it directly destroys the fantasy it is trying to build. If the world actually worked on game rules, all wizard education would consist of no studying at all, just murdering rabbits until you level up. World built pretending its in-universe rules have to be defined by the game rules is a ridiculous joke. I also think Lord of the Rings would suck if instead of saying "I cannot carry it for you, Master Frodo, but I can carry you!" Sam said "I do not meet class requirements to equip the ring myslef, master Frodo, but I have enough carrying capacity to add you into my inventory!"

Characters do not need to be aware of exact minutiae of the rules, but they must be aware of things the rules represent and assuming otherwise is just bizarre. If they don't the character become unable to make decisions about anything governed by the rules. If they are not aware that they are missing HP, thus hurt or at least fatigued, they have no reason to drink healing potions or casting healing spells. Though perhaps they do not know what those do either? Perhaps characters just pay tens or hundreds of GP for fancy drinks that they drink at random times for no reason? It also becomes impossible for characters to form any plans that rely on things governed by rules. If a wizard does not know how many spells and of what potency they can still cast, you cannot make plans based on that. This is just as absurd that assuming that they do not know that resting restores their spellcasing capability.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

This is why I don’t play attrition based systems anymore.

 

[Not a Decepticon]

haracters do not need to be aware of exact minutiae of the rules,

Then they are NOT aware that they can benefit from long rest every 24 hours and thus will not think of waiting 24 hours to take another long rest. Because that is the exact minutia of the rules, that we're aware as players and it is for us players to take care of. Rest of your strawman is irrelevant.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Then they are NOT aware that they can benefit from long rest every 24 hours and thus will not think of waiting 24 hours to take another long rest. Because that is the exact minutia of the rules, that we're aware as players and it is for us players to take care of. Rest of your strawman is irrelevant.

I think they must know something like it. They know that their powers restore by resting, but that it cannot happen repeatedly right after they've already done so. So chilling and waiting a bit makes perfect sense.

 

[pemerton]

5E is a solid and enjoyable game, but it doesn’t offer the structural or mechanical support for the kind of D&D experience that most appeals to me. And that’s fine—but it’s also the point. The system can’t be everything to everyone.

In a universal design, balance itself becomes performative. The rules present an illusion of neutrality, but every omission or abstraction implicitly takes a side. It’s not a moral failing—it’s an unavoidable consequence of trying to serve all audiences with one toolset.

And yes, I know the easy response is “then play a different game.” I do, and I have. But that isn’t really the point. The discussion isn’t about personal satisfaction—it’s about how D&D defines itself as the central game of the hobby while remaining deliberately noncommittal about its own design priorities. That approach keeps the audience unified under one brand but ensures that a large portion of that audience will always be partially unsatisfied. It’s not about wanting to leave D&D—it’s about recognizing that the design philosophy itself guarantees this constant tension will never go away.

From WotC's point of view, why do they care that some of the people who play D&D are not as satisfied as they might, ideally, be? They are a large commercial operation. Their goal is sales. Satisfying RPGers is a means to that end, but given the seeming commercial success of 5e D&D, they seem to be satisfying many RPGers to a sufficient degree.