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

[mamba]

Well 5E popularity has locked in D&Ds design until the fan base organically gets sick of it en masses.

yeah, that part is definitely true

I expect that to take around 17-26 years.

decided not to wait that long

 

[Parmandur]

I doubt that, the first half of the playtest showed that they were more willing to experiment than they would have been if the 10 years of conservative feedback were a factor / existed. What killed it was somewhere between them getting cold feet and feedback to the UA. More the former though

Even the most wild out there playtests were still 100% backwards compatible. They never tried anything that wasn't.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

They cheered at a specific seminar of people. Not representative of the larger group .

It's only non-representative when it doesn't support you though. As soon as it does, it's super representative.

That's part of the problem here. Like genuinely. The survey data isn't representative. Ever. That's why I'm calling for actual well-designed surveys, which take into account biases like this.

And people tend to cheer at those events with hype etc and a self selected bias to attend them in the first place.

Yes, because the surveys being answered with 5e weren't self-selected for 4e haters?

C'mon man. I know you know that the people who did the surveys for 5e were HEAVILY biased in their own ways. Don't pretend like this is somehow a hugely worse situation. It isn't.

Well 5E popularity has locked in D&Ds design until the fan base organically gets sick of it en masse.

I expect that to take around 17-26 years.

....

Really? Goodness gracious. That's frankly absolutely ridiculous. Being locked into 5e until 2042 at the earliest? Nah.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's the vibe your posts give off. I dont think we care tgat much if you dont like 5E.
. Im not saying its 100% guaranteed a playtest using your criteria for 4E would produce n essentials. But it coukdcreveal the fact people dont like it. I dont think its an impossible scenario.

Here's a question. You've seen how I post what do you think my favorite edition is?

Your preferences, from everything I've seen, are:
2nd edition
5th edition
3rd edition/Basic (not sure relative ranking there
OD&D/1e (again, not sure relative ranking)

2nd is far and away your favorite of the bunch though, if I've understood your preferences correctly. Like if we were putting these on a scale, 2nd is at 100 and 5th is at like 60--you still like the latter a lot, and more than 3rd or Basic/etc., but 2e is dramatically preferred over anything else. I had thought you'd explicitly said as much not that long ago.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I dont think point is that sales means design is good as such.
Ultimately I reject what I think is your underlying premise, that a better designed game would perform as well or better.
I think in many spaces, whether books, movies, video games, it isn't the best designed /written / directed etc that sells the best.
So for DnD , I think they could do a lot to make a better designed game, but in doing so they may reduce overall sales substantially, and no matter now well designed, may still trigger multiple edition changes as a result as they try and recapture popularity.
I think ultimately they have lucked into a design that works well enough for enough people to be unusually popular, with people at a table happy to play together though want different things but 5e meets them all enough, and that any steps forward to a better design may alienate a chunk of the existing base, and lead to less sales and split tables.

And I have seen enough complaints now that I don't actually think 5e will last. It had a good run. Folks have seen the cracks now, though, and they're growing tired of the ways that their preferences got majorly, majorly compromised on/about. Obviously the 4e fans felt that right out the gate, given how hostile 5e was and has been to anything that smells too much like 4e. But I've seen the old-school fans bitterly complaining about how difficult it is to run a survival game in 5e, I've seen the 3e fans bitterly complaining about how limited and restrictive the character options are or how weaksauce the skill system is, I've seen 2e fans bitterly complaining about how 5e has ruined their favorite settings.

It's no one single thing everyone rallies around. But I don't think the 5e compromise will last forever. Death by a thousand cuts, and folks exploring all that's on offer and feeling hungry for something more/different.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

No, they said nothing about good design. There argument is that there is not a strong reason to change course if what you are doing is successful.

Success =/= good design

So, if you know, in your heart of hearts, that a particular design is actually bad--as in it will, objectively, result in problems at real tables, you KNOW that it will cause problems down the line--but you also know that it will sell super well for the next five years prior to folks getting sick of those problems...

....then you should always do that and damn the consequences?

I reject that school of thought.

 

[payn]

Im unsure daily attrition (= bookkeeping and balance difficulty) is a benefit. It is a matter of taste, and it is old school.

Not of benefit because it’s old school. You got the taste part right to which there is clearly no accounting here.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So, if you know, in your heart of hearts, that a particular design is actually bad--as in it will, objectively, result in problems at real tables, you KNOW that it will cause problems down the line--but you also know that it will sell super well for the next five years prior to folks getting sick of those problems...

....then you should always do that and damn the consequences?

I reject that school of thought.

If you're a corporation that only cares about short term profit? Yes, absolutely. Consequences are for whoever takes my job after I deploy the golden parachute.

 

[Mort]

And I have seen enough complaints now that I don't actually think 5e will last. It had a good run. Folks have seen the cracks now, though, and they're growing tired of the ways that their preferences got majorly, majorly compromised on/about. Obviously the 4e fans felt that right out the gate, given how hostile 5e was and has been to anything that smells too much like 4e. But I've seen the old-school fans bitterly complaining about how difficult it is to run a survival game in 5e, I've seen the 3e fans bitterly complaining about how limited and restrictive the character options are or how weaksauce the skill system is, I've seen 2e fans bitterly complaining about how 5e has ruined their favorite settings.

It's no one single thing everyone rallies around. But I don't think the 5e compromise will last forever. Death by a thousand cuts, and folks exploring all that's on offer and feeling hungry for something more/different.

You're missing a major part of the 5e market, young people.

When my son was in 7th grade (about 6 years ago) he joined the D&D club, it was BY FAR the biggest club at his middle school. It was so big they had to get a bigger room for it, and there was even a wait list - with parents calling and begging to get their kids in. And it was co-ed, about 60-40. In high school, the D&D club is again the biggest club at the school and it's about 50-50 boy/girl (and I do mean big, over 40+ kids).

And they DON'T play other games. I suggested my son run a Savage a Worlds game to try something different, and it wasn't even considered.

I've talked to friends in other school districts with similarly aged kids. 5e is big there too.

I suspect the staying power of 5e is still quite large, considering how it has grabbed the young crowd.

 

[Zardnaar]

It's only non-representative when it doesn't support you though. As soon as it does, it's super representative.

That's part of the problem here. Like genuinely. The survey data isn't representative. Ever. That's why I'm calling for actual well-designed surveys, which take into account biases like this.


Yes, because the surveys being answered with 5e weren't self-selected for 4e haters?

C'mon man. I know you know that the people who did the surveys for 5e were HEAVILY biased in their own ways. Don't pretend like this is somehow a hugely worse situation. It isn't.


....

Really? Goodness gracious. That's frankly absolutely ridiculous. Being locked into 5e until 2042 at the earliest? Nah.

17 years from 2014.