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

[tetrasodium]

I consider the "job" of the DM is to make the players happy. So, I dont see a problem with the designers wanting to make the players happy.

DMs need to be happy too. And the more DMs there are, the more players there will be. The game relies on DMs to exist.

Evidence flatly contradicts this and demonstrates the Way design sets up the gm for failure. PCs and wildly overpowered by expectations mearls noted. The gm can make the players unhappy by nerfing them directly, railroading them to deny rests, changing the rest mechanics, or running a silly number of encounters. That's the problem, wotc designed a system where the GM is expected to make the players unhappy in some way to fix it and can't be bothered to admit it to provide the gm social contract support when players are crossing the line or provide mechanical support that avoids the problem on a mechanical level.

 

[Yaarel]

Evidence flatly contradicts this and demonstrates the Way design sets up the gm for failure. PCs and wildly overpowered by expectations mearls noted. The gm can make the players unhappy by nerfing them directly, railroading them to deny rests, changing the rest mechanics, or running a silly number of encounters. That's the problem, wotc designed a system where the GM is expected to make the players unhappy in some way to fix it and can't be bothered to admit it to provide the gm social contract support when players are crossing the line or provide mechanical support that avoids the problem on a mechanical level.

I DM 5e, and I am happy enough.

I like high-power players. I find it more salient flavor, and more fantastical. The biggest mistake I ever made as a DM was taking away the toys that the players loved (powerful magic items) because of balance issues.

Today, I resolve most of the problems by deciding if an encounter was easy or difficult − only after the encounter is over! If an intended boss fight turned out to be easy, then I grant only a little reward afterward. If an intended trivial encounter turned out to be a near TPK, then it was exceedingly difficult.

I do want tighter math to make better predictions. But the reality that actually happened is more important to account for.

 

[tetrasodium]

This is an sssumption that your preferences are what folks want in D&D I wouldn’t be so sure of. Lotta folks trying to do the talking today for everyone else it seems.

No I don't believe it's just assumption, I'm sure wotc would like to continue selling book and avoid becoming some guy from Nebraska

Eventually they will have either saturated their walled garden or lost too many customers who find that endlessly "consulting the majority of players" doesn't work for them because a required segment of the "players" is expected to be a significantly outnumbered minority of those being "consulted".

To add insult to that injury the 2024 playtest featured a point where that minority got noticed trying to say no and wotc made the executive decision to declare they simply forgot their negative vote on an earlier question and what they really wanted to do was vote the higher value to both.

I've found 5e much more DM friendly than 3e. Specifically, DMing 3e to high level (tier 4) became a difficult slog for me. I've found DMing high level 5e significantly easier, and have enjoyed DMing through tier 4 a lot.

I respect that you hold that purely subjective opinion absent even a shred of specificity, we are all entitled to them, but this is about 5e and myself along with others in the thread have already detailed ways in which 5e fails at supporting GMs.

I'll also add that the last time someone in the thread tried to point to a specific thing that made 5e easier to GM it resulted in multiple people pointing out how the 3.5 dmg literally had a section with guidance on doing the thing being praised as new and that it was adjacent to a btc sidebar showing how far off the mark of reasonable the encounter expectations in 5e are.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

That's a distinction without value though and was my reason for being explicit that nearly every game is going to be one GM and multiple players. When wotc makes polls asking "players" what they think with explicitly asking if they are a player with a PC or a gm who is responsible for running the game it relegates gone to an easy to ignore status because the poll results are entirely incapable of being weighed for or against one or the other subset of "players".

Right. A lot of players will just happily vote for more power for their characters. And I am not sure this necessarily makes them happier in the long run. People who do not GM, often do not understand what the game needs to function and to be interesting. Players can at the same time want their characters to be more powerful but still get bored with the game being not challenging enough.

 

[payn]

No I don't believe it's just assumption, I'm sure wotc would like to continue selling book and avoid becoming some guy from Nebraska
View attachment 419898

Eventually they will have either saturated their walled garden or lost too many customers who find that endlessly "consulting the majority of players" doesn't work for them because a required segment of the "players" is expected to be a significantly outnumbered minority of those being "consulted".

To add insult to that injury the 2024 playtest featured a point where that minority got noticed trying to say no and wotc made the executive decision to declare they simply forgot their negative vote on an earlier question and what they really wanted to do was vote the higher value to both.

I respect that you hold that purely subjective opinion absent even a shred of specificity, we are all entitled to them, but this is about 5e and myself along with others in the thread have already detailed ways in which 5e fails at supporting GMs.

I'll also add that the last time someone in the thread tried to point to a specific thing that made 5e easier to GM it resulted in multiple people pointing out how the 3.5 dmg literally had a section with guidance on doing the thing being praised as new and that it was adjacent to a btc sidebar showing how far off the mark of reasonable the encounter expectations in 5e are.

Key word is eventually. You think its tomorrow but its really 20-30 years from now.

 

[Yaarel]

Right. A lot of players will just happily vote for more power for their characters. And I am not sure this necessarily makes them happier in the long run. People who do not GM, often do not understand what the game needs to function and to be interesting. Players can at the same time want their characters to be more powerful but still get bored with the game being not challenging enough.

Players will seek out greater challenges. No need to force this.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I've found 5e much more DM friendly than 3e. Specifically, DMing 3e to high level (tier 4) became a difficult slog for me. I've found DMing high level 5e significantly easier, and have enjoyed DMing through tier 4 a lot.

5e mechanics are easier to handle and OP characters are less OP. But actual guidance is pretty crap and was much better in previous editions. I'm pretty sure that my 5e game works as well as it does is because I just imported practices and principles from older editions and other games and I am not shy to houserule.

 

[Minigiant]

This is an sssumption that your preferences are what folks want in D&D I wouldn’t be so sure of. Lotta folks trying to do the talking today for everyone else it seems.

I'm not saying my preference I'm saying:

boss monsters die too easily:​

But
You can't nerf spell power
You can't nerf spell quantity
You can't spell flexibility
You can't default to short rests
You can't can't switch to a longer rest schedule
You can't convert to item or gold based resource systems
You introduce new resources
You can't make bosses have flat immunity to low tier features
You can't make bosses have antideath mechanics
You can't give bosses features that counter basic ways to defeat them
You can't make minion monster not use regular monster mechanics

Why can't WOTC just make bosses not die so easy?

 

[payn]

I'm not saying my preference I'm saying:

boss monsters die too easily:​

But
You can't nerf spell power
You can't nerf spell quantity
You can't spell flexibility
You can't default to short rests
You can't can't switch to a longer rest schedule
You can't convert to item or gold based resource systems
You introduce new resources
You can't make bosses have flat immunity to low tier features
You can't make bosses have antideath mechanics
You can't give bosses features that counter basic ways to defeat them
You can't make minion monster not use regular monster mechanics

Why can't WOTC just make bosses not die so easy?

You might feel like you cant do any of those things or that WotC must do them for you, but I certainly dont. I think its time for you to read the DMG again.

 

[mamba]

User design is about designing for what end users want and need, not abstract goals.

sure, and yet they decided to not just go with what the UA polls said despite that.

Also, I sure wish they had better polls if they actually want to figure out what preople want and act on it. Their current approach is pretty useless, except for identifying total duds