D&D 5E Mike Mearls Interview with the Escapist

[Raith5]

Someone mind summarizing the why?

Because there's no excuse for stumbling on that yet again.

11 minutes in. Basically: DM empowerment, let the DM decide if hiding is reasonable. I didnt find that precise point convincing, but generally the talk is very good and certainly interesting.

 

[Thalionalfirin]

I felt really encouraged by it.

Throughout the entire interview, I felt like he was speaking directly to me and my concerns. I now strongly believe that I am in his target demographic.

 

[AstroCat]

I really liked this interview and I'm feeling really positive about where D&D is headed. I actually liked the hiding explanation section, it totally jives with how we interpreted it, a common sense approach.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Sandbox adventures are not natural. "Play to find out what happens" is not natural.

News to me.

Since the game is an ongoing thing and no winner or loser, playing to find out what happens is what you have left to keep the experience engaging.

Good sandbox adventures may take a bit of experience to create but presenting opportunity and a scenario as opposed to a scripted series of events is quite natural. It doesn't take thick book of material to show someone new to tabletop gaming how that is done.

The Moldvay basic DM section, in only a few pages, describes how to construct a basic scenario, pair it with a setting, and fill in the details. I read that with no prior DMing experience at all as an 11 year old and it seemed fairly straightforward and not unnatural at all.

 

[Melkor]

Thanks for this link.

After struggling a bit in my group with hiding/obscurity and the Lightfoot Halfling and Wood Elf, Mearl's interview really kind of clears up the reasoning behind it (and almost mirrors exactly what my groups DM and I had gotten around to in a conversation just yesterday).

 

[Thaumaturge]

Someone mind summarizing the why?

Because there's no excuse for stumbling on that yet again.

To expand on what's above, Mearls and company realized through 3rd and 4th edition that writing stealth and hiding rules that had no loopholes created text that read very oddly and were quite complicated. They decided to use the approach of writing simple rules in natural language and letting DMs decide what those things mean at their tables.

I think a general guideline for 5th edition is: If you are struggling to interpret a rule, you're probably reading too much into it. Take a break, go on a walk, come back to it, and try reading for surface meaning.

Thaumaturge.

 

[fjw70]

To expand on what's above, Mearls and company realized through 3rd and 4th edition that writing stealth and hiding rules that had no loopholes created text that read very oddly and were quite complicated. They decided to use the approach of writing simple rules in natural language and letting DMs decide what those things mean at their tables.

I think a general guideline for 5th edition is: If you are struggling to interpret a rule, you're probably reading too much into it. Take a break, go on a walk, come back to it, and try reading for surface meaning.

Thaumaturge.

Yes, I think that is the problem some people are having with the rules. They are looking for things to close the loopholes and aren't finding them. I like how the rules are written. I think the PH provided enough guidance to work great

 

[Sacrosanct]

For me the solution is incredibly simple, and is one that's been going on since at least I started in 1981

Trust your DM to make a fair ruling.

If you don't think something is a fair ruling, talk to your DM and explain why.

If you still think your DM is being unfair, find another DM, or DM yourself.



There you go. Simple and easy. AD&D had tons of ambiguous rules in them that required DM interpretation. And yet, most of us managed to keep driving on and having fun at the table because those DMs who were bad and didn't want to learn to get better? Players stopped gaming with them. Rules should help drive the game, not fix personality problems.

 

[Bryk]

I just had two players of mine "troll" me asking about the target rules for self spells and cone spells. I feel they were trying to use a play on words and weren't understanding the difference between the application of the words "targets" and "target".

One player actually asked me since any effects that apply to you can apply to your mount, "can my mount also attack with smite spells (non-divine smite). I told him to just stop being ridiculous.

 

[Haffrung]

They're not good. The natural adventure mode for new DMs is the lazy railroad. Sandbox adventures are not natural. "Play to find out what happens" is not natural.

That's not my experience. The first 20 or so published modules* I used (they weren't called adventures) presented locations, foes, NPCs, and maybe some environmental effects. The rest was up to me. It wasn't daunting or difficult. When PCs interact with monsters, NPCs, and dangerous environments, interesting things tend to happen. And for every published module I used, I made up one, using the same model of setting, maps, foes, and PCs and letting the story happen organically.

It wasn't until I bought the Rahasia module in 1984 that I saw the first scripted adventure. By then I had been DMing for five years and run dozens of published and homebrewed adventures. And Rahasia was like no other module I had ever seen. The story was already written! That seemed so ed up. Even though I was still only in 15, and money was tight, I set aside Rahasia and never used it. When it became apparent that the scripted adventure was the new default model, I stopped buying published adventures altogether and made my own content. I didn't buy another published adventure for over a decade.

So if all you've ever seen is railroads, they may seen like the natural adventure mode. But they seemed like a unwelcome aberration to me the first time I came across one.

* Including In Search of the Unknown, White Plume Mountain, Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan, The Caverns of Thracia, Steading of the Hill Giant Chief, and other modules now regarded as classics.