Mustrum_Ridcully
Legend
Kinda, but I think it's really a warning aimed at game designers. Don't design your game so that the best strategies to play are unfun. You can't expect players to deliberately pick weak strategies.
D&D General Mike Mearls says control spells are ruining 5th Edition
- Thread starter THEMNGMNT
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Crimson Longinus
Legend
And that is a sentiment I fully agree on!
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Pedantic
Legend
Earliest attribution (in the usual slightly different form) seems to be Soren Johnson, a different designer working on Civilization. Sid Meyer's most referenced game design insight is "a game is a series of interesting decisions."Considering this quote seemingly came out of, was it Sid Meier that someone said? I think it's about both designers and players.
It's saying if the designer allows for it, most players will choose the most direct path to "success," as opposed to a more difficult but satisfying path. And that's probably more a statement about human nature
This is a sore point for me, both because it's ridiculous to treat players following the incentives laid for them as the source of the problem, but more so because solving this problem is the core task of game design. Expecting players to do the work for you is abdicating your entire role in the process. Bemoaning the behavior of players is just an admission you set up your system incorrectly, and don't like the results it produces; if it's intended to create a different experience, laden with different decisions than it is, then you're missing some constraint. That constraint can't be "the player should only think the thoughts I want them to think."
I design cooperative board games and this is an issue that inevitably creeps in during every design process; we discover that the tools we've provided can be used far too efficiently to conqueror the problems laid out. Sometimes we determine it's a rare situation and not worth addressing because it will infect few games, sometimes we scrap stuff we like because it's too easy to abuse, and sometimes we create new rules altogether. More than once, we've resorted to effectively just putting a plea in the rulebook that amounts to "we did our best to counter this line of play, we're sure a clever player could still get around what we did, please don't and consider that outside the scope of the game" and that's already more of a cop-out than I'm really comfortable with.
RIGHT?!
Which is why Mearls is saying this kinda stuff. He's away from the constraints of WotC and is doing what he can. Not always gonna be the best, but at least he's admitted to WotC making mistakes and oversights in the game design itself.
The NPCs are designed like 4e monsters, player effects are meant to be closer to 4e levels... And then they forgot about all the Nova limits 4e had.
Woopsie Doodle!
Add in design choices for spells and abilities, different status effects, etc... it's a big ol' mess.
Bae'zel
Hero
For the record, my player's character was terrible at throwing grenades and shooting guns; he missed most of the time and the villain ended up escaping (after cutting down a beloved NPC).
Bae'zel
Hero
I guess during session zero for my next campaign, I'll just ask the players if they want "epic boss battles" or not, because if they do, I have to "cheat" to make the villains last longer than a round or two because "that's how D&D works".
Lesson to DMs: don't get too attached to your villains; they'll go down fast. The "climax" of your campaign is not chosen by anyone; there isn't really a climax. RPGs are not stories.
In a TTRPG, Luke, Han and Leia would have lobbed thermal detonators at Vader on Cloud City. King Theoden would have used Second Wind and Action Surge and then stabbed the Witch King in the face first; there are no rules for "prophecies" in D&D.
Lesson to DMs: don't get too attached to your villains; they'll go down fast. The "climax" of your campaign is not chosen by anyone; there isn't really a climax. RPGs are not stories.
In a TTRPG, Luke, Han and Leia would have lobbed thermal detonators at Vader on Cloud City. King Theoden would have used Second Wind and Action Surge and then stabbed the Witch King in the face first; there are no rules for "prophecies" in D&D.
The idea of the dungeon as the boss is really interesting. But the game isn't played in mega dungeons anymore. But it really has me thinking....otoh, I think players expect a climax, big fight, at the end of acts now.... Like, the spider is woefully weak, and I even upped him, but the paladin smited the life out of him.
Alzrius
The EN World kitten
If the issue is simply making the "boss" last longer, consider giving them maximum hit points per die. It usually won't give them more than an additional round or two, but it can help make the PCs sweat a bit for how the enemy won't go down as easily as expected.
There's a great article about this over here:
Don’t Prep Plots – “You Will Rue This Day, Heroes!” (The Principles of RPG Villainy)
I get a lot of reactions to "Don't Prep Plots" that basically go like this: "Oh, yeah. I don't want to railroad my players, but..."The justification or rationalization which follows the "but" va
thealexandrian.net
That won't survive playtesting.
The community can't agree on a cost for control magic and they won't share having multiple variants in the core nor option books.
dave2008
Legend
I'm going to push back on this a bit. IMO, if a "best" strategy is not fun, then it is not the best strategy!
