D&D 5E Should 5e reflect the designers' point of view?

[Dungeoneer]

I think people would agree that usually game designers should make the game they would want to play. But I have seen several recent threads where people have argued that this does NOT apply to the new edition of D&D.

They say that D&D designers have a responsibility to the community. This responsibility entails that they take their personal preferences out of the equation when they are designing a new edition. Instead, they should create a game that appeals to all gamers as broadly as possible. Cool new mechanics should go out the window if they make some part of the community unhappy. Making a game that conforms to peoples' expectations of D&D is more important than making a game that does certain things really well.

As an example, Fourth Edition had a strong focus on tactical combat. It's hard to argue that it didn't do tactical combat well. Unfortunately many people didn't want tactical combat in their D&D game, and 4e didn't really make any concessions for them. Where 3.x was the Swiss Army Knife of games, 4e was a scalpel.

13th Age, which is designed by one of the lead designers on 4e, takes this to even more of an extreme. Reading the rulebook is like having a conversation with the designers. Alongside the rules you are told why the designers made them that way. The game does a great job of supporting certain styles of play. But it won't be everybody's cup of tea.

5e is supposed to have a strong emphasis on 'reunifying' the community (if it was ever unified). Its supposed to 'feel' like D&D for as many people as possible. Yet even with 5e's gestures towards accommodating everyone there are already people calling for certain controversial rules to be jettisoned (I won't mention them here and PLEASE lets not hash them out yet again in this thread). It seems that 5e represents its designers' point of view after all.

The question is, should it?

I believe it should.

Full disclosure: I am not that interested in 5e. I already have the D&D editions (official and unofficial) that I want to play. 5e appears to be steering a different course. I probably won't be buying the books, but I hope those who do have fun with it. 5e doesn't appear to be a game designed with me in mind.

And that's okay.

I would rather they make an interesting game that tries new things then a bland by-the-committee game that just tries to please everybody. Because you know who will ultimately play the latter game? Nobody.

Sure, maybe you could make a game that was basically inoffensive to all D&D players ever. But nobody would be excited about it. People would buy the core books, give it a try, say 'meh', and go back to playing the less playtester-friendly version that gets them fired up. Because a game with a point of view, a game that does a few things well, is going to get more people excited than a game that strives to be 'acceptable' to the most people possible. Assuming you agree with that point of view of course!

I called 3.x a swiss army knife earlier, but that's not really true. It has a strong point of view. 3e says that rules should have a unified underlying mechanic. It says that people should be able to multi-class to their heart's content. It says that rewarding system mastery is okay (which is mind-blowingly controversial, but that's my point exactly!).

This is also true for other editions of the game. oD&D/AD&D were Gary Gygax's babies, and they definitely reflect his peculiarities. 2e was the storytelling edition. If you didn't want to tell a story with it the book didn't have much to say to you.

I don't think any edition of D&D has intentionally tried to alienate players of other editions. You could shoe-horn your personal style into any of them, with varying degrees of effort. But each one has reflected the voice of its designers and has had definite preferred play styles. I suspect that 5e will ultimately continue that tradition. It will have certain assumptions built into it which are hard to work around if you don't share them. It will work well when you go with what the designers wanted and you will have to fight it if you don't.

Every edition of the game needs to get people excited. It needs some fired-up evangelists to go out and win new converts for D&D. It needs to have people talking, arguing, and buying books. It needs to do that even at the cost of some old players. Because those folks aren't going to make the new game succeed. It's new kids who will do that.

5e should be somebody's favorite game, even if it's not yours. And that's okay.

 

[GX.Sigma]

On one hand, of course. Show me any work of art that doesn't reflect the artist's point of view.

On the other hand, of course not. The audience is the end and object of game design, to mangle a perfectly good Aristotle quote. The job of a game designer (or, again, any artist) is to give the audience what they want, not what you think they want (or, for that matter, what they think they want). WotC can't really afford to be an auteur and say "I don't care if anyone buys this; this is just for me."

 

[Stormonu]

Quite frankly, the game has to only cater to my playstyle, or I won't buy it.

Which is the problem, because deep down, that's what basically everyone wants - that it lets them play the way they want to play it.

So the designers have to build the game to accommodate the largest area of overlap, filtered through their own opinions of how it all should work. So, yeah, the designers will certainly have some opinion and style cooked in, but the question is will they hit a big enough that agrees with them?

Frankly, I've not been keeping up with the play test documents very well, and part of that was the design space they were implementing (it felt very much like a 4E skeleton/chassis with 3Eisms crudely welded on and an OD&D paint job - not my cup of tea). I don't get the impression they're hitting the right keys, but - well, I'm pretty ambivalent to D&D anymore these days.

 

[Ichneumon]

The designers should definitely like their own dog food. It's important that they feel inspired by 5e, want to play it, and want to design for it. The audience's views count as well, meaning that it's not a "for the designers" or "for the audience" binary choice. Tradeoffs and compromises are part of the process, along with having the conviction to push elements through.

 

[Kobold Stew]

I would rather they make an interesting game that tries new things then a bland by-the-committee game that just tries to please everybody.

This represents my view pretty well. Some people are going to be disappointed regardless: I'd anther a game that was interested in creating cool rpg experiences than one that is looking for the broadest sales base.

I think that both can be achieved for (let's say) 80-90% of the potential sales base. But the cost of expanding to get that last 10% means losing my ongoing interest in the system.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Yes, it should. I can't say I'm enamored with some of these particular designers' points of view, but in principle they should be clear and open about what it is that they think they're doing, and they should be doing whatever they think is best.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Most probably we will get a game that has a strong vision. This time the vision is "simplicity, modularity, and unity, and maybe tradition"

I guess the designers don´t try to please everyone... actually they already made it clear, that not every little diva must be pleased... they even took things out of the game that quite a few people liked, because in the end it didn´t fit their vision.
All they did was a little reality checking their intentions and a willingness to change a few points from there...

 

[Obryn]

I think I've made my position pretty clear over the past few weeks, but in short - I'd much rather see a game with vision than a game designed by committee, or - worse - the loudest voices in the room.

 

[ForeverSlayer]

It's actually a shot in the dark really, but you still have to be careful because some people have particular tastes that a large base may not like.

I think 4th edition was a bit narrow minded in it's audience and I could see the mechanics as being a niche designer's personal liking.

Dungeons and Dragons is not an RPG that designers can just go nuts with and create a game they know they would like. There are certain expectations that come with the game. If you want your own personal design then I would recommend doing a new game over on kickstarter and see where it goes.

 

[Jester David]

Partially rcylcing an answer from an earlier post:

Going with the designer's viewpoint is fine if creating a brand new game or product without an existing audience. In that situation it is better to make a consistent game that follows their personal design philosophy.
It's doesn't work for a product with an existing fanbase, as it puts the views or a very, very small number of people (the 2-10 designers) ahead of the audience.

If the designers want to create a game that's their baby, their vision of a game, they should form their own game company and kickstarter their dream like Numenera and 13th Age. That's a fine and valid option; not everyone can work on an existing property or conform their design to an established paradigm.
If they want to design for an existing franchise they need to follow the conventions of that franchise and respect the audience and the game's history. As the fans have their own ideas of what the product should be like, and they'll reject a product that does not conform to their idea what their game will be.

Really, this goes for other creative endeavors such as movies or video games or books. You don't go into a James Bond movie and try and make it entirely your own, to treat it like a personal vanity project. You can't write Spider-man like an independent comic. There are both pros and cons to working with a Brand, such as Dungeons & Dragons.
So the designers made the choice when they signed up to work on the brand rather than an independant personal work. They're sacrificing some individuality to work with a more recognisable brand, to build on what has come before rather than create anew, to have the chance to leave a lesser mark on something historic rather than build something new from scratch.

The owners of the brand can do what they want with the brand, but that does not mean it will be accepted. MGM owns James Bond, the movie character, and can do what they want with the franchise. If the studio wants to recast Bond as a blond thug then they're within their rights to. Or a quick talking Liverpudlian con man. Or a streetwise teenaged black woman. Or an effete homosexual Korean man. It'd still be James Bond because that's what the movies says. But that does not automatically mean he'll be Bond to the generations of fans. And the farther the character drifts what what is seen as Bond, the better the movie has to be to win over those fans.