Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8628512" data-attributes="member: 42582">Sure! But now we're not talking about popularity, or the number of people who attest to the pleasure the game has brought them, but  design elements.I'm happy to talk about how 5e is designed. I've already done so in this thread. It adopts 4e's solution of the maths issues that are endemic in upper level AD&D and throughout 3E. By doing this, it is able to adopt 3E-style PC build without the game breaking. It reproduces a slightly stripped down version of the 3E/4e take on classic D&D combat. Out of combat it adopts an approach to PC build closer to 4e than 3E, but to resolution closer to 3E than 4e. In doing all these things it squares a lot of circles. More gamist play groups can step up the challenge (it's common to see posts/threads about running games based on "deadly+" encounters). More simulationist groups won't have their story or character experience disrupted by PC deaths or TPKs (because of the tightly tuned and rather forgiving maths) and won't have non-combat resolution produce disruptive outcomes (because the GM is in charge of what those are).In all these ways it's a clever design. I don't see how that makes it more functional or more successful, as an RPG, than (say) Classic Traveller, or Agon, or Wuthering Heights, or Burning Wheel.</blockquote>