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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8634975" data-attributes="member: 71699">I hope that others will respect my belief that criticising other RPGs is unproductive. Instead I will give two examples of game design concepts underlying my assessement, and explain how those are evidenced in 5e.Design-space. One way to create design-space is to lean into feature combinations. Suppose I design 3 features and cannot combine them: that's a 3-point design-space. Suppose I allow every permutation including repetitions: that's a 9-point design-space. The latter can be predicted to retain interest in play for a greater number of sessions than the former. 5e uses combinations all through to create design-space, but you should be able to see how that is also in tension with designability.Designability. One can see that the class structure of 5e both makes available and constrains combinations of features. That increases designability because the test-space is much reduced. Picture by contrast the number of combinations that would need to be tested for each new feature, in the absence of such class structures! Relatedly, a feature of 5e is the soft-allocation of design-space to each class. For example, at a certain level the sub-class feature for ranger will lean toward defensive. That makes it easier to design for - to design in this case a new ranger subclass - because the designer can be given the game bible and know what direction they should be thinking in. Each class has specified "slots" for sub-class features, further aiding designability.While these concepts are often associated with (predictive of) games that retain interest over hundreds of sessions, it's not the case that a game is bad just because it doesn't apply them. Great games often succeed by challenging convention, and some design concepts might not be at issue for a given design. It does mean however, that it is right to say that 5e has patterns (controlled combinatorial-ness) and interfaces (sub-class feature "slots") that are efficient and effective, and help sustain interest in play. 5e can be examined by game designers (and players who are interested) to understand deft application of those concepts.There is no mystery as to the value I place in player testimonials. It is found in the reading or listening to what players are actually saying. There are typically a spectrum of views, from positive to negative, so it is important to read across them. [USER=7026617]@Thomas Shey[/USER] introduced a salient observation before: what weight do we give a single view in judging the quality of the design, and by implication what weight do we give to a great many views when they are in accord?I can see that one could be puzzled by supposing it's only quantitative. To dissolve that, I am not saying that 5e is a good design just because it has quantitatively more players."Should take" from an S-A standpoint, would be how I understand [USER=6790260]@EzekielRaiden[/USER] here.</blockquote>

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