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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Snarf Zagyg" data-source="post: 9147937" data-attributes="member: 7023840">Let's try this one more time. Seriously, this has had to be repeated approximately one million times, but again-People aren't saying that 5e is popular, therefore it cannot possibly be flawed.Instead, there are people ... many people, including me ... who keep reiterating that commercial sales matter. That there is not some Holy Grail of "Perfect Design" for everyone that you can measure objectively. So when people keep "white room theorizing" what they want to happen with 5e, it would help to start by thinking about why 5e is popular. Actually thinking about it; not just dismissing it as "stupid people don't know what they want," and "that's just an appeal to popularity (wrong)" and "popularity isn't the same as quality" (true, but actual sales are an objective measure, whereas "quality" is subjective and dependent on a number of things, including what you want to use it for).Even the idea of adding a bunch of options misses the point; as it is, despite the fact that 5e is "easy" (compared to, say, 3e), it's still relatively difficult to understand compared to other RPGs. Adding additional points of complexity might not be what is best for a game that is not designed for niche audiences, but designed to be broadly appealing.None of the people here are actually considering design in terms of tradeoffs. There is no such thing as a free lunch. If a person were to design a game from scratch, without both the advantages and disadvantages of being "D&D," they could do all sorts of other things. But we aren't. Moreover, the constant complaints from a small number of people about the design of 5e, given that it is both the most popular edition of D&D ever, and the most popular RPG ever, seem to miss the point; first, you need to understand why it is successful before looking into what it should change. And there is a decided lack of reflection on why this version of D&D is successful. Just a lot of "Well, it might be the most successful ever, but it still sucks," assumptions.</blockquote>

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