Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Grendel_Khan" data-source="post: 8593890" data-attributes="member: 7028554">At the risk of resuscitating an old and recurring argument, I don't think it's correct to draw a straight line between 5e's commercial success and some set of ingenious design decisions. This, again, defaults to an odd sort of corporate worship--whoever's biggest must be biggest because they're so smart, not because of tons of factors that have nothing to do with intent or quality. This kind of logic puts Disney on a pedestal for becoming the monoculture, or Facebook for buying their way to relevance through acquisitions (Oculus, Instagram, WhatsApp, etc.). Legacy advantages such as free marketing, universal name recognition, celebrity champions, all of that is business world business. That exists in one world, and design is wholly in another. And, imo, comparisons to something like Toyota don't work, because Toyota and Honda became the default in many places for a measurable, non-marketing, non-business reason, which was a quantifiable, measurable increase in reliability. They aren't workhorses because they can do tons of stuff--a Camry isn't popular because it's good at driving on highways as well as off-road. It's popular because it doesn't break down, something you can measure and compare. The analogy doesn't work.But all of this comes back to the assumption that the 5e is some sort of intentionally generic fantasy toolbox, designed for a broad array of playstyles and settings. Never mind the absolute specificity of level-based progression, default XP-for-killing, the focus on CR-balanced encounters, and on and on, design decisions that don't actually support versatile play at all, but rather D&D-style-play. It's a toolbox with a few tools and lots of empty cut-outs for missing tools. Or, really, it's a screwdriver you can use to hammer nails if nothing else is around, but it still sucks at hammering.(Obviously screwdrivers are fantastic, but let's not pretend they're something else)</blockquote>

Verification