D&D 5E What is Quality?

[GMforPowergamers]

While this hasn't been much of an issue, who is actually saying that 5e is badly designed or of

i doubt many people said "OVER ALL 5e is badly designed" however the OP likes to come into threads where people say 1 thing should or even COULD be improved and tries to shut it down and say 'but its selling well so no need to change it'

the most recent examples have been martial/fighter threads

Did I miss anything? It's unbelievably self serving and 100% bad faith.

 

[Oofta]

So, that's why we're here? Because of phrasing you don't like?

In part.

Also, that doesn't answer my question.

Not sure what your question is. Either we can never judge quality of an RPG beyond basic competence or we can. I think we can judge overall quality as a popularity contest, if it works well enough for a significant number of people, it has decent design and quality. The goal of a mass market TTRPG can be judged by how well it is received, not just it's staying power but also it's sustained and continued growth.

You can come up with abstract criteria to judge quality. It's similar to wine aficionados. They train to tell the difference between wine who will claim that some wine is a higher quality because of what they value. On the other hand, the vast majority of people can't tell the difference between $20 bottle of wine and a $300 bottle of wine. If something is subjectively equal, why is one considered higher quality?

After a certain point of competence, good design and quality will be in the eye of the beholder. But really my question is: if we can't make a judgement based on reception and growth (as measured, in part, by sales) how else do you determine quality?

 

[FrogReaver]

I mean, there are Stealth rules, but they aren't very satisfying, and WotC has come out and said they had (supposedly) made better rules, but decided to leave it in the hands of the DM to decide how crunchy they want Stealth to be.

Which, while I despise having to do a game designer's work for them, I'm kind of used to having to house rule Stealth rules already, because they are typically too profound or nonsensical for my players to grok.

In earlier editions I generally avoid even taking Stealth/Hide/Move Silently, because of the many ways it can simply fail to be of much use, regardless of my level of skill.

Sounds like a lame excuse in their part. If they had wanted the dm to determine stealth they would have just stated it’s up to the dm as they did in so many other areas of the game.

 

[FrogReaver]

i doubt many people said "OVER ALL 5e is badly designed" however the OP likes to come into threads where people say 1 thing should or even COULD be improved and tries to shut it down and say 'but its selling well so no need to change it'

the most recent examples have been martial/fighter threads

Hussar wasn’t the OP.

 

[FrozenNorth]

lol wut?

Has that ever happened in human history? The bolded bit. This seems like a mega-internet take that you'd never dare say in person because people would laughing at you too hard.

It does happen. Often. My campaigns often have different rules to reflect the tropes of the campaign. Ravenloft campaigns have HD recovery be slower (2 per day). Now you have to watch healing more carefully. Survival campaigns have a bunch of spells that simply don’t exist. Some campaigns have special rules for magic. Maybe you get extra spells but you always roll for wild surges. Maybe for a campaign you want clerics to more importantly embody their domains, so you reduce the non-domain spells available to them but add some extra domain spells.

D&D has always had a “hack-your-game” ethos.

 

[Ovinomancer]

So, that's why we're here? Because of phrasing you don't like?

Also, that doesn't answer my question.

It does seem like an argument about improper genuflection, doesn't it? Like 5e isn't being treated with enough respect if you question it's design, but you can not like it because that's more easily dismissed as unsupported opinion.

Like the stealth rules, which are, at best, incomplete design. I don't think you can possibly argue that the 5e stealth rules are complete -- they explicitly tell you that stealth works how the GM determines stealth works. Incomplete design can easily be considered bad design because it doesn't do the job. I think that this was some inspired design, myself, because the design goal was "don't get into the stealth rule morass" and they neatly sidestepped it by putting that morass at the feet of the individual GM. Goal achieved! So, from the point of view "did design achieve design goals" the answer is unequivocally yes, furthered by the refusal since to clarify anything about stealth. But, from the point of view of "is the system complete, and does it work?" that answer is no. I think it's entirely fair for a user of the system to complain that the design of the stealth rules is bad design -- it certainly doesn't support what they user might want from the stealth rules. And we can see that, repeatedly, in the number of times stealth is brought up with the only answer being 'ask your GM.'

 

[FrozenNorth]

Let's make this really specific:

IMO, Inspiration is a good rule.
IMO, tweaking it so the burden is off the DM and instead, the players award their own Inspiration (limited to once per trait per session), makes it a better rule.

Where is the issue in any of this?

Isn’t “Players award inspiration” explicitly contemplated by the rules?

 

[Morrus]

I think we can judge overall quality as a popularity contest, if it works well enough for a significant number of people, it has decent design and quality.

As long as it’s a game you like and not a movie you don’t like, in which case the rules are different?

 

[Oofta]

It does seem like an argument about improper genuflection, doesn't it? Like 5e isn't being treated with enough respect if you question it's design, but you can not like it because that's more easily dismissed as unsupported opinion.

Like the stealth rules, which are, at best, incomplete design. I don't think you can possibly argue that the 5e stealth rules are complete -- they explicitly tell you that stealth works how the GM determines stealth works. Incomplete design can easily be considered bad design because it doesn't do the job. I think that this was some inspired design, myself, because the design goal was "don't get into the stealth rule morass" and they neatly sidestepped it by putting that morass at the feet of the individual GM. Goal achieved! So, from the point of view "did design achieve design goals" the answer is unequivocally yes, furthered by the refusal since to clarify anything about stealth. But, from the point of view of "is the system complete, and does it work?" that answer is no. I think it's entirely fair for a user of the system to complain that the design of the stealth rules is bad design -- it certainly doesn't support what they user might want from the stealth rules. And we can see that, repeatedly, in the number of times stealth is brought up with the only answer being 'ask your GM.'

So how is "it's bad design" also not trying to tell someone they're wrong if they disagree? It's like a wine snob looking down their nose that someone else can't tell the difference between a $20 bottle of wine and a $3,000 bottle of wine.

You consider the stealth rules incomplete. That's fine, I disagree because I like the flexibility to make a judgement call without running to the books every 5 minutes. It's kind of a foundational approach to the design of the entire system. If you run stealth differently than I do, I think that's a positive thing, it means you can evoke a different fiction than I can.

 

[Oofta]

As long as it’s a game you like and not a movie you don’t like, in which case the rules are different?

Quality will always be in the eye of the beholder and what they value. If you like schlocky slasher films then [insert slasher film I don't watch here] it will be a quality film for you. If I were to judge the overall quality of slasher films, I would look at which ones became cult favorites amongst people that enjoy that type of film.

If you can't judge quality by how well it's received, by an attempt to determine aggregate satisfaction, how do you judge quality? Which was my question: if you disagree with me, that's fine. But if you disagree with me how do you judge quality?