Quality cannot be considered free of the context of purpose.
And when I tried to assert that one of the central purposes of a clock is to be a tool (for telling time), feathers flew and people acted like I was mocking clocks. Imagine the furor if I had skipped the analogy and stated that tabletop roleplaying games had a central purpose of being tools for producing certain experiences!
You are effectively asserting that the only qualities that exist are intrinsic qualities. This is an inaccurate picture of quality, overall - extrinsic qualities still matter in the real world.
We're seeing an equivocation fallacy across this thread. "Quality," in the singular, is being used in its general sense of
excellence or
superiority, and "qualities," in the plural (and occasionally singular, but usually plural), is being used in its sense as
characteristic or
feature.
Oofta is relying on extrinsic factors like popularity or sales as a method of determining intrinsic factors like excellence or superiority. This is faulty reasoning. There are many, many reasons why an extrinsic factor like sales or popularity might be sky high that have nothing to do with the intrinsic factors at all. (Consider the dominance of Facebook vs the "quality" of their services...) Likewise, excellent intrinsic factors may in fact actually reduce the popularity or sales of a product, sometimes by intent, sometimes not. (Prego in the 80s had an objectively superior spaghetti sauce on several metrics, but was lagging Ragu heavily; they attained market dominance by offering a new, parallel product, Extra Chunky sauce, and kicking off the horizontal market segmentation blitz.)
That this is faulty reasoning
does not mean that the conclusion ("5e has excellent intrinsic qualities") is incorrect. It just does not establish that it IS correct. I attempted, early on, to give my analysis—necessarily in part subjective—of why I feel 5e has not actually achieved the level of intrinsic excellence Oofta claims it has, while still recognizing that it does in fact have good intrinsic components. My analysis was largely ignored, and definitely ignored by Oofta personally. My assumption is that they have chosen simply not to respond to my posts, hence I have tried to avoid directly quoting them, or even referencing them if possible, out of respect for their (apparent) desire not to interact with me.
You've done a semantic goal post shift on quality, here. You've moved from a term describing a measure of excellence to a term describing a feature or characteristic. Please don't. Adding this kind of motte and bailey setup isn't improving the discourse.
See above. This shift has been present throughout the thread.
For TTRPGs, the comparable measure is (IMO) -- 'can the ruleset be used by someone to play a roleplaying session?' With few exceptions --
Hybrid being maybe an RPG at all but maybe just someone's word salad that includes some RPG framing, and FASA's 1980s
Master of the Universe rpg (where there are rules referenced which never actually show up in the rulebooks) -- all TTRPGs meet that standard and most of the qualities used in arguments about which ones meet the standard better than others not being objective or even semi-universally agreed-upon.
If the standard is such that literally absolutely all games meet it simply by being created,
it is an objectively useless standard. A thing which fails to meet the standard of "can possibly be used under some circumstance" cannot possibly merit the term "game." A thing which literally
prevents people from having fun while using it, I.e. something which literally makes it impossible for ANY user to have fun while using it, is not only not deserving of the title "game," but actively dangerous to human existence and possibly meriting research as a weapon of psychological warfare.
Your stated purpose for games is unacceptable. You have instead identified absolute minimum requirements for something to qualify as a game in the first place. What, then, is the purpose of something that (a) actually can be used at least some of the time and (b) permits its users to enjoy its use?
I of course have my own answers, but I would like to hear your thoughts first.
My premise is that while D&D has always been big in the TTRPG marketplace, since 5E was released a decade ago it's seen double digit growth is an indication of a quality product. It's the best measurement we have. As I said in my original post "From a business perspective minimal investment + continued popularity + year after year double digit growth = quality."
That doesn't mean it's perfect. Nothing is.
I am breaking my "generally avoid quoting Oofta" pattern noted above to respond to this for the following reasons:
1. This is again a conflation of extrinsic characteristics (low production cost, patterns of behavior, sales) for intrinsic characteristics (excellence, efficacy, cohesion, etc.) This conflation is the problem. You will never get people to grant that extrinsic characteristics
equal intrinsic ones.
2. You will at most get people to agree that the extrinsic characteristics exist, and that one possible explanation for them is the existence of certain intrinsic characteristics, but that other, equally-valid (and debatably more likely) explanations exist. Such as external situational factors, coincidental alignment of events, or historical influences. IOW, even with this slightly less strong claim, people are going to criticize the claim that popularity (or sales or growth or whatever other extrinsic characteristics) is the
best measure we have.
You can see statements from WotC's CEOs over the years on any of the many mainstream media articles about the game, or the various articles about Hasbro earnings calls and the like. I cover that stuff on the news page fairly regularly.
Not gonna lie, "you need to provide links, while I just need to make vague references" doesn't exactly speak well of your position here. But that might just be because I've had personal issues with a family member who makes strong claims and tells me to look it up when I challenge them...and then also tells me to show evidence of my own counterclaims, rather than being willing to look up what I say is common knowledge.
That and the Escalation Die are the first things that come to mind. My main issue with 13 Age, however, is simply that is mechanically based largely on 4th ed, and I really don't care for 4th ed.
OUTs have little to no "mechanics" to them. So I'm not entirely sure what you mean by that side of things. They're literally just meant to give each character a quirk, something that makes them stand out a little. E.g. "I have six fingers on my right hand" is a perfectly acceptable OUT (though it might make the son of a certain deceased swordsmith hunt you down and deliver a prepared speech before killing you.)
As for the escalation die, I honestly have no idea whatsoever how that counts as a narrative mechanic. It's actually trying for a bit of verisimilitude in the face of degenerate strategies engendered by the combat system of D&D-related games. Specifically, it is a tool for discouraging constant, repeated use of "nova" tactics (which in general are not tactically ideal in absolutely all "realistic" combat situations). This pushes players to consider a wider array of approaches, and to fear the initial stages of combat where they may not yet have the ability to bring their full strength to bear.
Now, as you said, it smells too much of 4e to you, and there's really nothing that can be done about that. It was made by Heinsoo, it has Heinsoo a design sentiments. But if "narrative" mechanics were the only issue, I would say your concerns were misplaced.
www.timeout.com
