The 5E Playtest, what will TGD members do?

[K]

I've signed up to the receive their marketing materials, but until I see some playtest docs I don't know if I'll pay any attention.

I mean, Monte's articles of late are just too high-concept to make any sense of. He might be making a really good hybrid of 3.x and 4e, or he might be chained to slightly tweaking 4e so that various WotC execs can save face and not look like they set the franchise on fire for nothing.

I can't believe he'll do something really original, and that's a problem. There just is not much you can do with shitty ideas like the 3.x and 4e skill system or Diablo-style loot.

I mean, Monte had his chance with his Arcana system and he just tweaked a little. That's not a good sign since 3.x and 4e both need full overhauls.

Hopefully, Mearls is being kept around as the "guy who has experience leading an RPG project to completion and met his deadlines and kept to a budget" guy and they are tapping his experience for that and he's not being asked his opinion on anything design-wise.

[tzor]

3E and 4E D&D made a major mistake by inflating the assumed size of an adventuring party.

When I read the 2E D&D, I was actually rather surprised that the game thought that parties with just two or three people in it were fine. Now while I think a game of 3E or 4E D&D's magnitude can support an average playgroup size of four PCs, five is too damn many.

I have to look at my source material at home but I thought that Gygax AD&D (1E) was deisgned for a character range of about 4 to 8 with 6 being the general average. That was the purpose of NPC's in the first place to stuff a party that had too few players because Gygax didn't like the idea (although it was popular) of running two characters at the same time by a given player.

Any 1E games that I played with two players generally tended to pad the party with NPC's.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I'm probably not going to have time to commit to playing an RPG at all for a while, so unless that changes...

[hogarth]

I have to look at my source material at home but I thought that Gygax AD&D (1E) was deisgned for a character range of about 4 to 8 with 6 being the general average.

According to this ENWorld thread, some published modules suggested up to 10 PCs! But I seem to remember that the usual module recommendation was 4-8 characters as well.

[PoliteNewb]

3E and 4E D&D made a major mistake by inflating the assumed size of an adventuring party.

When I read the 2E D&D, I was actually rather surprised that the game thought that parties with just two or three people in it were fine. Now while I think a game of 3E or 4E D&D's magnitude can support an average playgroup size of four PCs, five is too damn many.

I have to look at my source material at home but I thought that Gygax AD&D (1E) was deisgned for a character range of about 4 to 8 with 6 being the general average. That was the purpose of NPC's in the first place to stuff a party that had too few players because Gygax didn't like the idea (although it was popular) of running two characters at the same time by a given player.

Any 1E games that I played with two players generally tended to pad the party with NPC's.

This matches my own experiences, except that I had no problem with players running multiple PCs simultaneously. Since I never had more than 4 players (and 2-3 was more standard), most of my campaigns were multiple-PCs-per-player.

[Koumei]

I hear that they learned their lesson from "Make it like WoW", and 5E won't be doing that.

They'll be making it like TOR instead

The only reason I'd sign up is to make the joke suggestions I mentioned earlier. And yes, if that meant 5E came out with an Anal Circumference rule, that would be my own damn fault. At least I'd be able to shoulder the blame for that one, though.

[TheFlatline]

I hear that they learned their lesson from "Make it like WoW", and 5E won't be doing that.

They'll be making it like TOR instead

The only reason I'd sign up is to make the joke suggestions I mentioned earlier. And yes, if that meant 5E came out with an Anal Circumference rule, that would be my own damn fault. At least I'd be able to shoulder the blame for that one, though.

So 5e will have fantastic voice acting and take 5 years to bring to market yet still be buggy as all hell?

If that's the case, I'm putting in my voice-over vote right now for the dude who narrated Bastion.

[Prak]

Wow. If 5e came with a piece of software that read your dungeon descriptions and narration in the voice of some respected actor... that'd be awesome. I want Sean Connory for my narration.

[Doom]

5E D&D should be able to be played with a minimum of three PCs and should comfortably scale upwards to about six or seven. Anything fewer than three aborts too many games before they start and no game with any depth to it is playable with eight people in it. Shit, you can't even play Monotpoly with seven players, why should D&D scale that high upwards?

Hey, base party size in AD&D was around 8. Go and read the old modules to see; in the 1979 DMG, a 'wandering monster' party of adventurers had a number of NPCs with levels (all randomly determined, of course), with men-at-arms to make up the party to 9.

[Aryxbez]

3E and 4E D&D made a major mistake by inflating the assumed size of an adventuring party.

That they did, and didn't seem like they truly accounted for it. As I had to be first shown, and nowadays can see to be the case. Such as with having only four roles, treasure system always having the 5th guy out for a magic item (why couldn't just give each PC 1-4 a level, don't get). Hell think the only thing that really accounted for it, was the monster budget, and Solo's tended to be hard case to work with, and could just had it the equivalent of 4 guys instead I'm sure. In games I've both played and ran, do indeed want the minimum to be 3, and the max 6. Anything below, and not really any interesting decisions, above that, and nothing gets done, takes too long, and otherwise likely have issues of characters being backgrounded in importance.

Sure can remedy it by having only specific character arcs and spotlight at a time, but 6 players or more, is just a different and unwieldy dynamic.

I think I'd settle for Steve Blum, he's in EVERYTHING, and implies willing to do pretty much any voice over work.

[Swordslinger]

Hey, base party size in AD&D was around 8. Go and read the old modules to see; in the 1979 DMG, a 'wandering monster' party of adventurers had a number of NPCs with levels (all randomly determined, of course), with men-at-arms to make up the party to 9.

Yeah 1E/2E assumed you were playing with around 6-8. 3E assumed a base of 4, and 4E assumes a base of 5. I actually think that 3E's base assumption is the best out of all the editions, because really whenever I've got a group bigger than 4, it didn't last very long.

3-4 seems to be the general average in my experience.

[Aryxbez]

Oh, and for what it's worth, I've signed up for it as well. Despite that I don't have any hopes for 5th edition, especially since they fooled me once with 4th edition, sad to see amount of denners unwilling to help. Although sure, their word will probably be lost in the washed masses, unless their word can truly shine through similar thoughts that are nothing more than opinion. I too am suspicious it's just a marketing ploy like that of Pathfinders, or the 4th edition barbarian example as well. However hey, least they said they're going to listen "this" time, yeah!

Anyway, so Frank, you'd be willing to work for Mearls if he paid you, actually delivering quality material to him, even if he never apologized? Asking him to apologize from something said years ago seems quite unlikely, believe that thread is in the archives now, and I can't say he'd be bothered to remember it, or see reason to, forgive and forget, all that sort.

I think I'm going to consider trying to throw down my thoughts, mentioning them multiple times as needed, till what is said is heard and declined or what have you.

[Username17]

Anyway, so Frank, you'd be willing to work for Mearls if he paid you, actually delivering quality material to him, even if he never apologized? Asking him to apologize from something said years ago seems quite unlikely, believe that thread is in the archives now, and I can't say he'd be bothered to remember it, or see reason to, forgive and forget, all that sort.

If I had an actual job where I was working with Mike Mearls I would be sad. I would treat him exactly as I would any other dangerously incompetent fellow employee: try to arrange to do as much of the important work myself as possible and shunt him to the places where he could do the least harm wherever I could. I would go through his work and point out exhaustively and explicitly where and why it was not acceptable.

And I would probably end up with a product like Street Magic, where despite all the qualities it had, it would still be stuck with some unplayable crap like Blood Zilla and Aspected Magicians. And all that would be left would be for me to say "I told you so."

The prospect of attempting to work with him in a scenario where he gets all the money and has the last word on absolutely everything is laughable. The end result would just be that Blood Zilla would go through and I wouldn't get a paycheck and I wouldn't get a by-line and there wouldn't be anything I wrote in the final. It's not just lose-lose, it's lose-lose-lose.

I have seen the man through a temper tantrum over people criticizing skill challenges. With numbers and charts and set theory and shit. Real, hard, constructive criticism and he went off on a juvenile tirade about how people didn't have the right to criticize the crap he had made and sold for money because he was still fiddling with it, and they didn't have the right to criticize the methodology of that fiddling because... no reason given. I would not choose to associate myself with him socially or professionally. He's incompetent and an asshole about it.

-Username17

[ishy]

Well to be honest, if you're incompetent and not an asshole about it you wouldn't be able to keep your job.

[Murtak]

Well to be honest, if you're incompetent and not an asshole about it you wouldn't be able to keep your job.

I dunno, someone who does nothing but brainstorm tons of inane ideas with a few gems hidden here and there seems quite useful to me, provided he is able to deal with 90% of his stuff being removed from the game almost instantly. You just wouldn't want such a person as a manager.

[hogarth]

I have seen the man through a temper tantrum over people criticizing skill challenges.

Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

[OgreBattle]

The people that have the authority to fire Mearls, what criteria do they judge him by? Do they know how to tell competent RPG material from slap dash, do they just look if he made page count & deadline and that's all?

Did they hire him because of personal connections in the first place? Is competency to write good (by whatever standard we're judging by here) actually measurable by the people who keep Mearls employed?

[Winnah]

Legends and Lore

In the above article Mearls goes on about the history of D&D, an emotive reflection on what made the game appealing.

This is our game, and it is as healthy, vibrant and important as we make it. The rest is details. Don’t let that details drive us apart when the big picture says we should be joined together.

That is how he finishes the article. An appeal to nostalgia, an invocation of the memory of better times. "Don't focus on the details" he asks, even as the article shifts the responsibility of the success of the brand on to the customer. I shit you not.

We might print the rules for the current version of the game, or produce accessories you use at your table, but the game is what you, the community of D&D fans and players, make it. D&D is the moments in the game, the interplay within a gaming group, the memories formed that last forever. It’s intensely personal. It’s your experience as a group, the stories that you and your friends share to this day. No specific rule, no random opinion, no game concept from an R&D designer, no change to the game’s mechanics can alter that.

To put it simply, the man is full of shit. Despite this, he has risen to a special level of incompetance. For whatever reason, he has been able to placate the corporate hierarchy, quite possibly because of his apparent skill at deflecting the responsibility for his failures.

I have no doubt that he is very imaginative and can think up some amazing concepts, however his track record when it comes to the implemetation of those ideas, includes some remarkable failures. Failures he refuses to accept responsibility for. That can work wonders on a professional level. It is bad for the brand and the people directly associated with him.

[Swordslinger]

Well to be honest, if you're incompetent and not an asshole about it you wouldn't be able to keep your job.

Yeah pretty much. The thing is that the people deciding the hiring and firing likely don't understand D&D or anything about it. So Mearls can pretty much BS them as far as what's going on, and if the guy is a good self-promoter he can end up keeping his job.

And Mearls does talk a good game. He sounds like he knows what he's talking about, a lot of his ideas seem to make sense, but he can't actually put anything together. Mearls should never be any kind of lead designer. He's an idea man at best.

[ishy]

<snip>

This is our game, and it is as healthy, vibrant and important as we make it. The rest is details. Don’t let that details drive us apart when the big picture says we should be joined together.

That is how he finishes the article. An appeal to nostalgia, an invocation of the memory of better times. "Don't focus on the details" he asks, even as the article shifts the responsibility of the success of the brand on to the customer. I shit you not.

We might print the rules for the current version of the game, or produce accessories you use at your table, but the game is what you, the community of D&D fans and players, make it. D&D is the moments in the game, the interplay within a gaming group, the memories formed that last forever. It’s intensely personal. It’s your experience as a group, the stories that you and your friends share to this day. No specific rule, no random opinion, no game concept from an R&D designer, no change to the game’s mechanics can alter that.

To put it simply, the man is full of shit. Despite this, he has risen to a special level of incompetance. For whatever reason, he has been able to placate the corporate hierarchy, quite possibly because of his apparent skill at deflecting the responsibility for his failures.
<snip>

Actually he is correct in this instance. No matter what they do, it is all about how the players (including the dm) handle the game.

Hell look at pathfinder, lots of people have fun with that ruleset even though its designers are even more incompetent than Mearls.

It doesn't excuse him from making shitty rules but you absolutely need the community to enhance peoples feelings about the game that you can't in anyway put in the games mechanics.

[echoVanguard]

Mearls should never be any kind of lead designer. He's an idea man at best.

Actually, an "idea man/woman" is exactly the sort of person you want as the product lead - they come up with a very general goal, and their team (the actual designers) works to implement it. But that person also has to listen to QA diligently, because any idea which comes back unworkable needs to be disposed of regardless of how much the lead likes it.

echo

[Swordslinger]

Actually, an "idea man/woman" is exactly the sort of person you want as the product lead - they come up with a very general goal, and their team (the actual designers) works to implement it. But that person also has to listen to QA diligently, because any idea which comes back unworkable needs to be disposed of regardless of how much the lead likes it.

I disagree on that, I think you want the implementation expert as your head, and the idea men as part of a think tank. The guy whose good at actually implementing the goals are the ones who decide what ideas make it and which are unachievable.

For instance, the whole concept of skill challenges should have been shot down and never made it to final release. Some ideas just aren't implementable, and someone has to make the call of getting rid of them. Otherwise you hit crunch time and the idea man puts out a "Well it sorta works" or "we can fix it later" implementation into print.

Also as a whole game designers who have ideas tend to be very attached to those ideas, and don't tend to work well with others. So if you make your idea man the lead, then that means you can't have other idea men contributing stuff.

[Username17]

The thing about skill challenges is that many of the things they are supposed to do are not only possible to implement, but easy to implement. You just can't do all of the things skill challenges are supposed to do together, because there are simple contradictions.

If you want to formalize everyone contributing abstractly to big problems like preparing for an ocean voyage or reactivating an ancient golem or negotiating a settlement with the Orcs or whatever, that actually isn't hard. You just make a number of rounds where everyone can make a skill check, you total up the number of hits on those skill checks, and you set the total effect based on the total number of hits achieved during those rounds. That is not a difficult design at all, and the only reason that Mike Mearls could never get it to work is that in four years and dozens of writeups, he never managed to let go of the idea of tracking failures, which meant that players with smaller than ideal bonuses were always working against the party.

If you want to formalize players declaring skill actions in the middle of combat, you just have to list genuine expectable combat effects from skill actions. Considering that the game's attacks could already be output by a computer, I can't imagine that this would be hard to do. If players knew that they could get 2d6 damage with a one turn stunlock out of some skill or another on enemies that were undead (or whatever), then people would do that sometimes. Again, this isn't really hard to design, it's just a level chart and some bonus encounter powers people can use with various skills against enemies who fit certain criteria. Again, Mearls hasn't been able to get this shit working, although this time because he insists on tracking successes rather than having the combat actions feed into the success metrics that combats actually have: damage, healing, and conditions.

Now these two skill challenge concepts cannot be made to work with the same mechanic, since by definition a challenge whose purpose is to get everyone involved won't be something that people are optionally doing instead of making normal attack rolls. But making each mechanic work individually is like 5 minutes of high concept consideration of goal implementation followed by about a single day of number crunching. Frankly, if it takes more than one week to iron out both systems to a medium level of functionality, the people in charge of working on it should be fired (or at least have a really good excuse like personal tragedy). Failing to even disentangle to incompatible premises in four fucking years is simply ridiculous.

-Username17

[hogarth]

<snip>

This is our game, and it is as healthy, vibrant and important as we make it. The rest is details. Don’t let that details drive us apart when the big picture says we should be joined together.

That is how he finishes the article. An appeal to nostalgia, an invocation of the memory of better times. "Don't focus on the details" he asks, even as the article shifts the responsibility of the success of the brand on to the customer. I shit you not.

We might print the rules for the current version of the game, or produce accessories you use at your table, but the game is what you, the community of D&D fans and players, make it. D&D is the moments in the game, the interplay within a gaming group, the memories formed that last forever. It’s intensely personal. It’s your experience as a group, the stories that you and your friends share to this day. No specific rule, no random opinion, no game concept from an R&D designer, no change to the game’s mechanics can alter that.

To put it simply, the man is full of shit. Despite this, he has risen to a special level of incompetance. For whatever reason, he has been able to placate the corporate hierarchy, quite possibly because of his apparent skill at deflecting the responsibility for his failures.
<snip>

Actually he is correct in this instance. No matter what they do, it is all about how the players (including the dm) handle the game.

The "full of shit" part is not the generic Captain Planet-style platitudes about how "The Power Is Yours!" and so forth.

The bullshit part is the pleading "Don't let the details drive us apart", with the implication that you should play 5E even if you think it's shitty (just a mere detail, after all).

[Swordslinger]

If you want to formalize everyone contributing abstractly to big problems like preparing for an ocean voyage or reactivating an ancient golem or negotiating a settlement with the Orcs or whatever, that actually isn't hard. You just make a number of rounds where everyone can make a skill check, you total up the number of hits on those skill checks, and you set the total effect based on the total number of hits achieved during those rounds. That is not a difficult design at all, and the only reason that Mike Mearls could never get it to work is that in four years and dozens of writeups, he never managed to let go of the idea of tracking failures, which meant that players with smaller than ideal bonuses were always working against the party.

It's tricky, because if you just track successes, but limit the number of rolls, then you're hosing small groups of PCs and benefiting large groups of PCs. It becomes very viable to just brute force things with massive groups and you don't get much benefit from having one expert, since at most this guy is always contributing one success. This makes sense for some things, like research or preparing for a sea voyage, but sucks for negotiations, where a good negotiation should shine and diplomacy by cacophony shouldn't work.

But what's the point of the mechanic anyway? Is it really so important that we need to be having everyone roll to activate the golem or load up a ship for supplies? There's no real thought to it, so why not just make it a single skill check if that. Why would you even want to encourage a bunch of tedious dice rolling?