Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 04:29:36 PM

Quote from: Shrieking Banshee on September 30, 2021, 02:55:11 PM

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 02:13:32 PMNot true about the design.  The core design is solid. 

Well if you mean in the sense of 'Neat idea terrible implimentation' I agree. But ideas are cheap and it doesn't accomplish even any one of them to even a above avarage level. There is no part of 5e (sans legendary actions, and thats IT for the hundreds of pages of materials it has) that I would cut out from it to use somewhere else.

You are excluding the middle here.  "Design" is not "idea".  It is also not the implementation.  There is a great deal of work that goes into getting the basic model in place, which falls under design but is not an actual game until you put some meat on the bones.  Nor is design automatically "mechanic" that can be lifted elsewhere, though it could be in some cases.

Eric is correct.  There could be a much more streamlined implementation of the 5E design that would rival the Basic/Expert set in cohesion (especially if it had the luxury of limiting it to the equivalent level ranges) while providing more useful features.   

Advantage/Disadvantage is good design. You may not like how it works in theory or in practice, never mind how that informs the 5E space, but it is an example of well-thought, considered design that does exactly what it is meant to do.  For that particular point, I'd say it is good design where they fell in love with it so much that they used it in a few places where probably they should not have, but that's personal preference too. 

The many design choices that led to multi-classing being "possible but practically never needed" is brilliant design.  Again, falls flat in some practical ways due to choices made in implementation--and in others because they didn't push the implementation far enough, but very good design.  (The marketing weasel decisions to promise all the classes people expected to make up for 4E also compromised the design in particularly bad ways and put their class implementation in a bind that the lack of talent couldn't overcome.  This is why the fighter/rogue/wizard/cleric classes are mostly solid but everything else is all over the place in quality.)

The mathematical design is largely on point.  It doesn't match my preferences in a game, but it does a very good job of setting the game up to work as intended.

There is no such thing as talking about good or bad design without considering the intent of the design.  It you want to say that their intent was ill chosen, that's a separate (and also interesting) argument.

Edit: Will also say in response to the intervening discussion that I don't consider who did it first a question of good or bad design.  That's innovation.  5E is not innovative much, if any.  Good design usually isn't, because it is nearly always something that's been tried and botched previously.  There's no way WotC designs 5E as well as they did without the 3E/3.5/4E/Essentials experiments.

With all due respect, Steve, what you're saying is not wrong. But I disagree with you.

The *idea* of Advantage/Disadvantage is a good concept and a good design element. But only insofar as the rest of the system utilizes it consistently and the rest of the system that has nothing to do with Advantage/Disadvantage also is as tightly bound to the core task-resolution. And I'll give you your due - this *is* probably the best part of 5e.

The other elements do not carry this rigor of design very well, imo. It does feel "flabby" to me - the HP bloat, the over-reliance on various immunities etc. the gimmicky designs of classes (not all but many), the meager incrementation of power vs. scale, all of these things would probably be separate conversations - the totality of which is why 5e has a deserved title as everyone's 2nd favorite Edition. Now I don't know how *actually* true this is... it turns out it's my third favorite, but you know, I think people on this thread could make a better edition in a single night with a couple of bottles of whisky.

In fact I have *zero* doubt about it.

I'm not saying this to hate on 5e. I'm fine with it - it is what it is. I think after 3e and the work I put into that edition and it's various flavors, I came to my own conclusions that 5e did nothing to dispel. It COULD be good. But the overhaul would effectively be like Fantasy Craft - a glorious unsung and unplayed thing, another Betamax for the dustbin of design (despite being superior to the winner).

The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

I'm less a fan of D&D because of reasons extraneous to the system itself. I do feel it plays flabby. I don't feel particularly herioic. It doesn't feel kinetic to me. Others can disagree, that's cool. I'm just speaking compared to my previous longterm experiences in D&D. And yes, I think it's very fixable.

If I had not discovered Savage Worlds, I'd likely have already started doing my own fantasy heartbreaker of 5e and trying to twist the arms of fellow board members folks like Estar (and maybe you) among others to help me. Who knows? I know I'm not giving WotC my money anytime soon.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 30, 2021, 04:29:36 PMEric is correct.  There could be a much more streamlined implementation of the 5E design that would rival the Basic/Expert set in cohesion (especially if it had the luxury of limiting it to the equivalent level ranges) while providing more useful features.

Like Il just stop right there because this just means we have radically different assumptions of what 'cohesion' or even 'good' is. I don't think OD&D or Basic is very good at all. No hard feelings if you like it and think its good, thats just what it is for me.

Im also not sure what your exact definition of design is. I think 'design' is close enough to 'Idea' to say its solid ideas with poor execution. I bring up past examples because poor execution after the ideas had been implimented before (and better) doesn't win any points in my book.

Like what do you mean 'basic model'?

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM
The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

   This. And before anyone appeals to 4E, that was a perfect storm of internal and external factors that almost certainly will never be repeated.

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 05:04:18 PM

Quote from: Ghostmaker on September 30, 2021, 03:53:19 PM

Quote from: BoxCrayonTales on September 30, 2021, 03:48:57 PM

Quote from: Hakdov on September 30, 2021, 01:42:28 PM
As for a reason why Hasbro might want to sell WotC- they might be tired of the licensing hell that D&D is tied up in.  That's the big reason why video games and movies have been mostly vaporware.

Explain this to me, please?

I can venture a guess. Remember that various authors have had their names attached to various properties within the greater D&D game. I bet it's similar to the problem that faced Disney after they bought the Star Wars IP.

I'd think that Hasbro would be far more likely to let the IP rot rather than give it up. Corpos like to hang on to IP for as long as possible even if they have no intention of using it.

That's God's own fucking truth. And sometimes thanks to the weirdness of how IPs get passed around thanks to bankruptcies and mergers, sometimes people who have no IDEA what to do with something wind up owning it.

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM
... I think people on this thread could make a better edition in a single night with a couple of bottles of whisky.
...

You should be roundly castigated for this claim. Except for the fact that you are probably right...

When one looks at what a one man show like Kevin Crawford can do with his Worlds Without Number or Wolves of God RPGs; It is quickly revealed that the head designers of WotC D&D are actually behind the curve when compared to the top OSR creators...

If one is of above average intelligence, making a functional RPG is more about drive and desire then any special "RPG design" skill or talent.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 30, 2021, 05:54:39 PM

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM
The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

   This. And before anyone appeals to 4E, that was a perfect storm of internal and external factors that almost certainly will never be repeated.

Not so sure.

The overriding factor that brought 4e low was the Pathfinder RPG.

If WotC was just a little bit more Johnny-on-the-spot with their SRD; By their own admission Baizuo would have been a 3pp 4e Adventure Path creator.

The sales would not be that hot, and a 5e style boom would probably not have happened. But 4e would very likely have stayed at the #1 selling RPG spot for the foreseeable future at the time.

But the Pathfinder RPG did prove that if faced with even halfway competent competition, it was possible to put out an edition of D&D that would fail.

If WotC didn't have magic money, or Ha$bro bucks to back them, the RPG hobby could have taken a very interesting turn...

Quote from: Jaeger on September 30, 2021, 08:15:16 PM
Not so sure.

The overriding factor that brought 4e low was the Pathfinder RPG.

If WotC was just a little bit more Johnny-on-the-spot with their SRD; By their own admission Baizuo would have been a 3pp 4e Adventure Path creator.

The sales would not be that hot, and a 5e style boom would probably not have happened. But 4e would very likely have stayed at the #1 selling RPG spot for the foreseeable future at the time.

But the Pathfinder RPG did prove that if faced with even halfway competent competition, it was possible to put out an edition of D&D that would fail.

If WotC didn't have magic money, or Ha$bro bucks to back them, the RPG hobby could have taken a very interesting turn...

  Bear in mind that Pathfinder had benefits that no one else had before or since either: The ability to clone 3.5E without legal concerns, the established track record, the high production values from day one, and the reputation as 'stewards of the game' and access to subscriber information and research from their days managing Dungeon and Dragon, as well as an audience that was primed to resent WotC. That last factor was only exacerbated by WotC's marketing and design approach, the collapse of the online support that 4E was built around, and a worldwide economic collapse that probably left people more inclined to stick with what they knew than jump ship to a new and high-priced system that seemed to demand even more investment in miniatures and online tools.

   Yes, you can beat D&D--if you're using D&D, have all the tools necessary to step into their shoes almost immediately, have an audience primed to see you as the real keepers of the D&D legacy, and have a brand holder that's facing numerous self-inflicted and market-inflicted wounds. It happened once; I don't think it will happen again, and I think WotC is taking numerous steps to make sure it never happens again, such as doubling down on brand identity and making sure no one can pick up where they leave off with the game.

Well, granted on design I'm drawing some narrow distinctions.  An analogy I'll use is writing.  Good writing is separate from the thing you choose to write about.  There are books that I can say that the writing is well done but that I have no interest in reading through beyond just enough of a sample to see that it is well done.  Because what the book is about is not so good.  And if it is so well done that I do read it through, I will probably never read it again.  Or think of it as a movie that you are glad you saw once, but aren't going to touch again.  No one ever said, "Hey, let's grab some drinks and popcorn and watch Schindler's List .  We've only seen it a few times this year."

So I think most criticisms (but not all) of 5E design that are sort of edging into the design space are the choices made on what to design, not how the design is done.   The lack of a need for multi-classing is a result of good design.  That is in contrast to the bad choice by the various decision makers (whoever they are) to then compromise that design with class bloat, ill-chosen classes, etc.  I attribute most of that to market forces (fear to not have barbarians, paladins, etc. given the fall out over 4E) combined with the usual WotC poor development/testing. 

Why is the ranger bad?  Is it because it was poorly designed?  Or was it merely poorly implemented?  I say neither--it was bad because it should not have been in the game as a class, because the concept of "ranger" is not supported as a class by the design, which meant they through those already poor developers into a no-win situation.  (Not there fault in this case, in other words.)  There are, of course, layers of design, and the more big picture you get with the design the more difficult it is to tease out bad design from bad decisions on what to design versus bad development versus the committee in charge of everything compromised it.  (Even good design and good development can be trashed by bad big picture decision making.)  You could say that inclusion of the ranger is bad big picture design, or alternately, that choosing a design where the ranger can't really work as a class was a bad idea. 

Maybe I'm wrong.  I wasn't ever inside the process.  I'm only reading between the lines between what was said and done, and then basing my conclusions on where the good and bad stuff is.  When something really works in 5E, you can see that it primarily does so because of the design.  When something is almost pure development, it ranges from mediocre to decent copy of past stuff to lousy to bad fan fiction. WotC decision making is incoherent.  That makes me give the designers some benefit of the doubt.

I don't disagree that 5E is "flabby".  That's a very good word for it.  It was released "flabby" and only became "bloated" later.  I just think it is flabby because its skeleton was designed to carry 40 pounds of gaming and before it got out the door, it was made to bulk up to 60, with attachments for another 100.  It would be a hell of a lot less flabby with one good edit pass before everything got out the door, which would have dropped a lot of bad development. Still been objectively flabby, but much less so.

The basic model is that skeleton, which is hard to discern under all that flab.  So I also agree that a few nights by a motivated small group could clean it up tremendously.  Mainly, because you can get 80% there just by dropping a bunch of things, and spend the rest of the weekend arguing about how to maximize the other 20% with a few well-chosen tweaks and additions.   

Edit:  I'm not giving them any money, either.  I'm quite happy with where my play test is going, that starts using a basic model to akin to where I think 5E started, but much pared down and streamlined in most places, a little more involved in others to tease out some of the customization from various editions, but mostly a hearkening back to some of the ideas from BEMCI/RC that are in WotC D&D versions but extremely, poorly done in them.  This make my game neither fish nor fowl, which means there will probably be about 20 people on the planet that enjoy it.  I don't think Tenbones would want to play it, much less run it, but I bet he can appreciate what it does within its goals.

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM

With all due respect, Steve, what you're saying is not wrong. But I disagree with you.

The *idea* of Advantage/Disadvantage is a good concept and a good design element. But only insofar as the rest of the system utilizes it consistently and the rest of the system that has nothing to do with Advantage/Disadvantage also is as tightly bound to the core task-resolution. And I'll give you your due - this *is* probably the best part of 5e.

The other elements do not carry this rigor of design very well, imo. It does feel "flabby" to me - the HP bloat, the over-reliance on various immunities etc. the gimmicky designs of classes (not all but many), the meager incrementation of power vs. scale, all of these things would probably be separate conversations - the totality of which is why 5e has a deserved title as everyone's 2nd favorite Edition. Now I don't know how *actually* true this is... it turns out it's my third favorite, but you know, I think people on this thread could make a better edition in a single night with a couple of bottles of whisky.

In fact I have *zero* doubt about it.

I'm not saying this to hate on 5e. I'm fine with it - it is what it is. I think after 3e and the work I put into that edition and it's various flavors, I came to my own conclusions that 5e did nothing to dispel. It COULD be good. But the overhaul would effectively be like Fantasy Craft - a glorious unsung and unplayed thing, another Betamax for the dustbin of design (despite being superior to the winner).

The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

I'm less a fan of D&D because of reasons extraneous to the system itself. I do feel it plays flabby. I don't feel particularly herioic. It doesn't feel kinetic to me. Others can disagree, that's cool. I'm just speaking compared to my previous longterm experiences in D&D. And yes, I think it's very fixable.

If I had not discovered Savage Worlds, I'd likely have already started doing my own fantasy heartbreaker of 5e and trying to twist the arms of fellow board members folks like Estar (and maybe you) among others to help me. Who knows? I know I'm not giving WotC my money anytime soon.

Gawds own spoken truth right here. Agree Tenbones

Quote from: Jaeger on September 30, 2021, 08:15:16 PM

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on September 30, 2021, 05:54:39 PM

Quote from: tenbones on September 30, 2021, 05:31:55 PM
The reality is what makes 5e as successful *right now* is because the name D&D slapped on it. And 5.5/6e can be woke as fuck using FATE rules and people will buy it and consume it for the exact same reasons.

   This. And before anyone appeals to 4E, that was a perfect storm of internal and external factors that almost certainly will never be repeated.

Not so sure.

The overriding factor that brought 4e low was the Pathfinder RPG.

If WotC was just a little bit more Johnny-on-the-spot with their SRD; By their own admission Baizuo would have been a 3pp 4e Adventure Path creator.

The sales would not be that hot, and a 5e style boom would probably not have happened. But 4e would very likely have stayed at the #1 selling RPG spot for the foreseeable future at the time.

But the Pathfinder RPG did prove that if faced with even halfway competent competition, it was possible to put out an edition of D&D that would fail.

If WotC didn't have magic money, or Ha$bro bucks to back them, the RPG hobby could have taken a very interesting turn...

But in terms of "unlikely to be repeated conditions" I think this is spot on. 5e returned to the OGL, fixing the mistake made by creating their own biggest competitor.

It's also worth noting that timing-wise 4E dropped about a year earlier it really needed to; both in terms of raw development/feedback cycles and in readiness for the market to move on. There were a lot Living 3.5e campaigns that were still a year or so from winding down (and you could see they were getting to a climax, mod levels mostly in the mid-to-late teens, thwarting end of the world events was common, new supporting supplements covering peripheral elements).

Another year and a lot more of the general audience would be ready for something new; in 2008 though it was mostly only the "early adopters" ready to make the jump. Now look at the transition to 5e. They stopped all support for 4E two years before 5e launched... even people with regular campaigns had mostly played through what they wanted to by then. The general audience was ready for new material and this time it was only the holdouts who weren't ready to make the change.

Finally, 4E had the misfortune of being released just before the bottom fell out of the US economy in 2008. Remember when the price of gas basically doubled? Disposable income dried up and $40+ books become non-starters; especially if your old books still work.

4E's launch was a perfect storm of bad events that probably crippled it every bit as much as problems in it's own design did. If it had had full OGL support, another year of development (all the missing classes and races people complained about that weren't ready at launch we're finished up within 9 months of launch) and an economy that wasn't in the middle of falling apart things might have turned out very differently.

We'll never know, but all of the above happening at once again is exceedingly unlikely... they've already signaled backwards compatibility (regardless of how real it actually turns out to be) and continued OGL support and 2024 is nearly a decade in and 2.5 years from now so it's not going to be just the early adopters.

That leaves just the economy, but that was just one factor in the confluence.

The issues with class design are one of the reasons why I prefer a skill-based or point-buy approach. Several of the core classes would be more appropriate as kits/archetypes of other classes. That's why I find myself preferring alternative systems like Classic Fantasy or Spheres of Might.

Say what you will about 4e, I think the approach of power sources and roles was actually pretty sensible. Altho players probably would've been more receptive if they were just referred to by their power sources and roles e.g. "arcane striker" or "martial support" rather than by the traditional class names.

Once you get the past the original quartet of fighter, mage, thief, and Hammer Horror vampire hunter priest (assuming you count that last one), then the additional classes are basically remixes and snowflakes.

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 01, 2021, 08:51:10 AM
But in terms of "unlikely to be repeated conditions" I think this is spot on. 5e returned to the OGL, fixing the mistake made by creating their own biggest competitor.

It seems to me that a graduate level thesis could be done covering the grade A strategic mistake WOTC made by trying to fire their biggest third party content provider, and inevitably created their biggest competitor just as they tried to convince their customers to switch to a new product. (4E was the New Coke of D&D. Imagine what could have happened to the Coca-Cola company if they had a supplier that could have immediately rolled out an classic Coke replacement l.) One can only hope that those at WOTC involved in such a poor business decision to fire Paizo from D&D have been banished from the business world, and are now working as tradesmen somewhere in the Yukon.

Quote from: wmarshal on October 01, 2021, 09:42:28 AM

Quote from: Chris24601 on October 01, 2021, 08:51:10 AM
But in terms of "unlikely to be repeated conditions" I think this is spot on. 5e returned to the OGL, fixing the mistake made by creating their own biggest competitor.

It seems to me that a graduate level thesis could be done covering the grade A strategic mistake WOTC made by trying to fire their biggest third party content provider, and inevitably created their biggest competitor just as they tried to convince their customers to switch to a new product. (4E was the New Coke of D&D. Imagine what could have happened to the Coca-Cola company if they had a supplier that could have immediately rolled out an classic Coke replacement l.) One can only hope that those at WOTC involved in such a poor business decision to fire Paizo from D&D have been banished from the business world, and are now working as tradesmen somewhere in the Yukon.

It's a tale of souls and swords, eternally retold.

Activision was originally formed because Atari refused to give credit or bonuses to their top programmers.

As an odd obscure footnote to history, concerning the transition period from 3.x to 4e...

I was part of a small circle of feature writers at Dragon that Paizo's editorial pulled in to be notified that there was talk about a 4th edition of D&D was being mulled about at WotC. Paizo thought they were going to be part of whatever the 4e development was going to become. The feature writers had all our stuff sniffed over by WotC and Paizo, so it was assumed we, specifcally, would have at minimum some access to this process because we were the ones doing features on specific topics requested by Paizo editorial often to back up projects coming up from WotC sometimes with 6-months of lead time.

At the time, Mearls (one of the circle of feature writers) was talking to me and a few other writers about a side-project... a quasi-Open Source version of d20 where we would outline the core mechanics and each writer would own their respective subsystems, and we'd peer-review everything and decide what is Core and what is Optional. But the rules would have been made free to the public. We were talking about setting it all up - including our process for bringing in submissions etc (which was going to be easy since our goal was to be constant curating and peer-reviewing once the core rules were set).

Before we got it started Mearls went quiet... then I got disillusioned with 3.x/Pathfinder, tired of the editorial chains (heh I was always trying to subvert 3.x and push its boundaries - so was Mearls, which is what got us to work on Goodman games stuff)... then Paizo told us they lost Dragon and weren't going to be part of 4e. This is when the whole Pathfinder thing happened... and I jumped ship, because I came to hate what 3.x had become and when I found out that Pathfinder wasn't going to really push the envelope on the system, they played it safe with what became Pathfinder, the whole thing lost its appeal to me.

The kick in the nuts is when Mike told me and others that he'd gotten the offer to join the 4e team... Our conspiracy theory was that they got wind our little Open Source project and killed it by offering Mearls the Golden Handcuffs. In hindsight I'm less certain of this. We had a crew of *killers* that were down with this project - so it might still be true. I think in retrospect we were a nuisance that was easily dealt with. But I also think by serving up an Open Source system that was actively curated it would have leveraged the massive swell of third-party support already extant in 3.x suddenly with no place to go. Would it have been successful? We'll never know...

But now Estar has me thinking about it a LOT these days...

Downright antagonizing your userbase wasn't as acceptable back then as it is today, so the shock jock 'Woaaah we am is edgy!' marketting material went over terribly.

Quote from: tenbones on October 01, 2021, 10:31:58 AM
As an odd obscure footnote to history, concerning the transition period from 3.x to 4e...

I was part of a small circle of feature writers at Dragon that Paizo's editorial pulled in to be notified that there was talk about a 4th edition of D&D was being mulled about at WotC. Paizo thought they were going to be part of whatever the 4e development was going to become. The feature writers had all our stuff sniffed over by WotC and Paizo, so it was assumed we, specifcally, would have at minimum some access to this process because we were the ones doing features on specific topics requested by Paizo editorial often to back up projects coming up from WotC sometimes with 6-months of lead time.

At the time, Mearls (one of the circle of feature writers) was talking to me and a few other writers about a side-project... a quasi-Open Source version of d20 where we would outline the core mechanics and each writer would own their respective subsystems, and we'd peer-review everything and decide what is Core and what is Optional. But the rules would have been made free to the public. We were talking about setting it all up - including our process for bringing in submissions etc (which was going to be easy since our goal was to be constant curating and peer-reviewing once the core rules were set).

Before we got it started Mearls went quiet... then I got disillusioned with 3.x/Pathfinder, tired of the editorial chains (heh I was always trying to subvert 3.x and push its boundaries - so was Mearls, which is what got us to work on Goodman games stuff)... then Paizo told us they lost Dragon and weren't going to be part of 4e. This is when the whole Pathfinder thing happened... and I jumped ship, because I came to hate what 3.x had become and when I found out that Pathfinder wasn't going to really push the envelope on the system, they played it safe with what became Pathfinder, the whole thing lost its appeal to me.

The kick in the nuts is when Mike told me and others that he'd gotten the offer to join the 4e team... Our conspiracy theory was that they got wind our little Open Source project and killed it by offering Mearls the Golden Handcuffs. In hindsight I'm less certain of this. We had a crew of *killers* that were down with this project - so it might still be true. I think in retrospect we were a nuisance that was easily dealt with. But I also think by serving up an Open Source system that was actively curated it would have leveraged the massive swell of third-party support already extant in 3.x suddenly with no place to go. Would it have been successful? We'll never know...

But now Estar has me thinking about it a LOT these days...

If it helps, I think you might've been right to jump ship from PF. As much as I like Pathfinder, it wasn't so much that they made new mistakes as they sustained existing ones. Particularly involving how the action economy worked.