3.5 and 4 were very much driven by an anxiety about controlling the experience of the game, leaving as little as possible to chance. They aimed for consistency of play from campaign to campaign, and table to table.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
The fear was that an obnoxious player or DM would ruin the game, and that would drive people away from it. The thinking was that if we made things as procedural as possible, people would just follow the rules and have fun regardless of who they played with. The downside to this approach is that the rules became comprehensive to a fault. The game’s rules bloated, as they sought to resolve many if not all questions that arise in play with the game text.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
At the same time, 3.5 and 4 were driven by the idea that D&D players wanted as many character options as possible, presented in a modular framework meant to encourage the search for combinations that yielded characters who broke the power curve. These two aims play together in an extremely terrible way, at least from a design perspective. Your core system has to cover everything… meanwhile you are adding more cases and content to your game. Good luck with keeping those things in balance!
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
IMO, the basic design premise suffers from a fatal flaw. It misses out on a ton of the elements that make RPGs distinct and doesn’t speak to why people enjoy D&D in the first place. With 5th, we assumed that the DM was there to have a good time, put on an engaging performance, and keep the group interested, excited, and happy. It’s a huge change, because we no longer expect you to turn to the book for an answer. We expect the DM to do that.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
In terms of players, we focus much more on narrative and identity, rather than specific, mechanical advantages. Who you are is more important than what you do, to the point that your who determines your what. In broad terms – and based on what we can observe of the community from a variety of measures – we went from a community that focused on mechanics and expertise, to one focused on socializing and story telling.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
Mechanical expertise is an element of the game, but no longer the sole focus. Ideally, it’s a balanced part of all the other motivators. If balanaced correctly, every has their fun. Enjoyment isn’t zero sum. As D&D is descriptive rather than prescriptive, individual groups had different experiences. However, that was the design trend and what we saw in the community as a whole. It’s been interesting to see things change with the change in rules and the flood of new players.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
4e played more like an MMO or wargame in the way abilities were put together. It tried to keep the basic 3.5 approach intact by making individual abilities much more precisely defined. That ended up making it feel bland and limiting to many players.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
Coming from 2e, I initially appreciated the standardization and clarity that 3E brought to the game but, yeah… the rest of it. The emergent gameplay really changed the game. You can literally see the game’s launch lose steam as people start to understand how the new rules really work.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
I struggle with this as a pacifist who makes games that are at least partially combat simulators. Right? On one hand RPGs make the impact of violence pretty abstract, so it’s not gratuitous. On the other, the violence is abstract so it’s an easy solution.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
And I’ve found abstracting the social resolution to make it as convenient and crunchy as the combat makes the roleplay feel less freewheeling. Argh. I’m actually *this weekend* tinkering with an abstract combat system designed to resolve fights with one round of rolls.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
I’m also not inclined to relegate social interactions to rules so much. Being able to roleplay convincing someone not to commit violence shouldn’t require a player to have a certain feat (or skill set). Story above fight for me. I’ve found that as a DM, I can help players get into it by taking on the job of making their character awesome. If someone doesn’t feel comfortable with the performance end of it, I can take a die roll and spin up a description that makes them look good.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018
It’s not perfect, but I’ve noticed a few times that by taking the lead I’ve helped players get comfortable taking risks, doing more acting, and working more collaboratively. For instance, giving prompts on how they succeed at a social task, and then I fill in with a narrative.
— Mike Mearls (@mikemearls) September 15, 2018