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Mike Mearls

@mearls.bsky.social

2.9K followers 290 following 390 posts

I spend too much thinking about TTRPGs. I sometimes publish them.

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Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · Nov 7

Before I start posting here, I want everyone to remember one thing: Social media is designed to monetize you, regardless of how it affects you. Don't let anyone make money off wrecking your mental health via doom scrolling, social media addiction, or parasocial constructs.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 1d

Anyway, I know that we fixed the math in Monster Manual 3.

I do know for a fact that the MM creatures had ACs that were too high. I built the math assuming that feats gave an attack bonus, but then they didn't. Somewhere someone decided feats that gave +ATK were too good and didn't say anything.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 1d

Pyramid of Shadows looks like it does because we had to build the individual encounters and staple them together at the end. On Monday I'd do room A, Tuesday room B, etc, until we had enough rooms. Zero time or bandwidth to do anything more elaborate.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 1d

I don't know this for sure, but it sounds right. 4e's flaw were all of process. There was never a design document or a single person who transparently managed design changes. It was a vibes-based approach.

Example: I think we had a month of design time for each of the first three adventures.

Distracted DM @distracteddm.bsky.social · 2d

I heard that just before 4e's release, someone (don't know who) decided that monsters didn't have enough HP and everything's HP was upped a significant amount (which then resulted in some painful HP bloat)- any truth to that bit of hearsay?

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 2d

That's a great observation, and I think it speaks to a core problem with the mechanic. It's like tic-tac-toe. Once you know how to beat it, it doesn't adapt.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 2d

Yes!

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 2d

I think this approach has an added, fatal flaw - the difference between at-will and alpha damage is so big that opting out of a long rest when you could take one is strictly a misplay. There's a *massive* incentive to long rest as often as possible.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 2d

How do you fix this? I think you need to design boss monsters with a different hit point scale, one that assumes the party is alpha striking. That causes CR to break down, but I think it's a viable path to introducing boss monsters that can stick around.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 2d

A party that unloads with their best powers simply breaks the system. Their output is off the scale when you assume that everyone fights for 20+ rounds per day and spreads their at-will powers out.

It's quite likely that a semi-optimized party can vaporize boss monsters in a round or even less.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 2d

We did the same thing in 5e, and time has shown that it does not work for boss monsters.

Why? The gap between daily and at-will damage is far bigger in 5e than in 4e. Spreading that extra damage across every round of a day misses the real benefit of daily abilities - a massive damage spike.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 2d

In 4e, we assumed a certain number of encounters per day. In each encounter, we assumed you used encounter powers, then at-will. We spread out the extra damage from daily powers across the day.

And it worked! The monsters had too many HP out of the gate, but we eventually fixed that.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 2d

The image in the first post shows the gross damage a fighter does at each level. One bar shows the fighter's damage if you use at-will abilities. The orange bar is gross output when maxing out daily features, AKA alpha striking.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 2d

If you run D&D 5e, you might find that your boss monsters die easily. There's actually a simple reason for that!

The game was built around the assumption that characters would engage in about 20 rounds of combat between long rests.

We were probably off by a factor of 5.

A graph showing gross damage per encounter for a D&D 5e fighter. It shows each level and uses two bars to compare that gross damage for a fighter who uses at-will abilities and one who uses as many daily abilities as possible. The daily power damage output starts out as double the at-will damage and ends at about fives times as high.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 3d

It's really well done! The art is fantastic, the vibes are great, and the adventures look amazing. Between this and the starter set, back to back stellar products. Congrats!

Reposted by Mike Mearls

Monte Cook Games @montecookgames.com · 13d

THANK YOU, backers!

Only a few RPG crowdfunding campaigns not based on popular licenses or 5E have ever broken $1,000,000 in a crowdfunding campaign. We are beyond excited and humbled to see Cypher enter those ranks.

Thank you for making this an unforgettable campaign!

mymcg.info/cypher

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 16d

Strong agree on character creation. I also think that designers (like me!) weigh underrated the ease of encounter tables organized by level. Roll for monster, then roll for number of monsters. That makes adventure design so much faster. Is it high quality? Doesn't matter if people are *playing*.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · 23d

I'd love to see updates like this for other classic adventures or other pick up and play scenarios. I can't get over how much I love this boxed set. It's everything I love about D&D!

Reposted by Mike Mearls

LaTia de los Muertos 🔜 Gamehole Con! @latiajacquise.com · 23d

omg a rare #WOTCStaff post from LaTia, could it be

in (almost) EXACTLY one (1) hour, I will be grilling @justiceraminarman.bsky.social on all things Heroes of the Borderlands, asking the hard-hitting (community sourced) questions that everyone wants the answers to.

you should come join us :)

Join the Dungeons & Dragons Discord Server!

The official server for the world’s greatest roleplaying game. Adventurers welcome! | 256790 members

Reposted by Mike Mearls

Tom Cartos @tomcartos.bsky.social · Sep 10

Hello travellers! Inspired by MCDM's new Draw Steel adventure, this is my take on the Delian Tomb! This is fan art and not endorsed by MCDM in any way. Let me know what you think of the Knightly tomb.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · Sep 10

This looks great! I love how you made it interesting to look at as a piece of art, but it is also very clear and easy to grok as a battle map.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · Sep 9

All I'll say about Alternity Gamma World was that I was very happy when Omega World was released in Dungeon. Rich Baker and Bruce Cordell's 4e-based take was a ton of fun, too. I used elements from both those games as the basis for 5e Gamma World that I ran at Gary Con a few times.

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · Aug 29

Luckily unconscious does specify that your speed is 0

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · Aug 29

Most TTRPGs rely on vibes to function. Players and GMs get a vague understanding of how the game works and dive into play. When writing a game, consider how you can make Team Vibes and Team I Actually Read the Goddamn Book play nice.

www.patreon.com/posts/simpli...

Simplified 5e: Curating Spells | Mike Mearls Games

Get more from Mike Mearls Games on Patreon

www.patreon.com

Reposted by Mike Mearls

Prismatic Wasteland @prismaticwasteland.com · Aug 8

Dippin’ Dots is the most post apocalyptic of desserts because, as the “ice cream of the future” they imply something terrible happened to our ice cream of the present

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · Aug 8

I’m here for the Dippin’ Dots cinematic universe

Mike Mearls @mearls.bsky.social · Jul 13

I think live play has a role, but I think that if we had to choose between actual play and YouTube advice videos, the latter has a bigger impact on the typical group playing the game. However, I don't think it's unique to TTRPGs. Video games, TCGs, etc have gained similar boosts.