Today I will be reviewing D&D 5th edition using two approaches: first is walking through its “elegance of design” and secondly through a more free form “pros, cons, this is broken, here are my fixes” kind of list. 

When judging table top games, I have a very specific method I use to determine “elegance of design” 

(range of outcomes) x (the impact of outcomes) x (simplicity) = (elegance of the design)

Range of Outcomes 

This is simply how many choices you have to create your character. A game with 12 classes is a better framework than a game with only 4. If you know anything about the various editions of d&d, adding new classes was a design priority in the early years. Some new classes were simply alternative versions of previous classes… which is fine. If they give you a different feel or a notably different set of options in play, great. 

Sometimes specific mechanics or flavor elements just rub specific players the wrong way, so alternative classes can “save” that element of play for other players. See the Wizard spell casting table vs. the Warlock spell casting mechanic. Those feel different at the table. 

For D&D 5e, this is where the game shines the most. There are a moderate number of classes but also a moderate number of subclasses within each. There are also plenty of races to choose from, many feats, and a huge list of spells. This is where 5e shines out shines almost every other d20 style game. 

10 out of 10 on Range of Outcomes. 

Impact of Outcomes 

This is a measure of how much your choices actually matter in play. Now I want to be super specific here: I am NOT arguing that there is a statistical difference or that “on average” this feature is really powerful. What I am looking for is that a given feature is so powerful that it changes how you play the game. Do you ask a specific character to roll a specific check type on behalf of the party because in play you have noticed they always do well without knowing their exact bonus? Do you choose to charge into combat instead of staying at range because of a specific feat you gained last level? 

Before I give you my answers to this let me address the two most common arguments. But I can feel a +1 bonus, that counts right? No, a +1 is not good enough. Does the player next to you feel your +1? Do you change what action you are going to take this round because you now have a +5 instead of a +4 with swords? A bonus needs to change the actions and perceptions at the table, not just give you a bigger number. Levels effects feel. Low level is deadly and at high level I am an unkillable God. That is a difference right? Actually, that is just bad game design. If you look at the monster numbers, you will see that they tried to design the game so that variation by level wasn’t really a thing… they just failed at the balance point or DM’s ignored the balance rules because the suggestions did not fit their world. DM’s can also choose to make low level forgiving and high level deadly but it is just harder to do that in 5e because of the way the monsters and players were built. Yes, having 10 health feels different from having 40 health, but if monsters just go from dealing 1d6 damage to 4d6 damage, have the outcomes changed? That is just inflation. 

So how much of a bonus do you have to give a character before the effect is felt: I think at the lowest, it is a +3. I think a +4 is honestly the most likely answer. There is a case to be made that it is actually a +5 before it is consistent enough for other people to see/feel it at the table. So our answer is somewhere between +3 to +5… but a lot, and I mean a lot, of D&D is built around a +1. Now, multiple +1’s will get you to a notable bonus, but that means that from level 1 to 20 you are really only gaining 2 or 3 bonuses of impact assuming you line them up perfectly. The rest of your bonuses are just power inflation. This lack of impact is clearly D&D 5e’s greatest weakness. This is rooted in a system that is too granular and trying to hide impact in power inflation. 

While I am harsh on D&D for its impacts, there are exceptions. Some feats grant things like bonus to initiative, skills expertise, or dramatically extend the range at which bow are accurate. Those do change game play. There are plenty of class features that do change game play… but far more that are just inflation or tiny bonuses. At the end of the day, 5e is a mix bag of tactical shifts and wrestling with inflation. I consider this power inflation a tax built into the system. If you don’t take some upgrades into your main power sources your combat power will lag behind. This means characters are really choosing between maintaining power and impactful play options as they level up. 5e has some good power ceiling and floor mechanics to help with this, but that tax is still part of the game design. To make a balanced character, I still think you are limited to 2 or 3 real impact options with the rest of the upgrades playing down the inflation tax bit by bit. 

3 out of 10 on Impact. 

Simplicity  

5th edition D&D is highly refined and you can tell. A lot of needless complexity has been removed from older additions and core elements have been streamlined. I would call this one of the simplest of the d20 systems… but there is still plenty of room for improvement. D&D is still based on the assumption that your character is complex enough that you will always have a reference sheet nearby. That is a crutch. The character sheet filled not with story and items, but with references to other complex mechanics, is an admission that a character is so complicated that a player can not reasonably be expected to remember what their character can and can not do. It is better than most d20 systems, but most d20 systems are great examples of over complexity for the sake of over complexity. 5e is the least guilty, but not innocent. 

Now I happily point out that of my three variables, this is the one that is the most debatable. Many players really do enjoy the complexity of certain systems. They enjoy the min/maxing. They enjoy learning that 101 unique systems a game has to offer. These are people who play to learn, not play to play. There is nothing wrong with playing to learn. I enjoy doing it myself… but I quickly leave those games to try the next one. That is a very different kind of activity then having a story or world you want to explore and choosing a system to do it in. 

6 of 10 on Simplicity .

Results

So back to our original equation:  

 [(range of outcomes) x (the impact of outcomes) x (simplicity) = (elegance of the design) 

(10*3*6) = a score of 180 for D&D 5e 

But what could it be with some improvements? What if we removed some complexity that has minimal impact on play? What if we replaced a large number of tiny bonuses with a few bigger impact options? What if we removed the inflation and just plain bloat from the system? 

I think it is possible to get the impact moved up a few points from 3 to 5 and I think the complexity can be improved to 7 or maybe 8. To do this, we would have to give up a few things along the way. 

Assuming we could do that it would get us: (10*5*8) = 400… which is a huge score improvement. So… what are those design changes and why didn’t they make those to start with? 

We will talk through those next time.