D&D 5E If an option is presented, it needs to be good enough to take.

Neonchameleon said:

My interest is in it being a good game. I don't give a damn about the traditions of D&D.

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Out of interest sake would you do away with the 6 ability scores, hitpoints and the other classical D&D cows for a better game?
If yes, are you saying that D&D is the best game for this fantasy genrè and no other system that you know of is better hence you stick to it - or is it that to convert the D&D monsters to a new system would be too time-consuming so you stick to D&D?

Just being curious here to see how far people are willing to let go of the classic system for the sake of a good game or is it that people are looking for the best game possible within the traditionally accepted 'D&D
parameters'.

Sadras said:

Just being curious here to see how far people are willing to let go of the classic system for the sake of a good game or is it that people are looking for the best game possible within the traditionally accepted D&D 'parameters'.

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I want it remain recognisably "D&D" in the rules (whatever that means to the majority of players). To the extent that I might look at the end result and decide not to play it - but I'll be happy that its there and "being D&D" for everyone who does.

I think the six ability scores, classes (including the "big four"), rolling a d20 to hit, Vancian magic, and good support for dungeon crawl adventures are all in there. Despite the last two being of little interest to me nowadays.

@pemerton

I agree that this type of specialty character that disengages with one pillar almost completely (combat) and fully engages with the other two (exploration and social) would be difficult to express without robust resolution mechanics for those two pillars. Further, it would potentially be a powderkeg at the table without concrete social accord. Further still, (as in the Shadowrun example) I can envision a game whereby you have 3 exclusively specialized characters (5/1/1 and 1/5/1 and 1/1/5) and the severe problems this would impose upon pacing, inclusion and the general “teamwork” nature of D&D without strong group/DM understanding (and subsequent, consistent agreement and application of social accord). Without considerable effort it would run like 3 solo adventures and would increase DM workload dramatically and it would, again, HAVE to be supported by an equal attention to each pillar…and thus corresponding, equal robust, (hopefully unified) resolution mechanics/min-games/sub-systems for each pillar.

Default D&D (its resolution mechanics and class structure) has never supported this playstyle. It requires tremendous social accord and understanding amongst the group. It requires a tremendously skilled DM who is willing to put in extra effort. It requires patient players (who are ok with “exclusive spotlight rotation”). It requires robust resolution mechanics for non-combat. It requires “opt-out” options and considerable advice/warnings on the implications of this “opting-out” and specialization on everything I outlined above…but even moreso it requires advice for the DM/means for handling the imbalance of combat (wrought by the loss of aggregate PC action economy due to an intentionally disengaged PCs…the kind that I outlined in my prior post) where the stakes are life or death.

This is why it should not be default. It is extremely difficult, requires unprecedented support (ironically, I would say 4e supports it best due to its non-combat resolution mechanics), requires considerable and consistent social accord at the table, and is extremely demanding on the DM.

That being said, if the group wants to give it a go, they’re going to drift their game toward it anyway (its been done and will be done in the future…despite their being better systems out there for it). If 5e wants to be 100 % inclusive and provide means for “outlier groups” to actualize their playstyle preferences/tastes…modules to do so and considerable advice is the way to do it. And I see no harm in that (so long as it is modular, the non-combat action resolution mechanics are in place and there is considerable advice/guidance for those groups).

pemerton said:

The other way of going is that suddenly we build into scenarios situations with DCs that only the Academician can hit - that is, we change the fiction so that the wizard is no longer a superlative scholar. This is the crowding out that I expressed concern about.

And even if you stick the Academician in an optional module, the action resolution mechanics themselves still have to make a call on where DCs should be set, and what the range of expected bonuses for PCs is. (There are systems, like HeroWars/Quest, that are very flexible in this respect, and relativise DCs to party capabilities, with DCs being set approriately more-or-less on the fly - I don't think D&Dnext is going to be that sort of system, though.)

That's my concern. The core game has to be designed assuming numbers, including knowledge skill bonuses, within certain parameters. If those parameters anticipate mundane sages with superlative bonuses, the wizards etc have been crowded out. If those numbers are built to make the wizards expert scholars, than the mundane sage is, in effect, a wizard who trades spells for a slightly greater breadth of lore skills (my builds upthread do that too, in a lesser way, by taking Jack of all Trades rather than Magic User as a specialty). Which is very close to @GreyICE 's suggestion of "build a wizard, then ignore your spells".

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Thanks, that was very helpful to see where you're coming from:

I think I need help with the vocabulary and differentiating between defining characteristic, niche, trope, and stereotype.

• The ranger with tracking - in 1e we picture the character having it, they have mechanical support for it, and they're the only ones
• Being sneaky - we picture the 1e thief having it and they have mechanical support for it basically only at the higher levels
• Being sneaky in the woods - the 1e flavor text makes it sound like the ranger should be, but there is no mechanical support for it and the thief is the one you'd actually want
• Being smart - we picture the mage being the smartest, and there is flavor text to support, but no mechanics in 1e, and in 3e the mechanics actually support other classes being more knowledgable.
• Doing miscellaneous magic - in 1e to 3e the flavor text and mechanics support the magic user/wizard being able to flexibly take spells for particular circumstances

The mage rocking out the knowledge checks doesn't seem to be at the same level as the thief being the best at opening doors and sneaking around or the mage being the one with a huge variety of interesting spells.

It seems the mage having spells like knock or the cleric having find traps, or in 4e all characters having access to miscellaneous magic seem much more niche busting than a sage type. (Two wrongs don't make a right, so that isn't actually a defense of the sage being more scholarly).

I really like the idea of how it impacts setting up the DCs, but I think that leads to a whole other area. If a pre-packaged dungeon is designed so that each character class has a chance to especially demonstrate its own particular worth, then it seems like it would need high DC challenges that require fighting skill, tracking, fighting undead, solving puzzles, picking locks/finding secret doors, climbing walls, etc... A dungeon that has that would be nearly impossible for a party that didn't have at least one of each class (in stereotypical build) to complete... and could be nigh impossible to escape from if the only representative of that class had died in the middle. Does this mean that all of the challenges that require a particular high skill should be solvable by using several skills (or at least have a list of choices for the DM to pick from as to the only way)? Should every party need a mage who buffed his scholarly aspects (does that mean every mage should have to do that)?

Cadence said:

Does this mean that all of the challenges that require a particular high skill should be solvable by using several skills (or at least have a list of choices for the DM to pick from as to the only way)?

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This bit is quite close to re-inventing the 4E Skill Challenge

slobo777 said:

This bit is quite close to re-inventing the 4E Skill Challenge

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Shhhhh. It's a session of goal-oriented roleplaying with player creativity that gives the entire party opportunities to interact with the world to achieve the party's chosen goal and offers tangible rewards for success and penalties for failure in such a way that the PCs can achieve none, some, or all of their goals.

Skill challenges were like the opposite of that dude! The exact opposite! So if something like that is in Next why it's the OPPOSITE of 4E!

Neonchameleon said:

And 4e has out of combat skills so this isn't a point of difference. You don't use Diplomacy in the middle of a fight. Or Streetwise. So the possibility is there. What 4e lacks are non-adventuring skills. Skills like craft and profession. And the rules for Perform fit that category - the skills you use when you aren't actually doing much at the table. <snip>

I find that for world building what I need is a set of rules that won't force themselves too hard into my game. <snip>

I do wonder if there is a divide between roleplayers and D&D players. Most of the general roleplayers I know come down on the 4e side of the edition wars - and weren't too impressed by earlier editions.

Perversely there are two things 4e does worse than earlier editions.
<snip>

Likewise. My interest is in it being a good game. I don't give a damn about the traditions of D&D.

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My current extended group over the past 15 years has had a few dozen members and probably has at least one person who's tried most of the games out there, and has used at least five non-D&D systems over that time... D&D has been used for the majority of sessions though. Does that make us role-players or D&D players? Anyway, I think the problem 4e had for us is that it wasn't competing against 3.5, but against our house-ruled 3.5... and so, fallacy or not, I think 4e is the favorite D&D of only one or two of the group.

As far as things 4e does worse, I think one of the bigger ones for me is how it presented the skill challenge resolution and the non-combat part of the game. Your posts (and those of several others) on the threads have encouraged me to take the time to revisit them. Similarly, I wish it made the rules for skills, professions, and crafts (in whatever form) sound more important. As noted by other posters, the 3.5 rules don't actually make some of those much more than money making tokens... but they strike me as having some symbolism beyond that.

World building issuess tie into my favorite and one of my least favorite things about 4e. I hope that any new edition that comes out has the attitude that there is no reason for the NPC/monster system to match up with the PC one since they have entirely different purposes. I hope that the new edition is both easier to customize the classes in than 4e, and that the new edition doesn't have so many details that are tied directly to the one campaign setting (especially when those new details contradict the previous versions).

As far as traditions -- if its called D&D I would like to be able to run characters and adventures that feel like those I played in and ran from 1981 to 2008 in terms of the basic feel of the classes, races, monsters, and their interactions, without having to ignore huge chunks of the rule book (as opposed to say flavor-text side-bars). A post in another thread made me realize it would be just as nice if those who just started with 4e could say the same thing. I don't particularly attach any importance to the particular traditional mechanics, as long as they aren't changed just for the sake of being able to say something was changed (which is annoying). Improving them would be great.

pemerton said:

I just get irritated by 4e being labelled as a non-RPGing, tactical combat chassis which has no capacity to handle non-combat conflict resolution or meaningful theme or story; and by the generalisations about RPG design (say, the role of non-simulationist metagame mechanics) that such labelling implies.

If D&Dnext isn't a game I want to play that won't bother me - I just won't play it! But I don't think I'm doing any harm in saying what I would like to see in it. (For instance, I'm not in the position of having already decided to ignore it and just trying to spoil it for others - and there are features I quite like, like backgrounds - though they could be beefed up a bit, and both skills and traits have better connections to the action resolution mechanics - and also bounded accuracy.)

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One of the benefits of forums like this one is that it has allowed me to see differing viewpoints. In large part due to your descriptions of its gameplay, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION], my opinion of 4e has softened, and I'm even somewhat convinced that with the right kind of campaign "tone" and style in mind, 4e Essentials would probably be something I'd like (4e as presented in the original "Core 3" is an absolute non-starter). I don't know if I'd LOVE it, or if it would be in permanent "rotation" for our group, but for the right kind of adventuring it would certainly be viable. The obvious problem for me is, there's no way I'm convincing my group to even try 4e---and frankly, they're leery of even giving 5e a shot (WotC burned some serious bridges with this group with 4e).

I've never been on the bandwagon that "4e isn't D&D." Sure, it isn't D&D as it was known, but its DNA is undeniably tied to it.

I'm also kind of conflicted about the meta-game mechanics in 4e, because I think the decision to de-couple resolution from the fiction was done mostly "blind." It was mostly done just because it was what was needed, not because they designers had a particular intention or vision for how it would affect gameplay.

Also, I re-read the GNS essay on Narrativism over on the Forge the other night, and frankly, D&D of all varieties from 1974 until now are frankly terrible at addressing a true "Narrativist" agenda. But that's another post for another day.

Sadras said:

Out of interest sake would you do away with the 6 ability scores, hitpoints and the other classical D&D cows for a better game?

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If it would produce a better game, sure. Number of stats doesn't really seem to matter, though, whether it's D&D's 6 or GRUPS's 4 or Hero's 14.

And, hit points are one of the few classic aspects of D&D that really seem to have some unique value. They model in a very abstract, easily-managed way, the tendency in genre for heroes to, well, live through the story (sometimes ridiculed as 'plot armor'). Games that try to model that particular trope in more detail often end up seeming a little broken or silly - or both. Games that don't fail to capture the genre.

So, while I'm all for slaughtering the sacred cows to make the game better, don't think that /just/ slaughtering sacred cows makes the game better. They have to actually put forth the disciplined design effort for that.

innerdude said:

I re-read the GNS essay on Narrativism over on the Forge the other night, and frankly, D&D of all varieties from 1974 until now are frankly terrible at addressing a true "Narrativist" agenda. But that's another post for another day.

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I thought I'd ignore your last sentence and say something in reply to this!

The Forge places a lot of emphasis on incoherence in game design, and also the idea of drifting. For a lot of traditional RPGs, I think these two ideas are important to understanding their use in narrativist play.

For me, Oriental Adventures (the mid-80s version) was the first RPG supplement to really lead me to the sort of vanilla-narrativist approach that I like. Of course it was incoherent in the Forge sense. Edwards talks in one of his essays about Lot5R being incoherent because it simultaneously asks questions about honour, and purports to answer them. Here are some relevant quotes, and they can also be applied to OA:



Mid-80s OA has much the same design inchorence - gamist PC creation (roll 4d6, etc), incoherent resolution which lends itself to breaking (eg some of the martial arts builds), and considerable thematic content that tries both to ask about, and dictate answers about, honour.

But it can be drifted fairly easily - play down the alignment rules, use the honour mechanics as a focus of contention rather than a club to beat your players with, and play up the thematic stuff about the Celestial Bureaucracy, a world of spirits and monsters, etc.

The development of my RPGing since then has been gradually working out (i) how to get rid of those elements of action resolution that distract from theme, conflict and tight scene framing, by pulling the focus onto mundane process (timekeeping and the petty resource management associated with it is a prime example of this), and (ii) how to handle thematic material and adjudication of action resolution so that things neither climax too early, nor sputter out. (The end run of Claremont's X-Men in the early 90s I regard as a prime exmaple of sputtering out, and my first big Rolemaster campaign ended in the same ignomious way.)

For me, 4e has several features thatmeans it doesn't need much drifting to support vanilla narrativism - ie play focused on theme, with the players having genuine freedom over action resolution so that the story that emerges is not predetermined by anyone, but an emergent consequence of my scene framing around their PCs, and their engagement via their PCs with the conflicts I set up: (i) plenty of thematically rich story elements; (ii) almost no mundane process elements to action resolution; (iii) action resolution mechanics that support the right sort of pacing for those thematic elements to emerge; (iv) action resolution mechanics that generally don't break, and that minimise the need for GM force to make things resolve; (v) PC build mechanics that generally don't break, thereby allowing the players to push hard without having to worry about a breaking of the game.

My drifting has been pretty minimal. At the start of the game, I directed that each players' PC must (i) have a reason to be ready to fight goblins, and (ii) must have some loyalty to someone/something else. These aren't quite at the level of Sorcerer "kickers", or Burning Wheel beliefs, but were the PC-authored "hooks" on which I have hung various encounters and scenarios. Of course, as the game unfolds these backgrounds get developed, added to and extended in play. I use paragon paths and other PC build choices to inform this, which is probably a type of mild drifting. And I also use thematic considerations to inform page 42 adjudications (as per my examples posted upthread in response to Hussar), and that's probably also a mild drifting. But these drifting don't require correcting any incoherence. They are additions rather than alterations to the game as presented.

I think the game I'm describing is very obviously not My Life With Master, Sorcecer or Dogs in the Vineyard. It's not even Burning Wheel. But a narrativist game doesn't have to be like them. Narrativism isn't defined by any particular set of funky techniques. It's about (i) putting theme front and centre in play, and (ii) letting the players make genuine choices about how they engage it, and hence about what the overall play of the game says in response to it. I think any version of D&D can probably be drifted this way, and 4e is particularly suitable because it lacks many of the traditional D&D mechanics that get in the way of narrativist drifting.