Time to bring back the prose?

[Steely_Dan]

1) The game isn't reading the rulebooks.

2) The game is playing at the table with one's friends.

3) The intellectual effort we're all putting in shouldn't be dedicated to extracting the mechanics out of badly-written rulebooks.

1) Part of it is very much that, D&D is not, IMO, just a game you break out on Sunday (we read and talk about it).

2) Yes, and hopefully you talk about the game outside of that (friends and all, the whole table-thing).

3) No, well written, IMO.


See; these blanket statement don't work...yap, yap...

 

[Mallus]

Reflavoring spells is pretty much the lowest form of creativity possible in the RPG medium, imo. If players are putzing around with that, to me that's a sign of a boring, disempowering, rail-roady campaign.

It could also be a sign that other people find different creative acts rewarding. Or a sign that trying to infer too much from what other people find rewarding is silly.

The more 5e steers games away from creative reflavoring towards creative problem-solving and creative story-telling, the better. They're much more fun.

They are fun. They're also not mutually exclusive with creative spell and ability-reflavoring or players spending time deciding what kind of hats their characters wear.

I hope that 5e doesn't so much as mention reflavoring, reskinning, refluffing or anything like that.

I hope it does. Whole systems are built around the concept the rules provide the raw mechanics and the players provide the fictional dressing, ie HERO/Champions. It's a great approach, and one D&D can and should easily borrow.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Whole systems are built around the concept the rules provide the raw mechanics and the players provide the fictional dressing, ie HERO/Champions. It's a great approach, and one D&D can and should easily borrow.

But those are different games.

 

[Mallus]

But those are different games.

I realize that.

Is there more to your point?

(is it wrong for D&D to borrow from/be informed by other systems -- that's been going on for quite a while, ie D&D acquired several different skill systems)

 

[billd91]

Whole systems are built around the concept the rules provide the raw mechanics and the players provide the fictional dressing, ie HERO/Champions. It's a great approach, and one D&D can and should easily borrow.

In some ways, sure, but you also need to keep in mind that the special effects chosen by the PCs in Champions are expected to have ramifications beyond just activating the power. And those ramifications are largely up the players and GM trying to make sense of the power's effects. A chosen special effect may limit its use under certain circumstances. Try using a sonic energy blast when there's no medium around to transmit the compression wave and you'll understand what I mean.

Moreover, once the special effect in Champions is selected... it remains selected. It's not like using Come and Get It in which it might be posturing and strutting to make an orc rush you and then emphasizing how tasty you are to make the ooze come your way. If Come and Get It is about the body language of challenging another warrior, it stays that way (unless a specific advantage has been bought which significantly increases the cost of the power).

If D&D wants to go the Champions route, it would need to go all the way. I can see it with energy damaging evocations. I thought the various energy bolts and balls in the psionics rules were good ideas - each spell modified by the energy damage profile selected. But in the main I think I'd prefer spells to already be defined for the most part. There is a reason that spellcasters in Champions are a pain in the ass to build. Pre-defined spells in D&D are definitely easier to deal with.

 

[Oni]

I realize that.

Is there more to your point?

(is it wrong for D&D to borrow from/be informed by other systems -- that's been going on for quite a while, ie D&D acquired several different skill systems)

The sacrifices that D&D would have to make flavor-wise to actually be a good effects based game would be such that it would no longer be recognizable as D&D.

 

[Sunseeker]

The sacrifices that D&D would have to make flavor-wise to actually be a good effects based game would be such that it would no longer be recognizable as D&D.

That aside, is there really anything wrong with changing Fireball from "fire" to "cold" and calling it "Iceball"? There's no need to alter the spell mechanics, there's no need to alter the way the entire system works, you just replace "fire" with "cold" and you're done.

Instead of having a million duplicated spells for every power type, or creating Themes/Backgrounds/PP/PrCs that change the damage type, just provide one spell that is an example of a certain type of spell. Fireball is a ranged blast. Ray of Frost is a ray. Cone of Cold is a close-burst, Orb of Acid is a ranged touch orb. The game doesn't change from all of these being radiant damage. It will keep the bloat down will allowing greater spell diversity(not having duplicates wasting page space), and increasing player customization.

As long as the rules are clear on how and when a player can pick the damage type, then what's the problem?

 

[Bedrockgames]

That aside, is there really anything wrong with changing Fireball from "fire" to "cold" and calling it "Iceball"? There's no need to alter the spell mechanics, there's no need to alter the way the entire system works, you just replace "fire" with "cold" and you're done.

?

Absolutely nothing wrong with it. Just doesn't match my preference. If they did do it, i would at least prefer it be four seperate spells handled by a single entry (so the players are not changing from fire to ice all the time.

But to restate, there is nothing wrong with your approach if that is what you like.

Personally though i do want different mechanics for cold, heat and electricity. Not in every game I play, but in D&D is robuts enough mechanically to handle making such distinctions.

 

[Sunseeker]

Absolutely nothing wrong with it. Just doesn't match my preference. If they did do it, i would at least prefer it be four seperate spells handled by a single entry (so the players are not changing from fire to ice all the time.

But to restate, there is nothing wrong with your approach if that is what you like.

Personally though i do want different mechanics for cold, heat and electricity. Not in every game I play, but in D&D is robuts enough mechanically to handle making such distinctions.

Sure, and there's a simple solution to that as well: just keep spell effects tied to spell power type, and not the spell itsself.

So if you Fireball with fire, it does a given fire effect. If you Ball Lightning with Acid, it does a given acid effect.

You could probably write up the spell block with only one additional line:
Name: Fireball
Type: Fire*
Components: A bird feather.
Range: 30'; 15' blast
Damage: 5d6
You wiggle your fingers and sing "I'm Burning for You" and shoot a ball of fire from your fingertips that explodes within 30' of the caster.
Effect: Onging Fire*: 1d6 per round, save ends.
*You/The DM may [allow you to] choose a different damage type for this spell when you first acquire this spell, the ongoing effects change for each type, see the table on page 271 for damage types and their effects.
****please don't bring up that's not how you want to see spell blocks look, that's just how I write them, the important part is the line at the bottom.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Sure, and there's a simple solution to that as well: just keep spell effects tied to spell power type, and not the spell itsself.

So if you Fireball with fire, it does a given fire effect. If you Ball Lightning with Acid, it does a given acid effect.

You could probably write up the spell block with only one additional line:
Name: Fireball
Type: Fire*
Components: A bird feather.
Range: 30'; 15' blast
Damage: 5d6
You wiggle your fingers and sing "I'm Burning for You" and shoot a ball of fire from your fingertips that explodes within 30' of the caster.
Effect: Onging Fire*: 1d6 per round, save ends.
*You/The DM may [allow you to] choose a different damage type for this spell when you first acquire this spell, the ongoing effects change for each type, see the table on page 271 for damage types and their effects.
****please don't bring up that's not how you want to see spell blocks look, that's just how I write them, the important part is the line at the bottom.

Personally i like all the info in one section. Someimes it is unavoidable, but i wouldn't want to have to look up both the spell and the fire effect.

And again, this example really lacks the kind of text i want. Really want something like 2-8 paragraphs of info depending on the spell.