D&D 5E Does/Should D&D Have the Player's Game Experience as a goal?

[Oofta]

To me - and I would expect to at least a good number of other RPGers - there's quite a big difference between a difference in player effectiveness that results from player skill, and one that results from GM-influenced aspects of PC build (that is, magic items and other components of PC build bestowed by the GM).

These are both components of player game experience, but I would expect a game to acknowledge the difference between them.

There are many things, big and small, that affect a groups effectiveness not least of which is the tactics employed by the DM. It's not a MMO where the devs can look at stats for every PC and have computer code driven AI and monsters they can tweak.

They should probably talk more about adjusting difficulty in the DMG but there is no magic formula.

 

[pemerton]

I guess I just don't understand how the adventures can be constitutive of the system. A really good writer can do almost anything with almost any system. Heck, Zeitgeist was made for 4e, but ported to PF1e and (AIUI) now 5e--yet it's still fundamentally the same adventure. How can that square with the idea that the adventures themselves are constitutive of the system? If official conversions to many different systems are not only possible but effective, what does that say? It tells me that a quality adventure will, in general, be quality at least somewhat independently of what system it was written for.

<snip>

Sometimes, a very well-crafted system will have excellent adventures written for it. For all its faults, AD&D1e was in fact pretty well-crafted, it's just absolutely terrible at explaining WHY it does what it does--and it, obviously, has numerous beloved adventures written for it. Sometimes, a terribly broken, flawed, exploitable mess of a system, like PF1e, has excellent APs written for it. Likewise, a terrible system can have terrible adventures, and a great system can have terrible adventures. There is no pattern here; system quality neither predicts, nor is predicted by, adventure quality. The two are mostly separate concerns.

Perhaps it depends what one means by "system".

By "system", in the context of a RPG, I mean a means by which in-game events are determined to occur, or to put it in other words, the way that we (the game participants) work out what happens next.

In classic D&D, a huge part of the way in which we work out what happens next is by way of map-and-key adjudication. The adventures - the example of play found in the original books; the sample dungeon level with some examples of key and an associated example of play found in Gygax's DMG; the Haunted Keep and the associated examples of play in Moldvay Basic; and then the published examples of dungeons like B2, White Plume Mountain, Ghost Tower of Inverness, etc - demonstrate how map-and-key is done.

In post-classic D&D, adventures give us system in a different fashion - they show us how the GM can ensure that a story happens independent of the outcomes of the mechanical processes (mostly though not exclusively combat) defined in the rulebooks. Just as one example, the 3E adventure Bastion of Broken Souls contains advice to the GM on how to keep the story going if the players, via their PCs, eliminate the principal NPC antagonist (this is found in a sidebar headed "The Second String"). That's system being set out in the adventure.

To elaborate a bit further: 3E is, at its core, very similar to post-classic AD&D in its approach to PC building and resolution mechanics; thus, 3E adventures can be written essentially the same as DL-ish/post-Hickman AD&D modules. All development of the action - new scenes, the conduct and responses of the antagonists, the way conflicts unfold and resolve - is set out by the module author as something for the GM to narrate, with the role of the players being (basically) to provide the input that will generate the immediate outcomes of particular conflicts (mostly combats, occasionally other physical challenges like climbing a wall or getting through a door or crossing a desert). These modules will all have a weird relationship to information gathering activities, which in AD&D might be reflected via a reaction roll and/or bespoke rumour table, while in 3E might be reflected via Gather Information DCs - if the module is done well, ultimately these will not matter, because the adventure will need to proceed even if the players roll poorly on these info-gathering actions (and see eg the Alexandrian's "three clue rule" and its close cousin "node based design"). The architectonics, though, will be independent of player action declarations and set out by the adventure author as something for the GM to reveal to the players as the adventure is worked through. That's system.

On the other hand, as I posted upthread, it is not possible to write an adventure for In A Wicked Age. This impossibility is not a mere curiosity vis-a-vis the system: it reveals some of its profound features. The GM has no unilateral authority over initial set-up, which furthermore is not done as prep but is done by all participants as the first stage of play; and the GM has no unilateral authority over how the characters will initially be disposed to one another, which is a result both of collectively-established initial fictional positions, and of how "best interests", which are authored as part of the first stage of play, and by players as well as the GM.

There are a small number of published scenarios for Burning Wheel, and its interesting to see how they circumvent somewhat similar obstacles by relying on pre-gen PCs who have the right Beliefs to engage with the pre-prepared situation. I also have an example of this here. But this won't work for In A Wicked Age, because of the different way its set-up works compared to Burning Wheel.

An example of a published scenario ostensibly for a particular RPG, but that actually contradicts the system and hence is literally unplayable as written - and its one I've commented on more than once before, in other threads - is Mark Rein-Hagen's A Prodigal Son - in Chains in the Prince Valiant Episode Book:

One interesting feature of the Episodes in the Episode Book - which I have commented on more than once before - is that some are not well-conceived for conflict-resolution play, because they depend upon the GM breaking the connection between success/failure and win/lose in just the way Vincent Baker describes. The most egregious in this respect is Mark Rein-Hagen's "A Prodigal Son - in Chains" (pp 60-62), which contains such directions as "They [the PCs] need to capture and question Quink the hunchback and find out who he worked for" and "At this point you want Bryce to win over the Adventurers with his nobility of spirit despite his physical shortcomings" and "The Adventurers must now scour the forest to find Quink" and "Whatever happened, you need to have things end up with Bryce’s father, the duke, dead."

This is similar to a CoC scenario, or many TSR and WotC modules for D&D (including but by no means limited to Dead Gods). It is not compatible with conflict resolution.

Looking at why this is unplayable - whereas other scenarios that are quite elaborate in the fiction provided, like The Crimson Bull or The Blue Cloak or A Family in Despair, are eminently playable - reveals quite a bit about Prince Valiant's system (including but not limited to its mechanics).

 

[Imaro]

There are many things, big and small, that affect a groups effectiveness not least of which is the tactics employed by the DM. It's not a MMO where the devs can look at stats for every PC and have computer code driven AI and monsters they can tweak.

They should probably talk more about adjusting difficulty in the DMG but there is no magic formula.

And this is why the issue of implementation keeps coming up around this example of "obfuscating" the rules. The only way one could come close to measuring the effective increase a particular magic item grants a PC is to create magic items whose effects are factored into the overall math of the game when you design it and then we are back to magic items as component of PC build. and x level magic items per PC per level...

 

[Lanefan]

But those statuses stick to you. They have to be removed by a spell, generally speaking, or occasionally a potion or whatever. The status changes...once.

Things changing both rapidly and repeatedly is what I refer to as "volatility." 3e status doesn't really change repeatedly, particularly as you get into the higher levels, and the early levels (where they actually did do balance testing) are still pretty deadly, but both monsters and PCs don't have the resources yet for rapid change. Once they do, the power level has ratcheted up enough that it's, as mentioned, more 'rocket tag" than "volatility."

To use a very loose analogy, 1e (and to a lesser extent 2e, mostly due to culture-of-play as mentioned) is like a firefight between two sides where each side has a small number of very powerful grenades, and the ability to (attempt to) strategically predict where enemy soldiers will be; whoever prepares best wins. 3e starts out as a firefight where both sides have relatively ordinary guns with low ammo capacity, so things change relatively slowly, and grows until both sides have rapid-fire, high-capacity bazookas; whoever has initiative wins.

5e tries to thread the needle, reducing the top-end power but still giving out some rocket-propelled grenades, but also reducing the ability to predict the enemy first, but also leaving big gaps in defenses that can be exploited, so there's still elements of both sides of things.

Games like 4e, PF2e, and 13th Age, on the other hand, lean into a style of play where actual character death is pretty rare (not impossible; I've seen two deaths before 4th level in a 4e campaign), but the status of both individual players and the battle overall can swing wildly from "oh crap, this is bad" to "WE ARE THE KINGS OF COMBAT" to "bloody hell this isn't good" over the course of literally a single round, and where each individual character may go from top form, to barely surviving/bleeding out, to back in the action over the same span of time. By comparison, both "Gygaxian" and "Lancian" experiences are quite low in volatility--because once the initial salvo is done, you either already know the winner, or you're in for a slow slog.

Ah, that makes some sense. I thought when you referred to changing status you meant that of an individual character, from functional to things like paralyzed, shaken, panicked, captured/restrained, level-drained, slowed, etc. and back again; but it seems you're referring to (perception of) the party's status in the fight e.g. "we're all gonna die", "we've got an easy win here", "I got a bad feeling about this", and so on.

The one area of volatility 5e actually does have is often reviled: so-called "whack-a-mole" healing. Folks want statuses that linger, that keep you down for the count, not ones that quickly change from round to round or even turn to turn.

When it makes sense, yes. Being on the edge of death one moment and in fine fighting form the next - repeatedly - doesn't make sense to a lot of us.

The difference between actual trench warfare (where progress was either lightning fast because the defensive lines collapsed completely, or glacially slow because they held strong) and a high-stakes street fight. Both have ambiguity, both have tension, but the former (generally) locks up all the tension in the first round or two, while the latter mostly spreads the tension out across 4+ rounds. Both are serious combat, but one is (generally) with an eye toward the combat theater, while the other is more with an eye to the combat field. (Hey, there's a non-judgmental alternative to "war vs. sport"!)

While a good breakdown of the different combat types, it's almost tangential to war-v-sport; as either type of combat can be run in a gritty high-lethality version (war) or a less-gritty low/no lethality version (sport).

I think culture-of-play may be involved here, too, but RAW you're probably right. Many folks used the "max HP at first level," and IIRC that was officially the rules of PF1e.

Max h.p. at 1st was also RAW in 3e if memory serves.

It didn't help us very much.

 

[MichaelSomething]

Yes it does. That's why the system submits to the DM. They know that trusting in a DM's judgement is the best way to have a good gaming experience.

 

[Hussar]

I feel like the magic item "obfuscation" is only a problem

And this is why the issue of implementation keeps coming up around this example of "obfuscating" the rules. The only way one could come close to measuring the effective increase a particular magic item grants a PC is to create magic items whose effects are factored into the overall math of the game when you design it and then we are back to magic items as component of PC build. and x level magic items per PC per level...

Really? Because there are systems for 5e right now that judge the relative effect of magic items and then assign them a gp value. 3pp have already done this.

After all, it’s exactly what you are asking dms to do. Individually determine the impact of magic items on their game without any guidance at all.

And it has been suggested that doing so is trivially easy. So if dms can do it so easily, and 3pp have already done it, it seems rather odd to claim that it’s impossible for WotC to do so.

 

[Imaro]

Really? Because there are systems for 5e right now that judge the relative effect of magic items and then assign them a gp value. 3pp have already done this.

After all, it’s exactly what you are asking dms to do. Individually determine the impact of magic items on their game without any guidance at all.

And it has been suggested that doing so is trivially easy. So if dms can do it so easily, and 3pp have already done it, it seems rather odd to claim that it’s impossible for WotC to do so.

Are these systems for magic items to gp values in widespread use? Are they transparent with how they arrived at the values? If so how?

no one said it was trivially easy, with that said...A DM will better know his particular players and campaign, and thus the effect particular magic items would have on it, better than a one size fits all guesstimate. If I run a game based in a dessert wasteland... would a magic item that creates water impact it more or less than one that provides warmth what if I'm running a game in an arctic kingdom?... how does WotC account for those type of differences?

EDIT: Even 4e could only account for the mathematical plus of magic items which honestly means that those parties who used inherent bonuses were still underpowered compared to those parties who had actual magic items.

 

[Oofta]

Really? Because there are systems for 5e right now that judge the relative effect of magic items and then assign them a gp value. 3pp have already done this.

After all, it’s exactly what you are asking dms to do. Individually determine the impact of magic items on their game without any guidance at all.

And it has been suggested that doing so is trivially easy. So if dms can do it so easily, and 3pp have already done it, it seems rather odd to claim that it’s impossible for WotC to do so.

How much do boots of flying help an archer? How about a melee fighter? How many enemies have flying in your game or effective ranged attacks? Do your encounters tend to happen outside or locations where people can fly out of reach of melee enemies?

That's just one simple example off the top of my head. I get you want some standard formula but it just doesn't exist. It can't. If you give out items you know your game, how you run it and your players better than WOTC. If you give people an item and the next couple of encounters are too easy, make the encounters a bit more difficult in the future. If you load up a low level party with a bunch or rare or very rare items, they're likely to be quite a bit more powerful.

I just don't see any of this being something that can be boiled down to a formula or, to be honest, all that difficult to figure out with a bit of trial and error. A +2 sword is more effective than a +1. Giving someone magic armor, shield, and cloak or ring of protection is going to make them difficult to hit.

They give you a price guideline now in XGtE which is probably about as accurate as anything we've ever had. I'd like to see a discussion of how much magic items and what rarity people should have at what level but include a discussion of low, medium and high magic campaigns. But an exact calculation of effect? It's never going to happen.

 

[Hussar]

Are these systems for magic items to gp values in widespread use? Are they transparent with how they arrived at the values? If so how?

no one said it was trivially easy, with that said...A DM will better know his particular players and campaign, and thus the effect particular magic items would have on it, better than a one size fits all guesstimate. If I run a game based in a dessert wasteland... would a magic item that creates water impact it more or less than one that provides warmth what if I'm running a game in an arctic kingdom?... how does WotC account for those type of differences?

EDIT: Even 4e could only account for the mathematical plus of magic items which honestly means that those parties who used inherent bonuses were still underpowered compared to those parties who had actual magic items.

So because the system is not perfect and cannot account for every single campaign out there, we should never have any system at all?

And, frankly, because there are a number of fairly generic campaign settings out there - one could pretty easily add in some guidelines, or at least suggestions, for how to handle deviations from the baseline. So, maybe water generating items in a desert campaign might be valued higher (say by a given percentage), so on and so forth. None of this is particularly difficult (although it is perhaps time consuming considering the large number of items we're talking about) and considering that two editions actually DID it, it's hardly impossible to do.

As far as 4e goes, considering how robust the system was - a given party was expected to be able to handle encounters from -4 to +5 their level - minor fluctuations in power level between inherent bonuses and actual magic items were deemed mostly irrelevant. That's why the inherent bonus system worked, and by most reports, worked very well. Which, of course, you would know all about seeing as how you repeatedly feel the need to keep dragging 4e into the conversation.

 

[Hussar]

That's just one simple example off the top of my head. I get you want some standard formula but it just doesn't exist. It can't. If you give out items you know your game, how you run it and your players better than WOTC. If you give people an item and the next couple of encounters are too easy, make the encounters a bit more difficult in the future. If you load up a low level party with a bunch or rare or very rare items, they're likely to be quite a bit more powerful.

See, here's the funny thing. You're actually wrong. I could load up my low level party with a bunch of rare items (Potions of Supreme Healing, one each) and it would make zero difference to the party power level, OR, I could give one rare item to each PC and MASSIVELY increase their power level - as in nearly double their DPR.

All using the same level of magic items. This is worse than no system at all because the rarity scale in no way actually addresses the power level of the items.

I agree that any system that does come out will not be perfect. Absolutely not. But, we can have a system out there, and then that system can be tweaked repeatedly from feedback from the fandom. That's what Unearthed Arcana feedback is for after all. It's not like WotC doesn't have access to millions and millions of played character sheets that they could then use to develop a relative power list for magic items. If Item X appears on 60% of character sheets of a given class, then that item is obviously very powerful/useful and should be valued as such, or perhaps even nerfed in order to bring it back in line with other items of the same level.

I mean, right now, a Cloak of Protection is an uncommon item. A Ring of Protection is rare. They do EXACTLY the same thing. +1 to AC and saving throws. These items, other than one is a cloak and the other a ring, are identical. How is the rarity value even remotely helpful here? And, heck, because of this, the Cloak is FAR more easy to come by using the Xanathar downtime rules. And about 1/10th the cost.

That's where transparency comes in. Why is the cloak so much more readily available than the ring? What's the reasoning here?