D&D 5E Legends & Lore 4/21

[Dausuul]

A great deal will depend on how well executed these systems are. However, they sound quite promising. If they're done right, they could be an immense help. DM prep is part creative inspiration (my dungeon is the ruined citadel of a group of renegade devils that were trying to redeem themselves and return to heaven!) and part tedious scut work (gotta prep a bunch of encounters, draw some maps, assign treasure, et cetera). The more scut work the system can take off my shoulders, the more fun and productive my prep time will be.

It sounds like what they're shooting for is a system that can rapidly generate a prefab dungeon for you, which you can then customize to fit your needs. I'm hoping they will also have different encounter tables for common themes. If my dungeon concept is a tomb crawling with undead, it would be nice to have a table where I can roll up a bunch of "undead tomb" encounters, instead of getting a lot of orcs and ogres that I then have to swap out by hand.

Though there is also potential for unexpected inspiration in the occasional "off-theme" roll. Going back to the renegade-devil dungeon, if I roll up a room with some demons in it, I might just swap them out. But I might also think, "Hey... I bet demons would be involved here. I mean, this project has the potential to cleave the infernal hierarchy right down the middle. If Hell is plunged into civil strife, it could mean demonic victory in the Blood War. Let's take this and run with it."

 

[ambroseji]

I hope there is a lot of space in the DMG devoted to tables of dungeon content. I am someone who will rarely randomly create a dungeon, BUT, I get a lot of use out of extensive lists of traps/features. I find such tables to be an excellent point of inspiration.

The content of the article today is pretty much my best scenario for dungeon and monster creation. I am particularly happy about the two way to build custom monsters. I hope they provide a long list of generic monster powers as well.

 

[Warskull]

Bringing back the random content tables will be a great addition to the DMG. You can build a dungeon with them, but random tables have a near-magical power to give you a bad answer, which makes you realize the answer you actually want.

And, if by some weird chance everything sounds good, hey, free dungeon!

Cheers!
Kinak

I think this is the key. They give you a random, mediocre dungeon. However, that random, mediocre dungeon can function as an outline for a good DM designed dungeon. It saves you time setting up the skeleton.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think this is the key. They give you a random, mediocre dungeon. However, that random, mediocre dungeon can function as an outline for a good DM designed dungeon. It saves you time setting up the skeleton.

Oh yes, I remember some randomly generated dungeons and adventures very fondly. Even randomly generated treasure has lead to some very nice adventures.

 

[jrowland]

I like what I read here.

XP Budget for adventure design is great. 4E was similar but focused at the Encounter level which resulted in rich encounters (set-pieces if you will). I like those set-pieces, and I think for 1/4 or 1/2 adventure XP budget you could do the same sort of thing with 5E. The article did mention guidelines for number of encounters, so I think essentially it can be done identically to 4E (XP Budget/number of encounters = XP budget per encounter). I've done the opposite with 4E (XP budget * 30ish encounters = Adventure Budget for an adventure than spans 3 levels) to decent effect, keeping the upper and lower bounds of encounter design in mind.

Essentially its the same thing but with the focus more on the adventure rather than an encounter. They are interchangeable with maths.

Random Tables are good, if only to put interesting combos you would not normally put together. With a little DM creativity tweaks they end up very nice indeed. Running them as RAW is usually a bad idea with one caveat: I had a 1E adventure I ran years ago where the PCs went to the Plane Pandemonium. It was all random Mapping and Random Encounters (I made my own table iirc of appropriate monsters with a "special" line that then referenced another table I made wierd stuff...wierd to a 14 year old boy anyway). That was great fun, but tedious. I wouldn't want that to be the norm.

 

[Thaumaturge]

As it currently look, 5e looks to be relatively lean when it comes to rules, so instead of filling the books with rules, they fill them with content that help a DM create and run adventures/campaigns. Probably a lot more inspiring than the 4e crunch books that were as interesting to read as an inventory list.

This. This is what I hope they're doing, and this is how I read the tea leaves. And I love it.

Thaumaturge.

 

[ki11erDM]

I wouldn't count on much electronic support at launch. Look at how long it took 4e to get a workable MB

But that is just it, they have it now, it wont take a great deal to fix it for 5e, and turning it into an app for a tablet would be simple after it is fixed.

 

[Mistwell]

i guess my main problem with all these random tables we seem like we're getting is this: how much of this is just padding? like a kid who's only got 8 pages in a 10 page essay, how many of these tables are just the equivalent of mucking around with fonts, line spacing and the page margins?

i can see a few random tables being helpful when used sparingly and judiciously but D&D just seems to be using them in excessive amounts when it does use 'em. i also view a frank discussion behind the concepts the table addresses as far more useful then blurb + table and would much rather see concepts explained and expounded upon.

the magic item page in my latest playtest package (10/14/13) has 3 pages devoted to random tables on magic weapons. half of that is there to generate a vagueish description of the weapon's creator and why, but little to no discussion on why this is important beyond telling the potential GM that "it adds flavour to a thing that has no inherent flavour when created in a void".

which is all good, but doesn't tell our potential DM why this is good or why he might want to try actually personalizing these items to fit concepts within his world rather then roll on a chart given to him by the book with little explanation on how to actually use the chart...

heck, i'm going to take back the "kid padding his essay" statement and go strait to "bad parenting": this is the equivalent of dropping your kid off on the couch unsupervised with a Barney the Dinosaur VHS for a few hours and hoping he'll learn life lessons by proxy.

I very much want these random tables. Indeed, I find them significantly more useful in the long term than the stuff you wish they'd put in there instead. I'll give you an example: the Vorheim city kit (which is an excellent book from the author of Lamentations of the Flame Princess) is full of random tables for the city he describes in that handy book, and I get massive use out of those tables. Indeed, the tables enhance the fluff of that city, rather than detracting from it. If my players decide to go off in some random unexpected direction in a city, I can easily and quickly roll what they see and can interact with, and I know (from experience) that whatever comes up will be believable and work well and will likely lead to something very interesting.

The idea that you never want random tables baffles me actually. If you play any kind of sandbox style adventuring rather than railroading, you will at some point want some good tables. You cannot possible prep for everything your players will come up with - they WILL mess with your well laid planning at some point, and unless you want to pause the game a random table is one good option to turn to when that happens, at least for instant inspiration if nothing else.

So yes, for me, bring on the random tables!

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I think this is the key. They give you a random, mediocre dungeon. However, that random, mediocre dungeon can function as an outline for a good DM designed dungeon. It saves you time setting up the skeleton.

Oh yes, I remember some randomly generated dungeons and adventures very fondly. Even randomly generated treasure has lead to some very nice adventures.

 

[GX.Sigma]

The lairs in Scourge of the Sword Coast are built like templates for D&D Next adventure design, so I expect the random tables and advice will produce something like that.

If I understand the article, the reason for using CR instead of Level is to more accurately describe each monster's power. I like this better than the solution in the public playtest, where different monsters of the same level could have different XP values (obviously based on the 4e system where level 3 solos were tougher than level 4 minions). It would be nice to know that two CR 3 monsters are worth the same amount, and be able to get a feel for how many CR X monsters are a challenge for my party.

Also, it could have a nice fringe benefit of making it easier to convert 3.x and Pathfinder creatures/encounters/adventures.