D&D 5E My biggest hope for 5E

[mudlock]

Also, encounter design in 4e is far more sophisticated and difficult than in previous editions

What, what, huh? You're surely not referring to 3e.

Based on timePreparing/timePlaying, 4e is twice as good as 3e. For a four-hour game session, I used to have to spend at least 8 hours in prep-time; now I can do it in 4. And it's not like I magically became a more-organized or more-efficient DM at precisely the moment 4e came out, so I'm pretty sure it's because the difficulty of creating encounters dropped.

Although this thread does bring up a good point; there's been "how to create a campaign," and "how to create an adventure," as well as "how to create NPCs," and "how to create monsters" articles written... but that crucial connecting piece, "how to design an encounter," hasn't really been explored in The Dungeon Master Experience or any other WotC product. The submission period is open for how much longer?

 

[delericho]

While I think of it, two other things good adventures can do for you:

- They can show DMs how to create their own adventures. The DMG tends to be pretty good at going into the process, but it's almost inevitably very high-level and abstract. An adventure shows how all the nuts and bolts go together. (However, it would be good if the adventures included "Designer's Commentary" sidebars to highlight key aspects of this. The original 3e Adventure Path actually did this explicitly, at least in the first couple of adventures.)

- They can serve as a test bed for new mechanics. Paizo do this quite often, with domain management and mass combat rules in Kingmaker, rules for Haunts in Rise of the Runelords and Carrion Crown, and so on. This allows them to see how their ideas work out in play, and further refine the concepts before publishing the 'full' versions in their hardbacks, rather than going for the big bang approach of publishing, and then potentially having to heavily revise the systems in errata/DDI.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

What, what, huh? You're surely not referring to 3e.

Based on timePreparing/timePlaying, 4e is twice as good as 3e. For a four-hour game session, I used to have to spend at least 8 hours in prep-time; now I can do it in 4. And it's not like I magically became a more-organized or more-efficient DM at precisely the moment 4e came out, so I'm pretty sure it's because the difficulty of creating encounters dropped.

Although this thread does bring up a good point; there's been "how to create a campaign," and "how to create an adventure," as well as "how to create NPCs," and "how to create monsters" articles written... but that crucial connecting piece, "how to design an encounter," hasn't really been explored in The Dungeon Master Experience or any other WotC product. The submission period is open for how much longer?

I'd say that the learning curve for doing prep well in 4E is probably a lot steeper than 3E, but that once you learn it, 4E is far easier. It's like the difference in a hammer and a nail gun. You can nail a lot faster with a nail gun--once you get how to regulate the air pressure, the tension, proper pull on the trigger, etc. And even after you learn, toting around that air compressor and hose is sometimes still not optimal for getting in a few nails. (Note, don't consider the analogy direct. There are aspects of "hammer" and "nail gun" to both 3E and 4E. It is the difference that is analogous.)

One of the reasons the analogy breaks down is because the learning curve isn't straight in either game, when it comes to prep. You can write poor adventures that will work well enough for some purposes in 4E, a bit faster than you can do the same in 3E. So the learning curve only gets steep when quality comes into the equation. The learning curve for 3E is more steady.

Both of these contrast to 1E which had an extremely long but shallow learning curve. You could get a party fighting some goblins pretty rapidly. It just likely woudn't work exactly like you expected. Then you'd tinker some more. Then you'd read those surprise rules again. Ok, now check out the wandering monster rules. Oops, no one played a cleric after those last 3 TPKs, and now we had an even faster TPK. It took awhile to master the whole set, but no individual piece of it took any great leap of understanding.

 

[mudlock]

I'd say that the learning curve for doing prep well in 4E is probably a lot steeper than 3E, but that once you learn it...

Sounds like a bunch of post-hoc justification too me.

Again, I found it easier/faster to prep 4e games _the moment_ 4e came out, than I did to prep 3e games after the game had been out for years.

I'd be perfectly willing to accept that it's a style thing and 4e just clicks with me better. But I reject your "shorter, steeper curve" theory.

 

[KidSnide]

Also, encounter design in 4e is far more sophisticated and difficult than in previous editions and a number of the early monsters didn't work as intended. No wonder so many of the early modules fell flat! Frankly, it's a testament to the module writers that the HPE and Scales of War didn't suck even more.

What, what, huh? You're surely not referring to 3e.

Based on timePreparing/timePlaying, 4e is twice as good as 3e. For a four-hour game session, I used to have to spend at least 8 hours in prep-time; now I can do it in 4. And it's not like I magically became a more-organized or more-efficient DM at precisely the moment 4e came out, so I'm pretty sure it's because the difficulty of creating encounters dropped.

Depends on what you mean by difficult. It's definitely faster to put together a set of monsters for 4e, but the standards of "interesting fight" are higher with 4e and it's harder to meet them. I find that an interesting map is really important for a 4e encounter, and it takes a while to figure out how to design one that doesn't result in a giant fight at the doorway.

-KS

 

[mudlock]

I find that an interesting map is really important for a 4e encounter, and it takes a while to figure out how to design one that doesn't result in a giant fight at the doorway.

Now THAT, I will agree with. Outside a few paragraphs buried in the back of DMG2, there's been scant advice.

 

[MerricB]

I've never tried running a 4e game with all Essentials, and all striker PCs. Maybe that would go faster. Slayer, Thief, Hexblade, Executioner Assassin?

It's a lot faster. I've been running D&D Encounters (1st-3rd level) with all essentials characters, and the combats are often 20-30 minutes or faster. This is actually quite a bit of a problem for the Encounters program since when a session is *only* the encounter, as a few have been, they're over so fast!

It really, really, really needs to be emphasized that old maths 4E is very different in combat feel to new maths 4E. It really, really is.

The session I ran last week of Prince of Undeath, which has two players (cleric, wizard) and two NPCs (essentials thief, essentials fighter) controlled directly by the players managed to get through 6 combat encounters in 4 hours, plus some roleplaying and exploration. That's at 29th level. Try doing that in PF/3E. We were using the revised monster mathematics.

The fact is that we do want some combats that last an hour or so, because they're involved, important and fun. But others we want to end quicker: they're good appearing there because they keep up the tension and pace of the game, but we don't need to take 1-2 hours resolving them. 20-30 minutes? Looks better.

Cheers!

 

[ForeverSlayer]

I think adventures should be a standard part of the game just like any rule. New gaming groups may be put off by lack of adventures and a lack of good adventures. The game is only as interesting as the adventure and if you have a poor one then you can turn people off in a heartbeat.