D&D 5E Tedium for balance. Should we balance powerful effects with bookkeeping?

[Lanefan]

The gameplay of Factorio is an entirely different animal then the bean counting of D&D. And for things like Factorio and Satisfactory, the entire gameplay loop is dedicated to making it playable, including building and creation mechanics that just aren't going to translate to pen and paper.

??? Aren't going to translate to pen and paper?

Are you talking about video games here, then, or TTRPGs? Because it's TTRPGs, I think, that the rest of us are on about.

 

[overgeeked]

Re logistics... I'm imagining an adventure where the PCs have tightly limited supplies and no easy way to recover them. If you run out of arrows, your bow doesn't work. Run out of food, you starve. Every day and every battle, your resources dwindle and it's a race to beat the villains before you run out.

That actually sounds like a lot of fun. (Though I think not everyone in my group would agree; and it also poses class balance problems.)

It can be, if handled well and is only occasionally the focus of a game. As the always on default of a campaign it becomes exceedingly tedious rather quickly. Levels 1-3 then drop a bag of holding to get passed the tedium.

But in practice, my experience of tracking supplies is that it doesn't matter in 90% of games. With the kind of money adventurers accumulate, plus utility magic, it's trivially easy to supply yourself with whatever you need. D&D is simply not designed to support real logistics challenges. So it becomes a bookkeeping exercise, neither challenging nor fun, and I'd rather just abstract it away.

Exactly. The referee says we’re tracking the things this game, everyone groans, and b-lines for any and all options to circumvent said tracking of things. Because the players know they’ll be punished for failing to keep proper records they do their best and only when the player has a brain fart with any real consequences arrive. It’s important to note the character would likely never be that careless, so it’s a player skill thing rather than properly emulating the world. At worst you have to drop some copper for silver or silver for gold along the way or declare obvious things like gathering arrows after use.

It’s kind of telling that stories involving this kind of meticulous detail are incredibly few and far between. They might be compelling reading for an extreme hiker or mountain climber, but not anyone else. And I say that as someone who has run games like this and read books like the Man-Eaters of Tsavo and As Told at the Explorer’s Club.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I'm all ears.

The challenge, however, will be to in fact carry the same information (and to the same level of granularity, otherwise information is lost) while making it more efficient.

Pick.

 

[Vaalingrade]

??? Aren't going to translate to pen and paper?

Are you talking about video games here, then, or TTRPGs? Because it's TTRPGs, I think, that the rest of us are on about.

Factorio, is a videogame. They're trying to use it as an example of a game with fun logistics.

Only it's a game about constructing and running a factory, which is light-years away from a game of rollicking adventure.

 

[Lanefan]

Pick.

As in, pick between efficiency and granularity?

Not an option for the challenge. You have to provide both in order to pass.

 

[MichaelSomething]

And where I found defeatism in the previous argument, here I find pessimism. Arguing that logistics are inherently boring is simply false. Logistical challenges can make for genuinely interesting gameplay; if they did not, Factorio would have crashed and burned, rather than being quite popular. Or the (opt-in) automation of games like PlateUp! and other "start off doing it yourself, then set up a system to do it for you" games.

There can be ways to invigorate logistics as a gameplay element. They just aren't used much in D&D.

Home - Red Hook Studios

www.darkestdungeon.com

 

[Micah Sweet]

It can be, if handled well and is only occasionally the focus of a game. As the always on default of a campaign it becomes exceedingly tedious rather quickly. Levels 1-3 then drop a bag of holding to get passed the tedium.

Exactly. The referee says we’re tracking the things this game, everyone groans, and b-lines for any and all options to circumvent said tracking of things. Because the players know they’ll be punished for failing to keep proper records they do their best and only when the player has a brain fart with any real consequences arrive. It’s important to note the character would likely never be that careless, so it’s a player skill thing rather than properly emulating the world. At worst you have to drop some copper for silver or silver for gold along the way or declare obvious things like gathering arrows after use.

It’s kind of telling that stories involving this kind of meticulous detail are incredibly few and far between. They might be compelling reading for an extreme hiker or mountain climber, but not anyone else. And I say that as someone who has run games like this and read books like the Man-Eaters of Tsavo and As Told at the Explorer’s Club.

You personally find it "exceedingly tedious rather quickly" you mean? That must be what you mean, because I know you're not speaking for other people here right?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

??? Aren't going to translate to pen and paper?

Are you talking about video games here, then, or TTRPGs? Because it's TTRPGs, I think, that the rest of us are on about.

I used an example of a video game that is (almost purely) logistics-based in order to demonstrate that logistics as a core challenge are not inherently un-fun, but in fact can be the core value of a game.

Or the result of observation.

The gameplay of Factorio is an entirely different animal then the bean counting of D&D. And for things like Factorio and Satisfactory, the entire gameplay loop is dedicated to making it playable, including building and creation mechanics that just aren't going to translate to pen and paper.

Let the poor thing die with some dignity instead of tormenting players with attempt after attempt to force them to have fun with this roadblock between them and fun.

The point was, simply, that logistical challenges can be genuinely fun. I have already said that the existing logistical mechanics of D&D are not great, and in fact pretty poor, and that they haven't really been allowed to change.

I am perfectly happy letting go of the current way these things are done. I will emphatically oppose any argument that is built on the idea that nobody can ever have fun doing logistical things, which is what was originally said: "I've seen several attempts to make the inherently boring not boring." Logistics is not inherently boring.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Okay, fundamentally then.

 

[Baron Opal II]

As in, pick between efficiency and granularity?

Not an option for the challenge. You have to provide both in order to pass.

No, pick something to improve.