D&D 5E What D&D should learn from a Song of Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones)

[Dannager]

I don't like this style of play, personally.

In my opinion, these assumptions turn players characters into risk averse cowards who callously send hirelings to their deaths in pursuit of treasure. I understand that this is a character archetype that some people enjoy, but it really seems to be the default assumption of old school D&D.

I play D&D because I want to play heroic characters, not craven, paranoid sociopaths. While I agree that the game should always have the possibility of character mortality, I don't want it to motivate everything I do in character.

Agreed. When I suggest that we explore the design space of games where players control multiple characters, I don't mean a return to the old days of having hirelings "check for traps", but rather the idea of having personal investment in more than one character, along with mechanics that play across multiple characters using the player as the unifying theme.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

D&D could emulate the books with one very simple bit of DM guidance: "As soon as a character becomes heroic, sympathetic, or even interesting, kill him." I slogged through the first book in the hope that it would get better, but never again. It's probably obvious that this is one thing I hope D&D wouldn't take.

I liked the depth of the politics, all the factions, history, and personalities. If WoTC could find a way to incorporate this in the game with a way for the DM to keep track of everything without a crazy amount of work and a way for the players to learn the politics and interact with them without a huge time investment, that would be awesome.

I like low-magic settings too, but D&D is too WAHOOO! to do them well. I play other games when that's what I want - it's easier than completely rewriting D&D.

 

[Ballbo Big'uns]

Agreed. When I suggest that we explore the design space of games where players control multiple characters, I don't mean a return to the old days of having hirelings "check for traps", but rather the idea of having personal investment in more than one character, along with mechanics that play across multiple characters using the player as the unifying theme.

Well sure, that design space could be explored for more than just fixing a problem that few players have with the game.

I would like to see something like this for a competitive sandbox type game where each player controls a party of characters that undertake different missions in opposition to other players. That might make for a cool game.

 

[Bluenose]

It can be. D&D is its own thing, and shouldn't be beholden to these other influences. However, D&D is not an island, and it ought to pay some attention to the world of adventure fiction.

D&D isn't just one thing either. Different versions emphasise different things, though I think it's fair to say that there was a steady increase in the ubiquity of magic through AD&D 12 => AD&D 2e => D&D 3e.

 

[Nagol]

Agreed. When I suggest that we explore the design space of games where players control multiple characters, I don't mean a return to the old days of having hirelings "check for traps", but rather the idea of having personal investment in more than one character, along with mechanics that play across multiple characters using the player as the unifying theme.

Ars Magica sort of does this with its troupe mechanic. By default, a player creates two characters: a Mage and a Companion. During an adventure, each player has three choices for which character to run, one of their created characters or a small party of men-at-arms.

I ran a short-lived Danger International campaign inspired by Mission Impossible (the tv series not the movies) where the team-lead chose characters from a roster. Each player created a few characters and played the adventure with the character selected. Team-lead rotated among the players.

It sort of worked. What ended up happening is the players developed a preference and peer pressure meant the same characters were played each adventure after a short while.

 

[Ahnehnois]

What did we learn from this week's GoT episode?

There's something to be said for the big stupid fighter.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Agreed. When I suggest that we explore the design space of games where players control multiple characters, I don't mean a return to the old days of having hirelings "check for traps", but rather the idea of having personal investment in more than one character, along with mechanics that play across multiple characters using the player as the unifying theme.

The trouble with this is that D&D is quite a complex game, with quite a complex advancement scheme, and this is likely to be particularly so when controlling multiple characters each*.

I've run and played in games which used that sort of setup - Ars Magica and Star Wars D6 (Darkstyrder campaign), and it was great - the latter was some of the best gaming I've ever been involved in. However, it also clearly wasn't for everyone - the more casual, less rules-oriented players got kind of stressed by trying to understand how multiple different PCs worked in Ars Magica (less so in SWD6, because that uses a completely unified system, which D&D does not), and I feel like, even in a fairly simplified version of D&D, those same people are going to get stressed by trying to deal with the unique systems from, say, Fighter, Rogue and Wizard.

So I feel like, unless you have veteran and rule-savvy players, multiple characters in D&D is likely to result in a lot of stress/frustration. It's also challenging with D&D's advancement methods - unless you do something like adopt "You level when the DM says so" (which is a fine method, to be sure!), PCs are likely to get widely out-of-whack level-wise, and even with "flatter" versions of D&D like 2E and 5E, that's going to be a problem.

* = I can expand on this, but it'll be lengthy.

 

[Umbran]

That's actually a tabletop gaming concept that I think designers need to spend more time exploring - the idea of divorcing the player from the notion of having a direct proxy in the game world.

Well, there are already wargames out there.

I used to play in a D&D game where each player had at least two characters, and chose one at the beginning of each "mission" to adventure with. But I don't know of many games that are building rules systems around concepts like that, and I think someone should try and tackle it.

I have found, in general, that the less time you spend playing any particular character, the less the player is connected to the character, and the less developed (both mechanically and dramatically) the character is. Swapping characters between missions was fine back when I was a teenager, and we played, on average, multiple times per week. When you are talking about a game that only runs once or twice a month, you're now talking about pretty long stretches of real-world time between times when we'll see a character in the stable.

Swapping between characters within a session gets even worse - it runs into "context switching", and tends to degrade enjoyment.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I find, in general, that the less time a player spends with a given character, the less attached they are to that character, and the less developed (both mechanically and dramatically) the character is. So, if what you're looking for is a deep, rich experience, splitting the player's attention would not be a good choice, I'm thinking.

This is broadly true, but I did see an exception with the Darkstryder campaign for SWD6 - because the characters were all pre-gens with well-defined personalities and hooks (and they really were quite well-done), it was actually very easy for the players to switch between them and still feel properly involved, because it felt more like playing established characters from a TV show than just playing characters we'd made up. That's a very specific situation, though.

 

[Dausuul]

If you want your campaign to have a high mortality rate in 5E, it's very easy. Just do two things:

• Ban resurrection magic.
• Eliminate the "dying" condition. Zero hit points equals dead.

That's all you have to do. I guarantee that the result will be a tough, gritty game where people either a) think hard before committing to combat, or b) die a lot.

So the only question is, which should be the default: Lethal and gritty, or heroic and survivable? I strongly favor "heroic and survivable" as the default, and the main reason is the existence of option b) above. People coming into a D&D game for the first time, who discover that their characters die like flies, are apt to respond not by playing ultra-cautiously (which, for a lot of players, is incredibly boring) but by treating their characters as disposable. Why bother connecting with the world, creating a character background and personality, building relationships in-game, when one failed saving throw or lucky monster crit sends all that hard work into the trash? Just roll up Joe McFighter Junior, Son of Joe McFighter Senior, Son of Jack McBarbarian, and be sure you've got Joe McFighter III on hand and ready to go.

The choice to play the game in "hardcore mode" (to swipe a term from Diablo) should be a deliberate decision made by the players and DM. If you're having a tough time selling your players on it, well, go figure, you're telling them you want their characters to die more often! Work it out with them. In general, I believe in giving the DM pretty wide-ranging authority, but this is one area where you really should be forced to get player buy-in. Some people choose to play Diablo in Hardcore mode, and some players will enjoy the challenge of going without a safety net. But if your group doesn't like the idea, it's not the job of the rules to push them into it. It's on you as DM to make your case.

I do hope they include a sidebar saying "For a more challenging game, implement death at zero." But it shouldn't be the standard.