D&D 5E With Respect to the Door and Expectations....The REAL Reason 5e Can't Unite the Base

[jrowland]

There are pacing differences.

But this is all arbitrary. I could break the AD&D wizard into more levels - say 3 levels for every current two levels. This would put the wizard onto an XP table more like the thief. I could then adjust the combat, save and spell tables to keep the ration of XP to spells, bonuses etc more-or-less the same. And I could drop hit dice from d4 to (say) d3, or even - at the extreme - 1 per level, plus CON.

What would that do to the narrative? Nothing that I can see. All I've done is present wizardry in more fine-grained detail.

Yes. All you've done is create more finer grained mechanical detail. Of course you haven't changed the narrative. WHY you change to a fine grained mechanical detail should be driven by the narrative (ie fluff). The why matters (beyond "balance" or math fixes). Answering the narrative "why's" leads to what mechanics you use.

Separate advancement charts weren't created for 1E "just because". There was a reason beyond "balance" or "maths". You may not care for that reason, or the reason may be poorly defined, but it was done for a reason that made sense in-the-game frame of reference.

Take material components for spells. They are there to support the fiction that wizards need them to cast spells. Thus mechanics are born to (V,S,M listing on spells) to support that fiction. If you don't imagine wizards needing material components, you don't need the mechanics. Fluff comes first.

 

[jrowland]

I rather suspect that your interpretation of what came first, the mechanic or it's justification, is exactly the wrong way round. The concept that you can't keep throwing around powerful spells all the time without unbalancing the game came first, and "Oh, that's Vancian magic!" came later.

I am not talking about justification. That implies mechanics first. You could create mechanics first then justify it. What I am saying is thats not how the approach goes. We are inspired, we have a concept, an idea, a narrative, and then we develop mechanics.

Your final sentence quoted starts with "the concept that...", ie "fluff" . You started with fluff. Fluff comes first...then mechanics.

I suppose the difficulty people are having with the concept of fluff-first is the assumed fluff that is omni-present. It hard to remember that its there.

 

[pemerton]

Separate advancement charts weren't created for 1E "just because". There was a reason beyond "balance" or "maths".

What do you think that reason is? And how does it explain the bizarre thing that MU level gain accelerates (and overtakes illusionists) just at the point where they start to become overpowered; and that druids have virtually broken advancement at mid-levels?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Separate advancement charts weren't created for 1E "just because". There was a reason beyond "balance" or "maths".

[Citation Needed]

I can produce ones that explicitely say the reason was balance.

Take material components for spells. They are there to support the fiction that wizards need them to cast spells. Thus mechanics are born to (V,S,M listing on spells) to support that fiction. If you don't imagine wizards needing material components, you don't need the mechanics. Fluff comes first.

They appear to mostly be there because of the slightly perverse sense of humour of the designers.

 

[Balesir]

tThen we are in agreement. Those "thoughts as they play", is the fluff, and once those thoughts are formed, we next turn to mechanics. Thus, Fluff-first.

Um, I think it still must be unclear.

How is a decision as to whether the players should be focussed upon decisions determining the outcome of individual challenge situations or upon decisions determining their characters' dramatic needs and consequently the direction of the game story fluff? It seems to me it's not.

It's not "mechanics", either, for sure - but it ought to come before both of those things in design, in my view. A multitude of "how the mechanics express the fluff" issues depend crucially upon it. Even the fluff itself must be changed, if it isn't suitable to the very purpose of the game (i.e. what the players will want to do with it).

 

[jrowland]

Um, I think it still must be unclear.

How is a decision as to whether the players should be focussed upon decisions determining the outcome of individual challenge situations or upon decisions determining their characters' dramatic needs and consequently the direction of the game story fluff? It seems to me it's not.

It's not "mechanics", either, for sure - but it ought to come before both of those things in design, in my view. A multitude of "how the mechanics express the fluff" issues depend crucially upon it. Even the fluff itself must be changed, if it isn't suitable to the very purpose of the game (i.e. what the players will want to do with it).

I understand. Fluff is such a crap word. Its why throughout my posts I try to insert narrative, concept, ideas, etc. "Fluff" in my descriptions is simply non-mechanics...the other stuff.

I have also said, mechanics can lead to a change in fluff...I don't argue that. But the idea, only that the concepts (fluff) come first.

For example:

1) I like Fantasy Stories. Wouldn't it be cool to have a game where you are a character in a fantasy story.

2) Here is a set of mechanics that can do what I want in point 1 (D&D mechanic playtest 1)

3) Hmmm...that is not what I had in mind. I like the skills, but the classes don't seem robust enough for the characters I had in mind.

4) ok...here are some mechanics to express what want in points 1 and 3.

etc etc

Imagine just starting with mechanics:

1) Here are a bunch of mechanics that generate reults

2) what do these results mean? Can it work for fantasy? I like fantasy stories. How can "1d20+wisdom bonus" reflect a fantasy story?

its wonky.

The concept, the idea, the goal, the ever lovin fluff comes first. It might only be a rough idea (I like fantasy, lets make a game), a more robust concept (I love Jack Vance stories , lets make that into a game), or very detailed concepts (I love D&D, lets recreate it in a new edition that appeals to players of all editions). In all cases, the fluff comes first.

You have to know what a wizard is and what it is not, and that the game needs a wizard before you can design (mechanically) a wizard.

 

[Tony Vargas]

"But Remy!" I hear the crowd shout out, "That's not fair to arbitrarily decide a power doesn't work! You're robbing the player of his ability to affect the fiction, making his choice of power, sub-optimal, yadda yadda"

Here's my RBDM response: So what?

So, depending on how often, how evenhandedly, and how consistently you do it, maybe, nothing. Or maybe some of your players stop showing up. :shrug: Not a game-design issue, really. Nothing in the game can stop you from changing it or running it how you want.

Fireball's don't work underwater.

Why not? "They're magic!"

You can't burn a fire-elemental.

You can't use magic that manipulates flame to damage something made of flame?

You can't convince the paladin-lord you're his bastard love-child.

Because D&D had no shape-changing females who might have tricked him, for instance...

And I don't care if you have skill focus in Athletics, you're not convincing the king to give you a boat during the skill challenge by doing an absurd number of push-ups!

Athletics /is/ a skill you'd use for a lot of seamanship, demonstrating that your party includes an able seaman might help.

I can craft some pretty convincing rationales and examples, but I seriously doubt any of you would actually believe I'm actually 22 foot tall space alien from Zogtor.

Ever played TfOS?

the off-hand way the game took the ability for the DM to control his world away.

Interesting way of looking at it. The way I see it, D&D has given DMs progressively better tools to work with, more robust rules, more/better (or at least different) DM'ing advice, more workable guidelines, etc... So, it became easier to avoid the pitfalls that lead to 'Monty Haul' games and 'Killer DMs.' That's a good thing.

The game has to have limits, and I actually hope Next puts more limits back in, so I that never have to have the "the rules say the ooze is prone" argument again.

The game does have limits. They're called rules.

 

[timASW]

That's not trivial.

If each die is successful 3/10, then you fail if you get no successes (3/10 ^ 7) or one success (7C1 * 3/10 * 7/10^6). Chance of success is 1 minus the sum of those two other values: 3^7 + 7 * 3 * 7^6, all over 10,000,000.

I am cheating and using a calculater to get the numerator: nearly 2,500,000. So chance of success is a little over 75%.

Burning Wheel makes it a little easier because the default chance of success on a die is 1/2. But this is one of the irritating features of a dice pool system.

Your both looking at it the wrong way. The chances of beating that locks roll are entirely irrelevant to its existence or the complication of the game itself. I ran NWoD games for 3 years never once attempting to figure something like that out.

It takes 2 successes because theres a lock on that door thats middling, off the shelf at home depot quality.

How likely the characters are to succeed it picking it is up to them as characters to deal with, not up to the storyteller to worry himself about.

Here's how I see it. Players know there are lots of locked doors in the world and sooner or later they will want to get past those locks. They can bash some doors down, pick some locks, go by some locks, and maybe even magic some locks or blow them up.

All of which are perfectly viable options in different situations. Its up to the Players to deal with.

Besides, you also dont need to guess it because the game lets you take multiple rolls on most skills like that. So if they dont get it the first round of picking, keep on picking. You can try until you succeed in most cases.

As long as you dont actively try to overcomplicate it it remains quite simple.

LOL a lot like 3e actually.

 

[Bluenose]

Besides, you also dont need to guess it because the game lets you take multiple rolls on most skills like that. So if they dont get it the first round of picking, keep on picking. You can try until you succeed in most cases.

The lock that is going to get picked, eventually, isn't a serious obstacle. Just a bunch of pointless dice rolling until you succeed, and a bit of in-game time that may or may not be significant. So why not just roll to see how long it takes, if that matters?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Imagine just starting with mechanics:

1) Here are a bunch of mechanics that generate reults

2) what do these results mean? Can it work for fantasy? I like fantasy stories. How can "1d20+wisdom bonus" reflect a fantasy story?

its wonky.

The concept, the idea, the goal, the ever lovin fluff comes first. It might only be a rough idea (I like fantasy, lets make a game), a more robust concept (I love Jack Vance stories , lets make that into a game), or very detailed concepts (I love D&D, lets recreate it in a new edition that appeals to players of all editions). In all cases, the fluff comes first.

You have to know what a wizard is and what it is not, and that the game needs a wizard before you can design (mechanically) a wizard.

This, for what it's worth, is completely wrong in many well designed non-simulationist RPGs.

Imagine starting with just a Jenga tower as your mechanics. You can use that to play a Mythos Wizard just as well as you can use it to play a Redshirt. In neither case did the game's mechanical designers model this and expect you to play one.

In Spirit of the Century you can play a wizard - and you get to decide what that means. Likewise Wushu. Or anything where the game mechanics are about narrative control.

It is also wrong with D&D 4e. The Lazy Warlord was never actually intentionally designed. A character that never makes an attack roll and requires three books and two dragon magazines worth of material is an emergent rather than intentional class. And because the pacing is narrative pacing rather than mechanical pacing I can have different ideas about what a wizard is from another player of a wizard and it doesn't matter.