D&D (2024) Toward a Theory of 6th Edition

A who lot of this thread reads like a wish list of minority views concerning elements of the game which are highly popular. Which means 6e would not change them. If people LIKE magic in the game, 6e isn't going to reduce it nearly as much as you want it to. Wouldn't you need to establish this is actually a popular view of the game before expecting a new version to address it in that manner?

Otherwise, I suspect it just means you should either houserule the existing game to suit your lower magic needs, buy third party products which satisfy those needs, or try another game which addresses those needs?

Mistwell said:

A who lot of this thread reads like a wish list of minority views concerning elements of the game which are highly popular. Which means 6e would not change them. If people LIKE magic in the game, 6e isn't going to reduce it nearly as much as you want it to. Wouldn't you need to establish this is actually a popular view of the game before expecting a new version to address it in that manner?

Otherwise, I suspect it just means you should either houserule the existing game to suit your lower magic needs, buy third party products which satisfy those needs, or try another game which addresses those needs?

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Some house rules are easy. For example I can ban the handful of spells that really annoy me, or tweak them. But in our last game (6 players) everyone had supernatural abilities of some sort.

I don't really have a problem with that but since this is a how-would-you-tweak-the-game thread it's a valid issue to raise.

But yeah, some of the suggested changes are just a different game.

Yeah, about all I see that they could do to address these things without making the game less useful to huge groups of people is to make the game a bit more flexible and modular, but even then you have to consider that one of the biggest criticisms of 5e is that it isn't focused and defined enough. There could be alternate or limited spell lists, limited class/subclass lists, more non-magical classes and guidelines to implement them, of course that doesn't actually require a new edition. Honestly, even a different class/subclass structure doesn't require a new edition, it could uses and/or add to the existing spell lists etc. and leave the vast majority of the mechanics completely unchanged.

lowkey13 said:

I would ask for two changes, and two changes only, to make me perfectly happy.

1. Less magic, but better magic. I want magic to be awesome, and rare. No 1/3 spellcasters, few (if any) 1/2 spellcasters, and spells should be infrequent and amazing.

2. Go back to a system where most things (including to hit and saving throws) improve with level, not ability score. I know, bac to the dark ages. Sort of a super proficiency bonus or something.

My ideas have a snowball's chance in Baator of being implemented, but that's my two cents.

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You can suppress ASI and force players to take feat. Ability Scores wont change that much.

I think magic is already awesome. Some posters whim about impossible DC at high level. That is awesome and frightful magic!

Mistwell said:

A who lot of this thread reads like a wish list of minority views concerning elements of the game which are highly popular. Which means 6e would not change them. If people LIKE magic in the game, 6e isn't going to reduce it nearly as much as you want it to. Wouldn't you need to establish this is actually a popular view of the game before expecting a new version to address it in that manner?

Otherwise, I suspect it just means you should either houserule the existing game to suit your lower magic needs, buy third party products which satisfy those needs, or try another game which addresses those needs?

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Elfcrusher was musing on theoretical changes, and posted them for discussion. It's a conversation on game design focussed on DnD. I am finding it to be an interesting thread with some neat ideas being tossed around. Making house rules or playing another game is not the point. This is not a "bash" DnD conversation. Certainly hope it doesn't devolve into that, anyway.

Li Shenron said:

But what is really stopping you from saying that your Cleric or Rogue is also a Barbarian?

Is it the lack of specific mechanical options, such as not being able to gain "Rage" without taking levels in the Barbarian class? Is it really so important for you to get this one specific mechanic, so that you won't feel like your PC is a Barbarian without it? Can you not describe your PC as "raging" pretty much every time you want, with or without the mechanical effects? This is objectively something missing from the game, and for a reason: it is one of those few "niche protection" abilities that were not made available to everyone as feats. The idea was, that at least a few things should be class-exclusives, otherwise why having classes at all, let's go play GURPS. It was left to each gaming group to destroy niche protection as much as they like with house rules. But guess what, they also left an open door anyway: multiclassing. Is it the mere lack of Rage what makes you rage (pun intended!), or is that you want to a Barbarian without being a Barbarian (class), without making up a Rage feat, without multiclassing, without just pretending narratively that you are a Barbarian anyway... how do I know that even if 6e comes up with a Barbarian background you won't then want to be a Barbarian also without the background?

Or is it the lack of an official recognition, a "Barbarian" label to write on your character sheet? And why do you care? Even in organized play, no one can stop you from calling your PC a Barbarian if you want.

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I feel like I should be lying on a couch while responding to this. It all starts with my mother....

Um...cough...no, that is, what I meant to say is...

Yes, it's true that you can flavor your characters however you want. I could easily say, "My cleric is a barbarian cleric." But the same could also be said for fighters. Why do we need a Barbarian class when we could just write the word "barbarian" on our Fighter character sheet? I think it's because it's fun to have flavorful, evocative abilities.

So just as it's fun to have an actual Barbarian Fighter class, I think it would be fun to have an actual Barbarian Cleric (Shaman? Witch-doctor?) class. The way this would get solved under the current model is to do exactly that: create a new class or sub-class. But I think the proliferation of classes and sub-classes is an inelegant way to solve the design goal: you end up trying to design completely unique abilities when there's a ton of overlap between the concepts, and the only combinations allowed are the ones that have been explicitly designed.

As I mentioned earlier, I'm really talking about the difference between single vs. multiple-inheritance hierarchies. Certainly single-inheritance has the advantage of being easier to understand, but there are lots of problems that single-inheritance doesn't solve well. We already know that RPGs are one of them because we have three dimensions (class, race, background). Essentially what I'm saying is that one of those dimensions should carry more weight, and class should carry less.

Oofta said:

Some house rules are easy. For example I can ban the handful of spells that really annoy me, or tweak them. But in our last game (6 players) everyone had supernatural abilities of some sort.

I don't really have a problem with that but since this is a how-would-you-tweak-the-game thread it's a valid issue to raise.

But yeah, some of the suggested changes are just a different game.

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Arilyn said:

Elfcrusher was musing on theoretical changes, and posted them for discussion. It's a conversation on game design focussed on DnD. I am finding it to be an interesting thread with some neat ideas being tossed around. Making house rules or playing another game is not the point. This is not a "bash" DnD conversation. Certainly hope it doesn't devolve into that, anyway.

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Guys maybe I missed something (it's possible as I read the thread quickly). But the title of the thread is "Toward a Theory of 6th Edition" which seems to imply to me it's not a "how would you tweak the game" but rather "what will the game be tweaked to". The later question begins with, "what do people want from the game" doesn't it?

Oofta said:

Then there's the ubiquity of magic. It's not as bad as 4E (where IMHO everyone had supernatural abilities) but it's still too common for a low magic world. It kind of forces you to have a high magic world, which is not necessarily what everyone wants.

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I agree with most of this except the bold part. IMO, it is very easy to play 5e with low-magic. I would even argue from monster stand point it works better in a low-magic world. Now, you have to restrict things which some DMs don't like to do, but the core of the game functions wonderfully with low or non magic.

Mistwell said:

Guys maybe I missed something (it's possible as I read the thread quickly). But the title of the thread is "Toward a Theory of 6th Edition" which seems to imply to me it's not a "how would you tweak the game" but rather "what will the game be tweaked to". The later question begins with, "what do people want from the game" doesn't it?

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As [MENTION=6816042]Arilyn[/MENTION] said, it's just a discussion on hypothetical changes. I like 5E, I hope it doesn't get replaced any time in the near future.

But over the history of D&D it does seem like there's been more and more of a move towards the supernatural/magic classes and builds. That's not necessarily a bad thing it just may not work for every campaign. Take barbarians for example. At higher levels there's a totem animal that gives them options to do things like sprout wings and give them limited fly. That's not a bad thing it just may not fit in a Cimmerian-themed campaign.

Then again the tweaks I would make are pretty cosmetic and could be tacked on to the existing game compared to some of the suggestions which would really change the nature of the game.

Mistwell said:

Guys maybe I missed something (it's possible as I read the thread quickly). But the title of the thread is "Toward a Theory of 6th Edition" which seems to imply to me it's not a "how would you tweak the game" but rather "what will the game be tweaked to". The later question begins with, "what do people want from the game" doesn't it?

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Since I gave the thread the title, I'll explain:

First (not trying to be pedantic but I don't know what everybody here knows) "Toward a theory of..." is kind of a meme in academia. I was trying to be witty. Failing as usual.

Second, I'm not trying to predict what 6th will be I just wanted to get a brainstorming session going of what people would like 6th to be, regardless of who likely they think their ideas are. That's all. Just a fun game design jam session.