D&D 5E cancelled 5e announcement at Gencon??? Anyone know anything about this?

[Mournblade94]

See that's the part I don't get. You teleport away and thus leave the situation uncontrolled.

Exactly. That is what I never understood about the mysterious 15 minute adventure day. For me the 15 minute adventure day sounds like an extreme metagame. Timekeeping is very important for me in my campaign. I know down to the minute the amount of time spent in a dungeon.

Mage wants to write a bunch of teleport scrolls? There is a time for that, and that is going to be counted. Doing it inbetween adventures... I keep track of time as well. I factor it in, and adjust accordingly.

Yes I know a disparity exists between fighters and mages (I can't beleive I have to keep making that disclaimer) but it was never an issue in ANY of my campaigns, and it very well be how I keep track of INGAME time. I track searches and hall explorations. I am a nut with it, from reading in the 1st edition D&D DMG, you cannot have a meaningful campaign without accurate timekeeping. I may have taken it too far.

 

[gamerprinter]

Is this really a solution to the problem, though? I mean, the wizard teleports the party out, the GM says that the NPCs sacrifice the damsel, the really nasty thing turns up. Is this the end of the campaign? In which case it's not really a solution to making the campaign work.

And if the point of the adventure is to save the damsel - what then?

Or do the PCs now find themselves having to stop the nasty thing? In which case it is still the wizard who has dominated the direction and content of the game.

I'm sorry, but the wizard doesn't dominate our game, he's just another party member, not the party leader, but is a major contributor.

The damsel situation will only work to stop the problem, it seems to me, if the player of the wizard is sufficiently invested in rescuing the damsel that s/he is prepared to press on - or to cooperate with the rest of the party pressing on - that s/he will do so even if low on spells/resources. Now obviously this is not an impossible, or even improbable, state of affairs. But I think it does tend to emphasise rather than de-emphasise the dominant position of the wizard in play.

Again, the wizard may be dominant in your game, but he's just a participant in ours. If the wizard novas his spells on the first big encounter, he'll have to teleport or die in the next and the party will just have to do without the wizard. Tough, I know, but then the wizard learns he can't just nova and scoot. But a wizard has to learn how to do his job eventually - and then the spell nova problem will go away

Actually haven't encountered this kind of problem in 33 years playing D&D, though I have certainly heard of the concept - its just unheard of in our game.

 

[Maggan]

Sooooo ... I heard there was a rumour from GenCon ... Morrus tweeted it, it appears.

Anyone know anything about THAT?

Or has this thread planar drifted into Oblivion?



/M

 

[Pentius]

Exactly. That is what I never understood about the mysterious 15 minute adventure day. For me the 15 minute adventure day sounds like an extreme metagame. Timekeeping is very important for me in my campaign. I know down to the minute the amount of time spent in a dungeon.

Mage wants to write a bunch of teleport scrolls? There is a time for that, and that is going to be counted. Doing it inbetween adventures... I keep track of time as well. I factor it in, and adjust accordingly.

Yes I know a disparity exists between fighters and mages (I can't beleive I have to keep making that disclaimer) but it was never an issue in ANY of my campaigns, and it very well be how I keep track of INGAME time. I track searches and hall explorations. I am a nut with it, from reading in the 1st edition D&D DMG, you cannot have a meaningful campaign without accurate timekeeping. I may have taken it too far.

I don't think it is either an extreme metagame, or an example of poor timekeeping. It's a side effect of not having time pressures on adventures, or sometimes of not having existing time pressures matter enough to the party. I've been in some campaigns where time was kept very good track of(I remember that quote, too), but knowing whether it was one or two hours, or one or two days, that you're handwaving with "and we stay in town while Dave does his wizard thing" doesn't ultimately mean much unless there are things that require accomplishing within a certain amount of time. Now, one certainly can make all adventures have a time pressure element, but in my experience, that just doesn't happen.

Most DMs I've played with aren't even really aware of the relationship between the 15mwd and time pressures(especially if they don't go on messageboards or really discuss DMing with other DMs in any medium), and the ones that are still generally won't ensure that there's a time pressure on every mission. I've also seen a good number of groups that just accept the 15mwd, regardless of edition, as "one of those things". You know, like "Our party has never met, but they now travel together. That doesn't always make sense, it's just one of those things." "Turn-based combat don't always make sense, it's just one of those things."

As for metagame, well, the Wizard(and Cleric, and Sorcerer, etc) know, in the fiction, that they have X spells per day. They know when they're out, they know there will be more tomorrow. Absent a meaningful time pressure, it isn't really metagaming for that character to prefer to face life and death situations prepared. And yes, the rest of the party can tell the Wizard to suck it up, but in my experience that really doesn't happen all that often(especially if the Wizard is not the lone caster), and certainly not to the Cleric. "We might not have Fireballs in the next fight" might not stop a party cold, but in the very few occasions I've seen where "You won't have any healing" doesn't stop the party, the ones that forge ahead don't come back.

 

[haakon1]

I think 4e does pretty well, but there are people who think it wildly and dangerously unbalanced. Same with you and 3.x, sounds like.

I don't think any edition of D&D in unbalanced, and I don't think "lack of balance" would make an edition bad.

I do think 4e is the most obsessed with balance of all editions, but I think in doing that, the authors were optimizing for something that's not very important (at least to me).

 

[Pentius]

I don't think any edition of D&D in unbalanced, and I don't think "lack of balance" would make an edition bad.

I do think 4e is the most obsessed with balance of all editions, but I think in doing that, the authors were optimizing for something that's not very important (at least to me).

We're more or less on the same page, I think, but still opposite sides of the opinion coin, which is fine. I agree that in 4e, a greater emphasis on balance was made, though it also seems more emphasized, I think, due to a focus on per-encounter balance, as opposed to per-campaign balance(aka "wizards are weak at first, strong later" balance). I do think sufficient imbalance can seriously harm a game, even make it unsuitable for my taste, though. In common parlance, I would call that bad, though oddly I get more civil on the internet, not less.

 

[Wicht]

Most DMs I've played with aren't even really aware of the relationship between the 15mwd and time pressures(especially if they don't go on messageboards or really discuss DMing with other DMs in any medium), and the ones that are still generally won't ensure that there's a time pressure on every mission.

The maiden example was just an example, but its a useful example. There does not need to be a clearly stated conditional time pressure on every mission. But DMs should always act in such a way as to allow their players to know that events happen in the world around them according to a logical, progressive time. I don't fixate on the minutes and hours of the world, but I do focus heavily on the days, beginning most adventures with a mention of the date and, after camping, reinforcing the fact that it is a new day. If you train your players right, they create their own pressure, because they are not sure what the ramifications of delay might be. Who knows how long they actually have until the big bad is summoned, the girl is killed, the treasure is spent, or the dragon summons help. If they go away and leave a situation uncontrolled, they can be fairly sure that things will likely have changed while they are gone as the other side continues to act. Or at least that is always the assumption on their part, even when I, the DM, am going to change up very little.

I guess it boils down to a play style where, while my game may revolve around the PCs, the world never does.

 

[Pilgrim]

Who knows how long they actually have until the big bad is summoned, the girl is killed, the treasure is spent, or the dragon summons help. If they go away and leave a situation uncontrolled, they can be fairly sure that things will likely have changed while they are gone as the other side continues to act. Or at least that is always the assumption on their part, even when I, the DM, am going to change up very little.

I guess it boils down to a play style where, while my game may revolve around the PCs, the world never does.

In the last game of 4E that I ran, quick run down of the premise of the adventure was that a very special girl was born into the world 10 years earlier. She held a very small fraction of power (the game setting was FR) which had been stolen by a lycanthrope when he stopped a ritual which would have allowed an asperct of Malar into the Realms. The power had passed from the lycanthope to his daughter when she was born into the world.

The faction of lycans who wanted the ritual complete, attacked the family on the day of the daughter's birth (if anyone is interested in my prologue you can read it here on my campaign site: Dark Side of the Moon - Epic Words) but the attempt failed. Ten years later, the moon would be right and the chance for allowing the ritual to take place was once again possible. This is where the PCs enter the adventure. The PCs witness the kidnapping of the girl and find out why from the people that hold her secret.

The people, a cloister of monks, who told them about the girl's secret also told them that the ritual would take place in three nights time, on the night of the Feast of the Moon.

One of the younger players asked what would happen if they didn't get to her in time. I let the player and the rest of them know OOC that my game world continues living, even when they take side ventures or want to pursue other venues of interest.

If they chose to follow up and attempt a rescue on the girl, they could possibly stop the ritual and avoid Malar's aspect from entering the Realms. If they chose not to attempt the rescue or they failed in the rescue attempt, then the aspect would enter the world and it's power would be used by the lycan faction to help destroy the city of Baldur's Gate; the Realms in the campaign would be changed for ever on.

You could see the look of fascination on their faces, for some reason they found this really interesting and cool. I assume playing in previous games under other DMs, they had not experienced a world that changed around them because of or despite what they chose to do within the campaign world.

And that's the way I always run my game sessions. Players have complete freedom, no scripted adventures or pre-written story lines. I toss out small hooks of things going on within the campaign world and they can choose which ones to follow or ignore. The world keeps on turning, regardless.

 

[pemerton]

DMs should always act in such a way as to allow their players to know that events happen in the world around them according to a logical, progressive time.

<snip>

I guess it boils down to a play style where, while my game may revolve around the PCs, the world never does.

I think you're right that it is about play style. If you want a differen playstyle - for example, one where the PCs are the protagonists - then GMs should probably act differently from how you describe. And then we can look for other ways to solve the "nova" problem.

 

[Wicht]

I think you're right that it is about play style. If you want a differen playstyle - for example, one where the PCs are the protagonists - then GMs should probably act differently from how you describe. And then we can look for other ways to solve the "nova" problem.

I don't make the connection here with the PCs not being protagonists in my campaign playstyle.

Certainly they are the protagonists and the star of their story (which is still not the same as the world revolving around them - the story is focused on them, not necessarily the world).

I merely have the expectations that protagonists will be proactive. Characters have to act like heroes to be heroic. Blasting a few bad guys and then going home for a lie-down is not really heroic, nor should it be rewarded, in game. If the PCs don't want to act like heroes then the result is that they are not going to win the day in a heroic fashion - more likely than not they are going to be remembered in ignomy. But I don't have a problem here, as my players want their PCs to be heroes.