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

[Emerikol]

Every edition of the game, including 4e, has Vancian wizards. So there inclusion will not be a shock. The details of the Vancian mechanic is where the action is (eg how many spells, chosen from how broad a list, with what degree of scaling).

I thought you might use this definition which is why I even bothered adding the line right after it. Personally 4e doesn't meet my definition of vancian. But maybe we argue over terms instead of the point.

And as in 4e, martial healing is likely to be located within the warlord class. Which, presumably, those who don't like can ignore.

I hope so and I'm fine with that. Especially if the entire healing system is pretty modular too.

 

[Emerikol]

I've seen this one repeatedly stated and all I can say is that no one I ever played with played this way. Avoid encounters? Why? You were just giving away free xp. Those monsters have equipment that can be sold. They're carrying cash (those 2d6 gp's start adding up after a while). They've got weapons and armor, all of which are worth xp and gold.

Besides that, if you avoided an encounter, it would most often turn around and bite you on the ass because that encounter you avoided would just become reinforcements for the next encounter that you didn't avoid. Gank every encounter and you reduce wandering monsters as well - making it that much easier to further explore the dungeon.

Why on earth would anyone avoid encounters?

I'm not saying my group avoided every encounter. They did avoid some. They at least didn't feel like they were getting punished by not engaging the enemy. In most cases it would be wandering monsters or a guard post with little expectation of treasure. Because of course treasure is the way to xp.

Um, I'm going to guess that you are going by PHB 1 only here. Because, once you get away from the first PHB, there's all sorts of nifty items. Heck, I just managed to complete a major character quest and landed myself this little goody:

Now, how is that trash and not worth having? Thing doesn't really have any pluses, but, it's something I've been working towards for the better part of a year of real time.

I will concede that the item you show is not terrible and is definitely better than most in PHB1. I'd still take a ton of 3e items before it though. I bought the first magic item book for 4e too. It didn't impress that much.

Honestly most of my players were pretty ambivalent about magic items. Whereas in 3e they were obsessed with them. Maybe a middle ground is good but I probably lean 3e on this point. I do not like though letting players make items without a ton of effort that in the end is not really worth it.

 

[billd91]

Yes. I'd add to that is that 4e has a mechanic for the mysterious NPC giving the PC the dragon-slaying sword, as the Moldvay Foreword mentions (treasure parcels). Whereas B/X does not have any such mechanic, and AD&D actively discourages this sort of thing in the DMG text on placement of magical treasure.

I don't really need a mechanical justification for this. Heroic tales and myths often have scenes like this and, inspired by those, I'm confident DMs have been doing the very same for decades before 4e came along. Nor does 1e actively discourage it. The 1e DMG describes placement of treasure as rewards from the perspective of loot primarily, yes, but the important theme of that text is that magic placement should be logical and should be taken with care and that awards should feel earned and not cheap. I would argue that handing out the Sword of Kas to a 1st level adventurer about to enter the Caves of Chaos isn't appropriate care but having a mentor or other mysterious NPC give the PCs the magical gewgaw needed to fulfill the quest, even if powerful, is doing so.

Also, 4e does not have all the minutiae of classic D&D - detailed time tracking, for example, and the wandering monsters that accompany this - which detract from thematic and epic play and push the focus of play onto operational and other prosaic matters.

That depends on what the campaign's theme really is. "Thematic play" is essentially meaningless without a qualification of what the campaign's themes are. If one of the themes is that the world is a dangerous place and trouble could lurk around any corner, then the wandering monster makes great sense. That may be grittier than your preferred view of a campaign's themes, but plenty of players seem to like it.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

I don't really need a mechanical justification for this. Heroic tales and myths often have scenes like this and, inspired by those, I'm confident DMs have been doing the very same for decades before 4e came along. Nor does 1e actively discourage it. The 1e DMG describes placement of treasure as rewards from the perspective of loot primarily, yes, but the important theme of that text is that magic placement should be logical and should be taken with care and that awards should feel earned and not cheap. I would argue that handing out the Sword of Kas to a 1st level adventurer about to enter the Caves of Chaos isn't appropriate care but having a mentor or other mysterious NPC give the PCs the magical gewgaw needed to fulfill the quest, even if powerful, is doing so.

I'm torn on this question. On one hand, AD&D was so chock full of flavorful characters, items, spells, etc. that you were encouraged as a DM to explore them. And I think you are correct that 1E doesn't actively discourage you from doing so. In fact, most of the time it is encouraging you to explore them--albeit more sword and sorcery than heroic epic.

On the other hand, there are a lot of indirect pieces, especially the nature of the system itself, that do end up discouraging you after awhile--and if not handled by the DM, the players much more so. It's as if the game is preaching to the DM to run a heroic epic but the rules are producing Fantasy Vietnam. Predictably, this often starts the players out as idealists and turns them into cynics.

The DM can counter this with fiat and house rules, but then you aren't exactly playing AD&D. The XP award system is merely a good example of the more general trend. To pick another at random, consider the nature of poison in AD&D.

Curiously, 4E has the opposite problem. The system is pushing and screaming at you to have a direct, rollicking game. But then a lot of the material it gives you is rather bland, which means the DM job is to pick out the good stuff and/or bring his own good stuff from outside the game. This is an indirect drag. (4E is hurt here by bloat. Edited down to 25% to 50% of its best, the good stuff would be easier to find.)

 

[Emerikol]

That depends on what the campaign's theme really is. "Thematic play" is essentially meaningless without a qualification of what the campaign's themes are. If one of the themes is that the world is a dangerous place and trouble could lurk around any corner, then the wandering monster makes great sense. That may be grittier than your preferred view of a campaign's themes, but plenty of players seem to like it.

I couldn't agree more. I always keep track of time. In ten minute increments yes but I track it. I'm not sure what you would call my theme (maybe old school D&D) but I like it.

 

[Imaro]

@pemerton ... This argument still seems weird to me... it's sort of like me taking the fact that one of the tenets expressed about the 4e world in the DMG is that "monsters are everywhere"... and then claiming 4e doesn't support this very well because there are no tables for wandering monsters in the corebook and it actively encourages longer set piece battles... as opposed to more numerous smaller battles.

Is this basically similar to the argument you're making?

Edit: I gues to make this more relevant, I am trying to see where worldbuilding or camapign setting vs. game rules comes into play here? I feel like there was no setting described for B/X so any DM could have easily created an adventure where the Dragon Tyrant would have to be slain by the adventurers to retrieve the gold or treasure. I mean, isn't this what you're essentially doing when creating a quest, setting up a condition in order to be rewarded? You're just using treasure (which arguably is experience points) as oppossed to straight xp.

Another Edit: In other words the tools to support and reward this type of play were there, you just had to use them... in the same way people now argue that while 4e is for the most part set up to do epic, gonzo, high-fantasy... There were tools included to shape it into a more S&S flavor (especially with the Dark Sun stuff). This, IMO, falls to worldbuilding, or designing your camapign setting so it uses the tools of the game to create the type of setting that you want and promote the type of actions you want your PC's to take.

 

[TwoSix]

Edit: I gues to make this more relevant, I am trying to see where worldbuilding or camapign setting vs. game rules comes into play here? I feel like there was no setting described for B/X so any DM could have easily created an adventure where the Dragon Tyrant would have to be slain by the adventurers to retrieve the gold or treasure. I mean, isn't this what you're essentially doing when creating a quest, setting up a condition in order to be rewarded? You're just using treasure (which arguably is experience points) as oppossed to straight xp.

Not pemerton, but I would argue there's a difference between setting up the Dragon Tyrant as an antagonist because killing him drives the story, and setting him as an obstacle to prevent the characters from gaining gold and experience.

The result might be the same, but I think making the opponent the focus versus the reward as the focus changes the game's feel.

 

[Imaro]

Not pemerton, but I would argue there's a difference between setting up the Dragon Tyrant as an antagonist because killing him drives the story, and setting him as an obstacle to prevent the characters from gaining gold and experience.

The result might be the same, but I think making the opponent the focus versus the reward as the focus changes the game's feel.

But either way, the focus will be what your players decide their character's motivation is, correct? Why can the Dragon Tyrant only be one or the other? Can't he be an obstacle for some players and an "antagonist" for others?

Some players want to heroically defeat the Dragon Tyrant and free the land, and for those players the focus is the death of the Dragon Tyrant... on the other hand some players will want to loot the treasure vaults of the Dragon Tyrant and for them their focus will be on looting the vaults... through the death of the Dragon Tyrant. These just seem to be more questions of player motivation than of the DM imposing some arbitrary categorization on the Dragon Tyrant or dictating what their motivations should be.

EDIT: It also appears to me that the argument was about what the system rewarded and thus framed around xp. That seems to assume the driving force is still xp, regardless of story.

 

[Manbearcat]

Let me see if I can clarify the position of pemerton, Crazy Jerome, and TwoSix a bit. Their point is related to mechanics specifically. Forced narrative or a player imposing his agenda by way of bludgeoning the other players into submission is mechanics-neutral, and thus irrelevant to the discussion of what specific mechanics engender.

Each of the below mechanics will incentivize, and therefore frame the game around and operatively conditioning the players toward, a specific mode of operation which campaign style/genre and the accompanying fiction (in theory) then become an extension of.


Gold as XP: Attain the most gold possible while minimizing risk and through commitment of the least resources possibles toward that end so that further gold may be attained in the most efficient, and safe, manner possible.

Monsters as XP: Kill the most monsters possible while minimizing risk and through commitment of the least resources possibles toward that end so further monsters may be killed in the most efficient, and safe, manner possible.

Story/Plot-centric Quest as XP: Complete the quest, which requires specific (proactive) engagement with the fiction, while minimizing risk.


Use of each of these mechanical incentives attempts to prod the players (and their PCs by proxy) toward a specific end which, in turn, * tends to express itself within the fiction as a specific style (Heroic Adventure, Fantasy Vietnam, Mercenaries for the Highest Bidder, Amoral Raiders, etc).

Again, * can be undermined by an alpha player imposing their style agenda on the other players or a railroading DM imposing his story upon the players. However, this says nothing about what the mechanics themselves incentivize and thus attempt to engender.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

1E purported vision - Sword and Sorcery, with a side of LotR, at least at the beginning. Actual 1E results - Fantasy Vietnam with a dash of Monty Python.

2E purported vision - Fantasy Psychological Novel, but with kenders. Actual 2E results - Fantasy Good Morning Vietnam and Princess Bride mashup written by Charles Dickens.

3E purported vision - Sword and Sorcery as a Psychological Novel, with a side of GURPS. Actual 3E results - Alternative History Vietnam, but "magic" technology scaled to 1991 or later--AKA Sylvester Stallone as Gandalf.

4E purported vision - Mythical Novel as Gladiator (the film) meets Fantasy Sports. Actual 4E results - Post Apocalypse Vietnam with Mutated Orcs, the Television Series, starring Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser.

The Dragon Tyrant is very different in each of those, even if the movie poster looks pretty much the same every time.

(Also note that in each case, some influence from previous versions was carried forward, if only as pastiche.)