D&D 5E You can't necessarily go back

[B.T.]

Aaaand...are you, then, satisfied with any of the various D&D editions?

Lanefan

Satisfied enough to play? Yes. Satisfied enough not to gripe about them on the Internet? Nope.

 

[triqui]

That doesn't mean there is a causal link between modular design in computers and rpgs. I would argue it is just something that arises naturally in rpgs from things like optional rules. I just don't see that the concept in table top was influenced by comouter programming (though I am sure it has been adopted as an analogy plenty of times by designers trying to describe it).

Either way though. Regardless of how one wants to parse the history, video games and table top role playing games are both at points in their development where their needs are very different. I dont see why borrowing from computer concepts would be any more helpful than borrowing from other fields. Our focus should be on what works for rpgs, not trying to emulate comuter tech ImO. I am not saying there is nothing ever to be learned. Just the priority shouldn't be to use video games as a model for where table tops should be in terms of design.

Several things have been learned from computer science. Keywords, modularity, object definitions... They are just a lot. Math sound systems, for example... Nobody cared about that in Gygax times. 3e took a lot of that.

Another great thing that computers gave to rpg is Open Source Content. Which is arguabilly one of the things that made a bigger impact in RPG industries, ever.

I'm not saying computers are, or should be, the most influent thing in tabletop industry. But the influence is there. Talent trees, OGL, modularity, exception based design, keywords, even Feats are taken from computer games.

Yes, computers (and videogames) have different goals than RPG. However, fantasy novels, comic books or movies also have different goals than RPG, and that does not mean you cant take inspiration from them.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Again, i am not commenting on or even disputing the others, but I really dont see that modularity (as it appears in rpgs) is a direct influence of computer programming. Open Game Content I will absolutely grant you. Really modularity is about optional rules and customization.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yes, computers (and videogames) have different goals than RPG. However, fantasy novels, comic books or movies also have different goals than RPG, and that does not mean you cant take inspiration from them.

i am not saying we can't or should not take inspiration from them (find inspiration where you can get it but understand that medium matters). I am saying I disagree strongly with the idea floating around (and not suggesting you are advancing it) that rpgs are somehow behind or inferior because they are failing to take lessons from video game design and should be emulating them more. When i play online rpgs or video game rpgs my reaction is almost always dissapointment that they fail to produce a table top like experience. I think video game elements should be brought into rpgs with extreme caution for that reason...because i to me the table top medium produces a superior rpg experience to the video game medium. If anything video games have a lot to learn from table top rpgs.

 

[Warbringer]

Not sure what the last gazillon posts has to do with the original premise, which was absurd to start with back ...

"You can't necessarily go back"... Depends if that is a statement refuting logical necessity of is ole hedging bets in an incoherent statement.

To carry on flogging the dead horse, of course you can go back: a system design that reflected the available resources of a previous time can change for multiple reasons, including the reversion of the economic benefit of the associiated mechanic to the rule.

Obvious examples are oil prices on mpg efficiency, trade tariffs on certain products leading to substitution effect, changes in code mechanics for modular to heuristic modular and back... Add to that designers f$&? Up .... Ask any war hammer fan about the latter...

But what really gets my goat is the premise that 4ed is implied in the premise to be superior and whole handily presented in all counter arguments " it's better because it's newer" ...

So to the premise ... You can go back .... We are going back to the "ev" in hybrids, we are going back to glass milk bottles, we are going back to organic produce, we are going back to nuclear technology ( god help us) ... Weare going back to family groups cohabiting generationally ...

Ok .. Fuming off

 

[Hussar]

Warbringer - I'm going to ignore all the political stuff you put up there, cos it's pretty close to violating site rules. But, I think you are ignoring a few things.

Take the OGL discussion. It's been said over and over again that the genie is out of the bottle and we cannot go back. Any closed D&D system will fail and proponents point to 4e as a prime example. Thus, any new version of D&D will need to have some sort of open content clause, probably somewhere between the wide openness of the OGL and the rather toxic GSL.

There's a perfect example of why you "can't go back". If WOTC wanted, it could try to go back to the old TSR days of 100% closed content and actively shutting down any online material. It would be a suicidal business decision. And, hey, I'm not a big proponent of the OGL, but, even I'll admit that you cannot ever have a completely closed D&D anymore and expect to succeed.

Mechanically, we could try to go back to the 1e days where the DM was intended to hold sway over all the rules and the players should be largely ignorant of most of the mechanical resolution systems. Put all the resolution systems back in the DMG and put a big "Keep OUT" sign to players on the DMG.

Again, not going to happen. It would be foolish to even try. For one thing, you are arbitrarily limiting the number of DM's out there - since players should never become DM's. It's a very, very bad business decision and it didn't work even when it was tried.

So, no, you can't go back. At least, there are lots of things you can't go back on.

 

[pemerton]

Whenever you have more than one way to solve a problem, you are going to have a ranking of solutions, and one of those is the best one.

<snip>

The only way to avoid that, is making a game where choices don't matter (pure random games) or making a game with so little popularity nobody cares about it high enough to study it's math and find a minmaxing.

I think Jonhnny3D3D may be thinking of RPGs in which one or two of the following is true: (i) what counts as a viable "solution" to any given problem is itself up for grabs, and to be worked out in part via the participants in the course of actually playing the game; (ii) the range of options, in terms of mechanics and associated player input and GM adjudication, is sufficiently varied (and subject to sophisticated feedback mechanisms coming out of the products of play itself) that calculating an optimum is not practically (or even, perhaps, theoretically) feasible.

D&D combat looks like a domain in which calculated optimisation might be possible. But once you allow for the impact of 4 other players at the table, plus the various story elements their PCs bring into play, calculability decreases: for example, having a PC who is strong at research may create opportunities, in play, to acquire additional information that permits combat encounters to be tackled with information-based advantages (about enemey tactics or vulnerabilities, for example); or having a PC who is notorious for keeping to oaths sworn may create the opportunity to negotiate non-fatal conclusions to fights, which in turn open up the viability of a range of PC builds that may not be viable in circumstances of different party composition.

This is not about randomness. It is about the complexity and highly choice-dependant character of the choice situation.

An example I can think of during my time playing a 4E campaign was disarming a trap during an encounter. My choices were to either engage in a skill challenge to disarm the trap or to simply use my powers and destroy the trap. Because the numbers (damage in this case) my PC was capable of generating were so high compared to everything else the game world was built upon, "just smash it" was very often the best answer.

I hope we can all agree that this is obviously bad design. (I personally think the whole "disarm via skill challenge during combat" thing for traps was a bit half-baked, beyond the reason you give.)

It is my belief that having a game in which a wider variety of solutions are acceptable as legitimate ways to solve a problem makes it more difficult to have a set number of builds which are viewed as 'right.'

As the first part of this post hopefully indicates, I agree. (Although I personally haven't found 4e D&D to have the problem you identify: for example, the player of the ranger-cleric in my game just recently retrained Stealth into Diplomacy so that his PC could play a bigger role in social encounters.)

You can push it even harder with a game like (say) HeroWars/Quest. Mathematically, PCs are virtually identical. Where they differ is in their descriptors, and this matters to the sort of fiction they can meaningfully engage with, and will in turn generate via play.

On another thread, I saw a complaint that the Artisan background (from the playtest) is not as viable as the Bounty Hunter background. My response to this is: if you are going to have a game with backgrounds, then the player who chooses for his/her PC to be an Artisan knows what s/he is getting into, and should be prepared, in play, to make being an artisan matter. I have GMed for such a player in a previous Rolemaster game: the player did find ways to make it matter that his PC was, as well as being a formidable warrior, a skilled armourer and weaponsmith.

Some people have trouble rationalizing this in game fiction terms, which is understandable. How does your fighter forget how to run around and whirlwind attack, while conveniently becoming a world champion wrestler, while you guys are resting in town? It's a mystery!

I think that there is some room for this kind of thing, though, with magical and magic-like characters, because you get to make up the rules.

Well, the Vancian wizard with the big spell book is the utlimate "retrainer" - every day I have a new suite of abilities!

But retraining for martial PCs seems fine to me provided that it is understood in the right way - as metagame tweaks, or highlighting formerly-negelected aspects of the PC, rather than as a change in the PC from the ingame perspective.

 

[Argyle King]

I think Jonhnny3D3D may be thinking of RPGs in which one or two of the following is true: (i) what counts as a viable "solution" to any given problem is itself up for grabs, and to be worked out in part via the participants in the course of actually playing the game; (ii) the range of options, in terms of mechanics and associated player input and GM adjudication, is sufficiently varied (and subject to sophisticated feedback mechanisms coming out of the products of play itself) that calculating an optimum is not practically (or even, perhaps, theoretically) feasible.

D&D combat looks like a domain in which calculated optimisation might be possible. But once you allow for the impact of 4 other players at the table, plus the various story elements their PCs bring into play, calculability decreases: for example, having a PC who is strong at research may create opportunities, in play, to acquire additional information that permits combat encounters to be tackled with information-based advantages (about enemey tactics or vulnerabilities, for example); or having a PC who is notorious for keeping to oaths sworn may create the opportunity to negotiate non-fatal conclusions to fights, which in turn open up the viability of a range of PC builds that may not be viable in circumstances of different party composition.

This is not about randomness. It is about the complexity and highly choice-dependant character of the choice situation.

I hope we can all agree that this is obviously bad design. (I personally think the whole "disarm via skill challenge during combat" thing for traps was a bit half-baked, beyond the reason you give.)

As the first part of this post hopefully indicates, I agree. (Although I personally haven't found 4e D&D to have the problem you identify: for example, the player of the ranger-cleric in my game just recently retrained Stealth into Diplomacy so that his PC could play a bigger role in social encounters.)

You can push it even harder with a game like (say) HeroWars/Quest. Mathematically, PCs are virtually identical. Where they differ is in their descriptors, and this matters to the sort of fiction they can meaningfully engage with, and will in turn generate via play.

On another thread, I saw a complaint that the Artisan background (from the playtest) is not as viable as the Bounty Hunter background. My response to this is: if you are going to have a game with backgrounds, then the player who chooses for his/her PC to be an Artisan knows what s/he is getting into, and should be prepared, in play, to make being an artisan matter. I have GMed for such a player in a previous Rolemaster game: the player did find ways to make it matter that his PC was, as well as being a formidable warrior, a skilled armourer and weaponsmith.

Well, the Vancian wizard with the big spell book is the utlimate "retrainer" - every day I have a new suite of abilities!

But retraining for martial PCs seems fine to me provided that it is understood in the right way - as metagame tweaks, or highlighting formerly-negelected aspects of the PC, rather than as a change in the PC from the ingame perspective.

I feel that you understand pretty well what I was trying to say.

From my end, I agree with a lot of what you say about gameplay. From how you describe your manner of running a game, I also feel I can agree with a lot of how you view playing. Though, it was within some of your descriptions that something I was trying to touch upon was brought up.

You had described using diplomacy and research skills. That is something I feel is good; it's a style of game I'd like. Unfortunately, my experience with the current iteration of D&D has been that the PCs are so powerful compared to everything around them that players start to not care about things like diplomacy and research. Usually, in games I've been in, somebody will make a token roll. Then, if it fails, they decide to just cut through the problem. The monsters, npcs, and other things of the world weren't taken seriously enough by the players to really bother putting resources into non-combat things.

From the DM side of the table, I did learn ways to discourage that. However, I felt that -when first learning the game- a style of play was portrayed which was different from how the game actually played out. Now, at the tail end of 4E's life cycle, I would feel pretty confident finding ways to deal with that, and I do feel I've run successful games. Though, when I was a new 4E DM, I was consistently frustrated by the results of the game.

What I was trying to say earlier (and something I think you clearly understood) was that -I feel- a game with more aspects that are put on even footing promotes characters who have skill in more than one area of the game. There is less often one way of building a character which trumps the other ways in effectiveness. In a game where I can't rely on brute force to smash through everything, the PC who is focused on diplomacy and research becomes -IMO- a more valuable member of the team.

I believe that is a good thing not only because it allows for a wider variety of characters to be viable, but also -and more importantly- because it allows a wider variety of player types to engage the game in a manner which evokes fun for them without feeling subpar to the rest of the table.

 

[triqui]

I think Jonhnny3D3D may be thinking of RPGs in which one or two of the following is true: (i) what counts as a viable "solution" to any given problem is itself up for grabs, and to be worked out in part via the participants in the course of actually playing the game; (ii) the range of options, in terms of mechanics and associated player input and GM adjudication, is sufficiently varied (and subject to sophisticated feedback mechanisms coming out of the products of play itself) that calculating an optimum is not practically (or even, perhaps, theoretically) feasible.

D&D combat looks like a domain in which calculated optimisation might be possible. But once you allow for the impact of 4 other players at the table, plus the various story elements their PCs bring into play, calculability decreases: for example, having a PC who is strong at research may create opportunities, in play, to acquire additional information that permits combat encounters to be tackled with information-based advantages (about enemey tactics or vulnerabilities, for example); or having a PC who is notorious for keeping to oaths sworn may create the opportunity to negotiate non-fatal conclusions to fights, which in turn open up the viability of a range of PC builds that may not be viable in circumstances of different party composition.

And, once again, we are mixing the terms "optimizated" and "combat optimizated". Sure, researching is part of the game, and acquiring aditional info might be as important, or even more, than combat prowess. But you can optimize that too. Maybe in a given RPG system, building a Half elf bard-ranger hybrid, multiclassed inquisitor, with detective background and spy theme, high int and charisma, skill mastery in perception and focus on gather info allow him to automatically sucess the game maximum DC in a given investigation, while a half orc barbarian-necromancer with weightlifter background and archer theme isn't as good at it.

I gave a link a couple post ago with a minmaxed build that allow to roll high enough to make a hostile creature frindly, needing 2+ in a d20, being able to reroll. That char sucks at combat, but is optimized for social stuff.

 

[Argyle King]

And, once again, we are mixing the terms "optimizated" and "combat optimizated". Sure, researching is part of the game, and acquiring aditional info might be as important, or even more, than combat prowess. But you can optimize that too. Maybe in a given RPG system, building a Half elf bard-ranger hybrid, multiclassed inquisitor, with detective background and spy theme, high int and charisma, skill mastery in perception and focus on gather info allow him to automatically sucess the game maximum DC in a given investigation, while a half orc barbarian-necromancer with weightlifter background and archer theme isn't as good at it.

I gave a link a couple post ago with a minmaxed build that allow to roll high enough to make a hostile creature frindly, needing 2+ in a d20, being able to reroll. That char sucks at combat, but is optimized for social stuff.

I will again not dispute that optimizing other things are possible. However, what I'm saying is that when one particular solution -combat in this case- is so overwhelmingly good compared to other solutions that the guy who optimizes combat is better than even the most optimized guy in another area because hacking through problems instead of bothering with those other options is a viable solution; not only that, it's sometimes the better solution.

I will again point to the example I used of trying to disarm a trap during combat. Even the most optimized skill monkey has to roll several times -possibly meaning the party is a man down for several rounds. In contrast, the optimized combat monster can in some cases use one action and simply smash the trap. On top of that, he's still good at fighting. He just accomplished the job of the skill monkey faster and more efficiently while not needing to sacrifice combat ability.

I stand by my belief that a game built in such a way to support multiple approaches and put them on a level playing field encourages a wider variety of character types. On a personal level, I also feel it makes for a more interesting game. I believe a game which has a wider variety of 'right' answers when it comes to character creation is a better game.