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

[Ahnehnois]

To expand on my point. If I do the following:

• No time limits on adventures.
• Players decide pacing of adventures
• Players are free to choose any option they qualify for.
• High level play

my game is going to go kerblooie. It's going to be Angel Summoner and BMX bandit. The casters are going to have an absolute field day and the non-casters are going to be riding the pines. Yet, the style I just outlined there is very, very common. Sandbox play is predicated on the first three options. And none of this is because the players or DM are being jerks. It's a consequence of the mechanics.

There are other possibilities besides that outcome, and there are other possibilities for what might cause it other than people being jerks. I do all of those thing, even epic level play, and have had perfectly good experiences with no caster imbalance to speak of. So have plenty of extant players of 3e, PF, its derivatives, and the earlier editions of D&D that have essentially the same mechanics (but aren't OGL and thus don't face the same level of online flaming).

The problems you're talking about aren't a natural consequence of the mechanics and aren't a universal or even typical experience; thus using mechanics to fix them seems rather inappropriate (and in any case could have been done much better without imposing the kind of limitations that were created for 4e).

 

[Hussar]

Hang on, I'm a bit confused. Earlier in this thread (or perhaps another one, I'm having a bit of trouble keeping them straight) you talked about how you play low level D&D, don't play earlier editions, your players don't play core casters and don't use item creation feats.

Now you're saying that none of that is right, that you do, in fact, play high level campaigns with core casters and item creation feats.

Yet you still suffer no problems. Care to share how that is achieved? Since the rest of us here are having considerable problems achieving what you apparently have.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Hang on, I'm a bit confused. Earlier in this thread (or perhaps another one, I'm having a bit of trouble keeping them straight) you talked about how you play low level D&D,

Lately. I've been playing 3e since it came out. I have run several high level and a couple of epic games. I haven't done as much of that lately (though my current party is at 10th), mainly because scheduling doesn't allow for campaigns of that length any more.

don't play earlier editions,

Well, I played 2e, but I don't feel the need to try OD&D.

your players don't play core casters

I don't recall having said that (though feel free to find some quotes; there's probably a misunderstanding there). My players prefer martial characters, but I've had enough over the years to have had all kinds; and druid is probably one of the most played. Even wizards (which are the class I said they don't like due to the bookkeeping) have been played a few times.

There's also all the NPCs that I've run; balance isn't just about player characters.

and don't use item creation feats.

True, but some of my campaigns did allow the opportunity and they still didn't do it. In any case, that's pretty typical. I would not call item creation an assumed part of the 3e play experience (nor would I call most applications of it unbalancing).

Now you're saying that none of that is right, that you do, in fact, play high level campaigns with core casters and item creation feats.

I think where you're confused is between when I'm talking about my typical experiences playing 3e since 4e came out, and the entire breadth of my 3e experience (which has a lot more of those things).

Yet you still suffer no problems.

I've suffered some problems, just not those problems.

The main issues I have with 3e are its lack of simulatory depth (my players are quick to call BS on things that don't make sense), limitations on what character you can create using the class system, confusing math (especially multiclassing), confusing and limited basic combat options, and dependency on magic items.

Plausibility is definitely the #1 issue. And inflexible character creation is definitely #2 .

Care to share how that is achieved? Since the rest of us here are having considerable problems achieving what you apparently have.

Given that the few overpowered characters we have had have been more fighters than casters I find it hard to address this.

The overpowered half-ogre barbarian I had resolved itself naturally. The game-breaking paladins I've experienced have been solved by banning paladins. The overpowered shifter I played has been solved by learning and interpreting the rules better (those were early days). The closest thing I ever had to an overpowered core caster was a cleric with a dubious prestige class from some online source that gave him a number of arcane spells and sanctuary with a scaling DC, but even that wasn't game-breaking. I also had an early psion that was rather unbalanced, but that was because I made some bad rulings allowing him to convert spells to powers and the player neglected to note the existence of the metacap.

My last campaign was a druid, a wizard, and a ranger, and there were no balance problems there.

My own objections to 3e have been addressed by a combination of later 3.X iteration (largely PF & TB) rules (combat maneuvers and combat exploits and combat reactions, as well as many other smaller things), a liberal application of Unearthed Arcana (vp/wp and spell points fix a lot of things), and plenty of houserules and interpretations drawn from combining the above to simplify multiclassing math and create more interesting tactical options. The magic item thing I just live with.

I'd be quite happy if a system gave me simpler and easier ways to do this (which 5e supposedly will be able to but I haven't seen it yet).

 

[Nytmare]

Even if I tried to imagine the scene from an in-character viewpoint, there was no logic behind why I would want to escape if both myself and my adventuring companions were safer with me being chewed on.

I just wanted to point out that an in-character viewpoint might have been more along the lines of "OH MY GOD OH MY GOD OH MY GOD, THIS CROCODILE IS GOING TO FREAKING EAT ME!!!" and less, "Now that I have a moment to myself, and I can finally take some time to look at these helpful spreadsheets, I feel that I can safely say that both I and my friends are safer while I'm being violently masticated by this vile reptile."

 

[billd91]

To expand on my point. If I do the following:

• No time limits on adventures.
• Players decide pacing of adventures
• Players are free to choose any option they qualify for.
• High level play

my game is going to go kerblooie. It's going to be Angel Summoner and BMX bandit. The casters are going to have an absolute field day and the non-casters are going to be riding the pines. Yet, the style I just outlined there is very, very common. Sandbox play is predicated on the first three options. And none of this is because the players or DM are being jerks. It's a consequence of the mechanics.

I have to agree with Ahnehnois. Those factors are not sufficient to make the game go kablooie or BMX Bandit/Angel Summoner. That sort of result comes out because of the attitude of the players and how they use a full palette of options in front of them. They don't need to redline the system simply because the option is there. Nothing in the mechanics forces a player to optimize/non-optimize.

 

[Nytmare]

Nothing in the mechanics forces a player to optimize/non-optimize.

Nothing in the mechanics makes an individual player optimize, but you kinda have to look at the entire playerbase as a whole.

A designer has control over the mechanics, not the people who are going to play.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Are you sure about that? The prospects of success in a single roll, with 2 dice, 30% success rate per die, and 2 successes needed, are 9%. Whereas with 4 dice, it is about a 35% chance of sucess in one check.

I'm not sure how WoD handles retries, but the time taken is almost certainly going to more than double when you drop from 4 to 2 dice, given that the prospects of success in a single check are reduced by three-quarters.

Huh? That's not true at all. It's a very complex dice pool system - the increments aren't linear, for a start.

All this is true.

In my experience there are precisely two advantages to a dice pool system.

1: It's very visceral. And rolling ten dice at once is just fun.

2: It is very easy to reward the players by adding another dice or two.

I know two (well, three if we count Dogs in the Vineyard which isn't quite an orthodox dice pool) systems that transcend the normal limits of the dice pool and make something really good out of them.

The first is Leverage. Under the Leverage rules, you're just rolling against a target number with your two highest dice. But every 1 you roll allows the Fixer (DM) to add a complication - or every 1 the Fixer rolls adds an opportunity. Don't make your plans too complicated...

The second is WFRP 3e. Which is an out and out yes and/yes but system. There are two sets of symbols on the dice - one representing successes and failures, and one representing lucky and unlucky. And the players get to tweak their dice pools, whether using conservative or reckless dice - and three successes is better than one. While the DM gets to throw bane and boon dice (little black and white 6 siders with 3 blank faces) at them. It just leads to much more evocative descriptions.

Other than that, dice pools mostly obfuscate.

 

[Shadeydm]

To expand on my point. If I do the following:

• No time limits on adventures.
• Players decide pacing of adventures
• Players are free to choose any option they qualify for.
• High level play

Sandbox play is predicated on the first three options. It's a consequence of the mechanics.

As a devouted Sanbox style DM this is a total fallacy.
1. Sandbox style DMing places no such strictures on adventures having time limits this is totally on you.
2. Sandbox style dictates players choose which adventures to pursue not what the pacing is beyond the players walking away from it.
3.Options being available are all about what you and your group agreed upon prior to the start of the campaign and not in any way tied to sandbox style play.

Nothing in your list really has anything to do with sandbox style play specifically at least not in any way that I've ever heard of.

 

[Tony Vargas]

While people did have contradictory claims about 4e (and 3.X, etc.), I disagree with these terms being necessarily contradictory. They could be, mind you, but I don't think they necessarily are.

And we're back to debating terminology.

Y'know, this discussion does make me think that, as improbably ambitious as the 5e something-for-everybody mandate sounds, it might not be as foolish as all that. If they're serious about it and stick to looking for 'good' bits of each ed, rather than trying vainly to address the loudest and most recent criticisms, they might at least avoid some of the many red herrings and overblown non-issues that get bandied about.

Nothing in the mechanics makes an individual player optimize, but you kinda have to look at the entire playerbase as a whole.

A designer has control over the mechanics, not the people who are going to play.

Though this is not such an example, this does remind me of another phenomenon of edition-war contradiction.

You have a complaint made about one edition that is as or more true of the edition being championed, yet the same complaint is denied on the same grounds when that's pointed out.

The instance you reminded me of is the idea that systems 'force' players to do something. Obviously, as you point out, they don't. But, if a system rewards something someone doesn't like, they'll say that it 'forces' it. Then, they'll defend their own system over-rewarding something by saying that a system /can't/ force anything.

 

[Tony Vargas]

On the notion of contradiction.

Here's how I see it. Not so much that possibly contradictory criticisms were being made of 4e and WOTC (there certainly were, but that's not really my beef), but rather that criticisms are made that are contradictory to what people claim that they want.

Sure, there's some of that, too. No shortage of tortured logic on the internet.

When you see that, you have to wonder if the issue is with communication or introspection. Is it a matter of not knowing what you want, not articulating what you want, or not wanting to admit what you want.

In your example, for instance, the hypothetical speaker may want a game that's familiar and not be concerned about balance or play styles, or he may want the specific play style in question, or he may offer the specific play style in question as a balancing mechanism with the expectation that he'll be able to find games that use different styles and avail himself of the resulting imbalance.