D&D 5E D&DN going down the wrong path for everyone.

[AbdulAlhazred]

I think you have to look at the role 2e played. It wasn't attempting to rewrite AD&D from the ground up. Rather, it was compiling a lot of the ideas that had appeared in print in a variety of other sources into the core. If that's the goal, who needs or wants bold changes in design?

A lot of us did. I mean I started playing OD&D in 1975. By the time it got to 1989 and the 2e core books were hitting the shelves we had had a LOT of D&D mileage on us, and the game was starting to really feel dated. While it was hard at that time to totally articulate the ways in which 2e fell short in the kind of way we can talk about agendas and types of players and meta-game constructs it was quite clear on the day 2e came out that it was far behind other systems, and was RAPIDLY eclipsed by what followed it. Ironically 2e talked the language, you could SEE that Jeff Grubb wanted to give us a game where narrative was at the heart of it, he either just lacked the knowledge of the tools to use to do that, or was handcuffed to a design that couldn't accomplish it.

I mean basically, we played 2e for several years, it was fun, but it wasn't until 2008 and I read the 4e PHB1 and DMG1 before I saw the game that did what Jeff Grubb talked about doing all those years earlier. And sure enough, people felt it. 2e wasn't a failure, at least not right away, but it was never as popular as 1e in this own time. You could see it, the release of 2e was sort of the beginning of the end, evolve or die. TSR decided to die. The past had too strong a hold on them and eventually the audience grew bored, went in search of something new.

 

[Ratskinner]

A lot of us did. I mean I started playing OD&D in 1975. By the time it got to 1989 and the 2e core books were hitting the shelves we had had a LOT of D&D mileage on us, and the game was starting to really feel dated. While it was hard at that time to totally articulate the ways in which 2e fell short in the kind of way we can talk about agendas and types of players and meta-game constructs it was quite clear on the day 2e came out that it was far behind other systems, and was RAPIDLY eclipsed by what followed it. Ironically 2e talked the language, you could SEE that Jeff Grubb wanted to give us a game where narrative was at the heart of it, he either just lacked the knowledge of the tools to use to do that, or was handcuffed to a design that couldn't accomplish it.

enh? Rapidly ecclipsed? You'll need to refresh my memory. I don't recall anything published I'd call narrative until....jeez, maybe not 'til after 2000. There was a weird little super-hero game called Panels, which was apparently around in 1999. (It was so simple it was basically somebody's geocities page. Doesn't exist now, AFAICT.) Panels was the first system I ever saw that really made me take notice of its narrative possibilities.

I do remember a whole lotta systems in the 90's that did the same thing 2e did...talked all about story, but did nothing to support it. Heck, WW/WoD talked about it lot (even named their system "Storyteller"), but still didn't have anything significant mechanically. So much so that some credit them with "turning off" a lot of would-be narrative gamers. AFAICT, the 90's was the age of "resolution experimentation". Everybody seemed to think that they could fix everything if they just got the game's resolution system right...'cause somehow the other 999 ways to roll dice were missing something.

I agree about 2e's intentions, though. You could see Grubb wanted to make something with the story at the heart, but the tools weren't there. IMO, 2e's abject failure in this regard is what spawned the Forge and its thinking, but it took about a decade before anybody actually made much progress figuring out how to do narrative mechanics.

I mean basically, we played 2e for several years, it was fun, but it wasn't until 2008 and I read the 4e PHB1 and DMG1 before I saw the game that did what Jeff Grubb talked about doing all those years earlier. And sure enough, people felt it. 2e wasn't a failure, at least not right away, but it was never as popular as 1e in this own time. You could see it, the release of 2e was sort of the beginning of the end, evolve or die. TSR decided to die. The past had too strong a hold on them and eventually the audience grew bored, went in search of something new.

That's certainly an interesting take on TSR's problems. Obviously they had some, but that's a unique interpretation of what they were. I can't say too much about 1e's peak popularity, but I would guess more people were playing 2e at its peak, just from the growth of the hobby as a whole. Certainly in the places I was gaming 1e was all but replaced, if only because of a lack of books. Plenty of people I knew played material from both editions side by side, though, so that's hard to judge. (Whaddya call a game where the DM is using a BECMI adventure with a 1e MM and most of the players are using 2e characters, but one guy has a 1e Barbarian?)

 

[Ratskinner]

Yes, I did. Given the disdain for D&D as a game that was only good at dungeon crawling widely expressed in non-D&D circles then and now, the fact that 2e AD&D was rather good at showing a wider range of play was probably the best thing about it. That was something I thought TSR tried to emphasisse quite strongly, frankly. So when WotC came in with "Back to the Dungeon!" as if this was some great rallying dry, I wasn't the only person to be annoyed by it.

Interesting. I just took at as being equivalent to "Back to D&D" since most of the gamers I knew had abandoned D&D by '96 or so and system experimentation was running rampant.

Of course, I didn't really see much "Back to the Dungeon", anyway.

 

[Ratskinner]

That's a nice thought, but I would bet the vast majority of new players come in to the game through friends, not by picking up a beginners boxed set or a player's handbook and starting from scratch. New players come in through established, successful products, not through marketing.

To get the new players, you gotta have the old.

I know this is a popular thought, but at least my experiences as a high-school teacher would argue otherwise. Every year, I'd see a group or two of kids pick up the books and try it out. No older mentor, they'd just see it and wanted to give it a go. I'd see the other kind, as well, with an older brother (usually) getting them into it, but they'd usually be singular. I'd be curious to hear other teachers' observations (if they have any.)

Of course, there's no telling how many of those kids stayed with gaming for any amount of time. Recent columns suggest that WotC's data indicates that a lot of kids try the game, but don't stay with it. IIRC, they seem to believe that the level of complexity in the two recent editions represented a barrier to entry that they wanted to lower. Thus the emphasis on making the Basic game far more simple/casual while maintaining compatibility with the Standard rules.

 

[pemerton]

I don't recall anything published I'd call narrative until....jeez, maybe not 'til after 2000. There was a weird little super-hero game called Panels, which was apparently around in 1999. (It was so simple it was basically somebody's geocities page. Doesn't exist now, AFAICT.)

Over the Edge is 1992. It's clearly trying for something more narrativist, and it has free descriptor PC building, and a focus on scene-framing in scenario design and adjudication.

Maelstrom Storytelling is 1996, from memory, and it has free descriptor building, and scene-based conflict resolution with metagame resources being managed to introduce the (modest) tactical elements (some general resemblances here to HW/Q extended contests or 4e skill challenges).

OtE arguably is a little bit still in the Storyteller mould. Maelstrom definitely is not - it's a full-fledged narrativist system.

 

[Li Shenron]

My problem with both 3E and 4E is that combat takes too damn long. (snip)

I think there is a huge issue here. People want combat to be interesting but they also want it to be short.

Of course there is a difference between "short" in the sense of having only a few rounds, and "short" in the sense that each round is quick to resolve, and I believe the majority wants the second, not the first, or not?

But in order to make combat interesting, it needs to vary. If every combats feel the same, they are less interesting. If every rounds in one combat are identical (e.g. HP grinding with fighter always swinging his sword and wizard always shooting her damage-dealing spells), then combat is less interesting. Monsters variety can make combat more interesting, but this is not the only way, and probably it is not enough... ok, you can have 100 different monsters' special abilities to scare your players with, but if every single time the PC are nevertheless resolving combat by only swinging swords and casting damage spells, combat may still not be interesting enough.

Probably the strongest way to make combat more interesting from the PCs' actions point of view, is therefore to allow a variety of possible actions (also spells) with very different outcomes than just scratching HP away from the monsters. However this increases the complexity (also is harder to design) and that means resolving a round will inevitably take longer.

It's not the only way to make combat more interesting, for example you can use terrain features and environmental circumstances, however this is more a DM's responsibility. Game design can make a difference, but if the DM never thinks about staging an encounter on the crumbling edge of a cliff, on a storm-tossed ship, or knee-deep in mud, then game design can't force this kind of variety on someone's game.

(BTW, in our 5e playtesting games, combats have been quite interesting but they also have been extremely short, typically 2 rounds. This is inconclusive however, because the damage output of the PC at this time in the playtest is clearly very large compared to the average HP of the monsters.)

 

[delericho]

Of course there is a difference between "short" in the sense of having only a few rounds, and "short" in the sense that each round is quick to resolve, and I believe the majority wants the second, not the first, or not?

Not*. Both are required.

The last session I ran of 4e, the one that finally convinced me it was not the system for me, was the first session of what was supposed to be a run-through of "Tomb of Horrors". As I read it, that first battle in the book was supposed to be a quick scene-setting encounter to establish the feeling that "something isn't right here".

It took in excess of 2.5 hours, out of a 3-hour session.

Faced with that, I concluded that it simply was not possible for me to tell a story I would be interested in telling - with combat lasting that long, the pace would inevitably be glacial.

Spin forward a couple of years, and I'm running what has been, until recently, one of the most enjoyable campaigns I've ever run. The system is 3.5e.

However, we've now reached the low-teen levels. And as we worked through the top end of the "sweet spot", and especially now we've moved into high-level play, I'm seeing much the same problem. With four of five PCs being casters (and the fifth making extensive use of Use Magic Device), a combat round can take a long time to get through.

But the upshot is the same - a single combat, no matter how I optimise it, is likely to take more than half of a game session. And that's killing the pacing.

At length, my preference of the two would be to have slightly more rounds and slightly shorter rounds (things like 3e's dispel magic are pretty awful). But that pales into irrelevance when compared with a need to get through a meaningful combat quickly. Against level-appropriate foes, and excluding end-boss type fights, no combat should run more than 20 mins (unless the group consciously choose otherwise).

* IMO, of course. YMMV.

 

[Li Shenron]

Not*. Both are required.

...

At length, my preference of the two would be to have slightly more rounds and slightly shorter rounds (things like 3e's dispel magic are pretty awful). But that pales into irrelevance when compared with a need to get through a meaningful combat quickly.

That sounds like what I meant.... You don't want combat to have too few rounds, you want each rounds to be reasonably quick. Too few rounds (e.g. 3 or less) for every combat (of course nothing wrong with an occasional combat of 1-2 rounds) means either combat is too easy or combat is too swingy, which most players woudln't like.

That's what I meant, that the majority of gamers wouldn't prefer reducing the number of rounds* as the way to shorten how long it takes to run a combat encounter, they would prefer shortening how long it takes to resolve each turn/round.

*actually maybe you had in mind the typical number of rounds in 4e, so this could be why you say that also reducing that number is required? Since I don't play 4e, I had in mind the typical 4-5 rounds of 3e, and that's quite a good length for me, I wouldn't want to reduce that further

As you say, spellcasters make each round longer to resolve, both because of the amount of possible choices they have to sort through before taking action, and because resolving a spell (i.e. adjudicating the results) often takes longer than resolving an attack roll.

Both these issues can be addressed by design, for example the second is addressed by generally reducing the number of rolls for each spell (in 3e we could occasionally have an attack roll, a ST, a check vs SR, and damage/effect rolls all for one spell) and designing simpler spells.

The first (too many choices every round) can be improved by lowering the amount of known spells or spells per day. But at the same time 5e is going to the other direction with cantrips at will and retaining prepared spells.

 

[delericho]

That's what I meant, that the majority of gamers wouldn't prefer reducing the number of rounds* as the way to shorten how long it takes to run a combat encounter, they would prefer shortening how long it takes to resolve each turn/round.

*actually maybe you had in mind the typical number of rounds in 4e, so this could be why you say that also reducing that number is required?

Yes. My experience has been that 4e rounds are considerably shorter than the 3e equivalents (except at 3e's lowest levels), but that a 4e combat has many more rounds than the 3e equivalent.

Either way, the net effect was that combats take too long.

As you say, spellcasters make each round longer to resolve, both because of the amount of possible choices they have to sort through before taking action, and because resolving a spell (i.e. adjudicating the results) often takes longer than resolving an attack roll.

The issue we're having with high-level 3e is very definitely one of resolution, rather than of too many choices - we're pretty efficient about having people ready with their actions when their turn comes up. Of course, that's not universal.

 

[Aeolius]

I think there is a huge issue here. People want combat to be interesting but they also want it to be short

What happened to the idea that 5e would have "dials" of complexity? Personally, I would dial combat back down to the "init/to hit/damage" level, as I run my game online and the number of die rolls, numbers, and adjustments often gets in the way of the story. My games are intentionally combat-light because of this.