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

[Mournblade94]

I share this suspicion. Although, I'm not sure about "final". Things could change in unpredictable ways in 10-15 years that lead to D&D being brought out of retirement for an overhaul. Nonetheless, I've referred to D&DN as the "Farewell" edition.

Well I have seen the Rolling Stones Farewell tour which was before their last tour. I have also seen Ozzy's farewell tour twice...

in the span of 7 years.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

@AbdulAlhazred , I just read the Mearls interview that you linked to.

Here are the bits that were most interesting to me:

What we began noticing was a segregation in our audience. In doing some informal research, one thing kept coming up again and again—what people seemed to value most in tabletop RPGs, stuff like flexibility and unpredictability, had taken a back seat to the rules . . .

Second edition AD&D largely kept those rules in place but emphasized worlds and the DM’s power to use rules as he/she sees fit. In other words, while the rules remained complex in practice they were fairly simple. . .

My belief is that RPG creators have lost touch with what makes our games so interesting. In the rush to create new rules, we’ve lost sight of the fact that the rules aren’t the point of the game. The interaction around the table, the give and take between players and DMs, the randomness supplied by a half-dozen people and the vagaries of the dice, are what make D&D, and RPG play in general, interesting. . .

[E]arly on there was concern that fights were boring. They were over too quickly, with most battles over in two or three rounds of fighting. . .

What we found through the playtest process, though, was that people like quick fights. They like them a lot, it turns out. A battle is part of the game, a point of resolution in the grander scheme of things, not the entire point of the game.​

I can agree with a lot of this. I don't think that rules are the point of RPG play. They're a means to an end. Battles are part of the game, not the entire point of the game.

But there are at least three ways in which this deviates from my own line of thought.

First, I don't see 2nd-ed style GM authority as any sort of solution or hallmark of halcyon days. My own experience is that it tends to lead, pretty natural, to mediocre railroads. And I believe that the Forge has pretty much worked out, in theoretica/system terms, why this is: namely, if the GM has sole (or overwhelming) authority on the permisssible introduction of elements into the shared fiction, then as a matter of logic the players' judgements on what the fiction should contain will become (close to) irrelevant.

Second, at the action resolution end of things (not PC build) 4e is lighter touch than 3E (in my view, at least) and pretty flexible and unpredictable (via p 42, single-PC and multi-PC combos, etc). And player- rather than GM-driven in much of that flexibility and unpredictability.

Third, there is no conflict between combat and roleplaying. Good design can make combat a site of character development, plot development etc. I think 4e achieves this, at least for my purposes. I'm not persuaded that D&Dnext does - as Mearls says, it is subordinating combat to something more like task resolution than conflict resolution.

These are three ways, then, in which D&Dnext seems to be going the wrong way for me at least.

One other bit of the interview I'll call out, too, but only because it's so frustrating:

Vancian magic is from Jack Vance’s excellent Dying Earth novels. . . a wizard must carefully memorize a spell. Once cast, the spell vanished from memory and must be memorized once more in order to be used again. . .

t’s actually a pretty solid way to try to strike a balance between a wizard and a warrior in a game. A wizard can perform miracles, but within limits that force some interesting challenges in a game.​

In a system in which there is no mechanical regulation of the passage of time, per day memorisation is not a limit that forces interesting challenges.

4e recognised this by using the extended rest as a common anchor for a whole suite of universal refreshes, thereby leaving it to the individual group to change the pacing for extended rests, or to give GM or players control over the passage of time, or to handlball it to the mechanics via skill challenges etc. So however the game was approached, intraclass balance would remain intact, though the balance of the party vs external challenges might vary.

D&Dnext seems to require a single solution to this problem, because of its assymetric design, but not to include any such solution.

Yeah, I can pretty much agree with/see all of that. Personally my reactions were:

A) Mike confuses simplicity of play, simplicity of rules structure, and sheer quantity of material of all types. AD&D for example is MORE complex to play at heart, many of the things it does are confusing and arbitrary. Its rules structure is also heavily opaque. 3e does manage to achieve some simplification of rules structure, but in the other two measures is over the top. 4e I think missed the mark though in that eventually the large quantity of material demands that many options be available to each player, and given the low level of abstraction the game can operate at that kills a lot of the play simplicity built into the system. I can understand the desire to achieve simplicity in all of those three ways, but I have not yet seen where Mike grasps the relationships between them. DDN is not a simple game in play or in terms of rules structure at all.

B) Even in the context of AD&D 2 round fights are crap. Just because the game is not intended to focus overly on tactical combat doesn't mean that any possible tactical element should be scrapped completely out of the game. 2 round fights would suck rocks in hell. There's no way that would ever support any kind of cinematic action. At least this is the sort of thing that MAY be fixable after the fact if it isn't too extreme.

C) Well, beyond that I have little really to add to your comments. I agree, the fatal flaw with DDN's design as it stands now is that it is an entirely DM-authority centered game. I think it is vastly easier to go the other way. Players can generally cede their authority if the game is written with that possibility in mind (4e certainly can be played that way for instance) but it is much harder to establish player authority in a game which has no provisions for it. A group like mine, which are all really sharp people who've played dozens of different RPGs extensively together for 30+ years can do it, but I think it is a mistake to leave no room to foster that in DDN at all.

 

[Imaro]

I agree, but...

I've recently been interacting with players who don't want or like having large amounts of narrative authority. Confusing to me, but there it is. They actually resent the amount of involvement that a game like FATE or even 4e demands. I'm not sure what to do about that vis-a-vis game design. I mean, if a large number of players don't want narrative authority beyond "My guy does <x>" and are averse to authoring items outside their characters' decisions...it seems to me that that dumps all that narrative power into the DMs hands or lets the fiction flounder. Obviously I have no idea how much of the audience leans one way or the other on this axis, but I'm starting to get the impression that players who want more narrative control are a smaller minority than you and I might wish or hope.

Nice post. I remember awhile back, I and a couple other posters brought this up... this has been my experience for the most part as well. I honestly think some/many/most players want and enjoy being players not semi-DM's and thus enjoy the traditional divide in narrative power...all IMO of course.

 

[Kinak]

I honestly think some/many/most players want and enjoy being players not semi-DM's and thus enjoy the traditional divide in narrative power...all IMO of course.

This also matches my experience. My group largely wants to get into character for the sake making strategic and tactical decisions in character.

In theory that can work with player authorship, but my players strongly prefer to have a set "game board," if you will, that they can play off against.

Cheers!
Kinak

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I agree, but...

I've recently been interacting with players who don't want or like having large amounts of narrative authority. Confusing to me, but there it is. They actually resent the amount of involvement that a game like FATE or even 4e demands. I'm not sure what to do about that vis-a-vis game design. I mean, if a large number of players don't want narrative authority beyond "My guy does <x>" and are averse to authoring items outside their characters' decisions...it seems to me that that dumps all that narrative power into the DMs hands or lets the fiction flounder. Obviously I have no idea how much of the audience leans one way or the other on this axis, but I'm starting to get the impression that players who want more narrative control are a smaller minority than you and I might wish or hope.

Yeah, I'm not so sure about that... I think when you take people who've spent years playing classic D&D and drop FATE on them, yeah, they tend to be pretty lost. Give FATE or some simpler equivalent to some kids? They'll go crazy with that, they only need 5 minutes of coaching to get the idea. I have found that adults who haven't played RPGs before also find it quite natural.

I use a system called PACE, which is a very simple 5 page set of rules where you invent 2 attributes for your character (any 2 adjectives) and decide their relative importance, then you use a pool of tokens to bid for success/narrative control, applying your attributes when appropriate as a bonus. Failures acquire 'wounds' (disabilities of some sort, they can be plot complications like "the Queen is made at you, -2 to all attempts to get her to do what you want") and there is a deficit token spending mechanic that lets you raise the stakes. Anyway, it is quite simple and I can explain it in 2 minutes, all it requires to play is paper, pencil, and something to use as chits. A game can last 5 minutes or be a full campaign, though it is pretty clearly aimed at one-shots.

My point is, I think there's more scope and desire for narrative control than you think. Many players have had DM authority so beaten into them that they have a very hard time breaking out of that mindset. I had a long-time 3e player in a PACE game and she consistently tried to treat her attributes like they were 3e skills and like her tokens were some sort of character resource. She never really did quite 'get' the fact that she could just make up stuff, though I think after a couple sessions she was starting to get it. The guy that had only played a bit of 4e in the same group OTOH instantly understood the concept and jumped right in.

I think Mearls was simply saying that many people found that the WotC editions were slowing combat more than needed/wanted. While there may be no conflict between combat and roleplaying, anything dominating the session-time runs the risk of becoming the only site of character/plot development. Then there's folks like me, for whom all the X's and O's of 4e combat tend to drop us out of "story" mode and into "game" mode. I personally don't think that speedy combat in any way detracts from its ability to be a site of character/plot development.

I don't either, but 2 round fights can't generate any real tension, preclude even the most basic tactics, and impede the framing of cinematic scenes because what's the point of all the running around and using the scenery, etc. when clearly the trivial response is to just kill everything dead since it will clearly be A) quite easy, and B) it will clearly be able to do the same to you. I don't wish for long table-times for fights (though 30-60 minutes for an interesting fight is by no means a problem) BUT I do need the ability to set up encounters where there are different choices and goals and where the PCs have enough of a buffer that they can afford to try some cool stuff instead of "better kill this guy dead RIGHT NOW, I only have 2 rounds!" is the overriding logic.

Honestly, I thought the FIRST P/T packet of DDN was promising. Combat was relatively straightforward, I could run it on a grid and there was some tactical depth. It went pretty fast, but there were good decision-points, etc. Characters were pretty robust, you wouldn't be felled by any little thing, etc. It definitely lacked a few things and there were lots of rough edges, but it was a good start. Its just been downhill from there. The missing player empowering elements never appeared, characters have gotten weaker and weaker, the rules have gotten slower and more complicated but tactically WORSE, etc.

I mean, if you want a game where you stay in STORY mode, what would possibly be better than a FATE-like narrative agenda storytelling system? I know D&D is never going over to the dark side entirely, but 4e certainly demonstrated how you can walk a line between the two successfully. That sort of design can easily be re-worked in a lighter-weight form. So much promise but so little delivery!

 

[Xmarksthespot]

There's a key difference between 2 rounds of combat and combat where the winner is decided by the end of round 2. I believe the latter is what Mike meant.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

There's a key difference between 2 rounds of combat and combat where the winner is decided by the end of round 2. I believe the latter is what Mike meant.

Yeah, that isn't adequate. Look at a 4e combat for instance. Setting aside arguments about table time, etc, what you have is a fairly elegant little mini-story wrapped up in a simple package. You have some monsters, and some PCs. The monsters have a bunch of front-loaded powers (encounter, recharge) which they can quickly unleash, but not so much staying power and few recovery options. The PCs OTOH have just enough resilience to absorb the up front monster 'rush' and then a whole series of escalation options and recovery abilities. This wraps up in a typically 5 round fight that acts like a little play with 5 acts. In act 1 the PCs are 'introduced' to the monsters, they establish how to achieve their goals, the monsters create the challenge by unleashing their front-loaded attacks, then in round 2 the PCs try to recover, wrong-foot the monsters (establish control), and begin to achieve their basic objectives (IE probably at least one monster goes down, maybe more). In round three the action rises to a peak with the monsters probably unleashing anything else they have in reserve and putting maximum pressure on, the PCs will typically unleash any remaining escalation here to turn the tide. In round 4 the tide may be already turned, or it may decisively turn at this point, and round 5 is usually falling action, but in a big fight would be the final triumph (or defeat). Usually a fight that goes past round 5 has exceeded its sell-by date and become a slug-fest.

How would I be able to do that with a fight that is tactically over on round 2? That basically gives each player one decision point in the whole fight. 4e's fight dynamics will give you around 3 decision points, which is enough to try something, recover, and then make the winning move.

 

[pemerton]

I've recently been interacting with players who don't want or like having large amounts of narrative authority.

<snip>

if a large number of players don't want narrative authority beyond "My guy does <x>" and are averse to authoring items outside their characters' decisions...it seems to me that that dumps all that narrative power into the DMs hands or lets the fiction flounder.

<snip>

I'm starting to get the impression that players who want more narrative control are a smaller minority than you and I might wish or hope.

I remember [MENTION=386]LostSoul[/MENTION] posting something similar to this, last year (?) - that he was finding a lot of players don't want to have to make real choices in RPGing, but want the GM to make the choices for them.

It might well be true - I've certainly played with this sort of player, though I think the causation is a bit chicken/egg - by which I mean the desires perhaps can be the product of a certain GMing style, as much as the reason for it, and take them into a different style and they can enjoy exercising a bit of authority. (As I was typing this I see the AbdulAlhazred made a similar point in his post.)

(I have a pet theory that part of the popularity of baroque PC gen rules are that these are one domain where even AD&D 2nd ed conventions tend to permit players to exercise authority with comparatively little GM oversight or override.)

I think Mearls was simply saying that many people found that the WotC editions were slowing combat more than needed/wanted.

<snip>

I personally don't think that speedy combat in any way detracts from its ability to be a site of character/plot development.

It needn't in general, but I think may tend to if it moves away from conflict resolution towards something closer to task resolution - draw swords, roll init, deal some damage, goblins down and we move on. 4e combat is certainly on the lengthier side, (though not worse than RM, which is my personal starting point for all these issues!) but it's sheer size means it has plenty of room for evolution, reversals, dramatic moments, etc. My concern with Next's combat is that it looks a bit anaemic in that respect (and a move from anaemic to rich and dramatic combats was one consideration that led me from D&D to RM back in the day).

And again, as I've been typing, I see a couple of posters have made a similar point.

 

[Dausuul]

There are two kinds of fights in D&D. There's the kind of fight you have where you walk into a 10x10 room and an orc is guarding a chest, and there's the kind of fight you have where you walk into a gargantuan throne room in the Abyss and Orcus is guarding the artifact that will suck all life from the world. Or, to put it another way, there are minor skirmishes and there are big boss fights. And what most of us want out of each type of fight is very, very different.

For a minor skirmish, two rounds is plenty. A skirmish doesn't need internal decision points; the main decision point is simply, "Do we have this fight or not?" Once that decision is made, everybody chooses their opening-round tactics and things are decided in 10-15 minutes of play time. This is typical of BD&D, 1E, and 2E combats, and to some extent 3E as well.

For a big boss fight, two rounds is far too short. The fight should be an Event, with the kind of narrative structure AbdulAlhazred describes above. There need to be multiple decision points, unexpected reversals, and fresh challenges midway through. This is what well-executed 4E combats are like.

The problem is that an adventure really wants both types of fights, and no edition to date has done this very well. The old-school editions were superb at allowing players to battle their way through labyrinths full of lurking beasties, but when you got to the giant monster at the heart of the maze, the final battle often fell flat (unless the DM cheated shamelessly, which a lot of us did). Conversely, 4E could deliver some truly epic clashes, but the labyrinth full of beasties didn't work at all--you simply can't give every little skirmish the epic-clash treatment. "Keep on the Shadowfell" was a perfect example. It was a 4E adventure designed with a pre-4E mentality, and while it had some very memorable boss fights *cough*Irontooth*cough*, most of the module consisted of a brain-numbing slog through endless minor encounters.

My dream is that D&DN will find a way to deliver both. It's a pretty tall order, though.

 

[Nagol]

Yeah, I'm not so sure about that... I think when you take people who've spent years playing classic D&D and drop FATE on them, yeah, they tend to be pretty lost. Give FATE or some simpler equivalent to some kids? They'll go crazy with that, they only need 5 minutes of coaching to get the idea. I have found that adults who haven't played RPGs before also find it quite natural.

I use a system called PACE, which is a very simple 5 page set of rules where you invent 2 attributes for your character (any 2 adjectives) and decide their relative importance, then you use a pool of tokens to bid for success/narrative control, applying your attributes when appropriate as a bonus. Failures acquire 'wounds' (disabilities of some sort, they can be plot complications like "the Queen is made at you, -2 to all attempts to get her to do what you want") and there is a deficit token spending mechanic that lets you raise the stakes. Anyway, it is quite simple and I can explain it in 2 minutes, all it requires to play is paper, pencil, and something to use as chits. A game can last 5 minutes or be a full campaign, though it is pretty clearly aimed at one-shots.

My point is, I think there's more scope and desire for narrative control than you think. Many players have had DM authority so beaten into them that they have a very hard time breaking out of that mindset. I had a long-time 3e player in a PACE game and she consistently tried to treat her attributes like they were 3e skills and like her tokens were some sort of character resource. She never really did quite 'get' the fact that she could just make up stuff, though I think after a couple sessions she was starting to get it. The guy that had only played a bit of 4e in the same group OTOH instantly understood the concept and jumped right in.

I GM a lot of systems including the FATE spinoff Strands of Fate. In more "traditional" systems I include things like action/fate points and Whimsy Cards that extend some player narrative control to the moment and I try to draw the players into taking an active role in fleshing out the world (which they rarely take me up on).

As a player I abhor these things. Just let me run my character! I don't want the rest of that cruft -- if I did, I'd be GMing.