D&D 5E Why the claim of combat and class balance between the classes is mainly a forum issue. (In my opinion)

[Manbearcat]

The game in an RPG is important. I'm merely saying that an RPG in our current social, technological, and entertainment climate is going to have a dramatically harder time differentiating itself as a gamist pursuit. In other words, when WotC made 4e, they attached the cart to the wrong horse. They thought an emphasis on encounter-level gamism was going to build their audience, when in fact, RPGs are now differentiated from other gamist pursuits by their narrative elements.

And quite literally, the moment I read the DMG Index and found 'Skill Challenges', I flipped there. The very first thing I thought of was one of my very favorites: "Dogs in the Vineyard. WotC is trying to move D&D into the world of unified conflict resolution for narrative trajectory and Story Now agenda. X successes or y failures is just the analogue to 'insufficient dice in your pool to See the decisive Raise.' Use of a Primary Skill being locked out from further usage is the analogue to 'exhausting Acuity, Body, Heart, Will, Trait (et al) dice from your pool.' Secondary Skills are just 'Belongings, Relationships, or Traits' that find their way into play due to the evolving narrative which augment Primary Skill checks (dice pools). The standard back and forth is the analogue to 'Raises and Sees' with the DCs arrangement as the GM's passive dice pool outcome to the complication/adversity. Healing Surge loss for micro-failures and/or worse for macro-failure is the analogue to post-conflict 'Fallout.'"

Then I thought "you know, like 1s coming up on Fallout Dice leading to character improvement, if they would have given XP solely for failures in Skill Challenges, that would have created great narrative tension within player choice and a better impetus to try to invoke sub-optimal skills."

Then, before reading the PHB I thought (predicting that they surely didn't), it would have been very cool if they would have gone all out and just turned D&D 4e into a fully unified conflict resolution framework replete 'Escalations' and 'Reversals.'

After I had digested all of the DMG and PHB advice about Passing Time (the abridged version would be "don't waste time where there is no conflict") and getting to the Encounters ("the conflict) and the PHB 'How Do You Play' about the game being a product of player's responding to the GM composed Combat and Noncombat Encounter Challenges and the "Get to the Fun" section (circumventing a mundane exchange with a gate guard to 'get to the conflict') I thought of Vincent Baker's Dogs in the Vineyard GM advice: "Every moment, drive play toward conflict".

Then I looked at the mechanisms for powers (keywords and guiding, but mutable/malleable flavor text) and the broad descriptor Skill system.

Then I fully noted that the unified framework of classes and resource schemes pushes play toward the Encounter (the scene of conflict) and its resolution as the nexus of narrative output.

Later looked at all of the class/race resources and I thought "wow, that is a lot of authority vested in the players to fluctuate their stance at their discretion...ardent deep immersionists that demand actor stance exclusively are going to flip their lids."

Then I did a lot of other things (playtested the combat engine and fell in love with its balance, dynamism and precise encounter budgeting, quest system) and I was amazed at how great it was...but knew it was going to be enormously controversial.

Nowhere did I think (nor did it turn out in my homegame's play...even with brand new players unacquainted to TTRPGs) WotC's focus/emphasis was exclusively or even primarily on encounter level gamism. Certainly it was there (the same as it can be for DitV if played in that way), and what was there was fantastic. However, I didn't remotely consider the adverbs of "primarily" or "exclusively", equating to emphasis.

 

[S'mon]

See, even though i dislike railroading, i think this is a pretty extreme (and frankly somewhat silly)thing to say. Not only that, but it really demands some kind of proof other than "I think". .

I have to prove I think it? Or I'm not allowed to think it without proof? I'm just going by my own experience of being a crap '90s GM myself (healed by 3.0e D&D, thankfully), and playing under some, all of a certain age, who never seem to have left the '90s.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I have to prove I think it? Or I'm not allowed to think it without proof? I'm just going by my own experience of being a crap '90s GM myself (healed by 3.0e D&D, thankfully), and playing under some, all of a certain age, who never seem to have left the '90s.

I was a 90s GM as well. you can believe whatever you want, but if you want others to take the notion of lasting damage seriously, then yes it requires more than "I think". If it were just a general statement of taste or preference that would be one thing, but you are essentially claiming that people who play the game a particular way are causing harm to their ability to be creative. That is a pretty outrageous statement in my view and I think it is fair to ask for more than a gut check and anecdotes from those who make such a statement.

And to be clear, I dislike linear railroads as well. But I do think there is a limit to what kind of criticism against it is valid. I find railroads un-fun, and constricting. But i don't think they dodactual damage to people.

 

[Imaro]

Nowhere did I think (nor did it turn out in my homegame's play...even with brand new players unacquainted to TTRPGs) WotC's focus/emphasis was exclusively or even primarily on encounter level gamism. Certainly it was there (the same as it can be for DitV if played in that way), and what was there was fantastic. However, I didn't remotely consider the adverbs of "primarily" or "exclusively", equating to emphasis.

Well I can say from experience that this was exactly what the new players being brought into 4e through encounters were learning, I attended a few because I felt like there was something about 4e I wasn't getting, I guess you had to buy a copy of DitV to get all the stuff you're citing... of course I also long ago voiced my suspicions that 4e advocates such as you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] were using indie-rpg experience and texts to drift (not sure if drift is exactly what I am trying to say perhaps steer is a better word) 4e into narrativism, much more than the PHB, DMG and MM ever did.

 

[S'mon]

I was a 90s GM as well. you can believe whatever you want, but if you want others to take the notion of lasting damage seriously, then yes it requires more than "I think". If it were just a general statement of taste or preference that would be one thing, but you are essentially claiming that people who play the game a particular way are causing harm to their ability to be creative. That is a pretty outrageous statement in my view and I think it is fair to ask for more than a gut check and anecdotes from those who make such a statement.

And to be clear, I dislike linear railroads as well. But I do think there is a limit to what kind of criticism against it is valid. I find railroads un-fun, and constricting. But i don't think they dodactual damage to people.

Have you never seen the passivity of players used to railroaded games, when you or
another GM try to run a game where they need to be proactive? Have you never seen players
start off bright eyed and bushy tailed at this wonderful new thing called RPGs - then they get into a railroad game and the light in their eyes slowly dies...

OTOH, yes, a bunch of people seem to enjoy this style perfectly well. They're having fun.
Badwrongfun, but what the heck.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Yes .. like this "Can I make an OOP?" "Can I stop this attack?" "Can I stop that movement?" "How many orcs can I hit with my burning hands?"

accidents happen you just keep going...

we mostly just played and trusted eachother...

Yeah, most of my players don't trust DMs. They don't forgive DMs their mistakes. I had to have the entire rules memorized from beginning to end because any mistake would be pointed out to me quickly and with a tone that says "Seriously, why are you the one DMing if you don't even know the rules?"

It would cause an argument that would take too much time away from the game. A rough example would be:

"How many Orcs can I hit with my burning hands?"
"2"
"Wait. A burning hands is a 15 ft cone. That means it affects 1 square then 2 squares then 3 squares in front of me. You said last turn that there were 3 orcs in melee with the fighter who is 20 feet away from me. You said they were standing in a line. So that means if I put the 3 squares of my burning hands 15 ft away from me, I should be able to hit all 3. Plus, there's one in melee with me, that means I should be able to hit 4 of them, not 2."
(The DM gets flustered because they weren't keeping that close track of the relative positions of all of the enemies, they were just kind of winging it and figured 2 was a good answer to how many should be hit) "Uhh...yeah, I guess you can hit 4 of them then. Sorry."
"You know, maybe we should just put down some minis so we all know where the orcs are. It's situations like this that makes me not trust DMs."

even in 4e we run some battles without them... and it is much more mini heavy...

I'm not saying it isn't possible. However, it seems out of the spirit of the game whose rules really want you to know the exact position of everything. I had so many of the above arguments whenever I tried to play without minis that I decided it was for the best.

Though, I currently run D&D Next without minis but I find it has very few rules that require you to know the exact position of everyone so there's been less issues. I'm really happy to go back to having a game with less fiddly rules because that way players can't spend all their time throwing them in my face.

we never saw that problem...

I'm not saying everyone would see that problem. But it's indicative of the attitude of my players. And many players. I used to run Living Greyhawk about 3-5 adventures per week with the random people who'd show up for our games days and at GenCon. Ran an entire GenCon straight once, 7 5-hour long slots...which was exhausting, but I met a lot of players and many of them don't trust DMs and feel that DMs will do whatever it takes to kill them off. Especially random DMs that they haven't met before and are running only at a convention. The best way to put these people at ease was to follow the rules precisely to the letter to make sure they understood that everything was fair and above board.

I once saw a set of 9th level PCs down a CR 24 dragon with 1 spell...

Err....I guess it's always possible for the dragon to roll a natural 1 on his save. But my math kind of says that a level 9 character with an extreme amount of equipment(+6 stat booster) who started with a 20 in their prime stat and put all their boosts into it would have a 28 and could cast 5th level spells, and have a feat to increase their DCs by 1. That would put their DCs at 25. Given the 610 hitpoints of a Red Dragon of that CR, it couldn't be a spell that just does damage as none of them do 610 damage. The Dragon's Fort and Will saves are both higher than +25, so he makes the saves against all spells that would kill him outright on anything but a natural 1. Most of these spells allow spell resistance. The Dragon's spell resistance is 30. That means it is impossible for a level 9 character to even succeed on that roll. Though if they somehow boosted their caster level, they'd still need to make a natural 20.

So killing a dragon of that CR would require a natural 20 followed by a natural 1. That is a 25 in 10 thousand chance to happen.

Unless we are talking about a situation of DM Fiat where a PC said something like "I shoot a spell at that pillar over there, collapsing the entire building on the dragon. I'm sure a building does instant death damage." in which the CR and rules of the game don't actually matter, since it wasn't actually a fair fight between the PCs and the dragon.

we just add them and go...

As I mentioned, adding a bunch of numbers together isn't easy for most people. It's not very fast either. It's not super slow, but each person's turn at higher levels took at least a minute(and often 2-3 minutes) for the process of deciding what action to take, figuring out the bonuses they got, rolling multiple attacks one at a time, adding the bonuses to their die rolls, the DM looking up the defenses of the monster, figuring out exactly which monster was being hit, and minusing the damage from the monsters hitpoints and writing it down.

The enemy's turn often took a minute PER enemy to do.

When each person's turn takes a minute and 5 enemies take another 5 minutes, then battles took a minimum of 10 minutes per round. Even one round battles came in over the 5 minute mark.

Sorry, I'm just really trying to wrap my head around battles in 3.5e taking 5 minutes. I'm trying to understand how it is possible. In my 4 years of running 3.5e alone, having run about 15 battles per week for about 3000 battles total, the average always came out to 30-60 minutes with obvious outliers of monsters who died in one hit and monsters that were nearly impossible to kill taking over an hour.

you know, that is normally something I disagree with, but for once I can honestly say "We play VERY different games"

This is the thing I'm most curious about. I want to know exactly how they are different. I really can't wrap my head around what a game where most of the battles were avoidable and were avoided on purpose by the PCs would even look like.

What would the PCs do? What kind of adventures do they go on that don't require killing monsters? Do they play business men who go to the office every day and fill out forms? What kind of jobs do they have that are that safe?

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Have you never seen the passivity of players used to railroaded games, when you or
another GM try to run a game where they need to be proactive? Have you never seen players
start off bright eyed and bushy tailed at this wonderful new thing called RPGs - then they get into a railroad game and the light in their eyes slowly dies...

OTOH, yes, a bunch of people seem to enjoy this style perfectly well. They're having fun.
Badwrongfun, but what the heck.

Honestly, some people don't want to be proactive. I've played in both kinds of games. I want a story told to me. I get super frustrated in sandbox games because I feel like the DM is offloading his or her work to me. Instead of them coming up with an interesting plot, they expect me to.

Since I don't show up to games expecting to put this effort in, my character's often have little motivation. I expect the adventure and the DM to give me motivation, not the other way around.

For instance, my current character in one of the D&D games I'm in is a book worm who spends his time at the church library researching the past of his goddess who used to be a mortal before she ascended.

Left to his own devices, he'd read books for the rest of his life and never go on an adventure. But since we were having wrongbadfun the DM came up with a plot where the church needed me to recover something, made up a journal of a party who had gone looking for it before me and arranged it so the other PCs were looking for work and I needed help fighting off the monsters in the cave the object was located in. I hired them, we became a party and later friends. I continue to adventure because they keep asking me to go along with them on their quests, that are also given to us by the DM.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Have you never seen the passivity of players used to railroaded games, when you or
another GM try to run a game where they need to be proactive? Have you never seen players
start off bright eyed and bushy tailed at this wonderful new thing called RPGs - then they get into a railroad game and the light in their eyes slowly dies...

OTOH, yes, a bunch of people seem to enjoy this style perfectly well. They're having fun.
Badwrongfun, but what the heck.

i have never seen it do lasting damage to anyone or impair their ability to be creative. And this desription is a bit melodramatic for my tastes. My experience with players who have been playing railroads or more linear games (since it feels like we are using railroad broadly) and enter a group with a more open structure is they either appreciate the ability to go off the rails, or they feel tge game isn't structured enough. People want different things.

 

[Mistwell]

Yeah, most of my players don't trust DMs. They don't forgive DMs their mistakes. I had to have the entire rules memorized from beginning to end because any mistake would be pointed out to me quickly and with a tone that says "Seriously, why are you the one DMing if you don't even know the rules?"

That sounds like a serious problem. I'd be kicking such players out of my games. The flow of the game is seriously impeded if players are constantly questioning the decisions of the DM. All rules are guidelines and not law, and the DM's judgement is final during the game. Bring up issues after the game, not during the game.

 

[Manbearcat]

Well I can say from experience that this was exactly what the new players being brought into 4e through encounters were learning, I attended a few because I felt like there was something about 4e I wasn't getting, I guess you had to buy a copy of DitV to get all the stuff you're citing... of course I also long ago voiced my suspicions that 4e advocates such as you and @pemerton were using indie-rpg experience and texts to drift (not sure if drift is exactly what I am trying to say perhaps steer is a better word) 4e into narrativism, much more than the PHB, DMG and MM ever did.

I'll propose an alternative hypothesis. I've seen a fair number of folks (on this board and elsewhere) asserting that Cortex+ MHRP's conflict resolution system (with its open descriptor PC build resources and accompanying broad applications) is a dissociative, gamist mess. Same indictment as 4e.

I suspect that the same charge would be levied at Dogs in the Vineyard except the poker jargon used to facilitate the premise of the component parts of the conflict resolution system would likely make the response more visceral for its detractors. In total, the dice pool mechanics and keywords would make the architecture (by itself) possibly "feel" more gamist and "jarring" to those who prefer serial world exploration instead of hard framing of conflict-charged scenes and more rulings in the stead of transparent, hard codification.