D&D 5E Defining fun

[Mistwell]

That rule was adopted in 1901 to stop players from intentionally fouling off pitches they didn't like and upsetting the balance between hitting and pitching. It was not adopted because fouling off balls was "unfun."

Upsetting the balance between hitting and pitching by intentionally fouling was considered unfun, and so the rule was changed to make it just the last one. The sport was already a business by then and it was mostly an appeal to fans.

My objection is to any rule change made because something is "unfun." If it's a legitimately needed change to mechanics, then by all means, change it. For instance, way back in the beginning of baseball, any batted ball was considered in play. That was a rule change needed to keep gameplay in the field of play, it was not changed because it was "unfun." Else Randy Johnson would have never been allowed to pitch, as facing him HAD to be "unfun."

Yet another reason why bringing analogies into a debate that doesn't require them is an awful way to debate. You're much more focused on baseball now than what we were actually talking about, since you were lured by spewing your knowledge of archaic facts rather than the issue.

Adding an additional damage-on-a-miss to the game does not CHANGE any existing rule, and it does not remove any existing rule. The game already had dozens of damage-on-a-miss things in it, and this added one more. The only difference was which class, and the issue of magic, but NONE of your arguments pertain to those two differences.

Nothing was altered or removed because it was unfun. An option was added because it was fun for some people. The other options are all still there, and still deemed fun by some players.

It's the same reason a new spell that does damage on a miss might be added to the game. You would not be making this argument right now if a new spell that does damage on a miss were added because some people found it more fun to choose that spell as an option for their spellcaster.

 

[ExploderWizard]

Talk about a faulty premise. Show me one person here who advocated for removing "missing-no-damage" from the game?

You have ONE option for a few fighter-types. You have some spells for spellcasters. You have I think one or two alchemical items. That's it. The huge bulk of the game remains with the concept of "strikes", people are just asking for a few more of the other types, of which have always been in the game (spells have always had a "half damage on a save" in the game).

Spells and alchemical items are finite resources. AOE does DoaM because the effect covers an area. The fighter is not burning up a finite resource. If a miss happens the the fighter just keeps attacking. The whole burned limited resource comparison to normal melee attacks is really a bad one. Additionally, from a mechanical perspective, those spells never miss. The victim(s) receive a saving throw to possibly somehow avoid the worst of the effects. A saving throw is not and has never been a "to hit" roll.

In a game where most of the rules center around combat, and where just about every combat is decided by moving the enemy HP to 0, is it any wonder that people base their ability to meaningfully interact in game with their PC's ability to move the enemy HP to 0?

That some have taken the game to be all about combat, and WOTC designed a game in which nothing mattered beyond reducing an enemy to 0 hp, has certainly changed the overall objectives of play enough to make D&D unrecognizable as D&D anymore.

If you're not sitting down at the game table in order to have fun, I guess I don't know why you're playing a game in the first place.

Everyone plays to have fun, but circular logic doesn't actually explain why something is fun. Thats what this whole thing is exploring- our various opinions about why certain aspects of play make the game more fun for us and others make it less so.

 

[ThirdWizard]

That some have taken the game to be all about combat, and WOTC designed a game in which nothing mattered beyond reducing an enemy to 0 hp, has certainly changed the overall objectives of play enough to make D&D unrecognizable as D&D anymore.

You may think its a bad thing, but I like having an option for something heavy on combat. D&D fills a niche for me that is a lot of fun. Suffice to say, I'm perfectly happy with a mostly tactical miniature RPG, especially since D&D has been a really good tactical miniature RPG for at least 15 years. So, that's how I am going to evaluate D&D Next.

 

[Lokiare]

Spells and alchemical items are finite resources. AOE does DoaM because the effect covers an area. The fighter is not burning up a finite resource. If a miss happens the the fighter just keeps attacking. The whole burned limited resource comparison to normal melee attacks is really a bad one. Additionally, from a mechanical perspective, those spells never miss. The victim(s) receive a saving throw to possibly somehow avoid the worst of the effects. A saving throw is not and has never been a "to hit" roll.



That some have taken the game to be all about combat, and WOTC designed a game in which nothing mattered beyond reducing an enemy to 0 hp, has certainly changed the overall objectives of play enough to make D&D unrecognizable as D&D anymore.



Everyone plays to have fun, but circular logic doesn't actually explain why something is fun. Thats what this whole thing is exploring- our various opinions about why certain aspects of play make the game more fun for us and others make it less so.

I laughed after reading the bolded part. No edition of D&D has been about dropping every creature to 0 hp, though some come close (1E and 2E had very sparse rules for other things like using diplomacy to resolve situations with intelligent monsters or how to avoid combat with wild creatures). Every edition of D&D has had rules for out of combat and many of them (the last 2-3 editions) have even talked about giving xp for non-combat and social encounters. 4E even clarifies that you get the xp from an encounter regardless of how you defeat the encounter (as in if you talk your way past a group of kobolds without making a single attack roll, you get the xp for the encounter).

For the most part this is unsubstantiated hyperbole.

 

[Mistwell]

Spells and alchemical items are finite resources. AOE does DoaM because the effect covers an area.

Those are balance issues. Are you arguing the fighter is overpowered relative to the mage? And, what does this have to do with the claim that people want to remove all regular misses from the game, which is what I was replying to?

Additionally, from a mechanical perspective, those spells never miss. The victim(s) receive a saving throw to possibly somehow avoid the worst of the effects. A saving throw is not and has never been a "to hit" roll.

Incorrect, and I even quoted the Fire Seeds spell in my example from 3e (you roll an attack roll and if you miss it still does unavoidable damage in a splash radius, and it's not the only spell that does that). Regardless, still a balance issue so a nonsequiter, and still has nothing to do with the claim I was responding to.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I laughed after reading the bolded part. No edition of D&D has been about dropping every creature to 0 hp, though some come close (1E and 2E had very sparse rules for other things like using diplomacy to resolve situations with intelligent monsters or how to avoid combat with wild creatures).

I suppose you are not familliar with reaction rolls and morale checks? Diplomacy is something for the player to engage in.

Incorrect, and I even quoted the Fire Seeds spell in my example from 3e (you roll an attack roll and if you miss it still does unavoidable damage in a splash radius, and it's not the only spell that does that). Regardless, still a balance issue so a nonsequiter, and still has nothing to do with the claim I was responding to.

So you are saying a saving throw IS a "to-hit" roll?

 

[Mistwell]

So you are saying a saving throw IS a "to-hit" roll?

No, I mean a to-hit roll IS a to-hit roll. Fire Seeds, and some spells like it, require a to-hit roll, and if you miss, they do a minimum of half-damage on that miss. And while there are arguments for why that spell is meaningfully different from the damage-on-a-miss from Great Weapon Fighter, none of those arguments are relevant to the objections in this thread about the nature of fun.

If damage-on-a-miss is unfun because it makes success meaningless, then so is the Fire Seeds spell and spells like it. If damage-on-a-miss is some form of player entitlement that should not be tolerated as some sort of pathetic "everyone gets a participation reward" then such objections would apply equally to Fire Seeds type spells. All those sorts of objections, which are found in this thread about fun, would apply just as equally to Fire Seeds type spells.

But you know what? NOBODY ever said that about Fire Seeds type spells. Which gives the lie to the argument about damage-on-a-miss being inherently unfun entitlement mentality crap, or something which alters the game in a particularly meaningful way.

For over a decade people have been happily playing the game with an option to choose a PC ability (a spell) that does damage on a miss (an actual miss) and the game didn't become unfun because of it, the definition of fun didn't alter because of it, player entitlement wasn't meaningfully impacted because of it, none of these dire predictions and none of the hypothesis about what it means ever played out that way. Instead, it was just an option that some people chose, others did not, and the game played just fine either way.

So when people hand-wring based on those sorts of fun-based objections, I think it's just fretting over nothing.

 

[Hussar]

I suppose you are not familliar with reaction rolls and morale checks? Diplomacy is something for the player to engage in.



So you are saying a saving throw IS a "to-hit" roll?

Umm, reaction rolls only determine the initial conditions of an encounter. They are not modified by anything other than a Cha score. One doesn't even have to talk to trigger a reaction roll - simply seeing each other triggers the roll and then play continues from there.

Morale is only rolled after you engage in combat. You cannot intimidate anyone by the rules in 1e or 2e. There simply isn't any mechanic for it.

"Diplomacy is something for the player to engage in" is basically throwing up your hands and deciding that free form play is the only valid form of role play. Sorry, but, just because the designers did not come up with a mechanical framework for dealing with social situations does not mean that not can exist.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Seems to me the only real issue here is that some players are Ruled As Written types when it comes to the words "hit", "miss", and "damage", whereas other players are Ruled As Intended types.

Because the game uses the words "hit", "miss", and "damage" as shorthand description for the mechanics of what is happening in the game... some people take those words "as-is" and do not allow a broader idea into their game of what those shorthand words actually could represent in the fiction.

It's the same reason why many people were unwilling to accept Warlords in 4E "shouting people awake" (as the explanation went), because at 0 HP the condition you were under was "Unconscious", and by definition if you were actually unconscious you wouldn't be able to hear the Warlord (and thus "wake up" and regain hit points.) Any attempts by other people to broaden the concept of what is actually happening to someone at 0 HP always fell flat to the first group, because they were RAW. Unconscious means UNCONSCIOUS-- not out of breath, not knocked down to a knee, not stunned temporarily. The word the game used to define that condition was not just a shorthand to define the game situation, it was a set definition of the story in the game world.

And we have the same thing here. Some people use "hit" as the shorthand description of the game mechanic (RAI), others use it as the defacto definition of what is happening in the story (RAW). And never the twain shall meet. If you play your game one way, you are just incapable of going along with the other way. It makes no sense to you, and you can't understand how it makes sense to anyone else.

 

[ExploderWizard]

If damage-on-a-miss is unfun because it makes success meaningless, then so is the Fire Seeds spell and spells like it. If damage-on-a-miss is some form of player entitlement that should not be tolerated as some sort of pathetic "everyone gets a participation reward" then such objections would apply equally to Fire Seeds type spells. All those sorts of objections, which are found in this thread about fun, would apply just as equally to Fire Seeds type spells.

I'm actually fine with that. Let it be written! Let it be done!

Umm, reaction rolls only determine the initial conditions of an encounter. They are not modified by anything other than a Cha score. One doesn't even have to talk to trigger a reaction roll - simply seeing each other triggers the roll and then play continues from there.

Morale is only rolled after you engage in combat. You cannot intimidate anyone by the rules in 1e or 2e. There simply isn't any mechanic for it.

"Diplomacy is something for the player to engage in" is basically throwing up your hands and deciding that free form play is the only valid form of role play. Sorry, but, just because the designers did not come up with a mechanical framework for dealing with social situations does not mean that not can exist.

You can play any way you want. I was merely answering the assertion that there were no rules for such things. I think perhaps some of the confusion stems from a subjective interpretation of what a RULE is. A particular treatment of something can be governed by rules without being a complete procedural dice wankfest that doesn't require human input to resolve. Crazy right?

So the reaction rule is the baseline situation. It is there because the players have little to no control over first reactions. This is why a decent CHA score isn't such a bad idea if you happen to have it.


If the reaction roll permits anything other than raw hostility, the players get to engage the situation and roleplay outside of combat. I don't consider opportunities for freeform roleplay in an rpg to be "throwing up my hands" because there aren't any rules to cover it. For those that do want the rules to handle every aspect of play for them there are plenty of those rules available to use.