D&D 5E Blog Post by Robert J. Schwalb

[pemerton]

From what I've seen, when people think back on the fun they had playing prior editions (especially 1e/2e), at the heart of the fun was their heroes in the context of an adventure. The adventure is where the rubber meets the road in D&D. The adventure is the soul of the game. The rules exist to run an adventure, and it the interaction between players and DM that gives the game life. A role-playing game is a narrative experience supported by a rule set.

Indeed. The trouble is when people treat it as the reverse. And when the rules are as strongly emphasised as they are in 3E and 4E, that's tacit support for that approach.

I'm not sure what you mean by "the reverse". Are you saying that there are a large number of players who regard adventures as a means to the end of using rules?

If there are I don't think I've met them, and no one on this message board seems to present him-/herself as an instance of such a person.

 

[pemerton]

You should see the thread on rpg.net about it.

I've just started looking at it. The thing that jumped out at me on the first page was this:

Ironic, as I consider 4E by far one of the games always with an eye on the play at the actual table.​

I agree with this - 4e is very much a play-focused game. (You can even see it in the frequent critical remark about the 4e rulebooks, that people don't enjoy reading them as something independent of play.)

The idea that people who enjoy 3E and 4e do so for some purpose other than playing the game is odd to me.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6688858]Libramarian[/MENTION], are you the same Libramarian as posted this in the Schwalb comments?

One of the things I like about running 1e is that the rules themselves are so cruel and capricious, just kicking the players in the nuts over and over again, that I as DM am the good guy! The players PREFER to play “mother may I” with me rather than play by the rules. They’d rather experiment with magic items to find out what they do rather than resort to the 1e Identify spell. They’d rather poke and prod to find a secret door or trap rather than rely on the 1/6 chance to find secret doors or the 20% chance for find traps. I know this sounds totally backwards in a sense, but it’s really fun for us. Especially for me as DM, which is good because I’m the most important participant.

I feel that at some point the purpose for the rules in D&D changed from “helping the DM put pressure on the players” to “helping the players put pressure on the DM”. The rules in 1e make the game more cruel and more surprising than it would be if I were just making things up. I think this is a very important thing for the rules to do. The rules in 3e and 4e (at least the skill/power rules) seem like they’re there mostly to give the players ways to make things happen without having to negotiate with the DM about how they happen.

I don’t think that mathy tinkering or power fantasy escapism (“I make this happen now”) are bad sorts of fun as such, but I don’t think they’re great things for D&D to try to do. D&D is an inherently social game and it should focus on the types of fun that are enjoyable by vicarious experience. It’s more fun to watch people gamble than it is to watch them do math problems, or even play a game like chess or a eurogame. D&D needs a good gambly component because it’s more fun to watch. This is especially important if you’re going to ask one player to not have a character and just watch the whole time.

Assuming that it is you (it sounds a bit like you), you need to repost it here so people can give it XP!

(The follow up would be to look at other ways more "modern" games give the GM the capacity to put pressure on the players - in 4e, for instance, that has to be via encounter building and rationing extended rests - which is part of why the WotC 4e modules tend to be so bad, because they don't really tackle these issues at all.)

 

[Psikerlord#]

If anyone should whinge about a broken game - it isn't the dev who made it. Hilarious. Don't put broken mechanics in your game in the first place is the solution.

 

[pemerton]

Don't put broken mechanics in your game in the first place is the solution.

How can you tell if mechanics are broken before seeing how they actually play out?

 

[Uchawi]

How do you define broken? It is a question each one of use will have to determine. The interesting thing is for those of us that have moved on and played every edition that was released, I expect we were just looking for the next best thing. I am not certain if going back to a 1E to 2E style game is going to be the answer to make 5E recapture its former glory via the TSR era. And one of the key aspects I want out of 5E is a semblance of balance and modularity where you can have a gritty, heroic and everything including the kitchen sink type game by controlling complexity at the table for each class.

The main point I get out of these types of posts or similar comments from the developers is that they want to ignore any of the advances that the more recent versions of D&D made, and want to go back to a simple time when D&D did not have much competition or a mature play base with many different expectations. That ship has sailed. Best to stay in current times and try to make a game with a wide appeal. Otherwise, if you ignore some of the problem areas of any edition, you are doomed to repeat history. And at that point they just place the blame on certain players not getting it. Which is fine, because I expect certain players will not be buying it.

But I am starting to go off on a rant, so I will move on.

 

[Psikerlord#]

How can you tell if mechanics are broken before seeing how they actually play out?

It's easy , actually, I think. You look at each mechanic from a min max perspective. You know the maximum attribute values. You know HP maximums. You know AC and saving throw modifiers. You know rough damage ranges at certain levels. You know magic items and what can be mixed with what. Then you minmax the sh*t out of it and see if it breaks, and if it does, you take that mechanic and redo it so it doesnt break. I assume all game designers do this. If not, bloody hell, why not? Of course, the larger the game gets, the harder it will be to test all the combos - so dont put out too many!

 

[The Hitcher]

Don't make it personal.

It is that simple. One warning - don't make it personal.

'Nuff said.

No worries. Apologies.

 

[The Hitcher]

I'm not sure what you mean by "the reverse". Are you saying that there are a large number of players who regard adventures as a means to the end of using rules?

If there are I don't think I've met them, and no one on this message board seems to present him-/herself as an instance of such a person.

Well, we see things differently. Seems to me a lot of folks around here are much more interested in playing with (and complaining about) numbers than adventures or storytelling.

 

[The Hitcher]

It's easy , actually, I think. You look at each mechanic from a min max perspective. You know the maximum attribute values. You know HP maximums. You know AC and saving throw modifiers. You know rough damage ranges at certain levels. You know magic items and what can be mixed with what. Then you minmax the sh*t out of it and see if it breaks, and if it does, you take that mechanic and redo it so it doesnt break. I assume all game designers do this. If not, bloody hell, why not? Of course, the larger the game gets, the harder it will be to test all the combos - so dont put out too many!

The more you try to make a role-playing game unbreakable, the more certain people will push and push at it until they find a way to break it, and then that metagame (to a great degree) actually becomes the game for them. But if you just say "whatever, go ahead and break it. But it's kind of easy to do, so it won't be much fun", then the metagame dies, and people have the space to notice and appreciate the actual beautiful thing that is role-playing.

I'm not saying that metagaming can't be entertaining in itself. But Wizards are betting the house on RP-Gaming being a whole lot more rewarding. And I think they're absolutely right to do so.