D&D 5E I think we can safely say that 5E is a success, but will it lead to a new Golden Era?

[Siberys]

[MENTION=48965]Imaro[/MENTION]

I think that question kinda misses the point. I'm sure that there's a point where it'd be better to just run a different game. As a matter of fact, I'm personally past that point myself. But I think the game's tolerance for possible changes is greater than you think, evidently. Perhaps it's because what I think of as D&D is the fluff, things like settings and monsters and art. The rules are a vehicle for that, but aren't D&D all on their own.

Can you imagine a game with 2e's flavor and feel, 3e's customizability, and 4e's rigor? I can, and it is beautiful. We could have had that. Instead we're getting 5e, which sorta meets the first two of those but drags in 3e's problems with things like LFQW and wonky saves. (Plus they're ramming FR down our throats. At least when they did that in 4e with PoLand I found the creation myth interesting.)

 

[Haffrung]

That's a revisionist-history fiction I just don't understand. There is no 'harkenning back to theatre of the mind.' D&D was a wargame, in the ensuing 20 years, it never distanced itself much from that mindset. 1e gave everything in freak'n scale inches. Playing without minis or tokens of some sort and a surface was something you did if it was logistically impossible to use a playsurface.

Regardless of what the rules say, a great many people (in my experience most) played TSR D&D theatre of the mind. You know that's the way Gygax himself played, right? And that none of the examples of play in any of the books mention grids? We weren't houseruling or settling for playing without minis. We simply preferred combat that way. This isn't some revisionist history promoted by edition warriors. Go read some Dragonsfoot archives from 2001 or so. A lot of long-time players didn't make the jump to 3E because it was more difficult to play 3E TotM. Or read the archives on the Necromancer Games forum, a place for old-school players who bought NG's 3E material. Half the people on that forum played 3E and half still played earlier editions of the game, but there was no edition-warring. And there was consensus that playing with minis and a grid was more of a 3E thing that some people liked and some didn't. Nobody called those who said they had played D&D for 20 years without minis and a battle grid liars.

 

[Imaro]

@Imaro

I think that question kinda misses the point. I'm sure that there's a point where it'd be better to just run a different game. As a matter of fact, I'm personally past that point myself. But I think the game's tolerance for possible changes is greater than you think, evidently. Perhaps it's because what I think of as D&D is the fluff, things like settings and monsters and art. The rules are a vehicle for that, but aren't D&D all on their own.

I'm not saying the game shouldn't change, it has changed but I think that the game should look at what is sacrificed vs. gained with those changes.

Can you imagine a game with 2e's flavor and feel, 3e's customizability, and 4e's rigor? I can, and it is beautiful. We could have had that. Instead we're getting 5e, which sorta meets the first two of those but drags in 3e's problems with things like LFQW and wonky saves. (Plus they're ramming FR down our throats. At least when they did that in 4e with PoLand I found the creation myth interesting.)

The issue is that much of 4e's "rigor" was attained through rigidness. When you speak to 2e's flavor and feel there's a breadth of options... from Dark Sun to Planescape to Greyhawk to FR... When you speak to 3e's customization there are a ton of options but one can also stick only with the core rules... but with 4e's rigor what are my options? How can tight balance be maintained while still allowing me to play the game my way? In this very thread someone claimed it was the rigid nature of the classes that balanced them... so how were we going to get that 4e rigor without eliminating some of that customization as well as that flavor and feel?

 

[Tony Vargas]

Regardless of what the rules say, a great many people (in my experience most) played TSR D&D theatre of the mind.

So, we should ignore what the game actually was, in favor of your claim of how you remember your past experience. I'll stick with the game, itself, we can always crack the book and confirm it's contents.

This isn't some revisionist history promoted by edition warriors..... A lot of long-time players didn't make the jump to 3E because it was more difficult to play 3E TotM.

True. Some 2e fans decided that 3e's grid-dependence made it intolerable, ignoring both D&D's roots as a wargame, and the fact that many of those self-same rules appeared in 2e C&T. And then a lot of 3.5 fans who decided to hate 4e said the same things about it. I'm sorry, that really /is/ just edition warriors re-writing history, in both cases.

The issue is that much of 4e's "rigor" was attained through rigidness. When you speak to 2e's flavor and feel there's a breadth of options... from Dark Sun to Planescape to Greyhawk to FR... When you speak to 3e's customization there are a ton of options but one can also stick only with the core rules... but with 4e's rigor what are my options?

Well, you could play Dark Sun or Ebberon or FR. You could play an all-martial party in a campaign entirely without magic. You could play an all-Arcane party who were fraternity brother at a magic university in a magic-rich setting. Or anything between those extremes. You could use tons of options or avail yourself of relatively few of them. You could readily re-skin not just your character's appearance and gear (as in 3e), but his class powers, as well.

How can tight balance be maintained while still allowing me to play the game my way?

Depends on what 'your way' is. For most ways of playing, balance is a facilitator. You can play the character you want, the way you want, without disrupting the game for others.

In this very thread someone claimed it was the rigid nature of the classes that balanced them... so how were we going to get that 4e rigor without eliminating some of that customization as well as that flavor and feel?

Structure and consistency are not the same as rigidity. Take a modern skyscraper, for instance, it has a very definite structure. But, when there's an earthquake, it sways rather than being destroyed: flexibility is an attribute of that structure.

In a game sense, rigidity implies that a system can't handle much variation. For instance, a game in which elements were balanced as long as certain variables were held constant, but became 'broken' if one or more of them were changed might be termed 'rigid.' Look at 4e and the length of the adventuring day, for instance. 4e's common class structure gave it a high degree of class balance. Very the length of the day - say, make it very short, a classic 5MWD - everyone can blow their dailies, but everyone /has/ dailies, so class balance isn't much impacted. Had it been rigid, the 5MWD would have rendered some classes overpowered and others, perhaps, non-viable.

 

[Morty]

I've seen that suggestion. I think non-stacking is the strength of the system, but I could see a simple rule that, if you have Advantage from more sources than you have Disadvantage, you retain a net Advantage. A little more complexity, not any more realistic, really, but still avoids the downsides of stacking.

It just feels like a big waste to me if no matter how many situational benefits or obstacles you encounter, you're only re-rolling once. It's better than 3e's tons of fiddly bonuses, but not by that much.

OK, yes, I can definitely see the appeal there. Many classes /do/ get an ever-widening breadth of choice or ability as they level, tough. All casters, for instance, get more known spells, and more slots to cast them with.

Exactly. Numbers aren't exciting; they're only relevant in relation to other numbers. Meanwhile, moving on from shooting wisps of flame to incinerating an entire room with a blast of fire is a visceral power increase even to people who couldn't care less about numbers.

I disagree: MCing is a fantastic idea. It's just hard to implement unless each individual level of each class is reasonably balanced against each level of every other class. Between frontloading and capstones making the first and final levels of a class much better than the ones in the middle, and stuff in between not advancing consistently, it doesn't work so well. Bu the idea is sound, the classes just have to be equal to it.

Maybe so, but I'm not convinced it can be made to realize its full potential, while avoiding all the pitfalls. In 3e/PF, it suffers greatly from requiring a lot of system mastery to get to work. Either way, there needs to be a clear and consistent distinction as to what makes a class, a sub-lass or a multi-class combination.

Examples?

If we emphasize different defences over HP depletion, it becomes a lot easier to create abilities that feel intuitive and simulate the flow of martial combat better. Because we can have abilities and powers that are directed against different defences and different targets. So it's not just about different ways of rolling over AC and rolling for damage.

I guess by 'power' in that last sentence you mostly mean versatility, and that you're not including spell slots in 'numerical increases.

I'm not, yes. Probably should have specified that. As far as power versus versatility goes, I'm not sure if it's a meaningful distinction. Even if you take away everything apart from the spells-per-level table, a wizard who advances from level 4 to level 5 gets new spells to use and more spell slots to use them with. Those spells are things someone who doesn't have at least 5 levels in wizard or sorcerer simply can't do, barring maybe magic items.

 

[kenmarable]

So, we should ignore what the game actually was, in favor of your claim of how you remember your past experience. I'll stick with the game, itself, we can always crack the book and confirm it's contents.

I think one issue is the stream of sweeping generalizations you keep making about how the game was played - for example, comments like "Playing without minis or tokens of some sort and a surface was something you did if it was logistically impossible to use a playsurface."

That is a bold claim that you never actually supported. Plus many of us keep saying that doesn't fit how we played the game.

If you want to talk about how people actually played the game, making sweeping generalizations and then dismissing people's experiences that go against those generalizations aren't going to get you far.

If you want to talk about the rules as written in the books - that's cool. Crack open the books and discuss what's in them. I just don't think you can point at a book and then make a claim about how millions of people actually used that book.

 

[M.L. Martin]

That's a revisionist-history fiction I just don't understand. There is no 'harkenning back to theatre of the mind.' D&D was a wargame, in the ensuing 20 years, it never distanced itself much from that mindset. 1e gave everything in freak'n scale inches.

And 2nd Edition replaced those measurements with real-world measurements, and there was a sense at TSR around that time that miniatures took away from the immersion a bit. See "Why I Play the AD&D Game" by Steve Winter in the 1993 TSR Catalog.

Combat & Tactics did add in the grid, but the Player's Option rulebooks were very much optional rules and testbeds. When was the last time you heard about Character Points or the separate dueling subsystems (either weapons in C&T or spells in High-Level Campaigns)?

 

[Imaro]

Well, you could play Dark Sun or Ebberon or FR. You could play an all-martial party in a campaign entirely without magic. You could play an all-Arcane party who were fraternity brother at a magic university in a magic-rich setting. Or anything between those extremes. You could use tons of options or avail yourself of relatively few of them. You could readily re-skin not just your character's appearance and gear (as in 3e), but his class powers, as well.

The thing is each of these settings had compromises made in order to facilitate the 4e mechanics (as an example Dark Sun wasn't as gritty and deadly, especially in the early game, as it was originally because 4e made certain assumptions about the type, gonzo action hero, of characters you were playing and that assumption stuck no matter the setting). I also don't consider re-skinning anything like the type of customization we were speaking of in 3.x. Here's a simple question... In 4e can I play a balanced fighter whose equally adept at the sword and bow?

EDIT: I also have my doubts about your "magic rich" setting working since number and power and availability of magic items was tightly regulated in 4e... or would this be a setting where everyone is magically rich except the PC's?

Depends on what 'your way' is. For most ways of playing, balance is a facilitator. You can play the character you want, the way you want, without disrupting the game for others.

At what cost... if I don't like the AEDU structure can I pick a character that doesn't use it? Can the DM ditch it and the game still remain balanced? I can remove feats in 5e... could I totally remove powers and the game still stay balanced?

In a game sense, rigidity implies that a system can't handle much variation. For instance, a game in which elements were balanced as long as certain variables were held constant, but became 'broken' if one or more of them were changed might be termed 'rigid.' Look at 4e and the length of the adventuring day, for instance. 4e's common class structure gave it a high degree of class balance. Very the length of the day - say, make it very short, a classic 5MWD - everyone can blow their dailies, but everyone /has/ dailies, so class balance isn't much impacted. Had it been rigid, the 5MWD would have rendered some classes overpowered and others, perhaps, non-viable.

If every class has to use powers and they have to be in an AEDU structure... how is that not rigid?

 

[Halivar]

Here's a simple question... In 4e can I play a balanced fighter whose equally adept at the sword and bow?

Well, no. But that has nothing to do with the AEDU structure because it could easily have been supported if WotC so wished. WHY they did not so wish is completely beyond me. They added the ability to play a paladin with nothing but ranged blasty magic but no bows for fighters. /boggle

 

[Tony Vargas]

That is a bold claim that you never actually supported. Plus many of us keep saying that doesn't fit how we played the game.

Obviously, people can play a game however they like, and make whatever claims they like on the internet. (And also snip a quote out of context to make it sound like a sweeping generalization.) One persons experiences, however considerable, is just a set of anecdotes, so are several persons' recountings of what they remember from 30+ years ago. So lets set all the unverifiable anonymous anecdotes and revisionist history aside, and actually look at something that at least some of us can dig out of a box and crack open:

Look at the game itself from those days. 0D&D came right out and called itself a wargame, for use with miniature figures, right on the cover. AD&D's rules were still very much those of such a game, with everything in scale inches, dicing for initiative, and checking morale and on and on.
And there's no dispute that D&D grew out of Chainmail, a medieval wargame.

And, really, so what if someone played a wargame without minis in 1983? The game didn't become any more or less suited to that sort of play over time. Other games have come and gone that really did emphasize 'TotM' and actually provide workable rules that facilitate it. 13A is a recent example. Whether it's a 2e fan accusing 3e of being grid-dependent or a 3e fan making the same accusation at 4e, or a 5e enthusiast reveling over how TotM-friendly 5e is (without specifying whether that's in contrast to 2e C&T, 3e or 4e or something else), it's a lot of nonsense. There's virtually nothing to choose from among the various eds of D&D in that regard. They all have rules for range, area, movement and positioning that are too granular to be convenient in TotM - 4e's, ironically, with squares as the unit of granularity and chunky cubes for most AES, actually presenting the slightly lesser obstacle in that regard.