D&D 5E Are DMs getting lazy?

[Reynard]

I get that, but I don't even understand the desire to make leveling painfully slow anyway. But I do understand that too many people focus on "the next level" instead of furthering story or the adventure or all the other stuff that goes into the game. But painfully slow leveling doesn't make people not focus on the next level, it just makes people who like to focus on it uninterested in playing. I suppose there's some desire to purge the hobby of people who play in a way you don't like but that's just a disreputable attitude.

Totally tangential to the topic of the thread, but I found that in 3.5 and Pathfinder in particular, too fast leveling was a much bigger problem than too slow because characters have lots of abilities and tricks that become available at each level. If you gained a level too quickly you never really mastered the abilities you already had, which led to some wonky ability usage and even some sub-optimal choices the next level because certain synergies were not seen. I much prefer the "less is more" approach to 5E levels where generally characters only get 1 or 2 new abilities so it is not as big a deal trying the learn how everything works.

 

[pogre]

I'm a high school teacher so I'm going to make a teaching analogy. Before I have a plan for the week, I feel nervous and uneasy. Then, I make my plans and I feel less uneasy and nervous. During the week, I modify plans as I teach depending on student performance. To me, the most difficult part is the planning. Sometimes I borrow ideas and pull from existing material to get my plan ready. That's usually easier than inventing everything. Sometimes I do invent everything. That usually takes longer and is sometimes less certain to work because it is untested. This is pretty much how I prep for d&d too. The professional adventures ground me and give me a foundation an often just using one relieves the anxiety of planning.

Well said! I am a high school teacher as well. It must be part of our hard wiring.

 

[Manchu]

This works until you hit the adventure path - at which point you need to stay roughly in line with the story.

Actually balance being more of a thing means that published encounters had less utility because it was so much easier to get right rather than being a cake walk or crushing the PCs. Where published encounters helped (but nothing like as much as they should have) is that with all the forced movement in (pre-Essentials) 4e terrain was a much bigger thing than it was in other editions. Pushing monsters into their own pit traps or back through their own portals was SOP - and flat featureless rooms were singularly boring areas to fight in. A pit trap wasn't a no go square on the battlefield so much as it was a focus for the combat.

I totally disagree about both points.

On the first one, I don't think you quite cotton what I'm getting at -- which boils down to NOT using published modules as railroads. That in turn means all the published encounters may or may not ever occur. The carefully sequenced events are out the window. What is left? A lot of setting details and high level plot points so the DM can know "what's going on" at any particular point while the PCs are doing whatever it is they decide to do. The opposite of that seems to be what you are getting at by saying "stay[ing] roughly in line with the story" where one of the DM's main jobs is heavily narrowing the PCs' choices (i.e., railroading).

On the second point, "encounter balance" is not as important in 5E as in 4E. 5E simply doesn't require the "precise" (very relative term there) rules of encounter design that 4E had. That inherently means published encounters are less valuable in 5E simply because from-scratch encounters take less time to design in 5E. Your argument seems to be, if you have the really complex tools the job requires then you don't need someone else to do it for you ... which is true, but it totally misses the point that those complex tools are missing in 5E because they are no longer necessary. It's weird because then you go on to basically make the same point as me using dungeon terrain as an example. Dungeon terrain is (a) a factor in how challenging an encounter is (a.k.a., "balance") and (b) exactly the sort of thing I was referring to as set-piece design, which in both cases count as IMO "virtues" of published encounters.

Sometimes I do invent everything. That usually takes longer and is sometimes less certain to work because it is untested.

Surely, planning something is not the same thing as testing it ...

 

[Sunseeker]

Totally tangential to the topic of the thread, but I found that in 3.5 and Pathfinder in particular, too fast leveling was a much bigger problem than too slow because characters have lots of abilities and tricks that become available at each level. If you gained a level too quickly you never really mastered the abilities you already had, which led to some wonky ability usage and even some sub-optimal choices the next level because certain synergies were not seen. I much prefer the "less is more" approach to 5E levels where generally characters only get 1 or 2 new abilities so it is not as big a deal trying the learn how everything works.

I agree that system mastery was a major issue in 3rd and 4th. It's one reason I quite enjoy playing "by the book" in 5th so far, but we'll see how that goes over the years. It's also why I like not playing with XP, because then if I feel like the party isn't mastering their classes, I can just keep them at that level for longer.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I totally disagree about both points.

On the first one, I don't think you quite cotton what I'm getting at -- which boils down to NOT using published modules as railroads. That in turn means all the published encounters may or may not ever occur. The carefully sequenced events are out the window. What is left? A lot of setting details and high level plot points so the DM can know "what's going on" at any particular point while the PCs are doing whatever it is they decide to do. The opposite of that seems to be what you are getting at by saying "stay[ing] roughly in line with the story" where one of the DM's main jobs is heavily narrowing the PCs' choices (i.e., railroading).

On the second point, "encounter balance" is not as important in 5E as in 4E. 5E simply doesn't require the "precise" (very relative term there) rules of encounter design that 4E had. That inherently means published encounters are less valuable in 5E simply because from-scratch encounters take less time to design in 5E. Your argument seems to be, if you have the really complex tools the job requires then you don't need someone else to do it for you ... which is true, but it totally misses the point that those complex tools are missing in 5E because they are no longer necessary. It's weird because then you go on to basically make the same point as me using dungeon terrain as an example. Dungeon terrain is (a) a factor in how challenging an encounter is (a.k.a., "balance") and (b) exactly the sort of thing I was referring to as set-piece design, which in both cases count as IMO "virtues" of published encounters.

The first one I'm differentiating modules from adventure paths. The difference is that you need to keep in touching distance of the rails on an AP because there are another few modules to come that you don't want to derail. A single module you can derail all you like and no one's going to care. But when derailing module 1 makes modules 2, 3, and 4 irrelevant you've a much more serious issue.

Your second point appears to be irrelevant to the practice of 4e.

First, the 4e encounter creation tools are not remotely, as you characterise them, complex. Monster design is simpler in 4e than 5e. And 4e is set up so it is trivial to balance them. One monster-equivalent per PC of the PC's level for an easy fight. Double this number, add 4 to the level, or some mix for a very hard fight. And the only complexity in the tools is making sure that all the math gets done by the system so there is very little the GM needs to do.


4e's monster creation guidelines. As you can see these are extremely complex.

I don't know if from-scratch encounters take less time in 5e than in 4e. But I've created from-scratch encounters in 4e fast enough that no one at the table realised that I was creating them from scratch. And 5e doesn't appear to be anything like as simple as 4e for creating balanced encounters as the relationship between CR and XP is not especially simple - and the stats to CR is also non-trivial from memory.

 

[Manchu]

I have no idea why you are talking about monster creation rules given the subject is encounter design. But here's how simple 5E encounter design is: Pick some monsters. I expect that could fit on a business card. YMMV. The reason why you don't require any formula whatsoever to design an encounter in 5E is because 5E is not designed around the conceits of Tactics-style video games. As in days of yore, 5E PCs may stumble across situations that are beyond their abilities. But given the big tent aspirations of 5E, there is still a notion of CR; 4 PCs of level X should get a good fight out of a monster of CR X. No XP budgets, no moster rolls, no boolean commands in the monster stat blocks; in short, no board game scenario design options. Perhaps too simple for the tactically-inclined but certainly simple.

A 4E encounter is perforce a miniatures skirmish scenario. You need to know not only what monsters are present but also how their abilities synergize. That in turn means relative starting location is important, as between the monsters themselves as well as between the monsters and the PCs. Then there's terrain. If you want a really memorable set-piece, terrain should also be interactive or at least dynamic. All of this entails a lot discrete design decision points. Considering and "solving for" each of them creates value, even if the conclusion turns out to be generic. 5E, at least in its default form, doesn't assume any of this stuff.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I have no idea why you are talking about monster creation rules given the subject is encounter design. But here's how simple 5E encounter design is: Pick some monsters. I expect that could fit on a business card. YMMV. The reason why you don't require any formula whatsoever to design an encounter in 5E is because 5E is not designed around the conceits of Tactics-style video games. As in days of yore, 5E PCs may stumble across situations that are beyond their abilities. But given the big tent aspirations of 5E, there is still a notion of CR; 4 PCs should of level X should get a good fight out of a monster of CR X.

1: The monsters you use are part of your encounters. Which is why going back to the basics and designing your monsters is necessary for many encounters. The only time this isn't the case is if you want all your monsters to be mechanical clones.

2: You don't require any formula for picking your monsters from your Monster Manuals in 4e either. There is simply one there. Just as there is in 5e. 4e's is, however, simpler than 5e's. (And the practical 4e one is simpler yet).

3: There is the assumption in 4e as well that PCs should sometimes stumble onto things they can't handle. There also was in 3.0 and 3.5. It's simply that when this actually happened in 3.0 in The Forge of Fury the players rioted so WotC stopped doing it in the actual examples they published.

4: Every edition of D&D there has ever been has had some sort of monster ranking to tell you what sort of level of PCs it should be used against.

So. If you want to use the "Pick some monsters" then 5e is no simpler than 4e. If you want to do anything remotely more complex (such as customise your monsters or try to have any clue in advance of how challenging things will be), 4e is simpler than 5e.

 

[AxisofJedi]

YES

 

[Manchu]

If you insist on playing 5E like 4E ... then yes, it is simpler to use 4E. Sure, no argument there. But again, that's totally missing the point. 5E is not 4E. It is not about, or at least does not have to be about, grid-bound tactical movement combos. And if that's what a group is looking for, again, 4E is a much better choice. However you look at it, that kind of play is more complicated than default 5E. Trying to play a game as complicated as 4E using a different ruleset, especially 5E, will necessarily make it even more complicated.

 

[Neonchameleon]

If you insist on playing 5E like 4E ... then yes, it is simpler to use 4E. Sure, no argument there. But again, that's totally missing the point. 5E is not 4E. It is not about, or at least does not have to be about, grid-bound tactical movement combos. And if that's what a group is looking for, again, 4E is a much better choice. However you look at it, that kind of play is more complicated than default 5E. Trying to play a game as complicated as 4E using a different ruleset, especially 5E, will necessarily make it even more complicated.

If you insist on assuming that Keep On The Shadowfell is a good example of a 4e adventure rather than an absolutely terrible module then no wonder you have problems with 4e. 4e is not a game about grid bound tactical movement combos - it's a cinematic high action fantasy game that bogs down when you run too much combat. For free wheeling high action out of combat and daft PC plans it is superb. And the problem with Keep on the Shadowfell boils down to 17 fights in a row being an actively worse experience in 4e than in any other edition. Fights should be a climax in 4e rather than something to be thrown in without thought as the main element of the game.