D&D 5E what is it about 2nd ed that we miss?

[AaronOfBarbaria]

How do you observe the loss of luck, or other vague thing like skill or will of the gods?

With your senses and your companion's ability to communicate what their senses are telling them to you.

As for the loss of luck... go build something out of wood, drive a bunch of nails with a hammer. You might just feel the very same "oops" tingle that I feel every time right before I smash the hammer into my thumb.

Counter-point: Show me where the rules indicate that the character can't observe these things?

So give an example of how a PC knows that at another PC just lost 10 luck points, 5 skill points and 5 points of will of the gods with that 20 points of damage?

That's not how hit points work in D&D. They are abstract; No specific quantity of them is ever only one thing no matter how or when they are lost - there is no such thing as "luck points" or "skill points" or "points of will of the gods" or even "flesh, bone, & blood points," there is only "Hit Points" which are an abstraction of all of those, both individually and collectively.

 

[Maxperson]

With your senses and your companion's ability to communicate what their senses are telling them to you.

Show me what luck damage looks like, because I can't see it. Pun intended.

As for the loss of luck... go build something out of wood, drive a bunch of nails with a hammer. You might just feel the very same "oops" tingle that I feel every time right before I smash the hammer into my thumb.

I've hit my thumb before. The only thing I felt was the physical hit point loss.

Counter-point: Show me where the rules indicate that the character can't observe these things?

What isn't in the rules is not part of the game as anything other than a house rule or home brew. Show me the rule that says that healing doesn't cause nuclear explosions. Just like your question, there isn't one, so both are equally true. See the ridiculousness of that particular argument?

That's not how hit points work in D&D. They are abstract; No specific quantity of them is ever only one thing no matter how or when they are lost - there is no such thing as "luck points" or "skill points" or "points of will of the gods" or even "flesh, bone, & blood points," there is only "Hit Points" which are an abstraction of all of those, both individually and collectively.

They are abstract, but unobservable until 51% hit point loss, and then the visible damage is slight. Again, from the rules...

When your current hit point total is half or more of your hit point maximum, you typically show no signs of injury.

No signs means nothing observable. The PC just can't tell.

Edit: My bad for showing the rule that says nothing is observable. I guess our two examples weren't the same. Only mine wasn't in the rules. Oops.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

What isn't in the rules is not part of the game as anything other than a house rule or home brew.

Correct. So when the rules imply that characters can tell when some hit points are lost (no matter which of the various things abstracted into hit points it might be a result of) by not suggesting that the DM hide that information from the players, and by having characters via their players capable of choosing what intensity of healing to use in a concrete sense - the book says a potion of healing restores 2d4+2 hit points, and that cure wounds at 1st-level recovers 1d8 + spellcasting ability modifier, not "this restores some number of hit points. Your DM will know how many." - and then doesn't make any contradiction of that, implied or otherwise, we can see what it is that is not part of the rules.

Show me the rule that says that healing doesn't cause nuclear explosions. Just like your question, there isn't one, so both are equally true. See the ridiculousness of that particular argument?

I see you trying to claim I've made a ridiculous argument. Whether it is because you actually think what I said and what you have said here are the same or because you are attempting to "win" by attacking me rather than the actual points I've made, that I am unsure of.

No signs means nothing observable. The PC just can't tell.

"No sign of injury" and "no sign of hit point loss" are not the same thing.

Edit: My bad for showing the rule that says nothing is observable.

It says no such thing.

I guess our two examples weren't the same. Only mine wasn't in the rules. Oops.

Glad we can agree on that.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

They do have a sign..........sort of, but that sign is 51%+ Until then, there's no indication of injury at all the majority of the time.

In 4E, sure, there's no real indication until someone hits Bloodied, but that's not the case in any other edition. In 5E, the canonical default is that it varies from table to table, so be sure to consult your DM (who is the one in charge of describing everything).

So you do play with hit points as 100% meat, because that's the only way that the injuries would appear to be different, or at least one worse than the other.

Me, personally? No, I don't play HP as 100% meat - characters with more HP don't have more mass to them - but I do play it such that every hit is a hit. I don't play it such that some of your HP are meat, while other HP are luck are skill or anything. I play it such that, when you get hit, some small amount of your meat is slightly bruised and battered, but your luck and skill and whatnot is what determines whether you're still up and functioning, or whether that battering was enough to knock you unconscious. I play it such that you can't tell how many maximum HP someone has by looking at them, but you can tell how much damage they've taken, since an 8-point wound looks roughly similar on anyone.

It's not the only consistent way to describe HP loss without meta-gaming, but it's the most-consistent way that I've found which is still easy to describe and which makes sense for the setting.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In Fate if you do get the Fate Point it will screw you up. If a Compel isn't nasty the GM is doing it wrong. But having the Fate Point also gives you something that feels good. Does it feel good enough to make up for the compel? Possibly. In GURPS smart play is never to accept temptation. In Fate smart players are genuinelty tempted to portray their character's flaws.

Have you read the FATE CORE rulebook? Compels are supposed to matter, but they shouldn't be overwhelming. You should be able to deal with them, because players should (almost always) want to accept the compel. This is the advice that is actually given in the book. I understand that the rules and advice are slightly different between different versions of the rules, though, so maybe what is true in FATE CORE is not true for other FATE games.

In GURPS, as in real life, smart play is to never give in to temptation. In FATE, smart play is to give in to temptation, even though it would be a dumb idea in real life.

If you want to role-play someone making bad decisions, then go ahead. The game system shouldn't reward you for doing so, or else it isn't really a bad decision.

 

[Orius]

Probably I miss the settings the most.

The last campaign I ran was 2e; the biggest problem I'd developed with 3.x was the whole 3.0/3.5 split which changed a whol,e bunch of things, sometimes apparently arbitrarily and in a way that had lots of little incompatible details. I went back to 2e because of my extensive library, and because I was DMing for new players and only had a decent amount of published modules for 2e. It didn't take long to remind me of why I gladly switched from 2e to 3e. 2e had a lot of good ideas, but there's a lot of stuff that is vague or poorly described, and because of the whole design philosophy of keeping things reasonably compatible with 1e, there's many things that work clunky together because they were bolted onto the system in a haphazard fashion. 3e has much more internal consistency and clearly defines things, but it does lose a bit of flavor the classic stuff had. Still, there can be some really serious power variations in 2e material; for example compare a specialty priest from the Priest's Handbook to one from Faiths and Avatars. Or just how spells or magic items can wildly vary; I've got a complete set of the Encyclopedia Magica and the 2 Spell Compendiums and stuff from those volumes is just all over the place. I could do the work to house rule 2e, but in the end just using a base of 3e and deciding what options I want to allow is quicker and more convenient.

Haven't done much of 5e, but on the surface it feels like the standardization of 3e with fewer options all over the place clogging things up. It's okay, but it feels too rigid for my taste. I'll play the game, but I'd rather run core 3e and deciding what options I want to make available to the players.

So yeah, there's a wealth of creativity in the classic stuff that really peaked in the 2e days, but it's hurt by the lack of balance and consistency.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I'm sorry. Your entire psychological model is based on the idea that an alcoholic does not want a drink. And because in GURPS an alcoholic does not want to drink GURPS is a better model. The idea that an alcoholic does not want to drink (as opposed to wants not to drink and knows they ought not to drink while also wanting a drink) is ridiculous. In GURPS the character's motivations are entirely in one direction. In Fate, as in real life, they are in both.

You should test your theory. Find yourself an alcoholic - someone who knows they have a problem, like someone coming out of an AA meeting or something - and ask if they want a drink. I can make a guess about what their choice will be. Then, hand them a glass of whatever alcohol seems appropriate to the situation. I won't predict whether they'll actually drink it, because that's a matter of willpower rather than a conscious decision, but I'm fairly confident about what their choice would be.

The fundamentally flawed premise of FATE is that it asks the player to make conscious decisions beyond the scope of what the character is capable of deciding. This is one example of such, though by no means is it the most egregious.

The best thing about 2E is that it doesn't include any of the rules, buried as options in 5E, that are supposed to appeal to FATE players. That whole "yes, and..." mindset did not exist when 2E came out, so the designers didn't have to pander to that crowd.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Have you read the FATE CORE rulebook? Compels are supposed to matter, but they shouldn't be overwhelming. You should be able to deal with them, because players should (almost always) want to accept the compel. This is the advice that is actually given in the book. I understand that the rules and advice are slightly different between different versions of the rules, though, so maybe what is true in FATE CORE is not true for other FATE games.

In GURPS, as in real life, smart play is to never give in to temptation. In FATE, smart play is to give in to temptation, even though it would be a dumb idea in real life.

If you want to role-play someone making bad decisions, then go ahead. The game system shouldn't reward you for doing so, or else it isn't really a bad decision.

Yes I have read Fate core. But unlike you I have also understood enough of the game to put it into context and I have both played and run Fate.

Compels are supposed to matter but shouldn't be overwhelming. Just like Fate Points. If it costs you a Fate Point and you take a consequence dealing with the results of the compel you have clearly lost out. Fishing for a compel is gambling. It's gambling on whether you'll be able to deal with the consequences of the compel at the cost of less than a Fate Point. Will it taste good? You know that going into the situation. How bad will the consequences be? You don't know that going into the situation. You're taking a risk to do something that feels good. Or you're gritting your teeth, surrendering a Fate Point, and refusing when you definitely lose out.

In GURPS smart play is never to give into temptation. In GURPS you are never actually tempted. You're coerced, but not tempted. In Fate you want that drink even if you know it's a bad idea. In GURPS there's no part of you that wants it. GURPS fails.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In GURPS smart play is never to give into temptation. In GURPS you are never actually tempted. You're coerced, but not tempted. In Fate you want that drink even if you know it's a bad idea. In GURPS there's no part of you that wants it. GURPS fails.

In a role-playing game, you make decisions as the character would. You're not in charge of overcoming their subconscious temptations, deciding when they gut hungry, or deciding what happens to them when they're stabbed. Those aren't choices that the character makes, and so you shouldn't expect to decide those thing as a player.

And you certainly are not allowed to make any decisions by taking into consideration such meta-game concepts as fate points! That is a clear violation of the player's role. Meta-gaming is always bad (even if it might very occasionally be the lesser of two evils).

 

[RotGrub]

If you're using 5e's ability check system, though, you'll have to adjust the DC pretty dramatically to get anything like the same results, because needing to make two rolls instead of one to succeed is the equivalent of Disadvantage...

IMO, being heard is not the same as being seen. The ogre might not be able to find the character, he might think the sound was just a rat or something. That's not the same as disadvantage on a stealth check. Two rolls in this case are not always a binary pass or fail.

In addition, sneaking past a sleeping guard would require a move silently roll and not both. Special equipment like footpad boots come into play and not the character's darksuit. Of course, in 2e race, kit, class, level, dex, and equipment all factor into each roll. This means that some races and kits are better at hiding and others are better at moving silently. In this case, I think more granularity is welcomed.