D&D General "Hot" take: Aesthetically-pleasing rules are highly overvalued

[AbdulAlhazred]

You are objectively incorrect in saying the combat rules are only in the combat chapter of the DMG.

I honestly think you're on a one-man island on these claims. I don't think even the biggest 1e fan in the world agrees with you on this particular point. I'd challenge you to go on Dragonsfoot and make the claims you're making and sit back and watch the reaction. It will be quite the show.

You could also ask Gary's remaining family members in the industry. Even they will not agree with you on this particular topic.

It isn't really OT for this thread, perhaps, but you'd have to point out what you are referring to. I played MANY 1000's of hours of 1e. Again, there are clearly going to be other specific game elements which have an impact on combat, but the combat rules themselves are in a single section of the DMG, and nowhere else. This is verifiable, so you're welcome to point me at what you think contravenes that statement. Really, 1e's rules are pretty messy, but not in that way. Whereas 5e by contrast simply scatters relevant rules sections hither and yon. Its biggest sin is not deciding if general rules reside in the PHB or the DMG, they should pick one, and stick with it. Again, this was one thing Gary mostly got right (though his motives may be questionable). The PHB actually has remarkably few rules, outside of the specific game elements (classes, races, and spells mostly) which it actively covers. There are sections ABOUT combat, exploration, etc. but they contain NO RULES TEXT WHATSOEVER.

 

[GMMichael]

There are no skill checks. You make an ABILITY CHECK and you may apply your proficiency bonus if it applies to the action you're doing. Technically, what's supposed to happen, is that you say "I want to do X" and your DM should tell you "give me ability check X" and then you say "I'm proficient with Y does that help?" and your DM goes "sure, you can add your proficiency bonus".

That's how it should go, but it doesn't, because people are used to say "I want to use skill X".

Buuut it's the same rule. They're all modified cases of the "core mechanic." The primary difference is that you used skill points in 3e, and a proficiency bonus in 5e.

Anyway, when a player rolls and says " I want to use this skill," she is usually rewarded by me with a brief blank stare. Then with, "but what are you doing?"

Were 3e skills more aesthetic (per upthread assertion)? Not in my opinion. Some had tables, some improved with feats, some were more useful than others... They were clunkier than the 5e skills from what I've seen.

 

[Monayuris]

But that is exactly the issue many of us have, which is that this is a resource which is of unknown value to a given PC. The player can only try to guess what sort of thing the GM will decide it is. They can't chose to select it vs something else, they can't decide to use it vs something else, they won't ride any stakes on it, because it could be worthless for all they know.
This kind of thing inhibits players from deciding to wager stakes and take risks. Instead they tend to just fall back on a small repertoire of well-understood tactics instead. Or more likely they 'play the DM' trying to measure just how much the DM is vested in a given outcome or scenario, or perhaps just using social engineering on them in some cases.
And what really is gained? The NUT of the motive was to let the GM, in a Gygaxian fashion, squelch 'abuse', which is really just a code word for "I don't like how easy this is to use." The 4e (at least) solution was to simply put things in a fairly narrow context, so 'Charm Person' generates a condition, and that has specific in-game effects. It can't really be abused because that's all it does! Now, that doesn't preclude other uses, but it puts them into things like 4e's 'page 42' (the rules for attempting things that are not already defined as powers or similar). Page 42 is pretty clear about what the expectations are there. In other situations you have SC rules, which are again pretty clear and give a good indication of the relative value of using a power as a resource cost in an SC. One of the issues with 5e is it lacks analogs to both of these, meaning you MUST leave things open-ended, and then you're always putting the GM in the spot of deciding if a given use is "OK" or not.

There is an easy solution to this.

The player can simply ask the DM. "If I use Charm Person in <whatever situation> how would it work/what would happen?".

The DM can then take in the situation and the context and provide possibilities to the player that can be used to make a decision.

This does not at all inhibit the player from wagering stakes or reduce their agency. It instead allows the DM to handle corner cases that depend on specific situations in order to present the stakes and agency to the player. It increases the versatility and applicability of the spell by allowing the DM to judge cases not covered by the rules.

If this were to be hardcoded then you end up with two situations (neither of which are positive, in my opinion).

1. You have very clear but limiting rules that state what you can and can't use the spell on. The player can ONLY do those things with the spell and anything applications outside of those rules are verboten, thus limiting player creativity.
2. You have the official rules expand to further cover more and more corner cases and more and more specific details. Situations that come up in-game that don't have rules need to be presented to the designers and the players have to wait for an update or a ruling from the designer.

The statement that 5e means that you "MUST leave things open-ended, and then you're always putting the GM in the spot of deciding if a given use is "OK" or not." is the game rules working as intended. It is one of the duties of the GM of making calls whether or not a given use of a spell, power, rules element is OK or not.

It is part of the job description of being a GM.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Funny thing is I think the surprise rules are perfectly clear. Seems pretty simple to me: if you didn't notice the enemy until combat starts you can't do anything until the end of your first turn. How is that hard?

Then again I really like the stealth rules (previous editions led to head scratching immersion breaking scenarios) so there's no accounting for taste.

The stealth rules work (when they do) because they begin by giving up on being precise - they assume it's too contextual for rules to really cover, so they just give you broad outline (use this ability and skill) and tell you to use common sense/wing it from there.

This works because even when it's vague, it's a known unknown which you can still plan around.

Surprise works well (and smoothly!) when thought of as an extension of stealth rather than as a special case of the initiative rules.

 

[Cadence]

If this were to be hardcoded ....

The problem I have with Charm Person in 5e is that for one of the parts that is hard coded (that the target gets the charmed condition - which stops them attacking and gives advantage) that it isn't specifically called out in an obvious way as being something the spell does. You have to know there is a charmed condition that it is talking about.

I'm good with them not going into all of the details about how a friend would act. I would be upset if there was another part of the book about how friends act that you had to stumble upon to know there were rules about it.

 

[Lanefan]

Weird, but while symmetry is definitely driven by aesthetic (and generally speaking I think symmetry is of minimal benefit) ...

Just to jump in here and add: while I'm not a fan of keywords etc. I do like a reasonable degree of symmetry, in that it leads directly toward some semblance of balance.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I am not at all convinced that this was the purpose of the skill point system, and would like to see something to back up that claim.

It's an opinion, what exactly do you expect? So, you aren't convinced. Okay?

Were 3e skills more aesthetic (per upthread assertion)? Not in my opinion. Some had tables, some improved with feats, some were more useful than others... They were clunkier than the 5e skills from what I've seen.

Each part of the skill system was, because 3e was very much built part by part, not with an overarching eye to the mechanical whole. The point system was there because on paper it looks good to have that granular customization, and it works differently at level 1 because it "makes sense", etc. not because it makes the process of choosing your skills more satisfying.

 

[Monayuris]

I agree that a lot of times rules in the game look better than they play. I find this problem with the above mentioned Keyword approach. I also find this to be the case with universal resolution mechanics. I think these are two areas that are aesthetically pleasing in a theoretical sense but have problems in actual play.

Keywording looks good on paper but it fails once you start looking at it too hard. Once you put conditions and game effects into keywords, you 'lock' them into what the keyword covers. If you have a Paralyzed keyword, but you want a creature to have a different effect than that keyword, then you have to override the keyword or stack several keywords. So you end up with Paralyzed -- see Unconcious -- see Incompacitated and so on. This is a common issue with 5e conditions. You have to reference 3 or so different conditions to fully understand an effect on a character.

It is just easier to have the full effect of the ability in the description. You can look in one place and know how to adjudicate it.

It also creates weird interactions. An example I have experienced was with the Push/ Pull / Slide forced movement rules in 4e. Compare the 4E Turn Undead ability with a Martial Power Shove type ability (I can't remember an exact example). Contextually, one power forces undead to flee from the caster's divine power, the other forces enemies away via direct physical effort.

The Push keyword causes both of these powers to behave in the same manner. If you have powers that modify the Push keyword, those powers apply in both cases (even if the context of such powers do not make sense). As an example, I once ruled that if you push a foe into a wall, each square would deal 1d6 damage (I liked the idea of a Push 4 against a wall being a brutal shove). Because of the keyword, it had the undesirable effect of having Undead bash their heads into walls when being turned.


With universal resolution mechanics, I find rules systems attempting to shoehorn everything into the mechanic, even if it makes little sense. A great example is the optional Morale rules in the 5E DMG. The rules shoehorn Morale into a standard Wisdom ability check mechanic. But what does that really mean, contextually? The default is that a higher Wisdom creature will more likely remain in battle. But in context, it may be wiser to flee. It may also depend on some other factor, a creature can be wise but cowardly. The mechanic fails to model the situation effectively.

Some elements of play are better expressed with different mechanics, mechanics that better model the desired effect. Sometimes you want a linear randomizer, but other times a bell curve makes better sense.

 

[Monayuris]

The problem I have with Charm Person in 5e is that for one of the parts that is hard coded (that the target gets the charmed condition - which stops them attacking and gives advantage) that it isn't specifically called out in an obvious way as being something the spell does. You have to know there is a charmed condition that it is talking about.

I'm good with them not going into all of the details about how a friend would act. I would be upset if there was another part of the book about how friends act that you had to stumble upon to know there were rules about it.

That's a good point.

I'm personally not a fan of keywords for this reason. It is better to have Charm Person spell just describe the effect. You don't have to reference another part of the book to understand how to use the spell.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

I like the idea of the DM making ruling on the spot because the rulebooks become more manageable, not having to cover any situation that could potentially happen. The problem is that they also added a limiting provision that things only do what they say they do, probably to refrain players to try and test their DM's limit.

I am all for letting the DM adjudicate border case like the Charm Person spell. But what you're basically doing is setting limits to what can be done with the ability, slowly covering all cases. For that, I prefer guidelines on what is expected rather than being left to improvise totally. I preferred when they gave example of DCs for checks, like they did in the playtest documents: they could be problematic if a DM didn't want any goliath to stand on the top of a single reed, but at least they gave guidelines on how to adjudicate.