D&D General Let's Talk About How to "Fix" D&D

[TheSword]

I thought it was pretty clear that I was being snarky, but if you feel attacked I apologize.

However, we are under no obligation to say a published product is something we like when we don't, and we think they are design failures rather than just preference differences. I would know: I worked on Gamma World d20.

XP serves an actual purpose in play and I think it is a mistake for WotC to abandon its central role in supporting player agency. I personally think milestone leveling is a form of railroading and has its place in linear adventure paths but not in sandboxes -- and that's not me badwrongfunning you, that's me expressing my opinion.

You have a very narrow definition of railroading if being awarded experience for your choice of three out of ten possible quests, completed in any order, in whatever manner and method you choose counts as such.

The writers didn’t even put a hard cut off in place, they just suggest offering more tempting and immediate higher level locations.

Games tend to deal with sandbox in three ways...

• Force it with sectioned areas opening and closing. (Kingmaker, Slumbering Tsar)
• Level up the enemies so they are relevant (Dungeon Magazine adventures, CRPG like assassins creed)
• Diminishing returns (Games like Baldurs gate, and Core D&D when a DM isn’t providing the hooks and motivation for higher level play)

It seems to me either of these is a suitable alternative but simply doing nothing and allowing PCs to run around killing sheep feels deeply unsatisfying to me as a DM and a player.

As I said, most players if asked the question how hard do you want the game will say, challenging but not too difficult. It’s a DMs role to offer this, either by providing hooks to those kinds of challenges or by scaling up those ones they have.

 

[Reynard]

It seems to me either of these is a suitable alternative but simply doing nothing and allowing PCs to run around killing sheep feels deeply unsatisfying to me as a DM and a player.

This statement makes me think you are being deliberately obtuse about the definition of a sandbox and ignoring the fact that what I said was PCs should be awarded XP for the things they actually do, which gives them control over their own risk/reward ratio and pace of leveling. No one said anything about wandering around killing sheep except you.

 

[TheSword]

This statement makes me think you are being deliberately obtuse about the definition of a sandbox and ignoring the fact that what I said was PCs should be awarded XP for the things they actually do, which gives them control over their own risk/reward ratio and pace of leveling. No one said anything about wandering around killing sheep except you.

Not deliberately obtuse. Maybe accidentally.

To be clear Im not poo-pooing other methods of XP. Just defending the validity of milestones.

To me tracking individual XP in D&D doesn’t merit the effort it takes and Milestones allow me to link level to achievement, or areas explored, or time played. Then again there are lots of things I don’t track, like arrows fired and spell components used. It just depends how much your group cares about these things.

Give me a system like WFRP where XP actually means something and I’ll fully on board.

 

[billd91]

You mean much like fighting for the sake of fighting and gaining xp is a metagame distraction now?

Where the xp are, the players will more or less follow. If the xp are mostly in combat, they'll look for reasons to fight whether the story needs them to or not. If the xp are mostly in exploring, they'll look for reasons to explore whether the story needs them to or not. If the xp are in treasure, they'll go to immense lengths to strip everything out of the place, get it to town, and sell it. If the xp are mostly (or only) in story completion or milestones, the 9:45 to Waterloo is leaving now from platform 8 and the players have already boarded the train.

If that's the goal, they'll do it. But if there's another goal that's central to the current situation, as I pointed out Out of the Abyss's built in initial situation of being captives of the drow, then farming the XPs with random fights and exploration is a distraction from that goal. If you want them to have the opportunity to level-up, align the XP awards and level-ups with their goals. If you want to see them explore these cool caverns where there are lots of XP opportunities, make sure there's a current goal-friendly hook to explore them that isn't just leveling up so they're prepared to face the capstone challenge to achieve their goal. Otherwise, you'll see the disappointment that people are reporting up this thread.

 

[Reynard]

@TheSword I don't think milestones don't ever have a place. I just think they undermine player agency in an open world/sandbox game where the whole point (IMO) is that what happens is a nearly as possible up to the players, including the rate of leveling and risk/reward ratio. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be XP for gold or creatures killed or whatever, but it does have to be concrete and explicit. You can have Quest XP (a much derided 4E concept) and that's fine as long as the players have some way to tell what the likely reward for the likely risk is to be.

As I said upthread, I used milestones to great effect in Avernus because of how linear we played that adventure. It worked great.

 

[TheSword]

@TheSword I don't think milestones don't ever have a place. I just think they undermine player agency in an open world/sandbox game where the whole point (IMO) is that what happens is a nearly as possible up to the players, including the rate of leveling and risk/reward ratio. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it has to be XP for gold or creatures killed or whatever, but it does have to be concrete and explicit. You can have Quest XP (a much derided 4E concept) and that's fine as long as the players have some way to tell what the likely reward for the likely risk is to be.

As I said upthread, I used milestones to great effect in Avernus because of how linear we played that adventure. It worked great.

Sure, but unless your sandbox involves exploring in detail a hex at a time, then there is always a degree of GM leading even in a sandbox.

As DM you are telling the player rumours about locations, you’re describing events, you’re providing clues and hints, you’re you’re providing NPC quest givers and treasure/societal rewards.

I’ve not yet seen a sandbox that is completely free form and doesn’t involve some kind of lead from the DM.

[Edit: totally agree that Avernus is disappointingly linear. I did like the Alezandrian’s approach to zooshing it up)

 

[robus]

Skipping to the end of the thread so apologies if this has been noted, but the glaring problem for me is lack of a game world time tracking system. Time limits are a key aspect of many spells and abilities and yet DMs are left hanging.

The tension pool is a great solution IMHO as it makes game world time tracking clear to the players and builds tension.

 

[Reynard]

Sure, but unless your sandbox involves exploring in detail a hex at a time, then there is always a degree of GM leading even in a sandbox.

As DM you are telling the player rumours about locations, you’re describing events, you’re providing clues and hints, you’re you’re providing NPC quest givers and treasure/societal rewards.

I’ve not yet seen a sandbox that is completely free form and doesn’t involve some kind of lead from the DM.

[Edit: totally agree that Avernus is disappointingly linear. I did like the Alezandrian’s approach to zooshing it up)

I'm not sure where the disconnect is regarding the DM signposting activities in the sandbox is. No oen suggested a wide open plain of nothing for the PCs to wander around in. Of course there are adventure possibilities (pre-generated, random, or some combination). I don't know what that has to do with the milestone versus "earned XP" leveling question.

 

[SirMoogle]

Skipping to the end of the thread so apologies if this has been noted, but the glaring problem for me is lack of a game world time tracking system. Time limits are a key aspect of many spells and abilities and yet DMs are left hanging.

The tension pool is a great solution IMHO as it makes game world time tracking clear to the players and builds tension.

Just read up on the time/tension pool over at The Angry GM and it's an interesting mechanic. I think it'd be a little harder to implement over VTTs as the visual aid tends to be lost on them.

I think time tracking should appeal to a player's meta-knowledge, as time changes speed according to the plot's demands. For example, if someone casted a combat spell that has a duration of ten minutes, say, near the end of combat, it'd be a very different take if the DM says it wore off when combat ended compared to the spell still being active. In terms of story tension I think it should be built of story beats. For example, in the Tomb of Annihilation campaign I'm playing in, my party advanced at a steady pace to points of interest, but once the DM introduced

Spoiler

feelings of the death curse growing stronger (which mechanically altered death saving throws),

we started hustling down the story path.

 

[R_J_K75]

It's only "poor ancounter design" because the system in 5E doesn't work for this kind of creature. And other than hit points it hardly matters when the PCs gang up on a solo whether they use their big guns or not.

I don't know how I missed this thread but I just saw it now, so I haven't read 99.9% of the responses but this one early on the first page caught my eye. I'm not looking for drawn out explanation as I don't really crunch the math behind 5E so I probably wouldn't understand it. My question is, in laymen's terms, what has changed in 5E from previous editions that make single monster encounters so weak? I've kind of noticed this myself and that 5E seems less deadly than previous edition but never gave it much thought as to why.