D&D 5E D&D compared to Bespoke Genre TTRPGs

[Ovinomancer]

So ... heterogeneity and all-a-that, but if I'm DMing and it's not clear what result you want, I'll ask. If what you want isn't consistent with what's come before, we'll negotiate. If it's as sketched-out as your thumbnail above, I'd literally let you choose the result.

This connects up to a different trend I dislike, which is telling me my character is awesome when in practice they aren't. Different thing. In your case, it's a failure to imagine a way for a competent person to fail (and if it's that difficult, maybe the check isn't necessary?).

And this is a good practice, one that you have instated without the direction or support of the rules. That it seems fair and obvious to you is a credit to you, not the rules. The rules of 5e don't even mention this as a preference -- they just say the GM narrates the result. I

It is entirely plausible they believed they didn't need to say do, because they wanted to believe they didn't need to.

The extensive evidence present in the printed adventures for 5e, which often recommend hiding results from players until after an action, regardless of result on the check called for, shows that instead it's you that's the outlier here. That you're the one defending the rules for doing something they don't even mention is the strange thing.

I like 5e. I'm just very honest about what it is. When I run 5e, it's up to me to provide the necessary feel at the table -- the rules don't do much to support me, they just let me do whatever and call it 5e. Outside of combat, that is, which is pretty solidly detailed out. And, to be frank, my group plays 5e primarily because they like the tactical combat engine, and I can make the rest of it work out well enough (by being very explicit about DCs, risks, and rewards prior to rolls). The combat I credit to 5e, the rest... well, they told me it's up to me when they said rulings not rules. I struggle why this is even an argument, what with the sales pitch being exactly what's in the tin.

 

[prabe]

And this is a good practice, one that you have instated without the direction or support of the rules. That it seems fair and obvious to you is a credit to you, not the rules. The rules of 5e don't even mention this as a preference -- they just say the GM narrates the result.

If you narrate a result that contradicts the outcome of a check, you're breaking the rules. If there's a success--whether from fiat or from a roll--and you don't know what the PC wants, you can't narrate that success until you find out what the PC wants.

Seems both straightforward and supported (if not demanded) by the rules to me.

The extensive evidence present in the printed adventures for 5e, which often recommend hiding results from players until after an action, regardless of result on the check called for, shows that instead it's you that's the outlier here. That you're the one defending the rules for doing something they don't even mention is the strange thing.

It's a shame the published adventures violate (or instruct DMs to violate) the rules.

I like 5e. I'm just very honest about what it is. When I run 5e, it's up to me to provide the necessary feel at the table -- the rules don't do much to support me, they just let me do whatever and call it 5e. Outside of combat, that is, which is pretty solidly detailed out. And, to be frank, my group plays 5e primarily because they like the tactical combat engine, and I can make the rest of it work out well enough (by being very explicit about DCs, risks, and rewards prior to rolls). The combat I credit to 5e, the rest... well, they told me it's up to me when they said rulings not rules. I struggle why this is even an argument, what with the sales pitch being exactly what's in the tin.

Personally, I think "rulings not rules" was part propaganda, and part exhaustion from the neverending errata of previous editions, and part encouraging DMs to make decisions and move on at the table. I think calling it "anti-design" or "anti-rules" is ... a bit of a reach, in practice.

 

[Manbearcat]

I don't see that that follows. Unless your definition of "bug" is by necessity a design feature that's accidental.

The formulation I'm trying to put in here is:

Let's design a modular game that is basically a toolkit with a considerable amount of GM authority and that requires a lot of interpretation and mediation in action resolution (Rulings Not Rules). We're doing this because we want every GM to make the game their own because people complained that they felt 4e was such a holistically/tightly designed game that (a) it made it difficult to hack for them and (b) therefore it ended up creating significant homogeneity across all 4e tables (compared with D&D's legacy of massive variance from table to table due to house rules and hacks and all the rest). Through this, we design heterogeneity and table ownership into the game.

So someone then complains "but, if I go on the internet and ask for rules help, I get all kinds of different answers...and different GMs I play under rule differently about all kinds of stuff!"

WotC's answer is "working as intended thank you very much!" <cue everyone in the WotC office bro-fisting>

I think it's worth acknowledging that not everyone who plays 5E by choice would regard any choice--let alone every choice-- in its design as "all feature, no bug."

For sure. But if you're complaining about what I wrote above, you're basically a 5e detractor because you're lamenting perhaps 5e's most fundamental design principle. Bounded Accuracy, Rulings Not Rules, Natural Language, Modular Design, Table Heterogenity, Renewed GM Authority of Yore, Storyteller Mandate, Back to the D&D Tropes of Yore are pretty much the pillars of this game.

Perhaps a few of those may not be liked by people who play the game, but several of those are so foundational to the design that to not like them would fundamentally mean not liking 5e.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I wasn't talking about a specific result so much as general odds. If any time I try to accomplish anything I am more likely to make things worse than not, I am not awesome--don't try to convince me I am.

Not a fan of "success with a cost" if I were to guess?

 

[prabe]

Not a fan of "success with a cost" if I were to guess?

I am specifically not a fan of systems that put their thumbs on the odds to ensure complications and outright failures. I'm less bothered if there's a mechanic to turn a failure into a partial success (such as a limited "metacurrency" or something) or by my understanding of PF2E's crit-fail/fail/success/crit-success gradations.

So, my answer is more complicated than you guess, and/or entirely consistent with what you guessed.

EDIT: Any my dislike of such mechanics doesn't mean I can't or won't enjoy such games, if the people around the table are awesome. Given that my position is that the people around the table matter more than the rules of the game, that shouldn't be a shock.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The formulation I'm trying to put in here is:

Let's design a modular game that is basically a toolkit with a considerable amount of GM authority and that requires a lot of interpretation and mediation in action resolution (Rulings Not Rules). We're doing this because we want every GM to make the game their own because people complained that they felt 4e was such a holistically/tightly designed game that (a) it made it difficult to hack for them and (b) therefore it ended up creating significant homogeneity across all 4e tables (compared with D&D's legacy of massive variance from table to table due to house rules and hacks and all the rest). Through this, we design heterogeneity and table ownership into the game.

So someone then complains "but, if I go on the internet and ask for rules help, I get all kinds of different answers...and different GMs I play under rule differently about all kinds of stuff!"

WotC's answer is "working as intended thank you very much!" <cue everyone in the WotC office bro-fisting>

That may be their take on it, but I'm not sold that's the view that would be held by everyone who plays 5e even by preference. I've got games I like quite a bit and will play given a choice, but that I still think some design elements were mistakes, sometimes big ones.

For sure. But if you're complaining about what I wrote above, you're basically a 5e detractor because you're lamenting perhaps 5e's most fundamental design principle. Bounded Accuracy, Rulings Not Rules, Natural Language, Modular Design, Table Heterogenity, Renewed GM Authority of Yore, Storyteller Mandate, Back to the D&D Tropes of Yore are pretty much the pillars of this game.

Perhaps a few of those may not be liked by people who play the game, but several of those are so foundational to the design that to not like them would fundamentally mean not liking 5e.

I think you might be surprised how conflicted someone can be about a game and still continue playing it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I am specifically not a fan of systems that put their thumbs on the odds to ensure complications and outright failures. I'm less bothered if there's a mechanic to turn a failure into a partial success (such as a limited "metacurrency" or something) or by my understanding of PF2E's crit-fail/fail/success/crit-success gradations.

So, my answer is more complicated than you guess, and/or entirely consistent with what you guessed.

EDIT: Any my dislike of such mechanics doesn't mean I can't or won't enjoy such games, if the people around the table are awesome. Given that my position is that the people around the table matter more than the rules of the game, that shouldn't be a shock.

I was thinking specifically of the PbtA tendency to make success-with-complications the more common form of success. For what its worth, my wife has much the same feeling you do about that (I'm more ambivalent myself, but I can't say I see it as a positive).

 

[Manbearcat]

That may be their take on it, but I'm not sold that's the view that would be held by everyone who plays 5e even by preference. I've got games I like quite a bit and will play given a choice, but that I still think some design elements were mistakes, sometimes big ones.

Is the "their" above WotC?

If so, it is is definitely their take on it. The playtest was both barrels of all of the things I wrote above and the "surveys" were extremely slanted toward "on a scale of GM Empowerment...how much do you want to see Natural Language take Damage on a Miss and Warlords shouting arms back on behind the woodshed and beat them to death with some Rulings Not Rules?"

Now does everyone who plays 5e agree with all of its micro-design decisions and class iterations? Of course not. And as the honeymoon flames (it was basically heresy to complain about anything 5e for probably the first year after release) reduced to a healthy simmer, people who loved and played the game challenged aspects of its design more and more (the "big ones" you mention are probably Bounded Accuracy and the Top Down Adventuring Day design and the impacts on play of both of those decision).

But its still as beloved as it gets and I doubt hardly anyone who plays it doesn't appreciate (and defend...like we see here) the core tenants of its Modular, Rulings Not Rules, GM Empowerment, Table Heterogeneity design.

I think you might be surprised how conflicted someone can be about a game and still continue playing it.

Less than you think I'm sure. I've seen people play D&D games they hate, under GMs they loathe (both socially and as in their actual game-running), for years...week-in...week-out.

Humankind is capable of all brands of Stockholm Syndrome and TTRPGing is one of the more interesting instantiations of it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Is the "their" above WotC?

Yes.

But its still as beloved as it gets and I doubt hardly anyone who plays it doesn't appreciate (and defend...like we see here) the core tenants of its Modular, Rulings Not Rules, GM Empowerment, Table Heterogeneity design.

I think you're seriously underestimating the number of people who just don't think about it. Yes, on here people do (though even here you'll get people who simply don't think its important--they just don't tend to stay in a conversation long).

 

[Manbearcat]

I think you're seriously underestimating the number of people who just don't think about it. Yes, on here people do (though even here you'll get people who simply don't think its important--they just don't tend to stay in a conversation long).

What is "it" here?

The design space of 5e and the implications of that design?

If so, I don't underestimate or overestimate the quantity of people who just don't think about it, to be honest. Those folks who don't think about it and just want to hang with friends? They can keep doing what they're doing! I don't think about their indifference just like they don't think about it!. They can keep on keeping on with their indifference!