D&D General Can we talk about best practices?

[Umbran]

I hope we can*, otherwise we’re doomed to never get better at...whatever it is we’re doing.

So simple question: how can we talk about best practices without being told it’s badwrongfun or onetruewayism?

EDIT: Changed the title without changing the first line.

Yes, but.... there's always a but...

We have to first understand that there is no one "best practices" for all of RPGs. Or even all of D&D. Best practices for dungeon-crawlers are not best practices for intrigue-aficionados, and so on.

You have have best practices for a particular desired result, but there are many possible desired results in RPGs.

 

[Thomas Shey]

At a certain point you'd need to filter the noise to get to the signal. We're likely never going to be able to get universal consensus on anything. I don't think that's the point. But as stated upthread, just because it's not an easy, quick, universal answer doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't attempt to come up with such a list. It's the internet. Sometimes people just argue to argue.

Except in a public forum you don't get to filter out the definitional fights. They will happen and whether you personally can ignore them, they're going to interfere with at least some best-practice discussion.

(Really? The definition of immersion is a controversial topic? How ridiculous.)

As I noted in another thread there are at least two somewhat varied usages of it operation, and you'll get taken-as-given bits about one that don't apply to the other.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I know it's a little controversial, but here's a best practice I've found useful since 3rd Edition...

When rolling dice, roll the highest number possible.

It might not work for every table, but I've found it's worked pretty consistently for me as both a player and DM.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I know it's a little controversial, but here's a best practice I've found useful since 3rd Edition...

When rolling dice, roll the highest number possible.

It might not work for every table, but I've found it's worked pretty consistently for me as both a player and DM.

Roll high on the treasure tables one too many times, and before you know it your name's Monty Haul...

 

[Neonchameleon]

Roll high on the treasure tables one too many times, and before you know it your name's Monty Haul...

Almost no one's really cared about Monty Haul since about 1985.

Back in the 1970s with it being expected to carry characters between games with different DMs then Monty Haul was a real problem if one DM was giving out ten times as much treasure as another because this would mean that players in that specific DM's game were so much more powerful than those not in it. It was really bad practice.

But as the game settled down to individual tables with small groups it doesn't matter so much whether the consistent DM is being generous to everyone or stingy with everyone because everyone's in the same boat.

This is just one example of best practices (and worst practices) being different based on different goals.

 

[Fanaelialae]

Almost no one's really cared about Monty Haul since about 1985.

Back in the 1970s with it being expected to carry characters between games with different DMs then Monty Haul was a real problem if one DM was giving out ten times as much treasure as another because this would mean that players in that specific DM's game were so much more powerful than those not in it. It was really bad practice.

But as the game settled down to individual tables with small groups it doesn't matter so much whether the consistent DM is being generous to everyone or stingy with everyone because everyone's in the same boat.

This is just one example of best practices (and worst practices) being different based on different goals.

Wasn't it clear that I was speaking in jest, in response to another joking post (the one about rolling high being a best practice)?

 

[Neonchameleon]

Wasn't it clear that I was speaking in jest, in response to another joking post (the one about rolling high being a best practice)?

My apologies. But I was also bringing it round to the core of the thread and how best practices are for specific jobs which makes them hard especially when D&D has changed over the years.

 

[J-H]

1) Players should roll attack and damage at the same time. As a DM, I usually roll attacks and damage separately because I have so darn many attacks to roll. Dice rolling and dice math is the single biggest table time eater, especially when the smiting paladin with Hunter's Mark crits.

2) Re-write your character sheet every so often if it's hand-written and has been erased a ton.

3) Use folded notecard pieces atop the DM screen to show/track initiative. Have a separate one for "20". Use separate markers for Legendary Actions to help remember to actually use them.

4) If two players are going in a roll, it's OK to have them both rolling their attack and damage at the same time most of the time. Similarly, most of the time if the cleric says "I'm healing X", you can move to the next person while the cleric rolls the exact amount healed.

 

[Ace]

Well, there are best practices for playing a specific game or a branch of games. In pretty much all new-school games, taking risks, not making complex plans and screwing your character for the sake of drama are good ideas, and trying to protect your character from harm is a stupid endeavour.

Now, there's no "correct way" to run and play D&D, but, honestly, that's a lie and a direct result of WotC not having damn balls. Every tool has the best way to apply it.

That's the main reason I'm such an advocate for division. That big tent BS doesn't really do anyone any good.

I agree.

I've know people married into the same family , technically brothers in law who would not game together and of course politics and bigotry and just human nature get in the way. One's gaming group need not be one's friends but you need to be comfortable with being around one another for at least 4 hour blocks sometimes more.

The TL;DR version. The group that is playing 40K is may not be the group you want in your Blue Rose campaign or My Life With Master or FATE or whatever. As you put it it, right tool for the right job.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

You need to accept that best practices exist only in the context of particular aesthetic movements, that have particular goals and then you need to discuss those best practices in terms of achieving those goals. You have to accept that some other people have different goals and will sue different techniques to pursue those differing goals, and that some people have similar goals but are differently comfortable with different techniques because they weigh the outcome differently.

Much like literature criticism, we need to understand game criticism as being descriptive and adopt a system of lenses and schools that allow us to identify differing value systems and move between them. Just like in literature or in food, no one thinks everything produced is good or enjoyable, but failures exist in the context of a literary or culinary tradition, rather than in an absolute sense.

Some people think the Lord of the Rings is a masterpiece of literature, other people think its badly written, it depends on the value judgements you use to determine the criteria-- whats important to you determines the state of success. But conversely, this does mean you can do something wrong, because the techniques you're using can fail to achieve your own goals, which in theory, means people are having less fun than you want them to be having-- its just that we kind of have to know how the game is creating fun, how its meant to create fun, and so forth in order to meaningfully engage with how to make it more fun.

Many of the most vigorous debates we have here actually come down to people trying to make the same set of goals applicable for games from movements they don't really share the same goals of, or policing the firm boundaries of the existing movements.