Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
So, then, skilled play in 5e cannot be dismissed as char-op and tactical combat?
D&D General Railroads, Illusionism, and Participationism
- Thread starter Helpful NPC Thom
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Aldarc
Legend
Not if you had fun as a player... apparently.
Crimson Longinus
Legend
Then it is definitely possible to lose in Monopoly!
Helpful NPC Thom
Adventurer
I agree with @Ovinomancer that the assumption that 4e can only be played in one way whereas older editions were fun, freewheeling adventure games is disingenuous. 4e is certainly more structured and directed around a certain style of play, but the rules of older editions created their own gameplay style...namely, the murderhobo. Gold-as-XP is a brilliant mechanic, but reading older adventures reveals baffling design assumptions. The random NPC's house has paintings on the wall listed with gold prices, and there's mention of coins and jewels squirreled about the property...and thus the PCs are incentivized to ransack the house in the pursuit of experience. The game supports this, the adventure supports this, the only thing defending the poor NPC from the PCs' rapacious avarice is their sense of decorum and the NPC's few hit dice.
Lyxen
Great Old One
Nobody said that.
Thanks, that's all I wanted to hear.
Nobody said AD&D was perfect either.
Maxperson
Morkus from Orkus
Is it possible that those things aren't RPGs?
Helpful NPC Thom
Adventurer
I would say that skilled play in 5e can include the elements you have discussed, but it's a "ymmv" territory.
Ovinomancer
No flips for you!
This feels like trying to keep your assertion that skilled play in 5e is char-op and combat tactics (because that's where the majority of the rules are) and can't exist in the rest because it's GM decides, while giving a nod to avoid argument. I'm not interested in arguments that are made, and when challenged are just given a YMMV tag to dismiss the challenge. You have dismissed skilled play in 5e with some rather strong statements. I am challenging that, not at a preference level, but with specific counterarguments that detail approaches that are expected even in the printed adventures, and clearly expected in many claims of play approach within 5e (most sandbox play involves a healthy dose of skilled play as I've presented it).
Heck, even in B/X skilled play was about half managing the mechanics and resources of the game and half engaging with and smartly using the fiction established. 5e is not really different, except it's moved a lot of the mechanical management from hard coded to soft coded on the GM. Leveraging the fiction provided is still skilled play.
I can provide moments in the 5e game I play in where I attempted skilled play and it failed due to GM fiat, so that's definitely a thing. But that doesn't removed skilled play, nor does it prevent a principled approach to enable in as a GM from existing (and this describes a number of my games as GM in 5e).
Arilyn
Hero
Players can win or lose a combat or succeed or fail at the end of a scenario but I don't see how the game as a whole can be won. Maybe having a distinct end to a campaign? But in all my years playing RPGs, I've never heard players sit back and say, "Yay, we beat the game" like we do with Pandemic or Marvel Champions.
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