D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[Helldritch]

Maybe I missed something in the interplay, but...

If they need to do X encounters, but due to bad luck they are low on hit points and out of spells after X-1... they're just screwed?

For a long rest only. Do not forget they can get two short rests.
Also
I know how to plan encounters. Not everything needs to be deadly when you follow the 5-6 encounters per day. In fact, medium to hard is often enough. Resource management becomes vital when playing this style.

 

[Remathilis]

I think that's the heart of it for me. No risk, no reward. Picking an array is boring and dull. I'd rather have the risk of a potential 3 for the reward of a potential 18.

So would you accept a job that only paid you in Lottery tickets? I mean, you only need to get lucky once and you're set for life! Think of the risk, but think of the reward!

No? You'd prefer a job that pays you a regular salary each week? Something you can pay your bills with and buy things you want on a regular basis? That's boring and dull.

 

[Remathilis]

Thing is, I prefer a system where some classes are less common than others, and the only real way to enforce that is to gate them somehow. High stat requirements are a convenient means of achieving this, meaning that if a player's concept going in involves playing a gated class that concept is going to have to be put on hold until-unless the dice co-operate.

Stepping back a bit, the idea of having a character concept in mind before roll-up night is the root of the problem.

It seems others did so as well, but not here.

What I'm talking about here could be summed up as options that are intended to be partially allowed in a setting; where the specific intent is that when those options do appear in play they will be uncommon and known to be so; reflective of the setting's general population where such things are also quite unusual. Some species in my setting (Gnomes, for one) are far less common than others, but playable if you happen to roll into one on a species-abundance table. Some classes in my setting are similarly gated, in this case behind stat limits, so as to enforce some degree of rarity.

Level limits are another means of gating class-species combos but nowhere near as effective and generally not worth it. Variable xp requirements would, I suppose, be another e.g. a Gnome Fighter needs 1.25x the xp a Human Fighter does to advance each level but a Gnome Illusionist only needs .85x; but that too is more work than needed and would provide, I suspect, a very sub-optimal end result.

Gating things by luck favors the lucky or the dishonest. You might as well set up d100 tables that randomly determine your race, class and alignment.

I like my dice to determine the success of what I do in game, not what I play. I did years of that style; playing what the dice let me until I finally got lucky enough to roll what I wanted only to be shanked by a goblin two sessions later.

You may have fun with that play. More power to you. I have reached the point that this kind of play is dissociative; that isn't my character, it's a toon, a pawn, a game piece no more interesting than the top hat in Monopoly or Professor Plum in Clue. I have no attachment beyond an occasional amusing anecdote, and most of them don't have names (either they are forgotten to time or never got named in the first place).

 

[Vaalingrade]

I think 4e was focused on a kind of fantasy superhero genre emulation, 5e much less so. 5e also seems less gamist than 4e, and less reliance on skills & powers than 3e and 4e.

People keep using 'superhero' to deride characters who aren't weak and die every ten minutes without actually knowing what superhero as a genre means. For the love if Inigo Montoya, that word does not mean what you think it means.

4e was focused on traditionally heroic characters who are competent and capable in the fantasy world they live in.

If you ain't got the tums for it I can't help you there.

But you do have the time.

Sure, we're all gonna die sometime but until then the amount of time you devote to the game - as opposed to whatever else you do in life - is very much your own choice. The game is designed to take as much time as you're willing to give it and in some (many?) ways reward you for giving it (relatively) more time rather than less; and if you choose not to give it much time that's fine as long as you're aware that it's your choice, and that choice might lead to some elements of the game being less rewarding or interesting than they otherwise could be.

I don't know about you, but society will kill me via exposure or starvation if I don't sacrifice 40 hours a week to it, then I need 40 more hours of unconsciousness for reasons science still can't explain. I also write and publish in the hopes of making that initial 40 hours less onerous in my future. Add in eating, using the bathroom and interacting with other humans in non-fictional modes and I don't have the time to be wasted not playing character I don't want to play for the satisfaction of Chaos.

 

[Eric V]

People keep using 'superhero' to deride characters who aren't weak and die every ten minutes without actually knowing what superhero as a genre means. For the love if Inigo Montoya, that word does not mean what you think it means.

4e was focused on traditionally heroic characters who are competent and capable in the fantasy world they live in.


I don't know about you, but society will kill me via exposure or starvation if I don't sacrifice 40 hours a week to it, then I need 40 more hours of unconsciousness for reasons science still can't explain. I also write and publish in the hopes of making that initial 40 hours less onerous in my future. Add in eating, using the bathroom and interacting with other humans in non-fictional modes and I don't have the time to be wasted not playing character I don't want to play for the satisfaction of Chaos.

Seriously. "Sorry kids, I know I'm shirking my duty as your dad, but I am hoping to get more out of this game I'm playing!"

To say to someone "You have the time," without knowing a lick about their life circumstances...well, it's pretty arrogant.

 

[overgeeked]

So would you accept a job that only paid you in Lottery tickets? I mean, you only need to get lucky once and you're set for life! Think of the risk, but think of the reward!

No? You'd prefer a job that pays you a regular salary each week? Something you can pay your bills with and buy things you want on a regular basis? That's boring and dull.

Again with the terrible comparisons. Gaming isn’t a job. A job is. Gaming isn’t supposed to be boring. A job is. Gaming is supposed to be exciting. There’s no risk outside the game if the dice are cold.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Gaming is supposed to be exciting.

Can't it just be fun and relaxing instead? My gaming sessions are my chillouts, not my cardio.

 

[Fifth Element]

But you do have the time.

This is an incredibly presumptuous thing to say. Beyond presumptuous. Thinking you understand another person's life to the degree that you can make this statement is indefensible.

 

[Fifth Element]

Gaming is supposed to be exciting. There’s no risk outside the game if the dice are cold.

To you. You want gaming to be exciting. Other people play for other reasons, such as chilling out with friends. It's not up to you what other people want to get out of a game.

 

[Fifth Element]

You might as well set up d100 tables that randomly determine your race, class and alignment.

This brings up a mighty incongruity in the old-school argument here. The idea that you should be able to choose your race (subject to the restrictions of your ability score rolls), but you should NOT be able to choose your strength (for example), is incongruous. It illustrates that the desired limits on choice are entirely arbitrary.

Why should you get to choose your character's race? You roll dice to determine every other physical thing about the character. Why is drawing the line at race anything but a legacy issue?