Oh my God, this is going to be a lot! Please bear with me and my many pedantic responses.
First up,
@Oofta and others, I don't know how you play, and I'm not judging your games. I freely insult 5e
as a text, because I don't think the text informs your play as much as you might. Any rancour is between me and WotC.
Do my three examples contain value judgements? A little bit? They're based on my personal experience, preferences, and feeling of lack of structure 'letting me down' in play. What they are not, is an insistence that a particular type of structure or play is better. A game about political intrigue would benefit from completely different kinds of structures. Some people like lots of rules; some people hate them. I do think you need to have some kind of effective procedures for a game to actually work well.
Your example a) is still using 5th edition, you’ve just added some house rules to make it more like AD&D. Which is great, but I kinda feel this supports the video saying that edition doesn’t matter. How would your example a) be any different if you were just playing AD&D?
That's kind of my point, though. 5e is incomplete; I have to shove the guts of another edition in it to make it work. For what it's worth, 5e also does a lot of things (e.g. giving out powerful cantrips like candy) that can undercut traditional dungeon exploring. So, 5e isn't vanilla, it's just a really watered-down and insipid chocolate.
As a side note, you could add a 4th example where the DM plans the dungeon pretty much as a railroad ahead of time and still had the Carrion Crawler sleeping when the players encounter it, because the DM thought that would be the most interesting option. With notes that if they don’t kill it first they will run the risk of it waking and joining the fight when the characters encounter the Lich.
Good point. Better prep might have helped in the latter examples.
From the players perspective there’s no difference if you planned it ahead of time or rolled randomly. None of things are right or wrong, different approaches work better for different groups. There are people out there that might not enjoy example a) given one of the characters died and by the sounds of it the next session is going to start with a TPK.
That's true, with a couple of qualifications. The randomness of monster encounters, distances, reactions, etc. means there's less temptation for me to push things in the direction I think they 'should' go, which leads to a different type of play. Having an actual, nonlinear map of the dungeon, already keyed, means players have to make meaningful choices about where they go. Also, as I think
@hawkeyefan pointed out, the time pressure of wandering monsters and dwindling resources during exploration creates a very different game.
As for the demon: it doesn't have to be a TPK! Maybe the PCs give up the staff; maybe they run; maybe they try and cut a deal; maybe they win, somehow. The lack of these kinds of twists in linear play makes it feel kind of dead, to me.
Referring to the game as “unplayable” certainly implies value judgement and speaking repeatedly to what the game is supposedly “missing” or “lacking” is always going to come across that way.
To be fair, I think I said 'literally unplayable'. As in, you're not playing it. You're creating your own rules, and playing those, within the framework of 5e, which is incomplete.
Wait so you wing it and don't explain to your players what the basis you're using to wing it is? I'm confused about this and am trying to picture a situation where I don't inform my players about the mechanical ramification for choices in a situation... could you give some example? Unless you're winging it has no logic in it's basis I'm wondering how you can't provide them information that helps them make informed choices...
It sounds to me like you have your own implicit rule, here (a good one, IMO). I don't think 5e has any rules that say you have to define, and inform players of, the potential consequences of their actions.
No. There isn’t even always an “adventure”, as such. The players are expected to play thier characters, to be fans of each other’s characters in an improv sense, and to avoid hurting anyone at the actual real world table, even if this means sacrificing a little of the roleplaying to not have a triggering or otherwise harmful session.
In many of our campaigns we all agree to begin with everyone having a good reason to work with the rest of the group, but not always even that.
Pretty much what I just said above. Splitting the party and being fans of other characters while they do their thing is pushing pretty strongly against the implied style of 5e, where the party sticks together and fights monsters. Does 5e even have safety tools? I can't remember.
In 5E searching a room can be based more on the story, the most obvious example is time constraints. Which for a lot of people is how they’d rather their players make decisions/ play the game, based on what’s happening in the story rather than weighing up a meta game construct, that if we search the room the DM will roll a random encounter because that’s the rules.
There could still be a random encounter if you search the room in 5E, it’s just not a given. There are times when a random encounter might not make sense, or may not suit the theme or tone you‘re trying to set.
So yeah, ‘roll or decide, do whatever feels right’ might seem like garbage to some, to others it’s great advice and a welcome freedom. (It also doesn’t stop you rolling a random encounter every time, if that’s what feels right for you and your game)
For me, the problem with this is that there needs to be either some kind of visible ticking clock, or clear consequences for failed rolls. Otherwise, you get situations where everyone wants to roll their skill, or help another person roll theirs, every time the party encounters a potential obstacle, and the players basically never accept failure as an option until they get bored. That's kind of silly in a dungeon, and outright inappropriate in a tense negotiation.
If you're an experienced DM, you've probably come up with your own houserules for dealing with this. But, that's the point: 5e as written doesn't seem to offer much help here. Failure generally means 'nothing happens.' It's a really basic problem and a glaring hole in the text.
