D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[Campbell]

@FrogReaver

Fundamentally how you decide which consequences to apply of those listed is by first looking to your GM Goals and Principles, letting them guide your decisions. Also look to GM Actions and Best Practices. Try to avoid the listed Bad Habits. There's no rote process but there is plenty there to guide your decision making process.

By the way how are you finding it so far? What sort of Crew do your players have going on?

 

[pemerton]

The DM informs if the players aren't thinking of something that the PC would just know. The DM is failing at his job if he doesn't do this.

I just thought I'd mention that I hate this, as both player and GM. As a player, it makes me feel like the GM is using me as a piece in their own solitaire play. As a GM, it makes me feel like I'm solving my own puzzle.

If the players ask for additional framing information I'll provide it: but my preference is for them to make it up themselves; or perhaps have them declare an action that will settle the issue one way or another ("My guy's ex-Navy. Would I know the codes?" "I dunno: give us a roll on Education!" <player succeeds on roll> "Yes you do.")

 

[pemerton]

Every rpg has the GM direct what happens (there’s a few shared DM ones where maybe that’s not the case).

Do you mean sometimes. Or do you mean always. The former is true. The latter is false - there are RPGs in which sometimes the players direct what happens (for instance, any system that uses intent-oriented resolution, when the players succeed: Burning Wheel and BitD are two examples).

in blades in the dark anytime there is a failure or success with a complication, the dm is the one that’s looking at the fiction and setting the initial position and effect. The dm is the one defining exactly what complication occurs (the player wasn’t privy to the exact nature of the complication beforehand).

This is partly backwards - position and effect will be set before the dice are rolled. I'd expect that a lot of the time in actual play, these would be the subject of negotiation among the participants.

There’s no procedure for how a blades GM actually produces any of that fiction.

On the online rulebook I found this table:

Controlled—You act on your terms. You exploit a dominant advantage.
• Critical: You do it with increased effect.
• 6: You do it.
• 4/5: You hesitate. Withdraw and try a different approach, or else do it with a minor consequence: a minor complication occurs, you have reduced effect, you suffer lesser harm, you end up in a risky position.
• 1-3: You falter. Press on by seizing a risky opportunity, or withdraw and try a different approach.

Risky—You go head to head. You act under fire. You take a chance.
• Critical: You do it with increased effect.
• 6: You do it.
• 4/5: You do it, but there’s a consequence: you suffer harm, a complication occurs, you have reduced effect, you end up in a desperate position.
• 1-3: Things go badly. You suffer harm, a complication occurs, you end up in a desperate position, you lose this opportunity.

Desperate—You overreach your capabilities. You’re in serious trouble.
• Critical: You do it with increased effect.
• 6: You do it.
• 4/5: You do it, but there’s a consequence: you suffer severe harm, a serious complication occurs, you have reduced effect.
• 1-3: It’s the worst outcome. You suffer severe harm, a serious complication occurs, you lose this opportunity for action.​

That seems like a procedure to me. In basic structure I think it's comparable to a classic D&D or Traveller reaction roll table.

Dice determine success or failure. Success is usually fairly clear cut (you do the thing you were trying), but dice don't usually tell you the nature of failure. That's true in 5e as well as a game like Blades in the Dark. On failure they at most constrain the DM to pick some consequence that makes sense with the fiction.

Success in BitD, according to that same rules reference, is not you do the thing you're trying. It's you succeed at [your] action without any consequences. And success is defined by Your goal [which] is the concrete outcome your character will achieve when they overcome the obstacle at hand.

In this respect, at least, BitD resembles Burning Wheel more than it does Apocalypse World.

As far as the nature of the failure is concerned, that's set out in the table above.

 

[Garthanos]

I’m the worlds worst for sandboxy video games. As an example my experience with oblivion was that once i was past the intro and had freedom to do whatever. I’d wander the map aimlessly looking for anything remotely shiney. Eventually I’d wander near the edge of the map and spend a few hours trying to jump scale up the mountains, eventually reaching as high as possible. Then when that got boring I was too far away from any story quests, too much time had elapsed for me to remember what they were anyways, and if I would have been presented any significant choices in them I’d waffle to long deciding what to do to the point it wouldn’t be fun. And this was all after spending countless hours figuring out character creation down to a science.

One of the things I didnt like about Morrowind is that if it had a main storyline it wasnt compelling - Oblivion was more compelling and, I felt some urgency and involvement in the main quest... I was less inclined to just wander around without engaging with it. (It sounds like you didnt find Oblivion compelling)

 

[Maxperson]

I just thought I'd mention that I hate this, as both player and GM. As a player, it makes me feel like the GM is using me as a piece in their own solitaire play. As a GM, it makes me feel like I'm solving my own puzzle.

I don't mind it, because in reality it isn't the DM using me as a piece in anything, let alone solitaire play. It's like if the PC is an expert potter, but the player doesn't know anything about pottery, but the DM does. The DM should be giving the player information that would be known by someone who is an expert potter.

If the players ask for additional framing information I'll provide it: but my preference is for them to make it up themselves

If they know nothing about pottery, what they make up for themselves will likely be wrong or nonsense.

or perhaps have them declare an action that will settle the issue one way or another ("My guy's ex-Navy. Would I know the codes?" "I dunno: give us a roll on Education!" <player succeeds on roll> "Yes you do.")

It seems you might be confusing what I am saying with giving the PCs the answers to everything. That isn't what I said. I don't give them solutions to problems. I let the expert woodcutter know if the tree has a specific kind of rot that a woodcutter would know about.

 

[FrogReaver]

One of the things I didnt like about Morrowind is that if it had a main storyline it wasnt compelling - Oblivion was more compelling and, I felt some urgency and involvement in the main quest... I was less inclined to just wander around without engaging with it. (It sounds like you didnt find Oblivion compelling)

Oblivion was just an example. That’s fairly typical play experience for me in many really open world single player games. So I don’t think it was the lack of a compelling story.

IMO. I never played enough of the main story to even have an opinion on whether it was compelling or not.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I’m the worlds worst for sandboxy video games. As an example my experience with oblivion was that once i was past the intro and had freedom to do whatever. I’d wander the map aimlessly looking for anything remotely shiney. Eventually I’d wander near the edge of the map and spend a few hours trying to jump scale up the mountains, eventually reaching as high as possible. Then when that got boring I was too far away from any story quests, too much time had elapsed for me to remember what they were anyways, and if I would have been presented any significant choices in them I’d waffle to long deciding what to do to the point it wouldn’t be fun. And this was all after spending countless hours figuring out character creation down to a science.

Did I have to play it that way. Probably not, but that’s how it ended up for me. Could I explain why that was? Nope.

Which is exactly what I was referring to earlier. These games don't end up giving you a concrete throughline once you get past character creation. (I never played Morrowind myself, but had a similar experience with Oblivion: I spent ages creating a character and doing the intro stuff, and when I finally got out, I had no sense of what to do. I bumbled around for a bit, got lost, and then died almost instantly when a random wolf attacked me.

I never played Oblivion again after that.

This is the experience I'm talking about with permitting things but not supporting them. You get lost in the weeds. You wander away from what the rules support, and get stuck on something they don't. There's little reason to stick with it, because you wandered off into things you want to do and the game doesn't help you do them, and the things it does help you do weren't that compelling or you'd have done them.

Hence why I used the term "rules-avoidant" rather than rules-light. 5e isn't rules-light. There hasn't been an official rules-light D&D for ages, if there ever was one. ("We ignored the rules," no matter how commonplace it might have been, doesn't actually make the game rules-light!) But 5e does actively avoid having rules for a lot of things. Crafting and magic item economy, for example. This doesn't end up making it particularly light, it has plenty of mechanical oddities (like the rules surrounding "melee weapon attack" from "an attack using a melee weapon" etc.) It just means it chooses to have no rules whatsoever for various things.

That absence is palpable. I've seen dozens of threads and posts over the years talking about how 5e showers characters in gold and then gives them no reason to actually spend it. Threads about crafting are less common, but I've seen plenty of them as well. And, as noted, the many, many, MANY posts where someone asks for advice and gets the answer, "You're the DM, do whatever you want!" All that freedom, all those infinitely many options, and yet no support.

 

[Maxperson]

But 5e does actively avoid having rules for a lot of things. Crafting and magic item economy, for example.

It has rules for both. The DMG gives prices for magic items that the DM can use to both buy items from the players and sell items to the players. That's a magic item economy. The DMG also has rules for PCs crafting magic items. The PHB rules for crafting mundane items. They aren't particularly robust, but they do exist.

 

[pemerton]

If they know nothing about pottery, what they make up for themselves will likely be wrong or nonsense.

If I, the GM know nothing about pottery, then ditto!

The last time something like this came up was in my Classic Traveller game. It involved the properties of certain gases at (very) low temperatures, and the behaviour of electrical fields. We worked out the gas stuff together. The electrical engineer at the table groaned about my electrical fields but let them pass.

It seems you might be confusing what I am saying with giving the PCs the answers to everything. That isn't what I said. I don't give them solutions to problems. I let the expert woodcutter know if the tree has a specific kind of rot that a woodcutter would know about.

I don't believe I'm confused. I'm pretty sure I understand what you're describing as an approach to RPGing. What I'm saying is that I don't like it.

 

[Maxperson]

I don't believe I'm confused. I'm pretty sure I understand what you're describing as an approach to RPGing. What I'm saying is that I don't like it.

THAT I can accept. It's surely very accurate. THIS I cannot, "...the GM is using me as a piece in their own solitaire play." I mean, I believe you feel that way, but you aren't actually being treated that way.