D&D General Rules, Rules, Rules: Thoughts on the Past, Present, and Future of D&D

[overgeeked]

Static difficulties never work for any system for long. It's the biggest problem with for example the BRP system used in CoC is that it doesn't really provide good granularity for things being more difficult than usual. Rules in 7e try to codify and solve the problem, but even then there are issues.

They shot themselves in the foot by removing the Resistance Table. Couple that with opposed rolls, modifiers, along with bonus and penalty dice and you're set.

 

[Malmuria]

Ever played Dread?

No, but I really want to sometime!

 

[Aldarc]

Interesting questing beast video today about this topic.

One counter that I would make is that 4e was by many accounts easier to DM than 5e. I feel like Ben is trying to make this is a 5e vs. OSR point or a rules heavy vs. rules light point, when really there may be a bigger picture perspective that he is not considering. There may be particular issues when it comes to how 5e was designed. (Yes, insert "feature and not a bug" spiel here.)

 

[Malmuria]

One counter that I would make is that 4e was by many accounts easy to DM than 5e. In fact, possibly easier to create and run encounter thans in 5e. I feel like Ben is trying to make this is a 5e vs. OSR point or a rules heavy vs. rules light point, when really there may be a bigger picture perspective that he is not considering. There may be particular issues when it comes to how 5e was designed. (Yes, insert "feature and not a bug" spiel here.)

Yeah the video is about more than rules, so maybe exceeds the discussion here. There are some other points that make 5e hard to run, for example, scenario design and play culture. The former has been a problem since 2e, namely that a game focused around location-crawls was being used to present event-based scenarios, which is possible to do depending on the scenario but takes some additional guidance. The latter is an extension of the Matt Mercer effect, in the sense that the DM has to be both hyper-organized, charismatic, and good at creating plots that interweave PC backstories but are still open-ended. And, most confoundingly of all, the idea that the DM would be in charge of scheduling!

 

[Malmuria]

Anecdote from my online Old School Essentials game: I keep all the PC character sheets in a shared google doc (template here). This is because for half the players I sort of have to manage their characters. I can't tell if these players can't be bothered because they assume that I'll manage everything, or because OSE is somewhat new (though it's been like 10 sessions at this point), or for some other reason. In any case, with a system as simple as OSE, it's relatively easy to tab over to their sheet, if somewhat annoying. Anyway, in the last game, I had to call for various saving throws, as you do. The players who have a difficult time with the rules might take a minute to find their saving throw info (even though it's easy to find), so I end up tabbing over and saying you need to roll 15 or above on a d20. In that moment, I could say anything. I could make it an 18 or a 12 or whatever, and the player would just go with it. And it's not like the design of old school saving throws is some infallible work of design genius; if I changed save vs spells to start at 16 it would only matter 1 out of every 20 rolls.

Point is, saving throws in OSE are a player-facing mechanic, and yet for half of my players that consistency doesn't really matter. They are relying on me to tell them a target number, then they roll some dice, and we figure out the result. I get there are some players where rules consistency really matters, but it should be acknowledged that for many players it doesn't, because they barely manage to learn the rules in the first place.

 

[Hussar]

But it pales in comparison to the new rules of becoming hidden. I think that is a horrible set of rules including a DC 15 check to hide. Hidden as a condition, instead of being hidden from specific creatures, is also bad but that may just need clarification that you can be hidden from some creatures but not others

Except for the fact that it's not all that different from now. After all, the vast majority of creatures/NPC's have a passive perception of around 15. Give or take, but, 15's pretty close. Which means, as the rules work right now, the DC for hiding is almost always around 15.

Actually, now, it's stronger. Because all I have to do to hide is beat your passive perception. That means in many cases it's actually easier to hide than DC 15.

All this does is streamline things a bit. Instead of having to look up the passive perception every time the rogue wants to hide in combat, now it's a straight up DC 15. Easy peasy.

I just did a random sampling of CR 10 monsters:

Aboleth Passive 20
Balor Passive 13
Deva Passive 19
Remorhaz - Passive 10

So, yeah, 15 isn't looking all that bad.

 

[Oofta]

Except for the fact that it's not all that different from now. After all, the vast majority of creatures/NPC's have a passive perception of around 15. Give or take, but, 15's pretty close. Which means, as the rules work right now, the DC for hiding is almost always around 15.

Actually, now, it's stronger. Because all I have to do to hide is beat your passive perception. That means in many cases it's actually easier to hide than DC 15.

All this does is streamline things a bit. Instead of having to look up the passive perception every time the rogue wants to hide in combat, now it's a straight up DC 15. Easy peasy.

I disagree. First if you average out most monsters you get an 11 PP, not 15. An ogre has a PP of 8, an ancient red dragon has a PP of 26. Those monsters are not "basically the same".

Second, it sucks for the PCs as well. An assassin has a stealth of +9, in a game I currently play in (level 8) our PC's PP varies from 10 to 18. While that assassin has a pretty good chance of sneaking up on all of us, but he's a lot less likely to surprise the guy with the 18 PP. I had a player who put a ton of resources into perception to get a 15. I'm just supposed to tell them that it doesn't really matter?

I don't want an even playing field. I want it to be much, much more difficult to sneak up on an ancient red dragon than an ogre. I want to reward that player that put in the resources to have a high perception.

 

[overgeeked]

Anecdote from my online Old School Essentials game: I keep all the PC character sheets in a shared google doc (template here). This is because for half the players I sort of have to manage their characters. I can't tell if these players can't be bothered because they assume that I'll manage everything, or because OSE is somewhat new (though it's been like 10 sessions at this point), or for some other reason. In any case, with a system as simple as OSE, it's relatively easy to tab over to their sheet, if somewhat annoying. Anyway, in the last game, I had to call for various saving throws, as you do. The players who have a difficult time with the rules might take a minute to find their saving throw info (even though it's easy to find), so I end up tabbing over and saying you need to roll 15 or above on a d20. In that moment, I could say anything. I could make it an 18 or a 12 or whatever, and the player would just go with it. And it's not like the design of old school saving throws is some infallible work of design genius; if I changed save vs spells to start at 16 it would only matter 1 out of every 20 rolls.

Point is, saving throws in OSE are a player-facing mechanic, and yet for half of my players that consistency doesn't really matter. They are relying on me to tell them a target number, then they roll some dice, and we figure out the result. I get there are some players where rules consistency really matters, but it should be acknowledged that for many players it doesn't, because they barely manage to learn the rules in the first place.

Exactly. The overwhelmingly vast majority of players are casual fans who don't need anything more than to be told what to roll. Which is great because that's exactly how the game started in Arneson's basement. "What can I do?" Anything. "What do I need to roll?" I'll tell you when you need to roll. Arneson kept the rules to himself and changed them as he needed to. And yet it was still fun and people kept playing and word spread. It can be annoying, but embrace it. Say whatever sounds right in the moment. Ignore the character sheets.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I saw plenty of "You can't do that because there some rule/power that does something similar" in the the past. If you have a rule that covers some aspect of gameplay, a lot of people insist on using the rule and in my experience it's limited creativity. Thinking outside the box tends to go away when you could do what you want (or close enough) if only you had someone else's box.

"Using the rules" and "You can't do it if not spelled out" are not the same thing. I use the rules all the time, but it doesn't mean the world stops at the edge of what's explained. Some people develop a tic because of people trying to take advantage of working around the edge of the rules to get more out of it than they should, but again, that's a people problem, not a problem that there are rules.

In a way it makes sense that people are not going to do something that is a special feature of another class or feat. If everyone can do X, why would you ever take a feat that primarily allows you do to X? You should take some other feat.

Because you do X better. Maybe its faster (uses less action overhead), maybe it doesn't have a penalty normally associated with it (you only need one hand free rather than two). There can be reasons to take resource that are not binary all-or-nothing.

 

[Oofta]

"Using the rules" and "You can't do it if not spelled out" are not the same thing. I use the rules all the time, but it doesn't mean the world stops at the edge of what's explained. Some people develop a tic because of people trying to take advantage of working around the edge of the rules to get more out of it than they should, but again, that's a people problem, not a problem that there are rules.



Because you do X better. Maybe its faster (uses less action overhead), maybe it doesn't have a penalty normally associated with it (you only need one hand free rather than two). There can be reasons to take resource that are not binary all-or-nothing.

Just relaying what I've seen in practice. The more we have specific rules for things outside of combat, the more people tend to try to find a rule that tells them what they can and cannot do. YMMV.

I've absolutely seen DMs (particularly in 4E, but other editions as well) tell people they can't do X because there's a power that does that.