D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

[pemerton]

I confess..somehow this circumstance escaped my notice. I shall have to reconsider..

I'm glad to hear it! The thread expects you to report back in due course, preferably with actual play experience to reinforce your conclusions!

 

[pemerton]

Not everyone wants to do D&D the 4e way.

Sure. That doesn't bear upon my post, though, which was about whether the game needs to include things that are irrelevant to play in order to establish a plausible imaginary world.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. That doesn't bear upon my post, though, which was about whether the game needs to include things that are irrelevant to play in order to establish a plausible imaginary world.

Mundane gear isn't irrelevant to play in my games, so I don't have experience with what you're talking about, but that means I can't deny your claim either, so fair enough.

 

[Cadence]

Mundane gear isn't irrelevant to play in my games, so I don't have experience with what you're talking about, but that means I can't deny your claim either, so fair enough.

It feels like most games will have varying amounts of relevant mundane gear - with the hard part knowing in advance which unexpected ones will show up. (Like Steins in the example upthread).

But I'm guessing it isn't hard to make a list of lots of things that haven't been relevant in a particular campaign yet. (Weigh bearing of picture frames? Tearing resistance of picture canvases? Sharpness of trowels? The absorbency of mops? Etc...)

 

[Mecheon]

Not everyone wants to do D&D the 4e way.

Its hardly the 4E way (and honestly based on a lot of complaints I've heard about 5E, I suspect people do got a bit of fondness for 'everyone can make tactical decisions in combat'), it dates back to Dragonlance at the very least. The general Internet vibe of D&D has rarely placed much influence on stuff like mundane item keeping or encumbrance, and I suspect it dates to the inspiring fiction that's around. Folks hear "Dungeons and Dragons" and they have a very specific view, absolutely reinforced by the recent movie, as to what its going to be. How its played.

The popular examples of playing D&D was the novels, and then games like Baldurs Gate or NWN (Which, at least in some modules, does try to go closer to your style of things, but absolutely not all). Effectively the inertia of the game is very much away from that mundane item noting and instead very much into the high fantasy adventure. That's basically the problem. Even back in 2E when those were published, that playstyle was on its way out and just became an increasingly niche thing

 

[pemerton]

I guarantee you that, if a DM declared that the closing doors would crush the stein, even if there's every reason in the narrative to believe that's true based on how strong the doors are vs. the stein, without hard rules, many players would pitch a fit.

Sure, but I think what @pemerton (and please correct me if I'm wrong) is kind of the "pick a lane" factor.

Either you go with very limited and abstract equipment lists, and only look at stuff that actually matters.

or

You go with something more like older editions or Torchbearer, where it's more maximalist and maintaining the lists are part of the charm of the game.

Whereas going in-between with equipment lists, but almost none of it matters (as 5E tends towards) is kind of a waste of everyone's time and also without the charm of the maximalist approach.

I disagree, actually. If the players had just grabbed the stein, and it hadn't been described particularly, I don't think many or even really any players would "pitch a fit". If, on the other hand, the stein had been described and was made of steel or something (not sure that's an ideal medium for beer but w/e), or it was some stein the players had had for a while, and that they thought was great for some reason, then you might see the fit-pitching.

The equipment description and the DC guidelines in the DMG frankly seem to cover just about any situation where that might come up, but I could see then providing a little more guidance in the new DMG. Or, maybe not.

In my mind - which may be as mangled as a door-crushed beer stein - these are all related, and relate also to @Warpiglet-7's example of the need to dig the trench.

I see two ways to use equipment in play.

One is like the classic procedure of play that I spelled out above - the players are expected to declare rather detailed actions for their PCs, for circumventing the cunning architectural obstacles the GM has described, and the GM adjudicates based on being as true as possible to the shared imaginary situation and shared knowledge of how shovels, poles etc work. Obviously the more varied the obstacles become - digging trenches, pitching tents in the arctic, etc - the harder it is to work this out. In my Classic Traveller game, when the PCs were using their triple beam laser to blast through kilometres of ice to uncover a buried alien installation, we - as in, the group - spent 15 minutes or so Googling up information about how lasers cut through ice, and then reached an agree extrapolation of this to the imaginary situation.

I reckon that the sort of approach I've just described is not all that mainstream in current D&D play.

The other approach involves feeding the equipment into a more general, somewhat abstract, resolution framework. There are different ways this can be done - I enjoy Torchbearer's and I enjoy 4e D&D's and I enjoy Marvel Heroic RP's, although they're all different - and in the context of 5e D&D this would mean feeding it into the general ability/skill check framework.

Which means I think @Parmandur is right - it seems like something for the DMG.

But it might also affect the way the equipment list is set out - instead of just an alphabetical list, there could be things like Tools for digging, cutting etc with some examples listed, and a note that these help STR checks as per the DMG; and Tools for measuring, assaying etc with some examples listed, and a note that these help INT checks as per the DMG; and Tools for protecting from weather, exposure, cold, etc with some examples listed, and a note that these help CON checks as per the DMG; etc.

And then the DMG, in its advice on setting DCs, granting advantage or imposing disadvantage, etc, could include a discussion of how the use of tools is a factor in this.

 

[mamba]

Maybe, but if I went into my garage, I could probably find a hundred different tools I could justify as things that could belong in a d&d setting, and I'm not particularly handy.

and all the examples you gave I would list as ‘hammer’ and ‘screwdriver’ with a cost and weight and call it a day. Are there a thousand items in the real world that we do not need in D&D at all or only at the highest level of abstraction (hammer), sure.

That does not mean there aren’t any that should have a better description and defined use.

 

[Hussar]

If we want detailed, intricate systems, that’s what dms guild is for. I’ve no problem with that.

But a little bit more in the core rules isn’t exactly a huge ask.

 

[pemerton]

If we want detailed, intricate systems, that’s what dms guild is for. I’ve no problem with that.

But a little bit more in the core rules isn’t exactly a huge ask.

What do you think of my suggested approach in post 1816?

 

[mamba]

But at the end of the day, each DM has a decision to make for their games. Do they want rules to govern hardships and travel challenges or do they want to handwave them?

by not having rules, that decision is being taken away…

If you're the kind of DM that wants a piece of equipment to be vital, it's on you to add it to the game. If you want a piece of equipment to have rules, it's again, on you to add those.

that is the flaw / problem

Some might balk at that, but this is the "rulings not rules" edition. I keep being told all the time that not having detailed rules for everything is a feature, not a bug.

it is, but ‘not a rule for everything’ is very different from ‘no rule for anything’

when I give a game company ~40 bucks for a book, I don't really want to be told "hey, make it up". I could already do that

precisely