D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[Crimson Longinus]

Whilst I totally think that you can and should participate in situations where your character doesn't have best possible skill, I also think it should be easier to have a good bonus in a skill that is not part of your class' core competence. Like you can do it, but I totally get why it is not terribly appealing to trade pretty significant boost in your class' main area to a small boost in another area.

For my game I houseruled things so that it is easier, and 3/4 characters have a very high score in an ability that is not their class' main score (or constitution) and the fourth has a decent non-class score as well. I think it broadened the characters and made them less one dimensional. But part of why this worked was that I explicitly told the players that this was the intent, and it is more difficult to build a system where min-maxers couldn't just use this extra leeway to bump their core competence even more.

 

[Minigiant]

Well, we are at an impasse. I clearly do not understand.

I guess a player whose personality is gregarious always has to play a high charisma character then. This must be true because the opposite holds true. A player who is an introvert and shy and quiet clearly cannot be the party's face. It would mean they themselves have to do all the social pillar talking, you know, since everyone else has to sit there and be quiet - because the party face has the best chance of "winning."

I would love to see a small script of how this works. But I fear, if I do see it, it will only raise more questions.

Guard: Halt. You look like the Bower's men
Extroverted Fighter: No. We ware just messengers.
DM: Roll Deception Big man.
Extroverted Fighter: @#$&!
Wizard: Here we go again.
Extroverted Fighter: 7.
Guard: Liar!
Extroverted Fighter: @#$&!
Rogue: Mortdammnit to Hells. Not again. Every time.
Wizard: Wait this is playtest. Bard
Introvert Bard: Oh. Inspiration. 2.
DM:
Wizard: Leave the talking to these two. Spectral globs of green and blue
Introvert Bard: You didn't have to kill him.
Wizard: You shoulda spoke up. 11 force damage

 

[tetrasodium]

Guard: Halt. You look like the Bower's men
Extroverted Fighter: No. We ware just messengers.
DM: Roll Deception Big man.
Extroverted Fighter: @#$&!
Wizard: Here we go again.
Extroverted Fighter: 7.
Guard: Liar!
Extroverted Fighter: @#$&!
Rogue: Mortdammnit to Hells. Not again. Every time.
Wizard: Wait this is playtest. Bard
Introvert Bard: Oh. Inspiration. 2.
DM:
Wizard: Leave the talking to these two. Spectral globs of green and blue
Introvert Bard: You didn't have to kill him.
Wizard: You shoulda spoke up. 11 force damage

You've described something interesting happening as a result of failure. The alternatives for that scenario are either abilities that exist in the form of a solution in search of a specific problem or some flavor of godmoding that ensures the gm won't water everyone's time with the pointless distraction.

 

[Micah Sweet]

YES!​

Or there should be core variant class features that gives them baseline strength in every pillar.

OR there should be official guidance on how to put every class into a pillar they are weak in specifically.

Waiting for someone to write a blog or post a video should not be the default of the game. All parts of the cooperative game should cooperative mostly from the books.

WOTC allowing the garage doors to remove social or exploration aspects out of certain classes because the grogs had narrow views of them and preferred a specific playstyle was a big hindrance in fifth edition.

Even if Wizards listen to the grogs they should have put in specific guidance and rules on how to involve other classes into social and expiration play in the DMG specifically for those classes.

Did D&D community is diverse. 5th edition was not designed for a diverse community.

I disagree. If you want a game that plays differently, perhaps you should play a different game. The problem as I see it is the insistence that D&D be able to do everything for everyone.

The TTRPG community is diverse. 5th edition (and literally every other game) does not need to be designed to accommodate all of it.

 

[Minigiant]

I disagree. If you want a game that plays differently, perhaps you should play a different game. The problem as I see it is the insistence that D&D be able to do everything for everyone.

The TTRPG community is diverse. 5th edition (and literally every other game) does not need to be designed to accommodate all of it.

It should accommodate the styles of previous editions.

 

[Scribe]

The stance is that someone with a 14 charisma (easily doable for a fighter if the player cares) and proficiency will never want to participate in a social encounter because the DM might call for a check. Seems like there's always a charisma based class in the group at the very least if not a bard specialized in the appropriate skill. Other, non-charisma-based checks never affect the target DC, nor does the content of what the PC says, as far as I can tell.

YES!

Yes. I am saying (and maybe Minigiant is too) that that level of crippling over-specialization is unwise design, counter to the explicit, openly-described intent and goals of the designers.

There are subclasses for Fighters that lean into the Social pillar. There are ways outside of just Class, to solve for this.

I 100% have issues with a lot of 5e, but I'm just not seeing any argument, and certainly no fixes proposed, that are moving me in any but the opposite direction of what all these 'buff the martials/fights/non-casters' threads are trying to convince me of.

So you give the Fighter some perk for Social. Some 'baseline' ability. You have a Wizard/Warlock/Bard/Sorc in the Party.

Who solves for the Social encounter? It aint the fighter unless like a few folks here have outline, they build for it that way, and the RP works that way. Pure crunch mechanical optimization? It will never be the Fighter over those other actual Face classes.

WOTC allowing the garage doors to remove social or exploration aspects out of certain classes because the grogs had narrow views of them and preferred a specific playstyle was a big hindrance in fifth edition.

Even if Wizards listen to the grogs they should have put in specific guidance and rules on how to involve other classes into social and expiration play in the DMG specifically for those classes.

Did D&D community is diverse. 5th edition was not designed for a diverse community.

I think you are absolutely giving way too much credit to a tiny group of people, and perhaps ignoring the fact that even still, to this day, the Fighter remains incredibly popular.

5e absolutely was designed for a diverse community. There's no way it would have blown up as it has otherwise.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It should accommodate the styles of previous editions.

Not possible without twisting the game into a incomprehensible mess, for mechanical reasons. 1e/2e, 3e, 4e, and 5e are all different games. So is OD&D/BX/BECMI for that matter. A game can emulate one of those, even improve upon it for some, but it can't emulate all of them at once, and trying to do so with mutually exclusive optional rules (which they would have to be) leads to the mess I referenced above. The biggest mistake from a design perspective (which I think you all know is what I care about) is insisting that all these different games still be called D&D, and treating them as the same game when they very much aren't.

 

[Oofta]

...
Even what advice I've actually seen from the DMG really isn't good on that front (recognizing your disclaimer, I won't speak on that specifically any further.)

I've been strongly considering writing, and then thoroughly trimming down, an essay thread about the extremely severe problem of perverse incentives and how perilously easy it is for DMs to think they are doing something good while actually causing a great deal of damage to their game(s).

The relevant points in the DMG are pretty simple. If multiple PCs participate in a conversation, the players decide who makes the charisma check. It encourages things like insight during the conversation to figure out what the NPC is thinking. Adding to the conversation grants advantage to the person that makes the check. It specifically states "Create situations where characters who might not otherwise be engaged with a social interaction have to do at least some of the talking." Along with "If a couple of players are dominating the conversation, take a moment now and then to involve the others." A conversation may involve multiple rolls, etc..

If you follow the chart on reactions, during a conversation the worst thing is that you get is "The creature opposes the adventurers’ actions and might take risks to do so." if you get a result of less than 10 with a creature that was already hostile at the start of the social encounter. Last, but not least, bards are less capable in combat because they are supposed to be the skill monkey outside of combat. That doesn't mean the balance is perfect, but if you follow what is actually written in the DMG you still include everyone in social encounters on a regular basis. If one person is dominating every social encounter, the DM is not following the advice in the DMG.


Could the DMG be better? Absolutely. Are people that have 1 person dominate the social aspects of the game while everyone else is mute following the guidance we do have? Absolutely not.

 

[Minigiant]

think you are absolutely giving way too much credit to a tiny group of people, and perhaps ignoring the fact that even still, to this day, the Fighter remains incredibly popular.

5e absolutely was designed for a diverse community. There's no way it would have blown up as it has otherwise.

I was there for the 2013 playtest.

I remember what used to be in it and was taken out.

There are subclasses for Fighters that lean into the Social pillar. There are ways outside of just Class, to solve for this.

I hope you aren't suggesting the garbage pile PDK/Banneret.

Because the extra skill proficiency the Battlemaster, Cavalier, and Samurai is equal to the same thing anyone gets with background.

 

[Minigiant]

Not possible without twisting the game into a incomprehensible mess, for mechanical reasons. 1e/2e, 3e, 4e, and 5e are all different games. So is OD&D/BX/BECMI for that matter. A game can emulate one of those, even improve upon it for some, but it can't emulate all of them at once, and trying to do so with mutually exclusive optional rules (which they would have to be) leads to the mess I referenced above. The biggest mistake from a design perspective (which I think you all know is what I care about) is insisting that all these different games still be called D&D, and treating them as the same game when they very much aren't.

It could be done (see the current playtest) without twisting.

It was chosen not to be done in 2014.