D&D 5E Does/Should D&D Have the Player's Game Experience as a goal?

[pemerton]

I'd say the issue is relying on the GM to give them out at the right time. GMs may see it as a reward only given when earned, but if the system expects them, its a bad situation (see 3E).

4e resolves this problem via treasure parcels: encounters (combat or skill challenge) + quests => XP => levels; and levels => treasure parcels. (There is a loose correlation at a "lower" level, of encounters to treasure parcels; but the GM has a lot of room to move at that lower level.)

The upshot is, as @Imaro says and as @Hussar also noted, that magic items are not optional. They are a core component of PC build.

But @Imaro is wrong to say they are not part of worldbuilding. In my experience GMing 4e magic items are a big component in world-building. Of course they are not solely under GM control, but that's just one manifestation of the broader phenomenon that 4e does not treat worldbuilding as the sole province of the GM.

 

[Imaro]

But @Imaro is wrong to say they are not part of worldbuilding. In my experience GMing 4e magic items are a big component in world-building. Of course they are not solely under GM control, but that's just one manifestation of the broader phenomenon that 4e does not treat worldbuilding as the sole province of the GM.

I don't think I am for the average 4e campaign where PC's were requesting items based on optimizing their build... maybe worldbuilding was a secondary concern... for some PC's but that wasn't my experience at all.

 

[payn]

4e resolves this problem via treasure parcels: encounters (combat or skill challenge) + quests => XP => levels; and levels => treasure parcels. (There is a loose correlation at a "lower" level, of encounters to treasure parcels; but the GM has a lot of room to move at that lower level.)

The upshot is, as @Imaro says and as @Hussar also noted, that magic items are not optional. They are a core component of PC build.

But @Imaro is wrong to say they are not part of worldbuilding. In my experience GMing 4e magic items are a big component in world-building. Of course they are not solely under GM control, but that's just one manifestation of the broader phenomenon that 4e does not treat worldbuilding as the sole province of the GM.

haha, yeah there it is again "solves the problem". No, you didnt solve anything you just repeated how it works in 4E. Im just sayin some folks dont like how that works one bit.

 

[pemerton]

haha, yeah there it is again "solves the problem". No, you didnt solve anything you just repeated how it works in 4E. Im just sayin some folks dont like how that works one bit.

You said "the issue is relying on the GM to give them out at the right time". I replied that "4e resolves this problem (=issue)" via a system, treasure parcels, that tells the GM when to give them out.

If you don't think there is a "right time" then why do you say that that is an issue?

 

[payn]

You said "the issue is relying on the GM to give them out at the right time". I replied that "4e resolves this problem (=issue)" via a system, treasure parcels, that tells the GM when to give them out.

If you don't think there is a "right time" then why do you say that that is an issue?

I saying folks dislike the entire concept altogether, not that there is some mechanic problem that needs to be solved with it. It doesn't matter if the game tells you to, folks don't want to be told that. Also, no this doesn't make 4E bad, this is a matter of taste.

 

[hawkeyefan]

This seems self-contradictory - the gaps those 3pp are trying to fill are more often than not gaps (or perceived errors) in the design intentions of the game...and thus the whole point of said 3pp product might specifically be to not adhere to those design intentions. This is unrelated to whether or not said 3pp product is any good: it could adhere faithfully to the design intentions and still be garbage, or conversely could blow up the design intentions and be excellent.

Let me clarify… a third party product (aside from settings and adventure modules) typically seeks to fill in some gap. Let’s say Matt Colville’s “Strongholds & Followers”, for example.

My concern with a product like that is that the designer doesn’t understand the base game enough to design their addition in a way that fits well with the base game. That it doesn’t disrupt the game’s balance.

Who can say which 3rd party providers are actually good at game design, and also actually understand the 5e system enough for their designs to fit well? Sure, a handful if providers may rise to the top… but there’s a morass of just amateur level work to wade through. Just example after example of poor design or poor integration.

Colville seems like a solid game designer. He’s worked in video games. He’s provided dozens of hours of advice, most of which was clear and had a point of view, even if I may not always agree with him. And yet “Strongholds & Followers” still has plenty of design concerns. It doesn’t fit perfectly with the base game. Is it workable? Sure. But I think it serves to show how even someone like that will still have issues.

I hope that’s clearer.

 

[hawkeyefan]

I saying folks dislike the entire concept altogether, not that there is some mechanic problem that needs to be solved with it. It doesn't matter if the game tells you to, folks don't want to be told that. Also, no this doesn't make 4E bad, this is a matter of taste.

I think the point being made is that if people don’t want to be told when the right time to dish out treasure may be, then why is not knowing when to dish them out described as an issue?

 

[Hussar]

I think it helped gameplay to make magic items optional... but then I don't understand how you set up assumptions and/or an economy for something that is optional...

The minute you say magic item X should be assigned to level Y characters... and put them in the PHB they aren't optional or a worldbuilding element, they become expected (The thing that kept this in check in 3e was that they were still, for the most part, under the purview of the DM). The strong reaction to 4e wasn't because of transparency but because magic items weren't treasure or a reward any longer... they became a PC build component, which in turn inherently dictated truths about the DM's world and made magic items about pure optimization. They patched this with inherent bonuses, but that came later.

Not interested in beating this particular dead horse.

The point is that the magic item system in 3e and then 4e were both transparent and explicit.

5e has backed away from that and I would argue that this has not been a positive step. DMs are largely left in the dark as to how adding items will affect play.

Take flaming weapons forex. A flaming weapon in 5e effectively doubles a fighter’s dpr. Not quite but very close. Players are very quick to realize that at uncommon (rare?), flaming weapons are the best magic weapon for the value.

It’s a very badly done system and basically relies entirely on the dm to sort it out.

 

[Hussar]

I saying folks dislike the entire concept altogether, not that there is some mechanic problem that needs to be solved with it. It doesn't matter if the game tells you to, folks don't want to be told that. Also, no this doesn't make 4E bad, this is a matter of taste.

I’d much rather have a transparent system I can choose to ignore than an opaque system with zero guidance.

 

[pemerton]

in 4E getting new upgraded items wasn't really a reward, it was more of a hamster wheel. You didn't get better because of the +5 weapon, you just needed it to keep up.

This goes directly to one aspect of player game experience.

One feature of classic D&D (LBB, AD&D, B/X) played in the manner that the rulebooks present, is that the game play experience changes quite a bit over time:

*Low level PCs are highly vulnerable, and the play experience will be heavily shaped by the dungeon the GM has built;

*Mid-level PCs (say, 3rd to 6th-ish) are able to assert quite a bit of control over their dungeon play - I would say this is where the whole scout-prep-assault approach that Gygax sets out in his PHB becomes viable;

*At the same level, wilderness/hex-crawl play also becomes feasible, and this opens up a very logistical/wargame-y aspect of play (tracking rations, putting together mule trains, etc);

*At name level, the game gives PCs (especially clerics and fighters) military forces, opening up a literal wargame aspect of play, together with the logistical/economic aspects of domain management.​

At name level, one-on-one/skirmish combat is not normally going to be all that exciting as a component of play: the maths of to hit chances vs the range of ACs the game typically supports produce this outcome. A module like D3 tries to compensate for this - by creating scope for name level PCs to have one-on-one/skirmish combats that have the same sort of excitement as low- and mid-level ones - by giving the Drow NPCs magic items sufficient to balance the to hit bonuses of high level PCs.

The D3-ish approach seems to have become more common over time.

In 4e D&D, there is no change in the basic mechanics of game play between 1st and 30th level: it is either one-on-one/skirmish combat; or skill challenges. The changes are predominantly (i) in the fiction (as per the tiers of play), and (ii) especially for combat, in the "sideways" growth of PC abilities (invisibility, flight, conditions like domination, etc).

In this sort of game, having the players get "better" in the sense of mathematically more likely to succeed will tend to produce boring play. A D3-ish approach is needed. Whether this is done via inherent PC elements or extrinsic elements (like magic items) is mostly about taste, and in the case of D&D also legacy.

I certainly think it would be good for a rulebook to talk about the risks (if they are there) of magic items making certain aspects of game play boring!