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

[CleverNickName]

Maaaaaan, I hate arguments about this stuff. But @pogre asked a good question, and I want to respond constructively, so here goes.

Do you think about players’ game play experience? Would D&D benefit from a more direct game play experience goal? Is this something you discuss with your players in session zero?

To the first question, yes I do. I don't just write the stories and enforce the rules, I am always trying to find new ways to keep the game interesting and new. (Lately, I've been getting into mini-games. Last month, I wrote a little mini-game for the town's "Fishing Contest" that used a wind-up Pakoo fishing game. Last summer, the party participated in a drinking contest at the town fair, and I wrote a little mini-game for that which was a lot like playing blackjack with d6s...you needed to roll as close as you could to a target number without busting.) I'm all about making the experience different each time, to break the monotony of combat scene after combat scene after combat scene.

To the second question, no I doubt it. The trouble with a "more direct game play experience" is that everyone at the table is going to have a different experience, even when they are playing the same game. I feel like the more direct I try to make the players' experience, the more pronounced those differences are going to become. Taken to the extreme, I could very likely end up with one happy player sitting next to four unhappy ones at the table.

To the third question, yes actually. A couple of the things we talk about when we start a new campaign is "what kind of game do you want to play?" and "what do you expect to get out of this game?" Usually the answer to the first question is a genre of fiction, like Steampunk or High Fantasy or Gothic Horror, and the answer to the second question is usually something like "Huh? I'm here to hang out with my buddies, have a few beers, and holler about dragons." That's about as deep as we go with it. We don't get too far into the weeds with stuff like "here is a list of rules I need you to use/fix/remove in order for me to have fun" at a Session Zero. I reckon you'd get laughed at.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Are magic item guidelines/price lists common in most games? Outside of D&D could you name a few that have implemented them?

I...assume you meant to reply to someone else? I wasn't really thinking about magic item rules in particular.

But as for those rules, ignoring what D&D-derived games I've played, certainly Shadowrun. To some extent, there's a "pricing" of magic items in other games, but often handled through not-strictly-currency means, e.g. a certain number of points invested, which give a hierarchy of value and, for the GM, act as guidelines. My experience of both Exalted and W20 was like that.

 

[pemerton]

Funny how every time people ask about what how these impossible things could possibly appear in other games... they actually do.

I ran RM weekly for nearly 10 years, then fortnightly for another 10 years. Like everything in RM, there are multiple in-print options for enchanting items, purchasing items, etc. I started with some amalgam of these and over my 19 years of GMing built up my own rules.

The players knew what these were, and from time-to-time would have their PCs purchase items that they needed.

Balancing items is easier in Burning Wheel and Torchbearer, I think, because the default thing for an item to do is to give a +1D or +2D bonus, which is a fairly standard "unit of measure" within the action resolution system.

Or when it comes to elixirs and salves, we can compare the Obstacle of the test needed to make an item that will cure Exhaustion (Ob 3 Alchemist test) if it is a broth that must be taken warm in camp or town phase) with the Obstacle of the recovery test (Ob 3 Health test in camp or town phase). So the effect of having an Alchemist in the party is to change who can perform the required test, and the ability against which the test is made. There is scope here for optimisation (of success chances, of PC development, given that tests lead to improvement a bit like RuneQuest, etc). But the likelihood of breakage is low.

Other sorts of benefits conferred by magic items can be "rated" against some of these core elements.

While I think AD&D or 5e is harder (cf 4e, which deliberately changes many features of magic item design precisely to enhance the systematicity of their integration with and comparability to other aspects of PC build), I don't think it needs to be impossible.

What are the guidelines as far as balancing the powers of these items? Also are you able to sell them and if so how are prices determined?

See above.

In Torchbearer, which is the system I have been thinking the most about in this respect recently, one thing to keep in mind is that the "scale" of moving parts is smaller.

For instance, in AD&D a 9th level MU has something like a dozen spell slots. And a Ring of Wizardry (flagged in the DMG as a particularly powerful ring) doubles all the slots of one or more levels.

In Torchbearer, a 9th level magician who has increased their Memory Palace at every opportunity has a 5-slot memory palace, which is 5 1st level spells, 1 5th level spell (the highest level of spell in the system), or any other combination adding up to five. So a ring that adds 1 slot to the character's Memory Palace is strong. Likewise, a sword that adds +1D to all combat actions is strong. There is no real analogue to the gradation of +1 to +6 weapons.

This makes balancing easier.

The guidelines take the form of the Obstacles for creating various sorts of items. Not every conceivable item is covered, but they provide a basis for extrapolation.

If a PC wanted to sell an item, that would be handled under the general rules for selling valuables. An item that is Ob 1 to Ob 3 to purchase will generally not be saleable (as the rulebook puts it, "no one wants your stinky, rusty junk"); an item that is Ob 4 to Ob 7 to purchase can be sold for 1D of cash; and an item that is Ob 8+ to purchase can be sold for 2D. Attempts to do better than that can be resolved case-by-case using the rules for Haggling and for Negotiation conflicts.

The PCs in my game have purchased potions twice - both times to cure Sickness, which is a particularly debilitating condition that is not easily recovered during town phase - and an alchemical explosive once. In our session on Sunday, the explosives-oriented PC also successfully put together a green slime grenade (by first successfully bullying a clay pot away from his Gnoll captors, and then successfully avoiding an attempt by a Creeping Ooze to trap and kill him, and then carving off a little bit of the ooze as it crept away).

I've given that last example to try and convey the way in which making and acquiring items is a more integrated part of the action resolution system in Torchbearer (and Burning Wheel is fairly similar) than in any version of D&D other than 4e.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Gotta love internet experts. Oh, X is a thing? Let me google X and then behave as if I now know more than anyone about X.

Yeesh.

I’m not even sure what folks are arguing against here. That clarity and transparency are bad? That rules and systems should be vague and hard to understand? That designers should not provide guidance for GMs and players or explain their design decisions?

Why would anyone want that?

 

[Clint_L]

I’m not even sure what folks are arguing against here. That clarity and transparency are bad? That rules and systems should be vague and hard to understand? That designers should not provide guidance for GMs and players or explain their design decisions?

Why would anyone want that?

I don't think anyone is arguing for that. I argue that the open-ended design of D&D is a feature, not a flaw, and I think that's what a lot of folks are similarly suggesting. I do not like systems that are overly detailed; I think 5e hits a sweet spot of offering enough guidance while letting the DM sort out the details with many aspects of gameplay.

I don't find D&D's rules and systems vague and hard to understand. I do think the DMG could do a better job offering guidance on different ways to play the game, but I don't think D&D should aspire to narrowly defined game experiences in the manner of, say Monster Hearts or Dread.

 

[pemerton]

Why would anyone want that?

Because D&D is like a guitar, and 4e D&D told the world that there's only one way to play guitar!

(At least, that's what I heard from Mike Mearls about 10 years ago.)

 

[Hussar]

Gotta love internet experts. Oh, X is a thing? Let me google X and then behave as if I now know more than anyone about X.

Yeesh.

I’m not even sure what folks are arguing against here. That clarity and transparency are bad? That rules and systems should be vague and hard to understand? That designers should not provide guidance for GMs and players or explain their design decisions?

Why would anyone want that?

No, you've got it right. Apparently, clarity and transparency ruin the "art" and "mystique" of the game.

 

[Hussar]

I don't think anyone is arguing for that. I argue that the open-ended design of D&D is a feature, not a flaw, and I think that's what a lot of folks are similarly suggesting. I do not like systems that are overly detailed; I think 5e hits a sweet spot of offering enough guidance while letting the DM sort out the details with many aspects of gameplay.

I don't find D&D's rules and systems vague and hard to understand. I do think the DMG could do a better job offering guidance on different ways to play the game, but I don't think D&D should aspire to narrowly defined game experiences in the manner of, say Monster Hearts or Dread.

There's a difference between "open-ended" design and "completely lacking in any guidance whatsoever".

See, what baffles me is this resistance to having transparency in the first place. In a transparent system, you can easily ignore elements because it's clearly explained what the elements are. In 5e, where so much is simply dumped on the DM, there's no guidance whatsoever. Again, why is a Cloak of Protection uncommon while a Ring of Protection rare? Why is a Potion of Superior Healing considered the same as a Belt of Hill Giant Strength?

That other folks are better DM's than me goes without saying. I get that you folks are absolutely perfect in your games and never have any problems at all. That's fantastic for you. I am totally jealous.

For me? I have all sorts of problems. Every time I turn around, magic items, vague mechanics, and opaque game systems are biting me on the ass. To the point where my next campaign will be run very similarly to Organized Play - my players get to choose the PHB+1 for their characters. That's it. The last three campaigns I've run are a shopping list of broken characters and broken elements. All because the 5e system doesn't bother actually explaining anything. Just dumps it all into my lap.

I miss the days when I could actually trust the system to do what it says on the tin.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I’m not even sure what folks are arguing against here. That clarity and transparency are bad? That rules and systems should be vague and hard to understand? That designers should not provide guidance for GMs and players or explain their design decisions?

Yes, unfortunately.

Why would anyone want that?

Because, if they never tell you what it's meant for, you can always believe it was meant for what you do with it. Not joking. People seem to need the feeling that the way they do it is the "right" way, as though that imprimatur somehow transubstantiates the actions they were already taking into some higher form physically indistinguishable from "doing what we were already going to do regardless."

When coupled with the "because I can houserule it, the system is never worse than any other system at anything I might try to do with it" doctrine, you get an unassailable logical fortress. On the one hand, obfuscation means each believes the game is already "for them" to begin with and never "not for them," whether or not it actually is (and whether or not that even matters); on the other, if there's ever anything where it falls short of being "for them," sufficient DM labor can always make it "for them." Hence, the game is always perfectly suited to their needs, no matter what!

That's why 4e roles, for example, are always presented by critics as straightjackets completely locking you into one singular, unchanging, rigid playstyle forever....even though that's literally nothing like what they are. Because being told something has a designed purpose somehow means that it can never have any OTHER purpose, and that any attempt to do anything else with it is Officially BadWrongFun, for which you will be punished harshly.

Even though classes designed with particular roles in mind is literally how D&D has always been designed.

 

[Oofta]

Your ridiculous hyperbole does you no favors.

It turns out that, while each individual person is distinct, overall experiences are in fact very similar in many ways. It turns out that, while the fine details are almost always totally unique, the broad strokes are in fact the same for large swathes of people. It turns out that, while the precise, millimeter-by-millimeter trajectory won't ever match, the mile-by-mile trajectory is often indistinguishable, at least with a large chunk of others' experiences.

And mile-by-mile stuff is where the games' rules live. If they're well-made, anyway. You design the rules for the stuff most people are reasonably likely to encounter, or that when encountered would really benefit from having a pre-established method. If people still run into situations that weren't foreseeable, then yes, it's up to them to figure that out, that's how every open-ended game works, period.

Pretending that there are absolutely no commonalities between ANY two games EVER is possibly the most ridiculous hyperbole I've ever seen on this board. Or, if you prefer the Bard's way of putting it: "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that."

You're the one insisting that there could be a formula that tells you exactly what impact a magic item has. How this would work, what it would look like, how to account for table variation? "Feedback!" That is ridiculous. It's a pipe dream, something that cannot work unless you have a much more constrained system and throw DM empowerment out the window.

We are not playing a board game or an MMO. There simply is no way to figure out how a specific magical item will affect a party because there are simply too many variables. A fair number of items will be relatively straightforward, a +2 weapon is better than a +1. But how much does a flaming rapier change? Is it in the hands of a rogue, a paladin or a fighter? What level are they? What are the PC's ability scores? A high level rogue with a 20 dex sees minimal difference in damage, a fighter is adding 3.5 average damage to every attack that hits, at higher levels and with action surge that could start to add up.

On the other hand, a DM that has a good idea of what their PCs are can have a decent grasp. If an item is more powerful than expected, which happens sometimes, they an change course the next game. I'm not pushing back against what you want as transparency because I think it's an inherently bad idea, I'm pushing back because what you want is impossible.