D&D General Ignoring the rules!

[DinoInDisguise]

It's only a punishment mechanic if it's used as such.

I 100% agree. XP is not a punishment mechanic inherently. It can just be used as one in some situations. A lot of mechanics fall into this category.

Which edition did you start with?

I started with Pathfinder 1e, assuming you dont count my Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 addiction in middle school.

Over the last year, I have played call of cthulu, mork bork, pathfinder 2e, and 13th age as well. All great systems with their own pros and cons. I adore CoC and Mork.

Not to make you feel old, but 1e came out before I was born. xD

 

[Blue]

In the case of ignoring milestones and using experience it's simply a choice to ignore one option and use a different option, there is no rule "change".

It's a reward mechanic, there is no punishment in my statement.

The fervor to call out that choice to ignore the milestone option and use experience by declaring it various flavors of "punishment" is strange though given how I could have made similar statements about milestone being a punishment mechanic as well. It's almost like people feel personally slighted by the idea that someone they seemingly have never met and don't play with choosing to use one option over the other.

Never said XP was punishment, please reread if you got that from what I said. I've also never talked up Milestone as part of this, so trying to tar ti doesn't actually affect anything I'm saying.

And what I said was that your stated intent was to use it as punishment.

And it came across as a rule change how you explained it: "tedious and pointless having to regularly wait for or rebalance the session plans just because Bob knows being late or skipping again won't cost him progress."

There's no indication that that was whole theoretical and never actually happened at your table and might not be an actual problem you'd encounter. Sorry, I read that as a rule change to stop 'Bob' from showing up late or skipping, as you said. If there never was a Bob, you can understand my confusion

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Curious: too much or too little of what?

Evocative stuff that they can do. Take, for example the Ogre and then the Vampire. The Ogre is just a bag of HP that does damage, while the Vampire is a half page of Vampire stuff.

The Ogre makes me bored by its simplicity; the Vampire makes me bored by its complexity.

Now, I am not saying that WotC is wrong for how they design it. I just prefer different. I'd like Ogres that can sweep their club when facing multiple foes (what I call the "hero huddle") and I'd like Vampires to... IDK, Vampire without such a large statblock. (I haven't had my coffee yet - I'm sure that I could be more articulate and specific, but I hope you get the picture).

 

[overgeeked]

Evocative stuff that they can do. Take, for example the Ogre and then the Vampire. The Ogre is just a bag of HP that does damage, while the Vampire is a half page of Vampire stuff.

The Ogre makes me bored by its simplicity; the Vampire makes me bored by its complexity.

Now, I am not saying that WotC is wrong for how they design it. I just prefer different. I'd like Ogres that can sweep their club when facing multiple foes (what I call the "hero huddle") and I'd like Vampires to... IDK, Vampire without such a large statblock. (I haven't had my coffee yet - I'm sure that I could be more articulate and specific, but I hope you get the picture).

I’m in the same boat. I want monsters that can do cool, dynamic stuff without the absurdly long stat blocks. As much as I love 4E monster and encounter design, those stat blocks are also way too long. Something like a single line old-school stat block with another line describing all the cool things they can do. Plus the paragraphs of lore, ecology, etc. I think that would be my ideal.

 

[Lanefan]

Evocative stuff that they can do. Take, for example the Ogre and then the Vampire. The Ogre is just a bag of HP that does damage, while the Vampire is a half page of Vampire stuff.

The Ogre makes me bored by its simplicity; the Vampire makes me bored by its complexity.

Ah.

I'm personally fine with some monsters being dirt-simple bags of hit points, if only because it makes sense that in the setting there'd inevitably be some like that. Not every monster has to have a special ability.

As for the highly-complex ones such as Vampire and Mind Flayer (Vampire in particular being burdened by huge swathes of out-of-game lore that probably needs to be included), the answer is short concise point-form notes in the MM and then maybe a separate publication whose sole purpose is to elaborate on the details of these and maybe a dozen other very complex monsters or monster types: Demons, Dragons, Githi, Djinni are a few such that quickly leap to mind.

 

[Oofta]

Ah.

I'm personally fine with some monsters being dirt-simple bags of hit points, if only because it makes sense that in the setting there'd inevitably be some like that. Not every monster has to have a special ability.

As for the highly-complex ones such as Vampire and Mind Flayer (Vampire in particular being burdened by huge swathes of out-of-game lore that probably needs to be included), the answer is short concise point-form notes in the MM and then maybe a separate publication whose sole purpose is to elaborate on the details of these and maybe a dozen other very complex monsters or monster types: Demons, Dragons, Githi, Djinni are a few such that quickly leap to mind.

Some of my most fun encounters are with ogres. Not everything about the game is combat tactics and complexity.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

Some of my most fun encounters are with ogres. Not everything about the game is combat tactics and complexity.

Does the importance of complexity scale inversely with the importance of narrative?

What I mean is, do games have less need for mechanical complexity as the narrative part gains importance. And this would, theoretically, be because the brain is entertained by the narrative, and no longer needs the complexity to avoid boredom.

In the inverse situation, the narrative is lacking, so the complexity is what keeps it from being boring?

This isnt to say you can't have both, but just to state a general rule.

 

[Oofta]

Does the importance of complexity scale inversely with the importance of narrative?

What I mean is, do games have less need for mechanical complexity as the narrative part gains importance. And this would, theoretically, be because the brain is entertained by the narrative, and no longer needs the complexity to avoid boredom.

In the inverse situation, the narrative is lacking, so the complexity is what keeps it from being boring?

This isnt to say you can't have both, but just to state a general rule.

I like complex monsters, but only now and then. A constant diet of complexity doesn't do much for me personally, especially for something that's only going to exist for 15 minutes. Meanwhile I can play simple monsters as interesting because of improvised actions and tactics, roleplay and visuals.

Really for me though, it's all about setting the mood and what kind of scene I want for the game.

 

[Blue]

Evocative stuff that they can do. Take, for example the Ogre and then the Vampire. The Ogre is just a bag of HP that does damage, while the Vampire is a half page of Vampire stuff.

The Ogre makes me bored by its simplicity; the Vampire makes me bored by its complexity.

Now, I am not saying that WotC is wrong for how they design it. I just prefer different. I'd like Ogres that can sweep their club when facing multiple foes (what I call the "hero huddle") and I'd like Vampires to... IDK, Vampire without such a large statblock. (I haven't had my coffee yet - I'm sure that I could be more articulate and specific, but I hope you get the picture).

I’m in the same boat. I want monsters that can do cool, dynamic stuff without the absurdly long stat blocks. As much as I love 4E monster and encounter design, those stat blocks are also way too long. Something like a single line old-school stat block with another line describing all the cool things they can do. Plus the paragraphs of lore, ecology, etc. I think that would be my ideal.

I'd invite the two of you to take a look at the 13th Age monsters for free on their SRD. The original monsters in the core book were boring D&D-clones. But in the Bestiary and Bestiary 2 they came up with a bunch of interesting ones.

13th Age normally only does a single attack (PCs scale by level - it's a 10 level game and they do [level]dX weapon damage, adding in their ability bonus once, twice or more based on tier of play, with the Hit showing a successful pulling off and some having miss damage showing you're still wearing them down in the exchange. And as a mechanic that cares about the raw number on the d20 rolled to hit to use that to signal opportunities. For example, a flying creature might get a bonus wing buffet attack on a even attack roll, or the Orc Archer rolls to attack a random nearby creature on a 1-5.

They also have "Nastier Specials" - special abilities you can add if you want to make them cooler. And mook rules that are more mature than D&D 4e. And monster roles.

They just hit the sweet spot for me between being dirt easy to run without being boring sacks of HPs.

(The Bestiaries have lots not in the SRD, such as tactics, encounter building, scenario use - all sorts of stuff to help you build adventures and use them in them.)

 

[Lanefan]

Does the importance of complexity scale inversely with the importance of narrative?

What I mean is, do games have less need for mechanical complexity as the narrative part gains importance. And this would, theoretically, be because the brain is entertained by the narrative, and no longer needs the complexity to avoid boredom.

In the inverse situation, the narrative is lacking, so the complexity is what keeps it from being boring?

This isnt to say you can't have both, but just to state a general rule.

Hmmm...interesting question.

I'm not entirely sure there's a direct zero-sum relationship. You can have high narrative quality in a game regardless, I think, of that game's level of rules complexity.

You can also have low narrative quality anywhere, though; and for some players a high level of rules complexity might serve to keep them engaged anyway, so maybe that's the tie-in.