D&D (2024) D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024)

[tetrasodium]

And get it out of the dungeon, which informed so many things from Tenser’s Floating Disk to Bags of Holding to why there are porters and mules in the equipment list to why having a high Strength and your carrying capacity was so important.

I think that it's actually a rather important distinction to make because some of the "obviously this is better gone" comments focus on the gold collection in a way that makes it sound like the result was gameplay like packman or that old gauntlet video game while talking about "new" gameplay options that become viable with the change even though they were totally viable before and players wanted to care because their PCs had a stake in wanting to see the local area they invest in do well/not hate them/not be overrun by cults/etc

 

[TiQuinn]

I think that it's actually a rather important distinction to make because someone of the "obviously this is better gone" comments focus on the gold collection in a way that makes it sound like the result was gameplay like packman or that old gauntlet video game while talking about "new" gameplay options that become viable with the change even though they were totally viable before and players wanted to care because their PCs had a stake in wanting to see the local area they invest in do well/not hate them/not be overrun by cults/etc

I definitely don’t think it’s better gone, but it does mean that certain editions I use for certain types of game depending on what I want to lean into more. It’s why I still love 2e (which can still be played with XP for gold) and 5e equally. Not that you can’t do dungeon delving in 5e, but it hits differently than it does in 2e. Same with story based games. We ran story based games in 2e all the time. It’s just you would sometimes hit this point in the game where the system didn’t really support the type of heroism
you might want to have as part of the game. But it still works.

Coming to that realization, that if you let different editions play to their strengths, rather than trying to find the perfect system, is much more fun and manageable.

 

[mamba]

The other point I’d like to make about players not knowing what successful play means without an XP for gold system is it completely ignores the existence of one of the most famous 1e adventures of all time: Ravenloft.

there is a reason why I keep pointing at Hickman modules in this discussion, he did more than just DL, although that clearly went even further from being a dungeon delve

 

[TiQuinn]

there is a reason why I keep pointing at Hickman modules in this discussion, he did more than just DL, although that clearly went even further from being a dungeon delve

That’s what’s so crazy about this: if you read many of the adventures of that time from folks like Hickman, Jacquays, and even Gygax, the dungeon delve does not conform to this theory that is being laid out. It’s why I say Gygax was an unreliable source. He wrote the 1e rules with certain objectives in mind. He wrote his adventures with a completely different objective in mind.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I definitely don’t think it’s better gone, but it does mean that certain editions I use for certain types of game depending on what I want to lean into more. It’s why I still love 2e (which can still be played with XP for gold) and 5e equally. Not that you can’t do dungeon delving in 5e, but it hits differently than it does in 2e. Same with story based games. We ran story based games in 2e all the time. It’s just you would sometimes hit this point in the game where the system didn’t really support the type of heroism
you might want to have as part of the game. But it still works.

Coming to that realization, that if you let different editions play to their strengths, rather than trying to find the perfect system, is much more fun and manageable.

That's true, but sometimes practicality demands you play the version everybody around you is playing. When that happens, if you want a certain playstyle you need to make adjustments.

 

[niklinna]

Remove XP for gp, and that game no longer exists - colloquially, it is broken. Instead of a game with a win-condition known to the players, with a framework that the players can interact with and significantly influence (despite not having total control), what takes its place is a completely different game, in which the GM sets the win conditions, and controls scene-framing as they desire, and controls much of action resolution as they desire.

I didn't say anything about validity. I said that XP for gp is fundamental to the game presented by Gygax in the AD&D books. Get rid of it, and you get a completely different game. (More on this below, as well as in my posts upthread.)
.

So AD&D, as Gygax intended, is Gauntlet. You wander around endless mazes, fighting or avoiding monsters and collecting treasure that adds to your high score (XP) until you die. In essence, it's about collecting the highest score you can before your luck runs out.

Yeah, I can see why the game moved away from that.

Yeah, video games made that whole gameplay loop much tighter. But, hm, where did video games get that gameplay loop from...?

In any case, the game moving away from that, kind of indicates that it moved to being a different game, hm?

 

[Azzy]

Yeah, video games made that whole gameplay loop much tighter. But, hm, where did video games get that gameplay loop from...?

In any case, the game moving away from that, kind of indicates that it moved to being a different game, hm?

It's steadily been moving away from that since late 1e, so where do you want to place that "different game" marker?

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Okay, but outside of the fact that you are changing gold for XP to story goal for XP, are you suggesting that it wasn’t the GM’s choice/decision before?

I'm not 'suggesting' anything! Read the books, it's spelled out plain as day. The GM shall grant one XP per GP of treasure recovered, with several modifiers and adjustments based on objective criteria. Any player in an AD&D 1e game can calculate their own XP and should get the same results the GM gets.

In 2e this is entirely untrue! The GM has to decide, is a particular action part of a 'class goal' and simply assign an XP value to it without any rules stating what that value should be. There are a few examples, but questions like how they should scale by level, etc. are mostly left to the GM. It's impossible for a player to objectively know what actions are rewarded to what degree. In that sense 2e is basically Calvin Ball.

 

[Remathilis]

Yeah, video games made that whole gameplay loop much tighter. But, hm, where did video games get that gameplay loop from...?

In any case, the game moving away from that, kind of indicates that it moved to being a different game, hm?

Yes, and that is not a bad thing.

Games evolve over time. Compare any old MUD from the 90s to a modern MMO. Beyond the obvious change in graphics, the game loop has expanded. D&D is similar to allow a variety of adventures that Gary didn't initially envision. Yes, dungeon crashing is still possible, but the game is so much bigger now.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm not 'suggesting' anything! Read the books, it's spelled out plain as day. The GM shall grant one XP per GP of treasure recovered, with several modifiers and adjustments based on objective criteria. Any player in an AD&D 1e game can calculate their own XP and should get the same results the GM gets.

In 2e this is entirely untrue! The GM has to decide, is a particular action part of a 'class goal' and simply assign an XP value to it without any rules stating what that value should be. There are a few examples, but questions like how they should scale by level, etc. are mostly left to the GM. It's impossible for a player to objectively know what actions are rewarded to what degree. In that sense 2e is basically Calvin Ball.

I've been told that ultimate DM power is Good Thing Actually...