D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[Baron Opal II]

Unfortunately, though, the same metric seems to be impossible to apply to other elements. Like I said, if your design goal is to be broadly approachable by a wide audience, then adoption by a wide audience is pretty solid evidence of achieving that goal. Now, whether that's a "good" or "bad" thing, whether broad appeal is a desirable goal is debatable, and that's where the subjective angle comes in.

Well, in order to have a useful design goal of "approachable by a wide audience" you need to define those things and detail how you're going about doing that.

For a more personal example, it's not good enough to say "improve outcomes in people with addiction issues at risk of endocarditis." How do you do that? What is something you can measure? How long do you measure it? How many approaches are you doing at the same time? What resources do you have and how many people can you recruit?

For making a successful game, it takes some research to figure out what people get out of it. How do the papers, pens, books, and dice interact to create a "fun" experience. How reproduceable is that? How many personality types can we appeal to? Is "personality" even that relevant? Lots of questions to ask and things to measure.

But, it is very nice to see actual evidence being brough in, rather than endless anecdotes.

Thanks.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And yet we still subtract damage from hit points... Frankly, this caused (and still causes!) more mistakes in the maths of D&D than having decreasing AC ever did IME. The study you mentioned involved 2-digit sums and differences and is much more appropriate in demonstrating how damage should be tracked cumulatively instead of being subtracted from a maximum value:

View attachment 383575

I mean, these are NOT the type of numbers used in AC caluclations in AD&D or d20 systems, so I don't find your conclusion quite as supportive as you do.

At any rate, I always find such discussions odd because I never recall anyone when I was an adolescent through college having issues with the concepts involve with the AD&D "to hit" tables nor the use of THAC0.

It was never IME or IMO a maths issue, it was understanding that +1 armor was one "class" (which is why it is called Armor CLASS) better than without the +1. You moved "up" on the to hit tables, showing you had better protection and the attacker has to roll "one higher" to hit you than they would have needed had you not been wearing the +1 armor. Even when AC's were negative values, it wasn't a problem really.

THAC0 was simple enough. You recorded one number and subtracted the AC value of the target to find the number you needed to hit. You rolled, added any bonuses, and hit if your roll was at or above that to hit number, you hit. Alternatively, and what many people did, was subtract their attack bonus from THAC0, so once they also subtracted AC, you didn't add anything to the roll. Worked either way.

In general, the numbers we are discussing are small enough it was very rare, if ever, an issue IME. However, I very much understand why with 3E they need to change things! Bonuses and ACs became so extreme without the to hit tables that the maths actually would be vastly easier with an additive system. In fact, there were more errors in 3E in attacks and AC due to the crazy numbers you needed to track than I ever saw in AD&D.

But hey, that was just my experience.

I never had an issue with THAC0.

 

[tetrasodium]

I never had an issue with THAC0.

Nor I. In terms of 2e with thac0 &5e I can confidently say that under thac0 I don't recall ever once seeing or being a GM saying "yea [die roll value] will hit" while a player slowly adds "plus N from the magic weapon“>"yep that hits">"Plus X from proficiency“>"yea you hit, roll damage “>"oh an another Y from [attribute]">"I need a damage roll ac was only Yy">"does.... Xx hit ">"yes that's more than YY .. roll damage".

 

[ezo]

I never had an issue with THAC0.

Join the club. I never knew anyone who did, personally... but apparently a lot of people did.

Ascending AC is a more intuitive way to go, frankly. I never had the war games background in the 70's or such that D&D and AD&D designers had, but I know there is some basis for it with the to hit tables. 2E abbreviated it with the THAC0 concept.

All I know is, if you tried to use a concept like THAC0 with all the things that can modify an attack and AC in 3E, it would be an insane hot mess! I think that is one reason why they adopted the ascending d20 mechanic for AC, so it mostly kept things additive.

Nor I. In terms of 2e with thac0 &5e I can confidently say that under thac0 I don't recall ever once seeing or being a GM saying "yea [die roll value] will hit" while a player slowly adds "plus N from the magic weapon“>"yep that hits">"Plus X from proficiency“>"yea you hit, roll damage “>"oh an another Y from [attribute]">"I need a damage roll ac was only Yy">"does.... Xx hit ">"yes that's more than YY .. roll damage".

That about sounds like how 3E and THAC0 would have worked... maybe, it is a bit confusing how you wrote it...

Regardless, for each of us who never had an issue with it, I am sure there is someone out there who probably did?

 

[tetrasodium]

Join the club. I never knew anyone who did, personally... but apparently a lot of people did.

Ascending AC is a more intuitive way to go, frankly. I never had the war games background in the 70's or such that D&D and AD&D designers had, but I know there is some basis for it with the to hit tables. 2E abbreviated it with the THAC0 concept.

All I know is, if you tried to use a concept like THAC0 with all the things that can modify an attack and AC in 3E, it would be an insane hot mess! I think that is one reason why they adopted the ascending d20 mechanic for AC, so it mostly kept things additive.


That about sounds like how 3E and THAC0 would have worked... maybe, it is a bit confusing how you wrote it...

Regardless, for each of us who never had an issue with it, I am sure there is someone out there who probably did?

No I think that more of the hate that thac0 gets decades later is simply because if you look at it now without knowing what the table did or how it works it's easy for someone today who didn't use it much (if at all) to roll their eyes at the arcane looking gibberish that seems pointlessly convoluted. Then you add the people who were very young when they were exposed to it many years ago.

 

[ezo]

No I think that more of the hate that thac0 gets decades later is simply because of you look at it now without knowing what the table did or how it works it's easy for someone today who didn't use it much (if at all) to roll their eyes at the arcane looking gibberish that seems pointlessly convoluted. Then you add the people who were very young when they were exposed to it many years ago.

Maybe.

All I know is like many grognards (not that I was ever one--who liked playing wargames) I was using the to hit tables before my teens and THAC0 in my teens. Yeah, I understood it just fine, but I'm just one person and know I don't speak for everyone.

 

[Zardnaar]

Maybe.

All I know is like many grognards (not that I was ever one--who liked playing wargames) I was using the to hit tables before my teens and THAC0 in my teens. Yeah, I understood it just fine, but I'm just one person and know I don't speak for everyone.

I can use it but imho to appeal to modern gamers don't use it. Even OSR has moved away from it. They have to recruit younger players or 5E players.

You also need some building blocks for modern players. By that I mean feats/talents/skills.

Modern B/X has its fans eg OSE but it's not going to blow up like 5E even if it had the D&D label on it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I can use it but imho to appeal to modern gamers don't use it. Even OSR has moved away from it. They have to recruit younger players or 5E players.

You also need some building blocks for modern players. By that I mean feats/talents/skills.

Modern B/X has its fans eg OSE but it's not going to blow up like 5E even if it had the D&D label on it.

A game doesn't have to blow up like 5e to be successful. It certainly doesn't have to to be a good game.

 

[Zardnaar]

A game doesn't have to blow up like 5e to be successful. It certainly doesn't have to to be a good game.

Nope but it makes recruiting players easier.

My 5E players will play whatever I serve up for the most part. OSR no problem.
They don't like THAC0 I know that much. B/X and derivatives I like but they're a bit bland for them.

ACKs is kinda acceptable for example as it has a bit of secret sauce so to speak. They don't mind different xp rates, xp for gp etc. They do care about 1E level limits or gender ability score requirements. They don't care about 2E level limits or racial restrictions.

So yes I have the option of OSR but it's late 80s vs 1979 or whatever.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

Regardless of how unwieldy one feels Thac0 was, it is definitely more unwieldy than necessary. Doing it that way is more complicated than how we're doing it now, and that complication doesn't actually add anything. Often in an argument between more complicated and streamlined rules, it is a trade-off in a sense that the complication has some actual purpose, and then we need to decide whether it is worth the difficulty. But that's not the case here, we just need to decide whether we want to do things in more difficult way for no gain, and I think to most people the answer is an obvious "hell no!" So I'd say Thac0 is just a bad mechanic and good riddance!