D&D (2024) The Problem with Healing Powercreep

[PHATsakk43]

Of course, but there’s a whole slew of games that do make resource management important. D&D used to make it more of a thing and people did track that stuff (and possibly still do). It’s a style of play.

I think it still ultimately is a resource management game. It’s just that the resources are less arrows, rations, and lantern oil, and more spells and “once per long rest” actions.

This sort of gets to a larger issue with some of the fundamentals of the game mechanics. Really since 3E we’ve seen a dramatic shift from the things that led to resource management being external to intrinsic to the players characters. When that happens, it takes a bit of the gameplay away from the table and puts it into the rules—and often outside of the DM’s control. It’s hard to create a tone of play when the player’s acquire relatively strong powers at regular intervals all of which is foreseen by the players well in advance.

Older editions really didn’t provide a lot intrinsically to the PC as he or she leveled, most of the “power” in the game was from items and especially magic items. The players really don’t necessarily know how their character will work in two or three levels, as the magic items they acquire ultimately drive the character strategically and tactically far more than the base abilities do.

I think that there is a certain amount of benefit in this style of game mechanic, but that something is also lost in it. It definitely reduces the risk of the falling into the Monte Haul side of the balanced play bell curve, as the DM can basically be super stingy with magic and not really affect the game.

That healing has been glommed into this same sort of “defined power at level X” gameplay highlights some of what I was trying to explain. By building it into the game, it becomes effectively impossible to run a game where it isn’t taken into account. At the same time, the same thing that makes it possible is also what usually is powering all the super powers that characters gain.

 

[TiQuinn]

I think it still ultimately is a resource management game. It’s just that the resources are less arrows, rations, and lantern oil, and more spells and “once per long rest” actions.

This sort of gets to a larger issue with some of the fundamentals of the game mechanics. Really since 3E we’ve seen a dramatic shift from the things that led to resource management being external to intrinsic to the players characters. When that happens, it takes a bit of the gameplay away from the table and puts it into the rules—and often outside of the DM’s control. It’s hard to create a tone of play when the player’s acquire relatively strong powers at regular intervals all of which is foreseen by the players well in advance.

Older editions really didn’t provide a lot intrinsically to the PC as he or she leveled, most of the “power” in the game was from items and especially magic items. The players really don’t necessarily know how their character will work in two or three levels, as the magic items they acquire ultimately drive the character strategically and tactically far more than the base abilities do.

I think that there is a certain amount of benefit in this style of game mechanic, but that something is also lost in it. It definitely reduces the risk of the falling into the Monte Haul side of the balanced play bell curve, as the DM can basically be super stingy with magic and not really affect the game.

That healing has been glommed into this same sort of “defined power at level X” gameplay highlights some of what I was trying to explain. By building it into the game, it becomes effectively impossible to run a game where it isn’t taken into account. At the same time, the same thing that makes it possible is also what usually is powering all the super powers that characters gain.

This is why I still like playing both 2e and 5e. They are different games linked by common terms, monsters, classes and the like but the play experience is totally different. I wouldn’t bother with the level of resource management in 5e that I do in 2e, just as I wouldn’t give out the amount of magic items that I do in 2e as 5e.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Also fun and exciting.

The thing is (building off your statement, not reacting to it), it's exciting for reasons unrelated to death.

Are the Indiana Jones movies not exciting? I would say most people think they are. Yet I doubt anyone genuinely believes that Indiana Jones stories can only be exciting if there's always a 10% chance that Indy just straight up dies to a stray Nazi bullet.

I see Indiana Jones, and James Bond, and Doc Savage...and yes, Conan the Barbarian...as great examples of the kind of excitement I want from roleplaying.

For that sort of excitement, death is like throwing wet sand on a perfectly ordinary campfire. It's dead, and no amount of adding new logs is going to bring the fire back.

If Conan died midway through the first story to a random spear as a way to show that ~AnYoNe CaN dIe~, all that would have meant is nobody would even know about Conan today.

You're seeing the story of a legend coming to life, except it's your legend! That is so incredibly awesome! But nobody tells the story of a would-be legend who went out like a chump to a kobold spear after one successful sewer-rat hunt. Because that just isn't an interesting story to tell.

Not one bit of what I just said implies or requires that players get everything they want. Far from it! When you aren't constantly pulling back from engagement because your very ability to engage could be ripped away from you permanently, suddenly all sorts of moves that might have been totally unacceptable BS are now perfectly fine. Having to retrieve your own soul from the Ten Kings of Yomi? Awesome. Having to storm the Demon Lord's Palace to break the infernal contract keeping your friend bound to hell for their second death? HELL YES. Doing an under-the-table deal with a deity who needs plausible deniability when you need a quickie resurrection? Inject it into my veins. These are the stories that raise up and transform characters, and I have NO idea where it will eventually end up. That is absolutely the most amazing feeling.

James Bond is never going to die on camera. That would be a complete waste of a great franchise. Instead, the stakes are never "Will Bond survive?!" They are "What will Bond have to risk to succeed? What price will he pay?"

And its not like he's never paid prices. His wife was killed off dead. That changed him, altered his course, and gave us a multi-actor-spanning character development arc.

Or consider Doctor Who. They can "die" without truly dying. It's still a sacrifice, because (certain shenanigans aside), once an incarnation is dead, they're dead, but the Doctor marches on. Total death isn't on the table, but loss and hardship still are.

That's what the stakes are. That's what the joy is. To find out what horrors and joys and triumphs and sorrows you'll face, and how they'll change you, and how you'll change them and others.

What can change the nature of a man?

 

[Vaalingrade]

Of course, but there’s a whole slew of games that do make resource management important. D&D used to make it more of a thing and people did track that stuff (and possibly still do). It’s a style of play.

Most of those games these days also try to make it interesting and worthwhile to do like Blades in the Dark's loads.

Most of D&D's resource management is bean-counting to avoid punishment.

 

[Micah Sweet]

There is more to making resource management a part of the game than just ticking off boxes.

I mean, I don’t think anyone (well, given the amount of replies to the opposite, maybe I’m wrong) really enjoys Accounting & Actuaries.

It's not about enjoying bean counting (at least not for me). It's about doing what's needed for me to feel I'm in a persistent, realistic fantasy world that exists as more than a backdrop for PC shenanigans. For me that means it has to have the ability to model logical processes that should exist in the setting, and yes, that requires a little accounting.

 

[TiQuinn]

Most of those games these days also try to make it interesting and worthwhile to do like Blades in the Dark's loads.

Most of D&D's resource management is bean-counting to avoid punishment.

I think most games today try to simplify it but keep it relevant to the mechanics like with Shadowdark, versus the finicky tracking of 2e which feels like a game where you really have to “know” your character sheet. The one advantage of 2e is that it was a much more modular system overall so if you chose not to worry about ration counting or encumbrance, you could still play a satisfying game.

I also wouldn’t call it avoiding punishment, or at least that shouldn’t be the goal, but then that was the era we were still inundated with lots of bad Gygaxisms around how games “should work”. Instead, something like missile fire was really very powerful in that edition and could really overwhelm straight melee characters or NPCs. But if you have to count your ammo, you can’t just use that same tactic every combat. You had to replenish your arrows at some point or run out and then the scales could change in the next fight.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The thing is (building off your statement, not reacting to it), it's exciting for reasons unrelated to death.

Are the Indiana Jones movies not exciting? I would say most people think they are. Yet I doubt anyone genuinely believes that Indiana Jones stories can only be exciting if there's always a 10% chance that Indy just straight up dies to a stray Nazi bullet.

I see Indiana Jones, and James Bond, and Doc Savage...and yes, Conan the Barbarian...as great examples of the kind of excitement I want from roleplaying.

For that sort of excitement, death is like throwing wet sand on a perfectly ordinary campfire. It's dead, and no amount of adding new logs is going to bring the fire back.

If Conan died midway through the first story to a random spear as a way to show that ~AnYoNe CaN dIe~, all that would have meant is nobody would even know about Conan today.

You're seeing the story of a legend coming to life, except it's your legend! That is so incredibly awesome! But nobody tells the story of a would-be legend who went out like a chump to a kobold spear after one successful sewer-rat hunt. Because that just isn't an interesting story to tell.

Not one bit of what I just said implies or requires that players get everything they want. Far from it! When you aren't constantly pulling back from engagement because your very ability to engage could be ripped away from you permanently, suddenly all sorts of moves that might have been totally unacceptable BS are now perfectly fine. Having to retrieve your own soul from the Ten Kings of Yomi? Awesome. Having to storm the Demon Lord's Palace to break the infernal contract keeping your friend bound to hell for their second death? HELL YES. Doing an under-the-table deal with a deity who needs plausible deniability when you need a quickie resurrection? Inject it into my veins. These are the stories that raise up and transform characters, and I have NO idea where it will eventually end up. That is absolutely the most amazing feeling.

James Bond is never going to die on camera. That would be a complete waste of a great franchise. Instead, the stakes are never "Will Bond survive?!" They are "What will Bond have to risk to succeed? What price will he pay?"

And its not like he's never paid prices. His wife was killed off dead. That changed him, altered his course, and gave us a multi-actor-spanning character development arc.

Or consider Doctor Who. They can "die" without truly dying. It's still a sacrifice, because (certain shenanigans aside), once an incarnation is dead, they're dead, but the Doctor marches on. Total death isn't on the table, but loss and hardship still are.

That's what the stakes are. That's what the joy is. To find out what horrors and joys and triumphs and sorrows you'll face, and how they'll change you, and how you'll change them and others.

What can change the nature of a man?

I understand all that. For stories, what you're talking about (plot armor basically) is essential. But I don't play RPGs because I want to emulate a guaranteed hero's journey or similar heroic narrative. I play to explore and interact with a real-seeming imaginary world. And in order for that world to feel real to me, people have to be able to die like they do in the actual world, at least sometimes. I don't want my PCs mortality under my control. It doesn't work for me. I know it does work for some gamers, and that's great. For them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Most of those games these days also try to make it interesting and worthwhile to do like Blades in the Dark's loads.

Most of D&D's resource management is bean-counting to avoid punishment.

It can feel that way, but to me it feels more like how resources operate in reality, and that's what I want. I'm not sayingv the specifics can't be fine-tuned, of course, or that the process can't be abstracted to sone degree.

 

[Vaalingrade]

'Operating in reality' is not a priority for me in this fantasy roleplaying game. I'm more here for the fantasy, but also the roleplaying a hero from a fantasy story, but also playing a fun game.

 

[Micah Sweet]

'Operating in reality' is not a priority for me in this fantasy roleplaying game. I'm more here for the fantasy, but also the roleplaying a hero from a fantasy story, but also playing a fun game.

That's what I'm talking about. We have different priorities in gaming. I don't want to focus on roleplaying the hero from a fantasy story (although I'm cool if that's how it turns out), and I don't want rules, in the book or just at my table, that try to force that narrative.