D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[Bae'zel]

5e is the most fragile edition of DnD yet. By that I mean, it supports a single, very narrow playstyle and the system breaks easily if you try to tweak it to something else. To make it work you have to go with a complete overhaul, like Shadowdark.

There is no bigger contract to me than 1e/2e and 5e. You need only look at the proliforation of genres and settings supported in the 2e era to understand how flexible the system was. It supported everything from gritty Dark Sun like play, to Space Super-Heroes of Star Jammer. The only real varience in 5e is what color capes you want your supers to wear.

5E D&D has has flaws (I mean, c'mon, of course it does, it isn't Mythras), but this internet hyperbole is a bit much. "Most fragile"? "Breaks easily"?

Granted, I do find it crazy that people use 5e for Cyberpunk, Film Noir and Call of Cthulhu, but as a system for "Fantasy"? yeah I've made it work splendidly with minor alterations, usually borrowed from third party 5e games like Adventures in Middle Earth and Brancalonia.

 

[prabe]

The point is that players are supposed to apply common sense here too, right? I could see how you could have a 16 year old with that background if they'd been raised a criminal from an early age, or something like that. Or as has been suggested you could reframe it to work along the lines of a young person with obvious potential who befriends contacts along the way. Either make it make sense or pick something else.

Yeah, I'm with you that there should be some common sense applied, here. I think if you want to be "I-know-a-guy Guy," you probably shouldn't be like fifteen. If you just want to be able to make non-hostile contact--more like "hello" than asking any favor/s--then I don't think being fifteen is as likely to be a problem. I think we're at least mostly agreeing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The rules can't protect you from bad players

I wouldn't call someone who wants to use a PC ability that the rules grant them a bad player.

 

[TwoSix]

No. The PC is not both 16-18(a common age for 1st level rogues with that background) and 50 with an extensive career of network building simultaneously. We don't know the answer to that question until we see what age the player wrote down on his sheet. And I can count on 1 hand(maybe I'd need to go to my second hand) the number of PCs I've seen in the last 40 years who started at age 50 or higher.

Old PCs are relatively rare, which isn't surprising in a genre with "wish fulfillment" as one of the underlying subtexts. Although my current PC in one of my games is fairly elderly (a 71 year old orc).

"Can a 50 year old well-traveled individual also be only 1st level?" is an interesting question, and heavily dependent on our particular understanding of what "levels" mean within the fiction.

 

[mamba]

In fact we know the answer to this already. The player chose the background that says 'you have access to a network of criminal contacts'

precisely, that is the problem with it

 

[soviet]

I wouldn't call someone who wants to use a PC ability that the rules grant them a bad player.

Not even if it doesn't make any sense?

 

[TwoSix]

Yes. So your PC falls through a strange portal and ends up on Athas. Who is he going to know or be able to contact that will be able to get a message from Athas to another world? Especially when leaving Athas is like leaving Ravenloft.

Well, no. Obviously as a player I wouldn't suggest a narration like that, it's implausible.

Pretty much everyone's backgrounds are going to fail in the "I fall into a one-way portal to Athas" situation.

 

[Mort]

I wouldn't call someone who wants to use a PC ability that the rules grant them a bad player.

Some do. It's been bandied about in this thread.

 

[soviet]

precisely, that is the problem with it

Why let the player choose it and only say it doesn't work when they try to use it?

 

[Mort]

precisely, that is the problem with it

Why? Because it's "automatic?"

Rather than rehash that, would you be a more up on the concept if the feature just allowed some roll to make contact? One skill related?