D&D General What Is D&D Generally Bad At That You Wish It Was Better At?

[Lanefan]

The canonical form of prep in classic D&D is preparing a dungeon map and key. This isn't supposed to be done on the fly!

And yet many DMs have done it (to, of course, varying degrees of success; but that's true of any endeavour).

 

[wicked cool]

After Bg3 I noticed that

It’s bad at multi level combat meaning goblins in house roofs shooting down and flying creatures like dragons in house of dragon. There are no real official modules that do this. Imagine that mind flayer ship going from block to block .

 

[Reynard]

I know you are being serious but some of my worst experiences have been from wing it GMs.

Of course different GMs are going to have different strengths. I feel like I am better at low/no prep that running published adventures.

 

[Mercurius]

Well, hold on just a minute there with that /thread...

As we're looking at all the editions in totality here, while what you say seems from all accounts to be true of the WotC editions it's not necessarily true for the early ones.

In 0e or BX or even 1e you could almost prep on the fly if you wanted, particularly if you weren't planning on having the campaign go much beyond an adventure or two.

Well, if we're taking the broad picture, prep has always been an obstacle - especially in the WotC era, which is now half of D&D history. Experienced DMs might be able to wing it, but even among the experienced it can be hard to pull off well. And for the less experienced, it is rather daunting.

I'd say there are a lot of problems that stem from how complex the game is, especially in the WotC era. I still wish that D&D had two modes, simple and complex (basic and advanced), or--better yet--a clear complexity dial that allowed for easy customization. The basic/simple mode could essentially be something like Shadowdark; complexity could run up to peak 3.5 era customization.

 

[Mercurius]

Of course different GMs are going to have different strengths. I feel like I am better at low/no prep that running published adventures.

I'd even buy the notion that more DMs would be better at low/no prep than they realize. But we could still say that D&D is bad at communicating that and/or providing guidance on low/no prep. I mean, a chapter in the DMG on "how to run the game on the fly" would be great. I haven't dug into the 2024 DMG beyond a cursory look, so maybe there's something in there that I haven't checked out.

 

[payn]

Of course different GMs are going to have different strengths. I feel like I am better at low/no prep that running published adventures.

I dont think its only published adventures that require prep. There is a wing it art level that I think most people lack. I can detect it easily and my interest wanes quickly as nothing of note happens, time is sunk thinking of what to make happen, and everything just feels lost.

 

[Reynard]

I dont think its only published adventures that require prep. There is a wing it art level that I think most people lack. I can detect it easily and my interest wanes quickly as nothing of note happens, time is sunk thinking of what to make happen, and everything just feels lost.

I'm sorry you have never had a good experience with low/no prep games. Some of my best experiences involved that style of play, rolling with the players, the dice and whatever random nonsense enters the chat.

 

[payn]

I'm sorry you have never had a good experience with low/no prep games. Some of my best experiences involved that style of play, rolling with the players, the dice and whatever random nonsense enters the chat.

I wouldnt say never, there is a lot of factors to the enjoyment. The system matters, the GM matters, etc.. I tend to prefer more intricate long running campaigns (which I know makes me an outlier) and seat of pants play im pretty particular about. You need to work a lot to keep my attention, and I know I own some of that too.

 

[Lanefan]

I dont think its only published adventures that require prep.

Personally, I find published adventures to require much less prep than going homebrew as all the tedious work (mapping, room descriptions, monster stats, etc.) is already done for me. All I have to do is slot the adventure into my ongoing campaign and maybe tweak around the edges a bit to suit that.

There is a wing it art level that I think most people lack. I can detect it easily and my interest wanes quickly as nothing of note happens, time is sunk thinking of what to make happen, and everything just feels lost.

Even though I try to stay ahead of them, sometimes the players will surprise me and go somewhere or do something I just didn't see coming. When this happens, all I can do is wing it and hope for the best; sometimes I even pretend to look at notes that don't exist.

 

[pemerton]

I can detect it easily and my interest wanes quickly as nothing of note happens, time is sunk thinking of what to make happen, and everything just feels lost.

Obviously you were at these tables, and I wasn't. But the description you give here makes me think of someone trying to run an AP-ish, rather railroad-y game but not having their story prepped in advance.

When I GM low- or no-prep RPGs, I use systems and approaches that are quite different from this.