D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[Lanefan]

Like a large portion of games, both luck and skill matter. Skill exists to increase the odds of success, but a random factor always plays a role (pun slightly intended).

Exactly. Using skill to reduce one's odds of failure from 50% to 20% still means it's a gamble. Only if-when you can somehow reduce the odds to 0 does the 'gamble' part disappear.

 

[jayoungr]

There is absolutely no need for combat rules to be more complex than non-combat rules. We simply accept this because... conservatism in the fandom.

At what point does it stop being conservatism and turn into a simple preference for one game over another?

 

[Bedrockgames]

But no, not sharing DCs and the like is absolutely an aesthetic preference. And it absolutely impacts player agency. We are playing a game. Denying a player information to make choices impacts player agency. You may feel that you have a valid reason to deny the player that info, or to be denied that info as a player... that's your preference and it's fine.

But it clearly isn’t just an aesthetic preference. If the point of play, which it is gif done people, is to retain POV for the purposes of skilled play and immersion, then giving them concrete numbers makes it less about skilled play against the environment (which is what something like OS primer was largely talking about) and instead skilled play against the DC system.

Again you are using an expansive definition of agency. I do not agree that more information always enhances agency. This point was made in the thread on objective mysteries, where more information could actually undermine the ability to make meaningful choices

You have a preference and that is fine. But your assumptions are not as true as you think they are

 

[Lanefan]

Apparently I can't quote quoted text, so copypaste will do.

If you type [ QUOTE ] before the bit you just copy-pasted and [ / QUOTE ] after it, it'll show up as a quote. If you want to put a name to it, the first would look like (if you were quoting me) [ QUOTE = Lanefan ] instead.

Remove ALL spaces between the [ and ], by the way; I had to add those in so it would show up readably in the post..

 

[Lanefan]

The reason why combat can become unsatisfying and boring without mechanics is because it can very easily devolve into how kids play: "I shot you!" "No you didn't!" "Yes I did!" "Nuh-uh!" "Uh-huh!" And so on.

I have this same problem with theatre-of-the-mind play in general, usually when it comes to positioning e.g. did that lightning bolt just hit you or miss you.

 

[Lanefan]

When you respond to me saying there's a False Dichotomy happening, you are attributing the two extremes to me. So you essentially did say that.

I didn't play 4e.

In 3e big combats could be super long, but most fights were an 30-60 minutes.

For some people, 30-60 minutes is super long.

The TSR editions can have very long combats as well, once characters get to higher level. Part of the reason was-is that the adventuring parties are often about twice the size of a typical WotC-edition party (as in, 8-10 party members instead of 4-5), meaning that getting through a single round takes close to twice as long even if all other things are equal.

At low level in my game I can bang through 3 or 4 combats in a session with loads of time between for other things. At high level, not so much - anything the least bit complex can easily take an hour or more and if the opposition are also adventurers or similar then we're really in for the long haul.

There were a good number of fights that started in one session and had to conclude in the next one.

Ayup.

 

[AlViking]

I have this same problem with theatre-of-the-mind play in general, usually when it comes to positioning e.g. did that lightning bolt just hit you or miss you.

We stopped using TotM at some point shortly after we started playing and before 1e came out. I was just pieces of paper on an old chalkboard and a ruler to get general positioning but I've never looked back.

 

[Lanefan]

But it's short-lived triumph, a week later he was visiting the latrine and ran into a red dragon... On to Snardly XIII!

When I say that Snardly XII became a superstar, that means he hung around and kept going for real-world years while in the process gaining levels and wealth and prestige and so forth.

Honestly, there are character sheets in my old binders that look like "Triborb VII" where the "VII" is a big eraser smear. We literally used pencils, sometimes grease pens on sheet protectors (stolen from SFB games) for character sheets back in the '70s.

Were I the DM I'd have asked you to make a new sheet for each one, in part so the old sheets could be kept for posterity (and also so we'd be able to determine whether it was Snardly III or Snardly VI who had the really nice plate armour when he fell into the lava pit) and in part so if I later wanted to I could analyze their numbers.

 

[Lanefan]

On glancing again at this post, I caught this.......

That's far too self-centered for my tastes.

.....and I wonder if you're maybe saying the quiet part out loud; that some systems lean into a self-centered approach where it really is all about you-the-player (hence why they work best when there's just one player and the GM), and that's why they're not for everyone.

 

[Lanefan]

At what point does it stop being conservatism and turn into a simple preference for one game over another?

My guess it it becomes conservatism if that preference is for an older system or way of doing things.