D&D 5E What Single Thing Would You Eliminate

Mind of tempest · Apr 11, 2021

TheSword said:
Have you ever considered that the social and exploration pillars are driven less by rules and more by description, choices and roleplaying?

Occasionally I see calls for convoluted rules for social interactions not very often though. In reality social interaction just needs well defined NPCs motivation and character, and the game space to play that out.

which are not things that many people know how to do well if social and exploration are to be based on the description, choices and roleplaying then it would help if the book thought how to do those well.

Vaalingrade · Apr 11, 2021

Scott Christian said:
I don't ponder how my car can get me to work faster than if I walk - it was built in long ago once I was old enough to understand speed equals faster. Then I understood it even better once I learned time=distance/speed. Now, I never think of it. I just know. The same is true for a player's realism: it is a built in calculation based on prior knowledge and experience.
In other words: to judge it is wrong.

The difference is that you don't yell at a mechanic about your car not running out of gas every ten minutes because you know cars burn gas and that gas burns fast in open air therefore gas should burn faster for verisimilitude.

Which is why I stab myself in the temple whenever someone says the V-word in a D&D discussion.

TheSword · Apr 11, 2021

Mind of tempest said:
which are not things that many people know how to do well if social and exploration are to be based on the description, choices and roleplaying then it would help if the book thought how to do those well.

This links back to the ‘Have you read the DMG” thread...

Chapter 4: Creating Non Player Characters
Chapter 5: Adventure locations
Chapter 7: Running the game (social interactions)

5e has provided plenty of advice on where to start with these.

TheSword · Apr 11, 2021

Vaalingrade said:
The difference is that you don't yell at a mechanic about your car not running out of gas every ten minutes because you know cars burn gas and that gas burns fast in open air therefore gas should burn faster for verisimilitude.

Which is why I stab myself in the temple whenever someone says the V-word in a D&D discussion.

Why would you yell at a mechanic because your car doesn’t run out of gas every 10 minutes?

Xetheral · Apr 11, 2021

jmartkdr2 said:
You would need to provide clear alternative ways to win.

Theoretically, the pc's could make the enemy flee, or convince them to switch side, or get them to surrender or whatever. But the rules don't tell them how, and the dm will decide on the fly if it will work, how it will work, and what success will look like. There are so many known unknowns that the strategy of 'talking to them' is massively risky. Whereas killing the enemies is clear, direct, actionable, and has measurable progress points. So of course the players choose that every time.

My experience is the opposite. My players tend to try to talk to everything first unless they already know the creatures are hostile, in which case they set up an ambush.

Scott Christian · Apr 11, 2021

Vaalingrade said:
The difference is that you don't yell at a mechanic about your car not running out of gas every ten minutes because you know cars burn gas and that gas burns fast in open air therefore gas should burn faster for verisimilitude.

Which is why I stab myself in the temple whenever someone says the V-word in a D&D discussion.

I guess my question is why? Why is it painful for you? And why do you not understand that their sense of realism is a built in mechanic? In the act of possibly being a hypocrite, I will use myself as an example:

I read the traditional fantasy books as a kid: Shannara, LotR, Dragonlance, etc. From all of these, one of the things I gathered for my sense of fantasy realism was magic has a cost or price, and magic is stronger than muscle. (No problem with wizards scaling stronger than fighters.)
I watched Excalibur a dozen times. My sense of fantasy realism learned that someone can apparently have sex in plate but can barely run ten yards through a shallow river. (No problem with imposed movement penalties, etc. on plate.)
I watched Conan a hundred times. My sense of fantasy realism learned that a strong warrior, male or female, can take out a dozen guards, and that many enemies should die from one or two blows. (No problem with females having high strength and no problem with describing HP loss as wounds.)
I read Elfquest a thousand times. My sense of fantasy realism learned that a 4' tall elf weighing 70 or 80 pounds can be stronger than any human. (No problem with halflings and others having high strength.)

Each of these things imprinted on me to create my sense of fantasy realism. You may not agree with it, but that is exactly what people mean when they discuss realism in a fantasy game. I am sorry that you take it as such a literal thing, but I have never seen an argument that was purely literal when discussing fantasy realism. Situations might have literal interpretations, but the "realism" of the entire fantasy world has never been argued as strictly literal.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 11, 2021

TheSword said:
I’d go so far as to say a unrealistic setting with gonzo stuff means that characters can’t reasonably predict what opponents can do. Which removes a massive element of strategy from the game. It tends to be a result of ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ game planning and a Devil may care attitude to verisimilitude.

And I would say "gonzo stuff" is a pretty big element of what makes up fantasy. Its an RPG, not a strategy game. I mean, I'm not opposed to the idea that specific abilities can lead to certain types of narrative results. The problem I have with what you're saying is, you're throwing away a vast range of possible narrative space in order to get a few specific things to work, which can still work, if you are willing to engineer situations to allow for it. The cost is not worth the benefit.

S'mon · Apr 11, 2021

Xetheral said:
My experience is the opposite. My players tend to try to talk to everything first unless they already know the creatures are hostile, in which case they set up an ambush.

Yeah me too. The PCs don't like dying and the players tend to rapidly realise PC death is a possible result of combat IMCs. Plus non-dead creatures are often much more useful than dead ones, anyway.

TheSword · Apr 11, 2021

AbdulAlhazred said:
And I would say "gonzo stuff" is a pretty big element of what makes up fantasy. Its an RPG, not a strategy game. I mean, I'm not opposed to the idea that specific abilities can lead to certain types of narrative results. The problem I have with what you're saying is, you're throwing away a vast range of possible narrative space in order to get a few specific things to work, which can still work, if you are willing to engineer situations to allow for it. The cost is not worth the benefit.

“Not a strategy game” [bold emphasis mine). I beg to differ. When the players decide to act in a certain way because of thought rather than instinct with the reasonable prediction of those actions leading to a more favourable result... then that’s strategy.

Limits don’t reduce opportunities they actually prompt them. A settlement with a wall is a more interesting target than a settlement without one for instance... though of course not if everyone can fly.

AbdulAlhazred · Apr 11, 2021

Lord Twig said:
Actually I don't want people to sit out for the rest of the combat, that isn't fun. But I do want there to be some challenge and urgency to bringing a fallen character back up. If you have to move into touch range and use a regular action to cast Cure Wounds there is measurable cost that is actually felt to save a friend from death. After that the saved character should be truly grateful that he was saved because the other character actually sacrificed something to save them. Healing Word means the cleric can continue making his attack, doesn't even have to move from where he is and the person is back up. At that point it is just a "Thanks!" and "No big deal!" because it wasn't a big deal.

Also the whack-a-mole is a little less of a problem if the healer is using an action and has to be next to the person to bring them back up.

At least in the design of 4e the reasoning is pretty simple. Forcing a leader to give up any other sort of effectiveness in order to heal every round is pretty restrictive and gets old. Also there's an effectiveness question, which is to say, giving up an entire set of actions by one PC to give another PC a set of actions is, at best, achieving no net result. This has always been something of a problem.