D&D 5E (2014) 5/30 Q&A: Charm, Chases, and Combat Free

[Kobold Stew]

We seem to have missed the latest Q&A here.

Voila.

Is any of this surprising?

 

[Quickleaf]

What pillars would things like chases, infiltration, and investigation fall under?

It largely depends on the context. A chase through city streets, for example, could be resolved with the combat mechanics. An overland chase—racing to catch up to a fleeing band of orcs before they reach the safety of the mountains—would work just fine using the exploration rules. For infiltration scenes, I might be tempted to use the dungeon exploration rules. For investigation, that seems like something that will make frequent use of the interaction rules, but depending on the context I could see it using exploration rules, too; when the party enters the mansion where their noble patron was murdered, you could use the dungeon exploration rules to cover their investigation of the mansion. I would do so only if the characters faced potential danger or time pressure on the investigation. Otherwise I would be tempted to allow them to explore the mansion at their own pace, using our basic mechanics for anything that would require an ability check.

I think they're really missing the boat here. Combat and exploration rules are no substitute for chase/investigation/infiltration rules. They just don't do the same thing.

For example, the combat rules can't handle an exciting urban foot chase, as Rodney suggests.

 

[1of3]

For example, the combat rules can't handle an exciting urban foot chase, as Rodney suggests.

How would you want that to work? And how do you imagine the transition between the fighting part and the chasing part?

 

[MarkB]

And how do you do so without encountering the problem identified in the article - transitioning into an immersion-challenging minigame?

 

[Kobold Stew]

I found that rather weak: combat itself is an immersion-challenging mini game, as are the exploration rules, etc. So it's just the transition from one immersion-challenging minigame to another.

And of course, everyone's immersion-threshold is different. To say (as does the answer) that "it's a fine line to walk" simplistically assumes that there's only one single line, when in reality every player even at a single table is going to experience these things differently. I felt the answer was a copout.

 

[Tovec]

Yeah, this further highlights the problem I've been seeing with the WotC stance on the three pillars. It seems like they don't have any kind of definition, let alone a Good one, of what falls into each pillar and how they are supposed to interact. The infiltration or what I would call guile section illustrates that perfectly. I saw this when they talked about the Green Dragon's illusions as "exploration" but to me that just seemed like more combat rules, a different kind but still combat all the same. I would like them to relay it in other terms and to put some more effort into this. It especially seems that interaction is too limiting in this case.

 

[Nymrohd]

It feels like they had a brainstorming session, thought the three pillars would be cool, and then immediately came to us with them. Are we playtesting this system or are we expected to actually design it?

 

[LightPhoenix]

With the exploration and interaction rules described in Legends & Lore, would it be possible to play a combat-free adventure (or even campaign) of D&D?

I'm not sure why anyone would be playing D&D if you're looking for a combat-less system. D&D's focus is first and foremost on combat, and always has been. There are other systems out there that handle non/minimal combat much better than D&D ever has. It's great that they're taking steps to enhance that side of things, but I don't want to see it being a focus.

Ultimately, what we want is for players and Dungeon Masters to feel like the additional rules for exploration and interaction enhance those portions of the game for those who want it, or stay out of the way for those who don’t.

I've been saying this for a bit now, but that line of thought just doesn't pan out rationally. They keep espousing this "per-player" idea of players choosing the rules they want. The reason it doesn't work is because if one player is using a rule, everyone else still has to interact with it. So the scope of the rule ends up being for the entire group. This is a perfect example. So you don't want to interact with the exploration rules? Have fun while everyone else does. Of course, the DM can end up just taking your input and interpreting it through the system. However, that's just obfuscating the fact that the player is still using the rule. In short, there is no per-player rules system, and I wish they'd stop bothering with it.

The goal of the exploration and interaction mechanics isn’t to create new mini-games that you fire up when you enter a new scene, but rather to augment what people expect from such scenes.

I hate being the one to point out the obvious, but D&D is a game. I do get what they're saying here - skill challenges felt like a clunky mechanic in 4E. They're looking to make something that's a little more rules-light. Ultimately though, it's a game, and creating mechanics to support that is not creating a new mini-game. It's creating the actual game. It's a poor way of thinking about the problem.

A chase through city streets, for example, could be resolved with the combat mechanics.

No. A thousand times no. Use the system appropriate for the intended effect. The combat system is designed for combat. It should be used when running combat. Anything that isn't combat - and I mean this narratively and mechanically - should not use the combat rules. If your scene is a chase through the city streets, sure you might fire an arrow in pursuit, but that's not combat and shouldn't be treated as such.

 

[1of3]

I've been saying this for a bit now, but that line of thought just doesn't pan out rationally. They keep espousing this "per-player" idea of players choosing the rules they want.

That's not what they are saying. They talk about "the players and the Dungeon Master", that is the entirety of the gaming group as a collective, not its individual members.

 

[Quickleaf]

How would you want that to work? And how do you imagine the transition between the fighting part and the chasing part?

I started a thread about "missing pillars" on the WotC boards which, I believe, Rodney read and included in this week's Q&A. For chases I noted that I like the ones from http://geek-related.com/2009/12/13/life-in-the-big-city-chase-rules/ because they strike a good balance between being cinematic and being simple.

Also I question the assumption that a chase necessarily leads to combat.

However in the case that a particular chase *does* lead to a fight, I'd have some rules which basically say: "Once the pursuer successfully catches the prey, the prey is cornered by terrain/circumstances and cannot run away again without extraordinary mitigating circumstances (e.g. a teleportation spell or stealing an enemy's winged mount)."