D&D 5E 5E is attempting to recalibrate our expectations

[Alzrius]

One of my favorite gaming blogs is The Alexandrian, and one of my favorite articles over there is D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations.

The article talks about a lot of things, but one of the more salient points is that a lot of people head(ed) into 3.X with the expectation of the entire game playing like a low-power/magic, LotR-like fantasy adventure RPG, and then become disillusioned as the game becomes less and less conducive to this style of play as you level up more and more.

The article argues that this is a feature, rather than a bug, of the game, and says that rather than trying to "fix" this, it's better to calibrate your expectations to the fact that the game is really only about gritty heroism for the first five levels or so, and that after that you start getting wuxia heroes, superheroes, etc. (Incidentally, it was this that inspired the idea of E6 and capping level advancement before it fully left the "gritty" realm of play).

So how does this relate to 5E?

Well, the bit about the game transforming from gritty low-level heroes who become wuxia masters and then superheroes isn't how the game played before 3.X (and 4E) - or so I've been told (I haven't heard about many high-level and epic-level 1E and 2E characters).

What WotC seems to want to do with 5E is recalibrate D&D's own expectations for itself in order to return to that lower power-level across all of the levels. That is, it wants the gritty feeling to last more than five levels...quite possibly a lot more.

From what I've heard here and elsewhere on the internet, a lot of people want that. Or at least, they want some version of that.

The thing is, I'm somewhat concerned about what gets lost in the transition. Is there no room for the game having some point where your character has justifiably graduated to being measurably better than ordinary people? Or even so powerful that he's practically a demigod in the campaign world? I'm surprised by how many people seem to think that, to whatever degree, playing a truly powerful character is anathema to what D&D is.

5E is framing itself in very positive terms, but I can't help but wonder if a large portion of what it's trying to do is better define what D&D is not.

 

[KarinsDad]

The thing is, I'm somewhat concerned about what gets lost in the transition. Is there no room for the game having some point where your character has justifiably graduated to being measurably better than ordinary people? Or even so powerful that he's practically a demigod in the campaign world? I'm surprised by how many people seem to think that, to whatever degree, playing a truly powerful character is anathema to what D&D is.

I think that one doesn't have to worry about PCs not being measurably better than ordinary NPCs. A single 5D6 Fireball will dissuade that kind of thinking.


As for playing Gods, that's a bit illusory in 4E (less so in 3E).

4E PC Gods are not really that. Yes, they can stand toe to toe with really powerful monsters, but the rules still handcuff them. Most of them cannot shapechange or have worshipers or even go invisible. Powerful, but not versatile. To me, a real god would be able to do a lot of things that simple 5th level spellcasters can already do, but most 4E Epic PCs cannot do most of that.

So, D&D will probably always be a system where the PCs are not truly gods, rather they are just more powerful. This will occur in 5E as well, it just might be a different form of power (5 attacks in a single round) as opposed to a 95% chance to hit 95% of all monsters ever conceived.

 

[harlokin]

O

The thing is, I'm somewhat concerned about what gets lost in the transition. Is there no room for the game having some point where your character has justifiably graduated to being measurably better than ordinary people? Or even so powerful that he's practically a demigod in the campaign world? I'm surprised by how many people seem to think that, to whatever degree, playing a truly powerful character is anathema to what D&D is.

I couldn't agree more. I don't mind starting off as 'farmer's son with a pitchfork' if I can graduate to being the equivalent of Achilles some day.

If on the other hand I'm going to be only a little stronger than the bulk of the population for my whole career, I might as well play Rune Quest, which does low fantasy far more logically than DnD.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

All they have to do (and this might be what they intend to do, all we've seen or heard about is low-level play) is stick to the 4e idea of Tiers, and make each tier feel different.

Heroic (gritty)
Paragon (Action heroes)
Epic (Supergods)

 

[francisca]

Well, the bit about the game transforming from gritty low-level heroes who become wuxia masters and then superheroes isn't how the game played before 3.X (and 4E) - or so I've been told (I haven't heard about many high-level and epic-level 1E and 2E characters).

Speaking only of my own experience as a long time 1e AD&D DM/player who ran and played 3e for about 5 years along the way, this really is a YMMV situation.

My cousin ran a very gritty "magic scarce" campaign in OD&D/AD&D for years. There were no generic +1 swords, etc...very gritty, very focused on the sword aspect of swords and sorcery.

But on the other hand I recall groups where the DM handed out 10x by-the-book XP so they could "get to the good stuff" sooner, meaning so they could go kill the gods in D&DG with their 100th level characters. Bitd, and even today with groups who still play 1e, it really depends on the DM and players, in my experience.

IMO, 3e changed that with the CR system, etc...and reigned in both ends of the spectrum.

I've no meaningful long-term play experience with 4e, so I can't comment on it.

 

[Ratskinner]

One of my favorite gaming blogs is The Alexandrian, and one of my favorite articles over there is D&D: Calibrating Your Expectations.

The article talks about a lot of things, but one of the more salient points is that a lot of people head(ed) into 3.X with the expectation of the entire game playing like a low-power/magic, LotR-like fantasy adventure RPG, and then become disillusioned as the game becomes less and less conducive to this style of play as you level up more and more.

The article argues that this is a feature, rather than a bug, of the game, and says that rather than trying to "fix" this, it's better to calibrate your expectations to the fact that the game is really only about gritty heroism for the first five levels or so, and that after that you start getting wuxia heroes, superheroes, etc. (Incidentally, it was this that inspired the idea of E6 and capping level advancement before it fully left the "gritty" realm of play).

So how does this relate to 5E?

Well, the bit about the game transforming from gritty low-level heroes who become wuxia masters and then superheroes isn't how the game played before 3.X (and 4E) - or so I've been told (I haven't heard about many high-level and epic-level 1E and 2E characters).

What WotC seems to want to do with 5E is recalibrate D&D's own expectations for itself in order to return to that lower power-level across all of the levels. That is, it wants the gritty feeling to last more than five levels...quite possibly a lot more.

Hard to tell at this point exactly what WOTC has planned for higher-level play. Nonetheless, if the "core" game goes up to level 20, I could easily envision an "Ascension" module that either tweaked the teens or tacked on 10 levels to take you out of the realm of mere mortals.

 

[Consonant Dude]

The thing is, I'm somewhat concerned about what gets lost in the transition. Is there no room for the game having some point where your character has justifiably graduated to being measurably better than ordinary people? Or even so powerful that he's practically a demigod in the campaign world? I'm surprised by how many people seem to think that, to whatever degree, playing a truly powerful character is anathema to what D&D is.

I think there are two things to take into consideration. The rules and the flavor.

Rules-wise, high levels are tougher to DM for me. Extremely powerful characters who have a vast array of abilities as a group make it tough to build adventures that are challenging. A well-rounded group will have a shortcut for almost everything and that just becomes boring for everyone involved.

Fluff-wise, it's even worse. Ad your characters progress, you throw at them a lot more non-sensical creatures. Everything gets bigger and bigger until the world is an inconsistent mess. If the stakes are constantly at the highest... well nothing really matters anymore.

I compare this to Hollywood movie sequels. The first movie is usually amazing. Then they have to raise the stakes more and more in subsequent films until nothing really makes sense anymore. Badass characters are OK but you have to be careful not to turn the whole thing into a caricature.

 

[harlokin]

I think there are two things to take into consideration. The rules and the flavor.

Rules-wise, high levels are tougher to DM for me. Extremely powerful characters who have a vast array of abilities as a group make it tough to build adventures that are challenging. A well-rounded group will have a shortcut for almost everything and that just becomes boring for everyone involved.

Fluff-wise, it's even worse. Ad your characters progress, you throw at them a lot more non-sensical creatures. Everything gets bigger and bigger until the world is an inconsistent mess. If the stakes are constantly at the highest... well nothing really matters anymore.

I compare this to Hollywood movie sequels. The first movie is usually amazing. Then they have to raise the stakes more and more in subsequent films until nothing really makes sense anymore. Badass characters are OK but you have to be careful not to turn the whole thing into a caricature.

With respect though, if you are not comfortable with high-level play, it is your call whether you run it.

The problem is, if the option isn't included in the rules, it is very difficult for those who want to play higher powered campaigns to do so.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Instead of farmboy to demigod, I'd like to see it range from high school athlete to hall of fame inductee. You start out slightly better than most and end up among the elite, but never overshadow everyone (Babe Ruth not withstanding).

 

[Hassassin]

From what I've heard here and elsewhere on the internet, a lot of people want that. Or at least, they want some version of that.

Some want a relatively static power level without genre shifts, some want gritty to superheroes to gods.

I think there should be tiers. Either two: non-epic (linear growth) and epic (exponential); or three: heroic, paragon and epic, or whatever.

Extrapolating from the buzz E6 created, there is a sizeable subset of D&D players who want to stay low fantasy (or insert more appropriate term). Therefore, recalibrating so that (at least) levels 1-10 = real world human potential would in my opinion be a good thing.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

Well, the bit about the game transforming from gritty low-level heroes who become wuxia masters and then superheroes isn't how the game played before 3.X (and 4E) - or so I've been told (I haven't heard about many high-level and epic-level 1E and 2E characters).

What WotC seems to want to do with 5E is recalibrate D&D's own expectations for itself in order to return to that lower power-level across all of the levels. That is, it wants the gritty feeling to last more than five levels...quite possibly a lot more.

This is one of the few things that I am concerned with in D&Dn - We tended to start out at 3rd, and didn't feel the game got rolling until 7th to 10th (1st edition). I GMed my wife to 34th level with a couple of characters.

I don't mind the gritty bit, as long as it can be passed quickly - to us that is almost just "played backstory" with the characters being big heroes where we want them after a few levels of play.

I much much prefer high level play over lower. I had 4 characters go epic playing 3E. I hated the Hard cap on levels in 3rd or 4E. I really hope that the top end of the game is either open ended, or has a modules to let you take a high level character and go immortal or something.

The entire idea of E6 was boggling to me. I mean I know people like that, and I understood it intellectually (hey, people like different things) but I could never understand it at an emotional level. It was like "I'm going to order a pizza, but only have 1 piece and throw the rest away"... and gets the piece with the least toppings.

Given this it is probably no surprise that the other genre I play is Superheroes.

 

[harlokin]

Some want a relatively static power level without genre shifts, some want gritty to superheroes to gods.

I think there should be tiers. Either two: non-epic (linear growth) and epic (exponential); or three: heroic, paragon and epic, or whatever.

Extrapolating from the buzz E6 created, there is a sizeable subset of D&D players who want to stay low fantasy (or insert more appropriate term). Therefore, recalibrating so that (at least) levels 1-10 = real world human potential would in my opinion be a good thing.

I think the Tiers would seem to me to be the easiest way to please everyone at launch.

They can always release supplemental material for those who want to run the duration of an entire campaign at a given power level.

 

[Consonant Dude]

With respect though, if you are not comfortable with high-level play, it is your call whether you run it.

The problem is, if the option isn't included in the rules, it is very difficult for those who want to play higher powered campaigns to do so.

Oh, I totally get that I can choose not to use it. Here's the thing, though. I'd prefer a nice scaling down of the power curve. It looks like WotC are aware that a significant portion of DnD fans have problems with super-powered levels.

Maybe they'll offer high power rules in one of their modules instead? That could make everyone happy.

 

[Yora]

The thing is, I'm somewhat concerned about what gets lost in the transition. Is there no room for the game having some point where your character has justifiably graduated to being measurably better than ordinary people? Or even so powerful that he's practically a demigod in the campaign world? I'm surprised by how many people seem to think that, to whatever degree, playing a truly powerful character is anathema to what D&D is.

I think it's a perfectly valid thing to do, but as a fan of low-level play, I am very happy about getting more levels into my low-level game. If you want to play high-level, sure why not. But if high lever play could start a few levels later, we all could be happy.
I'd rather have my players stay "normal" until they reach 10th level instead of squeezing down on the XP tab and have them endure long stretches during which they can't add anything new to their characters.

 

[harlokin]

I think it's a perfectly valid thing to do, but as a fan of low-level play, I am very happy about getting more levels into my low-level game. If you want to play high-level, sure why not. But if high lever play could start a few levels later, we all could be happy.
I'd rather have my players stay "normal" until they reach 10th level instead of squeezing down on the XP tab and have them endure long stretches during which they can't add anything new to their characters.

I agree. If we go back to the ol' 36 levels, there's plenty of room for all power levels.

 

[erleni]

I personally hate gritty games and like the 4ed approach. PCs are heroes and should look more like a Bruce Willis character than a medieval time foot soldier. But YMMV...

 

[Tallifer]

I think there should be a module offering rules for play below level 1. Another thread talked about these Apprentice Levels. That would extend the feeling of grit and hopelessness for another five levels.

On the other end, there should be a truly epic, immortal module.

 

[harlokin]

I think there should be a module offering rules for play below level 1. Another thread talked about these Apprentice Levels. That would extend the feeling of grit and hopelessness for another five levels.

On the other end, there should be a truly epic, immortal module.

Agree (but can't give out any more Experience).

 

[Savage Wombat]

My problem is that my players absolutely HATE playing at the "fight rats in the basement" level of the game. Where the wizard has 2-3 spells and gets taken out with one hit. If there's no real difference between a 1st level character and a 3rd level character, they're going to insist I start even a low-level game at 5th or so.

5e better have a good assortment of things for adventurers to do at low levels at this rate.

 

[Lord Mhoram]

On the other end, there should be a truly epic, immortal module.

Yeah - I ran my wife's 34th+ level characters though the Bloodstone series. Not the best in the world, but suitably epic.