D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[TiQuinn]

Another thought: how should a theoretical 6E treat loot and treasure rewards? What place do piles of silver and/or magic items have in D&D going forward. Should the game be aiming for Diablo style loot drops? Or should it be minimized or excised entirely?

I don’t think you can get rid of it entirely; it’d simply be jettisoning too much well known history and useful story hooks from the game. Fantasy of all sorts is rife with magic maguffins and players expect them to be a part of the game. I also don’t think people are especially clamoring for their removal.

But they do pose a bit of a problem. If players are getting a bunch of their best powers from class abilities, adding in magic items feels either too much or a bit of a letdown in that “Oh, I forgot my sword had this ability” kind of way. And looking backwards to earlier editions, having magic items be the main driver for abilities had a nice knock-on effect of giving players a reason for dungeon delving, which I personally like.

I admit I don’t know how to solve that. I actually would prefer that class abilities were scaled back somewhat and magic items take more of the center stage again, but that’s a personal preference.

Edit: I will say that actual non-magical loot could probably be done away with. The game’s never been great at figuring out what to spend money on.

 

[Reynard]

Game assumes treasure and magical loot.

Magical loot and treasure is not assumed in combat, exploration, or social math.

This feels like a contradiction. Can you elaborate?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

IMO, new abilities and versatility equals more powerful. If I can turn into a sparrow and you can't, all else being equal I am more powerful. No amount of non-supernatural training will teach you to turn into a sparrow.

???

Why the heck would all else be equal? That's a nonsensical opinion because learning that trick isn't free. It's as hard or difficult as a game or setting makes it. If you takes you 20 years of practice to learn it, but someone can be an expert warrior in 3, well, who is more powerful? I don't think it's "bird guy".

D&D arbitrarily (this is a very important word here) makes arcane magic ridiculously over-the-top versatile, able do literally anything, because it wasn't designed, it doesn't have any kind of consistent rationale or theory or way of operating behind it, and essentially isn't even a "magic system", it's just a totally random and disconnected pile of totally unrelated powers that various people in the 1980s thought would let them "win at dungeons" so convinced DMs to give them. Hell half the spells added in the 1990s are obviously ill-conceived cheese from people's campaigns, often obviously designed to make GMPCs nigh-invulnerable. There's no logic, there's no system, there's no theme, there's just "PILE ON THE OPTIONS! THERE'S NO LIMIT!!!".

5E dialled that back a bit, but still fundamentally treats arcane magic is a sacred cow, and includes loads of spells that just should be deleted from D&D, either because they serve little to no purpose, or because they just make arcane magic too broad in its functionality.

TLDR: The whole thing is a hangover from people trying to cheat at dungeons in the 1980s and make OP GMPCs in the 1990s.

 

[Parmandur]

A sad commentary in and of itself.

That goes all the way back to Gary Gygax.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This feels like a contradiction. Can you elaborate?

I mean it is a contradiction, on the other hand, it is how they said they designed and balanced 5E 2014. They went on and on and on and on and on and on and on about it. "Oh we didn't assume PCs would have magical items when we did the math for X so they will just make PCs stronger! No we didn't bother to give you any way or indication of how much stronger!", but given the game does basically assume you are handing those out, and virtually every official adventure (and most 3PP ones) do hand them out it seems like a bit of a silly decision to me. It's an "apology edition" thing because 3E and 4E absolutely did hard-assume you had magic items and the math didn't work without them. I'm not sure if 2024 makes some attempt to fix this - I'd be unsurprised if it did.

 

[Parmandur]

I will be astonished if 6E is backwards compatible. It does mean they have to wait longer to do a new edition, but still not very long from now.

Realistically, between WotC/Has ros financial investment into Beyond, and that the primary designers at WotC now started playing D&D with 5E (no joke, Armin and De Armas), I would be shocked if they ever make another D&D that is not backwards compatible.

 

[kermit4karate]

???

Why the heck would all else be equal? That's a nonsensical opinion because learning that trick isn't free. It's as hard or difficult as a game or setting makes it. If you takes you 20 years of practice to learn it, but someone can be an expert warrior in 3, well, who is more powerful? I don't think it's "bird guy".

D&D arbitrarily (this is a very important word here) makes arcane magic ridiculously over-the-top versatile, able do literally anything, because it wasn't designed, it doesn't have any kind of consistent rationale or theory or way of operating behind it, and essentially isn't even a "magic system", it's just a totally random and disconnected pile of totally unrelated powers that various people in the 1980s thought would let them "win at dungeons" so convinced DMs to give them. Hell half the spells added in the 1990s are obviously ill-conceived cheese from people's campaigns, often obviously designed to make GMPCs nigh-invulnerable. There's no logic, there's no system, there's no theme, there's just "PILE ON THE OPTIONS! THERE'S NO LIMIT!!!".

5E dialled that back a bit, but still fundamentally treats arcane magic is a sacred cow, and includes loads of spells that just should be deleted from D&D, either because they serve little to no purpose, or because they just make arcane magic too broad in its functionality.

TLDR: The whole thing is a hangover from people trying to cheat at dungeons in the 1980s and make OP GMPCs in the 1990s.

Uh, oh. Someone said sacred cow again. ️

Realistically, between WotC/Has ros financial investment into Beyond, and that the primary designers at WotC now started playing D&D with 5E (no joke, Armin and De Armas), I would be shocked if they ever make another D&D that is not backwards compatible.

Backward compatible is a pretty broad statement. Does it have to mean you can't ever remove anything?

 

[Reynard]

Realistically, between WotC/Has ros financial investment into Beyond, and that the primary designers at WotC now started playing D&D with 5E (no joke, Armin and De Armas), I would be shocked if they ever make another D&D that is not backwards compatible.

UUUGH

 

[Reynard]

Uh, oh. Someone said sacred cow again. ️

Backward compatible is a pretty broad statement. Does it have to mean you can't ever remove anything?

Well, for 2024 all it means is literally "can use the 2014 adventures." That's all they ever promised.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Realistically, between WotC/Has ros financial investment into Beyond, and that the primary designers at WotC now started playing D&D with 5E (no joke, Armin and De Armas), I would be shocked if they ever make another D&D that is not backwards compatible.

I don't think that tracks at all. I don't think, based on the history of RPG design, there's any reason to think people who started with system X will merely always make incremental changes to system X. In fact, I think those people are among those most likely to make revolutionary changes.

Beyond could keep going just fine with a non-compatible new edition, in fact it makes WotC better positioned to do so than if they didn't have Beyond.