D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Remathilis]

You dont just roll up and play a game sometimes without planning it all out first?

Thats all it really is, you just have to put the game aspect before the 'i need to be this kind of character' aspect.

Not since I was 12.

I don't get to play very often (nearly every DM). I legit build characters for fun in my spare time. I have a "folder" of character ideas I want to try. Additionally, I rarely like playing the same class twice in a row. And most games I play on tend to focus on specific settings or tropes (Ravenloft, Spelljammer, etc) and we don't always play in the same setting for two different campaigns. All of this really puts a strain on "I'll just let random chance determine what I'll play" because I want my character to fit the setting, be something I'm interested in playing, and be something I'm willing to play for months if not years.

Maybe if I was playing a Basic or Basic-inspired retro game for a short while, I'd be willing to let the dice fall where they may. But any game that is going to require me to play the same character for years and assumes I am building them with all the bells and whistles of a 5e character (species, background, class and subclass, feats etc) you can be damn sure I'm walking in with a concept of what I want to play.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And resolving uncertainty by random means (in our case, dice) is always a gamble.

No, it isn't.

You have to actually show why it is. Declaring it so does not make it so.

I disagree. Gambling isn't always needless risk, nor is it always reckless.

The definitions available to me literally disagree. Like they literally specifically call out that gambling means reckless risk for a possible high payout and a likely loss.

Even if the odds of success (or winning) are 95% in my favour I'm still gambling that the other 5% doesn't rear its ugly head when I roll that d20 hoping not to see a 1.

No. You are taking a very small risk. That's not gambling. Not all risk is gambling. Your insistence that absolutely all risk is always gambling is both not reflected in the dictionary definitions of the words, and not reflected in how actual people use these words.

You are projecting your personal preference to highlight "there is risk/uncertainty involved", and then pretend that that means "it's a CRAZY GAMBLE" so that you can reject some ideas and enforce others. This is inaccurate and misleading, injecting incorrect connotations, because the connotation of "gambling" is that the game is functionally a roulette where you have no control over the outcome and skill is totally, utterly irrelevant, when neither of these is true.

Magic: the Gathering is a game involving cards, and thus contains uncertainty. Nobody calls playing it gambling, because it...isn't. And it is legally important

And sure, as player you do what you can to tilt the odds in your favour and the game often gives you ways and means of doing so; but at some point you gotta roll dem bones and at that point, it's a gamble.

Again: no it isn't. It is uncertain. Not all uncertainty is a gamble. By being uncertain, it involves risk. Not all risk is "gambling".

 

[EzekielRaiden]

You dont just roll up and play a game sometimes without planning it all out first?

No. That would make me incredibly anxious. It would spoil the experience.

Thats all it really is, you just have to put the game aspect before the 'i need to be this kind of character' aspect.

I cannot do that.

 

[ECMO3]

But by your own admission D&D doesn't suit your preferences as well as other games might. So why does D&D appeal to you? I can tell you why I play the version of 5e (not D&D) that I do, even though I dislike the current version of the official game personally and wouldn't want the changes you propose. I'm just curious what appeals to you in D&D if it doesn't suit your preferences? For me it's accessibility for my players, and rules changes that suit my preferences better than WotC 5e.

I like to play the current version of D&D too, I am just doing the same thing as everyone else here - telling them what my preferences would be regarding what I would like to see changed.

Why don't you find a game that suits you more instead of saying you want things changed?

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I dont mind this for a single night of old school fun. Though, I dont want to dig into a logn term campaign where I pour tons of thought into a concept to find out I cant play it functionally.

or...

Said comedically, but yes, exactly.

I don't really have much interest in one-shots. I vastly prefer campaigns intended to go long-haul.

 

[Uni-the-Unicorn!]

I don't really see the "improve" part. Stress, perhaps, but nothing about a random thing guarantees you are improving any more than playing something chosen. Indeed, there's an an argument a chosen one is more effective, since you can elect to specifically choose something you aren't comfortable with, whereas the dice could do anything and are likely to be a mixed bag. As random things are wont to be.

My thought was you are more likely to get something you wouldn’t choose. Thus you would have to RP something new and at take you out of your comfort zone. Therefore potentially improving your RP

 

[ECMO3]

One of the things I was most disappointed about in 5.24 was the move back to Ability score bonus per day class features.

The only class feature that I can think of that does this is Bardic Inspiration and things like spell preparations were decoupled from ability scores.

 

[ECMO3]

No, it isn't.

You have to actually show why it is. Declaring it so does not make it so.

It very much is. For example in combat you choose to attack - You roll and attack roll and if it is low it misses, if it is high it hits, then if it hits there is usually more dice to determine how much damage the bad guy takes and/or if it suffers from any other effects.

You don't have to roll dice on your turn you are gambling by doing that. You can take other actions on your turn which are automatic (dash, disengage, dodge), you are forgoing that for the chance you could get a better outcome. That is gambling.

 

[mamba]

You don't have to roll dice on your turn you are gambling by doing that. You can take other actions on your turn which are automatic (dash, disengage, dodge)

If I do that, the fight is no closer to being resolved in my favor (unless the rest of the party has a better approach)…

 

[EzekielRaiden]

My thought was you are more likely to get something you wouldn’t choose. Thus you would have to RP something new and at take you out of your comfort zone. Therefore potentially improving your RP

I would say that there is the potential for going further outside your comfort zone, but there's exactly equal potential to go not even the slightest bit outside.

Conversely, with a chosen character, yes you can always choose to be something completely inside your comfort zone...but you can also choose to force yourself to be something you definitely know isn't. Seems to me that choosing, "Alright, I'm going to play something I know I don't normally do"--a guarantee of something outside your wheelhouse--is a bigger step than maybe possibly getting something there, maybe not.