D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Micah Sweet]

Both.

What is more important, the story of the X-Men or the story of Cyclops? Both are important. The X-Men can tell stories without him, and you can tell stories about Cyclops without the X-Men. It's not fair to say that only stories about the X-Men as a team are important and it doesn't matter if it's Cyclops, Storm and Wolverine or Eye-boy, Gloop and Goldballs (seriously, those are real X-Men) anymore to say all X-Men stories should be about Wolverine (cough Fox movies).

To be fair, the X-Men have mutated (natch) their roster countless times over the decades, with any given character (except Wolverine) waxing and waning in popularity, disappearing and coming back, but the X-Men team keeps chugging on...

 

[CreamCloud0]

Depends. Is this a Cyclops movie (analagous to one-on-one play with the DM) or it is an X-Men ensemble movie (analagous to typical party play)?

Most typical party play maps to the ensemble movies - Avengers or X-Men rather than Iron Man* or Wolverine - and in those cases the characters' individual stories play second fiddle to the story of the party or company as a whole.

The other thing about both those franchises is that while they add in lots of characters over time they rarely if ever lose any and it's a big deal when they do. My favoured analogy instead is to see the party as a sports franchise where players come and go over time but the team keeps going.

* - Captain America: Civil War notwithstanding; it really should have been Avengers: Civil War as it's not exactly a solo Cap film.

okay, but i feel confident in asserting that if half the main cast had been subject to turnover between each instalment then far less people would've been invested in either of those franchises, the individual characters matter as much as the banner they unite under, the secondary cast might fluctuate but you've typically always got some of the old favourites in centre stage.

 

[Zardnaar]

I do play a game that suits me more. Level Up. I talk about it all the time. I want the official game changed to something that will intentionally appeal to WotC's desired customer base in an incompatible way, so the official game will be easier for me to ignore. Said that a few times in this thread as well.

But as I have been told this thread is simply about what people want from 6e. Obviously specifics will vary greatly.

People generally don't like preaching. Espicially the context of "it/I'm better than you".

Might do more harm than good. Just saying.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

okay, but i feel confident in asserting that if half the main cast had been subject to turnover between each instalment then far less people would've been invested in either of those franchises, the individual characters matter as much as the banner they unite under, the secondary cast might fluctuate but you've typically always got some of the old favourites in centre stage.

Precisely.

People tend to have Issues when even one single character gets recast. Consider the issues with T'Challa needing to be recast because of the unfortunate death of Chadwick Boseman, the original actor. They literally put in an explicit "This actor is Black Panther now" scene with the new actor (in context, having a minor beef with Tony Stark and saying "I'm here, deal with it" or something like that, nudge nudge wink wink say no more, say no more etc.)

To lose half the cast every movie--such that none of the same characters are still there by the end of the third--would pretty much kill any franchise ever.

Continuity matters, and people really do care about both specific-character continuity AND intra-party continuity.

Because, @Lanefan, while you are correct that the group is more than the sum of its parts, when you literally remove the entire sum of the parts, most of the things that were "more" than that sum also disappear. Most of that "more than the sum of the parts" is in the many different interrelations between specific people.

If we have a five-member party, for example, you have the five individual characters, sure. But you also have ten pairs (AB, AC, AD, AE, BC, BD, BE, CD, CE, DE), and ten more triplets, and five more one-person-missing sets. All of those things can be interesting in themselves, and they are--necessarily--more than JUST the sum of A + B + C + D + E as individuals.

People, being people, tend to attach to people rather than vague, nebulous, ill-defined group notions. Kill off everyone they liked--and thus every single possible intra-group dynamic--and people will tend to lose interest very quickly.

The exact same thing happens to a lot of people, I'd argue most people, when you have serial loss of characters in a TTRPG. Sure, they can choose to try to keep up their investment despite having it thrown away over and over, but there's only so much investment most of us can give before we just become numb and stop caring.

Remember that the eight deadly words happen both when the story fails to actually grip us, and when we aren't given enough reason to keep investing. Those eight deadly words are: "I don't care what happens to these people."

 

[Zardnaar]

Precisely.

People tend to have Issues when even one single character gets recast. Consider the issues with T'Challa needing to be recast because of the unfortunate death of Chadwick Boseman, the original actor. They literally put in an explicit "This actor is Black Panther now" scene with the new actor (in context, having a minor beef with Tony Stark and saying "I'm here, deal with it" or something like that, nudge nudge wink wink say no more, say no more etc.)

To lose half the cast every movie--such that none of the same characters are still there by the end of the third--would pretty much kill any franchise ever.

Continuity matters, and people really do care about both specific-character continuity AND intra-party continuity.

Because, @Lanefan, while you are correct that the group is more than the sum of its parts, when you literally remove the entire sum of the parts, most of the things that were "more" than that sum also disappear. Most of that "more than the sum of the parts" is in the many different interrelations between specific people.

If we have a five-member party, for example, you have the five individual characters, sure. But you also have ten pairs (AB, AC, AD, AE, BC, BD, BE, CD, CE, DE), and ten more triplets, and five more one-person-missing sets. All of those things can be interesting in themselves, and they are--necessarily--more than JUST the sum of A + B + C + D + E as individuals.

People, being people, tend to attach to people rather than vague, nebulous, ill-defined group notions. Kill off everyone they liked--and thus every single possible intra-group dynamic--and people will tend to lose interest very quickly.

The exact same thing happens to a lot of people, I'd argue most people, when you have serial loss of characters in a TTRPG. Sure, they can choose to try to keep up their investment despite having it thrown away over and over, but there's only so much investment most of us can give before we just become numb and stop caring.

Remember that the eight deadly words happen both when the story fails to actually grip us, and when we aren't given enough reason to keep investing. Those eight deadly words are: "I don't care what happens to these people."

Same effect with lead singers.
Change is bad (kinda). Basically you like something . They change it but whatever attracted you in the first place is gone.

Also restaurants. One of our favorite burger places took it off the menu. Then removed our favorite breakfast item.

. Didn't go back for a year +. Its now an occasional coffee and scones place vs weekly breakfast or dinner visit.

One of my old favorite bands from 90s is touring again. 1 original member left and its the bass player. Essentially a tribute band at that point.

 

[ECMO3]

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)…

That is like saying I am no closer to being rich if I don't throw my money into a slot machine.

The combat is more likely to be resolved against you if you attack and miss then if you do another action that protects you.

 

[ECMO3]

I want the official game changed to something that will intentionally appeal to WotC's desired customer base in an incompatible way, so the official game will be easier for me to ignore.

But why don't you just keep playing what you like instead?

This is what you are saying to me, as if my wants for a new system shouldn't count because there are already other systems that allegedly do that.

 

[CreamCloud0]

So PHB SPECIES

• Aasimar
  • Protector
  • Scourge
  • Fallen
• Dragonborn
  • Black (Acid)
  • Blue (Lightning)
  • Brass (Fire)
  • Bronze (Lightning)
  • Copper (Acid)
  • Gold (Fire)
  • Green (Poison)
  • Red (Fire)
  • Silver (Cold)
  • White (Cold)
• Dungeonborn
  • Eyedreamed
  • Mimicform
  • Flayercraft
• Dwarf
  • Hill (HP)
  • Mountain (AC)
  • Grey (Psionic)
  • Volcano (Resistance)
• Elf
  • High
  • Wood
  • Drow
  • Sea
• Gnome
  • Forest
  • Rock
  • Deep
• Goblin
• Goliath
  • Cloud
  • Fire
  • Frost
  • Hill
  • Stone
  • Storm
• Halfling
  • Lightfoot
  • Stout
• Human
  • Base
  • Variant
    • Elf Blooded
    • Orc Blooded
    • Death Marked
    • Stormborn
• Orc
• Tiefling
  • Abyssal
  • Chthonic
  • Infernal

i think i'd add ghostwise and lotusden subspecies to the halfling options personally, goblins i'd probably try make three subclasses? baseline goblin i'd give darkvision, nimble escape and fey ancestry, one sub i'd give pack tactics and an enhanced help action like a 'hobgoblin lite', the next one a climbspeed and a stealthy feature 'you can take the hide action while only lightly obscured' or something, then the third would get an expertise to assign and an artisan's tool proficiency or something like either rock gnome's tinker or lizardfolk's cunning artisan as a cunning and crafty archetype.

i feel like i should add something for orcs too but nothing's coming to mind immediately?

 

[Reynard]

I really like Prestige classes as a concept -- and dome were even well implemented. The only reason I did not suggest them for my theoretical 6E is because I really think talent trees is the way to go. I suppose you could have "Prestige talents" that unlocked in a similar way though.

 

[mamba]

That is like saying I am no closer to being rich if I don't throw my money into a slot machine.

The combat is more likely to be resolved against you if you attack and miss then if you do another action that protects you.

If all I ever do is try to avoid bring hit, I am not winning the fight. I might not be closer to losing after a round, but I am 100% going to lose in the end