D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[Ruin Explorer]

One person may want it like Arthurian fantasy while another may want it like a Marvel comic superhero game.

Even this raises massive, massive questions, because which "Arthurian fantasy"? Arthurian fantasies vary insanely, there's no one standardized style. Like, Pendragon has a very specific and quite narrow take on Arthurian fantasy, I'd strongly argue is absolutely not representative of the genre as a whole, regardless of whether we're talking about that genre pre-20th century or in 2025 and including modern takes.

There's a good discussion of Arthurian mythology in one of Dr. Eleanor Janega's podcasts, possibly Gone Medieval - she's discussed them on a few shows but there's one where she has a multi-episode discussion, and it's fascinating to look at how the mythology changed and evolved.

Anyway, D&D has to keep changing and keep up if it wants to stay relevant.

It used to be able to define the fantasy genre but I'd suggest that as fantasy has got much more popular in pop-culture over the last three decades, that's "gotten away" from D&D. Like, in say, 1998, only nerds read fantasy novels, there was basically little-to-no fantasy on TV or as movies that wasn't related to Greek myth or urban fantasy. Post-LotR and post-GoT (both the books and the show), that's changed, and videogames have been huge too, because fantasy is an extremely common and successful genre in videogames. So D&D no longer controls and defines the space in the way it once did. It's still influential but even then the influence is often indirect, filtered through anime and videogames, and picking up a lot of stuff along the way.

I do not follow other social media or D&D play-podcasts so I cannot honestly dispute the above - we will wait and see for 6e.
My grand idea for 6e as stated upthread is Dials for different styles of play- so I am all inclusive, whatever the default situation is.

I think dials/settings are a really good idea, especially, if they're really clear and well-defined and well-considered*, and can thus be used by more than just DMs making choices, but also designers designing products to have certain feels and styles.


* This hard-requires NOT rushing a product to market. Unfortunately 4E, 5E 2014 and 5E 2024 were all rushed in the end (I don't know if 3E was or not, because I don't know as much about the development history of 3E, but given 3.5E came out in 2003 I strongly suspect it was too), and I don't believe the designers bear any responsibility for that, or likely anyone on the actual D&D team, almost certainly that is down to WotC management way above that level. I guess this is imaginary 6E so we can imagine this doesn't happen again, however unlikely that might be!

 

[TiQuinn]

Even this raises massive, massive questions, because which "Arthurian fantasy". Arthurian fantasies vary insanely, there's no one standardized style. Like, Pendragon has a very specific and quite narrow take on Arthurian fantasy, I'd strongly argue is absolutely not representative of the genre as a whole, regardless of whether we're talking about that genre pre-20th century or in 2025 and including modern takes.

There's a good discussion of Arthurian mythology in one of Dr. Eleanor Janega's podcasts, possibly Gone Medieval - she's discussed them on a few shows but there's one where she has a multi-episode discussion, and it's fascinating to look at how the mythology changed and evolved.

Anyway, D&D has to keep changing and keep up if it wants to stay relevant.

It used to be able to define the fantasy genre but I'd suggest that as fantasy has got much more popular in pop-culture over the last three decades, that's "gotten away" from D&D. Like, in say, 1998, only nerds read fantasy novels, there was basically little-to-no fantasy on TV or as movies that wasn't related to Greek myth or urban fantasy. Post-LotR and post-GoT (both the books and the show), that's changed, and videogames have been huge too, because fantasy is an extremely common and successful genre in videogames. So D&D no longer controls and defines the space in the way it once did. It's still influential but even then the influence is often indirect, filtered through anime and videogames, and picking up a lot of stuff along the way.

That Appendix N just keeps on changing.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I had to house rule so much just to maintain a decent pace. Every TPK was the players dying of boredom....

Hmmm.

We found 4E was significantly faster than 3.5E until you got to level 11 or so (in large part because of the more consistent and exception-based design).

The trouble 4E had was that as you levelled up, you didn't get an excessive number of abilities, the number you had at any time was pretty low but... you did start getting abilities that were a lot more complicated, like potentially doing multiple things, and a lot more abilities which involved Reactions, Immediate Actions (which can be out-of-turn), Interrupts, and so on, and not only did the PCs get these, the monsters did too.

You also got more and more situations where exact initiative order mattered, and people thus started using the various ways to change initiative order a lot more, which was a huge slowdown.

Combine the two and you went from this game, which was, for us, just a lot snappier than 3.5E/PF1 (albeit that still puts it up the "slow" end of combat, for sure), and a lot more engaging (because weirdly all my players really engaged with the tactical angle, not something I expected), but by like, 13, was slow-as-hell and combats had gone from 45 minutes to an hour to 2+ hours easily, sometimes much longer. And after few levels of that, even though people liked the campaign and the cool stuff that happened in combat, it felt like the whole "entire session is basically 1 combat" thing wasn't working for us.

 

[kermit4karate]

I agree that combat tended to be slow (though some of that had to do with certain very specific unfortunate design choices in early 4e), but the way to fix that isn't to trash the system that works well, it's to create something like my "Skirmish" concept. That is, combats that are lickety-split, that are the "group skill check" equivalent, just as Skill Challenges are the non-combat equivalent of a set piece combat.

Understood and agree. Honestly, I've used different house rules since the Basic Edition of D&D. I think I'm in the minority here on the forum in how I've looked at the different versions of D&D over time. I like all of them, but I like them all for different reasons, many of them simply creative. I like the pretty, pretty pictures! I don't actually put much stock into them as individual things, frankly, and can generally tell when reading a new core book how well or poorly a particular mechanic or rule will work at the table.

 

[dave2008]

Not a bad idea imho.

It works for us. We have considered capping at 16 even

 

[Ruin Explorer]

That Appendix N just keeps on changing.

It surely does yes!

I know this will depress the hell out of some people, but re: the original Appendix N, really only Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit of that entire list is still widely-read, and even that's far better known by the films. People conceptually know about Conan, and maybe know one of the movies (I think 1981 one is a bit more widely seen), but it's very unlikely many under people under 45 or so have read the books. Moorcock, despite having been insanely influential on D&D, Warhammer, and so on is basically forgotten, which is just bananas to me but there we are. I've seen people in their 30s who considered themselves "fantasy experts" (ugh) deny he had any influence at all. Is that fatuous ignorance on their part? 100%, but it's something that most people involved with fantasy wouldn't know is wrong and would probably think "I guess that's true, I've never heard of him after all!". Lovecraft is probably actually the best-known after Tolkien and the most likely to be actually-read. LeGuin too but IIRC she's not mentioned by Appendix N.

But greats like Zelazny, Leiber, Farmer etc. very few people who play D&D (again, who are under 45) are going to know what you're talking about. Their touchstones for fantasy are going to be very, very different, even if they're authors who in many cases are influenced by the ones above.

 

[kermit4karate]

Oh, I'm quite well aware of it. I call it the "guy at the gym" problem.

If it's not something they can imagine a guy at the gym doing, it's not possible for a Fighter. Even though doing some of the things D&D characters do is literally beyond Olympic Athlete level stuff.

It's a pox upon the field of TTRPGs, and I wish I knew the words to dispel it. I desperately wish I knew them.

Know what you mean! I haaaate that. RPGs are supposed to bring fun, fantastical stories to life. They aren't supposed to mimic the banality of real life because...we have real life for that! We don't watch movies and TV shows to see our boring real lives reflected back at us. We want amazing stories. We want to see heroes vanquish evil (or vice versa). We crave drama. We want the excitement of a swordfight without the risk of being stabbed. WTF, right? How is that so controversial nowadays?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'd combine some of those to get three completely separate (yet vaguely compatible) games:

1. The primary game (0-10) - it could go open-ended after 10 for those as don't want to go Legendary, but this would be the core game; the other two would be completely optional
2. Legendary levels (11-20 or 11-25) - for those who want to bounce around planes, fight deities, etc. without all that low-level fussing
3. Mythic levels (everything higher) - this would be D&D as a full-on supers game for those who want to be deities.

I think that's probably the right grouping, and I suspect a D&D that really focused hard on levels 1-10 and making sure they were fun as hell would be significantly better than ones trying to cram 1-20 (or more!) in.

Also, if they release the others a year or two later, that gives them time to correct mistakes and see how things work out.

I think anything less than 1-10 is making a serious mistake because what you're creating is a "stopping point", and every time you do that, people get off, whether the game is good or not, people get off. I'm sure that in the longer-term, BECMI was hurt by that more than it was helped by the relatively lower prices and simpler rules that you can have with the smaller level brackets.

 

[dave2008]

...I think you're vastly underestimating a level 1 D&D fighter or vastly overestimating your son.

IDK. A level 1 fighter could be a farmer (with no sword training) starting on there 1st adventure. They get a +2 to hit (prof.) that is roughly a 10% improvement over a commoner (he has that at least), fighting style check (he has unarmed fighting - region champ in judo, defense, and great weapon fighting), and 2nd wind I am not sure but it seems reasonable (he is a D1 athelete), and weapon mastery. That is the only one that might be a bit off as he has only trained in swords and knives. But he looks like a typical 6'-3", 215 lbs, human level 1 fighter with the Athlete (maybe) background to me.

I mean, what is so special to you about a level 1 fighter?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

How is that so controversial nowadays?

I don't think it is very controversial outside of a few websites (including this one), and a few people with very strong and fixed opinions (but respect to to people here - almost everyone has less fixed, less dogmatic opinions now on this and other mechanical issues than they did say, 10 years ago! We've grown a little bit! Mostly! ). And they've better-served by RPGs that weren't D&D since 3E, honestly.