D&D General 6E But A + Thread

[TiQuinn]

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.

I think some of these greats live on in current fantasy as inspirations and then become part of the basis for new fantasy. To me, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are the epitome of the “screw up heroes” that you still see in stuff like the D&D movie today. Conan was a loner who wandered from land to land being a badass - we still see that archetype. I’m sure even these characters probably weren’t the absolute firsts but I have to imagine some of that lives on in current fantasy - it’s just grown and changed.

 

[kermit4karate]

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.

Excellent points!!! I know it will make me sound old, but kids today (shakes fist at sky!!!) don't grow up like I did in the '80s and '90s. I experienced more unstructured time outside and more scripted television, and it's the latter IMO that contributed more to different styles and philosophies.

Basically, my generation (our generation for a lot of us over 40 here) grew up on scripted television. We sat through many, many more TV shows with a scripted arc -- a plot with a beginning, middle and an end. The characters and sets were clear. I think that contributed to an intrinsic understanding of drama that many younger folks (sorry!) simply do not have.

YouTube Shorts and TikTok do not replace the thousands of hours of TV story arcs we watched.

Now...let the hate flow from my 30-something-year-old brethren! I'm ready for you!!!! Commence flogging now!!!!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A level 1 fighter could be a farmer (with no sword training) starting on there 1st adventure.

Not in 5E, no they could not.

That's just incorrect.

A 5E Fighter has full proficiency in all armour, shields, and martial weapons.

So no. That's not an opinion that's viable. It's simply incorrect. 5E's rules have never allowed for that. You can RP that you don't have all the weapon and armour proficiencies, you can RP like you've never seen full plate before, but mechanically, your character is fully 100% trained in how to use a zweihander and milanese full plate, how draw and fire a longbow, how to throw a javelin dozens of yards, how to throw a dagger with deadly precision, how to wield a halberd and fight people from 5ft away, and so on.

So no, what you're saying is just like, pretending your character can't do stuff that factually, they can. That's perfectly fine RP, but it's you who is pretending here about what a Fighter can do.

 

[dave2008]

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 thought about 3 boxes, but not everyone likes to play novice characters so I split it out. However, I would make them all optional. You could start with box 1 or box 3, it doesn't matter. Play the game you want to play. Also, I would make box 1 & 2 completely compatible, only differing in tone, with box 3 being the only one with features that are not always directly compatible.

I see no reason to have barriers between heroic and legendary characters. I do see there being some barriers to being godly characters.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Interesting. I'd say the Long Rest issue is a far larger issue for 5e than the Short Rest - and this is not just me but as evidenced in Enworld's thread history.
I would imagine them revisiting the Long Rest for 6e.

i was just thinking 'what if 6e implemented gritty realism timescale as standard but added another shorter rest to fill the between battle space heroic short rests occupied' and realized i think i just reinvented 4e's encounter, daily and ultimate powers

...no wait, the U in AEDU stood for utility didn't it, where did i get ultimate from? but regardless, the idea of lengthening out the adventuring day and adding in another rest type to compensate has potential doesn't it? i think it would help work against novaing especially if you couldn't get your full rest recovery except in safe havens. i feel like it would align everyone closer to being on a 'short rest recovery'-esc timeline

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think some of these greats live on in current fantasy as inspirations and then become part of the basis for new fantasy. To me, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser are the epitome of the “screw up heroes” that you still see in stuff like the D&D movie today. Conan was a loner who wandered from land to land being a badass - we still see that archetype. I’m sure even these characters probably weren’t the absolute firsts but I have to imagine some of that lives on in current fantasy - it’s just grown and changed.

No question.

There's always a long chain of inspiration, and fantasy authors are wildly disproportionately likely to have read other, longer-ago fantasy authors.

But... a lot haven't. Like, especially look at YA Fantasy or Romantasy which are huge genres - like, how many younger 20-somethings are coming to D&D with those as the only fantasy they've read? But some of the authors are very well-read in fantasy, yet others... not read much literary fantasy at all, like their entire exposure to fantasy may well be AO3 fics, Disney movies (and similar), and videogames (not a critique, per se, but it has some influence).

They're still distantly influenced in most cases, but it's a lot more distant and in some cases they're essentially reinventing tropes from "first principles" (often clumsily and thus doing the trope as clunkily as it might have been many decades ago).

 

[dave2008]

Not in 5E, no they could not.

Yes, I was talking about their background (as opposed to the guard or soldier background).

A 5E Fighter has full proficiency in all armour, shields, and martial weapons.

Well there is no half prof. Mind you at level 1 prof. is a +2 bonus. So tech. my son doesn't have prof. in all those items, but it doesn't matter practically IMO. I wasn't trying to say he is exactly like a level 1 fighter. Just that he can perform as well with a sword as a level 1 fighter.

So no. That's not an opinion that's viable. It's simply incorrect. 5E's rules have never allowed for that. You can RP that you don't have all the weapon and armour proficiencies, you can RP like you've never seen full plate before, but mechanically, your character is fully 100% trained in how to use a zweihander and milanese full plate, how draw and fire a longbow, how to throw a javelin dozens of yards, how to throw a dagger with deadly precision, how to wield a halberd and fight people from 5ft away, and so on.

So no, what you're saying is just like, pretending your character can't do stuff that factually, they can. That's perfectly fine RP, but it's you who is pretending here about what a Fighter can do.

I think we are coming at this from different perspectives. I stand by my assertion that my son with his years of judo/ jiujitsu (sp) training, year of sword training, and years of soccer, football, and rugby training is roughly equivalent to a level 1 fighter in 5e. Yes I added "roughly" this time as a qualifier as I didn't think people would be so nit-pick about this!

 

[payn]

Excellent points!!! I know it will make me sound old, but kids today (shakes fist at sky!!!) don't grow up like I did in the '80s and '90s. I experienced more unstructured time outside and more scripted television, and it's the latter IMO that contributed more to different styles and philosophies.

Basically, my generation (our generation for a lot of us over 40 here) grew up on scripted television. We sat through many, many more TV shows with a scripted arc -- a plot with a beginning, middle and an end. The characters and sets were clear. I think that contributed to an intrinsic understanding of drama that many younger folks (sorry!) simply do not have.

YouTube Shorts and TikTok do not replace the thousands of hours of TV story arcs we watched.

Now...let the hate flow from my 30-something-year-old brethren! I'm ready for you!!!! Commence flogging now!!!!

I think millennials got the best of the serial style of dramas that came out of late 90's to today. It seems much more like folks under 20 only watch tik-toks and youtubes over any other format.

I recently went on vacation and my cousins kids are all teens. They lost their collective crap when tik-tok was gonna get shut off. It was definitely a culture shock to me. As a kid we spent time together on vacation. This trip, everyone found their own corner and just played on their phone...

 

[Ruin Explorer]

i was just thinking 'what if 6e implemented gritty realism timescale as standard but added another shorter rest to fill the between battle space heroic short rests occupied' and realized i think i just reinvented 4e's encounter, daily and ultimate powers

...no wait, the U in AEDU stood for utility didn't it, where did i get ultimate from? but regardless, the idea of lengthening out the adventuring day and adding in another rest type to compensate has potential doesn't it? i think it would help work against novaing especially if you couldn't get your full rest recovery except in safe havens. i feel like it would align everyone closer to being on a 'short rest recovery'-esc timeline

4E would have been better if it had Ultimates honestly, that like, weren't just Dailies but something some kind of meta-resource charged up. I feel like maybe you got something similar to that with the 2nd or 3rd tier stuff but it's been a long time so I don't recall.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I think we are coming at this from different perspectives. I stand by my assertion that my son with his years of judo/ jiujitsu (sp) training, year of sword training, and years of soccer, football, and rugby training is roughly equivalent to a level 1 fighter in 5e. Yes I added "roughly" this time as a qualifier as I didn't think people would be so nit-pick about this!

I mean, he factually is not. Not even "roughly".

That's the issue. He's not even close.

He's not in the same ballpark. Your son I'm sure is a cool guy, but can he put on an entire suit of full plate in 5 minutes flat and move in it perfectly? Does he know how to competently and effectively wield every single medieval weapon, and going forwards, is only going to get better with them? It's not just the +2 to hit or w/e, he also needs to know how to load, fire, manuever whilst carrying and so on.

Your idea of what a 1st level Fighter is, is just totally incorrect for 3/4/5E. That's the problem. Not that your son isn't a badass, he probably is a badass. Just an L1 Fighter is a very specific and incredibly highly trained person in all WotC editions of D&D. There are no farmers, no farm boys, no Luke Skywalkers, no callow untrained youths, and so on who are Fighters in WotC D&D unless it's just RPing and ignoring rules (which is fine, it's kind of like reskinning but...).

EDIT - Hell the same mostly applies to 1E and 2E. Just this whole notion of "farmboy Fighter" is absolutely not D&D. L1 Fighter, even in BECMI is a competent person with significant combat and equipment training. People who RP'd "farmboy Fighters" in older editions were entitled to do so from an RP perspective but mechanically it was nonsense. Maybe there was 2E Fighter kit that stripped you of being able to wear armour competently and only let you take proficiency in stuff like spears and clubs? I suspect there was. That seems like the only time in D&D where you could legit be a "farmboy Fighter" or the like.