D&D 5E Are DMs getting lazy?

[Hussar]

Yeah, advancement may have been slower than 3e in a number of ways, but 10,000 fights or one level every 2 years really has no basis in any published version of D&D.

Hey, we finally agree on level advancement rates.

IME, in 3e, we advanced about 1 level/15-20 hours of play. Which, again, purely my own experience, was pretty much the exact same rate we advanced in 2e and 1e. Then again, I almost never played into double digit levels. That might make a big difference.

 

[SirAntoine]

Yeah, advancement may have been slower than 3e in a number of ways, but 10,000 fights or one level every 2 years really has no basis in any published version of D&D.

You see, you could have said your comment without the part I underlined. I even have a post that illustrates the facts, but I get that it doesn't make sense to you. You are denying that I showed a basis for my own view, not just expressing your opinion or your preference.

 

[billd91]

Hey, we finally agree on level advancement rates.

IME, in 3e, we advanced about 1 level/15-20 hours of play. Which, again, purely my own experience, was pretty much the exact same rate we advanced in 2e and 1e. Then again, I almost never played into double digit levels. That might make a big difference.

My guess is you didn't play very strictly with training costs in 1e. Training slowed level advancement down considerably. A lot of optimally calculated XPs ended up being wasted in the practical issue of wrangling training time and cost.

 

[Sunseeker]

Hey, we finally agree on level advancement rates.

IME, in 3e, we advanced about 1 level/15-20 hours of play. Which, again, purely my own experience, was pretty much the exact same rate we advanced in 2e and 1e. Then again, I almost never played into double digit levels. That might make a big difference.

As with most editions, advancing at the higher levels really depends on two things:
Does the rate of combat remain consistent?
and
Do you fight more challenging and XP-worthy foes?

What usually happens at higher levels is that the rate of combat drops off significantly. More time is devoted to "matters of state", which until recently were usually either worth very little, or no XP at all. This is often punctuated by large, epic battles, either against hordes of foes (1xp times ten thousand really racks up the points!) or against one or two highly powerful foes such as a dracolich or demigod. Thus, combined with increasing XP requirements, the rate of advancement drops off considerably.

Honestly, I have noted little difference in advancement per edition when playing a well-designed sandbox or more linear campaign.

 

[pemerton]

I also think that things like "fail forward" is a symptom of this laziness as people do not want find other ways to succeed once their original thought out plan is blocked. Instead just continue like normal and add en extra encounter later on.

I don't think you understand "fail forward" - it has nothing to do with "continue like normal and add an extra encounter later on".

Here's an example of "fail forward" from a Burning Wheel session I ran last year:

Jobe, having both nobility and sorcerers in his circles, and a +1D affiliation with both (from Mark of Privilege and a starting affiliation with a sorcerous cabal), initially thought of trying to make contact with the Gynarch of Hardby, the sorceress ruler of that city. But then he thought he might start a little lower in the pecking order, and so decided to make contact with the red-robed firemage Jabal (of the Cabal). With Circles 2 he attempted the Ob 2 check, and failed.

So, as the 3 PCs were sitting in the Green Dragon Inn (the inn of choice for sorcerers, out-of- towners and the like), putting out feelers to Jabal, a thug wearing a rigid leather breastplate and openly carrying a scimitar turned up with a message from Jabal: Leave town, now. You're marked.​

In this example, the wizard PC tries to make contact with a member of his cabal, fails the check, and hence the NPC's thuggish servitor turns up instead to try and run the PCs out of town. That is what "fail forward" means - a failed check results in a twist or complication that keeps the game moving, rather than a stall or a roadblock.

You mightn't like it as an RPG technique - though from your description of it I would guess you've never actually experienced it - but it has nothing to do with laziness! It's comes out of a desire to have RPG sessions unfold a bit more like stories and a bit less like suduko puzzles.

 

[pemerton]

I don't know if modules really save time.

I guess it depends on the person. For me, they save time making up maps, geography and NPCs.

 

[Sunseeker]

I guess it depends on the person. For me, they save time making up maps, geography and NPCs.

I do have to agree that pre-made stuff is great for town-maps and NPCs, but I'm also a geography nerd so that part is fun to me.

 

[pemerton]

if you expect the players to drive their own adventures and decide their own risk versus reward ratio, milestone leveling does not make any sense at all.

<snip>

Since XP is a tangible reward at least it offers a fair method when the PCs aren't riding the rails to Plot town.

In 4e the XP system is set up to yield about 1 level gained for every 10 to 12 hours of play. You could do the same in a sandbox. That makes XP no longer a reward, but you can still have a risk-to-reward ratio in other respects (eg gold earned, fame acquired, etc).

 

[pemerton]

in 4e, most players spent the vast majority of real life time in combat in a dungeon/castle.

Says who?

I've run a fair bit of 4e over the past 6 years. Some of it has taken place in dungeon/castles/caverns. Some of it has taken place in forests. Some of it has taken place flying through the Elemental Chaos.

Almost none of it has been a dungeon crawl of the sort that was being discussed.

4E dungeon was also abyssmal.

<snip>

the early 4E adventures were really really bad in Dungeon. I have them on PDF through to Dec 2011 and they are even all but useless to mine for ideas and maps.

The adventure Heathen is in an early 4e number of Dungeon. It is quite a good adventure - a little too much filler, but then that is true of nearly everything TSR published also!

A 4E encounter is perforce a miniatures skirmish scenario. You need to know not only what monsters are present but also how their abilities synergize.

Paying attention to how abilities interact is part and parcel of running an encounter, back to AD&D and B/X days. I can't remember where and when I first read the idea of wizards making Potions of Fire Resistance for their troll servitors, and similar sorts of ideas, but it was a long time ago.

If you want to play 4e as a miniatures skirmish game - that is, ignore fictional positioning and narrative significance and just treat it as a board game - then I guess nothing is stopping you. But that's equally feasible, though perhaps less enjoyable, in AD&D too. (Let's roll up a party of 4 12th level PCs and see if we can beat Demogorgon!)

 

[pemerton]

It should take something like 100 good fights to advance in level, and we haven't seen that.

Level advancement used to be at a rate of about one level every 100 good fights. That was the standard in AD&D and BECMI.

I've played a fair bit of B/X and AD&D and have not found this to be true at all. Nor is this "standard" stated anywhere in the rulebooks.

Room 3 in module B4 The Lost City has 7 stirges and gems worth 1700 gp. Room 4 is empty but has over 50 gp in it. Room 6 has 3 firebeetles and no treasure, but Room 7 has 5 killer bees and treasure worth 1600 gp.

I'm not going to catalogue the rest of the module, but I think it's pretty obvious that at this rate it will not take "100 good fights" to advance a level. The module is stated to be for 6 to 10 characters of 1st to 3rd level. 15000-odd gp will advance that party from 1st to 2nd, or from 2nd to 3rd. Fewer than 10 of those stirge rooms will do the job, which is quite a bit less than 100 of them.