D&D 5E Behind the design of 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons: Well my impression as least.

[aramis erak]

With respect, this branch of the discussion started with Celtavian saying:

"Combat is always and has always been the largest pillar by a huge margin in any edition of D&D. A DM might adjust that if his group does not mind. My group likes combat. They don't like to spend very much time on out of combat material. I very much doubt a very sizeable majority does not play exactly the same way. That is why combat balance should always be one of the largest factors in RPG design that involves combat simulations decided by numbers. Combat is the equivalent of glory in an RPG. He who kills the most and fastest accumulates for himself the most glory."

Which is a discussion of how the game was played.

You came back with a discussion of rules. In context, the implication being that the way the rules were designed indicated the mode of play. I am questioning the solidity of that implication.

Do you wish to claim that you did not intend that implication? If so, then I will point out that without it, this branch of discussion does nothing to refute Celtavian's point, and is largely a red-herring rabbit hole. His assertion about the primacy of the combat pillar would then remain, and is supported by the weight of rules on combat.



But treasure for XP isn't activity-independent. It is highly activity-dependent. The activity being "gather treasure"! That's a pretty specific activity.



I have an alternate narrative for you. It starts with: Gygax and Arneson weren't actually great game designers. Visionary, perhaps, but their actual game design, in retrospect, is pretty shoddy.

D&D came out of wargaming. Wargaming *is* all about the combat, thus the name. With that history, their rules are, for the most part, all about combat. This is not by well-considered design intent, but due to weight of history. Other bits were slapped on as they saw need. Sometimes, the bits slapped on didn't really fit very well. Thus, we get a ruleset that has the vast majority of its rules about combat, but the rules setting what passes for the game's win condition disjoint from the bulk of the rules! It is as if someone published Monopoly with the rules as they are, but the win condition was, "Whoever draws the most Chance cards in five tiems around the board wins." The bulk of the rules are largely tangential to the activity that wins.

If someone tried to publish a game with that kind of mismatch today, they'd get laughed at as rank amateurs. And that's the key - Gygax and Arneson were amateurs. There were no practiced professionals at the time. With such design flaws, it is no wonder we argue about which pillar was primary. The fact of the matter being that the designers didn't have a good handle on the pillars, or how to balance them or aim the game for one over the other! That understanding only came with time, and is not extant in the early editions.

You Revisionist! Beware the revisionist!!!

Gygax was actually engaged as a semi-professional game designer at the time D&D was developed. There was a professional association for game manufacturers at the time as well - GAMA. Still exists. E. Gary Gygax was a member.

Dave Arneson was an amateur, but Gygax, no. At least 7 published games of his own before D&D. Many of the wargames of the era were no better quality writing, even from Avalon Hill. Sure, several had better layout and art, but Gygax was no unknown amateur.

Incompetent? Perhaps, especially as an editor. Rather prolific, as a designer.
Go, look at his boardgamegeek page and see his credentials... http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/561/gary-gygax

 

[Umbran]

You Revisionist! Beware the revisionist!!!

Not revisionist. Merely imprecise. I mean it in terms of role playing game design, which is not really the same as boardgame design, or videogame design. My apologies.

Oh, and by the way, you don't need to be a designer to be in GAMA. Heck, a fine lady used to come to a larp convention I attended, to entice folks to join GAMA as "Communicating Members" - they apparently offer(ed?) insurance benefits to all members, and this was a selling point at the time.

The page you link to doesn't seem to list seven games before D&D, though perhaps I miscounted. And they seem to lump editing and designing together, so I'm not sure the credit there is all that clear. In any event, the fact that none of them other than D&D itself has stood the test of time suggests a great deal.

It may be reasonable to say that "game design" was still so new in the early 70s that everyone was really still an amateur.

I think my basic assertion still stands - the design of the original game? Not actually that great.

 

[ExploderWizard]

With respect, this branch of the discussion started with Celtavian saying:

"Combat is always and has always been the largest pillar by a huge margin in any edition of D&D. A DM might adjust that if his group does not mind. My group likes combat. They don't like to spend very much time on out of combat material. I very much doubt a very sizeable majority does not play exactly the same way. That is why combat balance should always be one of the largest factors in RPG design that involves combat simulations decided by numbers. Combat is the equivalent of glory in an RPG. He who kills the most and fastest accumulates for himself the most glory."

Which is a discussion of how the game was played.

Correction- it was a discusiion of how Celtavian SAYS the game is played.

You came back with a discussion of rules. In context, the implication being that the way the rules were designed indicated the mode of play. I am questioning the solidity of that implication.

The rules are the rules. As presented in certain editions, the game played as Celtavian states leads to stacks of dead PCs. That dictates nothing. It is a common result of the aforementioned playstyle within certain rule sets.

Do you wish to claim that you did not intend that implication? If so, then I will point out that without it, this branch of discussion does nothing to refute Celtavian's point, and is largely a red-herring rabbit hole. His assertion about the primacy of the combat pillar would then remain, and is supported by the weight of rules on combat.

The weight of the rules on combat has little bearing on the actual game play and the strategy chosen. Put another way, if those combat rules represented a small percentage of the overall page count but were otherwise unchanged, would combat be any less deadly?

As we all know bluffing isn't an important part of poker. It would hardly be worth your while to learn about it all seeing as how it's not even included in the rules of the game.

But treasure for XP isn't activity-independent. It is highly activity-dependent. The activity being "gather treasure"! That's a pretty specific activity.

The XP is for treasure, which is an objective. HOW you get it is the activity. Combat is certainly one traditional way of doing so.

I have an alternate narrative for you. It starts with: Gygax and Arneson weren't actually great game designers. Visionary, perhaps, but their actual game design, in retrospect, is pretty shoddy.

I will let others pin you to the wall for calling the lightning in a bottle that launched our hobby shoddy. I'm too shocked to do so.

D&D came out of wargaming. Wargaming *is* all about the combat, thus the name. With that history, their rules are, for the most part, all about combat. This is not by well-considered design intent, but due to weight of history. Other bits were slapped on as they saw need. Sometimes, the bits slapped on didn't really fit very well. Thus, we get a ruleset that has the vast majority of its rules about combat, but the rules setting what passes for the game's win condition disjoint from the bulk of the rules! It is as if someone published Monopoly with the rules as they are, but the win condition was, "Whoever draws the most Chance cards in five tiems around the board wins." The bulk of the rules are largely tangential to the activity that wins.

If someone tried to publish a game with that kind of mismatch today, they'd get laughed at as rank amateurs. And that's the key - Gygax and Arneson were amateurs. There were no practiced professionals at the time. With such design flaws, it is no wonder we argue about which pillar was primary. The fact of the matter being that the designers didn't have a good handle on the pillars, or how to balance them or aim the game for one over the other! That understanding only came with time, and is not extant in the early editions.

Yet in this day and age, reteo clones are wildly popular and WOTC again sold the original "shoddy" game that started it all in a premium boxed set that sold fairly well.

 

[Sailor Moon]

From what I can remember, older editions of D&D didn't assume anything but everyone having fun.

There was no focus on any one particular area. You made your character and you did whatever you felt like doing to interact with whatever adventure the DM took you on. They had rules there in order for everyone to use in whatever way they saw fit. The book never said anything about combat being your primary focus or primary way to deal with whatever obstacle was there. The book didn't care how you dealt with it.

 

[Hussar]

Well, as I said before, there is a mountain of actual, real, as in not anecdotal, evidence that shows that D&D has always been highly focused on combat. Not to the exclusion of everything else, but, it's always been the biggest pillar in D&D. Between the rules of the game and the crapton of modules out there where combat is unavoidable, to the basic encounter rules where a significant number of encounters will automatically be hostile, and thus lead to combat, beyond "well, we don't play that way", what evidence is there that D&D is not heavily focused on combat?

I mean, read something like Slave Pits of the Undercity - every single encounter presumes combat. Every one. Heck, just like Keep on the Borderlands, the NPC's don't even have names in this module. Exactly how much evidence do people need?

 

[Sailor Moon]

Well, as I said before, there is a mountain of actual, real, as in not anecdotal, evidence that shows that D&D has always been highly focused on combat. Not to the exclusion of everything else, but, it's always been the biggest pillar in D&D. Between the rules of the game and the crapton of modules out there where combat is unavoidable, to the basic encounter rules where a significant number of encounters will automatically be hostile, and thus lead to combat, beyond "well, we don't play that way", what evidence is there that D&D is not heavily focused on combat?

I mean, read something like Slave Pits of the Undercity - every single encounter presumes combat. Every one. Heck, just like Keep on the Borderlands, the NPC's don't even have names in this module. Exactly how much evidence do people need?

Actually no there isn't.

Modules mean nothing because they were written by people who themselves may have been interested in combat but just because there is a monster doesn't mean you have to kill it in order to accomplish the task. Combat had the most attention in the books because it has the most moving parts when compared to everything else.

Unless you can show us a quote in the books that actually state combat was the primary directive then you have proof of nothing.

 

[Hussar]

Actually no there isn't.

Modules mean nothing because they were written by people who themselves may have been interested in combat but just because there is a monster doesn't mean you have to kill it in order to accomplish the task. Combat had the most attention in the books because it has the most moving parts when compared to everything else.

Unless you can show us a quote in the books that actually state combat was the primary directive then you have proof of nothing.

Really?

When you have thirty years, and tens of thousands of pages of modules all pretty much saying the same thing, written by dozens, if not hundreds of game designers for the same system, that doesn't actually count as evidence? Wow, that's some burden of proof there.

So, just to be clear, we're assuming that the following:

1. The majority of the rules focus on combat
2. The overwhelming majority of character elements focus on combat
3. The majority of published adventures focus on combat
4. The primary source of advancement for characters needs a certain degree of combat (you at least need to defeat treasure guardians)

doesn't actually constitute any degree of proof. The only valid proof is a direct quote stating that the game is focused most heavily on combat? That's your argument?

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Where are the modules where my PC could gain a significant amount of XP by political intrigue, seducing ladies, and finding the farm boy's lost puppy, etc.? Can someone name even one?

 

[Sailor Moon]

Where are the modules where my PC could gain a significant amount of XP by political intrigue, seducing ladies, and finding the farm boy's lost puppy, etc.? Can someone name even one?

You didn't need modules for those. All you needed was an imagination.

Also, that is why you were given XP for completing the challenges not just killing them.

 

[aramis erak]

Really?

When you have thirty years, and tens of thousands of pages of modules all pretty much saying the same thing, written by dozens, if not hundreds of game designers for the same system, that doesn't actually count as evidence? Wow, that's some burden of proof there.

So, just to be clear, we're assuming that the following:

1. The majority of the rules focus on combat
2. The overwhelming majority of character elements focus on combat
3. The majority of published adventures focus on combat
4. The primary source of advancement for characters needs a certain degree of combat (you at least need to defeat treasure guardians)

doesn't actually constitute any degree of proof. The only valid proof is a direct quote stating that the game is focused most heavily on combat? That's your argument?

For some people, the only proof that would satisfy them would be Dave and Gary beating them upside the head with a DMG. I suggest we not waste our time on them anymore, because they don't want to be shown.

They can't see the forest because all the trees are in the way.

Combat was the largest portion of the mechanics, the largest portion of the gaming material, and the easiest and most engaging mechanism for interaction within the rules. But there were rules on exploration. It was there, it was a part of the game, just not the bulk of the game.

And while it's true that in AD&D it's envisaged that you can sometimes evade and sometimes parlay to get XP for the encounter, not every edition spells out that evading or parlaying is worth full XP. And then, some DM's chose to interpret the 1gp=1xp as "you add the difference between starting GP and ending GP to your XP gained, and if it's a loss, it's a loss"; these also, in my experience, tended to be "Let's make it expensive but easy to parlay" - disincentivising parlay by making it cost as many XP in gold as bypassing them gains in defeat XP. Others, including myself, would only allow a parlay if the initial reaction roll wasn't an attack. Certain bad-guy and PC race interactions also resulted in instant hostilities, and thus only evasion. And Evasion was not an option if they surprised you.

Many forget that the game as it was played was diverse, but the materials put out for it were far less so, and tended to function, at least through about '83, as a character scale wargame.

Dungeoneer's Survival Guide was the first point where the rules really started to support the exploration and risk-taking mode as being as vital mechanically as combat.