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

[Lanefan]

I don't quite follow you, I actually described one of the four methods in the DMG.

Almost.

Your method had 4d6 drop lowest left in order. DMG has 4d6 drop lowest then rearrange to suit.

Lanefan

 

[pemerton]

Not to mention that (IIRC, I don't have my books on hand at the moment) there are for hunting, foraging, and finding water in the Expert set. I'm surprised if they are not also in the AD&D DMG.

A quick flip through didn't turn them up in either book.

But the module under discussion is B2, which was designed to be played with Holmes and Moldvay Basic, so I'm not entirely sure the AD&D reaction rules (which I've long thought are needlessly complex, and are possibly the reason reaction eventually fell by the wayside) are really applicable.

The broader discussion has been about "early D&D", stradding B/X, OD&D and 1st ed AD&D.

It's no surprise that the Moldvay rules are better than the AD&D ones, though. That's just a particular instance of a more general phenomenon!

As for avoiding combat, sure that takes time, but that's time spent in the exploration and social interaction pillars, not the combat pillar.

"Narrow and artificial sort of exploration" is still exploration. I mean, when we get to brass tacks, only a very narrow and rather artificial sort of combat is supported.

<snip>

Consider mapping, both dungeon and wilderness hex mapping. Anyone who's played with a mapper can tell you that making the map takes up some time. But the mapper isn't just a metagame job for one particular person -- his character is mapping (remember, blurred lines), and the map represents the players' greater understanding of their surroundings, which maps (no pun intended) to the characters' understanding.

<snip>

So, even when you have 50% of encounters going to combat, that doesn't account for all the stuff that happens between the encounters, stuff that's as much part of the game as anything else. Our group may get into combat five times in a session, but only choose and buy equipment once.

<snip>

But that choosing and buying of equipment is probably going to take more time than those five fights put together.

I'm reasonably familiar with this sort of play, although in my own experience it is spell load-out rather than equipping that sucks up the planning time, and it is plans for deployment of spells/items etc that constitute the bulk of planning for raids of particular locations.

I stand by my remark about "narrow and artificial". This is somewhat true of the combat rules, as you say, but I think moreso of the exploration rules. This comes out in the Luke Crane play report - for instance, in the way he plays the spider that turned up as a random encounter, and in the way that the hobgoblins are happy to bargain with the heavily-armed stranger who has turned up in their neighbourhood, and would cheerfully kill and rob them if he had a few friends with him. That's nothing like a normal social interaction - it is more like Diplomacy (as per the posts above) but instantiated into individuals rather than 19th century nation-states, and hence producing personalities that have no resemblance to anything normal that I can think of.

As soon as one asks, How would hobgoblins respond if we really think about the social dynamics between invaders and denezins, perhaps with refrence to real world examples? then the resolution of that scenario becomes very improbable. The hobgoblins could have just killed the fighter and taken his stuff.

Combat is not artificial in that way - it doesn't require such a radically unrealistic way of framing human motivations and actions. I think the drift to combat as a focus of conflict is associated with a broader drift towards "verisimilitue" in world design, playing NPCs, etc. I think this works in conjunction with the alignment-driven change I've mentioned upthread.

I think the paradigm you are describing here is quite different from the paradigm in which D&D was designed and developed. In the paradigm you are describing, the medium through which the players interface with the game is through mechanical resolution. Ergo, if there are no rules for a thing, that thing is not supported, and thus doesn't really play a part in the game.

The disconnect here, IMO, is that OD&D and B/X D&D (and to perhaps a lesser extent 1e) were designed with the idea that player interaction with the DM is the interface of the game.

I don't think this contrast is as marked as you are suggesting it to be. For instance, once the players learn about reaction rolls (either by reading the rule book, or by seeing the GM make them during play) it is going to occur to them that they can declare actions for their PCs that improve reaction rolls.

In the pursuit scenario that Luke Crane describes, the player, if he knows the spider's movement rate, can make a mecanicall-informed decision about the feasibility of escape, the need to ditch equipment (the weight of which is recorded with perfect accuracy on the character sheet), etc.

If the GM's decisions are motivated or determined by mechanical considerations, the players can extrapolate to these and apply them in their own reasoning.

 

[Anth]

Almost.

Your method had 4d6 drop lowest left in order. DMG has 4d6 drop lowest then rearrange to suit.

Lanefan

Hm, it seems that you are right and I owe pemberton an apologize.

 

[pemerton]

Or bought off, or distracted by getting the goblins into a war with them, or a whole bunch of other alternatives that require social interaction rather than combat.

I've discussed this already upthread. The main issue is the lack of finality in social resolution.

What's mostly off the table, if you're playing a good game with heroic characters, is to simply and expediently kill them.

D&D has never taken the view that killing in self-defence, or in defence of others, is morally impermissible.

 

[pemerton]

I don't quite follow you, I actually described one of the four methods in the DMG.

This was covered by [MENTION=29398]Lanefan[/MENTION] above. Method I allows the player to arrange the stats in order.

 

[pemerton]

Though I've had training rules from day 1 I remember throwing out the above passage even while reading it for the very first time.

Sure, but there are lots of other ways too to drift any version of D&D.

 

[pemerton]

a few things in that report suggest that party had a bit more badassery going for it than the average group to hit G1. Passwall is a 5th level spell, meaning there's a MU-9+ in the party. Blade Barrier is 6th, indicating a 12th+ level Cleric in the party. A 9th-12th level party *should* be able to tank through that adventure without too much trouble. But try the same tactics with a group of 5th-7ths and see how well you do.

The adventure is badged as levels 8-12. The sample party has no single-classed character below 9th (there is a 5/8 multi-class) and a 12th cleric and 12th MU.

In my book, a 5th-7th party that attempts an 8th-12th module is taking it chances! (That's more like the level range for the slavelords, isn't it?)

 

[aramis erak]

In B/X its a simple 2d6 reaction roll modified by CHA and circumstances. After the initial reaction roll it is up to the player to role play the negotiation. Being a role playing game I'm not sure how many rules are needed to spell this out. If you're looking for a mechanized system to play your character for you then no, there is no such system.

The rules are there to assist the referee in running the game smoothly, and are not the point of the game.

Putting to one side the needlessly snide tone - "looking for a mechanised system to play your character for you" - you seem to be agreeing with me that there are no rules to support the "social interaction" pillar. In particular, the player can "role play" the negotiation as much as s/he likes, but there is no mechanism for holding the GM to outcomes. The analogue in a combat system would be one in which, whatever attack the player delcares and however high in level and well armed and armoured, the GM is free to decide whether or not the NPC is injured, and to what extent.

The absence of finality of resolution in AD&D social mechanics is one obvious reason why players who want finality incline towards combat.

He's actually saying there's no need to support the interaction pillar...

something which several of us (myself included) vehemently disagree with.

I've had some players who, because they themselves had ancestral inheritance that implies not just a kis of the blarny, but fornication therewith, would dump-stat Charisma because they could talk their way out of the situations. It's real nice to have a set of mechanics which say, "No, your Cha 4 prevents your character from even trying to be that glib."

 

[ExploderWizard]

He's actually saying there's no need to support the interaction pillar...

something which several of us (myself included) vehemently disagree with.

I've had some players who, because they themselves had ancestral inheritance that implies not just a kis of the blarny, but fornication therewith, would dump-stat Charisma because they could talk their way out of the situations. It's real nice to have a set of mechanics which say, "No, your Cha 4 prevents your character from even trying to be that glib."

A CHA of 4 is a huge disadvantage. In B/X you are looking at a -3 to reaction rolls. You only get one chance to make a first impression and the character with the 4 CHA does less than a stellar job. In order to use your naturally glib tongue, the monster you are talking to has to at least be willing to listen. Such a low CHA character is fortunate if any creature will speak with them and even then will have to kiss so much backside just to get a NEUTRAL reaction much of the time. In addition, you won't find as many retainers willing to work for you and those that do will desert or turn on you very easily.

As a side note, the whole concept of dump stats just wasn't there in the early days (OD&D and B/X) Stats were rolled in order and you got what you got. B/X provided ways of lowering some stats to raise a prime requisite for your chosen class but CON and CHA, not being a PR for any class, could not be raised or lowered.

 

[billd91]

I've discussed this already upthread. The main issue is the lack of finality in social resolution.

What additional finality is needed other than the PCs and the DM play out a scene and reaching an end to the scene? The fact that you could encounter the same NPCs again and have another social interaction or they could renegotiation on the same topic doesn't mean the other scene lacks finality.

D&D has never taken the view that killing in self-defence, or in defence of others, is morally impermissible.

That assumes you're actually doing so in self-defense. The fact that orcs are evil (in the main) doesn't make them an automatic threat. Good doesn't really work that way.