D&D General Can we talk about best practices?

[hawkeyefan]

I'm also trying to express some sort of integration of player contribution with GM contribution under the premise that the basic trajectory of play is set by the GM. This is what Edwards used to call "participationism". I think that that's the closest thing we have, to date, as a "technical" label for Critical Role-ish play.

Right....yeah, I was leaning toward that with my comments about engaging with the ideas of others. For players in 5E D&D.....at least as far as the games I've been involved with.....the GM is coming up with the bulk of the fiction. Even when the GM actively takes ideas and content offered by the players and then weaves them into the game, they're still the one designing the bulk of things. The game is GM driven as designed, and even games I see that do as much as possible to shift that can really only accomplish so much.

Engage with the premise and with the ideas introduced by others.

And I think it's something for which (i) good advice is needed, and (ii) the old chestnut "You can do anything your character could do as a person in the fictional world" is unhelpful and even misleading.

I tend to think of that as pretty useless advice, in most cases. I get the idea of promoting that there aren't the typical limits such as those we'd find in a video game, but there are still limits. One being that this is a group activity, and the game will ultimately be about the group more so than any individual member.

 

[overgeeked]

But the whole "better or worse ways" inevitably does have assumptions buried in it. How could it not?

And? There are better and worse ways to plant a garden. It's not a moral judgement to acknowledge that. If your goal is to grow veg in your garden there are better and worse ways to accomplish that. If you open a packet of seeds and pour the contents out on your kitchen floor it's quite likely you won't end up with veggies growing, unless of course your kitchen floor happens to have all the dirt, water, sunlight, fertilizer, etc that you'd typically find in a garden. There are better and worse ways to play games. Take Diplomacy, for example. If your goal is to get people to trust you enough to form alliances then constantly stabbing people in the back is a poor way to accomplish that goal. Again, it's not a moral judgement to acknowledge that. Likewise, if you're trying to run a wilderness exploration hexcrawl prepping a linear dungeon adventure is not best practices. Again, that's not a moral judgement on wilderness exploration, hexcrawls, linear adventures, or dungeons. If you want to X try A, B, and C while trying to avoid G, H, and I.

 

[Malmuria]

No. I'm riffing on @hawkeyefan's list.

Ultimately I'm not the best person to give best practice advice for 5e D&D because I don't play it! I just observe it. But having observed a new campaign with new players recently - and hearing my daughters reports of how disappointing she found it compared to some baby-steps RPGing she's done with me - I'm absolutely convinced that (i) there is ample scope for best-practice advice, and (ii) 5e D&D is quite different from some other versions (eg Moldvay Basic; even 4e) in lacking even very basic statements or unavoidable presuppositions of structure or process to "make the game go" for those who are coming to it for the first time.

I don't think (ii) is helpful, let alone inevitable. Hence my opinion re (i).

How did your daughter find it disappointing?

5e is in a weird place, because the official materials arguably don't do a great job at teaching new players/dms how to play the game, but because of its popularity, there is no shortage of unofficial advice and examples of play. Whereas almost all of the basic intro box sets had extended examples of play, the basic rules/phb has one very short and not very instructive example. The "how to play" subsection is filled generalities and ambiguities ("a DM might do this," "some DMs do this"). There's a section on the supposed three pillars of play, but as is well known by now, two of them lack concrete and consistent procedures. Chapter 8 in the basic rules/phb, "Adventuring," covers both of these topics in 5 total pages. The "Social Interaction" section gets a total of 1 page of content (spread out over two pages because they don't care about layout). It's not necessarily that you need a higher page count; in fact the rules for exploration, such as they are, could be more efficient and more usefully presented on a 1 page chart. But on the whole the rules do end up communicating that the hallmarks of exploration found in earlier editions are not going to be meaningful in 5e, at least in terms of procedures. I.e, the players won't be scared of the dungeon because their light might go out and there is a d6 table of bad things that happen when the lights go out; they'll be "scared" by the theatrics of the dm and their own suspension of disbelief in getting into a 'dnd mindset.'

Clearly there is a market out there for people to learn DM "best practices." Lots of people make a living in providing concrete tools, and overall do a better job than the official materiel. Actual plays model what an entire campaign of dnd looks like. But by the same token all of that advice has some people feeling that they are playing the game "wrong." So where is the disconnect?

 

[Lanefan]

When I see the phrase "best practices" I read it as "things you should (try to) do" rather than "things you must do".

In other words they're guidelines, which can be ignored if one wants; rather than laws, which cannot.

That said, there seems to be a strong undercurrent arising in this thread that says "Best practice for D&D is to play a Story Now game instead". Anyone else find this annoying?

 

[Malmuria]

In terms of the best advice for a 5e playstyle, here's what we get from the starter set:

RULES TO GAME By

As the Dungeon Master, you are the final authority when it comes to rules questions or disputes during the game. Here are some guidelines to help you arbitrate issues as they come up.

When in doubt, make it up! It's better to keep the game moving than to get bogged down in the rules.

It's not a competition. The DM isn't competing against the player characters. You're there to run the monsters, referee the rules, and keep the story moving.

It's a shared story. It's the group's story, so let the players contribute to the outcome through the actions of their characters. DUNGEONS& DRAGONSis about imagination and coming together to tell a story as a group. Let the players participate in the storytelling.

Be consistent. If you decide that a rule works a certain way in one session, make sure it works that way the next time it comes into play.

Make sure everyone is involved. Ensure every character has a chance to shine. If some players are reluctant to speak up, remember to ask them what their characters are doing.

Be fair. Use your powers as Dungeon Master only for good. Treat the rules and the players in a fair and impartial manner.

Pay attention. Make sure you look around the table occasionally to see if the game is going well. If everyone seems to be having fun, relax and keep going. If the fun is waning, it might be time for a break, or you can try to liven things up.

Meanwhile the dmg presents a checklist for two types of adventures--Location-Based and Event-Based--with about a page of supplemental advice for Mysteries (like a murder mystery) and Intrigue (political intrigue...the advice here is particularly useless and boils down to 'think about who the villain(s) might be and what they want, then think about how the PCs get involved'). The two adventure types come with steps for the dm to check off in order to create the adventure and tables to randomly generate prompts for these steps:

Location-Based
1. Identify party goals
2. Identify important NPCs
3. Flesh out the location details
4. Find the ideal introduction
5. Consider the ideal climax
6. Plan encounters

Event-Based
1. Start with a villain
2. Determine the villain's actions
3. Determine the party goals
4. Identify Important NPCs
5. Anticipate villain's reactions
6. Detail key locations
7. Choose and introduction and a climax
8. Plan encounters

If any of this suggests a design intention, then it is toward a scripted trad-type game. For example, the assign the dm the task of identifying the party's goals, as if you could just tell the players, 'your motivation is x.' The book suggests that the dm anticipate how the player's will approach the situation and how the villain's with react. Finally, it even provides a random table for a scripted climax (" Looking over the Adventure Climax table, you might decide to have the adventurers bait the vampire with a chest of jewels stolen from its lair. As an added twist, you decide that the vampire's true goal is to retrieve a necklace among the jewels.").

Is any of this useful advice? Is it onetruewayism to make an argument for why it is not useful advice? What would be better advice for running a trad/neo-trad game?

 

[Mort]

When I see the phrase "best practices" I read it as "things you should (try to) do" rather than "things you must do".

In other words they're guidelines, which can be ignored if one wants; rather than laws, which cannot.

I'd go a step further than that: there are clear guidelines that help provide a better play experience and yes they can be ignored but if they are ignored without understanding the play experience will likely be worse.

That said, there seems to be a strong undercurrent arising in this thread that says "Best practice for D&D is to play a Story Now game instead". Anyone else find this annoying?

I think there might be a little of that, but it's more "how can we expand the D&D experience into something more..."

But there has to be an understanding that 5e does certain things well and other games (Fate, Burning Wheel etc.) do different things well.

Thinking you can somehow meet in the middle for an overall better play experience is a hopeful concept but isn't near as easy as it sounds - as what the games do well is not necessarily compatible with each other.

 

[Thomas Shey]

And? There are better and worse ways to plant a garden.

What kind of garden? Tomatos? Cacti?

That's the whole point; that's only true, just like this, when some specifics of expectation are laid out. Otherwise you're just taking it as a given that the specific results you want are what other people do--and no, I'd think the Railroad thread would tell you that "fun" doesn't define it enough to be useful.

Without at least halfway attempts to be specific about the output you're trying for, a set of best practices can look like complete idiocy to someone trying for something else.

Likewise, if you're trying to run a wilderness exploration hexcrawl prepping a linear dungeon adventure is not best practices. Again, that's not a moral judgement on wilderness exploration, hexcrawls, linear adventures, or dungeons. If you want to X try A, B, and C while trying to avoid G, H, and I.

That's the point though; that "X" is critically important. You can't just assume it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

That said, there seems to be a strong undercurrent arising in this thread that says "Best practice for D&D is to play a Story Now game instead". Anyone else find this annoying?

I think you're conflating a couple of posters' side discussions of things 5e does poorly (in response to people suggesting its a gaming Swiss army knife) with the more specific thrust of the thread

 

[jmartkdr2]

That said, there seems to be a strong undercurrent arising in this thread that says "Best practice for D&D is to play a Story Now game instead". Anyone else find this annoying?

I think that's just a tangent: someone said 5e supports multiple playstyles, someone else pointed out that 5e doesn't support Story Now, and this resulted in an argument.

 

[overgeeked]

What kind of garden? Tomatos? Cacti?

That's the whole point; that's only true, just like this, when some specifics of expectation are laid out. Otherwise you're just taking it as a given that the specific results you want are what other people do--and no, I'd think the Railroad thread would tell you that "fun" doesn't define it enough to be useful.

Without at least halfway attempts to be specific about the output you're trying for, a set of best practices can look like complete idiocy to someone trying for something else.

That's the point though; that "X" is critically important. You can't just assume it.

I'm not assuming it. I'm explicitly saying there are different goals that people can try for. Like the goal of running a sandbox game. That is a different goal than running a linear module. Which is different than running a dungeon crawl. Which is different than running a character-driven game. Which is different than running a plot-based game. All of these are valid goals and all of these have different better and worse practices. Some of them will be overlapping; others will be contradictory. But that fact doesn't preclude talking about what the best practices of any one of them are.