D&D General Can we talk about best practices?

[Campbell]

@AbdulAlhazred

I don't entirely disagree, but I think best practices must be filtered through the prism of a given set of shared objectives. We really cannot meaningfully talk about best practices for all roleplaying games because different games have different objectives. Sometimes these differences are subtle. Sometimes games hit you over the head with their objectives so you don't miss the point. Regardless our filters here should be specific if we intend to have meaningful conversation and also respect the bigger picture of the hobby.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Well that certainly wasn't my intent!

Entirely fair. I just wanted to point out how that can come across, given its history of use.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Personally I'm not really a fan of "Get with the times" rhetoric. Design is not linear. There is great work being done in more traditional spaces, indie spaces, and OSR spaces. There are even some pretty great games that represent a blending of styles - games like Vampire Fifth Edition, Exalted Third Edition, The One Ring, Alien, 2d20, Freebooters on the Frontier, Legend of the Five Rings Fifth Edition that combine indie and mainstream approaches. We would all benefit from a more holistic and integrated view of the hobby that does not see play we are not interested in as aberrant.

I agree with this in principle, in a huge way. But here's my honest-to-goodness, not-spoiling-for-a-fight question: Are there examples of great design work happening in D&D? I don't see designers adopting ideas or mechanics from 5e, but, as you point out, there's a wide variety of games that mix trad and less-trad approaches. To me it feels like we're in a super interesting and fluid time for RPG design...except when it comes to the biggest game in the industry, which is in it-ain't-broke-so-don't-fix-it mode for the foreseeable future.

But am I missing design elements in 5e that are seen as innovative? "Fixing" 4e by going back to basics or whatever doesn't seem to count--that's just beating a hasty (and financially successful) retreat. Because I don't see non-D&D games cribbing from 5e. If anything there are tons of examples in the other direction, with trad stuff pulling from the narrative/story now space.

 

[hawkeyefan]

But am I missing design elements in 5e that are seen as innovative?

I don’t know if it was the first game to use the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic (something tells me no, but I can’t say that for sure) but it has certainly popularized its use. I’ve seen it in several games since 5E came out.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don’t know if it was the first game to use the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic (something tells me no, but I can’t say that for sure) but it has certainly popularized its use. I’ve seen it in several games since 5E came out.

Yeah. My reaction is kind of "more's the pity" because I'm not a fan (if you want to do something in that direction, I'm much more tolerant of SotDL Boons and Banes), but its definitely popped up elsewhere, including systems that don't use a D20. I suspect some people would argue for bounded accuracy too, but I'm not sold that's even relevant once you get away from the big-linear-die-resolution school of games.

 

[overgeeked]

I don’t know if it was the first game to use the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic (something tells me no, but I can’t say that for sure) but it has certainly popularized its use. I’ve seen it in several games since 5E came out.

In D&D, advantage/disadvantage is a rule from 4E. It was part of the Avenger class from PHB2, c2009.

 

[overgeeked]

I agree with this in principle, in a huge way. But here's my honest-to-goodness, not-spoiling-for-a-fight question: Are there examples of great design work happening in D&D? I don't see designers adopting ideas or mechanics from 5e, but, as you point out, there's a wide variety of games that mix trad and less-trad approaches. To me it feels like we're in a super interesting and fluid time for RPG design...except when it comes to the biggest game in the industry, which is in it-ain't-broke-so-don't-fix-it mode for the foreseeable future.

But am I missing design elements in 5e that are seen as innovative? "Fixing" 4e by going back to basics or whatever doesn't seem to count--that's just beating a hasty (and financially successful) retreat. Because I don't see non-D&D games cribbing from 5e. If anything there are tons of examples in the other direction, with trad stuff pulling from the narrative/story now space.

Well, yeah. It's head-and-shoulders more popular than anything else out there. There's nothing to fix in that sense. They're not only out-selling the competition, their sales are increasing year-over-year. But it's odd to expect the market leader to be super innovative. No way, they're going to be super conservative. If they keep doing what they're doing things are work out exactly how they want them. They're not going to innovate. Last time they innovated they tanked their market share and spent the last almost decade pretending 4E didn't exist. Which is weird considering how many elements from 4E made it into 5E...like advantage/disadvantage.

 

[billd91]

In D&D, advantage/disadvantage is a rule from 4E. It was part of the Avenger class from PHB2, c2009.

It also started appearing consistently in Star Wars Saga Edition in 2007. SWSE was a test bed for a number of concepts that ended up in 4e.

 

[Thomas Shey]

In D&D, advantage/disadvantage is a rule from 4E. It was part of the Avenger class from PHB2, c2009.

You can almost always find a mechanic as a specialty tool somewhere, but when its used generically by everybody in a game, the impact is much greater.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I don’t know if it was the first game to use the Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic (something tells me no, but I can’t say that for sure) but it has certainly popularized its use. I’ve seen it in several games since 5E came out.

That's a great example. I was trying to remember if it was in 4e first. It was, as @overgeeked pointed out, but it does seem like 5e really brought it to the fore (as @Thomas Shey pointed out...I'm just recapping everything it seems....cool post by me).