D&D 5E CHALLENGE: Change one thing about 5e

[Hussar]

/snip

the illegal act of meta-gaming.

snip

And, right there, we have your idiosyncratic definition of role playing that is not shared, nor commonly understood. Meta-gaming is not against the rules (what I presume you mean by "illegal") nor is it even remotely problematic in a role playing game.

Unless, of course, you want to disqualify pretty much every RPG out there.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

And, right there, we have your idiosyncratic definition of role playing that is not shared, nor commonly understood. Meta-gaming is not against the rules (what I presume you mean by "illegal") nor is it even remotely problematic in a role playing game.

What part of THOU SHALT NOT METAGAME do you not understand? Is it the "thou"? That just means "you".

If you're going to stand there and sincerely attempt to defend the heinous practice of meta-gaming, which lies in direct opposition of everything that is good and true about role-playing, then I have nothing to say to you. Your opinion is so far out of line with anything in any meaningful reality that there is no point pretending that we're speaking the same language.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

"How can I advance the narrative in an appealing and verisimilitudinous way?" is a meaningful decision. Writers of fiction make it all the time. The reward for success is a good story; the consequence for failure is a bad one.

Sure, but that's not a role-playing game. It's not a game where decisions are made by pretending to be your character. It's a game where the players are making choices about the narrative, entirely separate from anything their characters might be thinking.

I'm sure that it's possible to have a game with elements of both role-playing and story-telling. (Or at least, I don't see any obvious reason why it would necessarily be impossible.) You just need a clear line for when the player is acting as the author, and when they're acting as the character. The problem comes when the rules ask you to make decisions as the character, utilizing information that only the players are aware of. Resting was the example at hand, with the players being aware that you need to have encounters before you can recover HP/powers, and that being a really weird thing for the characters to be aware of.

 

[Hussar]

What part of THOU SHALT NOT METAGAME do you not understand? Is it the "thou"? That just means "you".

If you're going to stand there and sincerely attempt to defend the heinous practice of meta-gaming, which lies in direct opposition of everything that is good and true about role-playing, then I have nothing to say to you. Your opinion is so far out of line with anything in any meaningful reality that there is no point pretending that we're speaking the same language. I will be blocking you in about an hour, so as to give you time to recognize this notice.

So, it's your contention that narrative based games aren't really role playing games? That meta-gaming is some sort of moral issue? "Good and true" Seriously? Well, fair enough. Good gaming bud. I'm just rather happy that those who are publishing role playing games do not share your very narrow definition of role playing.

You have a good game now.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Agreed, but that doesn't need to be a wound. Can you tell if you are tired? I can. Can you tell if a friend is full of vim and ready to go or dragging? I can do that too. That's information that can be acted on in-game that isn't a tangible wound.

You could certainly build a system where HP are almost entirely fatigue, like 4E did and like 5E does with its default description. It does create some issues, but you can work around those without meta-gaming, if you make certain assumptions. Personally, I don't find it very compelling at all, to describe a narrative where people panic over almost getting hit and spend a king's ransom on potions that are essentially Gatorade, but that's a matter of taste. My original post in this thread was just saying that - how it's not very satisfying to describe HP that way; that it's the biggest problem I see with the game as a whole; and a recommendation on how to fix it.

I was trying to keep these two lines of conversation separate, since they're addressing similar yet distinct issues. That other guy - the troll - was trying to argue that meta-gaming is okay. And that's not something I can let pass unchallenged. It's an affront to the very concept of role-playing.

For your part, I just wanted to emphasize that the characters need to understand how their resources recover. It's disingenuous to have them pretend that rest matters at all, if they actually recover based on encounters. (And it's weird for the characters to acknowledge that they recover based on encounters, and make decisions taking that into consideration.) I'm not quite sure how to resolve that particular conundrum without resorting to video game physics, where vanquished monsters leave power-ups behind when they die.

 

[Kannik]

The single most crippling problem with 5E, which it seems to have copied directly from 4E, is that the default position is so far to one side that it makes the other side untenable. ... And it's hard to take the game rules seriously as a model for what's happening in the world, if you can get "hit" without actually getting hit;

5e's default "so far to one side" position wouldn't seem unusual to the creators of the game:

Each character has a varying number of hit points, just as monsters do. These hit points represent how much damage (actual or potential) the character can withstand before being killed. A certain amount of these hit points represent the actual physical punishment which can be sustained. The remainder, a significant portion of hit points at higher levels, stands for skill, luck, and/or magical factors. A typical man-at-arms can take about 5 hit points of damage before being killed. let us suppose that a 10th level fighter has 55 hit points, plus a bonus of 30 hit points for his constitution, for a total of 85 hit points. This is the equivalent of about 18 hit dice for creatures, about what it would take to kill four huge warhorses. It is ridiculous to assume that even a fantastic fighter can take that much punishment. The same holds true to a lesser extent for clerics, thieves, and the other classes. Thus, the majority of hit points are symbolic of combat skill, luck (bestowed by supernatural powers), and magical forces.

5e isn't copying a position from 4e, it is a continuation of the nature and meaning of Hit Points since the dawn of AD&D. They are, and have always been, mostly everything that makes a hero a hero and not simply limited to the tracking of sheer physical punishment. When you get "hit" you are (once past first level) rarely actually getting physically hit by a solid blow.

That is not to say there isn't a conversation we can have about different game styles and supplementary rules that modify how quickly those hit points return. 5e does lie on the quicker side of the spectrum across editions, (as 4e did) and some alternate rules to slow down that recovery could fit quite well in many campaigns. I wrote a rules supplement for 4e that did just that. But overall there's nothing extreme in how 5e is presenting Hit Points. It's been baked into (A)D&D for 38 years.

peace,

Kannik

(Equally baked into the system is that hit point loss has no impact on a character's abilities until they hit 0 -- again, no reason there couldn't be supplementary rules that altered that, but that would be a big switch in the nature of the game, and it would be good to note to DMs that the "death spiral" effect is something to watch out for...)

 

[Flamestrike]

I dont find it particularly troubling that my character (with 100 HP) can spend all day skillfully parrying, resolutely dodging and luckily avoiding attacks that would kill a lesser man instantly (losing 99 HP in the process).

I also wouldnt particularly find a game that left my PC with irrepairable nerve damage, a shattered knee, and internal bleeding after every second fight 'fun' either. Particularly so if the game required me to engage in said combats all the damn time (as the central of three pillars of the game) by assuming (as a core assumption) that my character is a person who spends a lot of time entering dangerous dungeons and fighting waves of horrible monsters, to the point it was (by default) the only real method of obtaining XP (my characters only mechanical method of actually learning anything new).

Rolemaster springs to mind as a game in that light, but most parties are carrying around a small sack full of very expensive magical healing herbs to fix the above. All that happens is [horrible wounds] simply become an exersize in managing an economic resouce [gold].

Plus Rolemaster provides for methods of obtaining XP outside of combat (skill use, idea points... even simply travelling).

Ive plaid both, and Ill take heroic action and abstract hit points any day of the week.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

5e isn't copying a position from 4e, it is a continuation of the nature and meaning of Hit Points since the dawn of AD&D.

It is somewhat of an odd coincidence that 4E was better at delivering on the claims of earlier editions than those early editions actually allowed by their own rules. If you really wanted to buy into those claims of cinematic action, then 4E (and now 5E) are pretty okay at that.

The actual rules of 2E and 3E were a fair middle ground, where you really could play out HP either as mostly luck or as mostly physical toughness, even if the description of those rules in AD&D suggested that they were mostly the former. If you liked that you could play out HP as being more about physical toughness, with the guarantee that every hit was at least a real physical hit that cause some physical damage (which is not a point that was ever contradicted in either edition), then both 4E and 5E fail spectacularly to deliver on that front.

 

[NotActuallyTim]

In all seriousness, if you can work out a rules system that keeps players on track I'd buy it.

There are no rules for players to keep them on track. Only rules for Gamemasters on how to keep the game flowing. Learning how move the game requires giving players a sense of urgency, along with a sense of exigency. For a more detailed look at running combats quickly, I'd recommend the reading following web page.

http://theangrygm.com/manage-combat-like-a-dolphin/

 

[Flamestrike]

It is somewhat of an odd coincidence that 4E was better at delivering on the claims of earlier editions than those early editions actually allowed by their own rules. If you really wanted to buy into those claims of cinematic action, then 4E (and now 5E) are pretty okay at that.

The actual rules of 2E and 3E were a fair middle ground, where you really could play out HP either as mostly luck or as mostly physical toughness, even if the description of those rules in AD&D suggested that they were mostly the former. If you liked that you could play out HP as being more about physical toughness, with the guarantee that every hit was at least a real physical hit that cause some physical damage (which is not a point that was ever contradicted in either edition), then both 4E and 5E fail spectacularly to deliver on that front.

Out of curiosity, what advantages do you see in a game that requires (or at a minimum assumes) frequent combat (probably hundreds of battles over the course of a PCs career) where in each one of those combats, the PCs are a chance of smashed bones, permanent nerve damage and hacked off limbs, or where any attack roll could lead to instant death in any given combat?

And what disadvantages to such a system do you see?