D&D 5E D&D compared to Bespoke Genre TTRPGs

[Ovinomancer]

Because its not you and your character's fault. If you don't get that distinction and why it matters to some people, you don't.

Okay, so the distinction is that you don't feel like a failure if it's the GM doing it to you arbitrarily, but you can if it's your own roll that does it?

I mean, okay, I guess I see it, but the former is, to me, a much worse position to be in, so I'm not sure that it's a GM/player distinction but rather some people just don't like success with cost at all.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Do they? Facts not in evidence, frankly. Even the evidence presented so far didn't actually indicate that at all. Instead it showed that the consequences weren't specified at all, which is bad, for sure, but a different kind of bad.

I own and have run or played in CoS, SKT, and DiA. I own a few others. They're full of this stuff. The entrance to the Amber Temple is like this. The Dungeon of the Dead three has a lot of this. Most of the giant lairs in SKT had immediate alerts for failing a stealth check. Do you run the WotC APs? Own them? If so, I'm struggling to understand how you're not aware of this stuff, unless it just doesn't register with you or you're using a weird definition here and think that these don't count as examples of what's being cited as immediate negative consequences for failing a single check.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I have sadly been a part of way too many arguments here on ENWorld since 5e's release where a number of people have vehemently told me in full earnest good faith that (a) "the GM can't cheat" and/or (b) "the GM can't break the rules" for me to take what you say as a given truth.

I think it is sort of literally true that a GM 'cannot narrate that success until you find out what the PC wants.' but that doesn't stop most GM's from going on ahead and narrating SOMETHING. 5e does not tell you that you need to go through this extra undocumented step of explicating what the check is accomplishing and how it is accomplishing it. Just one of several deficiencies.

"Rulings not rules" was most definitely propaganda, but it is propaganda that has taken root into the hearts and minds of the community.

Here's my feeling. For a fairly unanalytic and casual audience who are mostly running modules, which probably describes about 75% or more of all D&D play, not challenging the GM with any puzzling and foreign ideas related to task resolution that works is simply the best option for a game publisher. It is also hard to publish 'modules' for a story game. They don't tend to be very linear, they require less elaborate specific fixed prep material, and they just don't generally work in ways that are amenable to a catalog type listing of encounters.

5e caters to exactly this. It is a system where you buy a module and run through it from page 1 to 50, describing each scene and when that scene is exhausted the players either choose to go to the next one, or rest. There can be some story devices involved (two paths, go through these areas in any order, time clocks to force a tighter resource game in some parts, etc.). None of these really asks much in the way of how the fiction is generated. Sometimes groups are a little more sophisticated or less interested in just following the 'bread crumbs' of what is written and the GM can elaborate or go off and insert some side thing. However, unless they abandon the rest of the module, at some point they need to rail things back on track, and a system that lets them basically dictate what happens next with 95% reliability is what they want.

This is the true WotC market. Who's to criticize that, it makes loads more money than all other RPGs combined! It just won't work for you or me.

Likely a good way to tell would be to read through the first Numenera book at the GM advice therein. That should provide some insight about Monte Cook's GMing philosophy, even if it's not applied directly to D&D.

Heh, yeah, I'm not really a Monte Cooke fanboy either. I mean, I just know so little about Numenera that I have not thought of reading it. Got many other things to do!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

IME the DC being announced ahead of time is very much not the norm. Even "It's going to be hard" or whatever is not the norm. What was common back in the 3.x days is for a gm to go down the relevant list of bonus types & specific things in the bonus types/gms best friend relevant to a roll so a player could make some informed choices or maybestep back a bit so they can try to influence some of those things. That kind of behavior happens in fate as well where a gm might list off draw attention to or even just hint at the various aspects that are in play to potentially complicate a roll where they also basically added +2/-2 to the DC or did similar depending on the version.

Yeah, I have to say, I am not recalling our 5e GM ever saying "the DC is X" before a check was made. I'm not saying that there was some huge doubt about whether something was likely to be fairly easy or pretty hard, just that the only time I heard a DC mentioned was in some published adventure material where a description was read off or something, or if someone started questioning what needed to be done. It didn't feel like there was this iron clad PROCEDURE where the GM discovers what the PC wants to achieve and how they are doing it and then announces a DC and a failure consequence, or has to negotiate anything, as might be typical in some indie games.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I don't know what to tell you.

You were there. We interacted with the same deluge of edition war against 4e by dozens and dozens of posters on here. I'm not traumatized. My position on this is straight-forward. You're misremembering the intensity and the breadth of pushback. I don't know why you are...but you are. @innerdude posted several threads on subjects about this or adjacent subjects and all of these were monstrous in size because of the controversy. Virtually every 4e thread that was posted that discussed these subjects featured either a deluge of drive-by thread-crapping and/or (typically both) a concerted effort by the same posters (which numbered well into the double digits) to push back.

I don't know why you're underselling the toxicity and intensity of this aspect of the Edition War, but...here we are. I'm assuming you were mostly indifferent to this particular aspect of it so the signal just didn't register with you. Who knows.

But that is where I'm going to leave it (I'm not traumatized...you're not correct).

I don't think I am misremembering, to be honest. I was in those thread and on the same "side" as you, and I'm sure evidence will relate but I don't you're characterizing them correctly, and further, you're talking about a pretty small subset of D&D players even by the standards of the time.

I mean, if we're talking ENworld post-4E, post-2008, anyone posting about 4E is going to be either:

A) Someone who plays/runs 4E

or

B) Someone who doesn't, but is very keen to interact - probably negatively - with people who do.

B is going to be a tiny group of people, and I'm pretty sure trawling through threads from that era will confirm that we're talking about a very small number of people. People who might be very loud, but who preferred, by and large, to come and tell 4E DMs/players they were wrong, to either talking about what they were playing, or other activities.

I think we're talking about two different things.

You're describing editions wars, on ENworld, during the 4E period, which was basically the WW1 of flamewars.

I'm describing a much broader milieu, where ENworld was only part of that.

but exactly what condition do you use to explain why anyone would tolerate lazy guards?

Okay, so I'll take this at face value. I think the implication is "this would never happen", but maybe it's an honest question? Obviously it does happen. History is absolutely rife with lazy, corrupt, and foolish guards. Top to bottom. And looking at heists IRL, they're absolutely packed with them. Not all guards are, but an awful lot are, at least the ones who show up in the records (and based on personal experiences through my life I'd say most still are pretty lazy, esp. those over about 30).

People tolerate lazy guards because they have a limited pool of people to choose guards from and/or they don't know or sometimes even care about the laziness.

They're not recruiting from millions. Or even hundreds of thousands, in most cases. Or even tens of thousands. They're recruiting from who is available, and who is allowable. Unless you have vast resources and are willing to start burning them, your recruiting pool is basically whoever lives in your city or village and thereabouts. Maybe people coming through. And you want people who are reasonably healthy, probably on the large side physically (or at least fit, and rough-and-tumble), and who hopefully lack the cunning and imagination to exploit their position in terms of theft or the like. It would be nice if they'd been in one of the various citizen-militias your country has, but it's unlikely there's a standing army to draw from (and if there is, you're getting people who are aging out of it, leaving with injuries, getting thrown out and so on - unless you're paying more and offering better benefits). So you're probably getting a lot of people, mostly men, who are used to getting their way (due to their size or rough-and-tumble nature), who are signing on for a job that mostly involves standing around, walking around, and menacing people. It's not usually a job that goes anywhere (bodyguards are different), so you're not likely to get ambitious people, er, unless they're ambitious to steal your stuff.

You're probably not paying super-well, and it's unlikely you're paying for a lot of elaborate drills and practises and so on. You don't have any security cameras to see the malfeasance. Your only source of information is essentially other personnel who work for you. You probably can't afford to employ anyone but the guards 24-7, and no-one works 24-7. You've probably got some people in charge of the guards, but it's a bit of a toss-up as to whether they're actually disciplined, or just somewhat better than the rest at pretending that they are.

Anyway, TLDR, obviously people do tolerate lazy guards, historically, for a wide variety of reasons.

I mean, as an aside, it's a strange bit of logic, because humanity constantly tolerates things it shouldn't, particularly including low-grade work, and ill-disciplined soldiery. Usually the answer comes down to "they didn't have much choice" and or "it was too much effort to do otherwise". Both apply here.

Wait, you've specifically called out 1300-1600 Europe as being the only place people were stupid enough to tolerate lazy guards?

Sigh, you literally can't stop with the strawmen, can you? It's kind of funny/sad. I didn't say that. I didn't call anyone "stupid". That's you - repeatedly - you're arguing with your own claim. You are defining what a strawman is here, by making up things that I didn't say. I see that you don't know what a strawman is, because you're claiming that the idea that modern people are more disciplined is one:

The strawman is that you think that modern soldiers are any more disciplined about guarding than people who's lives where on the line.

No.

Straw man - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I might be wrong or I might be stupid about an idea. It still wouldn't be a strawman, ever. Because a strawman has a specific meaning.

It only becomes a strawman if I said "@Ovinomancer is saying people in the past were way more disciplined than now!!!" now. I.e. lying about what you were saying, or putting words in your mouth, that benefit your argument. You are doing that with all this talk about "stupid".

Do you run the WotC APs? Own them?

I have access to them but I don't run them.

What I'm saying is "facts not in evidence". You haven't been giving examples, just making sweeping unsupported claims. Now you've given some examples,, but they're really vague and imprecise. Can you give me some examples? Like page numbers even? Otherwise this just vague claims on your part.

As I said, the last person who talked about this, made similar claims, then walked them back during his post with examples, because he realized they didn't actually show catastrophism, they showed "no guidance".

And It's easy to believe you might be doing the same - treating weak or no guidance as catastrophism. You are the one who has to prove this, because you are the one asserting it to be fact. Sneering at me and claiming I don't know them, or I'm implying I'm weird (lol obviously) isn't an argument, it's a cheap ad hominem. Drop some page numbers or the like and I'll go look because I'm pretty sure my bro has all of those.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Yup, par for the course. I bring up four examples, you can nit-pick a single one and then claim to have refuted my point. G1 isn't an infiltration scenario? Really? You have an overwhelming force in the Steading. The PC's are given a place they can retreat to between forays (so long as they're careful). The whole point is to learn who is behind the giants as well as dealing a lesson to the giants. The party goes in on little cat feet, execute careful strikes and then fall back.

Sounds like an infiltration scenario to me. It's not meant as a frontal assault. It's not meant as diplomacy. And, if the group isn't careful about their strikes, they will be completely overwhelmed and squished. I'd call it a series of infiltrations.

Compare to say, Temple of Elemental Evil, where the point is exploration. Most encounters are straight up fights with little chance of things spilling over into other areas. Each section is generally isolated from its neighbors.


Yeah, it's best if we don't replay to each other any more. It's simply not worth it. Feel free to have the last word.

I have to agree about G1. In fact I bought all three of those modules back when they first came out (they were literally the only modules you COULD buy at that time). I never have understood how you are supposed to actually RUN them. G1 is basically a big house full of giants. Now, they're kind of stupid giants, maybe they're lazy too (hey, put them in security guard uniforms, that will be a nice touch, right! :/). Anyway, no matter HOW you gain entrance to the steading, there are giants all over the place, and more giants one or two rooms over, etc. There's a few areas where there is some scope to sneak around (store rooms, IIRC there's an underground area too). Still, it takes a gross suspension of credibility to not imagine that any murdered giants will be discovered quite soon (and you sure cannot hide the bodies, they're GIANT!). Once that happens not even the most idiotic and badly organized of groups would sit around and wait for it to happen again.

My recollection is that the (super hard core wargamer) players instantly grokked this as soon as they scouted around inside a bit, and started a guerilla war against the Hill Giants. They DID infiltrate the Steading a few times, used ventriloquism to start a huge feud that partly crippled their forces, killed a couple higher up giants by stealth, etc. but the mainly most of the adventure never happened anything like it would have been envisaged in the module, which made no sense at all. It all turned into a really complicated war when the Frost and Fire giants got involved, with the Drow acting as basically arms suppliers and advisers to the giants, etc. We never played G2 or G3 in any sense properly as modules, though in the end the PCs were able to learn about the drow and progress to D1.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

My recollection is that the (super hard core wargamer) players instantly grokked this as soon as they scouted around inside a bit, and started a guerilla war against the Hill Giants. They DID infiltrate the Steading a few times, used ventriloquism to start a huge feud that partly crippled their forces, killed a couple higher up giants by stealth, etc. but the mainly most of the adventure never happened anything like it would have been envisaged in the module, which made no sense at all. It all turned into a really complicated war when the Frost and Fire giants got involved, with the Drow acting as basically arms suppliers and advisers to the giants, etc. We never played G2 or G3 in any sense properly as modules, though in the end the PCs were able to learn about the drow and progress to D1.

Yeah this is similar to the more exaggerated reaction my players managed.

The scouted with an invisible Thief, he was like "WHAT THE HELL NO WAY WE'LL ALL DIIIIIIIIIEEE!" and they were like "Huh I guess frontal assault is out", then they planned to do a guerrilla war into civil war thing like your guys, but they managed to separate and kill a giant who was the HG Chief's son (I can't remember if he being that was in the module or my invention), and almost by accident, his death looked like a genuine if violent accident, so the PCs left him there. Then the HG Chief gave him a big viking funeral, and I brought out all the giants and all the guards to the funeral, leaving only a few inside, thinking it seemed natural, and the PCs might try and sneak in and steal stuff, and they managed to turn the whole thing into a terrifying massacre (story in another thread).

 

[Lanefan]

Don't have much time to post today but I can answer this pretty quickly... In all honesty I thought the majority of, if not all, DM's stated the DC before the roll, myself included. To the point where I'd find it odd to be in a game that did not. In nearly every streaming show I've seen they announce the DC... in the few games I've gotten to play in, the DM's announced the DC.. inmy games I announce the DC.

As for the fail and success state I as a DM make sure I'm clear on what the PC is trying to accomplish as opposed to just knowing their action to the point where I ask to have them state it if its not clear from the action statement. I also tell them what will happen if they fail if its not obvious. Now admittedly if I have more that two states in D&D I don't go through all of them with the player just success and failure, mainly because as a DM I tend to have to improvise those if the roll warrants it. I'll also readily admit I don't think this is something alot of DM's actually do... as opposed to staring the DC.

The usual process for me is...

Player 1: I try to get the guards attention by pretending to faint near him.
DM: Ok what exactly are you trying to do by fainting?
Player 1 : I'm trying to keep him from noticing our rogue from sneaking into the library he's stationed in front of.
DM: OK if you fail the guard will get a check to notice the rogue sneaking past. Give me either deception or perform versus a DC of 15
Player 1: rolls dice...

My problem with anything like announcing DCs is this: in situations where the character doesn't know or can't know (for whatever reason) how difficult or easy something might be the player shouldn't know either. Announcing an unexpectedly high or low DC gives too much away.

Never mind all the situations where the player ideally shouldn't be rolling at all e.g. searching for secret doors, due to the player-side roll giving away too much info.

 

[Lanefan]

Yup, par for the course. I bring up four examples, you can nit-pick a single one and then claim to have refuted my point. G1 isn't an infiltration scenario? Really? You have an overwhelming force in the Steading. The PC's are given a place they can retreat to between forays (so long as they're careful). The whole point is to learn who is behind the giants as well as dealing a lesson to the giants. The party goes in on little cat feet, execute careful strikes and then fall back.

Your party does. Not mine.

The two times I've run this one - 25 years apart and with completely different groups of players - in each case after some preliminary scouting the party's gone in on little elephant feet with all guns blazing, made as big a mess as they could, set the place on fire, and then withdrawn under cover of all the havoc they've raised. Lather rinse repeat until the main fighting force is broken, then go in and explore what's left.

 

[Lanefan]

My recollection of Fail Forward is that (a) the discussion of it started on The Forge in the early '00s ("no whiffing"). (b) The first actual game I recall deploying it was Burning Wheel in '02.

Both the OSR and 3e crowd pretty much universally hated The Forge (and still do so far as I can tell) and most either hated (without ever having played) or hadn't heard of BW as of very recently. The also hated 4e (surprise!)!

So if suddenly there is this significant acceptance of these concepts in the D&D community, it would be a massive reversal (to say the least!).

My own preference is for a sliding scale based on the roll, where everything goes perfectly on a 20, catastrophe often befalls on a 1, and anything in between might be open to some interpretation or mitigation depending on the situation particularly if the roll is right around the target number.

That said, I'm really not a fan of fail-forward in that - as I want the game to be harder rather than easier - to me a fail is a fail; the question then being only to what degree did you fail and what amount/severity of consequences might arise. Success with complications can only IMO come from a root "success" roll.