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

[Thomas Shey]

Yeah makes a degree of sense though I guess it sort of has an issue that "at least pretty likely not" is bearing an awful lot of weight.

It may be, but it seemed the best way to phrase it that wasn't going to be read by people as me universalizing it more than I intend to.

Not really but the charge laid was that D&D wasn't merely encouraging of this, it somehow mandated it. Like it was literally intended. And not doing it was "doing it wrong" (maybe doing it wrong for great justice, but still wrong).

That's getting into the part of the conversation I haven't read closely enough to feel I should comment on it.

I guess if I think about it, the fact that I learned primarily from D&D and D&D-like RPGs and didn't get that impression actually proves D&D does not mandate it. Because I wasn't doing anything special or wacky.

I'd certainly not say anything about it mandates it; it just hasn't been particularly good about avoiding it historically (and to be clear, I think that's true of a lot of games, but a fair number of them are older at this point). Its one of those things that has a number of contributing factors (whether you do the everybody-rolls thing, whether there's any mechanic for a leader to pull up other people's skills, whether you have a fumble system distinct from failure (and at least a mild metacurrency to buffer the worst-cases there).

So that simplifies that!

Of course, this also allows that D&D doesn't do enough to prevent catastrophism in those naturally tending towards that mindset. And I think that's the real issue with D&D. D&D neither formally embraces catastrophism, nor actively and clearly denies it, and the d20+X vs TN system is binary and so linear in its math, and D&D is so lacking any kind of nuance or re-rolls or the like that it's easy to fall into that trap.

Yup. As I said, its not the only system I've seen vulnerable to it, but its kind of a thing for systems that don't actively spell out degrees of failure.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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?

As I said, I don't particularly land in that camp, but for those I've talked to who do (and I'm married to one) that sums it up.

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.

That's probably absolutely correct, but there still seems to be a matter of degree here.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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

For what its worth, the ones on RPG.net at the time were every bit as bad, if not worse.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

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.

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.

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!

I think it’s vastly more likely that most groups mine modules for stuff to use in their homebrew campaigns, since we know that the overwhelming majority of groups mostly play homebrew, not published settings.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Is there advice that it should? I certainly don't remember that. Does it say anywhere in the PHB and DMG that the result of a failed ability check should be "catastrophic?" I know there is advice suggestion otherwise in the DMG (though it could be more clear and more in depth advice), but I don't recall reading a failed check should be catastrophic.

I think one of the most cogent arguments here is that of symmetry. Someone mentioned it up thread (@Ovinomancer maybe, or maybe it was @Hussar). That is, if you assert that the rules, particularly the check system, represents a mechanical implementation of the 'reality' of the game world, then of course a check which fails must result in distinct, discrete, immediate failure consequences. This is because this system NECESSARILY must model all characters in the game, PCs, NPCs, monsters, everything. If the result of a monster failing a check when it attempts some action is an immediate discrete failure with consequences, then the same must be true for a failed check made by a PC, otherwise you've undermined the whole concept of mechanics bind to game world reality. While you can certainly make those consequences more or less wide ranging, in every specific case the GM would have to be able to fairly state that the consequences to a PC are exactly equivalent to those which would be suffered by an NPC/monster.

Honestly, I think simply thinking about checks and other mechanics in this way naturally leads to rulings like "the guard spotted you, he sounds the alarm!" This is another way in which the attempt to create PC/NPC rule symmetry, and 'rules as physics' is not really a strong approach.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I guess what's weird though is, if Against the Giants is "infiltration", right, like you say? And you're saying D&D is "bad at infiltration", right? But isn't pretty good for Against the Giants? I mean, it always struck me as a set of adventures that ran really well in 1E, 2E and even in other editions. Do you disagree? And if it works well, and is infiltration, surely that's running against the idea you're suggesting, which is that D&D is bad at infiltration? I'm honestly not trying to be a dick on this I'm just like... confused as to the point you're making.

No actually. G1-3, which are all pretty much 3 iterations of the same scenario, are basically totally unworkable adventures in D&D as written, unless you adopt a completely ridiculous approach to running the giants. Even if you assume the giant leaders are massively incompetent, stupid, and lazy, they would still easily obliterate any infiltrating party using even the most obvious and basic tactics. The adventures 'work' only if you basically just turn them into ludicrous static dungeon crawls where each room full of giants stands around and awaits its individual turn to be wiped out.

 

[Hussar]

I haven't read the thread, but to answer just your question and nothing else, I do offer the DC and the stakes in my games, if the stakes aren't obvious prior to the roll. To my knowledge, this is not in the D&D 5e rules. It has many upsides and no downsides in my view so I think it's a good practice.

Thank you for taking the time to answer.

And yeah, I agree, that is good practice. Something I’ll have to be more aware of in my own games because I don’t think I do it. So double thanks.

And thank you to @Imaro for bringing this to my attention.

 

[Manbearcat]

For what its worth, the ones on RPG.net at the time were every bit as bad, if not worse.

...or the official WotC boards...and god forbid one mentions TheRPGSite.

Or a local gamestore.

Or standing in line with outraged nerds at the movie theatre.

 

[Thomas Shey]

...or the official WotC boards...and god forbid one mentions TheRPGSite.

Or a local gamestore.

Or standing in line with outraged nerds at the movie theatre.

Yeah, I'd have thought the 3e publication back in the day was the Golden Age of Edition Wars--and then 4e happened.

 

[Hussar]

Hrm. I wonder how modules flat out stating, in module after module going all the way back to Keep on the Borderlands, that encounters immediately raise the alarm if they spot the PC’s doesn’t count as evidence.

I mean, even in 5e modules, the module clearly states the alarmis raised if the baddies see the pc’s such as The Final Enemy from GoS. Apparently WotC doesn’t know the 5e rules.

We’ve got two clear examples from 5e modules now. Anyone have any examples from 5e modules where the opposite is true and failure by the PC’s is advised by the module not to raise the alarm/result in catastrophic failure?

And just to add in this sidebar about the G series. I did mention the A series as well. Which is specifically called out as an infiltration adventure. Why aren’t we talking about that? Focusing on only one part of the argument because maybe I misspoke about a single point does look a lot like a concession that the larger point is true and an inability to counter it.