D&D 5E Did the Next playtest focus on DM skills at all?

[Blackwarder]

The playtest I was in had a good DM, but man, the adventure was pure railroad garbage. It involved a lot of political stuff and ended with a battle in a ballroom with sealed doors. Worst written module I've ever played in. Once I separated the ick of that from the rules, I found 5E too dice laden for my tastes, but the DM did his best with the pantload he was given to run.

What adventure did you you guys play?

Warder

 

[1of3]

Did the playtest packets include areas for DM feedback?

If yes, did they throw out specific questions like how slow or fast was a given encounter, how long did the adventure take, did you feel compelled to change anything, etc.?

Question about the adventures that were delivred with the playtests were not asked.

 

[oracular]

 

[Mistwell]

Did the playtest packets include areas for DM feedback?

If yes, did they throw out specific questions like how slow or fast was a given encounter, how long did the adventure take, did you feel compelled to change anything, etc.?

They didn't playtest adventures in the open playtest. They have adventures out there, they are privately playtesting them, but none of the open playtests concerned a specific adventure.

Privately, they are playtesting the crap out of the DMs side, I just don't think it would have been useful to do it through the public playtest for a variety of reasons, many of which people mentioned above.

A lot of the articles they're writing, and taking polling questions on, concerning the DMs side however.

 

[MJS]

What adventure did you you guys play?

Warder

I no longer have the schedule. It was a port from 4E, took place in Waterdeep I believe. Comprised of long sections of DM reading soap opera dialog interspersed with railroaded combats, grindingly played out on a battlemat.
I had just come out of a morning session playing Temple of the Frog. Now that is how you write an adventure. Sure, rules vary, playstyle is subjective, but elements of adventure aren't entirely so. You have to have dough and sauce to make pizza after all. Corresponding roughly with valid choices and exploration. You're not on an adventure if not journeying into the unknown. We were having stuff read to us, and being trapped into battles.
People are free to prefer that kind of RPG writing, I just wouldn't call it adventuring.

 

[Blackwarder]

I no longer have the schedule. It was a port from 4E, took place in Waterdeep I believe. Comprised of long sections of DM reading soap opera dialog interspersed with railroaded combats, grindingly played out on a battlemat.
I had just come out of a morning session playing Temple of the Frog. Now that is how you write an adventure. Sure, rules vary, playstyle is subjective, but elements of adventure aren't entirely so. You have to have dough and sauce to make pizza after all. Corresponding roughly with valid choices and exploration. You're not on an adventure if not journeying into the unknown. We were having stuff read to us, and being trapped into battles.
People are free to prefer that kind of RPG writing, I just wouldn't call it adventuring.

So if I'm getting this straight, you judge 5e modules based on a poorly written 4e one? I'm confused.

Warder

 

[delericho]

No, it did not focus on this because it's not something easily tested through an open playtest.

There are a few things they could test quite easily, though they might not be at that point yet.

The most obvious example I can think of:

Here's our suggested process for creating (or, indeed, advancing) a monster. Did you use it? Did you find it intuitive, easy, etc? In play, how did you find the monster compared with existing monsters of the same level? Any suggestions for tweaking the system?

Likewise for things like traps, environmental hazards, etc. These are all things that, presumably, the DM is likely to have to do at some point, and it would be good if they had some system beyond "just eyeball it".

So while I think the 'fluffy' bits of world-building, and the "good GM's guide" is indeed beyond the scope of a reasonable playtest, there are quite a lot of 'crunchy' mechanical bits that could be tested.

(I've been put in mind of this due to a recent experiment with 4e-style Threats for SWSE. And having seen that the 4e method works very well, it would be good to think they're going to do something similar for 5e.)

 

[MJS]

So if I'm getting this straight, you judge 5e modules based on a poorly written 4e one? I'm confused.

Warder

No, I was disappointed by the choice, and it took me some time to separate the ick of the module from my experience of 5E, and my point (which I nearly lost here) was that the DM was quite good despite it.

 

[ccooke]

No, I was disappointed by the choice, and it took me some time to separate the ick of the module from my experience of 5E, and my point (which I nearly lost here) was that the DM was quite good despite it.

I'm curious about the "too dice-laden" comment. Was this one of the playtest packets where you rolled dice to use skill bonuses, or did you dislike the use (or frequency) of advantage and disadvantage? Or something else

There was a definite period in the middle of the playtest with a lot of extra dice lying around, and it still uses dice more often than previous editions (Bard song, for instance, adds 1d4 (scaling to larger dice as you level) to weapon damage).