D&D 5E Does/Should D&D Have the Player's Game Experience as a goal?

[iserith]

As a DM and player, my goal is fun for everyone and the creation of an exciting, memorable tale by playing. Every choice I make as a DM or player is considered with that in mind. If something is not going to be fun nor exciting and memorable, I choose to do something else instead.

 

[Shardstone]

I've always felt that the PHB and DMG both state what the player's experience is: to feel heroic.

It says it pretty plainly, too. It wants players to feel empowered to make a difference in bad situations in Fantasy worlds. Go find people with problems and deal with those problems, or deal with your own problems which will also help others. In doing so, you'll earn recognition, do cool things, and feel like myths if you play up through 20.

5E is very much a soft power fantasy and doesn't try and hide it. Monsters are usually balanced on the weaker end, and players can cut through three bosses or 8 balanced encounters per long rest. That means there's a lot of evil to fight.

And you can bend this other ways, but at the end of the day, you're a Powerful Adventurer with a cloak or armor that uses violence, skill, magic, and shenanigans to overall help people out.

 

[Clint_L]

Okay, in reading these replies I am wondering if OP meant "should D&D have a more particular player experience in mind?". Like Dread, for example. Dread is perhaps my favourite TTRPG, and certainly my favourite for one-off games, but it's pretty hard to build it into a campaign. I've tried.

D&D*** works more like lego. The pieces are all there, and you sort of build the game you want out of it. I know this kind of drives some folks nuts, from a design point of view. But I see it as a feature, not a flaw.

***4e excepted, to a certain degree.

 

[MGibster]

Me, I just want a generic toolbox of a game system with fairly granular resolution (it's far easier to tweak things to be less granular than more granular). The players (including the DM) will figure out what experience they want as they go along, and if the game design is flexible enough it'll be able to work with whatever they decide.

Is that what you get from D&D though? Because in my opinion, despite often being described a generic fantasy, D&D is not a generic game. It is not a toolset. GURPS, Champions, and even Savage Worlds are all toolsets.

 

[Lanefan]

Is that what you get from D&D though? Because in my opinion, despite often being described a generic fantasy, D&D is not a generic game.

For medieval-ish fantasy D&D (particularly the early versions) has proven both generic enough and kitbashable enough to be used for various playstyles.

I've had murderhobo/pvp play, big-damn-heroes play, character-arc play, sandbox play, adventure-path play, and some other styles, all using the same system and all within the same long campaign.

The one thing I don't and won't try to make it do is low/no-myth play, as that ain't how I run.

 

[Clint_L]

For medieval-ish fantasy D&D (particularly the early versions) has proven both generic enough and kitbashable enough to be used for various playstyles.

I have found 3e and 5e to be even more adaptable. What is that you find more generic and kitbashable about 1e? I've seen your stuff, so I know what you've done with it, and it's impressive, but I don't see why you couldn't do the same with those later editions (not saying you should; just wondering what you see that is qualitatively different). I'll agree that 4e is a bit more self-contained.

I find 1e (which I love, don't get me wrong) has far more idiosyncratic quirks than 5e, for example.

 

[MGibster]

I've had murderhobo/pvp play, big-damn-heroes play, character-arc play, sandbox play, adventure-path play, and some other styles, all using the same system and all within the same long campaign.

This might just be a matter of perspective, but all of the above just play like D&D to me. And just to be clear, I'm not knocking D&D here as I don't expect most games to be a toolbox.

The one thing I don't and won't try to make it do is low/no-myth play, as that ain't how I run.

Oh, no. That's just a recipe for disappointment.

 

[Lanefan]

I have found 3e and 5e to be even more adaptable. What is that you find more generic and kitbashable about 1e? I've seen your stuff, so I know what you've done with it, and it's impressive, but I don't see why you couldn't do the same with those later editions (not saying you should; just wondering what you see that is qualitatively different). I'll agree that 4e is a bit more self-contained.

3e is awful to kitbash, as are 4e and 5e. Their unified mechanics invariably mean that there's far more knock-on effects to changing something that when using a system made up of discrete subsystems. I learned this firsthand when playing 3e that the DM had tried to tweak such that it would play more like our 1e games - worked fine for a few levels then kinda fell apart; and I was paying attention in case I wanted to try the same thing.

As for adaptability to different playstyles, 3e's very steep power curve almost forces a level of optimized play that 1e (and I think, 5e) don't; and that always-on optimizing really works against the casual player.

I find 1e (which I love, don't get me wrong) has far more idiosyncratic quirks than 5e, for example.

Indeed, but it's that very feature that makes it easier to tweak. I can change a subsystem here - say, initative - without having to worry about too many knock-on effects elsewhere.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Okay, in reading these replies I am wondering if OP meant "should D&D have a more particular player experience in mind?". Like Dread, for example. Dread is perhaps my favourite TTRPG, and certainly my favourite for one-off games, but it's pretty hard to build it into a campaign. I've tried.

D&D*** works more like lego. The pieces are all there, and you sort of build the game you want out of it. I know this kind of drives some folks nuts, from a design point of view. But I see it as a feature, not a flaw.

***4e excepted, to a certain degree.

4e, being comparatively more specialized, alienated a lot of fans. A lot of them.

I think, therefore, it's fair to say that an entire edition of DnD should not have a particular player experience in mind.

But the material that is released should, to create a toolkit for dm's to create the experience their table wants.

 

[overgeeked]

4e, being comparatively more specialized, alienated a lot of fans. A lot of them.

I think, therefore, it's fair to say that an entire edition of DnD should not have a particular player experience in mind.

Other editions also had more focus. They did not “alienate a lot of fans.” Many of them built the fanbase that’s kept the game alive long enough to be here.

And besides, 4E was still the number one best-selling RPG of the time, with maybe a few months at the end when PF overtook it.