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

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

And yet there are people in that thread stating it can't be done...

I'm sorry. There are going to be people in the world who have silly opinions. I've done my best, but I haven't been able to stop that from happening.

Angry?? Whose angry?

Sorry, I don't know how I got that idea.

 

[Umbran]

I just see no point in this line of conversation.

Do note that the only thing keeping you in the discussion is you.

If folks respond to a post of yours with questions, you are not obliged to answer them.

 

[AnotherGuy]

What exactly do you enjoy about fantasy media and what game allows you to enjoy it?

Emotional / spiritual conflict
Cost of using magic may incur a risk (possibly a physical toll)
Weapon choice playing a greater role
Limitations of magic and magical power
Bulk and weight are significant limitations
Importance of mundane equipment
Comeliness plays a role
Exhaustion is far more common
Slower recovery of health

As to your second question - I have not been fortunate to experience many fantasy systems within the D&D genre. Some I've read but not played...
But I like many ideas from a variety of games which can be retrofitted into D&D. Games such as Torchbearer, Vampire Dark Ages, Summerland, A Song of Ice and Fire RPG, Grimm, Pentagon. This is besides the 3pp which exist for 5e, 3.x or OSR derivatives.

EDIT: To be clear I'm not retrofitting or homebrewing anymore. I've decided my games after the current one will be a mish-mash of ideas with an entirely new engine of my own design.

 

[Oofta]

Do note that the only thing keeping you in the discussion is you.

If folks respond to a post of yours with questions, you are not obliged to answer them.

I'm not going to get into arguments comparing other games, especially when details are left vague. I don't see the point. I was simply attempting to politely explain why I wouldn't answer the questions, only to be accused of being "upset".

 

[Umbran]

Being angry that other people would rather use CoC for that instead of 5E is kind of a waste of your limited time here on Earth, though.

So now that you know what the discussion is about, and it's about stuff that seems to upset you, why are you staying?

Hey, Wizbang? Maybe stop ascribing emotional states to folks?

 

[Lanefan]

I guess I just don't know what "the intended player experience" even really means. They tell people what the game is in the intro, it's a structured way to play pretend fantasy heroes. What else do you need? It's not focused on any one specific niche within that niche. It's not a game about recreating a specific movie trope like Ocean's 11, slowly going mad fighting eldritch horrors or any other specific style of game.

I think the OP might be trying to suggest that D&D should in fact be (or try to be) more like one of those trope-based styles; in other words, to pick a lane and stay in it rather than trying to take up the whole road. Why? Because the style - sneaky heist, eldritch horror, west marches troupe, marvel-like heroic, etc. - is (if properly designed for) going to go a long way toward determining a player's experiences while playing the game.

So in D&D's case, as it seems to intend Big Damn Heroes play, the suggestion would be to take that intention and lean hard into it while abandoning other styles to fend for themselves or fall by the wayside.

That there's some fairly recent history showing us that this is a very bad idea for D&D doesn't seem to be of any account.

What would something that even stated the intended player experience look like? Because I think the intro to the PHB pretty much sums it up. But I was told that it was just meaningless "flavor text". In other words I was just trying to understand what this means other than "My non-D&D game does it better because I say so even though I can't actually explain it."

It would be easier to state for something like a horror game, as in: "Be prepared. Be afraid. The night is dark and full of terrors, and into it you will walk not knowing what awaits, nor who you will be when - or if - you emerge in the morning."* That gets the point across of what to expect from the game; the designers then just have to make sure the game at least vaguely lives up to that.

* - I made that up off the cuff, complete with GoT rip-off; a professional writer would do better I'm sure.

 

[Lanefan]

I thought I made it pretty clear: 5E is great at low-lethality heroic fantasy where the heroes grow over time to become truly titanic heroes. With the low real risk of permanent death, players can reasonably expect to play a single character over the span of a campaign, allowing them to invest in their growth, both mechanically and as people.

It's less good at delivering experiences that deviate from that, requiring a lot of special rules for a given campaign, and sometimes even those aren't enough (as witnessed in many threads here over the years).

Agreed.

The OP seems to want to have the game go further in the direction of your last paragraph here, however; where I'd want it to go the other way and be better at delivering a broad base of experiences out of the box without the need for extensive kitbashing or heavy DM-side lifting.

 

[Lanefan]

Emotional / spiritual conflict
Cost of using magic may incur a risk (possibly a physical toll)
Weapon choice playing a greater role
Limitations of magic and magical power
Bulk and weight are significant limitations
Importance of mundane equipment
Comeliness plays a role
Exhaustion is far more common
Slower recovery of health

Other than the first one (not my thing) and maybe the second (check out DCCRPG, which IMO goes over the top with what magic does to its casters), that's a fine list.

EDIT: To be clear I'm not retrofitting or homebrewing anymore. I've decided my games after the current one will be a mish-mash of ideas with an entirely new engine of my own design.

Will this 'engine' be more WotC-era-like or TSR-era-like under the hood?

 

[CreamCloud0]

i think DnD still has so much of it's mechanical design assumptions unconciously rooted in dungeoncrawling that it needs to either acknowledge that and properly re-commit to actually doing that or conciously remove itself from that foundation it was all built on and move on.

 

[pogre]

Many have pointed out that the title of the thread is nonsensical.
Guilty.
Other have stated it's not clear what I am getting or advocating.
True.

It is a ramble of half-thoughts intended to spark a conversation. I'll try to craft posts more carefully and thought-out in the future.

I had been reading some non-rpg material about game design. Those sources advocated defining what specific play experience you want players to have with game and focus on that in your design. I thought, well, D&D does not do that, but the rules do lend themselves to a certain style of play in my experience. That's where my original mess of a post is coming from - should D&D be designed with a specific play experience in mind?

Many have pointed out that they should not as it would lead to attacks from "alienated" players have a different experience in mind. I think that's true. It probably would be a mistake for D&D to advocate a specific style of play at this point.

I really don't have a dog in this race either way. However, I have enjoyed most of the conversation - Thanks!