D&D 5E Final playtest packet due in mid September.

[Greg K]

Regarding sticking to the 3e rules rules as written and lots of things spelled out, they are good for new DMs and for organized play. However, the 3.0 DMG consistently told the DM that they can change the game and also provided numerous variants. Most of the variants were also in the 3.5 version

Rule 0 (3.0 PHB p.4)

Sidebar: Access to Skills (3.0 PHB p.60): Tells the player that the DM can prohibit characters from taking certain skills

From the 3.0 DMG

"Let's start with the biggest secret of all: the key to Dungeon Mastering (Don't tell anyone, okay?). The secret is that you are in charge. That is not telling-everyone what to do sort of in charge. Rather, you decide how the group is going to play the game and "you decide how the rules work, which rules to use and how strictily to adhere to them."(3.0 DMG p.6).

"Good players will alway recognize that you have ultimate authority over the game mechanics, even superceding somethng in a rule book" (3.0 DMG p.9)

"Every rule in the Player's Handbook was written for a reason. That doesn't mean you can't change them for your own game" (3.0 DMG p.9)

The 3.0 DMG even gave a bunch of optional rules for DMs to tailor the game.
Tailoring the character (creating class variants): Discusses tailoring the Fighter into an ex-bodyguard for a Thieve's Guild (a revised version appears in 3e Unearthed Arcana)

3e DMG Variants: 33 rules variants plus advice on tailoring races, advice on creating new classes and tailoring new ones, firearms and asian weapons for those gms that want to introduce them


I. Chapter 2: Characters- Race
The section on races discusses altering existing races and creating environmental subraces (the latter is fleshed out in Unearthed Arcana)

1. Variant: Monster as Race

II. Chapter 2: Characters- Classes
The section discusses creating classes and tailoring existing classes. In addition to the variant rules listed below, it discusses turning the ranger into an undead stalker with sneak attack vs. undead and paladin smite evil vs. undead only. (A few class variant examples appear in early 3e supplements, but it does not really get truly supported with plenty of examples until Unearthed Arcana and later supplements)

2. Variant: Spell List Variant Spellcasters (covers tailoring divine spell lists to deity, arcane lists to schools, and lists for other variant spellcasting classes). They even provide a Witch variant as an example.

3. Variant: Multi-classing at 1st level (covers apprentice level characters and 0/0 level multiclassing at first level).


III.Chapter 2- Characters- Leveling
4 Variant: Learning Skills and Feats (learning skills and feats requires Trainers, training time, and training cost. Also, increasing existing skills requires a proper environment and opportunity to have practiced and applied the skill)
5. Variant: Learning new spells: wizards finding spells, sorcerers learning from patrons, bards studying with other bards
6. Variant: researching spells (creating new spells)
7. variant: gaining class abilities (requires a trainer of the same class and training time or the character has to spend twice as much time on his or her own self training)
8. variant: general down time
9. variant: fixed hit dice

IV. Chapter 3: Running the Game- Combat Variants
10. Variant: Surprise Round
11. Variant: Roll initiative each round
12. Variant: Automatic Hits and Misses
13. Variant: Defense Roll
14. Variant: Instant Kill
15. Variant: Softer Criticals
16. Variant: Critical Misses (Fumbles)
17. Variant: Firing into a crowd
18. Variant: Clobbered (taking half of current hit points from a single results in character taking a partial action on next turn)
19. Variant: Death from Massive Damage Based on size
20. Variant: Damage to Specific Areas

V. Chapter 3: Running the Game - Monster Ability Variants
21. Variant: Separate Ability Loss (each 2 points of ability damage, the character takes a -1 penalty to ability related rolls
Non Magical Psionics Variant.
22. Variant: Non-magical Psionics
23. Variant: Characters with Scent

VI. Chapter 3: Running the Game - Skill and Ability Check
24. Variant: Skills with Different Abilities
25. Variant: Critical Success or Failure

VIII. Chapter 3: Running the Game- Saving Throws
26. Variant: Saves with Different Ability Scores

IX. Chapter 3: Running the Game- Adjudicating Magic
27 Variant: Spell Roll (Save DC = d20 roll + spell level+ caster modifier)
28. Variant: Power Components (alternative to spells casting XP)
29. Variant: Summoning Individual Monsters (affects Summon Monster and Summon Nature's Ally spells)

X. Chapter 5: Campaigns
30. Variant: Upkeep (characters are charged a monthly fee based upon their lifestyle)

Not a variant, but there is sidebar suggesting cool ways to break the rules and tailor the chararcters to your own setting

XI. Chapter 6: World Building
Not a variant, but suggestions on building a different world talks about Asian Weapons, Firearms, and Futuristic Weapons. With sample weapons.
Also, the section on Differing Magic, briefly discusses changing the level of magic to either low magic or high magic

XII. Chapter 7: Rewards
31. Variant: Faster of Slower Experience (controlling the speed of leveling)
32. Variant: Free Form Experience (instead of calculating XP, hand out recommended XP based on encounter toughness
33. Variant: Story Awards: Non Combat encounters, Mission Goals, Rolepalying Wards, Story Awards

 

[Ahnehnois]

[MENTION=5038]Greg K[/MENTION]
Well put. Even the 3.0 DMG had some more radical variants than what I'm doing 10+ years later. Any number of which could radically change how the game plays. It's not like the designers don't understand or expect that we'll customize our own games. After all, they don't exactly play RAW either.

 

[Greg K]

If DMs wanted even wanted more DM freedom in setting difficulties during play as per 1e and 2e, here are some things to consider:

1. DCs were based upon the "Common Standard" which was how difficult it was for someone untrained and with no bonuses from any source to succeed under normal circumstances (this was stated in one of the 3e preview issues of Dragon although it should have been in the DMG).

2. Use the above as a guideline and modify difficulties or rolls by 2 to 20 as listed under the DMs best friend in the DMG.

3. Ignore the sample DCs in the PHB and use your own judgement. As I stated in an above post, the sample DCs are good for new DMs and organized play. It does not mean you have to be a slave to them in your own games.

 

[Greg K]

In 2e, there was nothing that said exactly how far you could jump(that I can remember at any rate, if there was, it was vague enough that we argued about it). So when you said "I jump over the 15 ft pit", your DM could use any number of criteria in order to decide whether you made i.

Based upon a quick look through the 2e core books, you appear to be ,partially correct, if you used the optional proficiency system, there was the Jumping proficiency which specified distances for people with the proficiency. That the core books did not specify jumping for those without the jumping proficiency is strange, because the DMG had rules for untrained climbers (Base 40% + modifiers)

 

[pemerton]

the rules were very, very specific. When we read them, it came across as the entire point of the edition: To be as specific, detailed, and accurate as possible. After all, if the point of this edition was to make everything a balanced and useful option and to make balance a primary concern in the game...then that -5 to a balance check for a slippery surface was there as a balancing mechanism that shouldn't be ignored lest you break the careful balance the designers wrote into the game.

The DMG even goes into a paragraph that reads like a dire warning that the entire system is build like a house of cards and that changing anything in the slightest can cause the entire card house to come crashing down due to unexpected interactions between rules.

The books are a guideline to help the DM make decisions, and a common language and set of expectation, but each individual situation is always adjudicated by the person in charge, not the rules.

My issue with 3E, and that style more broadly (Rolemaster also exhibits it, GURPS and HERO too), is that the GM is under no constraint as to how many slippery surfaces to include, and hence that -5 to balance checks isn't really part of any "careful balance" or "house of cards" at all.

This aspect of GM power is far more significant, I think, then GM decision-making at the point of action resolution, as it means that even if action resolution is RAW, the GM is still exercising ultimate control over the direction of events in the shared fiction.

Establishing robust parameters for action resolution - whether via "fail forward" (as in Burning Wheel), via a bit of that plus metagame-determined DCs (as in 4e, HeroQuest revised, Maelstrom Storytelling, and I gather Savage Worlds), via putting the GM on rations similar to the players (as in Marvel Heroic RP via its Doom Pool) - is pretty key for my play experience. So far there has been no real indication of how Next might support this sort of approach.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Given the enormous proliferation of 3rd party d20 supplements that happened under the OGL, I don't see that as being an "outlier". Clearly someone bought them. Maybe not the majority of all groups, but it's hardly an irregularity. And certainly using WotC's own published, SRDed book of houserules is not that out of the ordinary.

The numbers I heard from some of the publishers was that the total number of 3rd party supplements sold was EXTREMELY tiny. In a couple of threads some people tried to make the same point you did that obviously a LOT of people used 3rd party supplements and one of the publishers of those supplements would show up and basically say "The numbers aren't nearly as high as you think they are. We only survive because our entire company has 5 employees. If we were a company the size of WOTC, we'd have to shut down after a week of operation with the money we get."

Everyone is hesitant to give out real numbers, of course, but the couple of estimates we got said that if you combined every 3rd party book sold you might add up to the numbers that just ONE WOTC book sold.

I saw some numbers that were guessed at that said most 3rd party supplements sold less than a 1000 copies. The BIG 3rd party supplements sold in the range of 20,000-30,000 copies. But the average WOTC book was likely in the range of 200,000-400,000 copies.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Regarding sticking to the 3e rules rules as written and lots of things spelled out, they are good for new DMs and for organized play. However, the 3.0 DMG consistently told the DM that they can change the game and also provided numerous variants. Most of the variants were also in the 3.5 version

It told you that you could change the rules a couple of times. You pretty much quoted all of them. I understand the rules say they can be changed.

However, there was a nearly equally large section that said something similar to "You can change the rules, but keep in mind they are all there for a reason and there is lots of interconnectedness between them so changing one can have an unexpected effect on other rules. You can change them but be very careful and make sure you know exactly what you are doing. Don't make hasty decisions and think about whether you really NEED to change something at all."

There's lots of optional rules. However, I always got the impression that the reason they wrote out optional rules instead of just saying "change things however you want" was precisely because those optional rules were already tested to avoid having unexpected consequences on the rest of the rules. To me those rules said "You can change things, but since it's likely anything you come up with will break your game badly...here's a list of options you might want to implement that won't break things too badly."

Heck, even Monte Cook in the quote in your signature said that they had built reliance on rules right into the game. He regretted it later, but he's made it fairly clear that 3e was designed to not only use the rules but the rely on them instead of DM judgement.

That certainly came across to me when I read them. And to the people I played with. It was the single thing that frustrated me the most about running it. It was our social contract that we were playing with the rules as written. That the DM had the ability to change the rules but it should be done between sessions not in the middle of them, otherwise people wouldn't have enough time to adapt to the changes. Plus, our social contract stated that any rules changes really should be discussed with the players so people can look for holes in the new rules and discuss exactly why those changes needed to be made and whether there was an easier way to fix the problem without changing the rules. Most often the DM was talked out of their rules changes by the players who pointed out that the problem wasn't nearly as bad as the DM thought it was.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

My issue with 3E, and that style more broadly (Rolemaster also exhibits it, GURPS and HERO too), is that the GM is under no constraint as to how many slippery surfaces to include, and hence that -5 to balance checks isn't really part of any "careful balance" or "house of cards" at all.

I understand what you mean...but I still think all of these rules were part of a "careful balance"....it's just the careful balance was done poorly.

As far as I could tell, 3e/3.5e just expected you to throw harder and harder challenges against the party as the DM. Though there was no formula for how hard these challenges should be or even advice on how or went to increase the challenges.

So, although the -5 was a "carefully" planned number....it failed in its intended purpose. Well, not entirely. It gave DMs an option to make things harder if they wanted to while giving them justification for the difficulty increase.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

Based upon a quick look through the 2e core books, you appear to be ,partially correct, if you used the optional proficiency system, there was the Jumping proficiency which specified distances for people with the proficiency. That the core books did not specify jumping for those without the jumping proficiency is strange, because the DMG had rules for untrained climbers (Base 40% + modifiers)

Yeah, it's difficult for me to remember all the 2e rules now. However, I remember a particularly lengthy debate about jumping over a pit when I was 16 or so. It involved pulling out the Guinness Book of World Records in order to find out what the longest distance a human had every jumped was so that we could estimate jumping distances since our DM felt that a 10 foot jump while wearing armor was impossible and anyone who attempted it was just committing suicide. In fact, that was the problem. Someone attempted it and the DM said "Well, you can't possibly make it to the other side, so you leap into the pit, on purpose apparently, and die."

It caused a nearly 2 hour argument about whether someone with an 18 strength was the same as a world record holder in real life and how much effect armor would have on your jump distance and whether a long jump in the Olympics was the same as jumping over a pit and landing on your feet.

That wasn't the first or last argument we had over what was the best rule to simulate the "realism" of the situation. Which is why my group went on to love 3e for its rules details and focus on adhering to them instead of the DM making stuff up.

Though, after a couple of years and the number of rules arguments we had in 3e...I was ready to return to the DM making stuff up. This is a large point of debate in my group since my friend Jim remembers those times(he was in my group for them) and doesn't trust a DM to make up anything EVER. If he smells a hint of a house rule, he complains for a while then threatens to leave the game.

 

[pemerton]

I understand what you mean...but I still think all of these rules were part of a "careful balance"....it's just the careful balance was done poorly.

<snip>

So, although the -5 was a "carefully" planned number....it failed in its intended purpose. Well, not entirely. It gave DMs an option to make things harder if they wanted to while giving them justification for the difficulty increase.

I remember a particularly lengthy debate about jumping over a pit when I was 16 or so. It involved pulling out the Guinness Book of World Records in order to find out what the longest distance a human had every jumped was so that we could estimate jumping distances since our DM felt that a 10 foot jump while wearing armor was impossible and anyone who attempted it was just committing suicide. In fact, that was the problem. Someone attempted it and the DM said "Well, you can't possibly make it to the other side, so you leap into the pit, on purpose apparently, and die."

It caused a nearly 2 hour argument about whether someone with an 18 strength was the same as a world record holder in real life and how much effect armor would have on your jump distance and whether a long jump in the Olympics was the same as jumping over a pit and landing on your feet.

That wasn't the first or last argument we had over what was the best rule to simulate the "realism" of the situation.

These posts made me think of the following passage from the Maelstrom Storytelling rulebook:

se "scene ideas" to convey the scene, instead of literalisms. ... focus on the intent behind the scene and not on how big or how far things might be. If the difficulty of the task at hand (such as jumping across a chasm in a cave) is explained in terms of difficulty, it doesn't matter how far across the actual chasm spans. ... It is then no longer about how far across the character has to jump, but how hard the feat is for the character. ... If the players enjoy the challenge of figuring out how high and far someone can jump, they should be allowed the pleasure of doing so - as long as it doesn't interfere with the narrative flow and enjoyment of the game.

The scene should be presented therefore in terms relative to the character's abilities ... Players who want to climb onto your coffee table and jump across your living room to prove that their character could jump over the chasm have probably missed the whole point of the story.​

This is what 4e does in the case of skill challenges (but not combat, though, which can cause problems with resolution at the interface), and what Marvel Heroic RP does for its whole system: the scene is described in terms of difficulty, not time and distance, and so the "challenge" for the players then becomes more of a narrative one than a tactical one.

It's not the only workable resolution system, obviously, but I do think it has a lot going for it.