D&D 5E Frustrated with Next

[Manbearcat]

I disagree. A playtest campaign works just fine as long ad the DM and players are flexible.

At some point, however, the philosophy of "rulings not rules" has diminishing returns...specifically in a playtest that presupposes that you are going to attempt to play an RPG adventure. Obviously we're not at the point of; "You open the box, inside is a piece of paper that says 'roleplay'." However, we are somewhere between there and having tactical combat depth and extra-combat resolution systems (we have one for combat, of course, but not for the exploration and social pillars - which I thought this edition was working steadfastly to prove that it is just as consequential as combat) that move the fiction forward without DM force/fudge/railroad or DM + player co-opting emergent play (by way of mechanical resolution) through mutual, implicit, speakeasy agreement. We have PC build rules, a kinda-sorta task resolution, some flavor over crunch magic items, and some vanilla monsters that are below the power curve. You can playtest an adventure with this but it really says more about a group's/DM's ability to "fill in the holes" than it does about the ruleset itself. This may be the point, perhaps. I don't know.

I think there are a lot of people that want more "rules not rulings". They'd rather focus their creative agenda and their mental energy/focus on the fiction-creation side (that emerges from the PC/mechanics interface used to resolve conflicts/challenges) rather than the ad-hoc mechanical resolution side or the "filling in the holes" (refereeing a nebulous, open-ended yet inconsistent framework) that the designers either willfully or unknowingly left out.

In its current iteration it strikes me as a much better route to just create characters and run episodic, closed scenes whereby you challenge the PCs with various conflicts that they must resolve (by way of the resolution mechanics available) and see how the tangible metrics (PC vs PC performance vs monster performance) and how the intangibles (mechanic resolution tools) perform in each of the challenges and then provide concrete feedback on that. A playtest iteration (as any engineering project) is meant to be poked/prodded and the moving parts inherent to the product tested "as-is" lest you risk testing (and subsequently providing feedback on) something outside of the scope of the current playtest iteration. Inserting "extra-product" components and seeing how they synergize or how they perturb the system that is being tested is counter-productive (under normal engineering standards) to measuring the output of the project's current iteration. This is, of course, premised upon that standard of testing/QC and product development being compartmentalized and thus product development iterates and testing/QC tests and quality controls creating a feedback loop (which would seem to be the case...I know I didn't get my "product development" wages or badge for these last few months).

 

[n00bdragon]

Of course, if you're trying to run 5e in a campaign to /test/ it, more power to you, and be sure to give WotC all the feedback they can stand on how it's (not) working for you!

That sounds like exactly what he's been doing. And he's sharing that frustration with us. And then you have the usual suspects leaping on his back about how that's totally unfair because it's a playtest and the usual tripe.

It's a playtest folks. You're here to test the rules. That means playing them straight and seeing what happens. It doesn't mean altering them to fix the problems or ignoring them to bask in the delicious nostalgia. If something is broke you need to sound the alarm, not play around it or pretend like that's not in the scope of what's being tested. Everything is within the scope of the test, even (and especially) campaigns. If the game is currently unplayable as ongoing thing

that is a problem

and the devs need to fix it. Whether they fix it now or later is obviously up to them but they can't check it off their list and assume it's good.

 

[fjw70]

snip

By flexibility I am also talking about updating characters, monsters, etc. as new material becomes available.

I really don't see a problem with campaign play. Temporarily filling in a hole with your own rule until an official one is available is fine and doesn't compromise the playtest. Even changing rules and then providing feedback on what you changed and why you changed it is fine.

Let's let WotC tell people they are playtesting wrong. None of us are in the know on what they want.

 

[Manbearcat]

@fjw70

Let me confirm that this is your suggestion. We:

A - All (disconnected) groups fill in their own "rulings" where the "rules" are absent or silent.

B - All (disconnected) groups interpret opaque/nebulous rules (Boots of Elvenkind and the Listen/Move Silently contest on Stealth-adversarial (almost all of it) terrain) by way of their own (disconnected) intuition/reasoning/experience.

C - All (disconnected) groups create (or use pre-existing from other systems or their own houserules) their own hazards, traps, and non-combat (Social and Exploration) conflict resolution mechanics and insert them into the playtest material.

D - All (disconnected) groups add their own tactical depth and/or upgrades to monsters so they are less vanilla and underwhelming and more competitive and tactically interesting.

E - Some (it most certainly won't be uniform) groups use the small (which is specific to each topic in the survey) narrative area to attempt to convey (with extreme brevity) to the developers each of their unique versions of A - D.


I also want to confirm how you believe that these narrative portions of surveys (thousands and thousands of them) are parsed:

1 - A single developer reads each of them word-for-word to maintain internal consistency and coherency within the devs understanding of the "voice of the people".

2 - Multiple developers read each of them word-for-word.

3 - A single intern reads each of them word-for-word and composes a second hand report to provide to the devs in an effort to hopefully represent the "voice of the people".

4 - Multiple interns read a large sum of narratives and compose their own second hand briefs.

5 - A keyword/data filter sniffs out specific words and phrases and collates numbers based on the aggregate sum of these keywords/phrases.

6 - Some unknown percentage of the narratives get read by various people and the devs kinda/sorta round-table this to try to get a "feel" for the "voice of the people" and a large percentage of them get lost in the extreme workload/coffee breaks/blog reading/horsing around of the office.


Is the top one correct and which of the bottom 6 do you consider most likely? Take that equation and eyeball for me your odds that we then get a coherent product.

 

[fjw70]

I am not suggesting that people provide feedback on the filler stuff.

Interpreting the playtest rules needs to be done whether you are doing one shots or campaigns so that is a non-issue.

Changing rules that don't seem to be working can lead to good feedback. For example, if monsters aren't hitting enough and adding +2 to thir attacks make for better fights then that can be communicated to WotC.

Not all playtest feedback is done through the surveys. The developers are doing stuff like reading these boards too.

I still fail to see the issue. I used 4e tactical rules when running the 1st playtest and told WotC in a survey that the playtest rules worked well with them.

Again, none of us work for WotC. If they have a problem with the way people are platyteting then let them speak for themselves.

 

[Steely_Dan]

Ever since playing the 1st play-test packet, as is, we've been very into it, and, as a side-bonus, we find this the easiest edition so far to convert/drop stuff in.

i really dig the 5th Ed chassis, after that, everything else is extra (want to play a 3rd Ed Incarnate, fine, a 1st Ed Monk, or play a 4th Ed Warden, whatever).

 

[billd91]

That sounds like exactly what he's been doing. And he's sharing that frustration with us. And then you have the usual suspects leaping on his back about how that's totally unfair because it's a playtest and the usual tripe.

It's a playtest folks. You're here to test the rules. That means playing them straight and seeing what happens. It doesn't mean altering them to fix the problems or ignoring them to bask in the delicious nostalgia. If something is broke you need to sound the alarm, not play around it or pretend like that's not in the scope of what's being tested. Everything is within the scope of the test, even (and especially) campaigns. If the game is currently unplayable as ongoing thing

that is a problem

and the devs need to fix it. Whether they fix it now or later is obviously up to them but they can't check it off their list and assume it's good.

And if the consensus of the feedback is that it needs to be fixed, you can assume it will be in some fashion. That some aspect of the game doesn't work now really isn't a significant problem. Much of what we're seeing is experimental and in early stages of development. We should expect some of it to not work like we ultimately will want it to. Anyone who has different expectations needs to reset them and, ideally, relax.

WotC doesn't seem to be rushing this process too much and that's a good thing. Getting too frustrated about it or writing in large bold letters while making thinly veiled insults at some "usual suspects" isn't going to help you, it isn't going to help the OP, it isn't going to help the OP's players who seem to be digging the system enough that they want to play it more.

 

[n00bdragon]

And if the consensus of the feedback is that it needs to be fixed, you can assume it will be in some fashion. That some aspect of the game doesn't work now really isn't a significant problem. Much of what we're seeing is experimental and in early stages of development. We should expect some of it to not work like we ultimately will want it to. Anyone who has different expectations needs to reset them and, ideally, relax.

WotC doesn't seem to be rushing this process too much and that's a good thing. Getting too frustrated about it or writing in large bold letters while making thinly veiled insults at some "usual suspects" isn't going to help you, it isn't going to help the OP, it isn't going to help the OP's players who seem to be digging the system enough that they want to play it more.

Actually the core of the system is finished. WotC has said so themselves they are mostly done with it. It still has glaring holes and they really just don't seem to care. "It's a feature, not a bug" is the mantra of the day.

And that's terrible.

 

[slobo777]

Actually the core of the system is finished. WotC has said so themselves they are mostly done with it. It still has glaring holes and they really just don't seem to care. "It's a feature, not a bug" is the mantra of the day.

And that's terrible.

The "core" they are referring to is probably just D20 checks with advantage/disadvantage, the six stats, hit points, AC and class/race/background/specialty build structure, plus the basic unaugmented combat rules. Most of the "how to play" document is core, most of the other documents are not.

 

[n00bdragon]

The "core" they are referring to is probably just D20 checks with advantage/disadvantage, the six stats, hit points, AC and class/race/background/specialty build structure, plus the basic unaugmented combat rules. Most of the "how to play" document is core, most of the other documents are not.

You're telling me it took them the better part of a year to nail down the fact that the game would have six stats, AC, and hit points? That's the sort of game design that takes FIVE MINUTES... or less.

The problem with trying to defend their effort is that even when you cut them slack it looks bad. The game is lacking. Everyone can see that. Even the people who defend it. There's just a difference of opinion as to whether the incompetence lies in the actual design or just the project management. How many more months do we have to wait before "I'm sure they're fixing it!" rubbish expires?