D&D General Hot Take: Uncertainty Makes D&D Better

[Ruin Explorer]

A long time ago...

During the design of Star Wars Saga, there was an article about the failure of the wound/vitality system previous Star Wars d20 had used. A quick recap: vitality worked like HP, and wound was an extra pool equal to your Con score. Vitality healed quickly, wound needed medical treatment and you were fatigued if you had wound damage. The important thing though was that critical hits didn't multiply damage, they bypassed vitality and went straight to wound. That, coupled with blasters that did 3d8 damage and lightsabers that did between 2d8 and 6d8 damage on a hit meant most wound strikes were lethal. Effectively speaking, most fights came down to who rolls a crit first.

The article mentioned this phenomenon, stating that PCs often were the most negatively affected by this. A GM might have a few NPCs or villains die to crit, but PCs were far and above more likely, and the likelihood increased with level as damaged and crit range increased. They figured they in a 1-20 campaign 75% of all PCs would die to crit. And that high lethality was at odds with the Star Wars tone, or at least the tone of the movies. A movie series known for swashbuckling action, epic duels and character drama was not a fit for a system of that kind of one-hit kills.

I bring all this up because it highlights that PCs overbear the brunt of randomness. A DM has less attachments to a random monster or npc than a player has to their PCs (typically). A 1 hit kill is fine to despatch a mook or random encounter, but felt anti-climatic to take out boss monsters and really felt bad when your PC went down to a chump hit on a d20 10+ levels of play.

Again, there might have been games where this play style was important, but it certainly wasn't Star Wars. The fact that as you progressed in level, your character dying to a crit increased (due to higher damage and a longer career of being attacked) is a good example of when randomness gets in the way of good play.

Anyway, Saga used traditional D&D hit points after this.

That's a good summary though I think the real culprit here wasn't the VP/WP system but rather that you got to skip VP on a crit and the WP value was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too low for that to work (WP should have been larger than any realistic single crit, even at higher levels). They should have eliminated that rule rather than going back to pure HP, I'd suggest.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Yeah, that's frustrating. I still prefer it over the multiple stacking bonuses of 3.5E/Pathfinder, though.

Which TTRPG system would you recommend?

The... multiple stacking bonuses of 3.5/ Pathfinder, honestly.

Just follow the stacking rules and don't invent new bonus types whenever you make a New Thing.

 

[Pedantic]

Yeah

The... multiple stacking bonuses of 3.5/ Pathfinder, honestly.

Just follow the stacking rules and don't invent new bonus types whenever you make a New Thing.

Yeah, the issue is that 12+ bonus types (and open ended magic item economy) encouraged players to keep hunting down bonuses for each entry on the list. Better rigor around which bonuses come from where, pruning down that list and how access to those bonuses is gated (spells, items, circumstances, places, inspirational leadership etc.) would really solve much of the difficulty with the system.

One thing I've been considering is making more temporary bonuses into dice, like 5e's Guidance. You lose out on ease of resolution, they slow down rolls a little, but they're much harder to forget and easier to physically inventory by moving dice around the table.

 

[FrozenNorth]

One thing I've been considering is making more temporary bonuses into dice, like 5e's Guidance. You lose out on ease of resolution, they slow down rolls a little, but they're much harder to forget and easier to physically inventory by moving dice around the table.

One thing I’ve done as a compromise between adv/dis and multiple fiddly bonuses is switch to proficiency die. Your proficiency die does not increase as you increase in level (except once at level 11). Bonuses increase the size of your proficiency die, penalties decrease it.

It adds a bit more granularity than adv/dis, but keeps resolution quick.

 

[CleverNickName]

The... multiple stacking bonuses of 3.5/ Pathfinder, honestly.

Just follow the stacking rules and don't invent new bonus types whenever you make a New Thing.

My problem with the 3.5E/Pathfinder system is that it eliminates uncertainty in the opposite direction. Eventually your character gets to a point where they have +20 bonuses, and failure is no longer possible. And then we're back to the same problem: your actions no longer matter, because you are going to succeed anyway.

I agree that 5E is problematic. But IMO, the problem with 5E isn't the system...it's player style and expectations. I think 5E relies on players knowing how to "fail forward" more than the earlier editions did (and gives no guidance on how to do so.) And regardless of system, I always wish players treated combat like a dangerous last resort instead of the default mode of play.

 

[Pedantic]

My problem with the 3.5E/Pathfinder system is that it eliminates uncertainty in the opposite direction. Eventually your character gets to a point where they have +20 bonuses, and failure is no longer possible. And then we're back to the same problem: your actions no longer matter, because you are going to succeed anyway.

I don't know that should be a problem. That just means player capabilities scale with level, and players can do impressive things at higher levels. Failure at any given skill check is relative to the DC, and presumably the situations where high level characters risk failure are rarer and more impressive feats.

 

[Remathilis]

That's a good summary though I think the real culprit here wasn't the VP/WP system but rather that you got to skip VP on a crit and the WP value was waaaaaaaaaaaaay too low for that to work (WP should have been larger than any realistic single crit, even at higher levels). They should have eliminated that rule rather than going back to pure HP, I'd suggest.

I agree for the most part (we did a lot of house ruling back then to make it work) but my point was that the swingy-ness of basically crit = death affects the players far more than the GM. In essence, the PCs will face more potential attack rolls than any one NPC the GM runs, so the odds of the PC dying to a lucky crit is higher than any NPC they face. And since PCs mean more to players than the typical npc does to a GM, they have more to lose. So the randomness is far more beneficial to the GM because they have less to lose, while a player has to make that gamble every combat, with worsening odds the longer they play that they will win it.

 

[CleverNickName]

I don't know that should be a problem. That just means player capabilities scale with level, and players can do impressive things at higher levels. Failure at any given skill check is relative to the DC, and presumably the situations where high level characters risk failure are rarer and more impressive feats.

All of that is fine and good, until you get to the point where padlocks fall off of their chains, secret doors pop open, traps disable themselves, and guards are struck blind whenever a rogue walks past them.

I don't like to use absolutes, but I make an exception for this one: success should never, ever be guaranteed. It's fine for other tables, but it gets reaaaly boring for me. No risk means no tension, and tension is the engine that powers the story.

 

[overgeeked]

My experience is that increased randomness generally appeals more to DMs than to players.

I'm both a player and a referee. Randomness appeals to me on either side of the screen. Because I find predictability to be incredibly boring.

Here's a fight we know ahead of time we're going to win and we know ahead of time it will take between 7-8 rounds to get through it, but let's pretend like that's somehow fun instead of a boring slog. Snooze.

Give me a big swingy fight every time. Give me swingy and costly magic. Give me random variety. That's infinitely more fun than boring predictability.

 

[Remathilis]

I'm both a player and a referee. Randomness appeals to me on either side of the screen. Because I find predictability to be incredibly boring.

Here's a fight we know ahead of time we're going to win and we know ahead of time it will take between 7-8 rounds to get through it, but let's pretend like that's somehow fun instead of a boring slog. Snooze.

Give me a big swingy fight every time. Give me swingy and costly magic. Give me random variety. That's infinitely more fun than boring predictability.

Within reason, I would say.

Driving to work is a boring endeavor because barring the chance of getting into an accident, it's fairly safe. If my daily commute was through a war zone, I don't think I'd be as interested in making it, no matter how much more exciting it would be.

There is definitely a place for big, swingy encounters and dramatic events. But there is also a place for curbstomps and reliable magic too. Everything being a life or death gamble is exhausting. It drains the tension when every action you take is glory-or-death. And sometimes you just want to be a big damn hero who breaks the goblin bandits like twigs or waltzes into the treasure vault like he owns the thing.

There is a time and place for both.