D&D General How has D&D changed over the decades?

[overgeeked]

I think there might be two interpretations of "to (gently) push against the rules and boundaries in order to gain what advantage they can" that @Lanefan mentioned. Your they shouldn't lines up right if you take it as "creative" interpretations of rules, but I think he was going for (or could go for) a different spin where players make efforts to work with the setting outside the rules in some degree of collaboration with the GM. In that second case you have things like "how much would it improve my view of the approaching $whatever if I spent a bit climbing one of these trees to get a good look?(or would it matter?)" leading into things like "can I climb a tree to get a better view of the approaching $whatever". Without that you just have "I roll perception"

I take players "pushing the rules" more as conveniently forgetting to track how much food they have or forgetting to mention the spell components they need to cast a spell...that they don't have with them, fudging die rolls, etc.

I am all in on the climbing the tree to get a better vantage point. I'd rather go step by step through an hour long description of every tree in a forest than deal with another "I search the room, 18."

 

[overgeeked]

Based on a true story.

Player: "I make an Athletics check to cross the chasm."
DM: "Not sure how Athletics applies...describe your character's actions for me."
Player: "It's easy, I walk across the tightrope to the other side."
DM: "Make an Acrobatics check."
Player: "But I told you, I want to roll Athletics!"

DM: "Why Athletics, instead of Acrobatics?"
Player: "Because my Athletics is better."

 

[payn]

DM: "Why Athletics, instead of Acrobatics?"
Player: "Because my Athletics is better."

Bard: Imma perform my way across...

 

[tetrasodium]

I take players "pushing the rules" more as conveniently forgetting to track how much food they have or forgetting to mention the spell components they need to cast a spell...that they don't have with them, fudging die rolls, etc.

I am all in on the climbing the tree to get a better vantage point. I'd rather go step by step through an hour long description of every tree in a forest than deal with another "I search the room, 18."

I'm actually looking forward to some of the things on my preferred vtt's roadmap specifically because of things like that. I know for a fact that some of my players track it all while others almost certainly do not but tracking that with meatspace in person play is extremely difficult without resorting to a detestable helicoptering with constant "did you record that bobby?" It wasn't till the last several years when I jumped from older editions & other systems that I started regularly seeing players go through something that should result in a change to their sheet without picking up their pencil or whatever. I've even seen a player ask to borrow someone's pencil for the first time during a session at the very end when they want to record xp then act like I was being unreasonable when I asked how they could possibly have tracked hp & spell slots throughout the session if they didn't have a pencil.

edit: That definitely seems to be something that has changed over the decades.

 

[HammerMan]

But that's literally...gaming. The dice are random. They will be dictating the next year of your gaming. That's not a question. It's just a fact. The only difference is character creation.

no other set of dice will matter the whole time

So even if the party is in desperate need of a cleric you would refuse to play a cleric unless you're in the mood?

correct. 4e killed that for us. We don't 'need' anything... we play what we want and figure it out.

I take the opposite approach. Gaming is first social. It's about teamwork and working together. If the group needs a tank, I play a tank. If the group needs a cleric, I play a cleric. Etc. I'm one in a group.

I see it as fun and social but I see that we NEVER need a class or a race again.

Same. Hit all of them...at different times.

yup

Cool. That's absolutely not my experience. At least in the last decade. It's cookie cutter builds or nothing. So I went back to random rolls.

I feel sorry for you that you see so many dup characters.

That's too bad. You tried Roll20 or PBP games?

yeah all my games (and why I have 3 right now) are roll20

Here's an example. A long-time DM friend of mine has offered to run a game. It's a combat-heavy mega-dungeon crawl. I think combat is the most boring part of the game (especially in 5E). I absolutely hate mega-dungeons. I'm iffy on dungeon crawls. But I'm still going to play. And likely have an absolute blast. Because I get to play with friends I haven't seen in ages. We get to chuck dice, kill monsters, eat pizza, and generally goof around for a few hours every so often.

first I have to say 99% of the time I agree that combat is the most boring part (sometimes there is a burst of cool, but it's rare... and it's not bad but it's just meh...especially 5e) Second I need a HUGE reason to do a mega dungeon again (last 3 left bad tastes in my mouth and not one of them was in 5e) but I agree i would weight it.

I don't have extra time for a weekly game right now unless my game or becky's game ends. Playing 2 nights a week every week is a big ask when I just moved in with my fiancé. I am currently in Mike's 1x a month game, and I might be able to add one of those (makeing it twice a month I am doing 3 nights) but lets say one of the games ends. Becky runs non combat social games all the time, Once I played from 3rd to 7th level and at 7th level (5 or 6 months) we had our first real fight (we had 1 on 1 duels and a few shove/slap things). If her game ended and someone said "I want to run a Mega Dungeon from XYZ corps... I would see, do I want to spend that time? Now if it is my only choice and it is replacing the slow moving coupe game I would most likely draw up a dungeon delver and try... cause your right better then loseing a game a week.

HOWEVER... if I found that my Fiancé had things to do every Friday night, and as such I could add a new night of fun in, and someone said "Oh lets run this mega dungeon from XYZcorps..." I would most likely bough out. atleast that is where I would start (could one of my old friends who I haven't been able to play with maybe get me back to see them... maybe but its a hard sell)

 

[HammerMan]

Bard: Imma perform my way across...

We had a guy in 4e who when we did our first paragon level skill challange had a fighter... it was some sort of mystery thing, and he said "Hey, did you know that exercising everyday gets the blood flowing and makes you brain better?" and at least I thought we were going to be derailed into an out of game thing. he went on to explain blood flow and peek mental aquity. then he dropped the bomb "So I want to roll athlatics... you know do a bunch of push ups to get my head clear and get some insight"

this over the last few years has been shortened to "I do pushups for insight" and we all laugh.

 

[Micah Sweet]

One DM, prior to switching to point buy, had tinkered with an ability score generation method called "give yourself what you want, I trust you." It didn't fix the other problems we had with rolling (Disparity between characters who rolled well and rolled poor) but their was a point we considered dropping the whole charade of rolling since we knew no one had rolled legit in years...

See, my wife despises point buy (and hates its cousin array even more). Unfortunately, she's also the only person i know that I can trust to roll fairly, which has forced all my games into roll for stats. Nothing I can do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oddly enough, I would.

My cutoff - which this set of rolls meets - is that if the average of the six rolls is less than 10.0 or if no single roll is over 13, you have a one-time option to scrap it and start over. Going any further in the rolling process means you're keeping it.

Make that 13 a 14, though, and you're stuck with it.

You're using the 3e-4e-5e bonus mechanism and arriving at a net total of +1; were I using that system I'd say you had to keep anything with a net of higher than +0 so yes, you'd have to keep this one. (one of the most enjoyable and longest-lasting characters I've ever played started out with a net +2 in 3e, so all hope is not lost)

That said, the odds of rolling that poorly on 4d6k3 are quite low.

I do much the same thing.

 

[billd91]

Based on a true story.

Player: "I make an Athletics check to cross the chasm."
DM: "Not sure how Athletics applies...describe your character's actions for me."
Player: "It's easy, I walk across the tightrope to the other side."
DM: "Make an Acrobatics check."
Player: "But I told you, I want to roll Athletics!"

Not that hard to deal with...

DM: "Walking across on the rope is Acrobatics. You want to use your athletics and apply strength rather than dexterity? That's going hand over hand under the rope. You can use your Athletics, but your hands are occupied. That's the trade-off."

 

[Guest 7034872]

Not that hard to deal with...

DM: "Walking across on the rope is Acrobatics. You want to use your athletics and apply strength rather than dexterity? That's going hand over hand under the rope. You can use your Athletics, but your hands are occupied. That's the trade-off."

^ Thinkin' on the fly right there.