D&D 5E My biggest gripe with 5e design

[Lanefan]

Do you agree with this statement:

Individual AD&D tables were/are different to a significant enough degree that making broad, general statements about "the way the game is/was played" become very, very difficult.

Only to some extent.

For every point of variance you can just as easily find a point of commonality; so though by no means was every table the same, I think in some (many?) ways most were more or less similar enough to allow at least some generalizations to be made.

The more specific the example, however, the less likely you are to find any degree of unity on it.

 

[Ashrym]

I was in a group with 2 psionic characters once. Paladin and magic user. Flukes happen.

Low probability does not mean no probability. That's why we buy lotto tickets after all.

 

[DND_Reborn]

Is that assuming no rearrangement of the rolled stats?

It has to. While it is possible to adjust the probability for rearranging scores, it has no effect because it is an indeterminate factor.

For example, if someone does roll an 18, who is to say it was placed in INT, the place most likely to generate psionics? Maybe the character is a Thief and the 18 was used for DEX? Maybe a Paladin and was needed for CHR? Who knows? We have to assume that even if you rolled well, sometimes those scores were placed in mental stats and sometimes not. The net impact has no bearing on the probability as sometimes those choices help your chances, but just as likely they hinder them.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Think of it this way. we share 98% of our DNA with chimps, 70% with slugs and 50% with a banana. The differences, while relatively few, are profound. D&D is the same way. The tables played most of the same rules, but the ones they changed made the games at each table feel different.

Not just changed consciously but misinterpreted or forgot or overlooked or omitted or the like too.

And optional rules had a huge impact, a staggering one really. How stats were generated was a very big deal - which in my experience of a dozen or more 2E groups was that literally none of them used a method in the book without any alteration or deviation (though I'm sure some out there did!). Or whether the DM used the optional rule about treasure giving XP, that could completely change a campaign.

Combine that with cultural differences being larger as there was no Internet to talk about stuff or see how others did it, only direct experience (for most of 2E anyway) and groups varied wildly in a way not seen since.

Re: low probability, using 4d6-L arrange to taste I saw my brother roll a PC with 18, 18, 18, 17, 17, 16, right in front of me, one evening in the early 1990s. We decided to make him an NPC.

 

[DND_Reborn]

But yeah we used the unearthed arcana rolling method so that would really skew the numbers.

So, here are the numbers based on Method V from 1E UA:

using the probability distribution for 3d6 to 9d6, best 3 in all cases:

And the probabilities of rolling psionics:

So, as you can see your odds improved greatly using Method V from UA in 1E. Instead of about 1 in 200, you could get as high as 1 in 40 nearly.

 

[Maxperson]

Sorry, but, I'm a bit dense.

Do you agree with this statement:

Individual AD&D tables were/are different to a significant enough degree that making broad, general statements about "the way the game is/was played" become very, very difficult.

As I said before, it depends. For something like the method used to roll stats, it varied a lot, I couldn't make a broad general statement. For something like the hit dice rolled for each class for hit points, in hundreds of different games(I went to three conventions a year and watched a lot of the games) I saw, I never once saw a deviation from the book, I could make such a broad statement. While I'm sure a few people did alter the hit dice rolled, the numbers were so low that they were the exceptions to the rule and exceptions don't alter the ability to make a broad statement.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

As I said before, it depends. For something like the method used to roll stats, it varied a lot, I couldn't make a broad general statement. For something like the hit dice rolled for each class for hit points, in hundreds of different games(I went to three conventions a year and watched a lot of the games) I saw, I never once saw a deviation from the book, I could make such a broad statement. While I'm sure a few people did alter the hit dice rolled, the numbers were so low that they were the exceptions to the rule and exceptions don't alter the ability to make a broad statement.

You saw hundreds of groups and never once saw people re-roll low rolls for HP? Colour me skeptical. On the other hand if you just mean no-one changed the actual die types much, I agree.

 

[Maxperson]

So, as you can see your odds improved greatly using Method V from UA in 1E. Instead of about 1 in 200, you could get as high as 1 in 40 nearly.

So in a party with a paladin, 2 clerics, a druid and 2 wizards, the odds that one of them will have psionics is about what, 1 in 7ish?

 

[Maxperson]

You saw hundreds of groups and never once saw people re-roll low rolls for HP? Colour me skeptical. On the other hand if you just mean no-one changed the actual die types much, I agree.

I never saw one roll anything other than a d8 for rangers, d10 for fighters, d4 for magic users, etc. I said HIT DICE rolled, not HIT POINTS rolled.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Um, no. I never saw one roll anything other than a d8 for rangers, d10 for fighters, d4 for magic users, etc. I said HIT DICE rolled, not HIT POINTS rolled.

OK I gotcha, fair enough and yeah I saw tons of re-rolls, esp. at low levels but no-one say, making say, Wizards use a d6 for HP as an actual house rule or the like. When that happened it was an alternate class or something (and usually hilariously overvalued in balancing terms).