D&D General On Grognardism...

[S'mon]

a shorthand way of talking about the weird balance issues between short-rest and long-rest based classes. I've always been more concerned about intra-party balance (the GM can always add more/less monsters).

Basically, if you have situations where you only have one or two encounters a day, classes like the paladin can really go nova and clobber things, much more so than the short rest classes which have a "shallow" pool of resources. This smaller pool is balanced by the fact that they regain them on a short rest.

I solved those issues by increasing the number of encounters per day. The cleric and paladin now had to hold back a bit more, allowing the monk and warlock to shine more.

I could elaborate further, but this issue has been discussed here several times.

Ah right - yes, this caused me to go over to 1 week long rests, which meant more encounters per LR and achieved a good class balance.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

A better way to rephrase what I was saying: 4E was very cookie cutter with most offensive abilities some variation on (damage + condition/benefit). The overly structured and repetitive nature of it felt more like menu shopping than story telling to many, many, many players that posted over and over during and after 4E. It was widely discussed and recognized.

I'm not going to have an edition war, though you seem to want to have one, and frankly need to chill a bit, but this is a common misunderstanding of 4E, in that, that wasn't all you could do. This isn't up for debate. If necessary, I can quote page numbers. Do I need to quote page numbers? 4E explicitly allowed players to take actions which were not the codified abilities their characters possessed. It did this to such an extent, that it even had an optional table to help DMs to assess how much damage (ST or AOE) and what other effects such stuff might have in combat.

Now, let's both be real - some people totally ignored that. I've read actual plays where nobody did anything except use their abilities in a totally wargame-y way. I've seen the same for other editions, of course, including 5E. Was it more prevalent in 4E? Maybe. It was certainly more obvious when it happened. But it didn't have to be that way. Ironically, outside of the codified abilities, it was actually closer to the "mother may I" of 2E than 3E was - because if you wanted to do X stunt, it was pretty much up to the DM how hard it was - the rules were a lot less fixed on it in 3E. So it disempowered the players in a sense we've been discussing, but made the system more flexible than 3E RAW allowed for.

But you're arguing that people couldn't do other stuff, and as such it was bad for certain kinds of fantasy. That's factually wrong. It's not just "an opinion". It's factually wrong. Again do I need to quote page numbers? Because honestly I am going to be pretty annoyed if I do and I don't get an actual apology from you for making me do it (because my 4E stuff is packed away and hard to reach). Or are you going to accept this fact (which I suspect, if you actually played 4E, you know).

(Also really annoyed with WotC for not releasing the 4E stuff on PDF back when I would have paid for it, because otherwise this would be easy to show.)

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Look at all that focus on the DM. This older game is not really about playing "Dungeons and Dragons", so much as it is about playing "John the DM's game". The rules of these older games were not the major determiner of how the game played - the DM was.

That can be just as true in new, narrative games.

When I see people discuss games, whether it's Dogs in the Vineyard or Apocalypse World (as @kenada just did ... NICE HAT!) I am always reminded of the Mitchell & Webb skit about Kitchen Nightmares where you have a sneering Gordon Ramsay type trying to teach a regular chef/owner how to cook ... and after doing it easily, the restaurant owner points out the absurdity of it all:

Owner: I can't cook that! And-and there's loads of things in there you didn't even mention, like the thing with the potato that might as well be magic as far as I'm concerned.
Host: It's just local ingredients simply cooked.
Owner: By you! King Lear is just English words put in order! The only way any of this will help my restaurant is if you stay forever.

So many times, we see people happily discuss simplified rule-sets that "constrain" the DM by making the DM "say yes" or "fail forward," but give the DM a great deal of latitude ... a near infinite amount, in choosing what happens. What is fail forward? Right? I mean, it could be anything, and while you could have some example, in the end, some people will just be able to "wing it" and use a good narrative (or good tricks, or lots of practice, or be good at TTRPGs and interactive fiction) in order to make the rules work. Put in your terms- the way that John describes failing forward (or the effects of saying yes) will be completely different than how Chad does; so John and Chad's tables will play out completely differently despite the declared actions of players. shrug

That's also the case with a lot of the "old school" rules as people play them now. The experience of the DM (and the players), the amount of trust at the table, the comfort with narrative and description- especially "on the fly"; these are all factors.

Or, to put in the terms of M&W- for some people, what Matt Mercer and his table do (for instance) "might as well be magic" - and that doesn't have to do with the ruleset.

 

[Azzy]

It seems to me that the (fairly mild) OSR elements in 5e are part of its broad accessibility/appeal. I think Mearls & co could have consulted with other, quieter, OSR people and got equally good advice. But it doesn't seem like the design team got bad advice. And maybe they needed loud voices before they'd listen.

I would have rather they had consulted others that had more actual old school experience... Like, perhaps, Rob Kuntz, Luke Gygax, Lawrence Schick, Frank Mentzer, or what not.

 

[Azzy]

Come at me (figuratively) bro.

Launch sequence actived

 

[D1Tremere]

That was insulting and narrow minded. Equating homebrew to a DM power trip is ridiculous. Was George RR Martin on a power trip because Westeros is not Middle Earth? No - D&D is a role playing game. Characters play a role in a story. Stories are creative. If you're just rehashing the same thing everybody else is doing, you're missing out on most of the fun of the game.

I'm sorry you had bad experiences, but both as a player and a DM, your apocalyptic description of the 'old ways' is ridiculously off base.

Just think about it - a campaign setting that is homebrew with homebrew spells and homebrew monsters - that is Exandria of Critical Role fame. Do you think the people applauding the game Matt Mercer runs feel it is a DM power trip? Do his players feel forced to play in his world? Do his players seem to not have a voice?

A couple of things. First, my statement had a comma in it that you missed (DM power trips, forced homebrew worlds). Second, the key word you seem to have missed in my comment on homebrew is the word forced. I think you also missed the part where I said there is nothing wrong with homebrew, etc., as an option. They simply shouldn't be a prison. It isn't based on me having a bad experience, the experience of having DMs that are more interested in crafting the novel they have in their head than running a fun game appears to be fairly wide spread when discussing the subject with those who played in the 80s and 90s.
Looking at the examples you gave, both of which are products of the modern era by the way (Critical Role and Game of Thrones). I think that if George R.R. Martin was a 16 year old dungeon master running a D&D game in the 1980s and virtually the only person in his small town willing to do so, that his player would likely feel trapped in his personal power trip of creating the perfect story rather than having fun playing in a world they share with the DM. That is, of course, purely conjecture. As for Matt Mercer, his players have built the shared world with him, and the narrative is a group effort by professional actors. It would likely be very different in ye olden times. The point being, now there is more choice and more tools to find the game that is right for you. Because there are so many options there are fewer people willing to put up with bad DM power trips, and more DMs have had to start self reflecting and growing.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I would have rather they had consulted others that had more actual old school experience... Like, perhaps, Rob Kuntz, Luke Gygax, Lawrence Schick, Frank Mentzer, or what not.

Yeah, I think that was a critical error on WoTC's part. Seems like they took some of the louder voices who self proclaim themselves as speaking for the OSR without actually looking at what they were doing or who they were bringing in. I'm not going to get into the specifics as to why those couple of of guys they consulted were bad choices (it's pretty easy to find out just by going to their platforms), but I'll just say that when you are driving out several members of the original guard out of the OSR, people who where there at the literal beginning alongside Gary helping create this game we all love (I'm not just talking about one or two, but many of the original creators) because of severe toxic attitudes from those who claim to represent the OSR, then that's a huge problem. How can you say you love the OSR (let along proclaim to speak for it), when your behavior is driving out the people who were the ones who literally created the game in the first place? IMO, you can't.

I have a big problem with seeing many of the people whose work and contributions created a hobby I love, be treated with disdain and driven out of the very groups they created by toxic people. I'm also 100% certain that rather than acknowledge this problem ("hey, why are many of the old guard leaving the OSR?), these people will go to their respected safe spaces (ironically while complaining about safe spaces) to talk smack about me personally and blame "woke" culture. Cuz that's how the internet works.

 

[kenada]

I think this is a lot more complex than you're making out, and ignores the DM as part of the equation.

In 2E and before, basically only casters can ever say what happens. Everyone else is playing "mother-may-I" with the DM. So the casters are empowered and the DM is even more empowered. If the DM wants you to live, and favours your "mother-may-I" requests, then you do great. If they DM doesn't feel that way, or is just incompetent or arbitrary, well, the casters still get a say, but no-one else does.

This is the key issue with codified abilities vs. not. Because there have always been codified abilities - just they used to only be spells (and magic items I guess also). That gradually changed every edition. And the power, even in 3E, did shift, every edition, a little more from the DM to the players overall.

This is a good point and not one I was considering. I had in mind the myriad of bonuses and such for all the different situations that 3e enumerates. You’re right that 3e was empowering in that regard by providing other characters with defined abilities they can assume will work.

As for "fudge to keep the story going", I think it's totally bizarre to assert that's a modern thing. I had to do that far more in 2E and 3E than 4E or 5E, and I almost never have to do that in modern, fail-forward-designed games - some of which is simply a change to how you write adventures/scenarios.

The point I was making is that 3e has fewer tools for players to control their engagement. While they may have empowered individual characters with their powers, the group was disempowered because there was nothing like reaction rolls to ensure that encounters weren’t necessarily fights or escape procedures to ensure that PCs can withdraw from a conflict that is going badly. It would be like if a new edition of Fate “simplified” things by removing concessions.

And it's misleading to claim procedures are taken away - that's only true if you want it to be. 4E and 5E outside combat are pretty fiction-first games. If someone says they're using a pole to activate the pressure-plate of the trap in 4E or 5E, the situation is no different to OD&D or 1E. It's bizarre to suggest otherwise. In later editions players have a choice - either describe their actions, or roll and let their character try it. That you think they're only allowed to do the latter is perplexing and wrong.

I’m not sure how you came to that conclusion. It certainly wasn’t my intent to imply that 4e or 5e weren’t fiction-first. I think an argument could be made that 3e is mechanics oriented (due to the existence of take 10 and take 20), but I wasn’t making that argument either. My goal was to try to draw parallels between old-school play and certain elements ascribed to “modern” games.

Definitely agree. But the big difference is that games like Apocalypse World give all the players equal amounts of codified power, and have a design which gives players in general vastly more power than they did in old-school play.

Yep. It would be cheeky, or I would have to be very drunk, to try to put old-school D&D in the same category as Apocalypse World. There are similarities though, and I think that’s interesting. I keep a set of my principles (cribbed from Apocalypse World and needing an update thanks to some things I learned from the GM notes thread …) with me when I run. Being intentioned helps you make sure that you’re creating the kind of experience you mean to create.

This is illogical, because it assumes that D&D was even aware that it had "principles" at the time the change started, and there's absolutely no evidence to support the idea that any of the designers were remotely thinking in those terms.

That’s fair. The OSR has enumerated some, and that’s what I had in mind. You’re right that they weren’t enumerated the way those other games I mentioned do theirs, and it’s doubtful that D&D has ever taken a principle-first approach.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I should add, for transparency, that I am a huge fan of the OSR. That's my favorite era of gaming. So maybe I'm biased a bit about how it's been inundated with toxic attitudes, and people assuming negative things about me when they know I am fan of the OSR from guilt by association. Let's be honest, there is a growing rep about the OSR going around out there, and fair or not, it's there. All I can do is try to be the opposite, and show how the OSR can be welcoming and inclusive as well as a sort of counter voice to these loud toxic voices.

 

[transmission89]

Oh it's cute, let's not pretend that it isn't lol. But vestigial as hell. There was so much you could do with it, but it's just a crude compromise in the end and screams "we ran out of time" design-wise, to me anyway!


I mean, you're kind of getting at a point between RP and G here, which I don't everyone really thinks through.

No codification at all is essentially "pure" role-playing. No rules even. No DM/ref maybe. Just people telling a story together.

But that's not an RPG in any meaningful sense, that's just RP. We saw this a lot on the early internet - the clash of people who wanted to play RPGs online, and people who just wanted to RP, and didn't want the G.

Codification is essentially what the G is. All the rules are codification. There's no bright line between saying "this is how you make an attack role" or "this is how many actions you can have in turn", and "my ability Hawkwind Blade pushes you back 2 squares and does 2d8+STR damage" or "I fire 3 magic missiles each automatically hitting and doing 1d4+1 damage". That's all the same thing.

In a sense, your generalization is right in that, in pure RP, the "players" (who aren't quite players in the sense we'd mean), who have no codification to deal with, are totally free/empowered. But then you bring the snake into this garden of eden - the DM, the ref. Once you've put him in, you've privileged him over the players, and you've shifted power from the players, to him. They are disempowered by the codification that the DM is "in charge", and will determine whether their RP takes effect.

So that first codification, eating the apple if you will, is hugely disempowering, which aligns with what you're saying. All the power is taken from the players, and given to the DM. All of it, every ounce.

However after that, pretty much all codification, even DM-side rules, ultimately shifts the balance back towards the players, because it limits what can happen, and the players can still request the DM to do things, but they also have other options, which he kind of has to agree with. A DM can't just say "Your magic missile doesn't work", without like actually engaging with the fiction and giving a reason why, for example. To do so would break the social contract between both parties, where without codification, it would not.

I think what the point of confusion some people have is that individual rules can be quite restrictive. But once you know they exist, you can work within their framework, and the DM is also restricted by them. 3E is a superb example of this. It's rules effectively massively restricted what martial players could do, relative to what they could do with a good-natured DM in 2E. But even for them, they could work within the rules and make more demands of the DM than they could in 2E. That's just not arguable, it's demonstrable fact. That's a unarguable power-shift the players. More codified abilities, even weak ones, for the players, means more actual power for the players. Power. Let's be specific here. Power. It's bit like rights - yeah, if you have no written rights, you could be treated incredibly well. If you have pretty pathetic rights, you could extremely poorly OR extremely well, but the baseline is higher than with no rights at all. With no rights at all, you can be treated in any way - eventually the social contract is broken of course, and that's also true with RPGs, but history of the real-world and RPGs shows people can be pushed incredibly far before they actually snap and leave games and so on.

And older versions of D&D show this interesting double-standard where some PCs have a ton of rights, via being casters, and others have basically no rights beyond "the right to hit someone with a sword for 1d8 damage". If you look at 4E, at combat, the players are unarguably more empowered than, say, 3E, and there are two angles to this - first off every class is empowered in that they all have codified abilities, and can tell the DM what happens, rather than merely asking him, and rather than only some classes being able to do that. Second off, they still have the ability to request the DM to do stuff outside that - this was an interestingly frequent misconception re: 4E, the idea that you literally couldn't do anything not on your character sheet in combat. It's objectively and non-arguably false. 4E explicitly calls out that you can do this, that you can ask the DM, and even has optional and extremely numerically generous table that the DM can use to adjudicate how much damage your non-fixed actions might do and so on, or what effects they might have. This is why 4E is sort of regarded as a "wargame" in some ways - a type of game where both sides are equally empowered. Because in combat, that was basically the case. Outside combat, things were less-different to previous editions.

As for your point re: modern environments being more suited to older school stuff - yes absolutely agree, but it's kind of half the picture, because you're still looking at what is basically a "trust-fall" or "consensual BDSM"-type situation. Yeah there's much better advice/resources for everyone involved so things typically go better (I still laugh every time I see a guy going on about his "old-school" game and how he's a "fan of the PCs", not because that's wrong, but because it's so different to the common experience back in the day), but lack of codification still means there's a distinct double-standard, and if the DM falters at all in certain respects it will disproportionately impact the players on the wrong side of that double-standard.

Sorry for waffling on about this, I think it's pretty interesting.

You bring some very interesting nuance to the discussion. I believe you’re right when it comes to the true nature of codification, but I was using it within the context of the dividing line between new and old school (where the term is more specifically applied in its usage).

I think that you’re absolutely right about the massive power imbalance between players and DM. I think the difference is whether or not that people feel it is a good thing. In itself, it is neutral. But it is acknowledge that it essentially gives the DM godlike powers.

It ties back to what I was saying with the three things you need for a successful old school game: 1) A DM who can be a fair adjudicator of the rules, 2) players willing to engage with the DM and the world and 3) Players who have the ability to trust their DM.

These three truths are a recipe for greatness or absolute disaster at the table Certainly, new school at least brought a consistent baseline. Of course, people’s view on that baseline differ.