D&D General Playstyle vs Mechanics

[TwoSix]

Ah I see. Wow this thread could me feel anxious about my DMing style. I always seek to learn more, but I never see any part of TTRPGs being "one-sided" but as a two-way conversation.

Background traits (or similar rules) have never been just an on-off switch to me, but a massive potential hook to provoke more story-quest options or complications.

Maybe I should have never read the Fate Core RPG...

Bringing Fate type concepts into D&D is super fun.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The idea that there are well connected people in your world is unbelievable? Okay.



The fiction bends all the time to serve the mechanics, and vice versa. There's a back and forth. When someone decides they're going to resort to violence, we then have all the participants roll initiative, and then that tells us who goes first, and so on.



What about something more in line with what we're talking about? Do you ever determine that a character who is proficient in the orc language doesn't understand something said in orc? Do you just allow that to work every time? Do you require a roll?

Everything in combat, just like the rest of the game, starts with action declaration: ie, the fiction. We then use the mechanics to adjudicate it.

 

[Maxperson]

No. trivializing difficulty is one of the many things that the not at all flexible 5e does to actively resist other play & campaign styles. In some cases that's rather unforgivable because those play & campaign styles were among d&d's primary modes of play. It might be something to just shrug & look past had 5e done what 4e did & been clear that it was going in a new direction for a particular style it considered to be a new thing, but instead it took a new direction & actively designed against the old ways while endlessly proclaiming it was flexible to the point of being just great at them unless the GM is the problem.

5e doesn't really trivialize difficulty, though. It takes more to challenge PCs in combat, but you can add that more within the rules and challenge them. Further, you still haven't explained how trivial magic light at 1st level(5e) is so much worse than trivial light at 2nd level(1e) since in 1e it is only 500g to get continual light cast for you. And yet further, you haven't explained how trivial light vs. torches ruins dungeon crawling as a playstyle which is so much more than that.

You've made some rather large claims without any real factual basis for those claims to be some sort of objective truth. Clearly 5e, even if it did(which it doesn't) force superheroes, supports many different playstyles, so superhero isn't some sort of one true way to play it.

As I said, you'd be much better off just discussing specific mechanics and what you like and/or don't like about them, than trying to argue a one true way that doesn't exist and/or trying to redefine what campaign, adventure and playstyle mean.

 

[mamba]

Is this the feature?

"You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you."

yes, the ‘you know the …’ part, when argued that the ‘local’ does not refer to the region you grew up in (or something similar) but the ones local to the region you happen to be in, which is how the ‘you know people everywhere’ is using it

 

[Bae'zel]

Bringing Fate type concepts into D&D is super fun.

I'd probably be banned for this, but one time I offered a player a point of Inspiration if they were okay with the local Watchman recognizing their Rogue from a previous criminal act...

(spoiler, she took the inspiration)

 

[mamba]

That's the funny thing isn't it. What makes the background traits so good is that they help set up all kinds of cool situations like this. 'No they dismiss you out of hand' is not only a loss of player agency it's a loss of colourful things to play out.

no one said I do not allow the player to make new contacts, only that he does not know them already.

If anything the feature is a shortcut to avoid ‘colorful roleplay’, not to create it

 

[TwoSix]

Why wouldn't they invoke it if it benefits them to do so?

Because they're a good player who recognizes that our playstyle is to tell a story through mutual cooperation, and will invoke the specific mechanics needed to support out shared playstyle.

Look at that, I tied the whole thread together. I should tell Dave.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That's the funny thing isn't it. What makes the background traits so good is that they help set up all kinds of cool situations like this. 'No they dismiss you out of hand' is not only a loss of player agency it's a loss of colourful things to play out.

Not having player agency outside of your PC is acceptable to me.

 

[Bae'zel]

no one said I do not allow the player to make new contacts, only that he does not know them already.

If anything the feature is a shortcut to avoid ‘colorful roleplay’, not to create it

I acknowledge the benefit of this approach.

The "Criminal Background" could be seen as more of a "foot in the door" that enables a PC to even ATTEMPT to make a new criminal contact. Other characters could try, but the Criminal, even at level 1, would know where to start, what to look for.

 

[Micah Sweet]

But it's background not "most recent odd job". 5o years of commoner just recently turned to crime is either not an experienced criminal because they are drawing on their commoner roots or it's double dipping by taking two backgrounds to draw on both.

The fact that backgrounds cover everything from birthright (ie noble/urchin/etc) to career made them an even more awkward thing for the GM to juggle because everyone at the table had a wildly different size & scope to the plot/story hooks & ties that their "background" could support even before those are further shrunk or amplified by individual player interest in that aspect of play.

Now that the backgrounds have been kicked to the curb where they belonged we are back to a state where players can talk to their gm about hooking their background into things if they really care & players who don't are going to feel less need to protect a powerful mechanical push button ability if the GM tries to hook some plot thread to the threadbare backstory they didn't care much about to begin with.

This why I prefer adding the culture metric, like Level Up uses.