D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[AlViking]

Why not? Many people view it as cool to be able to mow down tons of baddies on their way to the major battle.


It could be a badly done adventure. It could also be that the commoners were bolstered by having high-level adventurers at their back and thus were able to stand up to the monsters that would otherwise have caused them to cower in fear and helplessness.

I don't see a problem here. Or if I do, it's that D&D4e may have decided that "dropping like flies" means that the ogres were killed outright, rather than simply defeated--dead, unconscious, running away, surrendering--like they are in, say, Daggerheart. But I don't know 4e's rules for monsters at 0 hp.

It's like in Lord of the Rings, where whatsisname, Bard, killed Smaug with a single arrow because he managed to hit the one space where there was a missing scale. Nevermind that even if it was some super arrow of slaying, Bard probably wasn't a thief/rogue with a high backstab modifier/sneak attack dice, and nevermind that losing a scale wouldn't actually alter Smaug's AC, and nevermind that an arrow at that range probably wouldn't have the oomph to pierce all the way through the dragon's keel and into his heart, and nevermind that that roll required, like, a natural 20 to hope to hit. We accept all that because it was badass.

And so is the idea of a bunch of commoners being rallied well enough to drive off ogres.

From previous posts you like narrative conceits driving play for more than I do. If I want enemies that they can kill left and right I can still do that in 5e, they just aren't going to be minions.

As far as Bard killing Smaug that was a narrative contrivance. Tolkien needed some way to kill off a legendary dragon.

Different approaches to game design are going to appeal to different people.

 

[Faolyn]

That's the old-school ethos for you, Gygax's best efforts notwithstanding: the rules as written are merely an adjustable framework and not necessarily even complete, that you then adjust (ideally, locking in your adjustments as you go!) to make the game your own. The rules designers are fallible. No two tables are the same, nor are they intended to be outside of organized play (the RPGA back then wasn't as relevant as AL has become now) or convention tournaments (which used to be a big deal but we just don't see them any more).

That's the WotC ethos for you: the rules are inviolate, and not to be messed with. The rules designers are perfect (and if they're not, we'll fire them). Hardly a surprising take, perhaps, from the company whose roots lie in Magic the Gathering; but not a very useful one in the wild west that is the greater D&D community.

I'd love to know where you got that take, because I've never seen anyone actually say that.

That's just it: the WotC editions - 3e and 4e in particular - want their rules to be binding straitjackets. As such, this leaves those rules more open to criticism because they've largely taken away the idea - and general acceptance - of "just fix it to suit yourself".

No they don't. the 3.5 DMG even had a whole section on how to make house rules. I can't imagine that the 4e books were any different. I don't know where you got the idea that WotC wanted their rules to be "straitjackets," especially since 3e had the SRD/OGL that allowed for hundreds of third party books that changed their rules, often in radical ways.

TSR general principle: you can do it unless a rule says you cannot.
WotC general principle: you cannot do it unless a rule says you can.

One hundred percent false.

And I'd like to point out that Gygax very literally said that certain changes to the game (such as introducing firearms) would make it not AD&D anymore. Not "AD&D with house rules" but "some other game, not AD&D the way I envision it." He was the one who wanted the rules to be a straitjacket, at least in certain areas.

 

[Lanefan]

Except that there is a HUGE GAP between these two things!

There is a HUGE HUGE HUGE HUGE gap between this--which is literally nothing more than "the rules are suggestions, make up whatever the hell you want whenever the hell you want to for however long you want to"

A somewhat hyperbolic take, that.

The rules are malleable but once that process is done, they're still rules; only (ideally) better ones. Nobody worth their salt is changing things on a whim.

--and "the rules are absolutely ironclad bars, if you even THINK about touching them, WotC will send the Pinkertons after you."

WotC doesn't need to send out the Pinkerton's. Why? Because the underlying designs of all three of their editions makes them much more difficult to kitbash than were the TSR editions, and my gut hunch is that this was-is a deliberate choice either at the design level or (less likely) the corporate level.

And sure, they give lip service to "make the game your own" in each edition but the designs fight hard against anyone who tries it. We tried for years to make 3e feel and play like our 1e games, mostly failing, and then capitulated when 3.5 came out and played it stock (which brought its own, different, suite of issues).

When 4e came out I, enthused by some of the preview stuff I'd seen, bought the core three books and put some serious thought into what I'd have to do in order to use its supposedly-better system to give us the same feel and playstyle we already had and liked.

You can probably imagine how far that process got before I just said screw it, we're staying with what we've got.

And that's what I don't get. Why one side is judged so goddamn harshly for an element that isn't even present, while the other is literally not just forgiven but actively CELEBRATED for being utterly riddled with things that ARE present and just...ignored, or reworked with a binder of house rules bigger than the gorram bame itself!

Subsystem based design (TSR) vs unified design (WotC).

With unified design, pretty much all one can do is complain about it; because it's nearly impossible to fix anything significant without causing enough knock-on effects that after one thing finally finishes leading to another you've almost rewritten the whole game from scratch.

With subsystem based design, changes made within one subsystem don't often have many if any knock-on effects in other subsystems; meaning you can rewrite or change or add or drop something safe in the knowledge you're probably not shattering the overall design by so doing.

And yes, part of the point is that each table ends up with its own houserules binder and thus its own more or less unique game.

 

[Lanefan]

4e got a lot of criticism from the sim crowd about how the opening of doors supposedly had shifting DCs depending on one's level on this very forum. I cannot remember the outcome of those debates but if the opening of a door DCs shifts because of the ever-changing math as your character increases in level then surely monsters could too right?
The game seems to have been designed in a way to handle contextual challenges which I feel is one of its strengths.

You see a feature where I see a bug.

"Contextual challenges" do two bad things: they play hell with in-fiction consistency, and they serve to steepen the game's power curve which is already more than steep enough.

Consistency says the challenge is what it is, regardless of who or what is trying to beat it at the time.

 

[Lanefan]

The design goal was to have enemies the characters could easily take out.

I think this is the root of the problem: it's a faulty design goal.

Instead, the goal should have been to just design the monsters and foes as they are and with their intrinsic mechanics locked in, and if the characters can at some point easily take them out then so be it, and if not then so be that too.

Designing with the goal of making the PCs ridiculously overpowered at high levels is what led to...

The implementation meant that I could take them out by slapping them with a rubber chicken.

...this.

 

[Lanefan]

Then, quite frankly, whoever told you that was straight up wrong. The game was never intended to be played that way and there are numerous examples from the old Acquisitions Inc. plays that demonstrated exactly why this was wrong.

Didn't 3e have something similar, where if you didn't have ranks in a skill you couldn't even try to use that skill?

 

[Lanefan]

I'm not even sure if I would say that Tolkien even really did much zero to hero with exception of his hobbit characters.

Which is kind of the point: the hobbits - particularly in LotR - are the zero-to-hero people we follow all the way through, and on their journeys they meet and interact with a bunch of other big-time already-high-level characters (who would probably be the dreaded "overpowered DMPCs" were it an actual D&D campaign).

YMMV, but I played a game of 4e D&D, then 5e D&D, and then played a game of B/X mixed with 1e D&D. This is not to mention all of the OSR games that I have played. I felt like my characters were far more restricted in what they could do in these older games than what they could do in 4e D&D.

And in a way, that makes sense: characters in 4e generally have a broader suite of powers, skills, and abilities to call on than do their 1e counterparts who are considerably more niche-bound.

The question - which, as posts here indicate, was handled differently at different tables - is how much an unskilled character can do (in either edition) if anything. Can for example a character without any tracking skill even try to track someone? Can a character without any athletics skill or a climb % try any climbing?

'Cause if the answer is "no" then indeed, the 1e character would be more restricted.

 

[AlViking]

I think this is the root of the problem: it's a faulty design goal.

Instead, the goal should have been to just design the monsters and foes as they are and with their intrinsic mechanics locked in, and if the characters can at some point easily take them out then so be it, and if not then so be that too.

Designing with the goal of making the PCs ridiculously overpowered at high levels is what led to...

...this.

I've occasionally had campaign arcs (in multiple editions) where relatively low level monsters get juiced up and go berserk. They have a better chance to hit, do more damage but I don't change anything else.

Kind of a nice change of pace and an interesting challenge but nothing I need on an even remotely frequent basis. Most importantly those berserker monsters always have the same strengths and weaknesses no matter who they face.

I don't have a problem with powerful characters who crush their enemies and see them driven before them, but minions feel fake to me. Like getting a blue ribbon and a medal for just showing up. Unearned victories don't feel like victories to me. Facing a cohort of dangerous monsters only to find out they were minions was kind of a letdown after a while.

 

[Deset Gled]

I think this is the root of the problem: it's a faulty design goal.

I wouldn't say it's inherently faulty. You can see it in other games, too. 3e had swarms. SW WEG D6 had stormtroopers that were essentially mooks and variant troopers with drastically more potency. And it really does emulate a lot of fiction, including things found in Appendix N.

4e definitely took the concept up to 11, though. But I think it's largely a matter of where you want to draw the line.

Didn't 3e have something similar, where if you didn't have ranks in a skill you couldn't even try to use that skill?

Only for certain skills. Things like Use Magic Device or Knowledge: Something Specific. Not for more basic skills like Jump. Also, I think that was removed in 3.5e.

3e skills in general were a case of "really quite good when used in completeness, but also way to much of a pain in the butt to follow completely."

 

[Lanefan]

D&D worlds are inherently inconsistent. Every part of D&D is and has always been inconsistent with some other part of it.

Perhaps, but keeping those inconstencies down to a dull roar is still IMO a worthy goal to strive for.

That there's suddenly another half-dozen pirates is no more inconsistent than any other part of the game, and will only be a problem if the players somehow obtain 100% proof of the number of pirates there were in the first place--and very few parties are willing to go that far.

It varies. Some parties IME will go that far, not committing until they know exactly what they're up against. Others just throw caution to the wind and go flying in without a care in the world.

I don't think not running for jerks with is clobbering player agency. And yes, I would say that if you play characters who are willing, ready, and able to backstab other PCs to the point that they can't even look out for traps because they're too busy protecting themselves from their own teammates, that is being a jerk. Maybe you don't consider that to be jerkiness, but I do.

I don't; and if I did I'd likely never have become a DM as I wouldn't have had any "acceptable" players.

Do they actually engage with the adventure at all?

Oh, eventually they get it out of their systems and engage with the adventure...or the adventure engages with them, whichever.

Do they engage just to derail it with their madcap ways? I mean, if all my players wanted to do was shenanigans, I'd stop prepping stuff. I wouldn't need it, after all.

I still prep stuff, but if they don't get to that stuff tonight because they're having fun whaling on each other it's no skin off my nose. It'll still be there next week, or the week after that, or whenever.

As the saying goes, fighting fire with fire just gets everyone burned. And the other saying is that you shouldn't deal with out-of-game issues in-game. If the players are choosing to play backstabbers rather than people who will work with the party, then the players need to be spoken to, not "run out" in-game. That doesn't solve anything since the behaviors keep continuing.

Thing is, you say "the behaviors keep continuing" as if it's a bad thing.

If they've having fun beating each other up in character, why would I want to stop them? And if I'm a player in a game and someone wants to play like that, I'll engage as my character would engage (which would vary hugely, depending on what I was playing at the time).