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

[AlViking]

Where does it say every character has to participate? I can't find that.

It's in the same section on how to run a skill challenge. Page 74, Running a Skill challenge, 3rd paragraph.

"In a skill challenge encounter, every player character must make skill checks to contribute to the success or failure of the encounter."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Denying a prong's relevance is different than ignoring it.

It's literally the same thing. Pretending it doesn't matter.

Sounds good so far.

To the bolded: am I?

And even if it's true (which I dispute, but whatever) that most players want that god-like feeling of churning through hordes of foes, is it good for the overall game - which, I should note, at its heart is NOT a supers game where such things would fit seamlessly - to try to design that ability into the system?

Yes, you are.

And yes, it is--because that's what people genuinely want, and what the designers desire to make, and what the game has offered from quite early on. Unless you thought the whole multi-attack thing from early-edition Fighters wasn't there to clear out hordes of minions?

Bb

You're making assumptions about what people want. I don't care about the first, if I was concerned about my ability to add I wouldn't be playing D&D. Every edition has always succeeded at the second, the dramatic increases in numbers we had in 3 and 4e meant that lower level monsters were just a nuisance.

So yes, I'm ignoring the first two legs of your "trilema" because they're non-issues. Since I have no problem breaking the first two (and the second is particularly weak) there's not a problem.

Of course you can always create Gordion knots if you just assume people agree with your criteria. It doesn't mean anyone will agree.

As above: Ignoring the prongs doesn't make them go away. The system has to be designed for more people than just you.

I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about. I see no reason to have multiple versions of the same monster, although it makes sense for some. If the characters are at a point where ogres are no longer a threat I won't use ogres.



Then I guess any solution that doesn't agree with your arbitrary criteria will always fail. Almost as if that was the whole point.

Ah yes, just declare the criteria "arbitrary" and you can wish away every problem whenever you like.

The designers tell us this is what they want. They do so because the players have told them that that's what they want. This literally did happen with 5e.

Unless you are now--only when it's convenient, mind--saying that WotC's surveys and data collection during "D&D Next" and "One D&D" were inaccurate/non-representative?

Assuming most players want something nobody I know has expressed an interest in.

Assuming your interests actually represent the playerbase when the designers have explicitly said otherwise seems to be the greater error.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Maybe so.

If you're ever in Victoria I can introduce you to some others. I'm by no means unique in this regard.

Let us assume that a million people are, or have ever been, GMs for D&D. This is, I think you would agree, a very low-ball number. Now imagine that 99.99% hold opinion A, and the remaining 0.01% hold opinion not-A.

Despite not-A being held by a vanishingly small proportion of D&D GMs, 100 people still hold that opinion. Given like-minded individuals congregate together, particularly when it comes to shared leisure time, it should not be surprising that you can point out others from that group.

Now imagine that it is instead 1% of GMs and there have been 10 million who either are or have previously been a D&D GM. Now it's a thousand times more people, meaning, a hundred thousand people. Still a vanishingly small portion of the overall population--but with a hundred thousand, it would be more shocking that you couldn't find someone.

And I would be very surprised if only 10M people have ever been a D&D GM at any point in history.

Because it means two rules are often trying to apply at the same time: the specific, and the general. When they conflict, even though specific beats general is the intent, it's still a fertile breeding ground for what I see as preventable arguments.

No. When the specific applies, it is always correct. Period. There is no "fertile ground". Anyone who says otherwise is participating in bad faith and should be told as much.

 

[AlViking]

It's literally the same thing. Pretending it doesn't matter.


Yes, you are.

And yes, it is--because that's what people genuinely want, and what the designers desire to make, and what the game has offered from quite early on. Unless you thought the whole multi-attack thing from early-edition Fighters wasn't there to clear out hordes of minions?


As above: Ignoring the prongs doesn't make them go away. The system has to be designed for more people than just you.


Ah yes, just declare the criteria "arbitrary" and you can wish away every problem whenever you like.

The designers tell us this is what they want. They do so because the players have told them that that's what they want. This literally did happen with 5e.

Unless you are now--only when it's convenient, mind--saying that WotC's surveys and data collection during "D&D Next" and "One D&D" were inaccurate/non-representative?


Assuming your interests actually represent the playerbase when the designers have explicitly said otherwise seems to be the greater error.

I'm not ignoring the prongs. They have no basis in fact. You're just making stuff up in order to make an illogical conclusion and then declaring that anyone that doesn't accept your unfounded assumptions don't know what they're talking about.

Its not at all a convincing argument.

 

[Micah Sweet]

"Take a different approach" in this case has to mean not being what D&D has been--either in thematics, or in mathematics.

People want small numbers. People want it to be guaranteed that you outscale weak creatures. And people want absolute diegetic processes and never ever ever ever ever simplifying things with game mechanics when they deem it an unnecessary simplification.

These three things cannot all be true at the same time.

You must choose one of them you wish to break. The combination of the three cannot all happen; even getting both of the first two is already an extremely difficult thing and possibly not achievable!

Choose which one you want to break; but you must choose one. There literally is no other option--unless we abandon the core thematic and structural processes that make it "D&D" (e.g. removing combat would obviously get rid of this problem but I don't think that would be acceptable!)

I'm fine with bigger numbers, if the fiction warrants it.

Next crisis?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Sure. I don't think I said anything that disagrees with that.

I was responding to a criticism that claimed minions were specially worthy of exclusion, because they have the consequence of devaluing sapient lives by pretending that a large number of "demonized" enemies slaughtered without a single death of our beloved allies is a fair exchange (or the like).

I called this argument out as BS, because that's something that's been intentionally hard-coded into D&D's rules since at least 1e, possibly earlier (I don't know when the "extra attacks" thing got written, perhaps OD&D?) If rules inducing this belief are a problem, then D&D has always had it. Minions aren't special--the whole game is at fault.

If someone wants to avert this particular aspect of D&D, they're going to have to take a stand against a hell of a lot more than just minion rules, and--as you say--they're probably going to need to create a new game rather different from D&D.

As it stands, minions are just another example of a long-running D&D trope that it derived from its inspirations (like swashbuckling/fencing in film).

Fair enough. My issue with them is more their overtly Narrativist nature than any other potential issue anyway.

 

[Maxperson]

It's in the same section on how to run a skill challenge. Page 74, Running a Skill challenge, 3rd paragraph.

"In a skill challenge encounter, every player character must make skill checks to contribute to the success or failure of the encounter."

Weird. The book I'm reading doesn't have that sentence. It was probably an errata put in later on.

 

[Maxperson]

Let us assume that a million people are, or have ever been, GMs for D&D. This is, I think you would agree, a very low-ball number. Now imagine that 99.99% hold opinion A, and the remaining 0.01% hold opinion not-A.

Despite not-A being held by a vanishingly small proportion of D&D GMs, 100 people still hold that opinion. Given like-minded individuals congregate together, particularly when it comes to shared leisure time, it should not be surprising that you can point out others from that group.

I doubt every DM like that moved to Victoria. In fact, I doubt any DM has moved to another city or country to be with other like minded DMs. Rather, I think it's just very, very common for DMs to hold the rules they create as.............................rules.

The very small percentage will be the DMs who just create, change and re-change rules on whims rather than reason.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Easy. Break the second one by dropping the expectation that PCs are demigods at high level (or, I suppose, abandon high-level design entirely and have the game soft-cap at about 10th; but there has to be a better way than that).

Oh! I like that one even better! But really, either is fine.

 

[Micah Sweet]

That is what AlViking had demanded, though. That if something "becomes a minion", it is only and exclusively because things have been outscaled.

Hence: anything strong early on MUST eventually scale down to minion status--killable in a single hit, if you can hit them.


You've broken the trilemma by simply choosing to ignore one of the three prongs. Not exactly solving the problem.


Then nothing becomes a minion because only the absolute weakest enemies--CR <1--are weak enough to be outscaled.

The scaling is required. The small numbers are required. And the other considerations are required. You are embarked; you can't have a system that accomplishes all three things. You're wanting a system that rejects something most players specifically desire it to have.

I'm totally fine with minions not being a thing.