D&D General Reification versus ludification in 5E/6E

[Parmandur]

No, indeed I don’t think it’s a rejection of anything. It’s just something that has shifted over time, and I would agree that it was an organic shift. But, since some players have a pretty strong preference for the former, it’s unsurprising that this shift would leave many such players unhappy. This same group of players have been unhappy with this shift, mostly since around the release of Tasha’s Cauldron, though some noticed it starting before that and some are only noticing now with the release of the revised core books. I think this framing of the shift as being a matter of embracing “ludification” in favor of reification more often than early 5e did (while acknowledging that D&D has always had elements of both, and 5e has always tended more towards “ludification”) is a useful way to articulate the source of this frustration that many players have been feeling with later 5e.

Early 5E was at pains to be not seen as antithetical to 3E's simulations approach at least aesthetically, and over time thst has become less culturally meaningful for WotC I reckon.

 

[Mistwell]

Which is also not an official. I don't feel like doing the extra typing, or for that matter pretending like D&D wasn't revised. But you know, I figure people can call it what they want. It'll settle out in the end. 5E, as you will recall, wasn't even 5e at one point.

That's not clear from the text, however, since there is no "6E". Nor is the 2024 set of books even the 6th set of AD&D style manuals, it is the ninth. And there have been more editions of the game than that. So referring to the 2024 rules aa "6E" is unclear obfuscation

Both of you are going to be in trouble with the pedantry police!

 

[MGibster]

The only thing that has been lost is the players trying to game the system by choosing the "best" animal (or whatever being summoned). So, now, your summoned animal is a single statblock that prevent cheese weasel power monkeys from using the Monster Manual as a shopping list to eke out every single bonus they can.

I'm going to come at this from a slightly different angle and say I appreciate the change because it saves time. Many years ago, I played a Wizard specializing in conjuration, and I was thoughtful enough to compile a list of animals I could summon depending on the situation. I wasn't trying to cheese things (usually), but wanted to summon the right animal for the situation. i.e. I need stats for a celestial dolphin, or my puppies of purgatory, etc., etc. I did summon a killer whale on land once for the expressed purpose of blocking a door. I guess that's kind of cheesy. Anyway, it does save time because other players aren't quite so considerate and have to look up stats every time they conjure some help. This saves time.

 

[Micah Sweet]

First of all, let me acknowledge that I'm using ludification wrong, because it means to mock, tease, or make fun of. However, it comes from ludus (game, sport) and so literally means to make a game of. I just want to make an observation about some of the changes from 5e to the revised edition, some of them fairly subtle, others more obvious. In 5e, a lot of things were reified, that is, literally, thingified. It's about treating the representation of something as the thing itself, often in a reductive way. So, for example, in the BECMI (especially Expert and Companion rules) it notes that rulers often let their vassals go on adventures, so they will become more powerful and acquire more treasure; this is treating the rules (gaining XP from monsters and gold, going up in levels making you generally more capable) as if they were in the in-universe reality. To an extent, characters in the game world can actually see what classes people are, have an awareness of level drain, etc.

Now, 5e moved away from that to some extent, so that NPCs can be constructed that don't quite correspond to PC classes (eg. the Acolyte, who is a bit like a cleric, but doesn't have a lot of special abilities and has a smite-like power to boost its melee power). So some things are the way they are because of relentless symmetry in the rules, or the desire for a thing to represent a thing. So, if a hobgoblin uses a longsword one-handed, it does a base 1d8 damage, even if the specific die is ultimately not very important because the damage will be modified by any means necessary to get to around the "right" damage for its Challenge.

By contrast, 6E has moved swiftly into ludification. A lot of things were done to simplify, streamline, and improve the experience as a game. So, one change I noticed is the spell Conjure Animals. Previously, this spell, well, conjured some animals, of a limited Challenge rating. Now, it summons spectral animals, who occupy a Large space and do Force damage. It occupies a sort of mid-point between Spiritual Weapon and Spirit Guardians. But you can't cast the new spell to summon a constrictor snake to constrict someone, or a venomous snake to poison someone, and so forth. You can't even properly summon a seal, only a spectral creature that occupies either the sea or the land. Arguably, this is an improvement for play, since the spell is more consistent, balanced, and future-proofed against bad animal writeups in future books. But I feel like it kind of loses something.

I personally prefer things more on the reification side, where things are things, rather than the ludification side, where things are game objects. However, I'm not very extreme in that and I vastly prefer some simplifications. What do y'all think about the changes?

I'm pretty extreme on the reification side myself, but I accept there are times it is necessary to err on the side of ludification. I just feel those times aren't nearly as common as some others (including the makers of the official game) do.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's quite likely that, since there is no actual edition called 6e, that he's referring to some edition that has been called or referred to as being 6e without actually being name so officially.

It's obviously D&D 2024.

Yeah. I call it 5.5, but I think the meaning is clear.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would argue that in a game of magic and spells that conjuring a spectral animal that does force damage is equally reification as conjuring a living animal

Except its supposed to be the same spell, and it does a different thing.

 

[Charlaquin]

Early 5E was at pains to be not seen as antithetical to 3E's simulations approach at least aesthetically, and over time thst has become less culturally meaningful for WotC I reckon.

That’s probably the reason for the shift, yeah.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm going to come at this from a slightly different angle and say I appreciate the change because it saves time. Many years ago, I played a Wizard specializing in conjuration, and I was thoughtful enough to compile a list of animals I could summon depending on the situation. I wasn't trying to cheese things (usually), but wanted to summon the right animal for the situation. i.e. I need stats for a celestial dolphin, or my puppies of purgatory, etc., etc. I did summon a killer whale on land once for the expressed purpose of blocking a door. I guess that's kind of cheesy. Anyway, it does save time because other players aren't quite so considerate and have to look up stats every time they conjure some help. This saves time.

I agree it does do that, and that time saved is valuable. I just personally don't think its worth the (to me) uneeded and unwanted abstraction required of that approach.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Yeah. I call it 5.5, but I think the meaning is clear.

"5.5e" is a pretty commonly used shorthand so everyone will know what you mean. No one really uses "6e" that I've seen, so generally people will be confused.

I read the original post shortly after it was posted and there wasn't any clarification yet, I found the topic interesting but didn't bother responding because I initially read it thinking he was discussing now vs future DnD, then picked up that maybe he was just using 6e incorrectly, then just gave up trying to figure it out so didn't respond even though it seemed interesting.

 

[el-remmen]

I want there to be spells that summon actual animals and ones that summon a pack of spirit animals with special Force damage attacks. But if I had to choose one, for my own preferred flavor I'd pick the former. But then again, I have no fear of cheese weasels. When a druid in my game wildshapes into a rat, we let them squeeze through just about anywhere because we know rats can do that. It doesn't matter that the stat block doesn't give it a squeezing power. Seems reasonable to me and leads to fun play.

BTW, I think he was referring to Summon Beast.