D&D 5E Resting and the frikkin' Elephant in the Room

[Tony Vargas]

Or the adventurers by the very nature of their chosen profession and activities (or perhaps just bad luck) encounter these things more frequently than the common man.

It's really pretty typical for a heroic-fantasy protagonist to just bump into all the nastiest monsters and long-lost treasures and whatnot, just because he's the focus of the story.

The PCs are the focus of the game, same illogic applies.

Isn't that what the rest variants in the DMG are for?

Not as presented, because they just shift the pacing, they don't open it up. So you can go all 'gritty' and now attrition happens over a week. Instead of wondering 'how am I going to pack six encounters into a day?' some of the time, you're wondering 'how am I going to keep this week under 8 encounters?' other times.

What percentage of the population do adventurers make up...

Could vary wildly with the world. 3e had the world 70% commoner - everyone else could have made a half-competent adventurer. The zero-to-hero paradigm implies that there will be many, many low-level adventurers out there. OTOH, the relative scarcity of magic items implies that the folks that make & use them are rare.

Back to D&D not being a world-building system, right Hussar.

 

[Hussar]

TIL Hussar's DMG doesn't have Part 1.

Yup, and if you actually bothered to read the section, you'd realize that it's entirely dependent on ADVENTURE BUILDING. I mean, the fact that Part 1 is about 60 pages long, and Part 2 the Adventure Building section is about 150 pages long, plus Part 3 which is also pretty much entirely about adventures is another 50 pages, yeah, tell me again about how D&D is a world building game.

 

[MichaelSomething]

I would say world building is the side dish to the main course that is adventuring.

I'll change my mind when I see commoner campaigns become the norm.

Sent from my VS990 using EN World mobile app

 

[Ovinomancer]

Yup, and if you actually bothered to read the section, you'd realize that it's entirely dependent on ADVENTURE BUILDING. I mean, the fact that Part 1 is about 60 pages long, and Part 2 the Adventure Building section is about 150 pages long, plus Part 3 which is also pretty much entirely about adventures is another 50 pages, yeah, tell me again about how D&D is a world building game.

Sorry, perhaps we're working off of different definitions of worldbuilding. What do you think it is? How do the questions on DMG p15 in the Settlements section relate to what you defi e as worldbuilding?

Because you seem to be using a radically different meaning than I assume is normal, ie, the hows and whys of a campaign world.

 

[Tony Vargas]

yeah, tell me again about how D&D is a world building game.

Well, you see, the rules of the game are indirectly visible to the inhabitants as laws of physics (yes including price lists), and Dr Mengele-like researches have developed special and general theories of relative hps, so it doesn't just build a world, it defined a very specific world into being, and if you're not playing in that world, faithfully, you're meta-gaming.
Which is a sin.

But Saelorn blocked me a while ago so I might've not remembered all that correctly.

 

[hawkeyefan]

In regard to the worldbuilding...almost everything in the DMG about it would be just as at home in any other RPG book. There's nothing inherently D&D about the advice in the first part of the DMG, except that the examples of places and planes and so forth are all D&D staples. But none of the charts or advice is specifically D&D. This whole section is solid advice for any RPG GM.

In other words, the mechanics of the game don't really come into play in that section, at least not beyond a general idea that you should use mechanics that support the world you're building.

Which if I'm not mistaken was kind of [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s point. Using the mechanics of D&D rules to build a world would very likely not result in the kinds of worlds most of us use. Instead, we pick and choose what we focus on to suit our needs. We build the world and use the mechanics that we feel are most appropriate.

Otherwise it's a downward spiral of madness. Wait...how can towns exist in a world where there are giant, flying, fire-breathing predators? Wouldn't dragons always destroy any town that came along? Well, maybe the explanation is that many towns have a wizard that is high enough level to at least give the dragon pause. Oh, but then we have NPCs overshadowing our PCs, and that stinks. Okay, well then maybe it's because enough archers, even really low level characters, can bring down a dragon with enough time. Meh, then that makes dragons kind of lame, no?

And so on. It becomes this back and forth exercise in futility. The mechanics should support the world you want. The world should not be dictated by the default D&D mechanics. At least not slavishly so. If you want dragons that can decimate towns, then you can simply rule that attacks from low level NPCs always miss, so the town will need the PCs to save them. And you shape your worldbuilding accordingly.

 

[Hussar]

Sorry, perhaps we're working off of different definitions of worldbuilding. What do you think it is? How do the questions on DMG p15 in the Settlements section relate to what you defi e as worldbuilding?

Because you seem to be using a radically different meaning than I assume is normal, ie, the hows and whys of a campaign world.

Apparently so does everyone else who has responded to you.

OTOH, there ARE systems out there that are very much grounded in a world building approach. Traveller, GURPS, HARN, Battletech, just to name a few off the top of my head. But, as soon as you try applying D&D mechanics to an actual world, it falls apart.

Well, you see, the rules of the game are indirectly visible to the inhabitants as laws of physics (yes including price lists), and Dr Mengele-like researches have developed special and general theories of relative hps, so it doesn't just build a world, it defined a very specific world into being, and if you're not playing in that world, faithfully, you're meta-gaming.
Which is a sin.

But Saelorn blocked me a while ago so I might've not remembered all that correctly.

You too huh?

 

[Ovinomancer]

Apparently so does everyone else who has responded to you.

OTOH, there ARE systems out there that are very much grounded in a world building approach. Traveller, GURPS, HARN, Battletech, just to name a few off the top of my head. But, as soon as you try applying D&D mechanics to an actual world, it falls apart.



You too huh?

Well, given that you XP's [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s defense of your position, I'm going with your position being that for a game to support worldbuilding it should have defined systems for worldbuilding that integrate at least somewhat into the mechanical systems. But this just describes a mechanical aid to worldbuilding, and doesn't actually define worldbuilding. As [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] notes:

Otherwise it's a downward spiral of madness. Wait...how can towns exist in a world where there are giant, flying, fire-breathing predators? Wouldn't dragons always destroy any town that came along? Well, maybe the explanation is that many towns have a wizard that is high enough level to at least give the dragon pause. Oh, but then we have NPCs overshadowing our PCs, and that stinks. Okay, well then maybe it's because enough archers, even really low level characters, can bring down a dragon with enough time. Meh, then that makes dragons kind of lame, no?

But this is trivially solved by worldbuilidng a number of ways. Just to toss out a few: dragons are rare, ancients are seen maybe once a generation, meaning many towns don't build to defend against them as they're rapidly addressed by adventurers and/or the King's armies when they do show up; dragons hibernate for long periods of time, meaning when a big one awakens, it's usually a few hundred years since their last rampage and most people think it's just old stories or hope it won't happen in their lifetime; dragons are common, but they're in charge, so of course no one builds defenses against them; dragons are common, but the ancient kingdoms (now crumbled) created the Drakenstones (but the process has been lost to time), powerful items that ward away dragons, and so towns and villages form near Drakenstones, and creating new towns involve moving an existing Drakenstone to build around. There, none of that violates any of the mechanical systems in the game and most don't even change the established fluff in the MM dragons.

Worldbuilding doesn't require a mechanical system that spits out possibilities. Even those systems you name don't require you to use the system building/world building toolsets -- you can just do it yourself and have a fine time. Do those systems help? Yes, they do, they help provide a coherent world that works with the ruleset, but that's not necessary to have a game that both works and allows worldbuilding. Like D&D. Even if you just choose to build a set of adventures with almost nothing done to create a world around them, you've done worldbuilidng -- you've intentionally designed a world that doesn't interact with your players; you've made those worldbuilding choices and elected to neglect things so that they work with your planned playstyle.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Well, given that you XP's [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION]'s defense of your position, I'm going with your position being that for a game to support worldbuilding it should have defined systems for worldbuilding that integrate at least somewhat into the mechanical systems. But this just describes a mechanical aid to worldbuilding, and doesn't actually define worldbuilding. As [MENTION=6785785]hawkeyefan[/MENTION] notes:


But this is trivially solved by worldbuilidng a number of ways. Just to toss out a few: dragons are rare, ancients are seen maybe once a generation, meaning many towns don't build to defend against them as they're rapidly addressed by adventurers and/or the King's armies when they do show up; dragons hibernate for long periods of time, meaning when a big one awakens, it's usually a few hundred years since their last rampage and most people think it's just old stories or hope it won't happen in their lifetime; dragons are common, but they're in charge, so of course no one builds defenses against them; dragons are common, but the ancient kingdoms (now crumbled) created the Drakenstones (but the process has been lost to time), powerful items that ward away dragons, and so towns and villages form near Drakenstones, and creating new towns involve moving an existing Drakenstone to build around. There, none of that violates any of the mechanical systems in the game and most don't even change the established fluff in the MM dragons.

Worldbuilding doesn't require a mechanical system that spits out possibilities. Even those systems you name don't require you to use the system building/world building toolsets -- you can just do it yourself and have a fine time. Do those systems help? Yes, they do, they help provide a coherent world that works with the ruleset, but that's not necessary to have a game that both works and allows worldbuilding. Like D&D. Even if you just choose to build a set of adventures with almost nothing done to create a world around them, you've done worldbuilidng -- you've intentionally designed a world that doesn't interact with your players; you've made those worldbuilding choices and elected to neglect things so that they work with your planned playstyle.

I agree with you that it's easy to make the world work how I'd like it to; mechanics can assist with that, and I do think that they can hinder it as well, but I think that's far less often.

My point, however, is that world-building is largely an exercise of the imagination. It has nothing to do with D&D the game. I believe that [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]'s comment about D&D not being a good world-building game, he was talking about the mechanics of the game versus verisimilitude. Everything you and I are discussing is pretty separate from the mechanics. So when someone says "D&D is a good world-building game" it seems they actually must be talking about the mechanics of the game, or else perhaps they meant to say "I use my imagination to build worlds for my D&D game".

If it's not mechanics that are being discussed, then what does "D&D is a good world-building game" even mean? What makes D&D a good world-building game?

Because, as any discussion on HP and what they represent will show, the D&D mechanics and how they interact with the game world is anything but "trivially solved", at least in a general consensus manner. Everyone has their own take on how the mechanics of the game interact with the fiction of the world.

Ultimately, I don't think that Hussar's point was nearly as contentious as many have taken it....he's saying that using D&D mechanics to world build is probably not the best idea; that there are other game systems more suited to that endeavor. Which makes sense to me, and which I would not expect would be a stance that many would choose to challenge. Although there are some folks I've chatted with here on the boards that think that the D&D world revolves around the game mechanics...but I think they're the minority.

 

[clearstream]

Yup, and if you actually bothered to read the section, you'd realize that it's entirely dependent on ADVENTURE BUILDING. I mean, the fact that Part 1 is about 60 pages long, and Part 2 the Adventure Building section is about 150 pages long, plus Part 3 which is also pretty much entirely about adventures is another 50 pages, yeah, tell me again about how D&D is a world building game.

I realise I may have missed a post in which you define Adventure Building in an unexpected way, but the D&D 5th edition DMG is replete with rules and guidelines about World Building. Creating a world of your own. Creating a multiverse for that world. Creating adventures in that world including random encounter tables for it. Creating dungeons, wildernesses and settlements in your world. Downtime activities in your world including businesses. And then a set of items and artifacts that motivate and empower activity in your world. One may prefer other rule systems. Other rule systems may have solved some problems in ways that play better than D&D. But it is nonsense to say that D&D doesn't strongly support world building. The game has always put world building front and centre, right after characters, skills, spells and combat.

Eberron, Toril, Athas... multiple worlds expressly designed to work with D&D mechanics. Numerous creative elements throughout those worlds arise from the game mechanics. And of course, the mechanics themselves are shaped to sustain heroic fantasy worlds. I keep coming back to the obvious fact that we're all playing a game with hundreds of pages of rules. A world for D&D that doesn't respect the mechanics - and refuses to be inspired by them - neglects a wonderful opportunity.