D&D 5E Roleplaying in D&D 5E: It’s How You Play the Game

[HammerMan]

What people are trying to say as far as I can tell is that the limits of the game are defined by the group. What those limits are, how they are expressed, will vary from table to table. I think that's pretty clearly baked into the rules of the game.

It's almost like to build the biggest tent (and make the most money) they wrote the rules guidelines and advice in ways that every group can read them slightly differently.

 

[clearstream]

That's all fine, but this thread is about having the freedom to play the game within the limits of the game. It's not about having the freedom to not play or to disrupt the game. I wouldn't have thought that needed saying.

It's often the things that one wouldn't have thought need saying that most need saying.

I'm saying that the PC is the player's vehicle for playing the game, which they do through roleplaying as defined in the rules, and that game procedures that limit player authority over decisions related to their character's thoughts and actions limit their ability to play the game.

In context 'as defined in the rules' references PHB 185, right? That you quote in your OP.

What procedures then are you thinking of, that are not 'within the limits of the game' yet limit player 'ability to play the game'?

 

[Scott Christian]

As I just mentioned, a Story Game version of 5e would be welcome. However I'm not sure what that would entail exactly. It seems like it would need stronger 'guardrails' around the value of player declared PC actions. Either the game would have to codify something similar to BW's approach where the INTENT and ACTION are both declared, and the dice bind both sides to generate a fictional outcome which honors that in the case of success, or maybe a stronger set of practices laid out in terms of something closer to DW-like moves where, again, both sides are bound more by the immediate fiction and intent, and where the 'give and take' is more precisely defined than in bog-standard 5e. Other things might also be implemented, like some sort of extension of the traits/inspiration concept, but you need the player and DM to be much more fundamentally equal in the fiction to make it work, IMHO, no matter how you cut it. All of this implies that DM secret backstory might take on a bit different role, though that doesn't mean it cannot exist.

I am always curious as to this, and in truth, a little bit hesitant. Why mess with a model that works? They made the boardgames and a skirmish game and some choose your own adventure books, and all of them are meh. My hesitancy comes from the possible influence those things have over the direction of the game. That could just be me, and I own that fully.

 

[HammerMan]

I am always curious as to this, and in truth, a little bit hesitant. Why mess with a model that works? They made the boardgames and a skirmish game and some choose your own adventure books, and all of them are meh. My hesitancy comes from the possible influence those things have over the direction of the game. That could just be me, and I own that fully.

it only works if they have enough capitol to hire new writers. spliting a team as it is now amoung 2rpgs is not the best choice, but bringiing in a new RP heavy crew to do it could (with hasbro/wotc backing) make a good use of the IP...

on the other hand I remember the dark days of the dragonlance saga edition...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

So the example of gameplay we're imagining goes something like this:

1.<The DM has adequately described the environment which includes a wall.>
2. Player: Dave the Barbarian climbs the wall to see what's at the top.
3. DM: Not so fast Dave, make a DC 15 Strength (Athletics) check to find out just how slippery this wall really is!

If I was the player in this example, I might feel that (3.) calls (1.) into question.

And yet this is the case in ALL classical play! I mean, combat is nothing more or less than an example of the same concept, the GM described some bad guys, but nobody, including the GM, knows if the PCs are tough enough to beat them. We roll dices, we finds out. The fiction changes depending on what those dices say. Story Games can be seen as an ANSWER to that, by saying "well, actually, we don't know what all the fiction is, so lets let the dice decide (or some other mechanism, maybe even player preference)." This is what draws me to this type of play, it is fundamentally more honest with itself. It doesn't pretend that there's either any 'objective' reality to the fictional world, nor even that anyone knows what is in it until the moment it impacts play.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I am always curious as to this, and in truth, a little bit hesitant. Why mess with a model that works? They made the boardgames and a skirmish game and some choose your own adventure books, and all of them are meh. My hesitancy comes from the possible influence those things have over the direction of the game. That could just be me, and I own that fully.

OK, so 4e is at least straddling the line, you can play it more-or-less as a classic D&D with the GM decreeing all of the story elements and players follow along, add color, and maybe choose between 'branches', or pick one of a menu of possible story arcs. Or you can play it with the players deciding what quests to originate, directing most of the flow of the game through choices like class, race, pp, ed, theme, background, etc. Some people, enough to rouse WotC to action, weren't happy with that.

So, I don't understand why we cannot, as a product of its own, reconstruct that mode of play in 5e and have that option back. It doesn't do anything to hurt precious classic 5e! Heck, you may well find things you would want to mix into your game in there. I'm really just talking about a set of classes, some variant and optional/additional rules and clarifications and such which facilitate the sort of gaming that people like myself, @pemerton, etc. did with 4e and enjoyed. 4e was a very good selling game, overall, and so clearly there could be a market for that, right?

Certainly it might or might not make business sense to WotC, what do I know? It surely should be no issue for you or anyone else. It cannot, literally like logically not possible, spoil what you've got now. I mean, everyone tells me that I can still play 4e, and they're right! So I am not seeing what the issue would be...

 

[Scott Christian]

it only works if they have enough capitol to hire new writers. spliting a team as it is now amoung 2rpgs is not the best choice, but bringiing in a new RP heavy crew to do it could (with hasbro/wotc backing) make a good use of the IP...

on the other hand I remember the dark days of the dragonlance saga edition...

I remember it too.

And funny, I did not picture it as an entirely new RPG book, but more like Werewolf. Ten pages and then throw is some cards and a few pictures to show groups. Charge $50 and good to go.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

it only works if they have enough capitol to hire new writers. spliting a team as it is now amoung 2rpgs is not the best choice, but bringiing in a new RP heavy crew to do it could (with hasbro/wotc backing) make a good use of the IP...

on the other hand I remember the dark days of the dragonlance saga edition...

Yeah, but I think that such a 'companion game' wouldn't be THAT much of a split. It isn't like magic items and monsters, and core rules need to be different, right? This would be a single book, probably containing a bunch of rules which revisited PPs, EDs, some different sort of power system that didn't gimp non-casters perhaps, etc. Heck, even if you didn't do that last thing, or fix the weird broken resource stuff, you could still go a good long ways. I expect 95% of that material could be mixed and matched with existing 5e as well without any huge problem. Provide some kind of SC-like facility, and some agenda and process, that really supports Story Now sort of play. Heck, I think there's a lot of core 5e that could use a refresh anyway, so it would definitely serve as a way to supply some 'fixes' that could flow back to standard play.

Yes, it would probably distract from SOMETHING else, there's always limited manpower, but contractors are rife in this business, you can always get stuff done if you can make a business case.

 

[Bill Zebub]

It's almost like to build the biggest tent (and make the most money) they wrote the rules guidelines and advice in ways that every group can read them slightly differently.

Yes, but not for every aspect of the game.

Specifically, the places I agree with their design decisions are the places where they didn’t leave it open to interpretation, and the parts I don’t like are the ones that are open to interpretation.

 

[clearstream]

Specifically, the places I agree with their design decisions are the places where they didn’t leave it open to interpretation, and the parts I don’t like are the ones that are open to interpretation.

Reflecting on that I wonder if we all do not have a propensity to count that we don't like "open to interpretation!" Or was that your meaning?