Screw Nostalgia

[Sunseeker]

Wait, soooo... a "challenging" encounter by the book, isn't really a challenge? And in order for these exciting near-death battles to be achieved you have to go against the supposed math (and how it balances out) of the encounter guidelines... so is the system a good measure for balancing encounters or not?

EDIT: And if not aren't we just back to guesstimation?

Actually, yes. The "standard encounter" is tailored to 4 pcs with an expected amount of magic items and so on, the math is great. In fact its too great. It's so specific that anything outside the equation, especially large parties or a lack or glut of magic items can seriously throw it off. This is why I custom tailor my encounters and NPCs to my party, because even the fairly good MM3 math has some pretty hardcoded expectations.

It is guesswork, but its educated guesswork.

 

[Glade Riven]

Well, a few people seem to miss my point, but I'm going to take the blame on that one for my only three-quarters coherant rant.

Nostalgia is a factor, but I would even say that it's not a leading factor. Feeling like D&D doesn't necessarally need to rely on playing up to the "good ol' days," especially with 1e's collector's release and what appears to be a 3.5 collector's release coming up in Sept. Hopefully there will be a "Best of 2e" package early next year. Collector's stuff - that should be where the nostalgia should remain dominant.

Beyond rereleasing old material as collector's editions, nostalgia is a nebulous and dangerous property because so much of the gaming experiance relies on vastly on individual groups spanning 4 decades. Nerd culture is completely different today. Many aspects that were Nerd Culture Only back in the day have gone mainstream - or at least closer to mainstream. Videogames, movies, animation, technology, and the internet has brought Scifi and Fantasy closer to reality - either by manifesting as a smart phone & tablet or the general acceptance of being a fan of one thing or another because now people realise that there are other people who like this stuff that isn't part of the Nerdcore.

The other potential problem is that by appealing only to the base through nostalgia, WotC runs the risk of turing D&D into the RPG version of DC and Marvel - where the comics cater to a shrinking-but-vocal niche market even though the properties in other media have mass appeal. Right now, D&D doesn't have that mass appeal in other media to bring in the extra income through those alternative routes (although I suspect WotC is working on it, but past attempts have fallen short).

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Far as I'm concerned, the invocation of nostalgia and novelty are the scylla and charybdis of game design. You must take both into account, but paying attention too much to one will leave you in danger from the other.

 

[hanez]

4e was the one where they screwed nostalgia and tried to innovate, and look what happened there.

I'm not bashing 4e, I'm just saying it caused the D&D community to be more fractured than ever, with people switching over to the competitor's product because to them, it feels more like D&D. That's the last thing WotC wants.

Took the words right out of my mouth. Nostalgia has already been screwed by WOTC. Last time they screwed it we gave 4e a chance, and after a while.... well were now happily playing PF (and wishing someone would update it).

If 5e feels like D&D I'm sure I'll be in.

 

[Ranes]

@Transbot
You seem to assume that nostalgia appeals only to an extant user base. Nostalgia often has personal associations for people but plenty of people are nostalgic for things with which they have no personal association. Therefore, nostalgia does not necessarily only appeal to 'the base'.

In order for 'feeling like D&D' to mean something it must address some of what 'the base' identifies as D&D. To some, any attempt to create a game that does this will be to fall into the trap of playing on nostalgia.

We either abandon the idea that a new edition of D&D should feel like anything that came before it or we choose a future edition of D&D that encompasses something familiar to those of us who have experienced a previous edition. If we choose the latter, it does not necessarily follow that we have done so for reasons of nostalgia. Indeed, whichever choice we make, we will all still have recourse to nostalgia.

 

[Imaro]

Actually, yes. The "standard encounter" is tailored to 4 pcs with an expected amount of magic items and so on, the math is great. In fact its too great. It's so specific that anything outside the equation, especially large parties or a lack or glut of magic items can seriously throw it off. This is why I custom tailor my encounters and NPCs to my party, because even the fairly good MM3 math has some pretty hardcoded expectations.

It is guesswork, but its educated guesswork.

Not my experience at all... Especially as parties gain levels. My experience has been that a "challenging" encounter starts out as relatively average for most parties and slowly goes downhill from there, forcing one to re evaluate continuously if they want a "challenging encounter."

And I'm not even sure what "educated guesswork" means... My guesswork in all editions was educated.

 

[Glade Riven]

...but plenty of people are nostalgic for things with which they have no personal association

Technically, that's not nostalgia. Semantics aside, let me try rephrasing one more time:

I am not saying to ditch nostalgia completely. I am saying it must be tempered, less it leads to sacreficing quality of design.

 

[Ranes]

Technically, that's not nostalgia.

Oh yes it is. Nostalgia is typically, often, usually a manifestation of personal association but, semantically, it does not need to be at all.

I am not saying to ditch nostalgia completely. I am saying it must be tempered, less it leads to sacreficing quality of design.

I do agree that it must be tempered. As I said earlier:

When the feeling of nostalgia exceeds the value of that which is missed, it is to be scorned.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Wait, soooo... a "challenging" encounter by the book, isn't really a challenge? And in order for these exciting near-death battles to be achieved you have to go against the supposed math (and how it balances out) of the encounter guidelines... so is the system a good measure for balancing encounters or not?

EDIT: And if not aren't we just back to guesstimation?

I find a challenging encounter by the book (ECL +2 or +3) is one that will reduce one PC to below 0hp. And that is about what it should be - a challenge that seems scary without too serious danger of death. (I have one former DM who faked the rolls behind the screen to protect the party and then wondered why we stomped things). PCs can take much, much more than that especially at level 9+ before deaths stop being the result of carelessness or vicious use of a coup de grace.

 

[Doug McCrae]

I think the words "Awesome" and "Cool" should be banned from these boards for a while.

As a replacement how about 'fly', 'slammin', 'far out', or 'righteous'.