D&D General Self-Defeating Rules in D&D

[Chaltab]

See, I thought the point of darkness mechanics was to adjudicate situations in play where it's dark. For me, that's what all the mechanics are for.

Yes?... Things can accomplish more than one task. I don't even know why you're being so pedantic about this.

 

[Older Beholder]

Not what the thread is about, but I've made my own self defeating rules as a player (For roleplay purposes):

A Barbarian that is trying to contain their rage
A Warlock that tries not to use their powers out of fear of drawing their Patrons attention
A Genasi Arcana Cleric that upon gaining access to Wish could only cast it to grant the wishes of others (due to his Genie heritage)

 

[Composer99]

I'm broadly of the view that D&D could stand to pick a lane on this kind of thing, which I would imagine means leaning into heroic fantasy tropes with much less concern for logistics except as an occasional challenge, in much the same way that food is presented as a concern occasionally in, say, LotR.

Or, if it still wants to be "the biggest possible tent game", it could stand to try to find ways to make the big tent more comfortable to play in, as it were. Personally, I would suggest stripping away the anemic survival-sim mechanics that D&D currently possesses from the core rules and then having... maybe not survival-sim mechanics, as such, but at least, let's say, "logistics matter" mechanics in an optional rules module. Not unlike how the 2024 DMG has a maybe-kinda-sorta domain play module with Bastions.

By way of example of a game where something like this has actually been done, the strategic-operational WW2 game Axis Empires has an abstracted system for handling air and naval forces, the rules for which occupy ~4 pages in a 60-ish-page core rulebook. It also has a separate module, named Schiffskrieg, with more concrete rules governing the operations of air and naval forces, with just shy of 30 pages of rules that the designers managed to plug neatly into the sequence of play of the base game.

And, sure, D&D is hardly a hex-and-counter wargame. On the other hand, the actual "procedural" rules of D&D, you might say - the rules telling you how to play the game, as opposed to, say, the reams of exception-based-design content such as spells, magic items, classes, and so on, is probably not far off from the main rules of Axis Empires in terms of page count. Indeed, the chapter on playing the game in the 2024 PHB is just around 30 pages, and the rules glossary at the end is just around 20 pages, in a larger typeface and with only two columns per page (as opposed to Axis Empires' three columns).

 

[Koloth]

Yeah, it's always something constantly considered by me, finding a balance between presenting interesting/worthwhile challenges, and expediency. We never tracked weight/encumbrance in 5e because it was a pain, but when most of my games moved online after COVID and the character sheets autocalc weights for you.. well now, yes, weight is easily tracked and so I can make it matter without it being a drag on game time.

And to stick with the topic, Heward's Handy Haversack shows up pretty early in many games and largely solves the encumbrance thing*. Or even just a masterwork backpack. *Well, except for the sheep. They kinda need air and stuff, but that stuff fits in the haversack.

 

[Distracted DM]

And to stick with the topic, Heward's Handy Haversack shows up pretty early in many games and largely solves the encumbrance thing*. Or even just a masterwork backpack. *Well, except for the sheep. They kinda need air and stuff, but that stuff fits in the haversack.

So, funny thing, with 5e's wording the haversack is almost a worse bag of holding- you need to reference the haversack to realize that while retrieving something from BoH is an action, you can't just grab whatever you want out of it easily, because that's what the haversack does :'D

 

[Chaltab]

So, funny thing, with 5e's wording the haversack is almost a worse bag of holding- you need to reference the haversack to realize that while retrieving something from BoH is an action, you can't just grab whatever you want out of it easily, because that's what the haversack does :'D

I never even noticed that you could take things from the Haversack as a bonus action. Great Scott.

 

[Distracted DM]

I never even noticed that you could take things from the Haversack as a bonus action. Great Scott.

Oh hey, that's new to 5e24. Cool, they actually did something there!

Going on 5e14, the relevant text is:

Bag of Holding: Retrieving an item from the bag requires an action.
Handy Haversack: Retrieving an item from the haversack requires you to use an action. When you reach into the haversack for a specific item, the item is always magically on top.

So retrieving an item from a BoH requires an action... but I guess depending on how much stuff is in there, it might take a lot more time? Like going through a big pile of treasure to find one thing you want- that'd take longer than an action!
Because with the BoH, what you want isn't automatically on top like the Haversack!

What's funny is, those bits of language are still present in 5e24. So the BoH is still apparently a pain in the arse to get stuff out of.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Or, if it still wants to be "the biggest possible tent game", it could stand to try to find ways to make the big tent more comfortable to play in, as it were. Personally, I would suggest stripping away the anemic survival-sim mechanics that D&D currently possesses from the core rules and then having... maybe not survival-sim mechanics, as such, but at least, let's say, "logistics matter" mechanics in an optional rules module. Not unlike how the 2024 DMG has a maybe-kinda-sorta domain play module with Bastions.

In order to make logistics matter you need to strip out a heck of a lot of spells, and turn the game low magic. People tend to get very very angry if their toys are taken away to appease a minority. And rangers become an "I win" button. You would need to remove them too.

Much better to start from scratch with a clean slate game than gut something that is successful and popular.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Anyway the tropiness or lack thereof of torches in fantasy was a bit tangential to my main points, but if tropiness is the measure, they can't be that well bested by Darkvision/Light Cantrip analogues, even in 2025, surely!

I think they can, actually.

Like if I sat down to introduce D&D with friends whose fantasy awareness is around that of the average person, they'd probably kind of expect or feel at home with something like torches and lanterns, but I'd bet they wouldn't see Darkvision coming.

I agree - but that's because it rarely comes up in things like Critical Role or BG3 or even discussions of D&D, but there's a reason it rarely comes up - its very existence means there's no point in playing weird lighting games, so D&D isn't a game about lighting, particularly. It's a bit of paradox or w/e but there it is.

That said, people would absolutely riot if you just outright removed it in a new edition of D&D, and that includes a lot of the tens of millions of people new to D&D with 5E.

Well let me ask you this way: with this in mind, in terms of gameplay enjoyment and general verisimilitude, how important are the mechanics of Darkvision/Light cantrips to you, versus the alternative of just saying or leaving unstated but assuming the fact that in this dungeon/location you can basically see at least 60 feet no problem?

For my money, you just need an explanation for why the PCs can see and how far. You don't necessarily need detail mechanics if you're running a gamist game like D&D, as opposed to a more simulationist one. Hell even in 1E/2E, the actual nature and precise mechanism of action of infravision was inconsistent and seemingly intentionally vague (outside of optional sources which defined it in contradictory ways).

I do think you need to know how it's happening, because that can matter. But I don't think trying to make it a resource to be tracked is very interesting, nor do I think precision mechanics re: darkness/shade/"dim illumination" (lol god help us)/semi-light/full light and so on are particularly useful or engaging. Humans generally have an idea how light works, and really it's like, are they so hard to see Disadvantage should apply or no?

Now, one thing that does matter is that players are clever, so if light sources work in different ways, that will come up as they explore and solve puzzles. I personally propose we go the opposite way with D&D to Shadowdark and the like (not that those aren't cool, but they're distinct and very good at what they do), and actually increase the availability of lighting to PCs, at least laterally - i.e. more options. I also think D&D's default rules should include better equipment ideas generally (they're pretty bleh in 5E, possibly the worst edition equipment-wise), because even if those don't interact with mechanics, players will come up with ways to use them. And that should include more actual-fantasy options.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In order to make logistics matter you need to strip out a heck of a lot of spells, and turn the game low magic. People tend to get very very angry if their toys are taken away to appease a minority. And rangers become an "I win" button. You would need to remove them too.

Much better to start from scratch with a clean slate game than gut something that is successful and popular.

I don't know. A5e made a bunch of changes to accommodate its exploration and supply rules, but it still has rangers, and it's not exactly low magic by default.