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

[Composer99]

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.

First, I'm annoyed that I feel compelled to repeat myself here: an optional "logistics matter" rules module is contingent on D&D wanting to remain a "biggest tent possible" game. D&D has certainly gone further in moving away from that ambition in the 2024 rules update, but to my mind the very fact this kind of topic has come up again suggests the game still gives out a "big tent" impression, deliberately or not, to this day.

If D&D were willing to ditch its vestigial survival-sim mechanics and fully embrace being a heroic-fantasy game with little concern for quotidian logistics, we wouldn't be having these discussions, because players who enjoy "logistics matter" play wouldn't be misled into thinking there is something in D&D for that kind of play. I don't even think that would make an appreciable dent in sales numbers.

Second, and again I'm annoyed that I feel compelled to repeat myself, an optional "logistics matter" rules module is just that. Just as no one is obliged to play with Bastions in their games, or no one is obliged to play Schiffskrieg in Axis Empires, no one would be obliged to add "logistics matter" content, with whatever implications that might have for other rules, to a D&D heroic fantasy core.

Third, the 2024 Ranger, at least, has no "I win" buttons related to exploration or logistics in their class features:

• At 2nd level, they get expertise in a skill and two extra languages.
• At 9th level, they get expertise in two more skills.
• At 10th level, they can reduce Exhaustion on a short rest as well as a long one.

All their other features are combat-focused.

There are a few spells rangers get that can be "I win" buttons, such as alarm or goodberry, but I rather doubt any of these are so integral to the ranger class identity that changing their availability in an optional rules module requires ditching the ranger as a whole.

Fourth, it feels a bit academic to be arguing over whether or not it's possible to make logistics matter in contemporary D&D since, as far as I am aware, EN World's 5e-like Level Up! has done just that.

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As a final word, I'm personally inclined to just ditch survival-sim or logistics rules in D&D and lean into the heroic fantasy. You can include light touches that add some survival-like pizzazz by way of events that can occur during overland or dungeon exploration, not unlike the Exploration Challenges in Level Up!

For instance, instead of having to either meticulously track food supplies or handwave them with goodberry, just assume that the adventurers have the food they need, and once a campaign or so, you could have an event to the effect of, "rats might get into your food supply!"

Such events would, to my mind, need to have opportunities for the player characters to be rewarded, as opposed to just punishing them for, say, not happening to have the correct spell prepared that day or a character of the correct class in the party.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

an optional "logistics matter" rules module is contingent on D&D wanting to remain a "biggest tent possible" game

And how would such a “logistics meter” function without removing all spells and class abilities that enable it to be bypassed?

Not to mention implicit abilities. If a ranger can't find food in the wilderness, what's the point of them?

 

[SkidAce]

...

For instance, instead of having to either meticulously track food supplies or handwave them with goodberry, just assume that the adventurers have the food they need, and once a campaign or so, you could have an event to the effect of, "rats might get into your food supply!"

Such events would, to my mind, need to have opportunities for the player characters to be rewarded, as opposed to just punishing them for, say, not happening to have the correct spell prepared that day or a character of the correct class in the party.

Funny story...

An adventuring group (low level) of a human fighter, elf druid, dragonborn monk, and a gnome wizard got ambushed deep in a dungeon. The wizard and the druid had been the light sources, but they were unconscious. Bereft of healing, the fighter and the monk had to drag them out in the darkness, while the grung searched for them.

I described intersections, and ambient conditions. They went the wrong way for a while, stumbling in the dark, but eventually a good perception check pointed toward a waterfall, which they remembered had stairs near it.

They still talk about that to this day, and they always have sunstone with them now (they did discuss torches).

 

[Composer99]

And how would such a “logistics meter” function without removing all spells and class abilities that enable it to be bypassed?

Not to mention implicit abilities. If a ranger can't find food in the wilderness, what's the point of them?

Spells such as create food and water still exist in Level Up!, and not only does the ranger class still exist in Level Up!, if anything the class has even more widgets with which to interact with exploration or logistical play than does the 2014!5e ranger, much less the 2024!5e ranger. As such I do not agree that "logistics matters" play requires eliminating spells and classes from the game.

That last question strikes me as odd. Among the goals of enabling "logistics matter" play include such things as:

• Making it worth your while to do things like forage for food in the wilderness;
• Making it worth your while to keep track of how much you are carrying;
• Making it worth your while to account for carrying a light source, such as a lantern, sunrod, torch, or what-have-you.

To my mind, that happens not by including rules that are merely punitive ("eat enough food or you starve!") but by integrating decision-points related to logistical considerations into core gameplay and by making it rewarding for players to engage with those decision-points.

Circling back to your last question, another way to put it is that "logistics matter" play makes it worth your while to bring characters like a ranger along - not because they bypass the decision-points during gameplay, but because they add to the possible set of solutions you can apply to those decisions.

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With respect to logistics in gameplay, the problem with modern D&D, as I see it, is two-fold:

1. In practice, logistical considerations don't actually matter in play, but the game has a surprising plentitude of rules making it out that they do, from the rules for malnutrition to the need to count up weight by the pound.
2. These rules that the game possesses are, more or less, exclusively punitive in nature, with no interesting decision points to be had. You either have enough food or you (eventually) start gaining levels of Exhaustion, for instance.

Obviously, what qualifies as interesting or fun decision-points during play is going to vary from player to player; all the more reason, to my mind, for D&D to either jettison logistics play entirely or to spin it off into an optional rules module, depending on the size of the player base that enjoys such play. In any case I do not think that there is enough demand for logistical play to continue to incorporate it in the core rules of the game.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Spells such as create food and water still exist in Level Up!, and not only does the ranger class still exist in Level Up!, if anything the class has even more widgets with which to interact with exploration or logistical play than does the 2014!5e ranger, much less the 2024!5e ranger. As such I do not agree that "logistics matters" play requires eliminating spells and classes from the game.

My concussion from that is that Level Up! Is no different from 5e. It’s not a logistics based game, nor is it trying to be. Logistics can easily be solved by magic - as you would expect them to be in any world with abundant magic.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

• Making it worth your while to do things like forage for food in the wilderness;
• Making it worth your while to keep track of how much you are carrying;
• Making it worth your while to account for carrying a light source, such as a lantern, sunrod, torch, or what-have-you

Players play to enjoy themselves. An activity is “worth their while” if they enjoy doing it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My concussion from that is that Level Up! Is no different from 5e. It’s not a logistics based game, nor is it trying to be. Logistics can easily be solved by magic - as you would expect them to be in any world with abundant magic.

Create food and water doesn't help with Supply. Neither does goodberry. You do not appear to be familiar enough with A5e to counter the claims of those that are.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Create food and water doesn't help with Supply.

Why not? If I can magically create a ball of fire, surely I can magically create a ball of drinking water? I thought you were a simulationist? This “supply” seems hard-core gamist, making no sense in the fiction of the world.

I get a metal funnel and put it in a bottle. Then I cast Ray of Frost into it until I have a bottle full of fresh drinking water.

 

[Composer99]

Players play to enjoy themselves. An activity is “worth their while” if they enjoy doing it.

This strikes me as an unproductive, reductive truism, in that it's true but unhelpful if we stop further analysis or discussion at this point. We may as well all just stop playing D&D and start playing Tetris if the only thing that matters is that we "enjoy it".

Clearly, playing D&D is better than playing Tetris for certain kinds of gameplay, and vice-versa. The same general principle can be extended to consider that some design decisions might make playing D&D better for enabling fantasy gaming with little concern for logistics versus fantasy gaming with moderate or great concern for logistics. It is genuinely helpful to think through what those decisions might be and why WotC might want to make one set of decisions and not another.

 

[Distracted DM]

Why not? If I can magically create a ball of fire, surely I can magically create a ball of drinking water? I thought you were a simulationist? This “supply” seems hard-core gamist, making no sense in the fiction of the world.

I get a metal funnel and put it in a bottle. Then I cast Ray of Frost into it until I have a bottle full of fresh drinking water.

Goodberry's the obvious 5e spell that makes food unnecessary, while also providing on-demand healing.. as a 1st level spell! Available immediately! A5E makes goodberry provide healing, but it doesn't give days nourishment like the 5e version. A5E has create food and water but that's a 3rd level spell- it has one serving of food as a material requirement, and turns it into three supply.. so it's hardly a game-breaker.

But yes, Supply is a gameist conceit, not simulationist.