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

[payn]

I think this explains a lot of the current style of dungeon design, a mostly linear sequence of carefully designed and balanced, often hermetically sealed combat encounters (a style that reaches its apotheosis in Pathfinder 2e). The ideal contribution of the survivalist skin (and in my experience, often the reality) is that players start thinking above the level of the encounter, about the dungeon or dungeon level as a whole.** The monster fighting fundamentals by themselves can feel a bit impoverished on their own, by comparison. I can understand why a surprising number of modern D&D players say that they find Dungeon crawls (half of the titular Ds, at least!) boring! They frequently no longer have the supporting infrastructure that imbues them with much additional tension and consequence.

*I don’t think it’s originator meant it fully literally, but it is sometimes taken as such
** I am using dungeon in a pretty broad sense, any interconnected location full of risk and reward

PF2 is designed to be a thinly veiled encounters system. It should not be viewed in any way as a resource attrition survival sim. Though, I think it is worth examining if dungeons crawls are seen as boring because they are not done right; or if they are just not wanted at all? I can say, as someone who has been playing for decades, I dont miss the old school skill play. That said, I also ran through PF2 Abomination Vaults (or at least the first several levels of it) and can completely agree with you it doesn't feel old school for even a second. The system has everything to do with that too. It doesn't facilitate survival sim by design.

As I understand my proposals, my argument is that folks who prefer differently won't have to adjust! The systems they already don't interact with still won't have to be interacted with, they'll just now work for those who want to interact with them. I suppose some responses in this thread suggest that some tables do infact get value specifically out of these things not working but still existing in their non functional form (e.g. players loving to say they have darkvision when the DM says its dark) - I still optimistically, maybe delusionally, think with a little bit of thought and modularity all of these varied preferences can be accommodated in a single system, and that we can have our cake and eat it too.

That was the plan originally. The modularity I mean. I think the designers wanted old schoolers and nu skoolers doing their thing with the same edition of D&D. So, they set out with a basic generic system that is easy to hack in many ways, but not particularly built to do anything particularly well. Turns out the olive branch to old players and an explosion of new players led to unforeseen success. WotC never had to engage part 2 of the plan.

It's kind of interesting that this particular maybe rather narrow vision of heroic fantasy has become so dominant to be the genre D&D is designed for, since I don't think this was always the case. Considering a broader "adventure" genre to draw from, just thinking about film, we have gameable elements in what you might call gritty survivalist threats in everything from Indiana Jones (with a scene where the last torch literally burns out) to Dune (with its prominent survival elements) to the Mummy (a bit of both).

I think you are confusing moments of tension or scenes with the totality of the experience. Indy Jones has torch moments, but he doesnt spend significant time of the movie dealing with food rations and searching for snake anti-venom. Which leads me to think that old school survival sim missed the point even back then. It was the gamist element at the forefront with fantasy trappings as dressing. That has flipped in design since to setting up tense moments of set piece encounters at the expense of a gamist survival sim play.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Perhaps I am strange and paradox-strategy-game-brained but I don't think I've ever found torches a logistical hassle or accounting bother.

Nah, they never are difficult, it's true, they're just boring. That's the thing. If you think a profoundly boring thing can be made interesting without massively reorienting the entire game in a way most players wouldn't be into, you have indeed played too much EU4 and "forgotten the face of your father", as it were.

But it is such an iconic element of so much fantasy/adventure literature, film, imagery - seems pretty sad to remove from low levels.

Yawn. Sorry but yawn. We can't live in some nerd from 1981's imagination forever. we're coming up on 40 years later dude. I loved Conan the Barbarian too but times change. And it's nowhere as iconic as you suggest, that's the the thing. Torches aren't this huge part of modern fantasy/adventure literature - most fantasy I've read in the last few decades (again we're talking multiple decades here, not ten years, not twenty, but more than that!) characters tend to use lanterns of various descriptions - mechanical/oil/gas, magical, bioluminescent (the most recent two fantasy novels I read are full of that, the main character is shocked when he encounters torches at one point, he's never really been around them before), and so on, or straight up use magic. The same is true for fantasy videogames. Even the Souls games and Elden Ring, which aggressively 1980s aesthetically (or use it as a jumping off point, anyway), pretty much immediately have you using a lantern (and/or magic).

It's primarily a 1980s aesthetic. If anything, we need to go the other way and officialize more non-torch actual light sources that aren't magic. Hell, even 1989 when I started playing, only poor losers used torches. Everyone else had lanterns by like level 2 at the latest. Most people could afford them in chargen. We should give more fantastical fantasy options, rather than leaning into incredibly boring 1980s stuff.

I think the nice thing about torches, from a gameplay perspective, versus darkvision, is that they can go out. A badly timed gust or an orc with a bucket of water can be very bad when you are starting out.

Hence no-one uses them. They're absolute rubbish and unneeded in D&D, because D&D isn't Shadowdark or w/e. People use lanterns or magic.

Then, you start getting magical solutions, more secure, but maybe can be dispelled and in any case have a cost (not really in 5e, but that's partly my point in OP)

This hasn't been true in any WotC edition, man. It's been 25 years of magical lighting from level 1. 25 years.

 

[James Gasik]

Nah, they never are difficult, it's true, they're just boring. That's the thing. If you think a profoundly boring thing can be made interesting without massively reorienting the entire game in a way most players wouldn't be into, you have indeed played too much EU4 and "forgotten the face of your father", as it were.


Yawn. Sorry but yawn. We can't live in some nerd from 1981's imagination forever. we're coming up on 40 years later dude. I loved Conan the Barbarian too but times change. And it's nowhere as iconic as you suggest, that's the the thing. Torches aren't this huge part of modern fantasy/adventure literature - most fantasy I've read in the last few decades (again we're talking multiple decades here, not ten years, not twenty, but more than that!) characters tend to use lanterns of various descriptions - mechanical/oil/gas, magical, bioluminescent (the most recent two fantasy novels I read are full of that, the main character is shocked when he encounters torches at one point, he's never really been around them before), and so on, or straight up use magic. The same is true for fantasy videogames. Even the Souls games and Elden Ring, which aggressively 1980s aesthetically (or use it as a jumping off point, anyway), pretty much immediately have you using a lantern (and/or magic).

It's primarily a 1980s aesthetic. If anything, we need to go the other way and officialize more non-torch actual light sources that aren't magic. Hell, even 1989 when I started playing, only poor losers used torches. Everyone else had lanterns by like level 2 at the latest. Most people could afford them in chargen. We should give more fantastical fantasy options, rather than leaning into incredibly boring 1980s stuff.


Hence no-one uses them. They're absolute rubbish and unneeded in D&D, because D&D isn't Shadowdark or w/e. People use lanterns or magic.


This hasn't been true in any WotC edition, man. It's been 25 years of magical lighting from level 1. 25 years.

I want to know what happened to sunrods.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Diseases and environmental effects.

The former are…well, I guess they don’t exist anymore. It’s the poisoned condition and they are so easy to deal with it’s a wonder there are mechanics at all.

The latter are so rarely used or implemented. Why someone in full play can wander a desert as easily as someone in proper travelling clothes is funny. Cold weather? Do you have “winter outfit” on your character sheet? Okay, no problem, you can totally spend the night in a snow bank sleeping.

 

[Pamphylian]

PF2 is designed to be a thinly veiled encounters system.

Agreed, and this is my biggest issue with it. Plenty of people like this style, nothing objectively wrong with it (except maybe that any not-possibly deadly encounter feels pretty pointless, because there's no attrition except for spells), but not what I want from a ttrpg.

That was the plan originally. The modularity I mean. I think the designers wanted old schoolers and nu skoolers doing their thing with the same edition of D&D. So, they set out with a basic generic system that is easy to hack in many ways, but not particularly built to do anything particularly well. Turns out the olive branch to old players and an explosion of new players led to unforeseen success. WotC never had to engage part 2 of the plan.

I think it did decently well all things considered. I just think there are a few areas where it could improve things without upsetting the compromise.

I think you are confusing moments of tension or scenes with the totality of the experience. Indy Jones has torch moments, but he doesnt spend significant time of the movie dealing with food rations and searching for snake anti-venom. Which leads me to think that old school survival sim missed the point even back then. It was the gamist element at the forefront with fantasy trappings as dressing. That has flipped in design since to setting up tense moments of set piece encounters at the expense of a gamist survival sim play.

I think the moments of tension are the joy of the simulationist elements for me. Marking off resources would not be fun at all if it did not occasionally produce them. In fact, that's basically my criticism of the current state of things - if you don't know better you might be lulled into marking off rations or whatever but there won't ever be tension by design so it's just boring. I like these tense moments in a gamist sim context because they will often arise organically, from a dice roll or a bad decision. Yes you can contrive these moments in a set piece way as a DM (you might have to contrive awful hard in 5e as written for things like light) but my enjoyment of them being emergent is much greater than any displeasure I might feel from tracking things in the first place (which extremely mild my case - not the case for everyone!).

 

[Pamphylian]

Nah, they never are difficult, it's true, they're just boring. That's the thing. If you think a profoundly boring thing can be made interesting without massively reorienting the entire game in a way most players wouldn't be into, you have indeed played too much EU4 and "forgotten the face of your father", as it were.


Yawn. Sorry but yawn. We can't live in some nerd from 1981's imagination forever. we're coming up on 40 years later dude. I loved Conan the Barbarian too but times change. And it's nowhere as iconic as you suggest, that's the the thing. Torches aren't this huge part of modern fantasy/adventure literature - most fantasy I've read in the last few decades (again we're talking multiple decades here, not ten years, not twenty, but more than that!) characters tend to use lanterns of various descriptions - mechanical/oil/gas, magical, bioluminescent (the most recent two fantasy novels I read are full of that, the main character is shocked when he encounters torches at one point, he's never really been around them before), and so on, or straight up use magic. The same is true for fantasy videogames. Even the Souls games and Elden Ring, which aggressively 1980s aesthetically (or use it as a jumping off point, anyway), pretty much immediately have you using a lantern (and/or magic).

It's primarily a 1980s aesthetic. If anything, we need to go the other way and officialize more non-torch actual light sources that aren't magic. Hell, even 1989 when I started playing, only poor losers used torches. Everyone else had lanterns by like level 2 at the latest. Most people could afford them in chargen. We should give more fantastical fantasy options, rather than leaning into incredibly boring 1980s stuff.


Hence no-one uses them. They're absolute rubbish and unneeded in D&D, because D&D isn't Shadowdark or w/e. People use lanterns or magic.


This hasn't been true in any WotC edition, man. It's been 25 years of magical lighting from level 1. 25 years.

I wasn't even a twinkle in my parents eye in the 80's so maybe that explains my atavistic attraction. (I'm using torches as a stand in for any mundane light source but of course torches feel the most fun - yes I know they realistically are not at all practical in an enclosed dungeon). But I dunno is it really just an 80's aesthetic? Peter Jackson's LotR? The Mummy? Game of Thrones? Lotta torches all over.

Edit: and this is to say nothing of pre-80's torches. Need a full history of the torch in adventure stories. This is a start, but not nearly comprehensive or analytical enough.

 

[payn]

Agreed, and this is my biggest issue with it. Plenty of people like this style, nothing objectively wrong with it (except maybe that any not-possibly deadly encounter feels pretty pointless, because there's no attrition except for spells), but not what I want from a ttrpg.

I think it did decently well all things considered. I just think there are a few areas where it could improve things without upsetting the compromise.

I think the moments of tension are the joy of the simulationist elements for me. Marking off resources would not be fun at all if it did not occasionally produce them. In fact, that's basically my criticism of the current state of things - if you don't know better you might be lulled into marking off rations or whatever but there won't ever be tension by design so it's just boring. I like these tense moments in a gamist sim context because they will often arise organically, from a dice roll or a bad decision. Yes you can contrive these moments in a set piece way as a DM (you might have to contrive awful hard in 5e as written for things like light) but my enjoyment of them being emergent is much greater than any displeasure I might feel from tracking things in the first place (which extremely mild my case - not the case for everyone!).

I was in a Forbidden Lands game not too long ago by Free League. Now, that produced a survival sim feeling that D&D just wont anymore. So, I get what you are after, but I think its a backbone design piece that you cant slip in, or slip out as you see fit. Its a hard ask for D&D to deliver this.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I wasn't even a twinkle in my parents eye in the 80's so maybe that explains my atavistic attraction! (I'm using torches as a stand in for any mundane light source but of course torches feel the most fun - yes I know they realistically are not at all practical in an enclosed dungeon). But I dunno is it really just an 80's aesthetic? Peter Jackson's LotR? The Mummy? Game of Thrones? Lotta torches all over.

Exactly. Movies have torches all over the place. No one runs out or the scenes would be dark. Scooby Doo has scenes with the characters in utter darkness, movies don't.

I played d&d in the 80s. The books might have paid lip service to exploration, but adventures were heavy on violence and light on anything other than traps.

 

[Chaltab]

I would like to point out that even in Lord of the Rings, Gandalf cast seemingly at-will magical light on his staff and Frodo had the Light of Eärendil... so magic light sources predate D&D in fantasy by decades if not centuries.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Nah, they never are difficult, it's true, they're just boring. That's the thing. If you think a profoundly boring thing can be made interesting without massively reorienting the entire game in a way most players wouldn't be into, you have indeed played too much EU4 and "forgotten the face of your father", as it were.


Yawn. Sorry but yawn. We can't live in some nerd from 1981's imagination forever. we're coming up on 40 years later dude. I loved Conan the Barbarian too but times change. And it's nowhere as iconic as you suggest, that's the the thing. Torches aren't this huge part of modern fantasy/adventure literature - most fantasy I've read in the last few decades (again we're talking multiple decades here, not ten years, not twenty, but more than that!) characters tend to use lanterns of various descriptions - mechanical/oil/gas, magical, bioluminescent (the most recent two fantasy novels I read are full of that, the main character is shocked when he encounters torches at one point, he's never really been around them before), and so on, or straight up use magic. The same is true for fantasy videogames. Even the Souls games and Elden Ring, which aggressively 1980s aesthetically (or use it as a jumping off point, anyway), pretty much immediately have you using a lantern (and/or magic).

It's primarily a 1980s aesthetic. If anything, we need to go the other way and officialize more non-torch actual light sources that aren't magic. Hell, even 1989 when I started playing, only poor losers used torches. Everyone else had lanterns by like level 2 at the latest. Most people could afford them in chargen. We should give more fantastical fantasy options, rather than leaning into incredibly boring 1980s stuff.


Hence no-one uses them. They're absolute rubbish and unneeded in D&D, because D&D isn't Shadowdark or w/e. People use lanterns or magic.


This hasn't been true in any WotC edition, man. It's been 25 years of magical lighting from level 1. 25 years.

You know, I really wish you would stop presenting your personal subjective opinio so as if they were unassailable facts. This reads as quite insulting to those who disagree with your preference.