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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 8774309" data-attributes="member: 7006">From my perspective everything has come about because the focus of D&D 5E has changed dramatically from where it was 40 years ago:Story over game.Why do people think Tiny Hut breaks "the game"?  Because people want to use 5E as the same game they did 40 years ago, where you have resources you have to manage in order to survive long enough to get to where you are going to win your prize (treasure, gold, whatever.)  But 5E doesn't care about that "game" all that much.  What is truly important is the Story-- where are the PCs going and what are they questing to do and who are they going to meet to accomplish what task?  And what slows down that story?  Meaningless fights and "random encounters" in the middle of the night by packs of wolves that serve no purpose because resource management is no longer a part of the game.  Tiny Hut just allows us to just skip over that unnecessary speedbump that used to be all the rage 40 years ago, but is now a waste of time because it has nothing to do with the story everyone at the table is telling.  Where we are going after we wake up is what matters-- rando fights against nameless creatures whose results will be completely wiped away after everyone wakes anyway, isn't.Darkvision is the same thing-- a way to skip an endlessly repetitive set of "monsters surprise you from the darkness!" attacks because now you can see them more often than not.  Isn't that always the clarion call of DMs who complain about the proliferation of Darkvision?  That they can't surprise their players anymore?  Well from the perspective of Story... the question would be asked "Why are you so desperate to attack your PCs from hiding all the time?  Is there a Story reason to do so?"  If there was a Story reason to do so... if the narrative of the adventure the party was on was for this to happen... then the DM can add in all manner of special magic / events /rules which could screw up, reduce, or even eliminate the effectiveness of Darkvision this one time in order to emphasize this part of the Story.  But that's a special case for this Story-- not something that would be done all the time.  And 5E is telling us that if surprising the PCs with hidden monsters doesn't matter as they are traveling through X corridor heading toward the next point in their adventure... then having so many monsters with Darkvision is just pointing that fact out.And how about the Ranger's ability that specifically prevents the party from "getting lost"?  That's there because there are only so many times you can run the "Whoops!  You got turned around!  Gotta find your way back!" trope before it again just becomes a meaningless speedbump that slows forward progress of the Story of finding the troll warren because they have villagers that are going to die if they aren't rescued.I know this rubs a lot of past edition players the wrong way... especially those DMs who say "story" comes out of what the PCs do through random excursions and wanderings across an open map, and not an adventure path throughline that the DM has running in the background and which the players will pick up on and probably engage with to campaign completion.  But I don't believe that is what 5E is.  Here's my honest belief:  5E is not a game built for sandbox play.It isn't designed to have a handful of characters just going out with a pack of supplies that have to keep track of on "adventures", trying to survive in the wilds, fighting monsters, and looking for treasure.  That's a game style of older editions.  It's not for 5E.  And we can just go down the line of every class feature and spell that does its level best to erase a facet of AD&D "survival game" play.  And yet because 5E is the Game Du Jour... people try to use it that way and get constantly annoyed that it doesn't really work to their satisfaction (without a heavy dose of modification.)But for the rest of us... mostly probably newer players and occasionally older schmucks like me who actually prefer Story-based play and couldn't give a rat's ass about "random encounter tables" or having to detour from the adventure for three days to go look for fresh water because our "waterskins are running low"... having Adventure Path campaigns and an emphasis on Narrative over Game makes 5E our preferred edition.  And in that regard... whether you have magic or not doesn't really matter because you can't use magic to skip the Story.  The Story takes the availability of magic into account.</blockquote>

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