D&D General The Great Railroad Thread

[Thomas Shey]

Tangential to the railroading, but
RE: zero to hero

Yes, it's not exactly common to see such power progression (or, frankly, much power progression at all) outside of RPGs. Is that a bad thing? Raising a character from nothing to your desired build is, like, fun.

I suspect the number of people who find starting from "nothing" isn't as large as you imply here.

I'd say an interesting area of design is introducing some sort of randomization to progression, sort of like "get three options, pick one" so common in modern roguelikes (I'm not going to delve into an asinine argument about -like and -lite distinction) to make players think of their feet rather than planning every detail of their build in advance.

Though in matter of degree not specifics, the BRP system has had semi-random progression (in exactly when and how much it happened with a given skill) for a long time. Its far from a non-controversial mechanic in how its received.

 

[loverdrive]

Though in matter of degree not specifics, the BRP system has had semi-random progression (in exactly when and how much it happened with a given skill) for a long time. Its far from a non-controversial mechanic in how its received.

Oh for sure. I wouldn't imagine players being particularly happy. It can easily be very clumsy.

Randomizing how much progression you get is frustration city, but I'm thinking more about horizontal (or even orthogonal, as in, solving a different problem) options

Within the existing dnd framework, powerful, mechanics-heavy magic items could be an interesting way to structure progression alongside normal (or slowed down) XP gain could be a way to achieve similar results.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Oh for sure. I wouldn't imagine players being particularly happy. It can easily be very clumsy.

Randomizing how much progression you get is frustration city, but I'm thinking more about horizontal (or even orthogonal, as in, solving a different problem) options

The problem is, even if you manage to get the horizontal options all theoretically even in value, the number of players who will see it that way isn't liable to be huge, and will probably resent being forced into just taking what the die roll gives them.

 

[bloodtide]

Yes, it's not exactly common to see such power progression (or, frankly, much power progression at all) outside of RPGs. Is that a bad thing? Raising a character from nothing to your desired build is, like, fun.

Other games don't really have such "rankings".

I'd say an interesting area of design is introducing some sort of randomization to progression, sort of like "get three options, pick one" so common in modern roguelikes (I'm not going to delve into an asinine argument about -like and -lite distinction) to make players think of their feet rather than planning every detail of their build in advance.

Are you saying give out abilities at random? Not allowing the players to pick and choose them?

 

[loverdrive]

Other games don't really have such "rankings".

Are you saying give out abilities at random? Not allowing the players to pick and choose them?

No, they can pick and choose from a limited set of random options.

As the crudest example, you level up and roll for 3 random classes. Maybe on a big table, maybe on three smaller ones like martial/arcane/divine. Pick one, gain a level in that class. It would force players to seek some interesting synergies, I believe

This would also probably dampen 5e's superhero-ish feel because on average multiclassing is... bad