Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
The Healing Paradox
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Crazy Jerome" data-source="post: 5948204" data-attributes="member: 54877"><p>I've long thought that part of the problem in D&D is a reward cycle that insufficiently takes into account feedback from the players. Not "feedback" in the sense of the DM listening to them (which ought to happen in any case), but feedback in that as the situation changes, the party is encouraged to do more of what the game is about, albeit in different ways. Part of the reason is that you need a scale that can gradually move.</p><p> </p><p>Hit points are supposed to function as such a feedback loop--and can in AD&D operational play once you get outside of low levels. Hit points, and way to get them back, are finite. But you want to not turn back until necessary, because time spent getting to and from the "dungeon" and/or dealing with wandering monsters is time not spent gaining treasure. So if you think about a big dungeon that requires multiple trips, when to turn back is more about efficiency than immediate death. You are tempted to push on, but you've also got a point at which pushing on is <strong>increasingly</strong> a bad idea.</p><p> </p><p>So we've talked about various death spirals. And some of us have talked in the past about how you can't make the Burning Wheel mechanism work in D&D very well, because there really isn't any incentive for risking failure. And then if you try to do some kind of "more XP or treasure when you push on" mechanic, it often gets unwieldly.</p><p> </p><p>So how about combining a death spiral wound system with bonuses to some positive thing? Let's say "fate points" for this example, and leave exactly what they do for later discussion. Suffice for now to say that having them is unmistakenly a good thing, but you only get them when you are suffering from the wounds (from the death spiral or otherwise). The more you suffer from the wounds, the more you are likely to get fate points. And critically, these fate points don't reset at the end of an adventure. They are a special kind of reward explicitly for pushing on in the face fo the death spiral--and they help you in ways that deal with being in a rough spot--whether you got there by pushing on or stumbled into it later.</p><p> </p><p>Both the death spiral wound system and the fate point system can be modules, and work independently. Use the death spiral wound system by itself, you make the game more gritty and tough. Use the fate point system by itself, and you inject a minor player agency option that doesn't fire very much, because the players are seldom "wounded". Use them together, and you get something that changes the core game to keep it about the same tone, but rewards pressing on in the face of danger.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Crazy Jerome, post: 5948204, member: 54877"] I've long thought that part of the problem in D&D is a reward cycle that insufficiently takes into account feedback from the players. Not "feedback" in the sense of the DM listening to them (which ought to happen in any case), but feedback in that as the situation changes, the party is encouraged to do more of what the game is about, albeit in different ways. Part of the reason is that you need a scale that can gradually move. Hit points are supposed to function as such a feedback loop--and can in AD&D operational play once you get outside of low levels. Hit points, and way to get them back, are finite. But you want to not turn back until necessary, because time spent getting to and from the "dungeon" and/or dealing with wandering monsters is time not spent gaining treasure. So if you think about a big dungeon that requires multiple trips, when to turn back is more about efficiency than immediate death. You are tempted to push on, but you've also got a point at which pushing on is [B]increasingly[/B] a bad idea. So we've talked about various death spirals. And some of us have talked in the past about how you can't make the Burning Wheel mechanism work in D&D very well, because there really isn't any incentive for risking failure. And then if you try to do some kind of "more XP or treasure when you push on" mechanic, it often gets unwieldly. So how about combining a death spiral wound system with bonuses to some positive thing? Let's say "fate points" for this example, and leave exactly what they do for later discussion. Suffice for now to say that having them is unmistakenly a good thing, but you only get them when you are suffering from the wounds (from the death spiral or otherwise). The more you suffer from the wounds, the more you are likely to get fate points. And critically, these fate points don't reset at the end of an adventure. They are a special kind of reward explicitly for pushing on in the face fo the death spiral--and they help you in ways that deal with being in a rough spot--whether you got there by pushing on or stumbled into it later. Both the death spiral wound system and the fate point system can be modules, and work independently. Use the death spiral wound system by itself, you make the game more gritty and tough. Use the fate point system by itself, and you inject a minor player agency option that doesn't fire very much, because the players are seldom "wounded". Use them together, and you get something that changes the core game to keep it about the same tone, but rewards pressing on in the face of danger. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
The Healing Paradox
Top