Parmandur
Book-Friend
Have you read the new book? Because it does not do that thing.Ravenloft first came out in 1983, though. They're still rehashing the old.
Have you read the new book? Because it does not do that thing.Ravenloft first came out in 1983, though. They're still rehashing the old.
'm not afraid of people playing the game, I'm afraid of WotC stagnating in nostalgia and becoming scared of innovating.
I agree that dungeon crawling is not how the game is typically played any more. But it is what 5e was designed around. In the backlash to 4e there was a heavy push to bring the game back to its roots, and the adventures that 5e were playtested with (Keep on the Borderlands, Isle of Dread, and an original adventure set in Blingdenstone) reflected this.The dmg lists several different styles of play and adventure creation. I would argue, as others have done, that dungeon-crawling is more heritage at this point, and not really indicative of how people play, which is why this issues comes up so much (I would wager it's the most common gripe with the mechanics of this edition from what I've seen).
That’s not what it says at all. It says a party of 3-5 characters can handle about 6-8 medium or hard encounters with 2 short rests in-between. If you want to push the characters to the point where they’re at risk of dying, then yeah, you’ve got to give them about as much as they can handle, and maybe even a bit more. Of course, if you’re not looking to run a super deadly challenge, the game works absolutely fine with different parameters.Dnd has this wide open narrative framework in which anything can happen and then says, you must do 6-8 of this very particular thing, which is tied to in-game units (short and long rests).
Not at all! If the players can’t find (or make) an opportunity to get the rest they need, that just forces them into a difficult position where they have to make some tough choices. That’s… kind of the hallmark of this style of play.So if short rests aren't possible in the dungeon you've created, the game "breaks."
Making resource recovery a meta-game resource like 13A does certainly foolproofs resource recovery. That’s actually a drawback in my opinion, as it takes the agency to break those expectations away from the players and the GM. I do agree though that 4e was more transparent about how it’s encounter design worked (something 5e playtesters actually railed against!) and harder to mess up thanks to the 5-minute short rest. Which also appeared in 5e playtesting, and got shot down. Playesters didn’t want players to be able to count on being able to get a short rest (for some reason).At least a game like 13th age is more honest about how it approaches resource recovery, and 4e more honest in encounter design, though neither is my cup of tea.
It’s also not really what 5e recommends. 6-8 discrete medium and hard encounters with exactly 2 short rests is an overly literal and rigid interpretation of what’s written as a general guideline of how much the average party can handle.fwiw, this style of play (6-8 discrete medium and hard encounters with exactly 2 rests) isn't really a "dungeon crawl" in the bx/1e sense.
I have not. What new things does it bring that DnD hasn't done before?Have you read the new book? Because it does not do that thing.
It's not even the cutseyness per se for me. I saw a Runehammer video the other day where he described it as "too realized," as in too determinative of what you see in your mind's eye. I also don't like the homogeneity of all the books, inclusive of the art style and (terrible, imo) layout/formatting, and the way that everyone on dms guild copies their formatting. I came up with late basic and then 2e, and loved how each setting got a very unique style, driven by particular artists.Having been in a band in the same town as Live (if anyone else remembers them from the 90s), I can understand that instant avoidance response.
In my experience, D&D 5e has been plenty deadly. As a DM, I've had one character die, and countless reduced to making death saves, and I am by no means a hardcase of a DM. I've been at a D&D Epic that ended in a TPK (and was still a blast).
While we're talking old school deadliness, after a certain point in an adventurer's career it's not like death was little more than an inconvenience and a GP siphon back in the AD&D days.
D&D has always run the gamut of tonalities, often within a single adventure.
Yes, 5e has some cutesy art, but so did 1e:
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Love the wizard's eye-roll. And in turn, 5e has some darker art:
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Certainly if each of those encounters is taking 30+ minutes and you have to break the adventuring day up over 2+ sessions, that would be quite a slog. These sorts of encounters should take 10 minutes, tops (and that was the benchmark they shot for in the playtest). Maybe with one climactic set pice that takes closer to 20 or 30.Grinding is the right word. Anytime I've been in a 6-8 encounter adventuring day, either as player or dm, it was tedious and took multiple sessions. It was not exciting. Obviously ymmv. But if that's the dmg-approved "base game," it's not a very interesting one.
I’d say it’s just a result of how math works. The more encounters you have, the more dice get rolled, the closer the aggregate results trend towards the mean.Is the swinginess of deadlier encounters (and higher level play) intentional?
Neither book we know about coming later this year is nostalgia, they cover new themes.
Oh for sure. I'm actually glad that, for once, corporate synergy is leading to new stuff like the Magic setting and that they're willing to create new settings as well. I meant more in a general far flung 'future' sense if the current popularity continue to increase... especially if the movie ends up being a hit too. It's not a 'now' problem.Considering they announced they are working on not one, but two brand-new settings, that are not MtG settings, I don't think this will be a problem. And aside from that, they seem to be doing some innovating within each MtG setting book as well.
That's honestly what I want to happen, so here's hoping.I could see WotC being really affraid of any significant edition change even after 20 years of 5e. And even if they do make a new edition, I expect a lot of mechanic being grand-fathered in just for the sakee of continuing from 5e, regardless if new ideas would fit better.
It isn't that I don't think people should enjoy D&D, or that WotC shouldn't try to broaden its appeal. I just don't like the way it feels in this context. That's all.
Yeah, well, we should not expect new, young blood to come into conventions filled with older people. They will find and establish their own spaces, not move into yours.I actually worry about a couple of the conventions I attend that seem to be getting grayer and fatter every year along with me, without a lot of new blood coming in.
But once it gets mainstream it is made for the lowest common denominator to please as many people as possible at least a bit, resulting in a watered down product.
Yeah, they are guidelines for a maximal experience, not the only way the game functions. Matt Mercer essentially never throws fights at the Critical Role crew that aren't cakewalks, because 7 PCs with no resource grind are basically unbeatable: but he still gives his players a fun time. He puts the fear of God into them with theatrics, rather than pushing the characters to their actual mechanical limits. The game plays fine that way, but yes without grinding PCs resources it will be hard to kill them.I agree that dungeon crawling is not how the game is typically played any more. But it is what 5e was designed around. In the backlash to 4e there was a heavy push to bring the game back to its roots, and the adventures that 5e were playtested with (Keep on the Borderlands, Isle of Dread, and an original adventure set in Blingdenstone) reflected this.
Now, to bring this back around to the topic, 5e’s explosion in popularity brought in new players who weren’t as interested in this old-school delve style of play, which is what has lead to this disconnect people experience between the way the game was designed and the way they want to use it.
That’s not what it says at all. It says a party of 3-5 characters can handle about 6-8 medium or hard encounters with 2 short rests in-between. If you want to push the characters to the point where they’re at risk of dying, then yeah, you’ve got to give them about as much as they can handle, and maybe even a bit more. Of course, if you’re not looking to run a super deadly challenge, the game works absolutely fine with different parameters.
Not at all! If the players can’t find (or make) an opportunity to get the rest they need, that just forces them into a difficult position where they have to make some tough choices. That’s… kind of the hallmark of this style of play.
Making resource recovery a meta-game resource like 13A does certainly foolproofs resource recovery. That’s actually a drawback in my opinion, as it takes the agency to break those expectations away from the players and the GM. I do agree though that 4e was more transparent about how it’s encounter design worked (something 5e playtesters actually railed against!) and harder to mess up thanks to the 5-minute short rest. Which also appeared in 5e playtesting, and got shot down. Playesters didn’t want players to be able to count on being able to get a short rest (for some reason).
It’s also not really what 5e recommends. 6-8 discrete medium and hard encounters with exactly 2 short rests is an overly literal and rigid interpretation of what’s written as a general guideline of how much the average party can handle.