D&D General The Problem with Talking About D&D

[Lyxen]

I mean, is it a great sign for an RPG system that there's so much handwringing in 5e over balanced encounters? This is not a thing in every RPG, or, I'd argue, most of them! These aren't boxing matches. You don't need to weigh all the participants and make sure both sides are perfectly, evenly matched. If the PCs are outmatched, they can run away, like countless protagonists do in countless movies, books, etc. If a fight is easy, well, is the fight really the most interesting part of the story, anyway, or is it some narrative consequence or result from the fight?

For me, this is a drift that started in 3e and was pushed to so much of an extreme in 4e that it led to a "closed" system, because - it's not a coincidence - it happened in parallel with MMORPGs where the environment is fixed which allows balance to be way more controlled (and still people complain that some builds are superiors to others in some environments, etc.). I'm not saying that 3e/4e were MMORPG, but their design was influenced by them.

Thankfully, the 5e designers have realised that balance is completely artificial anway for any combination and that, because it's fully collaborative anyway, it does not matter as much as in games where PvP is so present. And so they reinstated the DM as the supreme authority, which solves all problems at any table assuming that the whole table agrees about this overarching principle

For example, imagine paging through a Call of Cthulhu adventure, and stressing about whether three players make for a balanced encounter against a Shoggoth, while four might walk all over it. Or even in something as combat-heavy and power fantasy-based as 5e, like Shadowrun, does anyone seriously fret about balance like this? I've never seen it myself, and it always makes me feel real weird about this hobby, that a problem so boring and self-inflicted would be such a recurring one.

That's always the problem with creations trying to be multiple things at the same time, the compromise causes these self-inflicted wounds... And while CoC is 100% in the TTRPG sphere, D&D is not (which is not a criticism of other ways to play, but it would be naive to deny it either).

 

[overgeeked]

I mean, is it a great sign for an RPG system that there's so much handwringing in 5e over balanced encounters? This is not a thing in every RPG, or, I'd argue, most of them! These aren't boxing matches. You don't need to weigh all the participants and make sure both sides are perfectly, evenly matched. If the PCs are outmatched, they can run away, like countless protagonists do in countless movies, books, etc. If a fight is easy, well, is the fight really the most interesting part of the story, anyway, or is it some narrative consequence or result from the fight?

For example, imagine paging through a Call of Cthulhu adventure, and stressing about whether three players make for a balanced encounter against a Shoggoth, while four might walk all over it. Or even in something as combat-heavy and power fantasy-based as 5e, like Shadowrun, does anyone seriously fret about balance like this? I've never seen it myself, and it always makes me feel real weird about this hobby, that a problem so boring and self-inflicted would be such a recurring one.

Because some people want balanced encounters and some people don't care about balance. That's partially the point. If your DM picks up a meatgrinder of a tactical module and runs your non-tactical, roleplay-focused group through that...they're going to have a bad time. But if you run your optimized, tactical wargaming group through the same thing they might be bored with how pedestrian all the fights are. So instead of the current one-size-fits-all mistake, you intentionally tailor things to the obvious different playstyles that exist in the hobby. There's video game research on what different players want out of games, I can't think of a better place to start than that.

 

[payn]

I mean, is it a great sign for an RPG system that there's so much handwringing in 5e over balanced encounters? This is not a thing in every RPG, or, I'd argue, most of them! These aren't boxing matches. You don't need to weigh all the participants and make sure both sides are perfectly, evenly matched. If the PCs are outmatched, they can run away, like countless protagonists do in countless movies, books, etc. If a fight is easy, well, is the fight really the most interesting part of the story, anyway, or is it some narrative consequence or result from the fight?

Chicken or egg? Do most other RPGs not have these discussions because there are not enough people playing them to have them?

For example, imagine paging through a Call of Cthulhu adventure, and stressing about whether three players make for a balanced encounter against a Shoggoth, while four might walk all over it. Or even in something as combat-heavy and power fantasy-based as 5e, like Shadowrun, does anyone seriously fret about balance like this? I've never seen it myself, and it always makes me feel real weird about this hobby, that a problem so boring and self-inflicted would be such a recurring one.

I would say the main take away is if these are not problems you have, and find boring, you can always choose not to participate. I'd ask the same of the balanced boxing match folks in your discussions.

 

[Jer]

I mean, is it a great sign for an RPG system that there's so much handwringing in 5e over balanced encounters? This is not a thing in every RPG, or, I'd argue, most of them! These aren't boxing matches. You don't need to weigh all the participants and make sure both sides are perfectly, evenly matched. If the PCs are outmatched, they can run away, like countless protagonists do in countless movies, books, etc. If a fight is easy, well, is the fight really the most interesting part of the story, anyway, or is it some narrative consequence or result from the fight?

This is what makes D&D stories different from other RPG stories - D&D was built from a skirmish wargame into an RPG and so combat ends up being very important. To the point where 3e and 4e were both attempts to find a way to balance the game around combat. D&D also has a character progression mechanism (leveling) that starts them weak and rapidly ends up making them strong - even in 5e that curve is there. Most other RPGs have a much flatter progression curve - characters start out as competent and then their stats improve slowly and often individually.

The power curve being flatter in non-D&D games means that the balance of encounters is flatter too. (I will say that 5e mixes this up quite a bit - the first 3 levels it's very easy to accidentally crush a party of characters, but by 4th level or so that goes away and encounter building is closer to other games now than D&D has ever been.)

 

[Lyxen]

This is what makes D&D stories different from other RPG stories - D&D was built from a skirmish wargame into an RPG and so combat ends up being very important.

I honestly don't think it's the reason. The origins of D&D as a wargame are extremely diluted in editions post AD&D. It's way more about MMORPGs and online combat games than chainmail battles.

Also look at Legends of the Five Rings. Despite its origin as a card game, it's a fantastic TTRPG with almost nothing from the card game in there apart from the background.

To the point where 3e and 4e were both attempts to find a way to balance the game around combat. D&D also has a character progression mechanism (leveling) that starts them weak and rapidly ends up making them strong - even in 5e that curve is there. Most other RPGs have a much flatter progression curve - characters start out as competent and then their stats improve slowly and often individually.

I'm not sure, honestly, I have played campaigns of Runequest leading to Heroquest where the characters started as more incompetent at adventuring than D&D characters and ended up as powerful, if not higher, right in to divine ascension.

The power curve being flatter in non-D&D games means that the balance of encounters is flatter too. (I will say that 5e mixes this up quite a bit - the first 3 levels it's very easy to accidentally crush a party of characters by accident, but by 4th level or so that goes away and encounter building is closer to other games now than D&D has ever been.)

I honestly have not played many "recent" games out there these days, but from previous games, there was no encounter building and certainly no calculator for that in any of the games I've played, for various reasons...

 

[Deset Gled]

Fundamentally, I disagree with some (not all) of his logic. Some people might consider this a "hot take", but IMNSHO your game/table/group is probably not as "unique" as Matt claims. On a small scale, comparing your game to another group you meet, that makes sense. But on an international scale, with millions of games over multiple decades, not so much. No matter how original you think your game's needs are, your character is, or your game is, there's someone across space and/or time playing something very similar to it somewhere else. The "huge variation" he's talking about is, frankly not so huge. I suppose I would liken this to a sommelier who's trying to tell me how the 2008 vintage of the Stuffy Shirt Vineyard cabernet sauvignon blanc is completely different, unique, and a "huge variation" from the 2009 vintage. Dude, I get that you're really into this, and that you might be able to identify some changes, but they're still both bottles of wine. The expensive white and the table red are still both wine.

Bringing it back specifically to D&D and WotC: D&D is the market leader in TTRPGs by a huge margin. At the highest level, their mission isn't to get people to conform to D&D's rules, it's to sell D&D rules to the largest number of people possible. That means they're going to try and make their rules accommodate the largest number of playstyles as possible, while still maintaining the core user base and identity of the game. The fact that different D&D groups larger variation in play styles is inevitable when you have a monolith like D&D taking up as much user base as we do.

From that perspective, I do agree with Matt that it would be useful to have tools to distinguish some play styles from others, and help people communicate better about what type of game they play and their experiences. The type of tags he's referencing are a neat idea. Unfortunately, I think human nature would eventually turn them into a bad thing, where people either judge others based on how they self-identify as games, or naturally segregate themselves from voices (play styles) they are prejudiced against.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Chicken or egg? Do most other RPGs not have these discussions because there are not enough people playing them to have them?

There are some topics where I think this might be true. D&D's larger pool can mean more edge cases to discuss, etc. But I don't think that's what's going on here, because so many other game are harder to quantify, in part because they're more open-ended. Traveller doesn't have anything approaching classes, or assumed weaponry or armor, so one group's approach to an encounter will be almost completely different from another's. A Delta Green adventure writer has no idea whether the agents are going in armed to the teeth, or are even dealing with the situation in a given way--maybe they set fire to the location and never go in, or tail the cultists to some other location that hasn't been mapped out. I think something weird happens when every encounter is assumed to be one where the PCs are going to go into that place right there and they're going to fight to the death, and it better be a "satisfying" fight but not a TPK, because no way are they gonna run, no chance, since...well, they know things are at least supposed to be balanced, so why would they ever consider running?

I know I'm just getting into the well-worn balance gripe, but I feel like it's frankly ridiculous that it's such an established problem that someone like Colville thinks it needs addressing with the kind of measures that work for wargames and card games. Regardless of why it might be needed, if you can actually quantify an RPG that way, I'm genuinely not sure it's still an RPG.

 

[billd91]

I mean, is it a great sign for an RPG system that there's so much handwringing in 5e over balanced encounters? This is not a thing in every RPG, or, I'd argue, most of them! These aren't boxing matches. You don't need to weigh all the participants and make sure both sides are perfectly, evenly matched. If the PCs are outmatched, they can run away, like countless protagonists do in countless movies, books, etc. If a fight is easy, well, is the fight really the most interesting part of the story, anyway, or is it some narrative consequence or result from the fight?

For example, imagine paging through a Call of Cthulhu adventure, and stressing about whether three players make for a balanced encounter against a Shoggoth, while four might walk all over it. Or even in something as combat-heavy and power fantasy-based as 5e, like Shadowrun, does anyone seriously fret about balance like this? I've never seen it myself, and it always makes me feel real weird about this hobby, that a problem so boring and self-inflicted would be such a recurring one.

I think a lot more RPGs pay attention to this than you might realize. Most RPGs are going to have some kind of estimation of a situation or encounter that is overwhelmingly deadly and campaign ending - and therefore, usually try to avoid them or avoid making them traps to kill PCs and game nights. They may just go about them different ways from having broad narrative options like extra effort in Mutants and Masterminds that allows a PC to push their powers to do things not included in their initial design to giving ample options to engage/not engage like a number of overwhelming encounters in Call of Cthulhu's Masks of Nyarlathotep that are at a distance and give PCs a chance to choose to avoid direct confrontation.
And even if not focusing on encounters, most adventures for these games are probably designed with challenges appropriate to the general level of competence a character generation system produces. Most adventures aren't going to assume the character is a dimension traveling, guitar playing, brain surgeon... unless it's a Buckaroo Bonzai game.

 

[beancounter]

Some people desire to follow the rules as written, some want to alter it to their tastes.

But it seems like it's mostly the rules as written folks arguing with each other, rather than the homebrew rule folks arguing with the rules as written folks.

 

[Shardstone]

The basic premise, that no one size fits all, is something I've repeated too many times to count. I've run two different groups at the same time, same level, similar challenges and there was always significant difference in how much I can throw and what kind of encounters I could use.

On the other hand there is no secret recipe, it just comes down to encounter design is as much an art as it is a science no matter how much we want to categorize things. So I don't think a group-type alignment chart is going to work either, all you can do is be up front about what kind of mod it is or what kind of games you run. I run a pretty RP heavy game in my own home brew world. When recruiting players I let them know my general style, restrictions and tone. I also accept I'm not going to be the right DM for everyone.

It's the same with mods. Someone that picks up Tomb of Horrors may well not be that interested in Strixhaven. But as long as there's enough of a description of the style and tone, I don't see why it's a big issue.

You hit on a very salient point here.

People think they have to be the right kind of DM for everyone when they first start out, and a lot of people are just trying to find any game they can out of desperation. This leads to a lot of ideas about playing ttrpgs getting mixed and matched with each other. I'm not sure a way around this other then a lot of DM experience (which isn't a solution), or WotC taking the time to pen a DMG that actually talks about playing the game.