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

[tetrasodium]

I'm just saying that if you make scouting significantly dangerous, then you shouldn't be surprised no one wants to do it. I mean, why would they? If they wanted to take danger all by themself, why be with a group in the first place?

There's the other end of the scale where players feel that their character is so insulated from risk while scouting that they want to do things like scout the entire "dungeon" while the rest of the party hangs back waiting to be called in.

Lets say Alice gores off to scout leaving Bob Cindy Dave & Edith behind. Without attrition there's no real risk of being split up unless monsters are able to basically execute Alice or trap & kill her almost immediately unless the gm steps in to kill her by saying "no guys you don't know she's in danger" to be rushing to her help, It doesn't really matter if Bob Cindy Dave & Edith get attacked while Alice is away because anything that could meaningfully impact the 4 left behind probably won't be impacted much by a 5th. With attrition Alice might get smacked a couple times rushing back to the group but those smacks add up & eat into the party's resources.

 

[Jer]

*As an aside, this is interesting for me to think about. 4e starts you off with the equivalent of a 3rd level character. Healing is prevalent, and the 2/encounter Healing Word and it's variants were very efficient heals in their own right. And yet, I got near death all the time, and in fact, I died more times in 4e than I ever have in 5e and Pathfinder put together. I wonder why that is...

This is because 4e's combat engine was built to be a truly "neutral arbiter" between the DM and the players - if you build your battles according to the guidelines to have equally matched foes, you're going to end up with a combat where you have equally matched foes tearing into each other. No other version of D&D has that property. It's built to be a deadly, highly tactical game because that's what the devs thought people wanted, but it turns out not so much.

 

[overgeeked]

This is because 4e's combat engine was built to be a truly "neutral arbiter" between the DM and the players - if you build your battles according to the guidelines to have equally matched foes, you're going to end up with a combat where you have equally matched foes tearing into each other. No other version of D&D has that property. It's built to be a deadly, highly tactical game because that's what the devs thought people wanted, but it turns out not so much.

At least not the majority of players.

Some do, some don’t. And that leads us back to the thread topic. Discussing the differences and preferences involved in the simple statement of “hey, wanna play some D&D?”

 

[pemerton]

This is because 4e's combat engine was built to be a truly "neutral arbiter" between the DM and the players - if you build your battles according to the guidelines to have equally matched foes, you're going to end up with a combat where you have equally matched foes tearing into each other.

A 4e PC is (roughly) the equivalent of an elite NPC/creature of their level.

But the potential synergy between PCs is much greater than between NPCs/creatures, especially at paragon and epic tiers.

 

[pemerton]

On the issue of PCs running away.

Gygax, in his PHB and to a lesser extent his DMG, presents a fairly clear model of play:

* Before play starts, the GM builds a dungeon, which has opportunities to obtain treasure, most of which will require overcoming a guardian monster;

* The dungeon is a series of rooms linked in (sometimes complicated) ways by corridors, and the room contents - both creatures and treasures - are largely static;

* The initial task for the players is to collect rumours, to map the dungeon, to draw on other available information, and to work out where the treasures can be found;

* Equipped with information, the players then enter the dungeon with particular goals in mind, and they do their best to achieve those goals despite harassment from the GM in the form of wandering monsters, tricks and traps;

* Thus, while it is the GM who establishes the context for play, it is the players who are taking the lead in establishing pacing and which encounters take place.​

I have no idea how widespread this model of play ever was. As @Thomas Shey has posted, there were significant departures from it right from the get-go. And to me it seems like a hard model to implement for level 1 PCs, who don't have the robustness to reliably undertake the information-gathering phase. But clearly some people were doing it, including some of Gygax's players - eg when Robilar entered the GH dungeon to free the demigods, to take the weapons that freed Fraz-Urb'luu, etc.

In this style of play, the players have a good reason to retreat from powerful wandering monsters, as tackling them is not part of the plan. They also have a good reason to retreat from an overly-powerful room guardian, with the goal of regrouping and returning better-equipped.
There are rules for adjudicating retreats in a dungeon, which establish relatively high chances of creatures letting the PCs go even if, in mechanical terms, they would have a good chance of killing them - especially if the players have their PCs drop food or treasure to distract pursuers.

When I read accounts of how 5e is played, it seems to depart from this model at just about every point:

* The dungeon is not a series of optional but largely static encounters linked by complicated pathways of rooms - rather, it is a set of events that the GM intends to have occur, often in a pre-configured sequence;

* Following from the above, it is the GM who is primarily in charge of pacing and of choosing which encounters take place;

* The situation is not static, so the players can't have their PCs retreat and regroup under the assumption that they can then return to the site of their retreat with a better plan, or better equipment, and have another go (the departure from the "video game-y" assumptions of Gygax's PHB begins a year later in his DMG, where he gives advice on "reactive, living" dungeons which, if followed by a GM, will make it very hard for players to apply the advice he gives to them in his PHB).​

Within the context of what seems to me to be the predominant 5e model of play, retreating seems like a last resort - it's effectively a failure to successfully engage with the content the GM has put in front of the players. (This is what I take @Vaalingrade to be saying.)

And that's before we get to the issue of whether the mechanics do or don't support it - I agree with @James Gasik that the mechanical change from "side" initiative to stop-motion turn-by-turn initiative is a big deal in this respect.

The best rules for retreating that I know of, in the context of a modern D&D-style game, are in 13th Age: the players can declare a retreat at any time, and if they do so then they get away; but in exchange the GM is entitled to narrate a "campaign loss", that is, to introduce some significant new fiction that is a significant set-back to the PCs (and thus the players) in terms of their overall goals or circumstances in the ongoing game.

 

[James Gasik]

Well, I would be ok if people wanted to just do the average instead of rolling at 1st level.

Of course, IME you reach 2nd level during or at the end of the 1st session, and then get to add another hit die. So, your 3 hp fighter (really bad roll or no CON?) wouldn't have to make it too far before they got another d10.


I can't say for 4E since I never played it, but in 5E where a commoner has 4 hp starting out with 20-30 or more is ridiculous for me, but then I like the PCs starting out more common.


OK, the bold part doesn't make much sense to me...

But anyway, I don't know about your games, but when I DM the party has little say on when the "adventure" happens or the "adventuring day" is done. Otherwise, one option I've considered is (I believe more like 4E???) lowering HP but allowing people to have full HP for each encounter simply because with the abundance of healing available, 90%+ encounters have the party with max or near-max HP anyway.


LOL, no, but even in the 80's and 90's that wasn't the case typically. I'm amazed when I see this reaction because although PC death happened in AD&D, it usually wasn't at level 1 IME. Anyway, like I said before, advancement in 5E is so rapid for the first few levels, you get more HD and HP quickly...


Frankly, a number of groups begin 5E at 3rd level anyway. Why? Because you have 3HD of hit points, always have your subclass chosen, and the first levels go by so quickly a lot of people wonder "why bother?".

Two weeks ago (tomorrow) we started a new campaign and surprise surprise we made 2nd level by the end of one session. Tomorrow we are playing session 2, and most likely will be 3rd level before the day is over. It makes it almost pointless to bother playing those levels.

As a consequence, for my own game (and 5E mod) I changed the XP table around so you need 1000 xp for 2nd level, 3000 for 3rd, 6000 for 4th, and so on (it follows the d20 SW table). The good part of that is also advance after 7th level will be faster than RAW, encouraging players to keep playing those PCs because they won't have to wait (or earn) as much before the next level.

Hit points. The older you get, the more typos you make. So when your party is at a full tank of gas, they are much more prone to taking risks. As their hit points deplete, they become less likely to do so. Eventually they reach a point where they are out of gas, and no longer wish to adventure today.

At this point, assuming they can retreat to some safe location, the action basically stops until they have regained enough hit points to feel comfortable continuing the adventure. So my hypothesis is that healing becoming more prevalent is simply a concession to keeping the game running so everyone is continuing to have "fun" longer.

I use quotation marks because one man's "fun" is subjective, but WotC is trying to appeal to a broad base of players, and I would go so far as to say that most players want to keep on trucking as opposed to not.

Now one can point out that, assuming the group is in a safe location, time can be handwaved away to allow them to complete their long rest so there is no break in action, but I know quite a few DM's who will "roll for random encounters" every hour on the hour- the longer the rest takes at these tables, the more likely you are to be jumped.

Also, there's a thread elsewhere on the site about "time pressure" and how important it is to the game. And apparently quite a few people seem to believe that it is vital and necessary to prevent players from strolling leisurely through adventures, lollygagging and sightseeing.

At these tables, healing had better be prevalent, or you aren't going to have great chances of success, I fear.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There's the other end of the scale where players feel that their character is so insulated from risk while scouting that they want to do things like scout the entire "dungeon" while the rest of the party hangs back waiting to be called in.

That's why I used "significantly". Obviously there's going to be some degree of risk, but its honestly better to lowball it than over-do it if you expect people to actually do so.

Lets say Alice gores off to scout leaving Bob Cindy Dave & Edith behind. Without attrition there's no real risk of being split up unless monsters are able to basically execute Alice or trap & kill her almost immediately unless the gm steps in to kill her by saying "no guys you don't know she's in danger" to be rushing to her help, It doesn't really matter if Bob Cindy Dave & Edith get attacked while Alice is away because anything that could meaningfully impact the 4 left behind probably won't be impacted much by a 5th. With attrition Alice might get smacked a couple times rushing back to the group but those smacks add up & eat into the party's resources.

Eh. I'm not convinced a specialist in scouting should expect to have any problems while out. It could happen (running into something that doesn't care about Stealth for example), but sending a scout out is not the same thing as routine party splitting. And honestly, some of the failure states for being out (if you do run into something with, say, 3e blindsight, its entirely possible it'll be lethal depending on what it is, and may well be severe (its not that hard to cut someone off depending on the environment; indoors blocking doors is a thing, and outdoors we're right back to needing to be at least as fast as what's chasing you).

(I'm ignoring the "everyone spontaneously runs to help" unless Alice is nearby or they have some sort of telepathic communication; that absolutely is a risk you take if you send out a long distance scout.)

 

[Thomas Shey]

On the issue of PCs running away.

Gygax, in his PHB and to a lesser extent his DMG, presents a fairly clear model of play:

* Before play starts, the GM builds a dungeon, which has opportunities to obtain treasure, most of which will require overcoming a guardian monster;​

​

* The dungeon is a series of rooms linked in (sometimes complicated) ways by corridors, and the room contents - both creatures and treasures - are largely static;​

​

* The initial task for the players is to collect rumours, to map the dungeon, to draw on other available information, and to work out where the treasures can be found;​

​

* Equipped with information, the players then enter the dungeon with particular goals in mind, and they do their best to achieve those goals despite harassment from the GM in the form of wandering monsters, tricks and traps;​

​

* Thus, while it is the GM who establishes the context for play, it is the players who are taking the lead in establishing pacing and which encounters take place.​

I have no idea how widespread this model of play ever was. As @Thomas Shey has posted, there were significant departures from it right from the get-go. And to me it seems like a hard model to implement for level 1 PCs, who don't have the robustness to reliably undertake the information-gathering phase. But clearly some people were doing it, including some of Gygax's players - eg when Robilar entered the GH dungeon to free the demigods, to take the weapons that freed Fraz-Urb'luu, etc.

Well, honestly, from the reactions some proponents of that early style have and the casual attitude that was common in some circles to low level PCs, I suspect that some occasionally massive failures at that point was just considered the cost of doing business.

In this style of play, the players have a good reason to retreat from powerful wandering monsters, as tackling them is not part of the plan. They also have a good reason to retreat from an overly-powerful room guardian, with the goal of regrouping and returning better-equipped.
There are rules for adjudicating retreats in a dungeon, which establish relatively high chances of creatures letting the PCs go even if, in mechanical terms, they would have a good chance of killing them - especially if the players have their PCs drop food or treasure to distract pursuers.

Though as I always feel the need to point out, no similar rules for outside encounters. And even using the inside ones was sometimes tricky (and in a few cases, failed the sniff test--it wasn't clear what was going to distract a lot of the low-middle level undead for example).

When I read accounts of how 5e is played, it seems to depart from this model at just about every point:

* The dungeon is not a series of optional but largely static encounters linked by complicated pathways of rooms - rather, it is a set of events that the GM intends to have occur, often in a pre-configured sequence;​

​

* Following from the above, it is the GM who is primarily in charge of pacing and of choosing which encounters take place;​

​

* The situation is not static, so the players can't have their PCs retreat and regroup under the assumption that they can then return to the site of their retreat with a better plan, or better equipment, and have another go (the departure from the "video game-y" assumptions of Gygax's PHB begins a year later in his DMG, where he gives advice on "reactive, living" dungeons which, if followed by a GM, will make it very hard for players to apply the advice he gives to them in his PHB).​

Well, the "static dungeon" model only made sense in a very limited number of cases once you pressed on it even in the early days.

Within the context of what seems to me to be the predominant 5e model of play, retreating seems like a last resort - it's effectively a failure to successfully engage with the content the GM has put in front of the players. (This is what I take @Vaalingrade to be saying.)

Hard to see it any other way as long as you view encounters in a planned state.

And that's before we get to the issue of whether the mechanics do or don't support it - I agree with @James Gasik that the mechanical change from "side" initiative to stop-motion turn-by-turn initiative is a big deal in this respect.

Though, as I've noted, I saw problems even with the side initiative and doing this all the way back to OD&D.

The best rules for retreating that I know of, in the context of a modern D&D-style game, are in 13th Age: the players can declare a retreat at any time, and if they do so then they get away; but in exchange the GM is entitled to narrate a "campaign loss", that is, to introduce some significant new fiction that is a significant set-back to the PCs (and thus the players) in terms of their overall goals or circumstances in the ongoing game.

Yes. Its extremely non-simulationist in its design in that regard, but it puts the stakes out fairly plainly.

 

[James Gasik]

I'm not sure what the distance you need to be away from your party is to Stealth effectively. I think in older editions it was something like 90 feet (though I might be thinking of Elves and Halfling sneakiness). You certainly can't stealth as a group without magical support, given heavy armor, though, as usual, this is something magic solves handily with Pass Without Trace. If your DM has enemies use traps often, though, scouting ahead is probably not a good idea unless you can fly or have a climb speed. Unless your perception is very high, that disadvantage from darkvision is going to lower your passive Perception by 5, meaning you have to actively search for traps and even then, statistically fail more often than succeed, turning your Rogue into a shish-ka-bob.

Now you can build a character to be a better scout. But I'm still thinking an Imp or a Druid wild shaped into a bat are probably your best bets at low levels.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Hit points. The older you get, the more typos you make. So when your party is at a full tank of gas, they are much more prone to taking risks. As their hit points deplete, they become less likely to do so. Eventually they reach a point where they are out of gas, and no longer wish to adventure today.

At this point, assuming they can retreat to some safe location, the action basically stops until they have regained enough hit points to feel comfortable continuing the adventure. So my hypothesis is that healing becoming more prevalent is simply a concession to keeping the game running so everyone is continuing to have "fun" longer.

I use quotation marks because one man's "fun" is subjective, but WotC is trying to appeal to a broad base of players, and I would go so far as to say that most players want to keep on trucking as opposed to not.

I'll go as far as to suggest that was never considered particularly fun in and of itself; it was just felt necessary to support some people's sense of verisimilitude (and remember that at the start, there was a much higher percentage of wargamers in D&D than there is for a number of reasons in the modern game).

Now one can point out that, assuming the group is in a safe location, time can be handwaved away to allow them to complete their long rest so there is no break in action, but I know quite a few DM's who will "roll for random encounters" every hour on the hour- the longer the rest takes at these tables, the more likely you are to be jumped.

Also, there's a thread elsewhere on the site about "time pressure" and how important it is to the game. And apparently quite a few people seem to believe that it is vital and necessary to prevent players from strolling leisurely through adventures, lollygagging and sightseeing.

See above.

At these tables, healing had better be prevalent, or you aren't going to have great chances of success, I fear.

Of course, unless it ties up a great degree of resource, some of the same people will have issues with it.