D&D 5E Those poor farmers!

[Ahrimon]

This is the sort of attitude that stymies innovation, because heaven forbid someone might not have to make all the same mistakes that his forebears did.

Yes, my comment was a bit snarky but the point is that there is a generation gap. Older generations learned to try things and take risks. Newer generations have warning labels on everything and loads of instructions at the tip of their fingers. They may be able to run game after game that is great, but the moment something new comes up they're stuck. The gaming fore bearers learned their mistakes and grew into good DMs. So when something comes out of left field they're better equipped to handle it.

I firmly believe that you learn and grow (and gain more XP) from trying and failing than you do from following detailed instructions. Think of it as a linear vs quadratic. The linear (follow directions) may have a better game from the start, but the quadratic (developing themselves from less detailed instructions) eventually outpace them by a large margin.

So, I pretty much have to disagree with you. I think you are sacrificing long term innovation for short term gains. No one says that you have to make all of the mistakes, but you can learn a lot more about yourself by making a few.

 

[Derren]

So, I pretty much have to disagree with you. I think you are sacrificing long term innovation for short term gains. No one says that you have to make all of the mistakes, but you can learn a lot more about yourself by making a few.

Then why have rules at all? Why not just print a list of names of magic items without art and description and let the "smart older generation" figure it out by themselves the same way it was done with strongholds? Strongholds are part of the core game, so why is it ok to have this part without any form of explanation, rules and suggestions in them "for the smart, experienced ones" but have other parts, like magic items, with lots of rules and detail "for the stupid kids these days"?

 

[abirdcall]

Then why have rules at all? Why not just print a list of names of magic items without art and description and let the "smart older generation" figure it out by themselves the same way it was done with strongholds? Strongholds are part of the core game, so why is it ok to have this part without any form of explanation, rules and suggestions in them "for the smart, experienced ones" but have other parts, like magic items, with lots of rules and detail "for the stupid kids these days"?

Because it is not actually a slippery slope.

It really sounds like 5e is not your style of game. That's okay. It doesn't make you a bad person. It also doesn't make 5e a bad game. There are plenty of games I don't like that others do.

I prefer to have the game have rules for the PCs and hand waving for NPCs.

I prefer rulings not rules using a basic framework.

If you don't that's okay but it doesn't mean the game fails. It just fails you.

 

[Ahrimon]

[MENTION=5890]Saeviomagy[/MENTION] Another thing I'd like to point out that may help you see where I am coming from is from a post earlier in the thread:

As stated, the rules for making money are for PCs only. So, according to the RAW, NPCs can never make money by owning land, a business, or whatever.

So, NPC's can never do anything that the book doesn't explicitly have rules for? But if you see the book as a set of basic guidelines or examples of how things can be done then you have no problem deciding how you want to handle it as a DM.

Also, as others have pointed out, its something that the GM can 'fix' at his/her convenience, should the matter come up.

And to me, everything about this is a feature. Not something that needs to be fixed, a mistake, or something half-completed. It's a stepping stone. A muse if you will.

Every campaign is going to be different. Putting hard coded rules in the game makes a default assumption that every game is the same. 5e is all about taking the game and making it your own. So they give us examples and ideas instead of hard coded systems. I understand that it's not everyone's preferred way, but for many of us that started this way, it's a breath of fresh air. I started with and have great memories of the freedom and creativity of 2e but it was too random. I loved the structure of 3e until I realized that it strangled the DM. I love the DM freedom of 4e but the player side is to regimented for my tastes. 5e is the right balance for me. Structured yet open character development while acknowledging that the DM has the freedom to make the game his own.

 

[Ahrimon]

Then why have rules at all? Why not just print a list of names of magic items without art and description and let the "smart older generation" figure it out by themselves the same way it was done with strongholds? Strongholds are part of the core game, so why is it ok to have this part without any form of explanation, rules and suggestions in them "for the smart, experienced ones" but have other parts, like magic items, with lots of rules and detail "for the stupid kids these days"?

Because everyone needs a place to start. A foundation to build on if you will. Even us "old timers". Otherwise we would just stick with the previous editions. But if we want to join in the fun of the new ones we need a basic structure for the game to build on. We just don't think that everything needs to be spelled out and written down on how everything works. It's ok to make some things behind the screen up as you go along. And if you royally screw it up, you either try to subtly fix it or just outright admit to your players that you made a mistake and see where they want to go from there. Maybe they like your mistake and you incorporate it for this game. Maybe they agree with you and everyone happily retcons things to a better place. Either way you learned something about your gaming and your players. If you were simply following directions from a book then you would never have learned those things.

 

[Jaelommiss]

Because everyone needs a place to start. A foundation to build on if you will. Even us "old timers". Otherwise we would just stick with the previous editions. But if we want to join in the fun of the new ones we need a basic structure for the game to build on. We just don't think that everything needs to be spelled out and written down on how everything works. It's ok to make some things behind the screen up as you go along. And if you royally screw it up, you either try to subtly fix it or just outright admit to your players that you made a mistake and see where they want to go from there. Maybe they like your mistake and you incorporate it for this game. Maybe they agree with you and everyone happily retcons things to a better place. Either way you learned something about your gaming and your players. If you were simply following directions from a book then you would never have learned those things.

In the six months since I started playing D&D, this has been exactly my experience. If I don't know something or have a concern then I look for a solution in the books or online, and then come up with my own decision based on what I find. I've made a LOT of mistakes, but I've learned enough from them that I am further ahead than if everything had been laid out for me. I've found that making fast decisions is a cruicial skill for a DM, and the only way to improve is to practice (and inevitably screw up from time to time).

 

[Grainger]

@Saeviomagy
So, NPC's can never do anything that the book doesn't explicitly have rules for? But if you see the book as a set of basic guidelines or examples of how things can be done then you have no problem deciding how you want to handle it as a DM.

Back when I first played BECMI (and then 2e) with my friends, we were very fast and loose with the rules, at least as far as NPCs were concerned. For example, the DMs in our group often had NPC spell-casters simply conjure up whatever effects were apposite. If drama demanded that the NPC conjured up a brick wall across the corridor, they did. In other words, we went with what was narratively or dramatically desirable; and NPCs didn't need to have the same type of magic as PCs; they didn't operate under the same (or any) rules.

Then, I remember buying 2e materials and seeing the exact spells used by the NPCs laid out within the game rules for PCs, and thinking, basically, "WTF". "This NPC can do this, this and this, and is constrained to that, and nothing else, because that is The Rules". Suddenly, the game felt much smaller because everything was constrained by The Rules. I'm not saying that we were doing it right, and other people wrong, but it does show how you can have a group of DMs running a network of perfectly enjoyable games without even knowing that anyone ever used The Rules to govern every facet of NPC behaviour.

Nowadays, I'm somewhere in between; I often plan out the spell lists for NPCs according to PC class rules, but I will improvise during play, giving spellcasters more spell slots, or fewer, on the fly, if it makes an encounter more fun. I really don't want everything in my campaign to be constrained by The Rules.

I realise that not everyone wants to play the same way, but I do think that somewhere along the line, too many players have got too fixated on The Rules, instead of having a shared story-telling experience. Looking at NPC businesses, it takes about 10 minutes (at most) to Google a few articles on medieval economies and make a few decisions. That's your "rules" for how NPCs earn money - just decide how your campaign economy works, and then pluck some numbers from the air. Who cares if you can't stat it out an NPC's income in double-entry book-keeping form, and then publish the fully audited accounts in triplicate? Just make a decision, and then spend the time saved creating adventures and the actual meaningful parts of your world, like cultures, antagonists and allies.




Edit: and this is why the 5e DMG is so great. It contains tonnes of food for thought when designing a game - lots of fuel for the imagination - without overloading the game (and IMO wasting the DM's time) with "rules for this, rules for that, rules for the other".

Edit 2 (from the Pointless Musing Department): ... all of which is psychologically interesting; in real life, I'm someone who tends to follow the rules. If I play a board game I'm a stickler for the rules. When I play RPGs, however, as far as I'm concerned the rules are there as a guideline, but you really don't need them that much. I wonder if there's any correlation between people's real-world attitudes to rules and rules in RPGs?

 

[Saeviomagy]

So, I pretty much have to disagree with you. I think you are sacrificing long term innovation for short term gains. No one says that you have to make all of the mistakes, but you can learn a lot more about yourself by making a few.

I think you can learn much more by standing on the heads of giants (including understanding why) and THEN making NEW mistakes instead of repeating old ones, and most of the history of human innovation would agree with me.

 

[Derren]

Because everyone needs a place to start.

And where do you start with strongholds?

 

[Grainger]

There's rules, and there's advice. As a DM, I don't want to be constrained by too many rules. I don't need a separate rules sub-system for everything the PCs might encounter or do (and in fact this is impossible anyway).

It's never been easier to find, for example, real-life examples of strongholds. A quick Web search, and you have pictures, plans, etc. Common sense (and the campaign tone - e.g. cinematic or realistic) dictates what happens if the castle is attacked, etc.

Sure, there's a continuum of completely free-form RPGs, to very rules-heavy ones (but the latter can never anticipate everything), and IMO 5e is in about the right place - but tastes vary.

As far as I'm concerned, adding rules for everything just makes a very easy-to-play game really bothersome. A more constrained type of game - e.g. a detailed simulation of a historical battle - that's fine. Want to track individual Roman Javelins in Great Battles of History - bring it on! However, D&D by its nature allows DMs and players to explore virtually everything, and you can never have a rules-set to cover that. The more you try to do so, the more cumbersome the game becomes.