D&D 5E Too many cooks (a DnDN retrospective)

[Remathilis]

As far as I can see this has nothing to do with what [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION], [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] and [MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION] are saying. They are not saying that the GM is a mere action resolution processor. (Nor are they denying the role of GM judgement in action resolution, though Balesir likes that role to be highly limited or constrained in certain ways.)

They are saying that, at a table at which the GM's main job is to provide adversity for the PCs (and hence gripping situations for the players to engage via their PCs), it would be out of place for the GM to decide what the players' PCs will be. The limiting absurdity would be the GM providing adversity for him/herself - at that point, what are the players doing other than providing some dice rolls for action resolution?

Actually, I keep hearing a bunch of whiny, entitlement-driven players who don't want WotC or any DM telling them they can't be whatever they're little hearts desire.

Mod Note: as we saw with someone else shortly after this, calling folks names is not acceptable. It is uncivil, and against our rules. Please don't do this. Thanks. ~Umbran

How would you react if the DM said there were no halflings on his world? Or that there was no clerics? Elves were 3 feet tall and gnomes ate nothing but tar? Or that there was NO caster's at all (except insane CE cultists)? Or that no races are cross fertile (goodbye half-elves, half-orcs, half-dragons, and tieflings) or even the simple (but common) rule of "No Evil PCs"? All those limit what the PC can be.

Similarly, is WotC responsible to give rules for PCs to play anything they want? Do they need to provide us with rules for goblin, orc, and minotaur PCs? What about a vampire PC? A dragon? A Jedi? What about giving us rules for wizards to wear plate male and use magic? Isn't that limiting my PC? Why is caster resolution different?

At what point does WotC (and the DM) get to say "No!"? When do they get to say "In D&D, elves are X and fighters are Y, and wizards are Z?"

I still hold great faith that WotC has cool heads on this. Otherwise the only way "D&D Next" is going to unite players is to be an order blank for the 1e/2e/3.5 and 4e reprints on it.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

To blend KM's Crystal Ball with what I've said above, I'll note that I was on record some time ago for four books core. This appears to be very much like the image in the ball, but it's got a key difference. What I proposed for the four books:

1. BECMI-style completely playable game with a subset of classes, spells, monsters, etc.
2. PHB that extends player material for above, no repeats.
3. MM that extends monsters for above, no repeats.
4. DMG that extends advice and DM tools for above, no repeats.

However, critically, all of this is developed in tandem, playtested in tandem, delivered fairly close together, and so forth. That's because options that aren't fully first-class citizens as options don't tend to be very good options. They get less attention from design and development, less love from playtesting, and so it goes. Moreover, using that design, there tends to be 20 bad options built instead of 3-6 good ones. (You see this more in spells, magic items, etc. than classes and races, but the effect is felt everywhere.) If there are 4 or 5 expertise-based fighting styles for fighters from the get go, most of them will at least be useful in certain situations. If there is one default but 15 options, I guarantee that most of the options will have serious flaws because of how they interact with the default. It's the essential nature of "insufficiently explored and tested option".

You'll note that this is a third way to prevent the presentation from driving design decisions, though on the surface it might look very similar to what the old farseeing glass showed. Technically, it would be theoretically possible to have an initial launch of the core 3 books with all defaults, while also developed the first round or options in supplements to fit with that seemlessly. Practically, I don't think WotC can do it, and I don't think the playtesting public can handle it cleanly. Three core books of around 200 to 300 pages each is simply too much "default" to have.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Similarly, is WotC responsible to give rules for PCs to play anything they want? Do they need to provide us with rules for goblin, orc, and minotaur PCs? What about a vampire PC? A dragon? A Jedi? What about giving us rules for wizards to wear plate male and use magic? Isn't that limiting my PC? Why is caster resolution different?

At what point does WotC (and the DM) get to say "No!"? When do they get to say "In D&D, elves are X and fighters are Y, and wizards are Z?".

Bad numbers generally include zero, one, and anything north of 7. You can safely go higher than 7 with good organization and design, though there are still limits. 30 classes meant to be separate islands is bad. 30 classes arranged in 4 to 6 sets can and has worked, even if one "set" has only 1 or 2 classes in it and the last "set" is "miscellaneious" with 6 or 7 classes in it. Obviously, you can go much wider with something like spells--but not least of all because they are immediately divided by spell level, arcane/divine, and other such categories.

I see your position as just as extreme, or even more so, than the one you paint in that quote. Well, we have to draw the line somewhere (true), so we'll draw it as tight as possible (not necessarily the best idea).

Personally, I'd like to see WotC exercise some creativity here, tempered by discernment and restraint. Is there going to be a vampire wizard using spell points and wearing plate? I doubt it, but I really don't know. Show me your best list of races, classes, spell systems, and options, organized into a handful of choices in each category, and I can tell you which parts make the cut and which ones don't. Somehow, I don't think people would be all that upset about not having vampires if they've got 20 great races in 3 broad groups. It's having half of your choices taken up by bad elf tweaking that makes people hunger for something different.

As for what people do in their campaigns with those good choices, that's up to them. You'd prefer, though, to leave something out because it didn't fit, or you were going for some niche style.

 

[timASW]

I hope that this system can do 1 thing above all others. Create a 1st level PC (with some GM help) in under 10 minutes so we can to playing already. I'm so damn sick of the first 2 hours of a session being taken up by character creation that I could puke. It drove me away from D&D in late 3e and got worse in 4e.

2nd off I hope they take the idea of player entitlement and toss it in a trash can and set it on fire.

Want to be a munchkin race/class? I dont care. Not a bit. A good guideline to start is, if it was in eberron, dark sun or 4e, toss it and light it.

People who want that stuff can buy the setting book without forcing steampunk, magic-tech, demons as psuedo people, or anthropomorphic dragon men (or any other kind of animal man for that matter) into games that dont want them.

I've never heard a single good reason why some character concept needs one of these bits of nonsense. No matter what the players say it always comes down to some sort of munchkinism.

 

[I'm A Banana]

We've learned a tremendous amount about "usability", presentation, managing complexity, etc. since that launch. One of the most basic principles is that you don't botch your design up on purpose just to satisfy the user interface, but make the the user interface conform to the functions being performed.

I don't think that's on the table. The complex options and the simple options are being designed in tandem, alongside each other, so that the simple, direct, big-box, casual, digestible, D&D EXPERIENCE is balanced mathematically with the complex, multifaceted, option-rich custom couture experience. That's the scaling complexity they've been working on since probably about Essentials. You don't have to botch anything to satisfy the basic user, nor do I think you need to other-ize them or somehow make a "short-bus" or "intro-level" D&D for them.

dialgo and his friends playing d02 from the wood-grain box with d6's and beers and no Thief class are playing D&D. Not easymode D&D, not beginner's D&D, not introductory D&D, not basic D&D, but actual D&D. Just the same as those dudes playing a highly customized d20 campaign featuring Trailblazer and several genre-clone rules kludged into a complete whole. I don't think the simple stuff needs to be separated out. You don't NEED complexity to play real and true and actual D&D. Some complexity may be desirable for dorks like us on ENWorld who spend way too much time thinking about our imaginary gumdrop elves, but the dude who plays the OD&D fighting-man and loves it isn't playing a different version of the game, she's just playing in a particular style.

But that's a bit of a soapbox, and, again, I'm just speculating.

I see your position as just as extreme, or even more so, than the one you paint in that quote. Well, we have to draw the line somewhere (true), so we'll draw it as tight as possible (not necessarily the best idea).

I don't think of it as drawing a line, so much as setting up a doorway. It's not hard to open a door, but it's a little hump to crest, one that ensures that you MEANT to open it, and aren't just wandering down a passageway that happens to contain all manner of things you didn't really want anyway.

 

[pemerton]

Actually, I keep hearing a bunch of whiny, entitlement-driven players who don't want WotC or any DM telling them they can't be whatever they're little hearts desire.

And yet I, and all the people I mentioned in my post, are posting on this thread as GMs, not players. So maybe you're not hearing what's actually being said.

It's not the GM's job to build the PCs. That's the players' job.

How would you react if the DM said there were no halflings on his world?

Personally I'd be happy, seeing as I find them irritating outside of Tolkien. To date, my 4e game has contained exactly one halfling NPC in 19 levels of play, and that was only because when I built the encounter I though there would be a halfling PC, and I had an idea for a nemesis NPC (in the end the player build a half-elf instead, but I didn't both rebuilding the encounter).

is WotC responsible to give rules for PCs to play anything they want?

WotC's responsibility is to produce the rules they think (i) are good and (ii) will sell. After that, it's up to the players.

But deciding on setting, starting situation, PC builds etc is, for me, a group thing. Of course, in practice, the GM is likely to have the bigger say, only because most of the players are likely to focus heavily on their own PCs and not care so much about the bigger picture.

But ultimately the PC is the player's vehicle, not mine. It's for the player to build. If the player wants to play a non-Vancian wizard, and the rules support that, what is it to me? And (to echo [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION]) if WotC has rules that make both Vancian and non-Vancian wizards mechanically and thematically viable, what is the point of hiding one behind an "optional and at your own risk" sign?

Want to be a munchkin race/class? I dont care. Not a bit. A good guideline to start is, if it was in eberron, dark sun or 4e, toss it and light it.

<snip>

I've never heard a single good reason why some character concept needs one of these bits of nonsense. No matter what the players say it always comes down to some sort of munchkinism.

Maybe you need to get out more, then.

My game has a tiefling PC, a paladin of the Raven Queen. He deals death to anyone who asks for it (and plenty who don't), broods on the fate of his dead people and their civilisation, and gets on well with duergar (although suspects that they haven't fully internalised the consequences of their own people's dealing with devils).

My game also has a drow PC, a chaos sorcerer and Demonskin Adept. He is a member of a secret cult of Corellon worshippers who seek the liberation of the drow from Lolth, and whose ultimate goal is to undo the sundering of the elves. On the way through it seems likely that he will try to somehow purge the taint of the Abyss from the Elemental Chaos.

What's objectionable about these PCs? What makes them "munchkin"? And what makes a half-elf cleric/fighter/magic-user in a classic AD&D campaign somehow pristine in comparison?

 

[MoonSong]

But ultimately the PC is the player's vehicle, not mine. It's for the player to build. If the player wants to play a non-Vancian wizard, and the rules support that, what is it to me? And (to echo @Hussar ) if WotC has rules that make both Vancian and non-Vancian wizards mechanically and thematically viable, what is the point of hiding one behind an "optional and at your own risk" sign?

Ok, maybe it could work FOR WIZARDS, sorcerers and warlocks have traditionally been way simpler than wizards, if the majority of sorcerer and warlock players just want to have a simple default in order to focus on all of the important choices (pacts, bloodlines, whihc spells/incantations to learn) do we win anything by hiding the simple caster behind a wall of complexity in order to please wizard players?. Aren't players of different classes better served by the system catering to acomodate each class instead of all of them being forcced into a single mould just so wizard players get to cherrypick casting mechanics?

 

[technoextreme]

People who want that stuff can buy the setting book without forcing steampunk, magic-tech, demons as psuedo people, or anthropomorphic dragon men (or any other kind of animal man for that matter) into games that dont want them.

I've never heard a single good reason why some character concept needs one of these bits of nonsense. No matter what the players say it always comes down to some sort of munchkinism.

Actually, you must be living in some bubble devoid of any real imagination because demons a lot of those are classic fantasy archetypes.

 

[timASW]

My game has a tiefling PC, a paladin of the Raven Queen. He deals death to anyone who asks for it (and plenty who don't), broods on the fate of his dead people and their civilisation,

Your right, that absolutely REQUIRES a tiefling. No human/elf/dwarf has ever been a paladin before. And no human civilization has ever come to an end.

Hows those sumerians/romans/egyptians/native americans/zulu doing anyway? I cant seem to find them on the news anywhere these days....

You just basically described the standard fantasy elf or dwarf, but instead of brooding about orcs and ruined cities it was bad magic and ruined cities.

My game also has a drow PC, a chaos sorcerer and Demonskin Adept. He is a member of a secret cult of Corellon worshippers who seek the liberation of the drow from Lolth, and whose ultimate goal is to undo the sundering of the elves. On the way through it seems likely that he will try to somehow purge the taint of the Abyss from the Elemental Chaos.

So basically DRIZZT took caster levels instead of ranger ones? Why wouldnt that work with a regular elf who wanted to unite the elf race and purge elemental chaos? Something any caster could easily have as a goal?

What's objectionable about these PCs? What makes them "munchkin"? And what makes a half-elf cleric/fighter/magic-user in a classic AD&D campaign somehow pristine in comparison?

Essentially they took basic fantasy tropes and found some excuse why they needed kewl powerz in order to play them.

And that half elf would suck too, but for entirely mechanical reasons. I.E. it would just suck at everything.

 

[timASW]

Actually, you must be living in some bubble devoid of any real imagination because demons a lot of those are classic fantasy archetypes.

Manga and star trek have become fantasy archetypes too. Doesnt mean that either one belongs in the core D&D book.

Interesting fact, if we're talking about "classic" archetypes the lord of the rings is only 10 years older then the original star trek. So both are arguably equally classic and both are certainly fantasy literature.

But i dont want any damn Borg or Klingons in my core book either.