D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

[Micah Sweet]

As long as by "traditional RPG" you mean "games reacting against the explicit design decisions of D&D" and don't start pretending that D&D fits your ideosyncratic definition of a "traditional RPG".

Meanwhile my traditional RPGs include things like D&D, Marvel FASERIP, and even WFRP 1e with explicit Fate Points. Oh, and GURPS with explicit plot coupons.

I re-posted my thought to define the game I'm talking about as Classic play, per the Six Cultures theory. By that definition, Trad gaming does allow for "speed of plot". That being said, 1e and 2e both use Classic rules (even though 2e wants you to play Trad), and the WotC editions include Classic trappings throughout. You guys seem to be saying that none of that should be there because not enough people want it.

 

[pemerton]

because the writer of the movie could / should take it into consideration when coming up with the plot. What we then see is the end result where the plot stays realistic, we do not need an excerpt about how it got that way. In a TTRPG that happens at the table, so the rules should mention it.

In my MHRP game, the PCs needed to go from Washington, DC to Tokyo. One of the PCs was War Machine. He commandeered a Stark Corp jet, and the PCs flew in it to Tokyo. The narration was along the lines of "You fly to Tokyo". My guess is that's probably a 12-ish hour flight, but we didn't both to Google it and find out. It didn't matter.

(I Googled it now. Apparently it's 14 hours.)

Nor did we worry about the time taken to get from the airport to the Tokyo skyscraper the PCs needed to infiltrate.

In my Prince Valiant game, the PCs travelled by boat from Britain to France; across country to Marseilles; by ship from Marseilles to Sicily; by ship from Sicily to Dalmatia; overland from Dalmatia to Constantinople. We didn't worry about how long this took. Obviously "many weeks" is the answer, but whether that's 3 months or a year didn't matter. What mattered was the various things that happened during the journey.

 

[mamba]

In my MHRP game, the PCs needed to go from Washington, DC to Tokyo. One of the PCs was War Machine. He commandeered a Stark Corp jet, and the PCs flew in it to Tokyo. The narration was along the lines of "You fly to Tokyo". My guess is that's probably a 12-ish hour flight, but we didn't both to Google it and find out. It didn't matter.

just because you can find an example where it does not matter does not mean that it never matters

Also, I do not take your style of running games as gospel for how everyone else needs to run theirs.

 

[Red Castle]

It is really weird where the abstraction vs simulation line lands. HP, AC, class, level, etc perfectly fine to be utterly abstracted. But the weight you can carry…based on abstracted ability scores…no, that must be as realistic as possible.

I think we each draw the line at different point.

For me I guess the line is drawn at common sense. I'm not asking my players to check their strength and look at the weight of everything they are carrying to see if they can or if it affects their movement, but I still ask them to write what they carry. I once played a game where your character didn't have any equipment and anytime you needed something you had to roll to see if you character came prepared and had it. I want to say it was mouse guard, but I'm not sure. I personnally didn't like it. And while I don't care about the weight, I would still not allow a character to carry 10 different weapons on himself, or ten thousand gold pieces.

 

[overgeeked]

I think we each draw the line at different point.

For me I guess the line is drawn at common sense. I'm not asking my players to check their strength and look at the weight of everything they are carrying to see if they can or if it affects their movement, but I still ask them to write what they carry. I once played a game where your character didn't have any equipment and anytime you needed something you had to roll to see if you character came prepared and had it. I want to say it was mouse guard, but I'm not sure. I personnally didn't like it. And while I don't care about the weight, I would still not allow a character to carry 10 different weapons on himself, or ten thousand gold pieces.

Oh, sure. And I’m much the same. Don’t make me count the pounds and I won’t make you count the pounds. That is, be reasonable and we’ll get along.

I still find it amusing that we have people who are arguing endlessly for realistic encumbrance while being perfectly fine with absurdly unrealistic abstractions.

 

[Lanefan]

Why not? Why should the players really care if the travel takes 2 or 5 days? Just tell me your intention and I’ll make it fit in the narrative. Do you want to take the safest longest road or do you take the more risky shortcut? The road taken will determine if you arrive early or too late. Then tell me what you’re planning to do during the travel and we’ll treat it as a montage. Do you want to train your lightsaber parry? Do you play Dejarik against the wookie (I would advice against it unless you plan to lose)?

Sure, you can worry about the actual time taken to travel, but I personnally don’t bother with that. I think it’s just more bookkeeping that don’t actually serve the story. Regardless if the travel take 5 hours or 5 days, you’ll still get intercepted by the Interdictor Star Destroyer.

So, illusionism and contrivance all the way then.

That Star Destroyer is going to be in a certain place at a certain time for a certain length of time, and if the PCs' ship arrives there at some other time they're going to get lucky and miss encountering it. Good for them.

 

[Lanefan]

An adventuring group is never late, nor are they early. They arrive precisely when the DM means them to.

Nah. They're just about always late, even to their own funerals.

 

[Hussar]

In my MHRP game, the PCs needed to go from Washington, DC to Tokyo. One of the PCs was War Machine. He commandeered a Stark Corp jet, and the PCs flew in it to Tokyo. The narration was along the lines of "You fly to Tokyo". My guess is that's probably a 12-ish hour flight, but we didn't both to Google it and find out. It didn't matter.

(I Googled it now. Apparently it's 14 hours.)

Nor did we worry about the time taken to get from the airport to the Tokyo skyscraper the PCs needed to infiltrate.

In my Prince Valiant game, the PCs travelled by boat from Britain to France; across country to Marseilles; by ship from Marseilles to Sicily; by ship from Sicily to Dalmatia; overland from Dalmatia to Constantinople. We didn't worry about how long this took. Obviously "many weeks" is the answer, but whether that's 3 months or a year didn't matter. What mattered was the various things that happened during the journey.

I get what you're saying. And that's totally fair. However, there are times when the speed of travel and the time to get from A to B can actually matter. Without any guidelines at all in the game, the players can't really come up with any sort of informed decision without negotiating with the DM first. Which is fine, but, that's the trade off.

How long does it take to travel from Baldur's Gate to Waterdeep is not an unreasonable question for the DMG to answer. At least in broad strokes.

Now, to be 100% fair, when I ran my recent Candlekeep game, every time I needed to look up travel times on the Sword Coast, I referenced Forgotten Realms (Sword Coast) Interactive Map - The Forgotten Realms Interactive Map. So there are some solid arguments to be made that perhaps the core rules don't actually need detailed travel information. OTOH, not everyone plays in Forgotten Realms. How long does it take to travel between two cities in Ghaelspad (Scarred Lands Setting) needs to be answered somewhere.

But, we keep getting bogged down by the examples. It's not that there aren't rules for shovels, or tents or travel specifically. It's that there are no rules in general. It's all, "Ask your DM". Unless, of course, it's spells, in which case it's "Your DM will ask you how long it takes."

Which, in my mind, is the heart of the problem.

 

[overgeeked]

So, illusionism and contrivance all the way then.

That Star Destroyer is going to be in a certain place at a certain time for a certain length of time, and if the PCs' ship arrives there at some other time they're going to get lucky and miss encountering it. Good for them.

Do you actually track the exact position of everything in your world? Do you use random encounters? I’m curious where the line is and how detailed things have to be for you. Like if there’s a planned encounter but there’s a fixed percentage chance the PCs will miss it, is that no longer illusionism to you? If they get a couple of skill checks to avoid it? Etc.

 

[Lanefan]

Do you actually track the exact position of everything in your world? Do you use random encounters? I’m curious where the line is and how detailed things have to be for you. Like if there’s a planned encounter but there’s a fixed percentage chance the PCs will miss it, is that no longer illusionism to you? If they get a couple of skill checks to avoid it? Etc.

Anything that gets away from speed-of-plot contrivance is fine with me.

I'll use random tables to accout for the random stuff, like wandering Star Destroyers. I track the important stuff, such as the specific Star Destroyer the PCs have been sent to look for.

Which means it's always possible (though unlikely) that a random Star Destroyer just happens to be close to where the PC ship comes out of hyper, but it slmost certainly won't be the particular ship they're looking for as I'll be tracking that one's location and will thus know where it is.