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

[Lanefan]

They are just after half-way through the life of AD&D 1st ed (1984 to 1986). And I think they are signs as much, probably more, than they are cause. Lewis Pulsipher was explaining his dislike of a somewhat similar approach to D&D in the late 70s and early 80s (White Dwarf #1, 1977; White Dwarf #24, 1981).

I'm not particularly carrying a torch for Hickman Revolution RPGing, but I think trying to maintain that it is some sort of aberration or deviance, 40+ years after the event in a hobby that is only about 50 years old, is misguided.

Funny, at brunch just now a couple of us who have been DMing since the early-mid 80s were talking about the 1e DL modules - and how and why we never* ran any of them at the time. He'd seen the modules first before reading the (first few) novels, where I'd read the novels before seeing any of the modules; but we each quickly realized the modules represented a completely different type of lead-'em-by-the-nose campaign expectation that just wasn't what we were after.

And this was all done in isolation; we didn't meet until about 1990 or so.

* - exception: at different times we each ran DL4 Dragons of Winter Ice and for the same reason: it worked fairly well as a stand-alone adventure and could be easily divorced from the rest of the DL saga.

EDIT: Dragons of Ice is DL6, not DL4.

 

[pemerton]

But, there's no opportunity cost to making an Insight check, and therefore no reason not to screech "Insight!" In every single NPC conversation. It gets really bothersome.

how do you propose we determine whether a char knows something in a fictional world? You cannot very well rely on the player knowing it

If only there were RPG designs that had solved these problems!

 

[Lanefan]

I like this…

I really like it. Could be a fun experiment. This edition goes so fast compacted to 1e. I don’t want insta- advance.

Any idea how much faster would get to level 5 or 6? Or would you just try to drop treasure at a rate they would go about the same. It start to live gold again?

Easy enough tweak to just slow down the advancement tables to account for the extra xp they'll get.....

 

[Lanefan]

"While we are standing in the room waiting for the Duke to see us, I will look around the room carefully taking in each object." - active perception.

I usually phrase that as "I'm casing the joint."

 

[Vaalingrade]

If only there were RPG designs that had solved these problems!

Some way to check what knowledge they are aware of, perhaps?

 

[Oofta]

But the PC is not doing any activity when he asks for a History check to see if he remembers anything about Topic X.
It is a non action. It is a game mechanic to recon knowledge into the character.
"Oh yeah, you looked that up in a book some years ago".

I know a fair amount of useless trivia, but I don't have an eidetic memory. So if you ask me about the history of early computers, I might remember Babbage's analytical engine. I might even remember that Ada Lovelace figured out how to write a simple program but that it wasn't until much later when we had the first electronic computer, the ENIAC. But maybe I forget all about Turing and his contributions.

People simply don't remember everything they've ever learned, what they remember or have studied in the past is uncertain. We use dice to resolve uncertainty. You may not consider it an action just because it is not overtly physical, I do and the book does as well.

 

[Lanefan]

Not only is that not realistic, but it takes away a lot of the fun of the game. Many people like rolling, but beyond that it's really fun when you hit the long shot and roll that natural 20 with your measly +5 to perception and see that very hard to find DC 25 thing.

I'll take passive perception and insight out of the game long before I ever take out active rolling. The latter harms the game too much in my opinion.

The bolded is irrelevant here as the DM IMO should be making the vast majority of these type of rolls in secret anyway.

 

[Lanefan]

At our table, per the PHB, it is "to recall lore about historical events, legendary people, ancient kingdoms, past disputes, recent wars, and lost civilizations."

For example:

Player: "I look closely at the mural to see if it rings any bells about what I learned during my days working as a librarian"
DM: "Give me a DC 10 Intelligence(History) roll. Succeed and I'll tell you some important info about the mural. Fail, and you'll just get some basic, fuzzier details."

Assuming there's info there to be gleaned, I always have rolls like that be on an informal sliding scale rather than just simple pass-fail. On a 1, you haven't got a clue. On a 5, say, a few fuzzy high-level details. On a 10, some more clarity; and so on up to a 20 where you get more detail than you probably want.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Not in OD&D or 1e they weren't. Not the kind of story you mean.

Yes in exactly the way I mean - just not in the way you mean. Stories are what happened and a good game encourages interesting stories to grow out of it. And pre-Dragonlance did through artificial environments that were designed for interest not for realism (the ear seeker makes no sense in any environment and e.g. lurkers above, lurkers below, and gelatinous cubes are jump-scare monsters) and the characters have expected character arcs from "part of a mob-handed team with hirelings" from levels 1-4 to the hirelings becoming chaff and the party going in as a team without hirelings to "by this axe I rule" and the PCs getting defined lands or guilds or churches at level 10-ishn and retire from most orthodox adventuring to become movers and shakers.

This is as much hard coded story as most good modern narrative games have. The fundamental rule is "play to see what happens". And what makes something a storygame as opposed to a trad RPG was defined when the term was created as irrevocable changes and bounded play with an intended endgame rather than being open ended. The first storygame was My Life With Master which told the story of a group of minions who are cruelly treated by a master (played by the GM) until one rebels and tries to kill the master - when either they win and the master dies or they lose and they die. This is about the same level of hard coding of oD&D. A couple of outline story beats for character development (as oD&D had) with some worldbuilding that was different for almost every game (as oD&D had). It just had a much shorter story arc.

What you mean by narrative I suspect is the hard coded adventure paths and metaplot that took over starting with Dragonlance (and an absurd amount of GM force) where the PCs are guided from plot point to plot point and where the story is written in advance. Modern narrative games are a reaction against that. Play to see what happens, and stories are about character growth and change with the PCs able to affect things in ways where the outcomes are unforseen. Stories are about change and character growth - and a clear marker of that is that someone ends the story in a different place from where they started (generally in more consequential ways than having gained a couple of spells and half a dozen hit points).

 

[James Gasik]

I know a fair amount of useless trivia, but I don't have an eidetic memory. So if you ask me about the history of early computers, I might remember Babbage's analytical engine. I might even remember that Ada Lovelace figured out how to write a simple program but that it wasn't until much later when we had the first electronic computer, the ENIAC. But maybe I forget all about Turing and his contributions.

People simply don't remember everything they've ever learned, what they remember or have studied in the past is uncertain. We use dice to resolve uncertainty. You may not consider it an action just because it is not overtly physical, I do and the book does as well.

Yeah sometimes you have to rummage around in the mind palace to recall something. Most of the time, a forgotten detail will remain buried until it's suddenly relevant and then you'll be like "oh yeah, that is a thing!".