D&D 5E [+] What can D&D 5E learn from video games?

[Micah Sweet]

I think I get it now.

It means that when your character does something in the fiction, the character receives a reward (or consequence, I guess) in the fiction -- which may or may not come with a mechanical benefit or consequence. Like, if my character made armor out of the hide of a dragon I had slain, it would add prestige and the character would look cool at court -- irrespective of whether the dragon hide armor gave you fire resistance or whatever.

It's one of the reasons I don't care for milestone leveling, since it basically just happens when the DM wants it to, and may have little to do with what the PCs have actually accomplished.

 

[jmartkdr2]

MOBAs again: MOBA character options often involve a character with a relatively small selection of powers: i.e., a basic attack, a character-specific passive, three abilities, and an ultimate ability. As a result, MOBAs often feature a large cast of characters with limited powers; however, each of these characters are often designed to deliver a specific archetypical fantasy. There are even a few upcoming MMOs, like Wayfinder, that are designed with MOBA style characters. One benefit, IME, of this design choice is that it's fairly easy for players to

This in particular seems like something that would work for a lot of 5e players. The sense I get is they don't want a deck full of options, they just want to have a Cool Thing they can do, and do that (occasionally with variations).

It's why so many people struggle to enjoy PF2 casters - they rely on doing different, correct-for-the-situation stuff all the time. They don't just get to do their Cool Thing and have it work.

 

[overgeeked]

That is more a side effect of the AP fashion than anything intrinsic in the module system.

I've been playing D&D for almost 40 years and I've never seen it. It's likely more ingrained now, but it's always been there. PCs are X level, go find a module of the appropriate level. Or I want to run this module, players go make some PCs of this level. Not I have these PCs and this module...how can I make them work together.

 

[overgeeked]

I don't know about video games but I think that a lot could be learned from boardgame design. Games like Arkham Horror are damn close to rpgs perhaps there is something to be learned from them.

One area form board games that I think we should look into deeply: the ways player information is presented and tracked. Cards for abilities, player boards, tokens for resources, progress trackers around the edge of the main board, stuff like that. Complex board games have found a lot of ways to make this information clear, easy to adjust, and readily available to everyone at the table, and lots of these ideas should be considered. I know people don't like ttrpgs that require anything beyond pencil & paper, but a good player board and u-to-date spell cards could go a long way to making the game much easier to play by managing information better.

To keep the thread focused on video games, I've made a similar thread about board games. Here.

 

[Scribe]

The current D&D stewards could learn that actually grim and dark setting/story/art sells quite well, thank you very much.

 

[Aldarc]

I am not sure how diegetic advancement works in a ttrpg, or what a skinner box is.

So how does that interact with crafting and stuff, which probably has in game benefits. Or does it just mean stuff outside your actual character's abilities? Is a magic sword "diegetic progression"?

So "reward the players with non mechanical benefits as a tool to get them to focus on certain aspects of play"? That makes sense.

Much as several people have said already, diagetic means "in the fiction" itself. Acquiring and upgrading strongholds is diagetic. Finding magical loot in the dungeon is diagetic. Wizards needing to expand their spellbook finding scrolls in the dungeon is diagetic. Gold for XP is diagetic, though leveling is not. Automatically gaining new class abilities when you "ding" and achieve a new level is not. So a lot of the progression is tied to what you do and find in the game itself.

It seems the tail of of this was cut off.

Oops. The conclusion was that having a relatively small set of abilities is easy for players to sink their teeth into without overwhelming them.

 

[DeviousQuail]

That's a good idea. I wouldn't want to cost the monster any effectiveness, i.e. give up an actual action, to telegraph...but something like at the top of the round the dragon plants both feet and takes a big inhaled breath as narration to prompt the players.

This mostly came out of my dislike for the dragon breath recharge mechanic in 5e. I don't like that the recharge can happen on the dragons turn and the players have no chance to react to it. I wanted the recharge roll to come at the end of their turn. From that came the idea to also let a dragon use their action to guarantee the breath weapon charge comes back. Additionally, I like the idea of a no-cost telegraph from creatures on their turn if they want to use particularly powerful abilities on their following turn. If they don't telegraph then they can't use the ability.

It would probably be easier to put damage thresholds on monsters. Fire does a minimum of 20 damage; lightning does a max of 20 damage. Or something like that. Fiddling with the dice and making rolling damage take longer would slow down the game and I'm not sure that would be worth it. But flipping it from the player to the monster and making it static might work just as well while keeping things moving.

Now that I think about it, I would just do max and min dice rolls. Definitely not slower and might even be faster. I also think this is something I would only implement for b/p/s while keeping resistance and vulnerability for elemental damage.

Yeah. I'm a big fan of diegetic advancement. Lots of minigames could be fun. It just depends on how they're implemented. Bespoke mechanics for each one would quickly fill entire books with minigames. That's not necessarily bad, but not the greatest use of time or money. Something like a better implementation of skill challenges and giving overviews of various minigames would, I think, work a lot better.

I'm not sure how isolated they should be. Part of me would want them to feed into each other or feed into the regular adventuring part of the game. Go fishing and catch a great fish that when cooked offers a buff to the party or something like that. In video games minigames are used as a break from the main portion of the game, to keep you playing but to let you relax and settle down after intense fights or whatever. Some minigames are in themselves stressful and wild, but they're a different kind of stressful and wild to the main game, typically.

Building in more downtime between adventures then providing a framework for minigames might work.

Using Mage Tower (one of Strixhaven's minigames) as an example: there are three rounds and each round has two skill checks that need to be made. The skill checks are specific to each round and no skill check is used more than once for the entire match. Character's can choose to forgo a skill check to cast magic and either give an ally advantage or get an automatic skill success if the spell is of a high enough level. Whichever team has the highest number of successful skill checks at the end wins. It's pretty basic and only has one decision point: roll or cast a spell. What spells you choose to cast and how they benefit your team is left purely to the imagination.

It's not much, but it does highlight the basics of what a 5e minigame should include. There should be more than one round/attempt, a variety of skills* needed instead of the same skill every time, and decision points for how you are going to approach each part of the minigame. You could also include environmental effects, preparation, costs/rewards, etc.

For 5e I think you could create a few basic minigames with slight variations for subtypes. Crafting, bartering, trap removal/lockpicking, information gathering, bar games (aka could you play it in a bar), sports, and artistic performances all seem reasonable** to me.

In terms of advancement I think there are plenty of ways to show advancement in skill with a minigame. It could be as simple as getting one or more rerolls or as complex as new decision points. If I were WotC and I was really bought into the idea of minigames in DnD I would create two or three general minigames and include a unique minigame in adventure books that call for one. Then I would leave third parties to create more minigames or expand the subsystems of the existing games.

*It doesn't have to just be skills.
**With the caveat that they are all optional things to include in a game of DnD.

 

[Reynard]

Much as several people have said already, diagetic means "in the fiction" itself. Acquiring and upgrading strongholds is diagetic. Finding magical loot in the dungeon is diagetic. Wizards needing to expand their spellbook finding scrolls in the dungeon is diagetic. Gold for XP is diagetic, though leveling is not. Automatically gaining new class abilities when you "ding" and achieve a new level is not. So a lot of the progression is tied to what you do and find in the game itself.

Thank you. Just a couple more posts and you would have discovered I finally got it.

 

[Aldarc]

Thank you. Just a couple more posts and you would have discovered I finally got it.

I saw that but I still wanted to answer!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Cozy and Survival Games: Both of these game types, because there is definite overlap, often employ diagetic progression that involves crafting, harvesting, foraging, growing, and discovering the necessary items you need and upgrading what you have so that you can unlock more options. IME, these are powerful psychological drivers for players.

Though it's worth noting that both of these types of games have begun to reach market over-saturation. I want to say either earlier this year or sometime last year, we had like four different "go do farming stuff!" games announced within like a month of each other. That doesn't mean that these things have no lessons to teach us, but rather that we should be careful to account for both the fickle tastes of consumers collectively, and the twin issues of bad clones of popular games and mistaking "this specific game was popular" for "this specific genre combination was popular." E.g. generally combining action-RPG and city-building is not going to result in an interesting or coherent gameplay experience, but it unusually did do so with Act Raiser.

MMOs and MOBAs: Having combat roles helps players understand what they are signing up for when they select a given class/character. I don't think that MMOs provide the best model for combat roles; however, I do think that MOBAs provide a better model for TTRPGs for several reasons. (1) MMO combat roles (and "the holy trinity") often involve managing aggro mechanics, enrage timers, etc. that are mostly non-applicable to NPCs played by a GM. (2) MOBA roles/classes (depending on the game's nomenclature) are more varied and informative than in MMO's: e.g., melee damage, ranged damage, mage support, mage control, bruiser, tank (less about aggro and more about absorbing damage, initiating fights, and peeling opponents for the team), etc.

The particularly important thing to note here is that a huge, huge part of the "tank" (and, to an extent, bruiser) vs all other MOBA roles is that it is about the economy of attention, not about some absolute threat list which must always focus on the numerically top spot. Meaning, "tanks" do their job in MOBAs by being a dangerous but difficult to kill threat. High defenses, high maximum HP, crowd control effects, punishments for attacking them, punishments for ignoring them...and what does all that sound like? The Defender role in 4e. "Taunts" are exceedingly rare in 4e--but Marks are commonplace, and the Marking mechanic is all about the economy of attention. What risks will the Marked target be willing to take? Which is the safer bet, attacking the high-defense, high-HP Defender, or trying to geek the mage and risking both failure to actually do anything AND punishment from the Defender?

"Tanky bruiser" just means drifting Striker--and that, too, reflects some of the same ideas that went into MOBAs. Note, for instance, that the full flowering of these design ideas was pretty much simultaneous with the launch of 4e, since DOTA1 launched two years before and LoL launched two years after. There are avoidance Defenders (Swordmage), high-HP Defenders (Warden), inherently tanky-bruiser Defenders (Fighters), etc. There are light and mobile Strikers (Rogue, Storm Sorc), high-HP/regen Strikers (Barbarians, particularly Rageblood), super-accurate Strikers (Avenger), long-range/"carry" Strikers (Ranger), etc. And support characters aren't dull, monotonous affairs. They're actually quite fun (I recall very much enjoying a support-heavy Malfurion in the few Heroes of the Storm games I played.)

MOBAs again: MOBA character options often involve a character with a relatively small selection of powers: i.e., a basic attack, a character-specific passive, three abilities, and an ultimate ability. As a result, MOBAs often feature a large cast of characters with limited powers; however, each of these characters are often designed to deliver a specific archetypical fantasy. There are even a few upcoming MMOs, like Wayfinder, that are designed with MOBA style characters. One benefit, IME, of this design choice is that it's fairly easy for players to sink their teeth into an archetype without overwhelming them with too many options.

Though this comes with it a second lesson, not in what is done but what is not done: The risk of shallow experiences which do not grip you.

A very long (non-ranked) LoL match takes 45 minutes to an hour. A short one can be as little as 20 minutes if the enemy team performs particularly poorly (whether through bad luck, bad plays, or bad behavior). With such a narrow time window and rapid game turnover, you need characters that are easy to get into and easy to get out of. D&D doesn't work like that. Indeed, I would argue it can't, and trying to make it so would break it.

I've been playing more LoL casually lately, as I've met some folks who play, and a champion I like aesthetically (Aurelion Sol) semi-recently got a rework. His old design was...clunky at best, very unintuitive, and not particularly rewarding even if you played it well. The new version, while losing the One Weird Trick that he previously had, is significantly better, and in fact one of my favorite champions to play. (I like scaling champs, and Aurelion Sol is neat because he doesn't just scale for damage, he also scales for area and range, which really matters as games wear on!) He became much more standard, much easier to slide right into--much less to catch on, so to speak.

But that process cuts both ways. There's nothing to hold on to later. No depth and little complexity. 90% of games, you'll buy the same items, and only swap out 1-2 depending on the context. You'll always have the exact same suite of abilities. This, again, is good--great, even!--within the context of LoL, where matches are meant to be relatively short.

In the contest of D&D, where even for very old-school-minded players a single character should last several weeks if not multiple months of once-a-week, multi-hour sessions...having nothing to catch on can be a pretty big problem. People slide in...and the slide right back out again, having gained little to nothing from the experience. Finding the way to balance these two concerns--making it easy to get in, but also easy to get hooked, to stick with it, to feel rewarded for doing so--is an extremely tricky design problem.

This is why I talk as much as I do about how "approachable" a game is (how easy it is to get into the game) and how much "depth" it has (how it leverages its parts to provide an engaging experience.) Different players want different amounts of engagement--what is just right for one player may be stultifyingly boring for another and vastly too complex for a third. The lesson to take from MOBAs is not that every character should be dirt-simple so that it can be fully explored in 25-45 minutes; it's that every game should focus on upping approachability while preserving a selection of different options for depth.