D&D (2024) What could One D&D do to bring the game back to the dungeon?

[UngainlyTitan]

Because dark vision kinda stinks if you play it RAW. Disadvantage on all visuals is pretty sucky.

That kinda is the point though. It is not the same as having a light.

 

[payn]

If 5e content Tasha's-forward into the new playtest seems the same to you as the 2014 PH, then I don't know what we can talk about.

Well I was asking you. I am only vaguely familiar with Tasha's. Does this fundamentally change the way the game is played? Are you unable to maintain your playstyle? I was under the impression Tasha's just adds some new players options?

 

[Reynard]

4e followed a similar paradigm. It flat out stated what the characters should be facing and doing at heroic (1-10), paragon (11-20), and epic (21-30) levels of the game.

I did not really play much 4E. Did the GAME change over those tiers, or was it just adventures at different scales? Did high level 4E characters rule nations or seek immortality?

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I did not really play much 4E. Did the GAME change over those tiers, or was it just adventures at different scales? Did high level 4E characters rule nations or seek immortality?

It was pretty much designed as "Save the town; Save the County; Save the World; Save the Plane; Save all of Reality". Rule nations not so much; Immortality maybe. Hobnob with kings at level 20, hobnob with gods at level 30.

 

[Incenjucar]

I did not really play much 4E. Did the GAME change over those tiers, or was it just adventures at different scales? Did high level 4E characters rule nations or seek immortality?

The scale of your abilities tended to expand with each tier to the point where you'd need a larger map to handle it all. Levels 20-30 also led to your Epic Destiny, which frequently resulted in immortality.

 

[Reynard]

It was pretty much designed as "Save the town; Save the County; Save the World; Save the Plane; Save all of Reality". Rule nations not so much; Immortality maybe. Hobnob with kings at level 20, hobnob with gods at level 30.

But the game did not actually change, sounds like. So not much a comparison.

 

[Aldarc]

The scale of your abilities tended to expand with each tier to the point where you'd need a larger map to handle it all. Levels 20-30 also led to your Epic Destiny, which frequently resulted in immortality.

The Epic Destinies section in PHB 1 was pretty explicit about this:

Immortality
Each epic destiny defines your lasting impact on the world or even the universe: how people forever afterward remember and talk about you. Some people achieve lasting fame or notoriety without achieving an epic destiny, but that’s a fleeting thing. Inevitably, those people are forgotten, lost in the murky depths of history. Your epic destiny ensures that your name and exploits live on forever.

The End
Perhaps most important, your epic destiny describes your character’s exit from the world at large (and more specifically, from the game) once you’ve completed your final adventure. It lays out why, after so many adventures, you finally take your leave of the mortal realm—and where you go next.

And each epic destiny described a fitting form of immortality.

 

[pemerton]

Did the GAME change over those tiers, or was it just adventures at different scales? Did high level 4E characters rule nations or seek immortality?

A premise of 4e is that epic tier PCs become immortal in some fashion - demigods, emergent primordials, heralds of their gods, etc.

The core resolution framework - combat encounters and skill challenges - remains the same at all tiers. The fiction is expected to change, as per the descriptions of the tiers that @Aldarc referred to. The mechanical minutiae become more complicated - although the rulebooks don't really discuss it, a key conceit of 4e as demonstrated by the way both PCs and creatures are built is that as the game progresses, the mechanics become more intricate and in that way the game therefore becomes more testing of the players (as well as being more demanding on the GM).

Fair enough, my questions are motivated by the observation that a lot of the "back to the dungeon" or "5e cannot do exploration" or whatever are not really about the topic in the headline but the way the player and DMs interact with the rules. Since I like 5e and strongly dislike that Old School approach I am trying to understand the exact nature of the friction.

I agree that in this sort of thread, when we talk about '"dungeon crawling" or "exploration" it is not really the fiction that is under scrutiny, but the process of play. (That's not to say that the fiction and the process of play are fully independent of one another.)

 

[Aldarc]

But the game did not actually change, sounds like. So not much a comparison.

It doesn't seem prudent to make this sort of claim from a place of ignorance.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

But the game did not actually change, sounds like. So not much a comparison.

No, the game didn't change much, IME.

Because of that, it was more playable at any level than any other version of D&D. To be fair, I've never played under a DM who was any good at running "Ruling Nations", and it's never interested me much as a DM.

In 3e and 5e I only really enjoy the game in single-digit levels both as a player and as a DM. (To be more precise, I only really enjoyed 3.x between levels 3 and 6. At least 5e is more like 2 through 11.) I played 1e and 2e, but I don't remember much about the specifics of each level. We were young, and something of power gamers.