D&D (2024) What Improvements Would You Want with 6E?

[Lanefan]

Indiana Jones is cautious and yet the movie is also cinematic.

Indiana Jones is pretty gonzo in some ways - that's what makes him fun - but isn't always logical, or wise.

What isn't cinematic is resting for a day every time something exciting happens. There is no tension. I am not watching a movie like that.

Neither am I, but fortunately D&D isn't a movie.

D&D isn't being asked to stuff an entire story arc into two hours and a bit; instead it can - and IMO should - take as long as required.

Take The Terminator as another example.

Sorry, doesn't help - I've never seen (nor been at all interested in seeing) The Terminator.

I want a balanced mix of Social Interaction, Exploration, and Combat. All those things can be cinematic.

What is terrible is having the heroes take a day off to rest every time something happens. That is a terrible action/adventure/fantasy story anymore.

Unless your players are playing PCs with short boredom thresholds such that they couldn't sit still for a day-night without stirring up trouble somehow, a day's rest can be done in 30 seconds table time:

Player(s): "If this seems like a safe spot we'll sack out here until the next morning."
DM: "OK. Do any of you have anything you want to do during this time? Any spells [or rituals] to cast?"
Player(s): <quick check amongst themselves> "No, we're good; and we're on our usual keep-watch sequence."
DM: "Right. Now, does anything come along and bother you? <rolls dice a few times> Doesn't look like it, so - ding! - you all wake up next morning to a <rolls some more dice> rainy, windy day."

How hard is that?

(I also disagree with combats being 'few and far between' in dungeon crawling. We must have been playing very different games of D&D.)

Or playing in very different ways. I'm usually a gonzo player who throws caution to the wind at every opportunity; but to those less crazy, combat is (or should be!) more often the last option than the first.

It's safer to sneak past the guards (or just find another way in) rather than fight them and risk alerting the place.

It's safer to hole up outside the bugbear caves and whittle them down by picking off their small away-team hunting parties (who we can beat with trivial ease) for a week or two than it is to wade in right now and take on the whole clan at once (who will probably slaughter us).

It's safer to assume everything in the dungeon is out to kill us (or anyone else who happens by) until it's proven not to be, and thus searching for traps is SOP, listening at doors is SOP, constant use of every means of divination we've got is demanded of those who can do it, and so on.

Not cinematic, but much more effective in the long run.

 

[ad_hoc]

Unless your players are playing PCs with short boredom thresholds such that they couldn't sit still for a day-night without stirring up trouble somehow, a day's rest can be done in 30 seconds table time:

The same can and should be done in your hobgoblin example.

"Okay you wait in the forest for a month and kill all the hobgoblins."

That only takes 10 seconds.

Then you should move on and engage in something that has stakes and risk.

I don't think we would play in each other's games.

That's fine. Like it has been said earlier in the thread, the way 5e is designed is not for everyone.

It is right for a lot of people though. I suggest if you really don't like the fundamental structure of the game that you just play another one.

 

[Tony Vargas]

It's safer to sneak past the guards (or just find another way in) rather than fight them and risk alerting the place.

This is coming from a 1e kinda place, right? I mean, where even the Thief trying to sneak past the guards is going to have to succeed at both a Hide in Shadows and a Move Silently % … let alone getting a whole party that might include a cleric and a fighter or few in platemail through there, with their roll-under DEX checks or d6 surprise-only-on-1 or whichever contradictory sub-system or Len Lakofka variant* the DM settles on.









*TBF, Mr. Lakofka authored many an excellent variant, that you'll even see people, today, quote as actual rules. like "we use d10 initiative, like in 1e"

 

[Lanefan]

The same can and should be done in your hobgoblin example.

"Okay you wait in the forest for a month and kill all the hobgoblins."

That only takes 10 seconds.

And makes a mockery of the game in the process.

In resting, unless wandering monsters happen by, there is no risk. (and if wandering monsters do happen by, the rest stops and we play through whatever comes next, be it a combat or some hiding or just letting them pass in the distance)

In any combat - even the most trivial - there is risk. Some schlub opponent gets 3 crits in a row and puts you down and dead; or someone fumbles and breaks some expensive piece of gear; or something else happens* that has long-term consequences. This is why I feel that every combat should be played through, no matter how trivial it might at first seem.

* e.g. and much more likely, at some point one of the hobgoblins gets away and alerts the whole clan; at which point stuff gets real.

Then you should move on and engage in something that has stakes and risk.

If your party's mission is to take out the hobgoblins in Westfold Woods (an adventure that on paper is a challenge for the party as it stands), and the players/PCs come up with a means whereby that mission can be done at massively reduced overall risk, the PCs - and by extension the players, perhaps - would be idiots not to do it this way.

But if they do, I'm going to play it all the way through; and yes, it means they'll probably spend hours at the table whacking small groups of hobgoblins until the hob's finally figure out their hunting parties aren't returning. The players-as-PCs have the right to set the pace in a situation like this; all I-as-DM can do is react to what they give me and run the hunting parties.

I don't think we would play in each other's games.

I think there'd be some arguing if we did.

If there's no risk to something, and the players are cool with it, skip it. If at some point the risk for whatever reason becomes at all significantly non-zero then IMO it can't be skipped beyond that point.

That's fine. Like it has been said earlier in the thread, the way 5e is designed is not for everyone.

It is right for a lot of people though. I suggest if you really don't like the fundamental structure of the game that you just play another one.

I'm not specifically talking 5e here, my points (I hope!) apply to any edition.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Like it has been said earlier in the thread, the way 5e is designed is not for everyone.

Not everyone - just all the 40 million people who have ever played D&D.