Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Even if true, that still paints D&D as being poor at fog-of-war.
D&D General What Is D&D Generally Bad At That You Wish It Was Better At?
- Thread starter Reynard
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Sometimes round here it seems like that number might only take three or four sessions to achieve...Yes, but you'll need an average of 16,667 attack rolls before it does.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
"Being poor at" a thing at least very strongly implies that whatever design is in question was intended to do that thing.Even if true, that still paints D&D as being poor at fog-of-war.
I am not bad at being an artist, because I am not trying to be an artist. I just don't do art. Likewise, I am not a poor small business owner, because I literally don't own a small business and do not wish to. It is silly to call me "bad at being a small business owner" when that's literally not a thing I'm trying to do. Conversely, if I am rude to the host of a hypothetical social gathering, that is me being a poor guest, because "being a guest" is clearly a thing hypothetical-me is trying to do.
Likewise, I dispute the idea that D&D is "bad at" fog of war. I think it isn't even trying to produce nor emulate "fog of war", and I'm not even convinced that it has ever tried to produce nor emulate that thing. It seems patently silly to get mad at Sorry! because it's "bad" with bluffing mechanics, for example, when...you don't hold any cards, there would be no point to holding cards, and
In order to get to "D&D is bad at X", I think there needs to be reason to believe that D&D is trying to do X at all. D&D isn't trying to be a collectible card game, for example, so is it "bad" at being that, or is it just...not serving that function? It isn't trying to be a toaster, for a more ridiculously extreme example. Should we then take D&D to task for being a poor toaster? Or should we recognize that asking D&D to be a good toaster is ridiculous?
I'm not sure how capacious the notion fog of war is in this context.
But classic D&D does emulate a type of "fog of war" in the whole dungeon set-up, which required the players to gradually uncover the GM's hidden "game board". It seems the inspiration for this sort of play comes from refereed wargames, which use the referee's ability to reveal secret information as way of emulating the fog of war.
AD&D, in Gygax's DMG, also points to a more literal fog of war in a few ways: the surprise rules; the initiative rules; and the (slightly ambiguous) rule that targets in melee are random rather than chosen.
Retros_x
Adventurer
Thanks for the play example! I recommended in my comment using a different system though, so yeah Prince Valiant sounds great. But I do think that you could run a scene like this in D&D with the system at hand. Finding out motives etc. all possible. Yes, rolling against pride is not possible but its also against the promise of D&D (having agency over your characters emotional reactions). If you want to do that, you would need to get the ok of players in session zero. And than you can use CH saves or something similar. Or just play Prince Valiant instead of shoehorning a system in a game that was not designed for it. Depending on what you want: Just a flavor of courtly intrigue in your D&D game or a full-on 100% courtly intrigue game.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Well, hold on just a minute there with that /thread...
As we're looking at all the editions in totality here, while what you say seems from all accounts to be true of the WotC editions it's not necessarily true for the early ones.
In 0e or BX or even 1e you could almost prep on the fly if you wanted, particularly if you weren't planning on having the campaign go much beyond an adventure or two.
The canonical form of prep in classic D&D is preparing a dungeon map and key. This isn't supposed to be done on the fly!
Just don't prep.
payn
Glory to Marik
I know you are being serious but some of my worst experiences have been from wing it GMs.
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