What Player Abilities Should the Game Encourage?

[KesselZero]

The DM should control his individual game as far as Puzzle Solving, Min-Max/Optimizing, etc.

I agree with you in theory, but I think for some of the aspects wrecan outlined, the system can take control away from the DM. Optimization is the clear example. Compare 1e with its randomly rolled stats to 4e with its tactical combat focus. Optimization is far more of a focus in 4e, going so far as to have very specific combat math that assumes a particular score in each class's key ability. If I as a 4e DM wanted to disincentivize optimization or shift focus away from it, I'd have to then scale down all my combat encounters to account for the players' lower-than-expected stats. This can be done, of course, but my point is that I'd be working outside the rules as written; in other words, the system itself necessitates a certain level of optimization.

My point, overall, is just to say that outside of a totally modular build-your-own system I don't think we can really have a system that has no priorities whatsoever regarding these various aspects of play. We'll just have to wait and see how strong a core 5e has, or if it's so totally modular that the DM really can make any kind of game s/he likes.

 

[messy]

problem-solving and creativity are, for me, the heart of gaming.

 

[stevelabny]

I have some words on this.

Optimization is something that I think can be complete game-breaking if some players are doing it and other's aren't. To me this has to be one of the basic decisions of the campaign decided by all before you begin play.

Knowing your players/DM is part social skills, which is something people need to have before they sit down to play D&D, and part meta-gaming which should be avoided when possible. The meta-gaming aspect of knowing your other players is for poker, or euro board-games, not D&D.

Preparation, Lorekeeping and Strategic Gaming are the staples of D&D. If the are missing, I might argue that its not D&D. Obviously they all have a range of how deep you can go into each one, and DMs should customize their game to their players when possible, but these are the GAME parts of role-playing game. These are what differentiate the game from interactive storytelling.

Aggressive Roleplay? I'm not even sure I 100% understand what you're getting at with this one. I think campaigns work better if PCs have backstories, motivations, and DMs provide character hooks in the adventures, but that doesn't mean "and now we interrupt the campaign to go on a completely unrelated sidequest to visit Red's grandmother". If players are "aggressively" stealing the spotlight, that's bad. But they should "aggressively" respond to character hooks. I think the problem is that the definition of aggressive/meek will change depending on how much of a wallflower the player is.

And that brings us to :

Puzzle-solving.

This is where we went wrong I think. I despise the mentality of "my character is super-intelligent or super-stupid so there is no way this puzzle should be a challenge for me." Unless your intelligence is a 40 or a 3, you would always have a chance to figure it out and always have a chance to fail. If the puzzle is attached to some high-end vocabulary or magic theory or music-based (and you're a bard) yes, you should get hints that you as player might not know. But you shouldn't get the answer.

Puzzles are as much a part of D&D as preparation, lorekeeping and strategy. Yes, there are puzzles in older editions that made no sense or break verisimilitude. They were no different than two predatory monsters living in connecting rooms or traps that would be almost impossible for the dungeon residents to avoid. The problem wasn't the monsters, the traps, or the puzzles...its the way they were used.

Puzzle-solving whether its riddles, keys/doors, traps, map-reading or something else is a player skill that is once again what separates a GAME from a STORY.

And I fully believe that turning puzzles into strictly character challenges instead of a mix of character and player challenges was where the industry started to go wrong.


And yes, you can do whatever you want at your table. If everyone at your table hates puzzles, by all means take them out. But the books should encourage them as player challenges.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

Note that I am answering for my preferences, even though some of the answers are about options. I play with widely varying playstyles at different times.

Optimization
I'd prefer this not have any effect at all. However, realistically any complex, rich system will have at least a bit of this. I prefer it kept as minimal as possible, but not more minimal than that in the zeal to clear it root and branch.

Preparation
I like a fair amount of this provided that it can be somewhat telegraphed and reasonably accounted for by the players. That is, I like the need to prepare, but I don't care for severe "gotcha" bits.

Knowing Your DM
As with optimization, a certain amount of effect is inevitable simply by the nature of roleplaying. The system itself should not require it or encourage it.

Knowing Your Fellow Players
Some knowledge of fellow players should be rewarding beyond the simple joys of play often inherent in such knowledge. This is one of those things where well-meaning strangers should be able to make do (especially with decent communication) but knowing everyone makes the whole thing a bit more smooth. Certainly, do not want to penalize the resulting improvements in play!

Puzzle-Solving
Puzzle-solving should be always optional--meaning readily available and easy to integrate if you want it, and easy to avoid entirely likewise. Thus the system itself should be neutral on it.

Strategic Gaming
A heavy dose of this inherent in the system is fine by me. If it's not there, I won't have much trouble adding it myself, though.

Lorekeeping
Same answer as previous, with the additional caveat that running a good mystery is as much about pacing, the nature of incomplete clues, and other elements, as the lorekeeping itself. I don't care for the lorekeeping to become central to the mystery. A little note taking and memory can be made to go a long way.

Aggressive Roleplay
Game should be neutral on this. This not only varies by campaign playstyle preferences, but can change by the hour. In an all day session of 40+ year-old players, I want aggressive roleplay at 10:00 A.M. By 6:00 P.M. I'm happy to get any roleplay at all.

 

[dkyle]

My overall philosophy is that in-character decision-making should be rewarded. Decisions made on the basis of out-of-character knowledge should be strongly discouraged.

Optimization: the rules are the physics of the world. Optimizing according to those rules is 100% in-character decision making, and should be rewarded. It's only logical for people, especially those in incredibly dangerous occupations, to seek out whatever advantages they can find. If optimization breaks the game, then the world was broken. It's up to the DM to fix it.

Preparation: in-character prep is great. Scouting, asking questions, are all good things. However, prep should not mean "guess what the DM is thinking, or be punished". And I don't think 10' poles are "prep". They're just silly.

Know your DM: 100% out-of-character decision making, and should be discouraged. Not by punishment, but by the DM making every effort to 1) avoid making decisions on whims, instead of mechanics (or at least consistent, well established principles) 2) to incorporate his tendencies into the world, so that they become "know the World" instead of "know the DM".

Know fellow players: Similar to the DM. Playing on player traits, that are not also character traits, should be discouraged. If a particular player trait is relevant to the game, then it should also be an in-character trait. If a player has a soft-spot of fuzzy animals, and makes character decisions on that, then their character should also have a soft-spot for fuzzy animals.

Puzzles: not my favorites, but these are still in-character decisions; they just make the assumption that a character's puzzle-solving aptitude is the same as the player's. The prevalence of them is going to need to be dependent on the group.

Strategic gaming: something I enjoy greatly, and like puzzles, still an in-character decision process. And the importance of it is entirely based on the group.

Lorekeeping: again, something I enjoy greatly. Probably the biggest common-denominator in the various games my group has played. We love us some mystery plots.

Aggressive Roleplaying: kind of a loaded term, I think. But anyway, this'll be dependent on the group. I'm not big on backstory. On thing DMs should be careful of is avoiding a sense that fleshing out a backstory only ever results in complications and obstacles. This can feel like punishment.

 

[KidSnide]

I just want to weigh in on knowing your DM and players.

Yes, part of these aspects is meta-gaming that doesn't really add to the game (although I'm not sure it always takes away from it either). But knowing your players and DM is also about knowing what's fun for the other people at the table. I think it's fantastic when a DM directs plot (or smaller aspects) towards players who want that. It can be centering a fireball on the character with fire resistance, directing the love subplot to a player who wants to role-play that, or providing meta-game signals that a particular dungeon is more interesting than the others.

Similarly, it's great when a PC makes a decision on the basis that it would be more fun for everyone else at the table. Yes, some characters would perform all sorts of anti-social behavior (robbery, murder, stirring up trouble), but I think its a strong net positive when players direct their character's anti-social behavior in a manner that doesn't turn it into anti-social behavior at the table. Players should give thought to whether their character's actions will spoil the fun for the other players and they shouldn't do it -- even if it's based on meta-game knowledge. That's not to say that PCs should never work against the interests of another PC (that can be great fun), it's just that inter-PC conflict shouldn't rise to the level of "not fun" for the other players.

-KS

 

[wrecan]

Note that I am answering for my preferences, even though some of the answers are about options.

Note I am not asking what you want to see in the next iteration of D&D. Let's assume that the designers are going to make the game as modular as possible and open it up to as many game styles as they can. What I want to know is what you prefer when you sit down to play D&D.

This isn't supposed to be complicated.

 

[wrecan]

Aggressive Roleplaying: kind of a loaded term, I think.

I know. I tried coming up with something more neutral, but it got too watered down and made it seem like I was just asking about roleplaying, which seemed like a silly thing to ask about concerning a roleplaying game. Aggressive was the best adjective I could come up with that connoted the skill of directing roleplaying attention to yourself through personality quirks and back story hooks.

 

[dkyle]

I know. I tried coming up with something more neutral, but it got too watered down and made it seem like I was just asking about roleplaying, which seemed like a silly thing to ask about concerning a roleplaying game. Aggressive was the best adjective I could come up with that connoted the skill of directing roleplaying attention to yourself through personality quirks and back story hooks.

I think "Heavy Roleplaying" works for this.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

This isn't supposed to be complicated.

Sometimes when I sit down to play D&D I want a lot of strategy and lorekeeping. Sometimes when I sit down to play D&D, I don't necessarily want nearly as much of those things. Since my answers were sometimes a bit weasly because of those moving preferences, I wanted to make it clear that I was answering simply from those moving preference, and not on what I thought someone else would want.

I get the impression from a lot of posts that some people see D&D as some kind of relatively fixed thing. I'm not one of them.