D&D 5E What Single Thing Would You Eliminate

[ART!]

Difficult to explain in words. Easy to do in practice.

It was definitely easy to abandon it after doing it for years and realizing it was more trouble than it was worth to me.

 

[Charlaquin]

I disagree. As an example, I, as a player, would love for my CoC character to go insane. My character wouldn't want that.

Different game, different approach to play.

 

[Charlaquin]

Your response doesn't make a lot of sense to me, so maybe I've misunderstood what you are arguing in favor of. To clarify, I was under the impression that you were arguing in favor of using encounter-based XP because you want players to be able to make choices that prioritize character advancement. To me that implies you want players to be able to choose between encounters based on which ones provide more XP. Other than for somewhat-unusual tactical situations, isn't the choice of which encounters to face a macro-level strategic decision of which quests to undertake or which plot hooks to follow?


I know you'd agree that choosing between quests and plot hooks isn't ever bad form, so my impression of what you're arguing must be wrong. So you could clarify what kind of in-character decisions you want to be able to make (or you want your players to be able to make) with XP-maximization in mind?

Ah. I think I see the confusion. No, I am advocating for experience-based advancement generally, as a means of creating desired play incentives. What you award XP for depends on what you want to incentivize. My personal default is giving XP for encounters overcome (by whatever means) and for objectives successfully completed, with more XP given for more complex encounters than for simpler ones, and for primary objectives than for side-quests. The intent is to encourage players to take on quests and see them through to completion, and to overcome rather than avoid encounters, but to not favor any particular means of resolving them over another. However, for a grim dark sword-and-sorcery campaign it might be more appropriate to grant XP for treasure acquired, encouraging players to seek out paid jobs and to prioritize avoiding conflict. For a hexcrawl, it might be appropriate to award XP for points of interest discovered, or areas mapped. Etc.

As a player, I like knowing what I can earn XP for, so I can pursue that thing effectively.

Why would I only make believe I am a character whose emotional state happens to always match my own? That's really limiting on the range of characters one can play.

I mean, Ideally you would want to put yourself in the emotional state you’re making believe the character is experiencing. But it’s pretty reciprocal. You imagine yourself as the character, in the fictional scenario, you try to imagine how you would feel if you were that person in that scenario, and you try to put yourself in that emotional state.

There are definitely multiple ways to roleplay, and all of them are legitimate. Personally, my preferred style is an immersive approach where I'm empathizing with the character and trying to think and feel like they would (while still considering necessary OOC factors like table fun-maximization). Since characters aren't aware of the concept of XP, trying to make IC decisions with XP-maximization in mind would get in the way of my preferred style of roleplaying (and unlike table fun-maximization, I don't see optimizing the rate of XP gain as a critical concern). I don't think there is anything misguided about my preferred style.

I mean, if you’re having fun, you’re doing it right. But I say I think attempting to compartmentalize between your perspective and the character’s perspective is misguided because it’s impossible. That’s just not a thing our brains can do. Your perspective always influences your decisions - in fact, it’s the only perspective that can. You can try to imagine having a different perspective and make decisions as you imagine you would with that perspective. But you can’t remove yourself from the equation. Better, then, in my opinion, to try to align your perspective with the imagined perspective, than to try to remove your perspective from the process. Does that make sense?

I'm not sure I completely follow how the details of your preferred style of roleplaying works, but if per-encounter XP makes it easier for you to roleplay in your preferred style, cool!

The entire reason I originally responded to you was to point out that while you see letting the characters make XP-maximizing IC choices as a benefit to your preferred style of RP, it's a drawback to mine.

I mean, you do you, but I believe you’re leaving a powerful tool on the table.

I think we're talking past each other again. Or maybe we're agreeing but just using different language to express the same point of view.

I create IC goals and priorities for my character that align with the theme of the campaign. (Which could be a narrow theme if the campaign is a single epic quest, or quite broad if the campaign is a wide-open sandbox.) If character creation is being done jointly, I'll also make sure my character's goals and priorities are either in harmony with the other characters' goals, or (with the other players' agreement) entertainingly in conflict.

Right, so I would describe those things as what your character wants for themselves.

"What I want for my character", as you put it, is a story that I and the other players will find satisfying, based on our own preferences and idiosyncrasies.

No, that’s what you want for yourself, and for your fellow players. It’s a purely meta-game desire. I’m talking about what you want for your character. Presumably you want your character to succeed in their goals. Maybe you don’t, that’s also possible (e.g. “I want my CoC character to go insane.”) But at least in the case of D&D, I think the experience works best when what the player wants for the character and what the character wants for themselves are aligned.

That doesn't necessarily mean I want my character to succeed at all their goals. A character can have goals and priorities that are in tension with each other, so succeeding at all of their goals while keeping true to their priorities is unlikely in the extreme.

Sure, I mean, being put into situations where the character is forced to choose between mutually exclusive things they want (or choosing to accept something they don’t want to avoid something else they don’t want) is one of the most enjoyable parts of roleplaying. It reveals what the character truly values most, when it matters most. And I believe those moments are at their most powerful when the player also wants what the character wants.

Other characters have long-term goals that are outside the scope of a campaign (so long as short-term pursuit of that goal is within scope). Other characters might be doomed, in the sense that some of their goals are implausible (or even impossible) to meet. In the course of a campaign, one or more characters might end up failing at their goals, and that's ok! Heroic sacrifices, defiant last stands, and pyrrhic victories can all make for great stories. So long as the end result is satisfying for everyone, I don't really care if my character succeeds or fails at their goals.

Right, on a meta-level, you want the game to be enjoyable, and usually that means facing meaningful adversity and sometimes, yes, failing in your (character’s) goals. There must be a possibility of failure for success to have meaning. But moment to moment you strive for success, yes? And while in the grand scheme you want both success and failure, in the moment success is preferable to failure, yes?

I'm having a hard time understanding why you think it's desirable for my OOC goals to exactly match my character's IC goals. To me the very ideas are entirely orthogonal to one another. Also, players are going to fail at their goals all the time (e.g. an untimely demise). If the player's OOC goals and the character's IC goals are (somehow) identical, doesn't that imply that a failure on the part of the character is a failure on the part of the player? How would that be fun?

Fun is a very limiting way to measure enjoyment. Catharsis isn’t necessarily fun, but it is usually enjoyable. Failure drives us to strive harder, and makes eventual success more rewarding. This is the flip side of what I was saying in the other paragraph. Yes, moment to moment you want to succeed in your goals. But experiencing the occasional failure along the way is an important element of making that success actually enjoyable.

 

[Democratus]

Again, I'd say your conflating game mechanics with what's going on in the world.

Yes, at a certain level a fighter gains a title. That's because they've proven themselves worthy of the title. At one point I was a junior developer, then developer, senior developer. The titles recognized my level of expertise.

That and titles reflect the roots of D&D in wargames. If you want every PC to have Deadpool break the fourth wall level of awareness, that's fine. Many people do not.

No. It's explicitly baked in. No conflating going on at all.

Levels are very clear in-world and in-fiction in B/X. A Conjurer knows exactly how many levels they are away from being a Wizard. A warrior knows that Hero is the 4th level and that Superhero is 7th.

Different editions, different approaches.

 

[Sithlord]

Concentration

 

[Lanefan]

No. It's explicitly baked in. No conflating going on at all.

Levels are very clear in-world and in-fiction in B/X. A Conjurer knows exactly how many levels they are away from being a Wizard. A warrior knows that Hero is the 4th level and that Superhero is 7th.

Different editions, different approaches.

In the fiction in 1e (and B/X?) where training into a new level is a thing, the characters can also just count how many times they've trained up their class abilities.

 

[TheSword]

And right there in a nutshell you've outlined the absolute worst thing with hard-rail AP-style play: no matter where you go or what you do you're going to end up first in Paris, then in Lyon, etc.

Fine for thems as likes it, I suppose, but for me if I and my party can't decide to go to Morocco and abandon France completely it's nowhere near as much fun.

Okay, fine. That ok.

I can enjoy a tour of Southern Europe in and of itself without the need to throw a Moroccan wildcard in.

Calling an AP with checkpoints but massive flexibility within each segment a “hard-rail”. Is just plain hyperbole. Hard rail, is that you don’t have a choice how to get to point B, it takes one route. That isn’t how the Good APs work.

It’s why I would happily have agency as a law unto itself removed from the game.

I also don’t want to DM for players if they get dirty-gutsed if they can’t screw the tour and head off on their own

 

[Xetheral]

Ah. I think I see the confusion. No, I am advocating for experience-based advancement generally, as a means of creating desired play incentives. What you award XP for depends on what you want to incentivize. My personal default is giving XP for encounters overcome (by whatever means) and for objectives successfully completed, with more XP given for more complex encounters than for simpler ones, and for primary objectives than for side-quests. The intent is to encourage players to take on quests and see them through to completion, and to overcome rather than avoid encounters, but to not favor any particular means of resolving them over another. However, for a grim dark sword-and-sorcery campaign it might be more appropriate to grant XP for treasure acquired, encouraging players to seek out paid jobs and to prioritize avoiding conflict. For a hexcrawl, it might be appropriate to award XP for points of interest discovered, or areas mapped. Etc.

As a player, I like knowing what I can earn XP for, so I can pursue that thing effectively.

Thanks for taking the time to explain. I really appreciate it!

Alas, I'm still not sure I follow. What does "pursuing XP effectively" look like at your table, in comparison to "not pursuing XP effectively"? In other words, can you describe the types of decision points where you want the XP system to tip the scales in a certain direction?

I mean, Ideally you would want to put yourself in the emotional state you’re making believe the character is experiencing. But it’s pretty reciprocal. You imagine yourself as the character, in the fictional scenario, you try to imagine how you would feel if you were that person in that scenario, and you try to put yourself in that emotional state.

Personally I wouldn't go quite that far. Empathize with my character's emotional state, yes; adopt it, no. Typical characters go through some pretty harrowing ordeals, and actually experiencing many of them would be outside the bounds of what I'm seeking from a TTRPG. My characters get angry all the time, but I certainly don't want to actually get angry at the table.

I mean, if you’re having fun, you’re doing it right. But I say I think attempting to compartmentalize between your perspective and the character’s perspective is misguided because it’s impossible. That’s just not a thing our brains can do. Your perspective always influences your decisions - in fact, it’s the only perspective that can. You can try to imagine having a different perspective and make decisions as you imagine you would with that perspective. But you can’t remove yourself from the equation. Better, then, in my opinion, to try to align your perspective with the imagined perspective, than to try to remove your perspective from the process. Does that make sense?

Not really. With this point and the last one I feel like we've swapped positions, and now your roleplaying style sounds more immersion-centric than mine does. And I really don't understand how remembering to take XP into account when making decisions makes it easier to "align your perspective with the imagined perspective". That sounds like it would make it harder.

For me, the ideal (and note that this ideal is not often perfectly achieved) is when most of my conscious thoughts are from my character's perspective, based on my understanding of the character's emotional state, whereas my awareness of OOC concerns (like tracking the other players' moods and responses to make sure my decisions are a positive influence on the game) are relegated to a more intuitive level.

I think there's a distinct possibility that we don't actually disagree here, but are choosing such different words to express ourselves that it seems like we're at odds. That's just a hunch though--I could be wrong.

I mean, you do you, but I believe you’re leaving a powerful tool on the table.

Hopefully your answer to my first question of this post will help resolve my confusion on what you're trying to use this tool to do.

Right, so I would describe those things as what your character wants for themselves.

With you so far, I entirely agree...

No, that’s what you want for yourself, and for your fellow players. It’s a purely meta-game desire. I’m talking about what you want for your character. Presumably you want your character to succeed in their goals. Maybe you don’t, that’s also possible (e.g. “I want my CoC character to go insane.”) But at least in the case of D&D, I think the experience works best when what the player wants for the character and what the character wants for themselves are aligned.

... but here I don't follow. My character (as I imagine them) wants to succeed at their goals as quickly and easily as possible. I certainly don't want that for them, in any system, because it would make for a boring game. Whether or not I want them to eventually succeed at their goals depends on the goal and the context, and ranges from "yes!" to "no!" to "I'm excited to find out!".

And yes, there's a metagame component to what I want for my character--I don't understand what it would mean for there not to be. When I talk about what "I want for my character", there's no roleplaying involved--if there were, it would instead be what (I imagine) my characters wants.

Sure, I mean, being put into situations where the character is forced to choose between mutually exclusive things they want (or choosing to accept something they don’t want to avoid something else they don’t want) is one of the most enjoyable parts of roleplaying. It reveals what the character truly values most, when it matters most. And I believe those moments are at their most powerful when the player also wants what the character wants.

But you're arguing for the player wanting to be able to make IC choices to optimize their acquisition of XP. That's definitely not what the character wants in non-fourth-wall-breaking campaigns, because the character has no conception of XP. If there is a way what you're saying isn't contradictory, I'm not seeing it

Right, on a meta-level, you want the game to be enjoyable, and usually that means facing meaningful adversity and sometimes, yes, failing in your (character’s) goals. There must be a possibility of failure for success to have meaning. But moment to moment you strive for success, yes? And while in the grand scheme you want both success and failure, in the moment success is preferable to failure, yes?

I'd quibble a little with the idea that there must be a possibility for failure for success to have any meaning, but my quibbles would be outside the scope of this discussion. Otherwise, yes, I as a player am typically making moment-to-moment tactical decisions for my character with the aim of having them succeed at their immediate goals, so long as those decisions are in keeping with the character's principles and limitations. But it's also common for me to make decisions for my character with an aim of expressing fatal flaws or character disadvantages, at the appropriate times.

Fun is a very limiting way to measure enjoyment. Catharsis isn’t necessarily fun, but it is usually enjoyable. Failure drives us to strive harder, and makes eventual success more rewarding. This is the flip side of what I was saying in the other paragraph. Yes, moment to moment you want to succeed in your goals. But experiencing the occasional failure along the way is an important element of making that success actually enjoyable.

I'm using "fun" as a catch-all term for enjoyment/satisfaction/desirability/etc. So I don't think we disagree here.

 

[Charlaquin]

Thanks for taking the time to explain. I really appreciate it!

No problem! I appreciate the earnestness with which you strive for clarity on others’ perspectives.

Alas, I'm still not sure I follow. What does "pursuing XP effectively" look like at your table, in comparison to "not pursuing XP effectively"? In other words, can you describe the types of decision points where you want the XP system to tip the scales in a certain direction?

It depends on what XP is awarded for. In a game where you get XP for killing monsters, pursuing it effectively means approaching challenges with a kill first, ask questions later attitude, as killing is what earns you XP. Trying to seek peaceful solutions to problems would be an ineffective way to pursue advancement. In a game where you get XP for acquiring gold, effective pursuit of advancement means careful risk-reward management, taking on quests that offer the largest monetary reward proportional to the danger involved, and generally trying to circumvent challenges in order to acquire treasure with minimal conflict. Fighting dangerous foes with little money or selflessly offering to help poor villagers with their plights with no expectation of compensation would be an ineffective way to pursue advancement. In an adventure where you gained XP for discovering points of interest, effective pursuit of advancement would involve hunting for rumors of interesting locations and exploring uncharted areas. Sticking to well-known travel routes would be an ineffective way to pursue advancement. In a mystery campaign where you gained XP for discovering clues, effective pursuit of advancement would mean being very thorough in your investigations, even when you think you have the solution, because solving a case when there are still clues to be found would be ineffective pursuit of advancement.

In my own campaigns, my go-to is to award XP for completing objectives and overcoming encounters. Effective pursuit of advancement would mean taking on quests when offered, seeing them through to completion, and engaging with challenges whenever they arise, by the most efficient means possible. Refusing quests or trying to avoid conflict would be inefficient means of pursuing advancement in one of my typical campaigns. But I’ll use different systems for awarding XP for different campaigns, when I feel it’s appropriate.

As a player, I’m fine with whatever XP system is available; as long as I know what I can earn XP for, I can make decisions that influence my character’s advancement. I can take on quests or encounters that will earn me XP, or decide not to, if I don’t think the risks are worth the potential for advancement. I have a degree of agency over my character’s advancement. If the DM is strongly opposed to using XP for some reason, I will settle for session-based advancement. Then I can still monitor my progress towards the next level (albeit in terms of sessions left to level up instead of XP), and I know that the most optimal way to pursue advancement is simply to come to as many sessions as possible. The one thing I don’t go in for is story-based advancement, where I really have no way of knowing how close I am to leveling up and no way of influencing it. All I can really do is follow the plot, maybe favoring things that seem likely to be on the critical path over side-content, and accept the level-ups whenever they come. No real agency there.

Personally I wouldn't go quite that far. Empathize with my character's emotional state, yes; adopt it, no. Typical characters go through some pretty harrowing ordeals, and actually experiencing many of them would be outside the bounds of what I'm seeking from a TTRPG. My characters get angry all the time, but I certainly don't want to actually get angry at the table.

Sure. Obviously I’m not going to feel exactly what my character feels, but empathizing with them is a good way to describe it. I come from an acting background, and specifically a Misnerian school of thought, so to me having a genuine emotional reaction to an artificial scenario comes pretty naturally, and is a huge part of what I’m after as a player. But, yeah, obviously you want to experience your character’s perspective in a safe way.

Not really. With this point and the last one I feel like we've swapped positions, and now your roleplaying style sounds more immersion-centric than mine does. And I really don't understand how remembering to take XP into account when making decisions makes it easier to "align your perspective with the imagined perspective". That sounds like it would make it harder.

So... Let me use one specific means of awarding XP as an example. Let’s use XP for gold, because it’s an easy one to illustrate my point with. XP for gold is great for campaigns featuring morally ambiguous protagonists who are in it for the money. Conan-esque Sword and Sorcery, for example. Having XP for gold in such a campaign helps me immerse myself in the character by making the best way for me to get what I want (XP) the same as the best way for my character to get what they want (gold). Now, that’s a bit of an oversimplification, but it gets the point across. In such a campaign, the protagonists ought to be motivated primarily by a desire for gold. By tying the game’s primary player reward system directly to what ought to motivate protagonists in the setting, you encourage the players to create characters who fit the campaign’s themes. Not just through the social contract, but through their brain’s reward system. It’s easier to sync up my experience with my character experience when I get dopamine for pursuing the same things that motivate my character. Does that make sense?

For me, the ideal (and note that this ideal is not often perfectly achieved) is when most of my conscious thoughts are from my character's perspective, based on my understanding of the character's emotional state, whereas my awareness of OOC concerns (like tracking the other players' moods and responses to make sure my decisions are a positive influence on the game) are relegated to a more intuitive level.

I just don’t see the value in trying to separate those things. Why not play a character who is motivated to make decisions that are a positive influence on others’ experience? It’s a cooperative game, shouldn’t my character be as invested in supporting their party members as I am in supporting the other players?

I think there's a distinct possibility that we don't actually disagree here, but are choosing such different words to express ourselves that it seems like we're at odds. That's just a hunch though--I could be wrong.

That certainly could be. Though, I rather think not.

Hopefully your answer to my first question of this post will help resolve my confusion on what you're trying to use this tool to do.

Hopefully it did, but to try to summarize: I’m trying to use the tool to incentivize through game mechanics the sort of play that is thematically and tonally suited to the campaign. To eliminate or at least reduce the disconnect between “what my character would do” and “what the game rewards me for doing.”

With you so far, I entirely agree...


... but here I don't follow. My character (as I imagine them) wants to succeed at their goals as quickly and easily as possible. I certainly don't want that for them, in any system, because it would make for a boring game. Whether or not I want them to eventually succeed at their goals depends on the goal and the context, and ranges from "yes!" to "no!" to "I'm excited to find out!".

I think if the game is boring if you succeed as quickly and easily as possible, it has problems that milestone leveling won’t fix. In a well-designed game, “as quickly and easily as possible” and “long enough and difficult enough to be interesting” should be in the same ballpark at the very least.

And yes, there's a metagame component to what I want for my character--I don't understand what it would mean for there not to be. When I talk about what "I want for my character", there's no roleplaying involved--if there were, it would instead be what (I imagine) my characters wants.

Do you not want your character to get what they want? If not, I can only imagine that would lead to gameplay where you are constantly in conflict between trying to play your character faithfully and trying to avoid them getting what they want as a result. That sounds awful. As a player, I want to be striving to achieve my character’s goals. And as a DM, I want my players to strive to achieve their characters’ goals. In fact, it’s kind of necessary, so I can put obstacles in the way of those goals for them to strive against, creating the emergent gameplay and story in the process.

But you're arguing for the player wanting to be able to make IC choices to optimize their acquisition of XP. That's definitely not what the character wants in non-fourth-wall-breaking campaigns, because the character has no conception of XP. If there is a way what you're saying isn't contradictory, I'm not seeing it

The player wants XP. The character wants... something. If the player gets XP when their character gets what they want, the gameplay goals and the narrative goals will be in concert. To use a somewhat pretentious bit of game-designery jargon, it creates ludonarrative harmony.

Now, granted, if the player doesn’t want XP, that line of logic isn’t really sound. But I’ve never seen a new player who didn’t want XP. In my (heh) experience, players not caring about XP is a learned thing. Somewhere along the line, someone tells them they shouldn’t play D&D like it’s a “game” they can “win” and that they should compartmentalize their player motivations from their character’s motivations and act purely based on the latter. That they should focus on “role playing instead of roll playing.” That they should learn to love failure because it can be just as interesting as success. That’s all bologna in my opinion. It’s a roleplaying game, it involves both roleplaying and game, and the game’s design should aim not to put those two things into conflict. Ludonarrative harmony should be the goal, but for some reason people on the internet actively push players towards fostering ludonarrative dissonance.

I'd quibble a little with the idea that there must be a possibility for failure for success to have any meaning, but my quibbles would be outside the scope of this discussion. Otherwise, yes, I as a player am typically making moment-to-moment tactical decisions for my character with the aim of having them succeed at their immediate goals, so long as those decisions are in keeping with the character's principles and limitations. But it's also common for me to make decisions for my character with an aim of expressing fatal flaws or character disadvantages, at the appropriate times.

Sure, and in my opinion a well designed roleplaying game should have mechanics that reward you for doing so, so that you don’t have to compromise between playing your character’s foibles and making decisions with the aim of leading to your character’s success. That’s why I actually love the idea behind 5e’s personality traits, ideals, bonds, and flaws. I have quibbles over their execution, but the idea of rewarding players for portraying personality traits which may be detrimental to the characters’ immediate success with a currency that can be used to improve their chances of long-term success is excellent. If executed well, such a mechanic could help reduce the conflict between “how I imagine my character would act” and “what I as a player who is invested in my character’s success think would be the best thing to do.”

I'm using "fun" as a catch-all term for enjoyment/satisfaction/desirability/etc. So I don't think we disagree here.

For sure.

 

[cbwjm]

Those would be Reactions in 5e parlance...

But how many can you put on the stack? Or is stack too new a term for interrupts. Is attack still used in modern MtG... it's been too long since I really spent time playing magic.