D&D 5E Why Don't We Simplify 5e?

[Malmuria]

Black Hack uses a Usage Die. Your ammo may start at d20. After every use, you roll the die. If you roll a 1-2 then the Usage Die downgrades: e.g., d20 -> d12 -> d10 -> d8 -> d6 -> d4 -> out. This works pretty well with things like ammo, torches, food, etc. without forcing players to track the minutiae of these things while still having a bit of tension with supplies.

I love usage dice. I thought about simplifying it further and just saying that everyone has to cross off one inventory slot (we use inventory slots) for "light" and the party as a whole gets Udx turns of light. This takes out the nuance of having multiple sources of light or the party splitting up, etc, but keeps the use of light resources to put the party on a timer.

Usage Die (Avg Uses)
d4 (2)
d6 (5)
d8 (9)
d10 (14)
d12 (20)
d20 (30)

Yeah, one of the BIGGEST hurdles of cross-referencing for new players is definitely with spells.

IMHO, some of the simplifications that I think that would help new players would be things like getting rid of the attribute in favor of just the modifier. If people want to roll for attributes, Fantasy Age - which basically replaces the usual attributes for modifiers alone - shows that you can still roll for attributes.


Agreed.

I would also consider constructing character sheets more like PbtA playbooks such that players have everything they need there with even less cross-referencing.

I wish there were character sheets that did a better job of teaching how to calculate everything. Most of the ones just assume that you calculate everything at the beginning, which is fine when you are literally just copying down a 'to hit' number associated with class. But as it is in 5e, one player might get their numbers wrong initially, or forget to write down one key thing, and we have to explain how to get the right number and it slows down play.

 

[Steampunkette]

... Usage Dice look amazing, @Aldarc...

That could save a lot of erasers and character sheets. Not just for things like Ammunition and light... but how about class features and spellcasting ability?

... or even survival. It'd e difficult to do hit points or wounds... but Death Saves with Usage Dice could be terrifying.

 

[GMMichael]

By the way, folks, I'm seeing a lot of great streamlining ideas, that if they had their own threads, might have made this thread unnecessary...

 

[overgeeked]

I can honestly say that I've never experienced anything like that beyond a few grumbles in public play settings.

I'm sure it has a lot to do with how the exploration pillar is handled by the Dungeon Master. If rations, torches, and ammunition never matter until all of a sudden they do, I'm sure that stinks as a player (which is what I chalked the grumbles in public play settings up to).

In my experience players don't ever want them to matter at all. So either the DM doesn't make them matter or the players find all the skip buttons provided by the system so they then don't matter anyway. How the DM handles them only determines if the players have to waste resources on skip buttons. Which the players will inevitably be grumpy about.

 

[mrpopstar]

In my experience players don't ever want them to matter at all. So either the DM doesn't make them matter or the players find all the skip buttons provided by the system so they then don't matter anyway. How the DM handles them only determines if the players have to waste resources on skip buttons. Which the players will inevitably be grumpy about.

My current campaign (9.5yrs and counting!) has two human fighters, a halfling rogue, and a half-orc cleric. There aren't many skip buttons. LOL

But I'm serious when I tell you that I've never experienced players taking a stand against resource management in 27yrs of gaming.

 

[Malmuria]

... Usage Dice look amazing, @Aldarc...

That could save a lot of erasers and character sheets. Not just for things like Ammunition and light... but how about class features and spellcasting ability?

... or even survival. It'd e difficult to do hit points or wounds... but Death Saves with Usage Dice could be terrifying.

I forget where I saw this first, but someone worked out usage die for spell slots by level. I altered it for my game to be this, which is fairly generous compared to a lot of old school rules, but if you wanted to make spells more rare you could always step down the usage die for each level category. In the black hack, spell levels have been reconfigured to match class levels, so that if you are 4th level you can cast at maximum 4th level spells.

Spell Slots by level
1 - Ud6
2-4 - Ud8
5-7 - Ud10
8-9 - Ud12
10+ - Ud20

Macchiato Monsters takes the concept to the next level, but goes too far for my taste, where instead of tracking all sorts of equipment and abilities now you are tracking a bunch of separate usage dice.

 

[overgeeked]

My current campaign (9.5yrs and counting!) has two human fighters, a halfling rogue, and a half-orc cleric. There aren't many skip buttons. LOL

But I'm serious when I tell you that I've never experienced players taking a stand against resource management in 27yrs of gaming.

Cool. That must be nice. In 37 years of gaming I've never not had players take a stand against resource management.

 

[Malmuria]

In my experience it’s almost the reverse of that. If the DM says they’re going to make exploration important, the players pick all the skip buttons. If the DM doesn’t make it clear exploration is important the players don’t bother wasting resources assuming the DM will simply skip exploration. When exploration comes up, the players complain...then pick all the skip buttons they can.

Players don’t want to bother tracking food and water, so they take the skip buttons. Players don’t want to bother tracking torches or light sources so they take the skip buttons. Gods forbid you as the DM remind them how darkvision actually works (disadvantage on Perception checks in total darkness). Then they complain some more and pull out the skip buttons for that, too. There’s not really anything in the exploration pillar that doesn’t have a skip button. It’s really too bad.

How would you distinguish, in terms of mechanics, with players having to deal with exploration pillar stuff vs a skip button? Or is this 5e specific, where you can't create a game where torches matter when PCs have the light cantrip, for example? Like, what is the desired playstyle and what is getting in the way of that?

A couple things I can think of:
• Simulation: you can't fight/explore/think when you are hungry and tired, being in the dark is scary and you might panic, etc, so how do we sort of model this mechanically? I never really liked the concept of a short rest until I saw the way they are explained in Into the Odd, where HP is more about catching your breath and getting a drink of water so that you can do more demanding physical activity--relateable! Solution for 5e: you need to consume some food water in order to take a short rest?

• Timer: especially in a dungeon, the idea is that the amount of light you have available sort of determines how long you can spend in a dark environment, and that when you start to run out of light it's a cue that you need to get out of there. Between darkvision and the light cantrip (and familliars etc), I don't see how to recreate this danger in 5e. It would need to be magical darkness or something. Better to create some other form of a timer
Same thing with exploration--how many days can you travel away from a settlement before you start to starve. Again, in 5e, probably the only way to do this is to choose a really harsh environment.

 

[mrpopstar]

Cool. That must be nice. In 37 years of gaming I've never not had players take a stand against resource management.

Such a bummer.

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Back in the D&D Next days, my impression of the new edition was that the game would be streamlined and/or have its bumps ironed out. WotC would produce something more accessible to the masses, and maybe even ride the popularity of some lighter-weight games at the time (looking at you, Savage Worlds). Crunch would be Pathfinder's thing, and more power to Paizo.

But here we are with regular rules discussions from WotC, and regular rules discussions here (now in the helpful format of How To articles). A "basic rules" document. An advanced 5e on the way from ENpublishing, and a full-on battle royale thread about the plethora of DMG options. Several threads are about adding more rules to make an aspect run better or more realistically.

And here I thought 5e was about the rulings that the DM would make, not the rules. Players make their characters from the book, and the DM does the rest, right? Why don't we see more discussions here about simplifying D&D?

Heh. At WotC's GENCON videoed preview of the upcoming 5E posture just prior to unleashing the playtests, Mearls stated that RPGs were about the play, not rules. Within weeks you would find him positing truckloads of Q's online as to what "rules" everyone wanted. Just sayin'.