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

[tetrasodium]

My question would be: what is the role of the GM and what is the appropriate scope of "ruling not rules"?

My memories of playing as a child/pre-teen were that there were a lot of arguments, because the game (basic) leaves a lot to interpretation, and 11 year olds like to argue. But as an adult, my players (who are also my friends) come to the table wanting to have fun, not argue.

In this sense, I think ruling not rules--that is, a high-trust game--works best when the GM is not the totally neutral "referee," but has a little bit of the "be a fan of the PCs" in them. Basically, it's more fun for everyone when what the PCs try to do could plausibly work, depending on the dice. Both the 1e "referee" gm and the 3e rules over rulings style creates, imo, a possibly adversarial game in a way that is not fun.

That's all well and good to say, but 5e takes it to a level beyond that where you often have very unfinished spitballs of an idea that hang their unfinished state behind ask your gm For example...

Spoiler: What is the difference between a keep, small castle, palace, or a large keep?

Do any of them do anything? How can a player use them if they build one. What about a fort, is that bigger or smaller than a small keep & which is more defensive?... ask your GM. That's not to say these are burning questions relevant to anyone's game or deeply desired features... They are just an example of 5e's overreliance on ask your gm where it doesn't belong. Want to something relevant to many campaigns like craft magic items?... ask your gm... sure xge has has a section of "rules" for it, but most of it is left to the GM to finish then derail their campaign to make adventures for you to get supplies for crafting.

 

[Cadence]

A character would know they're hurt, they might know they feel like they're dying...but they wouldn't know what hit points are and they certainly wouldn't be able to make tactical decisions based on that knowledge. Your character won't know the details of a spell and how it works, for example, unless they learned that spell or happened to have studied about it (arcana check). They wouldn't know if a wizard lock worked on a daemon, for example...unless the wizard who taught it to them knew that, etc.

Don't all wizards learn the spells, and would thus know the details of the spell? Details which could easily be in the PhB?

It feels like an odd and very non-D&D world where the trained wizards didn't know roughly how many people could be affected by sleep or charm person for example, and I'm not sure what benefit is gained by not having that detail in.

Like I said, players don't need to know the rules. If the player alters their decisions for their character based on the rules of the game, that's proof they shouldn't know the rules.

Why wouldn't the Wizard who learned the spell know the basic rules of how the spells works?

Play your character as if they're a living person in this world. People behave and act quite differently than the player characters.

There are entire threads on metagaming. This is how you want it to work, and not how everyone's tables run.

That's odd to me as it's a fairly common practice in a lot of ultra-light play. Default to the GM, but if someone digs in, roll off. Because the game is the thing.

Or just flip to the page in the rules that says if it can be done quickly?

And we don't need to have rules that cover everything or worry about every situation a spell could possibly be used in up front. What a nightmare.

We've never had rules to cover everything. But it feels like there are some common things that always come up (number of targets? dice of damage? range?) that have pretty much always been included in the D&D rules.

That's arguing until you win because you know you're right so screw the game and everyone else at the table...I'm right dammit...territory. I will argue until I feel like not arguing any more. Jesus. That's legit someone with the argumentative flaw.

Like lots of people in threads on here?

 

[Faolyn]

A character would know they're hurt, they might know they feel like they're dying...but they wouldn't know what hit points are and they certainly wouldn't be able to make tactical decisions based on that knowledge. Your character won't know the details of a spell and how it works, for example, unless they learned that spell or happened to have studied about it (arcana check). They wouldn't know if a wizard lock worked on a daemon, for example...unless the wizard who taught it to them knew that, etc.

A spell--which presumably takes of at least a page of text in your spellbook, if not the 1 page/level as in some earlier editions--will likely have information as to how it works. While it won't be written in the dryly encyclopedic way that spells are written in the PH, I wouldn't be surprised if it contained phrasing such as "ye Arcane-locked door keeps shutte, & not Personne nor Beast nor Daemon shall render it Twain, save through ye moste brutal Acts of Strengthe & ye very-moste clever-fingered of Thieves. To caste thys spell, thou must taketh an Ounce of golden Dust and..." and so forth.

It's also telling that so many of the wizards and sorcerers in the world just happen to have only the best spells. Isn't that odd. You'd think that a character living in the world...some character...somewhere...would have picked a bad spell up along the way. And if generation after generation of wizards only pick the best spells, the rest would be lost to time.

The 2e Wizard's Spell Compendium was something like a thousand pages long. The vast majority haven't been published in 5e. Even ignoring campaign-specific spells, I'd say that most spells have been lost to time.

 

[Malmuria]

That's all well and good to say, but 5e takes it to a level beyond that where you often have very unfinished spitballs of an idea that hang their unfinished state behind ask your gm For example...

Spoiler: What is the difference between a keep, small castle, palace, or a large keep?

View attachment 142392

Do any of them do anything? How can a player use them if they build one. What about a fort, is that bigger or smaller than a small keep & which is more defensive?... ask your GM. That's not to say these are burning questions relevant to anyone's game or deeply desired features... They are just an example of 5e's overreliance on ask your gm where it doesn't belong. Want to something relevant to many campaigns like craft magic items?... ask your gm... sure xge has has a section of "rules" for it, but most of it is left to the GM to finish then derail their campaign to make adventures for you to get supplies for crafting.

The 5e dmg is terrible, and include all of these legacy facets of the game that the designers clearly don't care about anymore. OSE manages to be more useful in about as many words. Also, 5e says it's "ruling not rules," but in practice is actually lots of rules without procedures of play. Many of the problems that come up--how to run a dungeon, wilderness travel/exploration, talking to monsters instead of combat--could be addressed if they just carried over and maybe updated some of the procedures from earlier editions

 

[overgeeked]

Don't all wizards learn the spells, and would thus know the details of the spell? Details which could easily be in the PhB?

Wizards might learn about some spells, but they clearly don't learn all the spells. And there's no reason to assume the student wizard would get to pick which spells they learn. Their teacher would likely decide what the young wizard actually learned. Why assume a perfectly stocked wizard school and/or library with spells easily available? It's a conceit that makes no sense in the fantasy world, it only exists to make it easier as a game.

It feels like an odd and very non-D&D world where the trained wizards didn't know roughly how many people could be affected by sleep or charm person for example, and I'm not sure what benefit is gained by not having that detail in.

Roughly, not exactly. And only the spells they know. But you generally get a table full of gamers who know most of the spells by heart and tend to be quite vocal about which spells are good and which are trash...which impacts caster players. There's a heap of metagaming around.

Why wouldn't the Wizard who learned the spell know the basic rules of how the spells works?

Basics, yes. Perfect details of exactly how the mechanics of the game work and perfect knowledge of any and all edge cases, certainly not.

This is how you want it to work, and not how everyone's tables run.

I never suggested otherwise. That's all any of these threads are. How we want it to work and not how everyone's table runs.

Or just flip to the page in the rules that says if it can be done quickly?

Or just ignore the book and have the GM make a call in the moment and save 5 minutes every time a question comes up.

We've never had rules to cover everything. But it feels like there are some common things that always come up (number of targets? dice of damage? range?) that have pretty much always been included in the D&D rules.

Some editions certainly tried to cover everything. Besides, we already have rules that cover everything. The GM and the players at the table. What the books have are guidelines. The table can decide just fine without a book. It's not holy writ.

A spell--which presumably takes of at least a page of text in your spellbook, if not the 1 page/level as in some earlier editions--will likely have information as to how it works. While it won't be written in the dryly encyclopedic way that spells are written in the PH, I wouldn't be surprised if it contained phrasing such as "ye Arcane-locked door keeps shutte, & not Personne nor Beast nor Daemon shall render it Twain, save through ye moste brutal Acts of Strengthe & ye very-moste clever-fingered of Thieves. To caste thys spell, thou must taketh an Ounce of golden Dust and..." and so forth.

As general ideas for what they do, yes. But not so detailed that the character knows the game mechanics of the spell. Like those edge cases where players use the game mechanics to get a bit extra. Nah.

The 2e Wizard's Spell Compendium was something like a thousand pages long. The vast majority haven't been published in 5e. Even ignoring campaign-specific spells, I'd say that most spells have been lost to time.

I'm talking about in the fiction of the game world, not what the game companies have published. It is 1152 pages long.

 

[MichaelSomething]

So it'll save space of we replace rules with group conflict resolution advice??

 

[Malmuria]

So it'll save space of we replace rules with group conflict resolution advice??

You kid, but much if not most of the dm advice out there on various forums, youtube, etc, is basically just conflict resolution advice. Given that, I don't know that it saves space but clearly it's something that people need.

 

[teitan]

A lot of the game's complexity comes from the spells, which are not one of the optional items you listed.

Yes but when you bring in something like magic you can't really get simple per se. That's why I said if you get any simpler you've got BX. Basic Fantasy will scratch that itch in that case, also Swords & Wizardry, White Box Medieval Adventure Game are two other options. DCC is also comparably simpler while providing a nice complexity at the same time.

 

[overgeeked]

Yes but when you bring in something like magic you can't really get simple per se. That's why I said if you get any simpler you've got BX. Basic Fantasy will scratch that itch in that case, also Swords & Wizardry, White Box Medieval Adventure Game are two other options. DCC is also comparably simpler while providing a nice complexity at the same time.

You absolutely could get simpler. Make casting an arcana check. Base the DC on the effect you want. Higher level effects have higher DCs which are too high for low-level casters. Give each school rough parameters of what it can do. That would take maybe 5-10 pages and would cover the entire magic section of the PHB.

 

[Aldarc]

Yes but when you bring in something like magic you can't really get simple per se. That's why I said if you get any simpler you've got BX. Basic Fantasy will scratch that itch in that case, also Swords & Wizardry, White Box Medieval Adventure Game are two other options. DCC is also comparably simpler while providing a nice complexity at the same time.

Which all goes to show that you can simplify 5e.