D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[Maxperson]

How is this hard?

The person has dark and violent feelings and urges that they don't understand. These can be pushed aside, except under a full moon.

It isn't hard for you or I, but then you and I are also very experienced as DMs. I was responding to @DND_Reborn in the context of his statement about the challenge to new DMs. A new DM might have trouble reconciling those two things.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think a central problem around "completeness" as a term is that it's not synonymous with "playable", as some people are supposing. "Completeness" and complexity are opposed to each other; the more rules you add to a game, the more incomplete it becomes.

Like, this example:
1) There is a player and a DM.
2) The player makes a fictional persona, i.e. a character. The DM explains what is happening to the character, a scene.
3) The player explains what the character is going to attempt, and the result if they succeed. The players then flips a coin.
4) If heads, the player's character succeeds at their attempt and the intended result in realized. The DM then presents a new scene.
5) If tails, the player's character's attempt fails and the DM narrates the consequence of the failure and then presents a new scene.

That is a complete game. Any character or setting is playable, and any possible action has a system-defined method of resolution. But, I very much doubt anyone wants to play that complete game over the relative incompleteness of 5e; the reasons for that preference are probably determined by your motivations for gaming.

You’ve demonstrated that very little is needed for a game to be complete, but not that more complexity makes a game less complete. 5e is just as complete as this ruleset, and in fact the core gameplay loop is pretty similar, albeit with a dice-based resolution mechanic instead of a coin-based one. The inclusion of additional subsystems doesn’t remove this core resolution system. So in what way is it less complete?

 

[Aldarc]

You're preaching to the choir, my friend. I've been on a kick for games where the characters can be customized at the start, but grow diegetically through acquisition for a while. (And I've been digging into NSR games like Knave and Into the Odd and Troika as a consequence.)

Likewise. I've been dabbling in a Zelda-inspired hack of ICRPG for that purpose. You pick one of three types (combat, magic, skillful), which confers 2 minor advantages, then pick a piece of heroic loot for your hero and then off you go through the wilderness, shrines, and dungeons to acquire more cool loot or unlock new abilities.

 

[Umbran]

It isn't hard for you or I, but then you and I are also very experienced as DMs. I was responding to @DND_Reborn in the context of his statement about the challenge to new DMs. A new DM might have trouble reconciling those two things.

It might happen is not a strong argument. We can posit a lot of things that might happen, a great many of which are technically possible but in the range of probability that doesn't bear consideration.

When we posit things that might happen, we really ought to also engage in an estimation of how likely it really is, and how they would come to happen.

Like, if the DM has no idea what classic werewolves are, this might be an issue. How likely is it that the DM is trying to strictly interpret werewolf stats having never been exposed to classic werewolf stories?

 

[pemerton]

Except that the proceedure in Moldvay Basic is completely ignored by B4 The Lost City, written by Moldvay himself.

This doesn't show that the game's not complete, or lacks a procedure. It just shows that Moldvay wrote a different procedure

I think the notion that D&D has ever had any sort of hard coded scene framing in mind is pretty out there and any scene framing advice that they did have went largely straight out the window in the first five minutes of play.

I don't think anyone said this, did they? Here's the post that I had in mind in my posting:

I would submit that 5e as written absolutely is incomplete

<snip>

For example: under what circumstances do I, as DM, frame a new scene? How 'hard' can I frame it, and what do I take into account when doing so? This is really basic stuff you can't play the game without, and the rules don't, as far as I can tell, really say anything about it.

Moldvay Basic answers these questions, by telling the GM to narrate what the PCs can see in the dungeon, and by telling the GM how to establish the dungeon contents (including a wandering monster procedure, various opening doors procedures, etc).

 

[TwoSix]

You’ve demonstrated that very little is needed for a game to be complete, but not that more complexity makes a game less complete. 5e is just as complete as this ruleset, and in fact the core gameplay loop is pretty similar, albeit with a dice-based resolution mechanic instead of a coin-based one. The inclusion of additional subsystems doesn’t remove this core resolution system. So in what way is it less complete?

Because 5e has different, specified resolution methods for different tasks and actions. And it doesn't have a default resolution method to fall back on for non-specified declarations. There are suggestions and methodologies for the DM to make a determination, but there is not a specified method in the core rules.

In "Coin-flip" game, the player can declare "I use my magic to remove the curse of lycanthropy from the afflicted peasant" and the player and DM know exactly how to determine that works. In 5e, the DM can determine any number of possible resolution methods to that attempt, but there is no specified method to make that resolution; thus, I argue it's "incomplete".

Now, you could certainly argue that "Use the resolution methods specified in the book, if none is found, make up your own ad-hoc resolution" is also a complete ruleset. I can't really argue specifically against it, but I personally feel "define an ad-hoc method" is less complete than "always use the resolution method."

This is all really abstract, of course, but the coin-flip model is always a nice hypothetical model to determine what gains are made by adding exceptions to a generic ruleset.

 

[niklinna]

I like 4e - the only edition I've time for, barring AD&D for nostalgia reasons. And I'll be honest, I never understood the offence at these comparisons.

Like a boardgame, you say? That's good - boardgames feature transparent, player-facing mechanics and player agency.
Like World of Warcraft, you say? That's good, World of Warcraft features incredibly well-honed teamwork and interdependency mechanics.

Which is fine, so long as you deliberately ignore the contextual meanings of words and phrases and then reinterpret what people say to fit a new meaning. Makes actual communication virtually impossible, but, sure, it does work.

No one has EVER compared an RPG to a boardgame and meant it in a positive sense. Nor any video game comparison.

Um...@chaochou literally did just that in the text you quoted. And I agree with him.

Unfortunately, people think that comparing 4e to a board game or a video game does anything more than simply say, "I don't like this game but, simply saying I don't like it isn't good enough, so I need to 'prove' that the game is an inferior game to a 'true' role playing game so I'll compare it to stuff that I know will piss people off".

Pretty sure @chaochou actually likes 4e. Since, you know, he literally began his post by saying so.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Like, if the DM has no idea what classic werewolves are, this might be an issue. How likely is it that the DM is trying to strictly interpret werewolf stats having never been exposed to classic werewolf stories?

Maybe they're familiar with D&D vampires and aren't confident that classic werewolf tropes apply?

 

[TwoSix]

Likewise. I've been dabbling in a Zelda-inspired hack of ICRPG for that purpose. You pick one of three types (combat, magic, skillful), which confers 2 minor advantages, then pick a piece of heroic loot for your hero and then off you go through the wilderness, shrines, and dungeons to acquire more cool loot or unlock new abilities.

Sounds interesting. I bounced off ICRPG for some reason, but maybe it's worth me taking a second look.

 

[Charlaquin]

Because 5e has different, specified resolution methods for different tasks and actions. And it doesn't have a default resolution method to fall back on for non-specified declarations. There are suggestions and methodologies for the DM to make a determination, but there is not a specified method in the core rules.

Huh? Ability checks are that method.