D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[Hex08]

So I'm sitting here up way too late and have a pretty good buzz on so take this for what it's worth. Oh, and I didn't read the thirteen pages of posts either because only my opinion maters

I think you can make arguments either way but, in the end, my favorite edition is the best. My best campaigns all happened during 2E.

Honestly though, the video is rather reductive and if everyone is playing their own heavily house ruled version of the game then not everyone is playing the same game. I had the chance to play with a D&D designer and the aforementioned buzz is interfering with my ability to recall who but the game was so different from the rules I used and the game I played that I stopped showing up after a session or two. It just wasn't D&D to me so I rapidly lost interest and quit. Was it backwards compatible? Sure, I suppose, but it didn't matter.

Editions do matter and that the video content creator is willing to exclude 4E kind of makes that point.

 

[Hussar]

/edit sorry, nothing to see here.

 

[MichaelSomething]

By reading this thread, one would think Edition does matter!

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I think that this is interesting, so ... why? This goes back to the Chinese Room (AI) analogy.

What is the difference between the following three scenarios-
1. A coin flip seen by everyone.
2. A coin flip by the DM that only the DM sees.
3. A coin flip by non-participant Jake, who you called, and asked to flip a coin.

I know that emotionally it feels different, and there might be reasons of fairness, transparency, and not bugging Jake to not employ these other methods, but fundamentally they are just outside referents for adjudication.

1 vs 2: The possibility of fudging, for starters. Even if the process is used faithfully, the secrecy/ignorance is clearly a factor that affects decision-making.
2 vs 3: The amount removed. You have to recruit a third party, who then reports to you, and you then report to the group. Now there's the element of hearsay, there's two different points of re-interpretation (Jake is unseen by everyone; your internal response is unseen by anyone but you.) Further, it implies that the group present at the table isn't actually "enough" to play. Other people have to be recruited. What happens if it's 2 am on a Thursday morning and no one you know is awake to flip a coin? Does the game just...halt?
1 vs 3 is just the concatenation of the above things.

All of these probably seem self-evident if you are familiar with certain styles of play ... but ... they aren't for everyone. I think that a lot of people would get hung up on some of these - what can players just "do" and what must they attempt by coin flip?

You tell them. That's literally what Dungeon World (for example) does. It literally tells you when a move is invoked. That's why nearly every move begins with the phrase, "When you <trigger phrase>, <rules text.>" (Bold is frequently used to highlight the trigger phrase, so I have reproduced that here.) So, for example, the first actually listed move in Dungeon World is the Bard's Arcane Art move:

When you weave a performance into a basic spell, choose an ally and an effect:

• Heal 1d8 damage
• +1d4 forward to damage [NB: "Add +1d4 to the next time you deal damage"]
• Their mind is shaken clear of one enchantment
• The next time someone successfully assists the target with aid, they get +2 instead of +1

Then roll+CHA. ✴ On a 10+, the ally gets the selected effect. ✴ On a 7-9, your spell still works, but you draw unwanted attention or your magic reverberates to other targets affecting them as well, GM's choice.

If you don't meet the trigger phrase for a move, then you're playing through the fiction. If you do, then you do whatever the move says. This is pithily summarized with two maxims: "you have to do it, to do it" (you must meet the trigger phrase before a move can happen, not just declare the move itself) and "if you do it, you do it" (if the thing you've done meets the trigger, then the move happens as described.) Trigger phrases should be straightforward and unambiguous, particularly for baseline moves that are meant to be used regularly.

What if a player disregards the fiction entirely (the whole bad faith, "I jump over the moon" example)?

Then you ask them why they are doing so, since (again, using Dungeon World as a comparison point) sticking to the fiction is explicitly an expectation of play. Why is the player choosing to abrogate one of the explicit parts of playing this game? Are they upset with something? Have they misunderstood? Or do they simply not wish to be bound by that restriction, despite it being a requirement for playing the game they have claimed to agree to play?

What if a DM narrates failure that the player doesn't like (you failed at walking 5' forward, so the consequence is ... YOU SPONTANEOUSLY COMBUST AND DIE!!!).

Exactly the same as the above: the DM has failed to stick to the fiction. Moreover, in your (intentionally ludicrous) example, the DM has failed to actually apply the rules, at least for a game actually designed, like DW. Spontaneous death doesn't make sense for the action taken, which is one of the requirements (Principles) of being a DW GM: make a move that follows. Forcing the player to exert effort to do something as trivial as "walking 5' forward" is against the spirit and the rules of the game (the Principle be a fan of the characters and, more importantly, the Agenda play to find out what happens.) Having the consequence of a failure on something so trivial be instant, combustive death likewise is detached from the stated fiction, and thus fails to abide by start and end in the fiction.

So, as with the previous example, the correct response is to ask this GM why she is breaking the rules. What is her goal in doing so? What purpose is served by so flagrantly opposing the Principles as laid out in the Dungeon World books? In what ways does this benefit the shared experience of play? Does she simply not wish to run this system, despite having offered to do so?

These are background assumptions that are "baked in" to the ruleset you are proposing, and yet they are not self-evident when it comes to adjudication. IMO.

For a system actually designed to do these things...no, they aren't "baked in." You address these questions by making their answers part of the process of play. That way, problems are almost instantly identifiable, and bad faith is easy to separate from mere mistakes.

 

[gorice]

Desired challenge to PCs, and what is implied by previously established fiction, mostly.

[...]

Sure there are. The players want to track down the dragon, get intel about where to look, and decide to embark on a journey. So you use the travel rules. Any more procedure than that is a solution searching for a problem.

First bit was re: 'hardness' of scene framing. Second was the lack of travel procedures. Sorry if it seems like I'm being a pedant here, but there are some details I want to get across.

So, for scene framing, during a game, maybe I just say 'hey, Brian, the morning after the party, you wake up in a prison cell wearing nothing but rags. You have no idea how you got there.' Or even: 'ok, so you're in the middle of a fight with the Kraken...'

Is it wrong, according to the rules? I take your point that the established fiction is really important here. But, assuming that the established fiction (which may or may not be known to the Brian) suggests it is possible, can I frame a scene this way? If not, what should I be doing? According to the rules, that is.

Regarding travel procedures, the Alexandrian explains the issue much better than I could, so I'll leave this here. Interestingly, the final 5e playtest actually did contain a lot of procedures (what he calls 'structures') for this stuff, but they were mostly ripped out of the finished product. Oh, and please ignore the 'system matters' red flag. I don't think it's helpful to discuss that now.

Newbs watch Handbooker Helper videos instead of reading the rules, and watch more in depth stuff to dive deeper into the game. Because 5e is very easy to pick up and play, but does a poor job with guiding deeper exploration of the game’s nuances and layers.

With a published adventure, I think you're right, with the proviso that 'nuances and layers' include 'vitally important questions that you've been fudging your own solutions to since the start'.

 

[Mannahnin]

Well...

He says he has been running games for years and PCs struggle to make it to level 5. So my guess is either he doesn't hand out a lot of XP or they fail checks and die a lot.

Slow advancement. He's specifically addressed this one. He thinks that D&D gets less fun once PCs get above around that level, and his long term players have apparently been content with stalled advancement (much slowed after around level 4), and more focus on diegetic rewards and accomplishments and plot, to sustain a game over 10+ years.

 

[Mannahnin]

Also full tables don't equal general quality. You don't have to adjucate balnced and fair games if everyone at your table only wants to die hilariously. WHF RPG is built on that.

Sure, but IME that only really works for con games and one-shots. I've played in plenty of sessions like that, but they don't make for decade+ long campaigns.

 

[Oofta]

I mean it’s easy to imagine many people struggling to figure out checkers. Not everyone easily figures out systems, and instead have other strengths. (Here we risk getting into the question of whether the organism is the singular human or the group of humans)

But beyond that, 5e explains play, gives examples, and provides character creation rules that are robust enough that at least some player know who their character is right out of the gate, while providing DMs with hints atNPC behaviors and attitudes in a way that most people pick up passively while reading the books to learn the actual rules.

It needs better advice for running adventures, absolutely, but it’s entirely playable out of the box.

Newbs watch Handbooker Helper videos instead of reading the rules, and watch more in depth stuff to dive deeper into the game. Because 5e is very easy to pick up and play, but does a poor job with guiding deeper exploration of the game’s nuances and layers.

I'm not sure the real point of the core books is really to teach people how to play. When there are so many other options from starter sets to streaming video to adventurer's league to joining someone else's game. If I ever get stuck in a video game (or a technical programming issue for that matter) there are answers a quick search away.

Maybe there should be a "how to play" or "how to get started" section that gives some overall ideas and then just points you to some website. It would be good if WOTC would put the site in DndBeyond but countless hours of how-to videos already out there for anyone who wants it, so there's not a lot of incentive.

 

[hawkeyefan]

It needs better advice for running adventures, absolutely, but it’s entirely playable out of the box.

Yes, largely because GMs “connect the dots” as @gorice mentioned. And the way we connect those dots will depend on many things, but it all comes from sources other than the books. If we're long time gamers like many of us here, we use our years of experience with previous editions or other RPGs. If we're new to RPGs then it seems like youtube channels and streamed shows are a major source of guidance.

I think that with 5E, as I mentioned earlier, there are two ways to look at it. If we have something like the Starter Kit and are playing Lost Mines of Phandelver, then there is more guidance on what to do as a GM, but it is specific to that scenario. Still helpful in understanding what we're supposed to do as a GM.

But setting aside published adventures, I think it's much easier to imagine people struggling. I'm not saying that there aren't people who can read the PHB and DMG and figure it all out. But I don't think it's all that contentious to say that some people will struggle.

 

[Oofta]

First bit was re: 'hardness' of scene framing. Second was the lack of travel procedures. Sorry if it seems like I'm being a pedant here, but there are some details I want to get across.

So, for scene framing, during a game, maybe I just say 'hey, Brian, the morning after the party, you wake up in a prison cell wearing nothing but rags. You have no idea how you got there.' Or even: 'ok, so you're in the middle of a fight with the Kraken...'

Is it wrong, according to the rules? I take your point that the established fiction is really important here. But, assuming that the established fiction (which may or may not be known to the Brian) suggests it is possible, can I frame a scene this way? If not, what should I be doing? According to the rules, that is.

There is no rule on how to frame a scene. That's not the purpose of the rules. The DMG gives some general advice and suggestions, but every DM has to find their own style, there is no one true way. That's just not how D&D works and never has been. The rules have always just been tools to enable a narrative set in a world and reacting to the world the DM presents. That's been true in every edition, going on half a century now. It seems to have worked so far.

Regarding travel procedures, the Alexandrian explains the issue much better than I could, so I'll leave this here. Interestingly, the final 5e playtest actually did contain a lot of procedures (what he calls 'structures') for this stuff, but they were mostly ripped out of the finished product. Oh, and please ignore the 'system matters' red flag. I don't think it's helpful to discuss that now.

Whether or not there should be more concerning travel procedures I'll leave to others (and other threads) to debate. But again, there's no one size fits all.

With a published adventure, I think you're right, with the proviso that 'nuances and layers' include 'vitally important questions that you've been fudging your own solutions to since the start'.

Fudging your own solutions is kind of what makes D&D work for me and always has been.

D&D gives you a structure to base a game on. The DM and their players are the ones who decide how to use that structure.