D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[FrogReaver]

It's more that the value of "flexibility" is questionable depending on the group's motivations for playing. "Flexibility" is valuable in the "shared improv" portion of a TTRPG, much less so in the "game" portion. Games, as in contests with stakes, don't really benefit from flexible rules in the same manner.

I agree here as well. Pros and Cons! That's my themesong!

 

[Oofta]

I wasn’t asking about rewards. I was asking how you evaluate a player’s performance. Like, what makes a good player? Or what does it take for a player to have a good session?

I don't evaluate player performance?* Other than I guess the basics of are they fun to have at the table. I don't care if they run their PC effectively as long as they aren't being consitently disruptive or annoying other players.

There’s not a right or wrong answer, but the answer may help explain the goals of play. These will vary by group and game, so I’m trying to understand your goals in play. Other than “fun” which I think is a goal for everyone and therefore sheds no light on the discussion.

The general goals of play are discussed during a session 0. I generally do heroic campaigns because it's what I enjoy running. My goal as a DM is to come up with interesting and varied locales, NPCs and challenges with plenty of options and threads so the players feel like they can choose direction and have in impact on the campaign world.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it! I was asking to better understand his game.

If the goal is more about story, then I can see how procedures like wilderness travel or dungeon exploration rules are being viewed as unnecessary. But if the goal is more about skillful navigation of tactical challenges, then such procedures (or similar ones) are more necessary.

Not that a game must be one or the other. Most games involve both, to varying degrees. I’m just trying to understand @Oofta ’s game a but better, and perhaps also explain why others don’t consider such rules systems as “unnecessary cruft”.

I guess I'm saying I'm running more of a emergent story style game. I don't want "phases" (i.e. town, conflict, journey, etc.), I don't want what I consider an artificial predefined structure. I want the game to feel like a fantasy TV series where the entire group is developing a story on the stage that I've set.

There's nothing wrong with different approaches. I understand why some people may have liked 4E's skill challenges for example even if I did not. I think the DMG could use more sections like they did with The Role of the Dice where they discuss extremes and mixing styles. Of course the problem with that is that any general advice on high level options gets parsed out as if it were legal text and some people will parse out every comma to say that "this is the way the game is supposed to be played".

I think the way the game is supposed to be played is for the DM and the group to find their own groove that works for them. In my case that's quite unstructured and has almost no predefined set procedures because I want the world to feel more lived in and responsive to the actions or inaction of the PCs. I don't care for games that have hard and fast procedures such as "It's turn 6 so it's time for a random encounter" or "You get a success because you did something that should immediately end the challenge, but you only have 5 successes so it's Jo's turn". They just feel less immersive to me.

*that's not strictly true because my wife and I complain about the bad tactics other people use afterwards all the time.

 

[TwoSix]

I agree here as well. Pros and Cons! That's my themesong!

Where I would probably agree with them more is that granting the DM more fiat authority isn’t making the game more flexible, it’s simply giving the DM more authority.

A GM less game where authority is shared between participants equally, requiring consensus or turn by turn authority grants, is also much more flexible than a rules bound game, for example.

 

[FrogReaver]

Where I would probably agree with them more is that granting the DM more fiat authority isn’t making the game more flexible, it’s simply giving the DM more authority.

I don't agree here, I think explanation below will explain.

A GM less game where authority is shared between participants equally, requiring consensus or turn by turn authority grants, is also much more flexible than a rules bound game, for example.

Yes. I think the human being aspect is what is important for flexibility, not necessarily whether it's the DM or Player that wields it. That's why I was trying to contrast that with a rule to determine vs adjudication to determine. Adjudication can always accomplish everything a rule can and also could accomplish other things if/when desired. I tend to list that as DM adjudication (as that's where it resides in D&D), but it could be a player or be shared in some sense. It's the adjudication vs explicit rules process that I mean to constrast.

 

[hawkeyefan]

If I understand you correctly - you are asking whether the 'fun' is derived primarily from interesting roleplay interaction or whether the 'fun' is derived primarily from winning/overcoming the scenario.

I’m asking what is the goal of play. What is the game and or group trying to achieve through play. Yes, fun is the ultimate goal. So what makes the game fun?

There doesn’t need to be only one answer to this, but it’s probably good to have an idea of what a group’s participants want out of play.

I'd say for me the answer is the first, interesting roleplay interaction. At one time I was definitely more about winning/overcoming the scenario and 5e could be a bit frustrating at times there. Don't get me wrong it's still fun to win/overcome the scenario but failure is also interesting and often fun. For example: When my Wizard Lodu died part of his consciousness was imbued into his spell book/notebook. He could communicate to the party with the pages and provided a repository of information for the party going forward as well as an overarching quest they hoped to one day fulfill. So while this was definitely a 'loss' it was incredibly fun as well.

So would you say you’re more focused on the story? Do you as GM override rules to deliver a better story? Are you as a player okay with a GM who does that?

IMO, skill navigation of tactical wilderness and dungeon exploration scenarios can be accomplished via a focus on the fiction instead of a focus on predefined mechanics. A large part of real world tactics is not having perfect information about how everything works and having to make the most of the information you have.

So this is kind of central to one of the points of conflict.

For tactical challenges, players need to be making informed decisions. So known rules are necessary. If it’s all just in the GM’s head, then they aren’t making informed decisions.

Hence, exploration turns and random encounter checks allowing for meaningful choice for the players, versus the GM deciding what would be coolest/most interesting not offering such decisions.

Can we all agree with the premise that a DM having less rules constraints on adjudication means there is greater flexibility in a game?

*Note there are pros and cons to greater flexibility

I tend to agree with what @Campbell has said here, except I’ll ask what you mean by flexibility.

If it’s about the game being changed, then no, I don’t see the connection because a change can remove or change the constraints. So they aren’t an obstacle in that sense.

If you mean flexible in that the GM is free to just do whatever in the moment… then yes, that’s flexible for the GM. But is it flexible for the players? How is it from their perspective? Is that just an increase in authority for the GM?

 

[FrogReaver]

I’m asking what is the goal of play. What is the game and or group trying to achieve through play. Yes, fun is the ultimate goal. So what makes the game fun?

There doesn’t need to be only one answer to this, but it’s probably good to have an idea of what a group’s participants want out of play.

I think we are close enough aligned here. Yes, it's about what the participants want, but not all participants want the same things, or in exactly the same proportions. Some even change what they want based on their mood and how the previous week went. What they want to get out of the game is fun, but precisely what is fun is dynamic and differs a bit from player to player.

I'd say my group tends more toward story and feeling powerful than skillfully overcoming really challenging scenarios.

So would you say you’re more focused on the story?

Yes, I thought I had answered this in my previous post.

Do you as GM override rules to deliver a better story?

Not often, but on occasion. Most common place is when it's getting late, sometimes i'll speed things up a bit or ignore some prep i have of an additional encounter to get to a better stopping point.

Are you as a player okay with a GM who does that?

Yes, but I prefer the illusion than the knowledge of it.

So this is kind of central to one of the points of conflict.

For tactical challenges, players need to be making informed decisions. So known rules are necessary. If it’s all just in the GM’s head, then they aren’t making informed decisions.

Hence, exploration turns and random encounter checks allowing for meaningful choice for the players, versus the GM deciding what would be coolest/most interesting not offering such decisions.

I disagree with what you deem as central. I don't believe players need to make perfectly informed decisions. I believe the need some information and have the ability to maybe gain more information. But I don't think they need to know precisely how everything works to make a tactical decision. To me tactical decisions based on incomplete information are just another type of tactical decision (and are more like the tactical decisions you actually experience in the real world).

I tend to agree with what @Campbell has said here, except I’ll ask what you mean by flexibility.

If it’s about the game being changed, then no, I don’t see the connection because a change can remove or change the constraints. So they aren’t an obstacle in that sense.

I think systems and play cultures that encourage house rules are less contsrained when it comes to implementing new house rules. I might very well be mistaken but i don't get the impression that the culture around say blades in the dark is as open to houserules as the culture around D&D.

If you mean flexible in that the GM is free to just do whatever in the moment… then yes, that’s flexible for the GM. But is it flexible for the players? How is it from their perspective? Is that just an increase in authority for the GM?

I'll say this, the play experiences we have of players that enjoy such systems do show they feel it benefits them when the DM has that flexibility. Not everyone has that same experience obviously, but that's a common theme you see when the benefits of such a style are talked about from the players.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Can we all agree with the premise that a DM having less rules constraints on adjudication means there is greater flexibility in a game?

*Note there are pros and cons to greater flexibility

Eh. I genuinely don't know about that. "Flexibility" is a difficult thing to define. Not trying to be pendantic, I genuinely mean that "flexibility" can mean very different things to different people.

For example, I've had multiple PF/3.X DMs who completely burned out on running that system. They felt that, because the rules were so open-ended and had so few limits, they were screwed. If they just went all out and created whatever they wanted, it would essentially guarantee they'd crush the PCs no problem. If they tried to make something balanced and effective, players would easily roflstomp it with a ridiculous combo of spells, items, feats, features, etc. They had a great deal of "flexibility," and yet they felt 90% or more of the roads they could take went somewhere frustrating or disappointing.

By comparison, in both 4e and 13A, I've seen DMs genuinely feel inspired and excited, because they realized that there was very little they could do that wouldn't work out. Sure, things are somewhat more constrained than they are in 3e (or 1e or whatever edition one wishes to compare), but many of the avenues cut off were the ones going to unfortunate places. Instead, they could move forward with confidence, doing whatever made sense to them, because the system had their back and would provide a very high likelihood of doing something cool in actual practice, not just in theory.

So...is the former "flexible" but requiring "caution" and the latter "inflexible"? Or is the latter "flexible" within reason, and the former so open it verges on vacant, to reference that old saying about keeping an open mind?

And "flexibility" isn't the only thing that can cash out like this. For some, "complexity" is absolute anathema--it means busywork, "filling out your taxes" in order to play, comprehensive and utterly needless overhead for absolutely no gain. For others, it's a delight, the richness of a system with many parts that need careful consideration and which rewards skillful manipulation thereof. For some, "simplicity" is a godsend, a respite from the tedium and a chance to finally cut loose and play the way they want to play, regardless of what some pencil-pushing designer thinks. For others, it's a nightmare, a prison of inability and monotony without recourse that drains away whatever interest the game might offer.

This makes it very hard to unequivocally support any attribution of virtue, even if in principle the idea of something like "flexibility" or "elegance" or "ease of use" should be universally desirable.

 

[Oofta]

I know this wasn't addressed to me but thought I'd throw in my 2 coppers ...

I’m asking what is the goal of play. What is the game and or group trying to achieve through play. Yes, fun is the ultimate goal. So what makes the game fun?

I can have fun playing many board games but they are a very different experience. In D&D when I'm a player I want to see the world the DM is creating through the eyes of my PC.

There doesn’t need to be only one answer to this, but it’s probably good to have an idea of what a group’s participants want out of play.



So would you say you’re more focused on the story? Do you as GM override rules to deliver a better story? Are you as a player okay with a GM who does that?

I don't think being focused on story relies on overriding rules. I can't remember the last time I didn't follow the rules unless it was one of my pre-established house rules. Of course there's a lot of wiggle room in 5E for rulings and NPC behavior. [EDIT: I will hand-wave some things such as calling a fight when it's obvious the PCs are going to win or just narrating travel because I don't want it to be a focal point]

So this is kind of central to one of the points of conflict.

For tactical challenges, players need to be making informed decisions. So known rules are necessary. If it’s all just in the GM’s head, then they aren’t making informed decisions.

Hence, exploration turns and random encounter checks allowing for meaningful choice for the players, versus the GM deciding what would be coolest/most interesting not offering such decisions.

I disagree. They need to know what their PCs are capable of. They need to know what their PCs know so they can make informed decisions based on what they would know if they were there. This can involve PC skills. If travelling through the mountains they may know that blizzards are possible any time of year and based on a nature check may know that they need to find shelter soon. They may know that if they're travelling through the swamps doom that it's monster infested so try not to attract attention. [EDIT: it's also a question of how well they decided to prepare and how successful they were. I want PC actions and knowledge to have an impact.]

They are never going to know that they've gone three hexes so therefore they are "due" for an encounter. In the real world we evaluate risk all the time without specific pre-planned structure or knowledge that we don't gather for ourselves.

I tend to agree with what @Campbell has said here, except I’ll ask what you mean by flexibility.

If it’s about the game being changed, then no, I don’t see the connection because a change can remove or change the constraints. So they aren’t an obstacle in that sense.

If you mean flexible in that the GM is free to just do whatever in the moment… then yes, that’s flexible for the GM. But is it flexible for the players? How is it from their perspective? Is that just an increase in authority for the GM?

As a DM I'm not doing "whatever" in the moment. I've set the stage, decided what the NPC actors are doing and then react to the PC's actions. TTRPGs are always going to have a fair amount of GM decision making, mine just doesn't have much of a predefined structure that can be gamed by the players.

 

[Composer99]

@FrogReaver I can't agree that fewer constraints on the GM when it comes to adjudicating gameplay equals more flexibility during gameplay of necessity. In fact, I would go so far to say that most of the time, it means less flexibility in whatever aspect of gameplay you happen to be considering, because the GM has only themselves to fall back on whenever anything happens and they need to make a decision or adjudicate something. That's a pretty high cognitive burden when you get down to it.

To my mind, say rather that a lesser or greater amount of constraint on GM authority with respect to establishing fiction or adjudicating gameplay will serve to satisfy different sets of gameplay preferences, and rather than push for less constraint because flexibility, it's better to offer tables the means to tailor the amount of constraint that suits their desires.

 

[Thomas Shey]

I think this is essentially the point of the video in the OP, namely that 1) there are certain 'dnd-isms' that exist across editions (str, dex, con...) that make gameplay familiar enough despite their differences (critical hit rules, grappling rules, etc) and 2) the gameplay of any edition will be subject to the prior experiences of participants at the table. Sometimes (2) will be expressed in house rules, sometimes just in metagame-ish presumptions and habits.

I made this argument in regard to 4e just last night; that for all the changes, when I played it it still felt very much like D&D; classes, levels, level elevating amorphous blob hit points, the same basic attribute set, many of the sort of general setting conceits--they were all still there. The only significant break to me was the handling of magic. The contrast was how different right out of the gate RuneQuest felt to me when transitioning from OD&D. While they were both trad games and thus more similar than either to something like Cortex Prime, you had to go into RQ with a vastly different mindset in how you handled most things. Barring some spellcaster issues (and only some; the cleric I was playing didn't feel that radically different from 3e one in general), that wasn't true going from D&D3 to D&D4.