D&D General Why Editions Don't Matter

[Xamnam]

I envy you. Out of interest: how would you describe your play style?

I keep trying to answer, and I keep giving super wide ranging things, so I'm sorry if this these aren't the lenses you're looking for. But,

• I like to be mechanically competent, but I'm usually not worried about optimization.
• Similarly, I enjoy combat in moderation. I wouldn't want to play a game that's all thoughtful tactical combat; the shifting of playstyles between pillars breaks up monotony.
• I want to poke and prod at the world and have it react, however I prefer when I have a tangible and narrative long term goal I'm pursuing. I'm not looking to save the world off the bat, but enjoy something more substantial than making money/finding treasure/clear the dungeon for no other reason.
• In terms of the 4e DMG player motivations, probably mostly a Storyteller and Explorer. Character death might be disappointing, but I'm generally more interested in the journey than my personal goals, though I do want to know my characters and and define them well by my actions.
• I love stuff like joining factions, earning titles, creating a home base, and finding magic/items that at least 'feel' personal versus generic.
• I'm totally on board with high fantasy/high magic, and player characters that are powerful within the world.

Happy to answer further if you want.

 

[Campbell]

My only contention with the incomplete texts thing really was that the unwritten rules that come from the culture of play are every bit as binding as stuff that gets written on page. Often more binding even.

To be fair this is not a D&D or trad only phenomenon. There are certain cultural expectations of play within the indie space that are absolutely the same sort of unwritten rules, but there tend to be far less of the informal expectations about play structure. So more less complete than incomplete.

 

[FrogReaver]

The point about social contracts is important, and I don't want to minimise it. I hope I'm not giving the impression that I think an RPG can or should be some kind of closed system.

Glad we are on the same page there

But, if you're a designer and you're going to rely on social contract and play culture to move your game, shouldn't you be putting that front and centre in your rulebooks? Maybe with examples of different types of contracts and goals of play? And maybe, even, tools to help different groups achieve those?

IMO. The nuances of social contracts are vast. I doubt any of us could distill our table's social contracts to anything less than a large book while maintaining any sense of accuracy.

 

[Oofta]

What is the point of preserving the idea of total GM authority if there will be instances where that violates the social contract of the game?

Like, who cares if something like that is technically correct per the rules if the players are all disappointed?

What's the point of these two things being different?



The players can do that, yes. Other ways to prevent it would be to explicitly say in the books that this kind of thing may be problematic for many players. To maybe talk about the cons of GM authority as well as the pros.

Maybe instead of just acknowledging that the rules can interfere with everyone's fun, point out that so can the GM.



The books don't do much to establish best practices. They let others do that. And the reason is that others will draw all manner of conclusions, and so you'll get the whole gamut of advice. It's them having their cake and eating it, too.

Committing to actual "correct" ways of playing is fraught; they've promoted many approaches to play over the years, and so they need to cater to all these different camps of players. They don't want to upset or alienate any of these groups to the point where they can't even commit to best practices that pretty much everyone would agree are good.

Instead, they worded things with just enough wiggle room that folks who were already familiar with RPGs filled in the blank spots themselves. Anyone who isn't familiar with RPGs either wings it, or fills in the blanks by learning from other sources.

I started playing with the chainmail rules. People have always filled in the blanks based on personal preference. Trust me, we weren't familiar with RPGs and still had no problem making it work.

This idea that a TRRPG must spoon feed players and DMs is just foreign to me. Same with the idea that any amount of text or more rules is somehow going to make a bad DM a good one.

They tried to lock down play styles with the previous 2.5 editions, I don't think it worked as well. I think one of 5e's strengths, and a big part of it's continued growth is that it doesn't lock people into a specific style.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Do people still just buy a rulebook cold, with no prior knowledge or examples and play/run it off only reading the books?

Yes. I have.

I don't trust random YouTube personalities to give good advice. I trust Reddit threads even less. I've gotten piles of garbage advice on how to run/play games over the years. It's free advice and you get what you pay for, as they say.

 

[Campbell]

I started playing with the chainmail rules. People have always filled in the blanks based on personal preference. Trust me, we weren't familiar with RPGs and still had no problem making it work.

This idea that a TRRPG must spoon feed players and DMs is just foreign to me. Same with the idea that any amount of text or more rules is somehow going to make a bad DM a good one.

They tried to lock down play styles with the previous 2.5 editions, I don't think it worked as well. I think one of 5e's strengths, and a big part of it's continued growth is that it doesn't lock people into a specific style.

It's not fundamentally about protecting players (including the GM from one another). Different authority structures, different sorts of roles and different play structures provide different sorts of play experiences that are not possible under the default arrangement. Obviously we all finetune this stuff to fit our particular games, but it absolutely is a worthwhile vector of game design to arrange this stuff in different ways.

 

[Imaro]

Yes. I have.

I don't trust random YouTube personalities to give good advice. I trust Reddit threads even less. I've gotten piles of garbage advice on how to run/play games over the years. It's free advice and you get what you pay for, as they say.

Cool... though I'd argue it's a little more nuanced than "you get what you pay for"... there are literally videos of the people who created a particular ttrpg running it. I'd argue that's probably a pretty valuable resource to explore if you're interested in a new game but to each their own.

 

[Oofta]

Yes. I have.

I don't trust random YouTube personalities to give good advice. I trust Reddit threads even less. I've gotten piles of garbage advice on how to run/play games over the years. It's free advice and you get what you pay for, as they say.

I don't think any game as complex as D&D could ever be considered complete. As far as youtube advice, one person's garbage is another person's gold. Even if I don't agree with things I watch or read, sometimes it can be useful to think about why I don't agree and try to understand why people post what they do.

 

[Imaro]

It's not fundamentally about protecting players (including the GM from one another). Different authority structures, different sorts of roles and different play structures provide different sorts of play experiences that are not possible under the default arrangement. Obviously we all finetune this stuff to fit our particular games, but it absolutely is a worthwhile vector of game design to arrange this stuff in different ways.

But the minute you start arranging this in a particular way for a particular game you begin to define certain playstyles as "wrong", and that alienates people... the question is whether your game needs to do that. I would argue for D&D and their goals with 5e it would have probably been detrimental.

 

[Campbell]

But the minute you start arranging this in a particular way for a particular game you begin to define certain playstyles as "wrong", and that alienates people... the question is whether your game needs to do that. I would argue for D&D and their goals with 5e it would have probably been detrimental.

So do the authority structures and procedures of play and general structure of play assumed in 5e's particular arrangement. It's mechanics fundamentally do not work well in any other arrangement. Luckily the game really works well under those circumstances.

You should know very well that I am not making a case for 5e to change at all. I have never made any arguments that 5e should change. Only that it is not fundamentally more flexible than one built on conflict resolution rather than GM directed task resolution.