D&D 5E Will there be such a game as D&D Next?

[Bedrockgames]

The effect could be interpreted as cinematic, but the act itself of resting for the night( or for a few hours) is not cinematic. You aren't getting that cinematic action is being defined in terms of adventure pacing and game play, not in terms of the campaign world.

Or to put it more simply, it's not about cinematic, but cinematic action, and the action is as important as the cinematic. Where resting for hours fails is where it ruins the action.

I disagree. And it is level/hr healing. Pretty darn cinematic if you ask me (for the reasons ihave already stated. You are just working with an unusually narrow definition of cinematic action. Characters in cinematic action games can still get hurt. But they have things like luck points and hp to buffer that.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

That is a fair point, and part of what I am trying to say is the word is much broader than casualoblivion suggests (it certainly includes what he describes but isnt limited to that). Still cinematic is not a meaningless label when it comes to RPGs. There s a subset of gamers who look for cinematic action in their rpgs and that comes with certain assumptions. Most however allow for some variance and see how an individual game achieves the cinematic feel (it isnt a matter of them having to have mechanic A,B and C but of having their own mechanics to help emulate cinematic genres). In-fight healing as a requirement for a game to be cinematic is far too narrow here.

Yeah, I agree, no one mechanic or characteristic defines an RPG as THIS or THAT in general. I don't think that DDN is necessarily 'not cinematic'. One thing that personally annoys me though is the easiest way to get closer to a 4e like way of working is to just give the PCs a bunch of healing potions. I never really liked the whole concept of potion gulping heroes myself, so I would like to avoid that particular path.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Right, but as a couple of us have mentioned, 4e allows for a direct cinematic play within the structure of an encounter, as the party is pushed and then recovers and pushes back using in-combat healing. That plus the assymetric monster design almost guarantees this sort of result is the default (it isn't terribly visible if you have highly static encounters, I think 4e devs didn't understand that well enough at first).

4e then allows for a 'cinematic day' as well, again HS work here pretty much like your hourly healing, HD, etc. except in a sense better because the pacing is adjustable (DM can press the party, denying a short rest, or allow one for even a brief 30 second pause, DDN requires several hours).

The whole resource game can then also play out over a day, or more, because again 4e is putting the daily heal pacing into the DMs hands. He can allow or deny a long rest as desired, and even provide intermediate levels of resting (there are no specific rules for this, but also no issue with it). In other words the DM could give back an HS, remove HS, give back other resources but not HS, etc.

It is about options and flexibility. All of this of course doesn't necessarily serve the old style timed resource game model that Gygax developed. IMHO Gygax was overly concerned with verisimilitude at that point, which was a commonly expressed measure of game quality at the time (it was a major point of wargames and was overly valued by RPGs in the pre-1984 or so era). DDN is built around that, 4e is built around GM (and possibly player) gated pacing.

Okay, but 4E isnt the only cinematic rpg out there. It doesnt define cinematic. You are looking at this through an old school versus 4E lens. The rpg world is a lot bigger than that. There are tons of other games shooting for that flavor: gumshoe, torg, savage worlds, all flesh must be eaten (as well as cinematic unisystem), Dr. who, Dressen Files, etc.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

I disagree. And it is level/hr healing. Pretty darn cinematic if you ask me (for the reasons ihave already stated. You are just working with an unusually narrow definition of cinematic action. Characters in cinematic action games can still get hurt. But they have things like luck points and hp to buffer that.

I've said before that its the luck points and bennies that enable cinematic action when it comes to healing, not the slow regen, and its the lack of bennies that makes 5E fall short in this regard. It worked in 4E because Healing Surges functioned as bennies, something that 5E Hit Dice or slow regeneration do not.

 

[pemerton]

My interpretation of [MENTION=59096]thecasualoblivion[/MENTION]'s point is this: resting for an hour may be cinematic (in some sense of that word), but is not action. Whereas getting your second wind during the course of a fight is not only cinematic (in some sense of that word) but is also action, in the sense of something resolved at the table in the course of play that contributes directly to the particpants' sense of, and emotinal investment in, the ingame situation.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I've said before that its the luck points and bennies that enable cinematic action when it comes to healing, not the slow regen, and its the lack of bennies that makes 5E fall short in this regard. It worked in 4E because Healing Surges functioned as bennies, something that 5E Hit Dice or slow regeneration do not.

HP include luck. There isn't a whole lot of difference between a savage worlds character with a handful of bennies and a D&D character with 20 HP. In fact I think SW is quite a bit more gritty than D&D. I am not saying 4E didn't achieve what you say it did, but that is hardly the only way to approach cinematic.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

It would be nice if people would address the sort of game I and others are trying to describe as an ideal and what we are describing as wanting out of 5E instead of arguing over the meaning of the word "cinematic".

If people would care to get past the semantics, I'd love for people to go back and actually read what has been said and comment on whether or not 5E can, has, or should deliver the sort of game I and others have been trying to describe. This, as opposed to arguing over what words mean to no useful end.

 

[Bedrockgames]

My interpretation of @thecasualoblivion's point is this: resting for an hour may be cinematic (in some sense of that word), but is not action. Whereas getting your second wind during the course of a fight is not only cinematic (in some sense of that word) but is also action, in the sense of something resolved at the table in the course of play that contributes directly to the particpants' sense of, and emotinal investment in, the ingame situation.

I see the point but when you couple D&D HP with hourly heal rates based on level, that is cpearly cinematic play. How much cinematic action you get depends on a host of other things. Personally I think up are basically a lot like bennies or hero points in this respect. Even in wuxia movies there is a break in the adventure where characters might have to retreat and rest, so just not seeing his argument that missing in combat heals somehow makes it not cinematic action.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Okay, but 4E isnt the only cinematic rpg out there. It doesnt define cinematic. You are looking at this through an old school versus 4E lens. The rpg world is a lot bigger than that. There are tons of other games shooting for that flavor: gumshoe, torg, savage worlds, all flesh must be eaten (as well as cinematic unisystem), Dr. who, Dressen Files, etc.

I never suggested it was. I'm comparing 4e mechanics to 5e mechanics and explaining how 4e mechanics provide certain features that 5e mechanics do not. SOME of those things could be acquired by 5e via some sort of modules, but in general the system is designed with different sensibilities in mind, IMHO.

Indeed there are 'other ways' to make a game 'cinematic' and no doubt people have somewhat different definitions of what that means. However, IMHO DDN isn't built around cinematic play. At best I agree with [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] that it sort of timidly can't decide what sort of game it wants to be. It certainly isn't 'gritty' out of the box in the sense of having harsh healing and wounding mechanics and/or other hard limits on PC performance that drive tension via every resource being at almost every moment barely sufficient, hard to replenish, and liable to sudden depletion. It also isn't cinematic in some of the senses that 4e is. I think I'm OK personally agreeing that DDN can be more cinematic than AD&D is out of the box, you DO have a way to recover some hit points between encounters, and even when you exhaust that you can recover at least some hit points in a timeframe that can be used to provide tension. OTOH IMHO 4e is MUCH MUCH more flexible than DDN is, and DDN's healing mechanics would need to be revamped to get to the same level. DDN does at least have mechanical hooks for short and long rests, bloodied, etc. I think we probably CAN expect someone will provide mods that allow cinematic play at more of a 4e level. I don't know how it will stack up, but we'll see.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

HP include luck. There isn't a whole lot of difference between a savage worlds character with a handful of bennies and a D&D character with 20 HP. In fact I think SW is quite a bit more gritty than D&D. I am not saying 4E didn't achieve what you say it did, but that is hardly the only way to approach cinematic.

This would be a far more interesting and productive discussion if your go back and actually read and respond to what I've said as opposed to getting hung up on the word cinematic.