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

[dd.stevenson]

Is it even possible for an adventure to support multiple playstyles? Does anyone have an example of an adventure that they think does a great job of supporting lots of different playstyles?

Because personally, I've found that the opposite is true: committing to a running a published adventure is to commit to the playstyle the adventure encourages. (Barring significant work on the DM's part.)

If I'm right about this, then I suppose WotC could do a lot worse than develop a labeling system to identify what kind of play the adventure supports. Such a labeling system would also include information about which optional rules the adventure requires.

 

[Obryn]

If I'm right about this, then I suppose WotC could do a lot worse than develop a labeling system to identify what kind of play the adventure supports. Such a labeling system would also include information about which optional rules the adventure requires.

At that point, we're about 99% of the way to WotC producing parallel game lines, just like TSR of old.

...which may not be the worst thing in the world, with how things are shaping up, but it's a bit less modular than I'd expect...

-O

 

[dd.stevenson]

At that point, we're about 99% of the way to WotC producing parallel game lines, just like TSR of old.

...which may not be the worst thing in the world, with how things are shaping up, but it's a bit less modular than I'd expect...

-O

True--unless Wizards doesn't intend to really have a go at adventure writing and is meaning to leave this stuff mostly up to 3PPs. If writing one adventure line was unprofitable, then I doubt splitting this line into several lines is going to be considered a good solution.

Giving up on adventures isn't the same as giving up on awesome fluff: they could still churn out setting material that would turn heads and drive sales. And they could still put out basic adventures to control the quality of their entry-level product.

I'm just speculating; naturally.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

That's a horrible undervaluation of what an adventure author does.

That's not the way it's always been. And it's not the way it is now. The adventure author is very influential on pacing.

It's largely been because the adventure author has tried to tell me how to pace that I've not been very impressed with his adventure. So I'd say he has certainly tried to influence it. How influential that has been is not necessarily the same thing.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That's a horrible undervaluation of what an adventure author does.

That's not the way it's always been. And it's not the way it is now. The adventure author is very influential on pacing.

Then I suspect we must have different ideas about what we mean by "pacing" in this case.

Does the author have influence on plot pacing? Absolutely. Does he decide that in this section of the dungeon there will be X number of monsters worth Y number of hit points? Sure thing.

But does he know how many rounds of combat it will take to get through that segment of the dungeon? Nope. Does he know how many healing spells can or will be used by the party during that stretch of the dungeon? Not in the slightest. That stuff is all guesswork, because its too fine in the details. Especially considering one party will go through with four players, two of which have healing spells... another with six players, one healer, and five different magical items... and another with eight players with not a single heal spell among them.

The best the author can do is use his brain and whatever CR or XP budget the game provides to give a rough estimate on the kind of fights he will write into the adventure for the "average" group. But we all know very few groups will ever be "average" and thus the pace at which they go through it will be all over the map.

So yes, to my mind adventure writers will not have to have such fine detail in the "pacing" of a 5E adventure where he needs to worry about whether the party will be using Basic game magical Cleric healing, or Standard game non-magical healing, or Standard game magical "long-term" healing or whatever other formats get presented. They won't need to present four or more different versions of every encounter to try and take into account every method of healing a party might have as they go through.

Instead, the encounter might be built on a budget of X number of XP... and the game may simply say that X equals an average encounter for a party of level Y. And if by some chance you're using such and such "gritty" healing method, treat the encounter as one level higher.

Those numbers denoting fight difficulty are always so fungible anyway based on party distribution that to try and build the game with any finer detail at massaging the number crunching is going further overboard than I really think it needs to.

 

[Morrus]

Then I suspect we must have different ideas about what we mean by "pacing" in this case.

Does the author have influence on plot pacing? Absolutely. Does he decide that in this section of the dungeon there will be X number of monsters worth Y number of hit points? Sure thing.

But does he know how many rounds of combat it will take to get through that segment of the dungeon? Nope. Does he know how many healing spells can or will be used by the party during that stretch of the dungeon? Not in the slightest. That stuff is all guesswork, because its too fine in the details. Especially considering one party will go through with four players, two of which have healing spells... another with six players, one healer, and five different magical items... and another with eight players with not a single heal spell among them.

The best the author can do is use his brain and whatever CR or XP budget the game provides to give a rough estimate on the kind of fights he will write into the adventure for the "average" group. But we all know very few groups will ever be "average" and thus the pace at which they go through it will be all over the map.

So yes, to my mind adventure writers will not have to have such fine detail in the "pacing" of a 5E adventure where he needs to worry about whether the party will be using Basic game magical Cleric healing, or Standard game non-magical healing, or Standard game magical "long-term" healing or whatever other formats get presented. They won't need to present four or more different versions of every encounter to try and take into account every method of healing a party might have as they go through.

Instead, the encounter might be built on a budget of X number of XP... and the game may simply say that X equals an average encounter for a party of level Y. And if by some chance you're using such and such "gritty" healing method, treat the encounter as one level higher.

Those numbers denoting fight difficulty are always so fungible anyway based on party distribution that to try and build the game with any finer detail at massaging the number crunching is going further overboard than I really think it needs to.

That's a long post which can be shortened to "an adventure author can't predict how many rounds each combat will last". Which is true. But if he/she's not an idiot, they can have a vague idea; and the pacing of the adventure is only a small percentage the length of individual combats. And the moment you let go of the expectation that a "combat" = "standing next to and hitting the monster till it falls down or you do", you suddenly get a whole new toolbox of adventure pacing.

I recommend you try running, as an example I know proves the point well, a few of our "ZEITGEIST" adventures, and then report back on what you think of Ryan Nock's grasp of pacing. I think you'll be surprised.

 

[DEFCON 1]

That's a long post which can be shortened to "an adventure author can't predict how many rounds each combat will last". Which is true. But if he/she's not an idiot, they can have a vague idea; and the pacing of the adventure is only a small percentage the length of individual combats. And the moment you let go of the expectation that a "combat" = "standing next to and hitting the monster till it falls down or you do", you suddenly get a whole new toolbox of adventure pacing.

Looks to me that we ARE talking about two separate things in terms of using the word "pacing" in this case.

Here's what Obryn said that I was referring to:

Should someone writing an adventure assume some in-combat healing is available? How do you pace a dungeon if you don't know how often the party can refresh itself and to what degree?

These seem like new concerns to me that writers didn't need to bother themselves with overmuch in the past. There was a set of default assumptions. With the promised/hoped-for level of modularity to make all players of every edition happy, I don't see much room for that kind of default.

Pretty much talking about nothing BUT how will people heal themselves after "standing next to and hitting the monster till it falls down or you do".

Did the authors of Ravenloft create the module worrying about how much healing any party going through it was going to have? I sincerely do not believe so. They would have no possible way of knowing. Even WITH the expectation of what AD&D was capable of... the pace of any individual party going through the castle was impossible to predict. All they could do was create encounter areas they thought parties might be able to handle for the level range the module asked for.

Does the four or five different "healing formats" 5E might have make things so much more disparate than what any previous edition has had in terms of possibly range of healing availability and thus the pace at which groups spend it? I don't think so. Certainly not to the extent that adventure writers would need to create multiple versions of each encounter for parties to play through. At minimum it might just change the encounter level up or down a level or two.

I have no doubt Ryan's made some wonderfully paced adventures. But that doesn't mean he's redesigned them two or three different ways to cover for parties that had two PCs and no combat healing, or eight PCs with 4 leaders among them. He's chosen a middle ground with the best of his ability, and fully expects that any individual combat could swing wildly in every direction for any particular group.

 

[Morrus]

Looks to me that we ARE talking about two separate things in terms of using the word "pacing" in this case.

I think you're right because....

I have no doubt Ryan's made some wonderfully paced adventures. But that doesn't mean he's redesigned them two or three different ways to cover for parties that had two PCs and no combat healing, or eight PCs with 4 leaders among them. He's chosen a middle ground with the best of his ability, and fully expects that any individual combat could swing wildly in every direction for any particular group.

... by pacing I wasn't referring to combat length. So I guess we're talking past each other!

 

[n00bdragon]

Did the authors of Ravenloft create the module worrying about how much healing any party going through it was going to have? I sincerely do not believe so. They would have no possible way of knowing. Even WITH the expectation of what AD&D was capable of... the pace of any individual party going through the castle was impossible to predict. All they could do was create encounter areas they thought parties might be able to handle for the level range the module asked for.

I don't follow. Is this an argument that taking into account how much punishment the PCs can take in a day isn't necessary because Ravenloft didn't care? That sounds more like a knock against Ravenloft than an argument for copying it.

 

[Stormonu]

3E was the first time I ran across D&D where different groups were more or less playing the same game. Prior to that, you never knew what sort of house rules you were likely to encounter, and I've never run across someone who "plays by the books" - not even me, who tries to toe pretty close to the line (and trying to move away from that, damn rules).