D&D General Wizard vs Fighter - the math

[Oofta]

You seem to be ignoring the fact that you condescendingly insulted other posters, which is the actual issue.


No, it's not insulting that the game works for you and that you are trying to share what you are doing differently. It is, however, insulting when you characterize the positions of others in the manner that you did, characterizing them as tying themselves in knots and sticking their fingers in their ears. I take issue with the point where you decided to cross the line and insult others. Got that now?

I've offered advice. It's frustrating that it seems like people would rather complain than even consider implementing potential solutions. It gets completely ignored or people nitpick my answers as if they were specific suggestions and just multiple possible solutions. Did I cross a line? If you believe I did you can always report it. It certainly was not my intent and I'm sorry if it came across that way.

 

[Umbran]

There are 2 basic groups here. Group A has an issue. Group B doesn't have that issue and is more than willing to share what they do that might be why they don't see the issues group A has.

Except group A ties themselves in knots coming up with excuses why they can't even attempt the solution while sticking their fingers in their ears repeating the mantra "It's broken! It's broken!"

Mod Note:
Drawing a simplistic and insulting view of those who disagree with you should not be expected to improve matters. It should be expected to cheese folks off, have them report you, and get you red text.

You don't want that, right?

So, maybe don't do things that are pretty certain to cheese people off.

 

[Umbran]

The fact that 'everything works for me, you must be having problems on purpose' is a common argument is why D&D should be mothballed.

Well, that argument is hardly specific to D&D. Mothballing the planet is kind of a non-starter.

 

[Minigiant]

I've offered advice. It's frustrating that it seems like people would rather complain than even consider implementing potential solutions.

The issue is people state that they don't like the situations caused by following that advice.

I mean it's not new advice. It's old rejected advice.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Well, that argument is hardly specific to D&D. Mothballing the planet is kind of a non-starter.

If aliens are real, the dream is alive!

 

[Umbran]

If aliens are real, the dream is alive!

"Earth? Eugh! We don't want that planet. It smells like my grandma..."

 

[M_Natas]

I don't think a blanket, 'turn spells into recharging short rest is going to improve things' - see my post above.


IMO... Having no idea if 1000 orcs are going to show up isn't time pressure. Time pressure doesn't work unless the players could have reasonably predicted 1) what will happen if they fail and 2) how close they are to that happening. The clock solves for these.

I think the problem with the 1000 ORC example is that it is a white room scenario.
We can proof everything we want with made up scenarios.
So let's use real play examples:

At my table right now I DM a seljammer campaign. The characters are resting in Plankstadt (Plankcity?) which is a bunch of asteroids tied together and blessed by a god chauntea to survive in the outer system.
The players encountered a Pirate ship in the first session that they successfully destroyed, by luring it next to an asteroid spider they encountered before.
But the Neogi Pirate Captain escaped and has a second ship and is attacking asteroid settlements to enslave people.

Now, while the players rested up in town, the pirate attacked another settlement and refugees are coming into town.
And the longer the characters rest in town, the longer the pirate will attack, getting more slaves, destroying more settlements ...
And because we are at the outer rim, their isn't really anybody else with the power to stop the pirate, except our heros.
So the longer they wait, the worse the problem gets.
Of course they had a reason the rest, one of them got killed by a night scavver (and got resurrected at the local temple and needs to slepe of the exhaustion from being resurrected) and they are upgrading their asteroid Hopper (their ship) which takes time.
The Pirate Thread is not a punishment for the players. It is an evolving quest hook. And if they would just leave for the next big settlement and leave Plankstadt, when they come back after a while maybe the pirate will have taken over that bigger settlement.

Like, ignoring or interrupting quests and quest hooks can have consequences. I try to built them into the game.
In the campaign I ran before, I would usually offer 2 quests, and than they solve one quest, but the other one gets more complicated, the situation worse (not always, of course).

It sounds more like you are saying - let's let everyone participate in the 5MWD to balance things. That's not an argument for eliminating the 5MWD or how to do it, but rather just accepting it's going to happen.


They can already do this as a group.


The Great Lie is that D&D is going to work equally well for all campaigns. That they all should be able to progress naturally and still work out just as well as a campaign more attuned to the system.

Here are some examples:

Okay, wow, that is a lot. I will take my time to read it

 

[Oofta]

The issue is people state that they don't like the situations caused by following that advice.

I mean it's not new advice. It's old rejected advice.

Can you be more specific than "situations"? Is it really any worse than your current issues?

Because the only one you brought up that I remember if I understood correctly is that the world is static, much like a video game. That you can go rest for a week, come tromping back and things are exactly as they were when you left. To me it's illogical for a group that has been attacked, knowing they're likely to be attacked again to do nothing in that week. There are multiple options there, it would depend on the specific scenario. The exception is the crypt of undead/constructs but that also has possible solutions.

I guess I've just never had an issue coming up with some sort of ticking clock when a long rest is a week in a relatively safe location. Have you ever read books like The Dresden Files*? Everything is going fine for Harry and then all heck breaks loose for a few days. My campaign arcs frequently follow similar plot lines.

*If not, I highly recommend them.

 

[overgeeked]

Not every problem or issue with a game can be dismissed as a "DM problem." Sometimes the problem is the game design itself.

I almost feel like there should be a TTRPG fallacy that deals with blaming every problem on "bad DMs."

There sort of is. The Oberoni fallacy. It goes something like "if there's a problem with the game and the referee can fix it, it's not really a problem with the game."

The logical followup of that would be: "If there's a problem with the game and the referee can fix it, but doesn't...then it's a problem with the referee."

It's all about shifting blame away from the game itself. For some reason it's held up as perfect and cannot be sullied.

 

[overgeeked]

Sure, but it goes both ways. Sometimes it feels that people just refuse to consider any steps they could take to address the issue so that they can continue complaining that the game sucks.

There is a point to talking about the default game as written.

Just because the referee can make house rules and fix the problems with the system does not mean those problems no longer exist within the system itself.

Fixing a problem at my table only fixes the problem at my table. The point of most of these discussions is about fixing the problem with the system itself.

Suggesting house rules or optional rules is only putting a band aid on the problem, not actually fixing it.