WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Umbran]

To be fair, that works both ways. We don't really know how many people long for that modularity they were hoping for from 5e.

Yep. I made no assertion on how many people long for it.

I just think it was an unreasonable design goal, and that it was smart of them to set it aside.

 

[Velderan]

To be fair, that works both ways. We don't really know how many people long for that modularity they were hoping for from 5e.

All the more reason to let WotC know what you're thinking during any chances to give feedback. They absolutely do listen, it's just they can't listen to everyone. I know of lot of folks think it's pointless and don't bother with WotC surveys, but that pretty much just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It might not be the best example depending on your view of the product, but Spelljammer never would have been made if so many fans didn't keep pestering WotC for it. Maybe you're already doing this, but find like-minded people here and try to find ways to add the stuff you might like into the OneD&D playtest material and provide that feedback to WotC.

 

[Micah Sweet]

All the more reason to let WotC know what you're thinking during any chances to give feedback. They absolutely do listen, it's just they can't listen to everyone. I know of lot of folks think it's pointless and don't bother with WotC surveys, but that pretty much just becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It might not be the best example depending on your view of the product, but Spelljammer never would have been made if so many fans didn't keep pestering WotC for it. Maybe you're already doing this, but find like-minded people here and try to find ways to add the stuff you might like into the OneD&D playtest material and provide that feedback to WotC.

Well, the only good thing about the new Spelljammer from my perspective was its subsequent opening on the DMsGuild, but I see your point.

 

[Chaosmancer]

In our adventuring company there's over 40 characters, of which about 25 are PCs belonging to the six players in the game. The rest are adventuring NPCs and henches.

We can put together an adventuring party and get 'em in the field on a moment's notice and still leave most of the company back at home base.

I'm not saying this to say your style is bad, so don't take it that way. But no one I have ever played with in closing in on 15 years of DnD has ever played this way. None of them.

Which is fine if one player says something like "Jelessa will take the winter off and do some general spell research" and another says "Aloysius will spend the winter waiting for delivery of the Broom of Flying he commissioned". Those can be dealt with on a whim.

But if a player - me, in this instance - says "Xana spends the winter engaged in politics in [faux-Rome] and putting herself out there as a viable option as a future (or present) Senator, along with making sure her family are well cared for, finishing construction of her townhouse, [etc. etc.]" and wants to go into any detail on all of that (which I almost always do) then either it has to get done off-cycle or everyone else is gonna get mighty bored.

Are they going to get bored? They might. But while Aloysius is just sitting in a room waiting for a broom, maybe they get approached by a noble asking about Xana as a person. Or maybe while Jelessa is doing general research, she stays with Xana and her family and has some interactions with the kids.

And maybe we don't get the entirety of Xana putting herself out there in politics, and only get some highlights, but frankly going very in-depth on that is basically running a second campaign anyways. However, there are two things I always see not mentioned in these discussions about downtime.

1) Some players are invested in other player's stories. If you get bored any time you aren't in the spotlight... I don't know, I'm not that way. I love watching my friends complete their stories. Same as I would enjoy watching them RP with the BBEG

2) One advantage of everyone having a single character and investing in them is that you aren't playing "this group of people who happen to work together" you are playing a band of brothers, a found family. You trust these people with your life on a regular basis. And, as such, they are dear friends. But instead of treating downtime as more time for the party to interact and pursue non-adventuring goals, many people silo off and treat it as "this is when I get my solo work done". Which can be the case, but I feel misses something about how a group like this would treat each other.

It sells well, I won't argue that, but there's a lot of external factors that lined up in its favour as well. Whether it's good game design is a very open question.

I don't think it is nearly as open as you seem to want it to be. Note that the closest game design the DnD campaigns are Rogue-likes. They are decently popular, but niche. They are solo play. They prevent investment in the character, the entire goal is to just see how far you get.

Solo and with little investment in characters? That's anathema to DnD. Any other game that has high character investment like DnD has it set up so that if that character dies, you restart that section from a save point, because they aren't supposed to die.

DnD melds these design parameters, adding in the team element as well, but there isn't a game out there that isn't trying to recapture 1e or 2e DnD that tries to have high character investment and easy character death. Because, as noted, once you TPK for most people who play the game... that's it. They scrap the adventure and do something else. I mean, imagine if Tolkien attempted to kill Frodo and Sam, succeeded, and then had the last third of Return of the King feature Morc and Kolg, disgruntled goblins who finish the mission. It wouldn't be a very satisfying version of the story. So we can't expect DnD groups to constantly want to have their epic stories record scratched into "um... I guess we just make some randos to finish this"

You have solved this problem by having everyone play 4 to 8 other PCs, taking the personal investment in each character and zooming it out. But most people instead took the route of trying to prevent the game from de-railing from TPKs.

There are always exceptions to every trend.

Of course there are. Congrats on being the exception. But, again, you made a claim about the health of the hobby and the game. That means you look at the trend, not the occasional exception.

But there's no denying a computer programmer capable of writing the unreal engine would 99.99% likely do a much better job of writing Pong than someone for whom Pong was pretty much the limit of expertise.

Missing the point. No one STARTS with writing the unreal engine and then backtracks.

New DMs start by making Pong and building up. They need the simple building blocks, and then the pieces they can add to that to make make it more complex and interesting. This is why the Monsters in the MM are simple and easy, with few complex abilities. Because they are the baseline that new DMs are supposed to build from. And yea, it sucks for those of us who want a bit more bite in our monsters. But we have the tools and the math and the skills to push the system. We have access to the 3PP stuff to give us more tools.

But I actually think it would harm the long-term health of DnD if we made the baseline MM much harder and much more complex. A little bit for the high level play? Sure, we can tweak, but I can't even understand a 3.X statblock half the time, because I need to go and look up a dozen features and then figure out how they interact. Going back to that would be bad.

And yes, I know, you are talking more "everything should be deadlier" but that is a simple fix if you really wanted to. Just double all monster damage. Done. Many of the "old school" mechanics aren't difficult to implement, they are just harsh. And most people aren't interested in them anymore.

Where I want the Blackscale Mercenaries to be the Blackscale Mercenaries, regardless whether their current lineup is Yue, Shea, Trosk, and Seven or if it's Taran, Geldi, Hopkite, and Pertrel all of whose names are recorded in the Blackscale's Book of Fame.

The Blackscale Mercenaries are the team we follow in this game, regardless who their current membership might be; much like some people follow the New York Yankees or I follow the Vancouver Canucks regardless who might be playign for them this season. None of the current Canuck players were with the team 30 years ago (hell, most of 'em weren't born then!) but I cheer for the team now just as I cheered for it in 1992.

I get that is what you want. You are the exception. Most people don't want that. Many people would be frustrated by that.

Since then we've been handed an even better example, that being Game of Thrones, of what in D&D terms would be a big sprawling campaign with characters coming and going every which way and death not only always on the table but easily achievable.

But most people don't want to play Game of Thrones style games, in the sense that their favorite characters will be killed off at the drop of a hat. Game of Thrones is a good drama, in some respects, because it keeps people guessing. But as a player? As a player about the second time my character was just unceremoniously killed off, I'd say "thanks for the game guys, but I'm not really invested any more". Because I know any story I try to craft is more than likely going to be "he had dreams, then he died with those dreams unfulfilled".

And I have other options. Other games I could play, that WON'T do that to me. So why play a game that will?

It is kind of like that thing I've heard occassionally about how "kids these days" need to know that the world can be a harsh and cruel place. Kids these days know that. We are very aware that the world is a place where terrible things can happen at the drop of a hat. We don't need that to be reinforced. Sometimes, we want to be able to say we overcome these catastrophes. Not by surviving, but by winning.

In the session I finished playing an hour ago, I sent Black Leaf into a situation where of a party of 8 she was the only character doing anything directly against the BBEG (as a Thief, she crept up invisible behind him and started looting him of his useful possessions while he was distracted by directing his troops around); everyone else was bogged down with his dozens of small-m minions and for a long time couldn't get free to do much else.

I sent her in with full expectation that within the real-world hour I'd be rolling up her replacement - she was one-against-four (the BBEG and three guards) and badly outgunned by each of them; I thought she was doomed but somebody had to do something - so the sense of accomplishment was heartfelt when not only did she successfully steal BBEG's components pouch off his belt (thus no more casting for him!) but when someone finally got free and hit him with a Hold Person on him I was able to get the coup-de-grace; on which - now suddenly visible, standing on the corpse of their now ex-boss - I demanded and got the guards' surrender.

Were the situation such that I-as-player had more expectation that she'd in fact succeed, the sense of accomplishment would have been greatly reduced.

And how is it that if the expectation was the party would likely survive that fight they were clearly in, that you would have known she succeeded at her goals? I mean, honestly, did the entire 8-man party think that they were going to die in this fight against the BBEG? Since most of them didn't, were they disappointed?

The only difference I can detect between your example and my game, is that my players wouldn't have been certain or expecting that they'd be rolling a replacement character. They would have been uncertain. They would have come up with that plan and thought "I don't know if this will work, but this seems like a good plan" and gone for it.

I am honestly struggling to look at what you wrote, and figure out how I could have reduced your enjoyment by giving you certainty that you would have succeeded. I just can't see it. That isn't the certainty. The certainty they may have is that IF they failed, they likely wouldn't have been immediately executed on the spot, and would have a chance to turn their loss into something else. Would knowing that have made you not feel like you succeeded when you successfully pulled off a crazy and dangerous gambit? Because even in my games that would have been a gambit that could have cost you the fight.

Which is sort-of fine for movies or novels (though it gets a bit boring there too, TBH), but to me RPGs are vastly different. Going in to an RPG campaign each character is a thread of as-yet-unknown length and there will ultimately be a not-foreseeable number of these threads, and only after those threads are all woven together into a rope can the story of the party or parties - the story that matters - truly be told.

But I have no interest in playing the part of a story that does not matter. And again, you keep saying, because of how you approach the game, that the individual character does not matter. But to most of us, it does. It is how we are interacting with the larger story. Sure, the story of the group is EQUALLY important, but each person sitting down wants their thread to matter. And the game has recognized that, and built to assisting that in happening.

And frankly, the game has been better for it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I'm not saying this to say your style is bad, so don't take it that way. But no one I have ever played with in closing in on 15 years of DnD has ever played this way. None of them.



Are they going to get bored? They might. But while Aloysius is just sitting in a room waiting for a broom, maybe they get approached by a noble asking about Xana as a person. Or maybe while Jelessa is doing general research, she stays with Xana and her family and has some interactions with the kids.

And maybe we don't get the entirety of Xana putting herself out there in politics, and only get some highlights, but frankly going very in-depth on that is basically running a second campaign anyways. However, there are two things I always see not mentioned in these discussions about downtime.

1) Some players are invested in other player's stories. If you get bored any time you aren't in the spotlight... I don't know, I'm not that way. I love watching my friends complete their stories. Same as I would enjoy watching them RP with the BBEG

2) One advantage of everyone having a single character and investing in them is that you aren't playing "this group of people who happen to work together" you are playing a band of brothers, a found family. You trust these people with your life on a regular basis. And, as such, they are dear friends. But instead of treating downtime as more time for the party to interact and pursue non-adventuring goals, many people silo off and treat it as "this is when I get my solo work done". Which can be the case, but I feel misses something about how a group like this would treat each other.



I don't think it is nearly as open as you seem to want it to be. Note that the closest game design the DnD campaigns are Rogue-likes. They are decently popular, but niche. They are solo play. They prevent investment in the character, the entire goal is to just see how far you get.

Solo and with little investment in characters? That's anathema to DnD. Any other game that has high character investment like DnD has it set up so that if that character dies, you restart that section from a save point, because they aren't supposed to die.

DnD melds these design parameters, adding in the team element as well, but there isn't a game out there that isn't trying to recapture 1e or 2e DnD that tries to have high character investment and easy character death. Because, as noted, once you TPK for most people who play the game... that's it. They scrap the adventure and do something else. I mean, imagine if Tolkien attempted to kill Frodo and Sam, succeeded, and then had the last third of Return of the King feature Morc and Kolg, disgruntled goblins who finish the mission. It wouldn't be a very satisfying version of the story. So we can't expect DnD groups to constantly want to have their epic stories record scratched into "um... I guess we just make some randos to finish this"

You have solved this problem by having everyone play 4 to 8 other PCs, taking the personal investment in each character and zooming it out. But most people instead took the route of trying to prevent the game from de-railing from TPKs.



Of course there are. Congrats on being the exception. But, again, you made a claim about the health of the hobby and the game. That means you look at the trend, not the occasional exception.



Missing the point. No one STARTS with writing the unreal engine and then backtracks.

New DMs start by making Pong and building up. They need the simple building blocks, and then the pieces they can add to that to make make it more complex and interesting. This is why the Monsters in the MM are simple and easy, with few complex abilities. Because they are the baseline that new DMs are supposed to build from. And yea, it sucks for those of us who want a bit more bite in our monsters. But we have the tools and the math and the skills to push the system. We have access to the 3PP stuff to give us more tools.

But I actually think it would harm the long-term health of DnD if we made the baseline MM much harder and much more complex. A little bit for the high level play? Sure, we can tweak, but I can't even understand a 3.X statblock half the time, because I need to go and look up a dozen features and then figure out how they interact. Going back to that would be bad.

And yes, I know, you are talking more "everything should be deadlier" but that is a simple fix if you really wanted to. Just double all monster damage. Done. Many of the "old school" mechanics aren't difficult to implement, they are just harsh. And most people aren't interested in them anymore.



I get that is what you want. You are the exception. Most people don't want that. Many people would be frustrated by that.



But most people don't want to play Game of Thrones style games, in the sense that their favorite characters will be killed off at the drop of a hat. Game of Thrones is a good drama, in some respects, because it keeps people guessing. But as a player? As a player about the second time my character was just unceremoniously killed off, I'd say "thanks for the game guys, but I'm not really invested any more". Because I know any story I try to craft is more than likely going to be "he had dreams, then he died with those dreams unfulfilled".

And I have other options. Other games I could play, that WON'T do that to me. So why play a game that will?

It is kind of like that thing I've heard occassionally about how "kids these days" need to know that the world can be a harsh and cruel place. Kids these days know that. We are very aware that the world is a place where terrible things can happen at the drop of a hat. We don't need that to be reinforced. Sometimes, we want to be able to say we overcome these catastrophes. Not by surviving, but by winning.



And how is it that if the expectation was the party would likely survive that fight they were clearly in, that you would have known she succeeded at her goals? I mean, honestly, did the entire 8-man party think that they were going to die in this fight against the BBEG? Since most of them didn't, were they disappointed?

The only difference I can detect between your example and my game, is that my players wouldn't have been certain or expecting that they'd be rolling a replacement character. They would have been uncertain. They would have come up with that plan and thought "I don't know if this will work, but this seems like a good plan" and gone for it.

I am honestly struggling to look at what you wrote, and figure out how I could have reduced your enjoyment by giving you certainty that you would have succeeded. I just can't see it. That isn't the certainty. The certainty they may have is that IF they failed, they likely wouldn't have been immediately executed on the spot, and would have a chance to turn their loss into something else. Would knowing that have made you not feel like you succeeded when you successfully pulled off a crazy and dangerous gambit? Because even in my games that would have been a gambit that could have cost you the fight.



But I have no interest in playing the part of a story that does not matter. And again, you keep saying, because of how you approach the game, that the individual character does not matter. But to most of us, it does. It is how we are interacting with the larger story. Sure, the story of the group is EQUALLY important, but each person sitting down wants their thread to matter. And the game has recognized that, and built to assisting that in happening.

And frankly, the game has been better for it.

Again, all of this is your opinion. @Lanefan 's preferences are exactly as valid as yours, and there's no reason the game can't provide rules and guidance for both.

No one's trying to convince you that your preferences are wrong-headed or "outdated" (whatever that's supposed to mean) and shouldn't be included, but it sure seems like that's what happening on your end.

 

[GetInTheHole]

In our adventuring company there's over 40 characters, of which about 25 are PCs belonging to the six players in the game. The rest are adventuring NPCs and henches.

I just pulled all of the old character sheets from the last 1E D&D sessions I ran for my Jr. High friends back in 1986. The three long time players had between them 54 active PCs that they had rolled at some point. I counted them up and they ranged from between 12 PCs for one guy, 18 for another and 24 for the third. Only a handful would ever get played in any one session, but they were there to pick and choose from depending on the campaign.

I guess I had bought the AD&D character sheet pack and then went to town at my mother's office on the copy machine.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Again, all of this is your opinion. @Lanefan 's preferences are exactly as valid as yours, and there's no reason the game can't provide rules and guidance for both.

No one's trying to convince you that your preferences are wrong-headed or "outdated" (whatever that's supposed to mean) and shouldn't be included, but it sure seems like that's what happening on your end.

Really? No one is saying that the game can't have both?

The rules have morphed based on how players (in general whose main interest, remember, lies in making things easier on their characters) have through endless advocacy forced them to morph; mostly because the designers haven't had the spine to push back and keep the game challenging at the design level.

In both cases, because if those I-never-want-to-lose players ultimately get their way this game is as dead as a dodo.

Here are the posts that started me responding to Lanefan. Where he claimed that the rules that have led to my preferences in the game only exist because the game designers haven't had the spine to keep the game challenging. And where he claimed that if player's keep advocating for a twisted version of my preferences the game is as "dead as a dodo"

But NO ONE is saying that we can't have both styles? NO ONE is acting like their preferences are superior to others? Oh, except for me. The person who is stuck trying to explain why the way they play the game isn't killing the game and only exists because game designers are too spineless to keep the game healthy. I'm the one acting superior to others.


Once more Micah, I'm really stumped how everything is just "an opinion" but only advocating for the opinion you don't like is wrong-headed and aggressive.

 

[FrozenNorth]

Again, all of this is your opinion. @Lanefan 's preferences are exactly as valid as yours, and there's no reason the game can't provide rules and guidance for both.

From WotC’s perspective, that isn’t true.

@Chaosmancer is an actual client, who has purchased who knows how many WotC products. @Lanefan doesn’t play WotC’s D&D and may not have purchased a single product. The fact that @Lanefan has been playing his 1e homebrew fir 20+ years makes it very unlikely that he will ever be a regular WotC client.

From the perspective of WotC, @Chaosmancer is definitely worth listening to more than @Lanefan .

 

[Micah Sweet]

Really? No one is saying that the game can't have both?





Here are the posts that started me responding to Lanefan. Where he claimed that the rules that have led to my preferences in the game only exist because the game designers haven't had the spine to keep the game challenging. And where he claimed that if player's keep advocating for a twisted version of my preferences the game is as "dead as a dodo"

But NO ONE is saying that we can't have both styles? NO ONE is acting like their preferences are superior to others? Oh, except for me. The person who is stuck trying to explain why the way they play the game isn't killing the game and only exists because game designers are too spineless to keep the game healthy. I'm the one acting superior to others.


Once more Micah, I'm really stumped how everything is just "an opinion" but only advocating for the opinion you don't like is wrong-headed and aggressive.

To my mind, you were more advocating against other's preferences rather than for your own, but I admit I may be misinterpreting your posts.

Also, advocating for what you're pretty much already getting is to my mind inherently a more aggressive move than supporting a position that the current game is actively fighting against.

 

[Micah Sweet]

From WotC’s perspective, that isn’t true.

@Chaosmancer is an actual client, who has purchased who knows how many WotC products. @Lanefan doesn’t play WotC’s D&D and may not have purchased a single product. The fact that @Lanefan has been playing his 1e homebrew fir 20+ years makes it very unlikely that he will ever be a regular WotC client.

From the perspective of WotC, @Chaosmancer is definitely worth listening to more than @Lanefan .

I've certainly spent plenty of money on WotC's products throughout the history of 5e. Am I worth listening to, or is it only people who like what they're putting out now?