D&D 5E You can't necessarily go back

[billd91]

I was rereading "Worlds & Monsters" last night. Besides being reminded that it is one of the better DMG books ever produced for D&D, I also noticed that, in one of the desinger blogs reproduced at the end (I think Bill Slavicsek), they said that they anticipated that most 3PPs would support 4e henceforth. Oops! - that's a prediction that failed to come true.

Given how early "Worlds and Monsters" came out and how late the GSL came out, it seems clear to me Slavicsek had no idea how restrictive the license ultimately would be.

 

[Ahnehnois]

I have to say that if that is accepted as a fair assessment (and it has been) then I agree with the scepticism. Fighty McFighter's skills with a sword aren't going to be as useful in a game of political intrigue or a detective game as Scry McDiviner the Wizard or Rapit Stolenname the rogue.

And should be. If all the D&D classes functioned equally well in all possible scenarios, I'd say something was very wrong. The question is, if you instead fight a campaign with a lot of straight-up battles back to back, are Tanky McGreataxe the Barbarian and Holyman Healbot the Cleric doing better. They should be.

On the other hand to have a chance at balance in 3.X, you'd IMO need to either completely re-write or throw out the following classes:
Wizard, Cleric, Druid, Sorceror
Fighter, Monk, Paladin.

The Bard's just about fine as is, and the Rogue and Ranger need only slight buffs. The Barbarian can work by a few tweaks and replacing his rage with the much more metal ones from 4e.

Well it's a good system as written, and incremental revisions like PF's are nice, but I'm not arguing that more serious revisions to the system and classes aren't needed. I just did precisely that for my home game, and have moved on to non-core classes. My fighter now gets an ability every level, improved saves, and action eceonomy advantages, as well as various other goodies. The main changes to spellcasters, OTOH, were knowledge bonuses and splitting their ability score dependencies, along with existing cutbacks on abusable spells. Revisions are good. Incidentally, barbarians and bards received some of my more substantial changes.

I simply don't think that a common mechanical structure or daily use-limited abilities is a positive development. In fact, I took out all the daily mechanics and made spellcasting more fluid. If someone else did a substive revision to the 3.5 classes and made them better, I'd sure look at it.

I think the issue here is GM force. The sort of effort that 3E requires from a GM, once play is at (say) 9th level and above, is a high degree of GM force over many aspects of the game. Whereas 4e is designed to deliver balance (both mechanical effectiveness balance and spotlight balance) without significant exercise of GM force over any but one part of the game - namely, scene-framing.

I don't think that's true. I hardly ever have to do anything to maintain those types of balance. It would take active effort on someone's part not to have them.

Given your apparent preferences, it surprises me that you never seem to have tried a game that plays in the way you describe here.

I prefer to work with a system that I know and have material for. Given that my preferences evolved over years, my home game has evolved with them. Were I to start over again, I would not use 3e as a base, but I have no desire to start over again.

Also, I would not use as my primary gaming system a non-open ruleset, which is most of them.

But in fact I don't think there's a lot of evidence that most D&D players want what you say they do. Hit points are plot protection in a fighting-oriented game, and I think most D&D players enjoy its focus on combat as the principal site of conflict resolution, and - given that - enjoy the (non-simulationist, unrealistic) plot protection that hit points provide.

I'm skeptical that this applies to current D&D players, particularly given the vehemently negative reaction to 4e's take on hit points with daily martial healing and healing surges (taking them seriously as a metagame mechanic, in your words). I think that an equally huge step in the opposite direction would at least be received no worse than 4e, which has had some success, and might be received better. But that wasn't really what I was getting at.

I know a lot of intelligent, creative twenty-somethings who enjoy nerdy fiction-George R.R. Martin, comic books and their movies, Dragon Age and The Witcher, Battlestar Galactica, etc.-who have no idea what D&D is. When I explain the hobby to them, their main reservations aren't about '80's-driven moral panic, and they definitely aren't about fighter-caster imbalances or lack of access to healing. It's because they don't take it seriously. Their cultural touchstones are R-rated movies and HBO shows, they like shakycam and nonheroic protagonists. They want verisimilitude and real-world relevance in their fiction. They don't want anime style art or miniatures and battlegrids. WotC's mistake is in both oversimplifying the stereotypical "gamer" as being a person who spends all their free time on charop boards but also in ignoring anyone who doesn't play WoW or Warhammer or some version of D&D and yet could be very interested in roleplaying. 3e feels very reflective of certain cultural shifts in the '90's, but 4e does not feel like post-9/11 D&D. As I said, it seems like the people at D&D HQ (and in the industry as a whole) are simply out of touch with the times.

 

[slobster]

I know a lot of intelligent, creative twenty-somethings who enjoy nerdy fiction-George R.R. Martin, comic books and their movies, Dragon Age and The Witcher, Battlestar Galactica, etc.-who have no idea what D&D is. When I explain the hobby to them, their main reservations aren't about '80's-driven moral panic, and they definitely aren't about fighter-caster imbalances or lack of access to healing. It's because they don't take it seriously. Their cultural touchstones are R-rated movies and HBO shows, they like shakycam and nonheroic protagonists. They want verisimilitude and real-world relevance in their fiction. They don't want anime style art or miniatures and battlegrids.

Just putting in my 2 cents, but I know a few people like that, too. They seem like people who would love D&D if they ever gave it a fair shake, but they just can't take the game seriously. There is too much negative stigma attached.

I've gotten a few of them to play and enjoy it though, usually by introducing them to the basic concepts through board games and then segueing into an introductory adventure. And let me tell you, the stuff that they inevitably enjoy isn't gritty realism or the ability to explore the game world as a metaphor for real-world issues. It isn't usually the escapism either, or the ability to playact as a fantasy badass.

They enjoy the jokes and the silly situations that inherently emerge when you get a group of nerds around a table for a few hours and let them loose on a world of adventure. The stories that they tell the next day might be about the orc that they killed moments before it killed the wizard, but they will certainly be talking about the comeback they used against the town constable, or the joke they played on the goblin shaman.

I think anime art, battlegrids, and disassociative mechanics are pretty orthogonal to the discussion of how to get people interested in D&D for the first time. I think that the designers seem to be doing well with that in 5E so far: the really important things are to make a simple system that is easy to use, give everyone something cool to do, and then step back and let everyone have fun.

 

[Emerikol]

I think anime art, battlegrids, and disassociative mechanics are pretty orthogonal to the discussion of how to get people interested in D&D for the first time. I think that the designers seem to be doing well with that in 5E so far: the really important things are to make a simple system that is easy to use, give everyone something cool to do, and then step back and let everyone have fun.

The only thing that matters is great DMs. Great DMs always get groups and inspire players. Not sure how you make more but that is the crux of it. I don't think there is just one type of great DM either. But whatever style you pick you got to do it well.

Whatever the playstyle, a DM who does that style well will find players that like that style. Some of you may think my own style is weird but I have them lined up to play in my campaigns. Since I run a good campaign I don't have to put up with a lot of crap. If a player acts up or argues all the time, I just tell him to leave.

EDIT:
I am sure I could "learn" how to do a passing decent job in any style. I mean if it was work I could learn to do it. Would I be as good as I am in my style? I don't think so. The DM has to have fun too. I wouldn't enjoy running these narrativist plot couponish games. So I wouldn't likely do them well. Instead I like my own playstyle and thus I do it well. There are plenty of players. DMs perhaps should get off their horse that their own style is the one true style. I've never said that. I have a good style that appeals to a lot of people. I'm sure there are at least a dozen other styles probably more than can get good groups and have fun.

 

[Neonchameleon]

and they definitely aren't about fighter-caster imbalances or lack of access to healing. It's because they don't take it seriously. Their cultural touchstones are R-rated movies and HBO shows, they like shakycam and nonheroic protagonists. They want verisimilitude and real-world relevance in their fiction.

Of course they aren't.

They aren't about fighter-caster imbalance because they don't know it's an issue in D&D play. The problem with fighter-caster imbalance is that it's false advertising. It's something you only notice fails badly after you run into itl

But as for "lack of access to healing", how the hell do you think you get a gritty game without lack of access to healing? How do you get one with everyone wandering around with Plot Protection From Swords - a.k.a. Hit Points? The problem is that the D&D systems, especially the emergent play from 3.5, is the absolute opposite of what you are saying they want. D&D is not, and has never been a gritty system - and emergent 3.5 play with the happy sticks/Wands of Cure Light Wounds are incredibly far from grit.

4e is a grittier game than non-houseruled 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder. And given that that's the opposite of the design goals and playstyle of 4e, this is really quite an impressive achievement.

WotC's mistake is in both oversimplifying the stereotypical "gamer" as being a person who spends all their free time on charop boards

This is complete crap. The high point of CharOp was 3.5 with Pun-Pun and the Omniscifer. With 4e, WotC turned away from the explicit game design goal to reward system mastery that was embedded in 3.0 by Monte Cook's own admission and carried forward into 3.5. 4e has moved away from this assumption.

With 4e WotC turned away from CharOp being rewarded, and with all the errata they put out, they make sure that the CharOp builds don't get too far ahead. If anything 4e penalises the dark side of CharOp and makes the light side of CharOp too easy to really be worth it.

but also in ignoring anyone who doesn't play WoW or Warhammer or some version of D&D and yet could be very interested in roleplaying. 3e feels very reflective of certain cultural shifts in the '90's, but 4e does not feel like post-9/11 D&D.

And I am very glad of it! The time for a post-9/11 D&D was in about 2003. It is now over a decade since 9/11 and I, for one, don't want to play a game about American Cultural Trauma. Not everyone is wrapped up in an event that happened over ten years ago - and 4e very definitely is pitched to appeal to people who've taken part in the biggest thing in gaming in the past ten years - World of Warcraft. And believe it or not the people watching Game of Thrones are a miniority - ratings high of 4.2 million for the most recent season finale. It would make more sense to go after True Blood fans (6.3 million for the most recent season finale, with 5 million being for the first showing) - and True Blood isn't the grit you describe. Hell, it would make more sense to go after Dr Who fans - in Britain 4.2 million viewers for Dr Who got it taken off the air.

Your social circle may like Game of Thrones. But that's your social circle. True Blood is a better performing HBO show than Game of Thrones. And True Blood is many things (including better with the fast forward for Sookie's scenes), but gritty it ain't.

And yes, like slobster, I've got a few to enjoy D&D - via boardgames. You need some sort of gateway for many people. You can grab the WoW fans through WoW similarities combined with a lack of WoW issues (such as not being able to outthink the world much, and through lack of griefers). But you need a gateway for people who won't take the game seriously.

 

[Lanefan]

AIR, the 1e DMG did have some basic ideas for NPC classes - a witch IIRC - but, very little beyond that.

The Witch was an attempt at a class (both PC and NPC, at different times) from various Dragon articles but does not appear in the actual DMG as far as I know.

The nearest the 1e DMG gets to referring to anything like an NPC class would be something akin to what's now called an Artificer; except there it's more like a jumped-up secondary profession. Sage is another such; and it's put more in the paraphrased context of "these are some things that some important non-adventuring types might do with their time that could be useful for the PCs".

Lanefan

 

[Argyle King]

Of course they aren't.



4e is a grittier game than non-houseruled 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder. And given that that's the opposite of the design goals and playstyle of 4e, this is really quite an impressive achievement.

You said a lot of things that I agree with (as well as some I didn't,) but this stuck out to me as being particularly odd. I don't feel 4E is gritty at all. The preview books make it sound as though the game would be gritty, but in no way would I agree 4e is even remotely gritty. I say that because my 4E experience has mostly been the PCs completely annihilating the world around them. At one point in time, I had started to challenge myself by seeing how many gaming sessions I could go without using any healing powers on the party -I was playing a Warlord at the time.

Personally, I feel that 4E comes across more like some sort of fantasy/sci-fi. One of the most satisfying games I had while running 4E was to completely embrace that and ditch the fluff which seemed at odds with the mechanics of the game.

 

[Lanefan]

In 1st ed AD&D there is also the concept of "0-level humans" (and halflings), as well as of fighters (like sergeants, lieutenants and captains) who have fighter levels but are incapalbe of earning XP or gaining levels. And in B/X there are "normal men" (sic), who are the functional equivalent of AD&D's 0-levels.

Thanks for catching this, it saved me the typing.

That said, in my game at least those sergeants etc. *can* earn XP and gain levels; albeit probably at a much slower pace than the average adventurer who often sees more danger in a week than the sergeant does in a year.

That is true for PCs expected to be played in an essentially open-ended campaign. It is not true of a tournament or one-shot scenario, though, where (everything else being equal) the PCs should be balanced for that scenario.

And this raises a question of massive importance for the designers - and by extension the rest of us:

As open-ended campaign play and one-off/tournament play place very different and at times incompatible demands on the core design of the game, which type of play should the game as a whole be designed for?

The answer, of course, is open-ended campaign. 2e was the peak for this, 3e moved away from it a bit and 4e inexplicably moved away yet further. (how many 3+ year 4e campaigns have you seen?) What 5e does with it remains to be seen but there seem to be at least a few vaguely encouraging signs so far.

Lanefan

 

[B.T.]

4e is a grittier game than non-houseruled 3.0/3.5/Pathfinder.

This is one of those statements like "4e is deadlier than 3e" that is completely untrue on its face. 4e's game design is one in which characters:

• Heal to full with six hours of rest.
• Survive several hits before dropping.
• Usually heal to full between encounters.
• Have character classes that heal by shouting encouragement.
• Will almost always survive a critical hit.
• Start as "heroes" from the day they are created.

The only way that 4e is less gritty is when DMs hand out wands of cure light wounds like candy (which hasn't happened in any 3e/Pathfinder game I've ever run in). 4e is designed to be less gritty straight out of the box.

 

[Lanefan]

And believe it or not the people watching Game of Thrones are a miniority - ratings high of 4.2 million for the most recent season finale.

Can't speak to how many people watch GoT the show but I can tell you there's sure as hell a lot of people who've read or who are reading GoT the books. And that's yer market: the readers, not the watchers.

Lanefan