Promoting certain behavior through feedback loops

[Crucius]

So, I've been playing a lot of Doom Eternal and it's a blast. I especially like how the game is designed to promote a certain playstyle through rewards and feedback loops.

(Hmm? What do you mean this is a D&D forum, not a Doom forum? Oh. Right.) So I was thinking, as one does, about the design of D&D, and I have a series of question/discussion points:

1: What do you think is the behavior that the makers of 5e want to promote through the design of the game?
2: What kind of behavior do you think should be promoted in 5e?
3: Through what kind of feedback loop would you promote that behavior?

Curious to see what you people think about the design of the game, and what you would do (differently).


1: Combat-minded player behavior; when 90% of your features revolve around combat I feel it pushes players (and DM's I guess) into thinking that combat is the logical outcome of most encounters. This is probably because combat is the easiest to rule the ever-living sh*t out of, and actually benefits structure.
2: I have a few ideas:
Teamwork could always be promoted more in my opinion.
Roleplay I think is underrepresented in features as mentioned before, so I think this could be promoted as well.
Taking risks: turning a fight around that was a sure loss is exhilarating
3: Maybe making the three core pillars flow into each other naturally. For example successful roleplay gives information about a monster, making the fight easier. Then with a part harvested from the monster the trek through the environment is easier to reach the next town, thus repeating this cycle? Maybe a bit too artificial, but I hope you get the gist of it.

[BurgerBeast]

I think the designers sincerely wanted to create a game that, if not perfectly balanced between the so-called “three-pillars,” was closer to it. 5e was largely a reaction to 4e’s reception.

One indicator of this is how short the combat chapter is. Compared to recent editions, it is very small.

If this was their goal, of course they failed, but they at least made a game in which people who want that balance are not prevented form getting it.

I honestly think the designers were specifically trying to not encourage any particular play style.

Remember that D&D cannot be compared directly to Doom because Doom is a game and D&D is a console.

I love the line of thought you’re bringing here, and I love the use of feedback loops to create behaviours tailored to particular campaigns (i.e. games)... I just think they’ll be less obvious in the console, particularly in one that tried to stay out of it.

Maybe I’m wrong.

[Nagog]

I don't know anything about feedback loops, but I think the behavior 5e was built to promote is one of creativity and immersion. With the balance of RAW content and the reliance on DM oversight, 5e seems very conducive to an environment in which a DM and Players can break the mold wherever and however they wish and keep things reigned in to a fair and balanced playstyle.

Was that effective? Eh, kind of. Some DMs take the creative liberty 5e gives them and go to town with it, to mixed results. Sometimes the homebrew is too effective, to the point the game isn't a game anymore, other times it's so light that it's barely perceptible. On a good day, it's perfectly balanced to enhance the overall feel of the game.
Other DMs (typically those who transferred from 3.5 or Pathfinder in my experience) are heavy handed on what can and cannot be done by RAW. If there is no RAW way to accomplish what you've asked in published materials, it's impossible to do it.

Overall I'd say it's had mixed results in effectiveness, heavily reliant on the DM and how they handle things, and the players and how out of the box they think of things.

[Man_Over_Game]

I don't know anything about feedback loops...

To put them simply, how are you expected to play the game, and how does that change the game?


Mario Kart rewards losers, so that good players and bad players can play together. It's not about winning, it's about playing.
Starcraft and Call of Duty rewards winners, so that your skill is easily recognized as being superior.
FATE rewards players who take sacrifices and risks, as a means to further the story for everyone.
DnD 4e rewards players for taking tactical action and planning together, as a means for the team to work together.



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Overall, I agree with Burgerbeast. I think there was a lack of foresight in the overall implementation that makes almost any kind of "feedback loop" not make a whole lot of sense.

They try to say that magic items should be rare, then design two classes around having no means for magical damage while making 60% of the Monster Manual resistant to nonmagical damage.
They want to have three pillars of play, but only have solid rules for 1 and then suggest you "use your gut" for the other 2/3 of the game.
On the mechanical powers for those other 2/3 of the pillars of the game, they seem to be all over the place in terms of balance (Enthrall, Ranger class features, no examples of a Passive Investigation anywhere but the stat mentioned in a few places in the game)
They state that grid-based gameplay is an optional rule, yet have all of the spells, abilities and skills have strict, mechanical rules that are difficult to utilize without a grid.


I think they intended to make Fighters (and other martials) as relevant as casters, and they succeeded...if Combat was the only pillar of play.

I also think they meant for players to want more combat overall, as most of the numbers I've crunched seem to indicate that 10 "intense encounter rounds", per day, with a Short Rest or two, seems about the "sweet spot" for everyone. There are some mentions in the Monster Manual that imply combat should take about 3 rounds, some mentions in encounter design that state that players should have about 3-4 encounters, classes all start to balance out around that level (implying that it should be an average, not a minimum), and almost every module is one that's decidedly combat. Even the ones that have a lot of social and exploration events (like Waterdeep Dragon Heist) still have a ton of combat involved (not to mention that it leads into Dungeon of the Mad Mage, basically a slog of nonstop combat).

So, my guess? You're supposed to be fighting. Everything else feels secondary.
50% combat, 25% socializing, 25% exploring. About what you'd expect from Adventure League. Which makes sense, since AL is basically an interactive form of advertising.

[Crucius]

I think the designers sincerely wanted to create a game that, if not perfectly balanced between the so-called “three-pillars,” was closer to it. 5e was largely a reaction to 4e’s reception.

One indicator of this is how short the combat chapter is. Compared to recent editions, it is very small.

If this was their goal, of course they failed, but they at least made a game in which people who want that balance are not prevented form getting it.

I honestly think the designers were specifically trying to not encourage any particular play style.

Remember that D&D cannot be compared directly to Doom because Doom is a game and D&D is a console.

I love the line of thought you’re bringing here, and I love the use of feedback loops to create behaviours tailored to particular campaigns (i.e. games)... I just think they’ll be less obvious in the console, particularly in one that tried to stay out of it.

Maybe I’m wrong.

It's an interesting notion you are bringing about dnd being a platform, rather than a game. It's more a game-engine. I kinda agree with that, also the bit about how it leaves it up to the DMs to tweak features and rules to create the game they want to be running.

What kind of behavior (or playstyle I guess?) would you like to promote if you were the DM?

[Crucius]

Overall, I agree with Burgerbeast. I think there was a lack of foresight in the overall implementation that makes almost any kind of "feedback loop" not make a whole lot of sense.

They try to say that magic items should be rare, then design two classes around having no means for magical damage while making 60% of the Monster Manual resistant to nonmagical damage.
They want to have three pillars of play, but only have solid rules for 1 and then suggest you "use your gut" for the other 2/3 of the game.
On the mechanical powers for those other 2/3 of the pillars of the game, they seem to be all over the place in terms of balance (Enthrall, Ranger class features, no examples of a Passive Investigation anywhere but the stat mentioned in a few places in the game)
They state that grid-based gameplay is an optional rule, yet have all of the spells, abilities and skills have strict, mechanical rules that are difficult to utilize without a grid.


I think they intended to make Fighters (and other martials) as relevant as casters, and they succeeded...if Combat was the only pillar of play.

Oh man I feel this.



I also think they meant for players to want more combat overall, as most of the numbers I've crunched seem to indicate that 10 "intense encounter rounds", per day, with a Short Rest or two, seems about the "sweet spot" for everyone. There are some mentions in the Monster Manual that imply combat should take about 3 rounds, some mentions in encounter design that state that players should have about 3-4 encounters, classes all start to balance out around that level (implying that it should be an average, not a minimum), and almost every module is one that's decidedly combat. Even the ones that have a lot of social and exploration events (like Waterdeep Dragon Heist) still have a ton of combat involved (not to mention that it leads into Dungeon of the Mad Mage, basically a slog of nonstop combat).

So, my guess? You're supposed to be fighting. Everything else is going off the beaten path, and has the least amount of support from, well, any of the books.
50% combat, 25% socializing, 25% exploring. About what you'd expect from Adventure League.
10 rounds of combat per day, noted. Feel about right I'd say.
Those percentages, do they express the number of encounters or the amount of time spent on these pillars? Because combat tends to take quite long, while a social encounter can be over in 10 minutes.

Also for you the question, since you don't sound too pleased with the encounter-type distribution being slanted towards combat (or maybe I'm reading too much into that, plain text and all), what would you emphasize more and how?

[Telok]

The feedback loop I kept encountering was that combat was the most reliable way to react to stuff because all characters could participate and the DM had the most rules support and guidance for it. Then within combat standard attack hit point damage was the best way to do things because anything else was either less likely to work or made the DM/players stop and look things up or guess a ruling (also less likely to work).

So combat better than other stuff and basic hp attacks better than other stuff. Which led to faster combat and more progress, in the fight/cutscene/fight definition of progress.

[Man_Over_Game]

Also for you the question, since you don't sound too pleased with the encounter-type distribution being slanted towards combat (or maybe I'm reading too much into that, plain text and all), what would you emphasize more and how?

You're right, I'm not pleased, but I think there are quite a few things that could still be done.

The fact is, combat is where everything is decided. It's where we have the most amount of rules, and it's where we have the most intense moments.

My suggestion is to make everything else tie back into combat, with the results from those pillars having greater impact than the actual combat mechanics themselves.

For example, have skill-interactions with the environment be more effective than the Attack Action. Have enemies be greatly susceptible to Surprise. Have friends be more than willing to provide supplies or other assistance. Basically make it so that the game is hardest when only using the Combat rules, and using everything else makes the game easier. Have it be such a strong effect on your campaign that your Fighter would consider Linguist over Polearm Master as both being relevant for improving their combat.

Because, the fact is, it doesn't matter how much emphasis you put on the non-combat elements, because there will always be the players' consideration for combat. They'll always be considering whether they should stab something first, so it's our job to make the alternative solutions just as rewarding (if not more).

Unfortunately, many DMs (I've been guilty of it, too) do this thing where we offer rewards towards those who use their noncombat skills, but then offer those same rewards to those that didn't. Clues, in particular, are done this way (so a clue becomes more obvious if you're a team of Barbarians). We should be punishing players for their failure, and make them recognize what that failure caused and what it was caused from. But instead, we want the players to find the Clue so that the story can progress, and so the game scales to the party regardless of their decisions.

This shouldn't be done in a way of "you can't progress", but instead be done as "you progress in a way much more difficult than it should have been". I suggest making that difficulty as something implemented through combat, since it's how players get the most amount of feedback, and all classes have their own means of contributing.

[Sorinth]

Any feedback loop to encourage certain behaviour is going to be highly DM dependent.

For example, if you try to talk/bluff your way past encouters and the DM gives easy/reasonable DC for the skill checks and hands out XP for beating that encounter it's going to encourage the players to try to talk first. If on the other hand you try to talk and the DM's response is to roll initiative then it's going to discourage trying to talk and maybe encourage and ambush style approach where you kill first ask questions later.

[Crucius]

The feedback loop I kept encountering was that combat was the most reliable way to react to stuff because all characters could participate and the DM had the most rules support and guidance for it. Then within combat standard attack hit point damage was the best way to do things because anything else was either less likely to work or made the DM/players stop and look things up or guess a ruling (also less likely to work).

So combat better than other stuff and basic hp attacks better than other stuff. Which led to faster combat and more progress, in the fight/cutscene/fight definition of progress.

Aye, right on the money! You described it perfectly!

The only thing I can add is that the lack of rules guidance for social encounters might be by design; to allow the maximum amount of freedom within that space to promote roleplay? It's hard to judge whether it's negligence or freedom in this case.

[Crucius]

For example, have skill-interactions with the environment be more effective than the Attack Action. Have enemies be greatly susceptible to Surprise. Have friends be more than willing to provide supplies or other assistance. Basically make it so that the game is hardest when only using the Combat rules, and using everything else makes the game easier. Have it be such a strong effect on your campaign that your Fighter would consider Linguist over Polearm Master as both being relevant for improving their combat.

I like this approach! It is very dependent on communication from DM to players, for them to accurately estimate the upcoming combat as *difficult* rather than "difficult for commoners because they have no combat skills, and the party are a bunch of badasses". Do you take this approach for every combat, or only for the main center-piece combat encounters?

Got a question though, with combat being really hard, and now also getting more moving parts basically, how do you ensure that death is not guaranteed when the players go for a more straight forward approach? I guess as an extension to this question, how do you calculate combat difficulty if it exceeds deadly?

[da newt]

It's an interesting notion you are bringing about dnd being a platform, rather than a game. It's more a game-engine. I kinda agree with that, also the bit about how it leaves it up to the DMs to tweak features and rules to create the game they want to be running.
What kind of behavior (or playstyle I guess?) would you like to promote if you were the DM?

I think this way of thinking is pretty much spot on. Developers / WotC have provided a flexible system for the DM (and party) to adjust what sorts of feedback they'd like to put into place. As provided, you can play a very combat / murder-hobo centric game OR you can emphasize RP and teamwork and consequences for actions ... the freedom is inherent in the system. Take the bones provided and you can create anything you want. I think this is a strength of the system - it allows you(pl) to make it what you want. Who is to say what is the RIGHT way enjoy the game?

I like to think 5e has provided 80% - it's up to us to take that and make it what we want it to be by filling in the other 20%. I also think MoG has some great points, but 5e is kind enough to give us the freedom to take what we like, and adjust the rest to fit.

[Sorinth]

The feedback loop I kept encountering was that combat was the most reliable way to react to stuff because all characters could participate and the DM had the most rules support and guidance for it. Then within combat standard attack hit point damage was the best way to do things because anything else was either less likely to work or made the DM/players stop and look things up or guess a ruling (also less likely to work).

So combat better than other stuff and basic hp attacks better than other stuff. Which led to faster combat and more progress, in the fight/cutscene/fight definition of progress.

Combat being the most reliable way to react to stuff is because most of the time encounters are tailored to the PCs abilities. If on the other hand you consistently faced Deadly+ encounters it would promote social skills and/or stealth.

Combat does have the most rigid/well defined rules. For whatever reason they wanted things like social interactions to have a lot of freedom/creativity involved but wanted combat to be more rigid.

[Yakmala]

Though not mentioned in the core books, in Adventurer's League, players are not allowed to take the Chaotic Evil or Neutral Evil alignments. And Lawful Evil is only allowed if you take the Faction Agent Safe Haven background feature as a member of the Lords' Alliance or Zhentarim.

So one could say that for official group play at least, WotC wants to promote good aligned, heroic parties.

Does it work in practice? It does not.

First and foremost, there are little to no penalties in 5E for going outside one's stated alignment. Alignment violations are even less enforceable in Adventurers League where, unless you are a running through a hardcover week over week with the same DM and players, your actions one session have little bearing on the next.

Furthermore, in my experience, the real troublemakers tend to be players who make their characters Chaotic Neutral, many of whom see this as an excuse to be "Chaotic Stupid" or to actively wreck the play experience of others at the table through their impulsive self interest. Meanwhile, I've met plenty of Lawful Evil characters whose players simply play them as uncompromising, agents of the state or heroes in their own minds.

[thereaper]

You're right, I'm not pleased, but I think there are quite a few things that could still be done.

The fact is, combat is where everything is decided. It's where we have the most amount of rules, and it's where we have the most intense moments.

My suggestion is to make everything else tie back into combat, with the results from those pillars having greater impact than the actual combat mechanics themselves.

For example, have skill-interactions with the environment be more effective than the Attack Action. Have enemies be greatly susceptible to Surprise. Have friends be more than willing to provide supplies or other assistance. Basically make it so that the game is hardest when only using the Combat rules, and using everything else makes the game easier. Have it be such a strong effect on your campaign that your Fighter would consider Linguist over Polearm Master as both being relevant for improving their combat.

Because, the fact is, it doesn't matter how much emphasis you put on the non-combat elements, because there will always be the players' consideration for combat. They'll always be considering whether they should stab something first, so it's our job to make the alternative solutions just as rewarding (if not more).

Unfortunately, many DMs (I've been guilty of it, too) do this thing where we offer rewards towards those who use their noncombat skills, but then offer those same rewards to those that didn't. Clues, in particular, are done this way (so a clue becomes more obvious if you're a team of Barbarians). We should be punishing players for their failure, and make them recognize what that failure caused and what it was caused from. But instead, we want the players to find the Clue so that the story can progress, and so the game scales to the party regardless of their decisions.

This shouldn't be done in a way of "you can't progress", but instead be done as "you progress in a way much more difficult than it should have been". I suggest making that difficulty as something implemented through combat, since it's how players get the most amount of feedback, and all classes have their own means of contributing.

I like the idea, but how can this be accomplished without making spellcasters even more dominant in the game than they already are?

[NaughtyTiger]

I like the idea, but how can this be accomplished without making spellcasters even more dominant in the game than they already are?

intimidation be strength by default, and actually have a mechanically balanced combat effect
stronger rules for disarm
remove focus for spellcasters

[Man_Over_Game]

I like this approach! It is very dependent on communication from DM to players, for them to accurately estimate the upcoming combat as *difficult* rather than "difficult for commoners because they have no combat skills, and the party are a bunch of badasses". Do you take this approach for every combat, or only for the main center-piece combat encounters?

Got a question though, with combat being really hard, and now also getting more moving parts basically, how do you ensure that death is not guaranteed when the players go for a more straight forward approach? I guess as an extension to this question, how do you calculate combat difficulty if it exceeds deadly?

For me, I use a formula in my head:
Difficulty = Clues + Character power

That is, the more clues I give you as to what's going on, the more I'm going to use those clues against you. Each "Clue" is actually the player's permission, to me, to ruin your day. So if the players find a piece of information that says that the Fungus Zombies are weak to fire, those Funguys are getting some nasty poison auras until you set them on fire. If you find out the Funguys are often eaten by a local type of domesticated lizard mount, guess what you should be getting?

On the flipside, if it's a combat that doesn't have any clues about it (like being hunted by a pack of Dire Wolves), then it's not going to be overly hard. I'll still reward you for trying to resolve things past using standard combat mechanics (for example, a Nature or History check will remind you that Dire Wolves are especially pack animals, and might flee if the pack seems unable to win, like through a Fear spell), but it should be fairly manageable.

The only fights that the players should find easy are the ones they could not have prepared for, or the ones they're overly prepared for. Everything between those should be Deadly.


Lastly, to compensate for the increased difficulty, I do two things:
The fight starts easy, then ramps up halfway through.
There's always a backup plan for when the players fail.

Number 1 is pretty straightforward. Dire Wolves start as 1-2 scouts, and they howl at the start of the fight. Players can hear the howls of more off in the distance. At this point, they can try make an advantage or flee. This gives me the means of gauging the player's ability to fight this kind of encounter, and lets me balance the second phase off of that feedback.

Number 2 is a bit different. I always have an expectation for when my players fail. Sometimes, that could just be Death, but other times, it might be mentioning an opening for them to flee, or a traveler comes to their aid, or something causes their threat to flee. It has to be a player's choice to die, and that might mean "you decided to ignore the piles of crushed bones on the floor, the stabbed grooves beside them, and the writing on the wall that says 'CEILING TRAP'. So, players, what comes next?"


I like the idea, but how can this be accomplished without making spellcasters even more dominant in the game than they already are?

When a spellcaster contributes out of combat, they're generally spending resources to do so. The more problems the spellcasters solve out of combat, the less they'll be able to contribute in it, leaving more room for everyone else to take the spotlight. Sure, the spellcaster's contribution convinced the militia to join the party, but the beefiness of your front line warriors kept the militia alive. Even when casters and martials have different goals, they can still work together. It's pretty tricky, since spellcasting scales so damn much, but just being lenient on the rules really helps.

An easy example is just rewarding your level 3 caster to use Arcane Eye to spot an enemy group with his highest level spell slot. For a caster, that's a spendy use for a scouting spell, but now I can have that group of enemies be lollygagging about, just getting drunk and sleeping off the last night's fight. Because the players spent a hefty investment, the players have an almost-guaranteed Surprise on the enemies, giving them a free round of combat for the Martials to mince them into meat. I wouldn't do the same if the party was level 10, when Arcane Eye was something affordable before every encounter. The more you spend, the more you get, so casters are rewarded for spending everything they have before combat, while Martials reap the benefits.

It doesn't have to be hard-mode. It just has to be hard when you're choosing to do nothing.

I do a few other things differently, like using Concentration for skills that you're continuing to try to do (such as talking down a combatant) that naturally compete with spells. Another example is making Improvised Actions cost only an Attack, instead of a whole Action.

[Crucius]

The only fights that the players should find easy are the ones they could not have prepared for, or the ones they're overly prepared for. Everything between those should be Deadly.


You ball hard I see.

[Crucius]

For me, I use a formula in my head:
Difficulty = Clues + Character power

That is, the more clues I give you as to what's going on, the more I'm going to use those clues against you. Each "Clue" is actually the player's permission, to me, to ruin your day. So if the players find a piece of information that says that the Fungus Zombies are weak to fire, those Funguys are getting some nasty poison auras until you set them on fire. If you find out the Funguys are often eaten by a local type of domesticated lizard mount, guess what you should be getting?


First off, still liking the idea, I'm not trying to bash it, just got some question popping up here:
In this case the fire damage is quite specific. Chances are only one or two characters can do this. Do you then include a number of clues equal to the number of players, and play each clue off of a specific 'expertise' (not the class feature, but the English word) their characters have, thereby giving everyone a chance to shine? Or do you shift focus per encounter, allowing shine-moments to average out over the whole campaign?

[Man_Over_Game]

First off, still liking the idea, I'm not trying to bash it, just got some question popping up here:
In this case the fire damage is quite specific. Chances are only one or two characters can do this. Do you then include a number of clues equal to the number of players, and play each clue off of a specific 'expertise' (not the class feature, but the English word) their characters have, thereby giving everyone a chance to shine? Or do you shift focus per encounter, allowing shine-moments to average out over the whole campaign?

The Fire is a little specific, you're right. If there's a situation where Fire isn't something readily available, the importance of "Fire Damage" might be less, or it might be something that is just toggled "off" as long as Fire Damage is dealt.

The important thing is that it's considered, and it's relevant. My Thief Rogue player might be the only person with Fire Damage, with the Alchemist's Fire he bought, and for me, that's "good enough". It doesn't matter how much damage the Alchemist's Fire does against the Funguys, or how much Sneak Attack damage the Rogue does. The only important thing that matters is that my players react to information by doing something differently than what they'd normally do. The more they do that, the more they're rewarded.

If I do feel that a character is becoming less relevant, I'd prefer to focus an encounter around them, specifically. I feel that designing an encounter around one idea is a lot easier than developing it around multiple moving parts. Also, just because it's focused around one character doesn't mean that everyone else doesn't have their own means of decent contribution. Just because Paladins are especially good against Undead doesn't mean that a Druid doesn't have a few means of lending a hand.

If a Paladin is the one holding back a tide of Undead that are blinded by his light-aura, and the Wizard is trying to use a Force-wall to keep off Stirges from breaking through a small cavern hole from behind, the two players will have greater appreciation of each other, rather than the Paladin feeling like he's babysitting the Wizard. I might have only planned the Light-susceptible Undead around the Paladin, but that doesn't mean that it's all about him.

[Telok]

Combat being the most reliable way to react to stuff is because most of the time encounters are tailored to the PCs abilities. If on the other hand you consistently faced Deadly+ encounters it would promote social skills and/or stealth.

Combat does have the most rigid/well defined rules. For whatever reason they wanted things like social interactions to have a lot of freedom/creativity involved but wanted combat to be more rigid.

For that first part the feedback loop arises from not all classes having applicable non-combat options baked in. It will be argued that the skill/prof system is that option, but it ties into your second part.

Combat has the most rules, but they reward doing as much hit point damage as fast as possible. Everything else is worse or highly situational (or both). Usually because anything but straight hit point damage involves additional points of failure. Even simple things like jumping down on someone, shoving, or flipping a table usually adds opportunity attacks, additional rolls to succeed, or opponents just being immune.

A good and experienced DM that knows about this can overcome all that. They can make up their own rules in a way that compensates for all that. Inexperienced DMs, ones who don't haunt forums and threads like this, and those who aren't actively trying to understand the meta-DMing to become better, they almost always go with what the books support. The hit point damage combat loop.

[Sorinth]

For that first part the feedback loop arises from not all classes having applicable non-combat options baked in. It will be argued that the skill/prof system is that option, but it ties into your second part.

Combat has the most rules, but they reward doing as much hit point damage as fast as possible. Everything else is worse or highly situational (or both). Usually because anything but straight hit point damage involves additional points of failure. Even simple things like jumping down on someone, shoving, or flipping a table usually adds opportunity attacks, additional rolls to succeed, or opponents just being immune.

A good and experienced DM that knows about this can overcome all that. They can make up their own rules in a way that compensates for all that. Inexperienced DMs, ones who don't haunt forums and threads like this, and those who aren't actively trying to understand the meta-DMing to become better, they almost always go with what the books support. The hit point damage combat loop.

Although you can certainly build a character that is very limited non-combat wise the fact that everybody gets at least 4 skills I wouldn't say any class has no non-combat options baked in. Even a strength Fighter with no relevant skills is often important to any exploration portion simply because they can carry a lot of stuff.

Also combat may reward doing the most damage as fast as possible, but I wouldn't go as far as saying everything else is worse. Save or suck spells for example can turn hard encounters easy, knocking an enemy prone so that the rest of the party have advantage on their attack will quite often produce the max damage especially if there are PCs that have one big attack like a Rogue SA or a Paladin Smite.

But you're right that the difference between a good DM and an inexperienced one plays a huge role and for that reason I think the biggest failure of the DMG is that it didn't provide any actual guidance for the DM to help inexperienced DMs. I'm fine with the game leaving certain things intentionally vague but they should have provided some the design intent behind most of the rules so that the inexperienced DM has a better grasp of what happens when he rules a certain way or modifies things.

[Man_Over_Game]

But you're right that the difference between a good DM and an inexperienced one plays a huge role and for that reason I think the biggest failure of the DMG is that it didn't provide any actual guidance for the DM to help inexperienced DMs. I'm fine with the game leaving certain things intentionally vague but they should have provided some the design intent behind most of the rules so that the inexperienced DM has a better grasp of what happens when he rules a certain way or modifies things.

On that note, I tried finding out what were some examples of a high level skill being used at supernatural levels. Specifically, what did DC 30s look like? We know there are some in the game, but what were some concrete examples?

The results were...disappointing: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/161592/what-are-the-examples-of-a-successful-dc-30-ability-check-that-uses-a-skill

For those that don't want to click on a link, here's the summary: Dimensional Shackles require a DC 30 to break, and the Immovable Rod needs a DC 30 to move. That's it. There's about 2 more DC 25 checks, and about 4 DC 20's.

[BurgerBeast]

It's an interesting notion you are bringing about dnd being a platform, rather than a game. It's more a game-engine. I kinda agree with that, also the bit about how it leaves it up to the DMs to tweak features and rules to create the game they want to be running.

What kind of behavior (or playstyle I guess?) would you like to promote if you were the DM?

I want the game to (1) be about discovery and awe and (2) make player skill relevant. Oddly, everyone thinks exploration is about exploring the physical in-game world and the aspects of survival that go along with it.

But I think exploration can be much broader. If every campaign the DM runs is a different “game” to be played on the D&D console, then players ought to get to experience something approximating a new game each time. A high bar, but I like high bars. And in some ways you have to fight D&D to achieve it.

What if you took the current rules, and were intentionally restrictive with them, so that players wouldn’t know what they could and couldn’t do? What monsters exist and how they work? What spells exist? Or even what races and classes exist.

I’m currently playing with the idea of restricting almost everything in the game, and then making it unlockable though in-game activity.

As an example, a campaign starts with the players exiled to a prison-continent with one settlement surrounded by wilderness. Only three races and three class-subclass combinations are allowed, and even your abilities are assigned, not rolled nor chosen.

As you explore the island and develop the settlement, new options become available.

When someone discovers an ancient wizard tower with the secrets of an ancient order of mages, the Wizard class gets unlocked. But the only spells known are those discovered in the tower. Within the ancient tomes of its library, they read about other spells that are more powerful.

When they travel into an ancient forest, they discover the race of wood elves, who have rangers, and so those options are unlocked.

Crafting systems are likewise discovered. Point/buy customization and Rolling scores are unlocked as characters progress, so that players can make new characters with new options.

...I think you get the idea.

- - -

On the topic of player skill:

I want players to play the game without ever really thinking about mechanics unless those mechanics serve to assist player understanding of the fiction. I want minimal randomness because the players understand how the world works, so not many surprises.

I want players to take actions that make sense and are natural, because they’re imagining the fiction.

Controversially, I want players to have to do the talking, and not just roll away exploration and social encounters. The tactics are up to the player. Just like a player can’t say “I fight the four goblins” in combat, but has to make decisions about how to do it, players have to offer up persuasive arguments tailored to the particular NPC and not just “persuade” him. They have to look under the bed to find the lockbox and feel the bottom to discover it’s false bottom, not just “search the room” or “roll to see if they notice.”

It requires a lot of work.

[thereaper]

On that note, I tried finding out what were some examples of a high level skill being used at supernatural levels. Specifically, what did DC 30s look like? We know there are some in the game, but what were some concrete examples?

The results were...disappointing: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/161592/what-are-the-examples-of-a-successful-dc-30-ability-check-that-uses-a-skill

For those that don't want to click on a link, here's the summary: Dimensional Shackles require a DC 30 to break, and the Immovable Rod needs a DC 30 to move. That's it. There's about 2 more DC 25 checks, and about 4 DC 20's.

This sounds like a good time to bring back some of the epic skill checks from the 3.0 level handbook. Seeing invisible creatures, squeezing through walls of force, and reading minds. Personally, I think high level rogues should have been doing that kind of thing already.

[Crucius]

On the topic of player skill:

I want players to play the game without ever really thinking about mechanics unless those mechanics serve to assist player understanding of the fiction. I want minimal randomness because the players understand how the world works, so not many surprises.

I can recommend the video of The Two Types of Randomness by Game Maker's Toolkit on youtube (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwI5b-wRLic&). There he explains that randomness screws with tactics (which I think is what you mean with player skill), but adds drama and risk taking. I personally don't like randomness too much as a player, but as a DM it keeps the game from getting repetitive and stale so I'm kinda thankful for that!



It requires a lot of work.

I was just gonna say hehe. But visions require lots of work, and I wish you the best of luck with your future endeavors!

[Crucius]

On that note, I tried finding out what were some examples of a high level skill being used at supernatural levels. Specifically, what did DC 30s look like? We know there are some in the game, but what were some concrete examples?

The results were...disappointing: https://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/161592/what-are-the-examples-of-a-successful-dc-30-ability-check-that-uses-a-skill

For those that don't want to click on a link, here's the summary: Dimensional Shackles require a DC 30 to break, and the Immovable Rod needs a DC 30 to move. That's it. There's about 2 more DC 25 checks, and about 4 DC 20's.

Curious to see almost all of these checks are Strength checks. I remember the Legendary Rogue thread on this forum from some months ago, but sadly can't recall the conclusion from that discussion. Maybe there just isn't that much use for these insane skill checks? Or maybe our puny brains cannot fathom what a 30 in Nature could represent.

[Nagog]

It's an interesting notion you are bringing about dnd being a platform, rather than a game. It's more a game-engine. I kinda agree with that, also the bit about how it leaves it up to the DMs to tweak features and rules to create the game they want to be running.

What kind of behavior (or playstyle I guess?) would you like to promote if you were the DM?

In my DMing, I like to encourage the players to find solutions to problems that don't involve spells or specific skill descriptions. For example, the party is beset by predators underground, and it becomes evident they are heavily reliant on their hearing. Sure the Cleric/Wizard could cast Deafness on a few of them and make them easy targets, but literally anybody could roll a coin or rock down the cavern to draw a batch of them away, no roll nor spell slot required. I find it a bit frustrating that when put into a world as open minded and immersive as D&D (or any roleplaying game for that matter), players almost always have the mindset to play it like a video game. When presented with an issue, the question in their mind is "Which of my character's skills or abilities solves this issue?" rather than "How could this issue be solved?".

To that end, I don't keep my player's builds in mind when presenting them with a challenge, I merely present them with a challenge. If I don't know that Player X can use Y ability and solve the issue, than it's far more likely for them to reach the point that they start thinking out of the box and breaking the Video Game Paradigm that keeps their mind on their character sheet rather than on the problem at hand.


Aye, right on the money! You described it perfectly!

The only thing I can add is that the lack of rules guidance for social encounters might be by design; to allow the maximum amount of freedom within that space to promote roleplay? It's hard to judge whether it's negligence or freedom in this case.

I'd say it's left ambiguous intentionally, as having hard rules for interaction can be rather gamebreaking. For example, the whole campaign is spent building up a specific BBEG, but the party's bard has been powerbuilding their persuasion and knows they only have to hit a 25 persuasion DC to change them from Hostile to Indifferent, then from Indifferent to Neutral, then Neutral to Friendly, then Friendly to Allied. And with their maxed Charisma and Expertise, they can hit that consistently enough that the whole story is derailed within 4 rounds of out of combat talking.

I'm sure you've heard of DMs who vamp up enemy stats mid-fight to make the party suffer, and how much the party dislikes that. Imagine if that were the case literally all the time. The Rules Lawyer player arguing with the DM because their social skill check didn't persuade the zealot leader to switch sides, even though they cleared the DC set in X Book for such a check. It'd be chaos.


I like this approach! It is very dependent on communication from DM to players, for them to accurately estimate the upcoming combat as *difficult* rather than "difficult for commoners because they have no combat skills, and the party are a bunch of badasses". Do you take this approach for every combat, or only for the main center-piece combat encounters?

Got a question though, with combat being really hard, and now also getting more moving parts basically, how do you ensure that death is not guaranteed when the players go for a more straight forward approach? I guess as an extension to this question, how do you calculate combat difficulty if it exceeds deadly?

Personally, I'd scale it back to Deadly if they try that, and actually make sure it is Deadly. They come through it successful, but have lost quite a bit of their resources and maybe even a party member or two, if the dice say so.



The only fights that the players should find easy are the ones they could not have prepared for, or the ones they're overly prepared for. Everything between those should be Deadly.


Lastly, to compensate for the increased difficulty, I do two things:
The fight starts easy, then ramps up halfway through.
There's always a backup plan for when the players fail.


I also follow this approach, save for one or two adjustments: I like to include on occasion a combat encounter that truly is easy. Just as in the beginning of the campaign when the party is level one and a small group of rats led by a Dire Rat was extremely difficult, later on at level 5 they may come across a similar band of rats, and the roles are reversed. It helps the players really see how much they've grown, despite most of the enemies they go up against being quite powerful.




When a spellcaster contributes out of combat, they're generally spending resources to do so. The more problems the spellcasters solve out of combat, the less they'll be able to contribute in it, leaving more room for everyone else to take the spotlight. Sure, the spellcaster's contribution convinced the militia to join the party, but the beefiness of your front line warriors kept the militia alive. Even when casters and martials have different goals, they can still work together. It's pretty tricky, since spellcasting scales so damn much, but just being lenient on the rules really helps.


This reminds me of a video I saw a long time ago from Brandon Sanderson (author of the Way of Kings series and Mistborn) about designing magic systems for stories, and he remarked on how J.R.R. Tolkien set up magic in Lord of the Rings. There's no hard rules that the reader knows about for what magic can and cannot do, but there is a cost when they rely on it too much. Prime example being the Balrogg; they rely on Gandalf to use his magic to save them, and it works, but they lose Gandalf.
D&D is pretty magic heavy, which leaves many martial classes in the dust, but if the magician has better limits on what they can use magic to do and how often, it gives the martial classes more opportunities to show their worth.
The downside is that many many many DMs have the One-Encounter Adventuring Day and allow the party to take Long Rests whenever they feel like it, so the Wizard never runs out of spell slots, and the Fighter never gets the opportunity to step up and take the spotlight.