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View Full Version : Roleplaying Thesis: We all should stop using non-D&D characters as argumentation points about D&D



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PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-19, 10:04 AM
So often I see people referencing LotR characters/events, other fantasy fiction, superheroes, etc. Usually in one of a "well, Aragorn was a ranger, and..." or a "people want to play Batman, so..." or a "what class would X be..." context.

IMO, all of those are bad. Both for the game and for discussions of the game. D&D is not a generic game. That's an astonishing statement, so I'll repeat. D&D is not a generic game. The d20 System tried to be generic, but even 3e D&D did not. It does not try to be a game where you can build any fantastic character and play them. It's not even generic fantasy. Or even generic high fantasy. D&D is its own sub-genre of fantasy, and the only thing it's emulating is D&D. Yes, that's circular. But that's how genres are.

The last example (what class is X) is the least bad--it's just pointless. Because you'll never get a good fit. Because X media is not D&D, and D&D is not X. Trying to build even classic characters such as Conan in D&D, although it's been done for a long time (even by Gary Gygax himself) ultimately fails, because Conan (as a literary hero) doesn't fit into the class/level mold well at all. He's got this feature from that level of that class, and this other feature of the other class from a different level, while not having the features of the previous levels. The abstractions are too different and incompatible.

The other ones are worse (again, IMO). D&D is not a LotR game. It takes some inspiration from LotR, blends it together with a lot of popular culture, lets it ferment for a few decades, and ends up with something that is similar but ultimately different. It's not a superhero game. Heck, you'd find that if you tried to build canon Batman in a dedicated supers game, you'd run out of build points way before you can hit those "core" abilities. And so you get friction. Lots of heat, no light. Referencing those other characters doesn't actually add to a conversation. It muddies it.

The core point here is that written fiction (or TV/movie/anime fiction) uses a whole different set of techniques, tropes, and mechanisms than TTRPGs. Characters in those media can do lots of things that are not well suited for a collaborative, party-based game, because they're single-author fiction and there's no need for gameplay mechanics, intra-party or party/world balance, and their worlds are completely different and written entirely around those characters. Importing them into a different context is disrespectful to


D&D, because it breaks all the assumptions and core mechanisms (including the core fiction) that the game is built on.
The settings of the D&D game (because importing Batman into Faerun doesn't fit)
The original work (because taking Batman out of his context inevitably lessens and muddies his character).


So my plea is that we should refrain from using other works in other media as comparison or argumentation points when talking about D&D. Let D&D stand (or fall) on its own merits. When discussing balance, don't say "but Harry Potter can..." (or "but Kaleidin...") When building characters for games, don't try to emulate fictional characters. You'll only end up disappointed. Start with a general, vague concept and lean into the class fiction.

/rant

Vahnavoi
2020-08-19, 10:24 AM
There's a shorter way to put this:

Stop using high concept characters and start using procedurally generated ones. That is, instead of wrestling with the game's system to implement an idea that's fundamentally from outside the game, let the game's rules - ability die rolls, character class, alignment, personality charts, lifepath choices etc. - provide you with a character to play with.

It isn't really limited to D&D, though I agree D&D is hit particularly hard by the clash between high concept and procedural character creation.

Darth Credence
2020-08-19, 10:30 AM
Nah. If people cannot discuss by making analogies to other things, the ability to discuss D&D and other works will plummet. Even most D&D media cannot fit into a campaign - ever have anyone try to recreate book Raistlin? So it basically means you can only discuss in the abstract, and that's not how people communicate.
Analogies and examples are a huge part of how people share their understanding of the world. True, you cannot exactly replicate Conan as a character, but for that matter, Conan himself is inconsistent in his portrayal in books, comics, movies, et al. But that doesn't mean that there is no value in using Conan as a basis for talking with other people about how a barbarian or fighter works. It's a shortcut that many people know, which makes it valuable.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-19, 10:34 AM
There's a shorter way to put this:

Stop using high concept characters and start using procedurally generated ones. That is, instead of wrestling with the game's system to implement an idea that's fundamentally from outside the game, let the game's rules - ability die rolls, character class, alignment, personality charts, lifepath choices etc. - provide you with a character to play with.

It isn't really limited to D&D, though I agree D&D is hit particularly hard by the clash between high concept and procedural character creation.

I'm fine with a high concept...as long as it's a vague, general high concept that fits into the class structure. "Guy with nature powers and shapeshifting" is a fine high concept (druid). Heck, even "fights with sword and spell" is a fine high concept. "I'm Kaledin with entire powerset" (or even "all fighters should be able to emulate Kaeldin's powerset"), not so much.

Honestly, the characters I've found to work the best are the ones that lean into the class fiction the hardest. I'd love to see (or create) a system for narrative character generation, starting with region, then race, then background (in the 5e sense, including personality), then class. For me, personally, setting-fit is the most important thing after party fit[0]. I don't want characters that are fully developed (or have a full life plan) at level 1. Let them grow and develop in both directions (both deciding the details of the backstory in play and letting the personality and direction of the character develop based on the needs of the story). I recognize that in some editions, that's really really hard (3e characters want to be planned out in detail from the get go, for instance). But it's a dream of mine.

But it goes beyond just building characters. It's even more important to leave these sorts of comparisons out of balance/rule discussions. Saying that (to harp on something from the forums) "Smaug was killed by a single arrow" (and so, by reference, so should D&D dragons) is, in my opinion, not a useful comparison. Because Smaug (and his entire world) aren't D&D characters or worlds. They're something completely different, using different underlying mechanisms and with entirely different fictional roles. And that's what I really care about. Not trying to force D&D (or any game) to emulate things it wasn't designed to emulate. Because that just causes heartbreak and disappointment.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-19, 10:37 AM
Nah. If people cannot discuss by making analogies to other things, the ability to discuss D&D and other works will plummet. Even most D&D media cannot fit into a campaign - ever have anyone try to recreate book Raistlin? So it basically means you can only discuss in the abstract, and that's not how people communicate.
Analogies and examples are a huge part of how people share their understanding of the world. True, you cannot exactly replicate Conan as a character, but for that matter, Conan himself is inconsistent in his portrayal in books, comics, movies, et al. But that doesn't mean that there is no value in using Conan as a basis for talking with other people about how a barbarian or fighter works. It's a shortcut that many people know, which makes it valuable.

But it's a shortcut that obscures more than it reveals. Because it forces alien assumptions and tropes that work really well in single-author fiction into a context that can't (and isn't designed to) support them. And that's my problem. Appeals to Conan are flawed, for a few reasons.

1. Conan himself is inconsistent, so it's really not a shared reference. You can get almost anything out of such a reference.
2. Conan is not D&D, and lots of his stuff doesn't fit the underlying system assumptions. For one thing, he's a sole-protagonist. That doesn't fit a team-of-equals system at all.

Man_Over_Game
2020-08-19, 11:56 AM
I'm fine with a high concept...as long as it's a vague, general high concept that fits into the class structure. "Guy with nature powers and shapeshifting" is a fine high concept (druid). Heck, even "fights with sword and spell" is a fine high concept. "I'm Kaledin with entire powerset" (or even "all fighters should be able to emulate Kaeldin's powerset"), not so much.

Honestly, the characters I've found to work the best are the ones that lean into the class fiction the hardest. I'd love to see (or create) a system for narrative character generation, starting with region, then race, then background (in the 5e sense, including personality), then class. For me, personally, setting-fit is the most important thing after party fit[0]. I don't want characters that are fully developed (or have a full life plan) at level 1. Let them grow and develop in both directions (both deciding the details of the backstory in play and letting the personality and direction of the character develop based on the needs of the story). I recognize that in some editions, that's really really hard (3e characters want to be planned out in detail from the get go, for instance). But it's a dream of mine.

But it goes beyond just building characters. It's even more important to leave these sorts of comparisons out of balance/rule discussions. Saying that (to harp on something from the forums) "Smaug was killed by a single arrow" (and so, by reference, so should D&D dragons) is, in my opinion, not a useful comparison. Because Smaug (and his entire world) aren't D&D characters or worlds. They're something completely different, using different underlying mechanisms and with entirely different fictional roles. And that's what I really care about. Not trying to force D&D (or any game) to emulate things it wasn't designed to emulate. Because that just causes heartbreak and disappointment.

Sounds about right.

Use fantasy character comparisons for "hopes" and "ideals" from the player, not "expectations".

You can have an ideal towards a system where dragons die with one arrow, but building an expectation of that is incorrect. An ideal is something you have to defend, as it comes with reasons, logic, and compromises.

However, expectations can't really be compromised as anything more than "But that's not what happened with Smaug".

It's the difference between "I want dragons to die in one hit" and "I want dragons to die in one hit, because..."

Knaight
2020-08-19, 12:18 PM
IMO, all of those are bad. Both for the game and for discussions of the game. D&D is not a generic game. That's an astonishing statement, so I'll repeat. D&D is not a generic game. The d20 System tried to be generic, but even 3e D&D did not. It does not try to be a game where you can build any fantastic character and play them. It's not even generic fantasy. Or even generic high fantasy. D&D is its own sub-genre of fantasy, and the only thing it's emulating is D&D. Yes, that's circular. But that's how genres are.

So, while I'd agree with you here there's a key thing to note here - D&D routinely presents itself as a generic fantasy game. Early editions outright maintained lists of iconic characters by class. More recent editions routinely include DMG text about using D&D in all sorts of things. Beyond that, at a system design level we see a mix of material designed broadly (e.g. the 3e Fighter class, a blank slate for warriors of all sorts which intentionally avoided class features) while also including vastly more specific material (e.g. the Cleric, which not only embodies the setting specific arcane-divine magic split, the setting specific vancian magic, and also the whole idea of a warrior priest who interacts with the undead specifically while calling on any number of setting specific gods that are generally included with the class).

Now, if D&D would just acknowledge that it's a very specific thing, I'd be happy to drop this line of criticism. If it started its classes chapter with explicitly noting that these are the sort of people you find adventuring in the world, and that absent classes should be taken as an indication of ubiquitous fantasy elements that are not there, all the better.

Darth Credence
2020-08-19, 12:20 PM
But it's a shortcut that obscures more than it reveals. Because it forces alien assumptions and tropes that work really well in single-author fiction into a context that can't (and isn't designed to) support them. And that's my problem. Appeals to Conan are flawed, for a few reasons.

1. Conan himself is inconsistent, so it's really not a shared reference. You can get almost anything out of such a reference.
2. Conan is not D&D, and lots of his stuff doesn't fit the underlying system assumptions. For one thing, he's a sole-protagonist. That doesn't fit a team-of-equals system at all.

Completely disagree that it obscures things. Look at it from the POV of someone new to the game.
New player: I have no idea what to do with all of these choices. You've talked about martial archetypes, so I was thinking there would be one of those, but there are a lot. How do I decide between a ranger or a barbarian or a fighter or a paladin?
Existing players, not using fictional characters as a reference: Well, like the handbook says, a barbarian is [insert summary of PHB text]. A ranger, on the other hand, is [summary of PHB].
New player: Yeah, I read the book, but I'm still not clear on what the difference is between a barbarian and a ranger. They're both fighters that live away from cities, so I guess the difference is, rage? Is that it? A barbarian is a ranger with anger management issues?

(That new player at the end is something I actually heard from a new player, as close as I can remember it.)

or,
New player: I have no idea what to do with all of these choices. You've talked about martial archetypes, so I was thinking there would be one of those, but there are a lot. How do I decide between a ranger or a barbarian or a fighter or a paladin?
Existing players, using fictional characters as a reference: A barbarian would be the best fit for a character like Conan, Xena, or Dar the Beast Master. Ranger would be the closest fit for someone like Robin Hood, with his woodcraft and bow, or Legolas from LotR. Paladins can be similar to Michael from the Dresden Files, Carrot from Discworld, or Luke Skywalker. Fighters are more general - I'd call Aragon and Boromir fighters, but any of the characters we've talked about could be a fighter rather than the more specific class.
New player: OK, so if I can be Conan if I play a barbarian?
Existing players: You won't be exactly Conan, and you shouldn't try to be - it's most fun when you play someone that you create how you want them. But as a starting point, thinking of Conan isn't a bad way to go.

Analogies exist for a reason. If they didn't help people understand things, they wouldn't be such a fundamental way that people communicate. And yes, Conan is inconsistent, but most people will think of Arnold's portrayal when thinking of him.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-19, 12:25 PM
So, while I'd agree with you here there's a key thing to note here - D&D routinely presents itself as a generic fantasy game. Early editions outright maintained lists of iconic characters by class. More recent editions routinely include DMG text about using D&D in all sorts of things. Beyond that, at a system design level we see a mix of material designed broadly (e.g. the 3e Fighter class, a blank slate for warriors of all sorts which intentionally avoided class features) while also including vastly more specific material (e.g. the Cleric, which not only embodies the setting specific arcane-divine magic split, the setting specific vancian magic, and also the whole idea of a warrior priest who interacts with the undead specifically while calling on any number of setting specific gods that are generally included with the class).

Now, if D&D would just acknowledge that it's a very specific thing, I'd be happy to drop this line of criticism. If it started its classes chapter with explicitly noting that these are the sort of people you find adventuring in the world, and that absent classes should be taken as an indication of ubiquitous fantasy elements that are not there, all the better.

Honestly, I've not seen that. Even in 3e. Nowhere does it say "you can play anything". Nor does the advertising copy say that. It's specifically about heroic adventurers doing heroic things with lots and lots of assumptions. The "generic" myth seems to have come out of people injecting their own thing into it.

And later editions (4e and 5e) are even more explicit about this. They have dropped the myth. And in fact say as much. And the developers have said as much, openly and publicly.

Generic games are very open about their generic nature. D&D is not--D&D makes specific, unique, and very firm assumptions about what characters can and can't do. The class/level system demands it. And even the 3e Fighter has requirements for those feats, and the feats themselves presuppose a particular style/genre which is much narrower than "generic fantasy."

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-19, 12:29 PM
Completely disagree that it obscures things. Look at it from the POV of someone new to the game.
New player: I have no idea what to do with all of these choices. You've talked about martial archetypes, so I was thinking there would be one of those, but there are a lot. How do I decide between a ranger or a barbarian or a fighter or a paladin?
Existing players, not using fictional characters as a reference: Well, like the handbook says, a barbarian is [insert summary of PHB text]. A ranger, on the other hand, is [summary of PHB].
New player: Yeah, I read the book, but I'm still not clear on what the difference is between a barbarian and a ranger. They're both fighters that live away from cities, so I guess the difference is, rage? Is that it? A barbarian is a ranger with anger management issues?

(That new player at the end is something I actually heard from a new player, as close as I can remember it.)

or,
New player: I have no idea what to do with all of these choices. You've talked about martial archetypes, so I was thinking there would be one of those, but there are a lot. How do I decide between a ranger or a barbarian or a fighter or a paladin?
Existing players, using fictional characters as a reference: A barbarian would be the best fit for a character like Conan, Xena, or Dar the Beast Master. Ranger would be the closest fit for someone like Robin Hood, with his woodcraft and bow, or Legolas from LotR. Paladins can be similar to Michael from the Dresden Files, Carrot from Discworld, or Luke Skywalker. Fighters are more general - I'd call Aragon and Boromir fighters, but any of the characters we've talked about could be a fighter rather than the more specific class.
New player: OK, so if I can be Conan if I play a barbarian?
Existing players: You won't be exactly Conan, and you shouldn't try to be - it's most fun when you play someone that you create how you want them. But as a starting point, thinking of Conan isn't a bad way to go.

Analogies exist for a reason. If they didn't help people understand things, they wouldn't be such a fundamental way that people communicate. And yes, Conan is inconsistent, but most people will think of Arnold's portrayal when thinking of him.

I've now taught dozens (literally) of new players to play. All without referencing popular figures. And in fact, those comparisons have fallen through every time I've tried. Because really, Conan isn't a barbarian other than in name (and the name is only the same by a convoluted reference, and he's not commonly called "Conan the Barbarian"). He shares nothing with the barbarian class. He's got pieces of Fighter, pieces of Rogue, plus a lot of things that just plain don't exist. So trying to make those analogies causes more confusion than it solves. Aragorn is not a ranger except in name, and that only badly. Luke Skywalker is nothing like a paladin. He fits exactly zero of the core archetypes.

So those analogies? They're bad. They only confuse and set bad expectations. If you say "you can play Luke Skywalker as a Paladin", you're setting expectations that are inevitably going to be crushed. And setting people up for heartbreak and disappointment.

Knaight
2020-08-19, 12:39 PM
Honestly, I've not seen that. Even in 3e. Nowhere does it say "you can play anything". Nor does the advertising copy say that. It's specifically about heroic adventurers doing heroic things with lots and lots of assumptions. The "generic" myth seems to have come out of people injecting their own thing into it.

There's a whole section about using D&D in atypical settings which mentions sci-fi in the 3.5 DMG, to pick just one example of encouraging using D&D outside its focus.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-19, 12:47 PM
There's a whole section about using D&D in atypical settings which mentions sci-fi in the 3.5 DMG, to pick just one example of encouraging using D&D outside its focus.

To the degree that 3e (as opposed to the d20 System) pretends to be generic (I'm no expert in 3e), I'd say that they failed at that pretension. Because the classes and mechanics the game uses aren't generic. You could make a different game using the same core resolution mechanics and superstructure, but importing a Cleric or Wizard (capitalized to reference the class itself) into a generic sci-fi setting isn't going to work well at all.

And even though you can extend D&D to other settings, that doesn't mean that you can import an arbitrary non-D&D character into D&D and have a justified expectation of it going well. Or expecting that a D&D character can (or should be able to) do the things that that other, single-author work's characters can do. That is, you can alter D&D to use it beyond its focus, true. To some extent. With differing results, especially as you get further from the core. But that doesn't imply the reverse is true, that the game expects you to be able to emulate other fiction within D&D. A => B does not (automatically) mean B => A.

Pleh
2020-08-19, 12:52 PM
I've now taught dozens (literally) of new players to play. All without referencing popular figures. And in fact, those comparisons have fallen through every time I've tried.

As long as we're making anecdotal statements, referencing pop fiction characters has never really let me down before, and I've taught several new players, too.

It's not surprising. We know that different people learn through different ways. Some people will get confused by pop fiction references, while others won't.

I feel like pop fiction characters are a useful prop for people who struggle with attaining system literacy. If they have trouble thinking in game terms, a pop character might give them a point of reference, even if you might need to remind them they are playing the hero from early in their career before they had become fully awesome. The hope is that it helps them engage with the game long enough to gain more system literacy and outgrow the need for an approximation.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-19, 01:00 PM
As long as we're making anecdotal statements, referencing pop fiction characters has never really let me down before, and I've taught several new players, too.

It's not surprising. We know that different people learn through different ways. Some people will get confused by pop fiction references, while others won't.

I feel like pop fiction characters are a useful prop for people who struggle with attaining system literacy. If they have trouble thinking in game terms, a pop character might give them a point of reference, even if you might need to remind them they are playing the hero from early in their career before they had become fully awesome. The hope is that it helps them engage with the game long enough to gain more system literacy and outgrow the need for an approximation.

To be honest, I don't really care about the character-building part, as long as it's understood that you won't get a good match beyond the vaguest of concepts. That much. It irks me, but whatever. It sets bad expectations unless very carefully handled. As a (former) teacher, I'm really sensitive to bad analogies. They hurt much more than they help, because they are sticky. And when you actually try to learn the system, those bad analogies (lies told to children, so to speak) come back to bite you. Hard. Or cause disappointment--"You said I could be Batman, but..."

I care much more about the discussions and people saying "but X character can do Y and he's basically a Z-class, so that's a valid thing for Z class to do." That's just noise. Or saying that D&D is bad because you can't do <scenario from LotR/whatever>. It's completely missing the point of having a separate system and different worlds with different assumptions about things. It disrespects both the source material and D&D (and its settings) and makes it all a bland mush without any possibility of coherence.

But I'm very far on the setting-first side of things. Building worlds that fit the core assumptions and are coherent and smoothing out the rough edges is my big source of enjoyment. I'll steal ideas from other works, but they'll be totally chopped up to fit into the existing world. The thought of importing a character from the outside or requiring that it all be capable of doing <whatever other fiction trope/scenario/etc> means that coherence is impossible.

Darth Credence
2020-08-19, 01:48 PM
I've now taught dozens (literally) of new players to play. All without referencing popular figures. And in fact, those comparisons have fallen through every time I've tried. Because really, Conan isn't a barbarian other than in name (and the name is only the same by a convoluted reference, and he's not commonly called "Conan the Barbarian"). He shares nothing with the barbarian class. He's got pieces of Fighter, pieces of Rogue, plus a lot of things that just plain don't exist. So trying to make those analogies causes more confusion than it solves. Aragorn is not a ranger except in name, and that only badly. Luke Skywalker is nothing like a paladin. He fits exactly zero of the core archetypes.

So those analogies? They're bad. They only confuse and set bad expectations. If you say "you can play Luke Skywalker as a Paladin", you're setting expectations that are inevitably going to be crushed. And setting people up for heartbreak and disappointment.

If you can't see Luke, or basically all Jedi, as paladins, then you are greatly misunderstanding one or the other. Conan from the Arnold movie is absolutely a barbarian (rewatch the movie, and read the part in PHB under "A Life of Danger"). And you clearly didn't read closely, as I put Legolas as a ranger and Aragon as a fighter.

Lets just look at Luke, here. from the PHB:

A paladin swears to uphold justice and righteousness, to stand with the good things of the world against the encroaching darkness, and to hunt the forces of evil wherever they lurk.
Let's see, Jedi are an order dedicated to upholding justice and righteousness. They travel the galaxy seeking to bring peace and settle disagreements. Force is a last resort, but they will absolutely use it if necessary to protect the weak. When they become aware of evil in the galaxy (the Sith), they do whatever they can to try and stop it.
Luke, specifically, went out to adventure and become a warrior or fighter. He acted as one in Star Wars. Then he heard the call from Ben, turned away from that path and embraced a spiritual one that focused specifically on fighting the evil of the dark side. His holy quest is to bring down the evil Empire and their dark side rulers. His call to serve the force is basically also listed in the PHB:

How did you experience your call to serve as a paladin? Did you hear a whisper from an unseen god or angel while you were at prayer? Did another paladin sense the potential within you and decide to train you as a squire? Or did some terrible event—the destruction of your home, perhaps—drive you to your quests?
He heard a whisper from Ben, coming from beyond death, while calling for help. This was after another paladin, Ben, sensed his potential and wanted to train him. And he experienced a terrible event - the destruction of his home, in fact - that drove him to leave and learn the way of the Jedi/paladin.
One of the first things he learns is how to feel the will of the force in some kind of divine sense. He never did lay on hands in the movies, but other Jedi do. His spell casting is different, in that he uses the force rather than casting a spell, but his ability to do so is derived from the strength of his convictions. If he doubts what he is doing, he cannot use the force as effectively (seen much more in the books than the movies, granted).
And give the Oath of Redemption a read, and tell me that doesn't describe what Luke does. Heck, emissary of peace is a Jedi mind trick.

And you also didn't read the last statement very carefully, as I clearly spell out that you cannot be exactly those people, but they are a starting point. I've never gone through this with a person and had them disappointed that they couldn't be Luke or Conan in the end, and if you have, then I can't imagine it was anything other than a problem with the explanation.

Kyutaru
2020-08-19, 01:56 PM
Honestly, I've not seen that. Even in 3e. Nowhere does it say "you can play anything".
Then look to 2e where they even listed fictional counterparts to the classes themselves. When the official book itself compares non-D&D characters then you can't say we should all not be doing it.

Tvtyrant
2020-08-19, 02:03 PM
So often I see people referencing LotR characters/events, other fantasy fiction, superheroes, etc. Usually in one of a "well, Aragorn was a ranger, and..." or a "people want to play Batman, so..." or a "what class would X be..." context.

IMO, all of those are bad. Both for the game and for discussions of the game. D&D is not a generic game. That's an astonishing statement, so I'll repeat. D&D is not a generic game. The d20 System tried to be generic, but even 3e D&D did not. It does not try to be a game where you can build any fantastic character and play them. It's not even generic fantasy. Or even generic high fantasy. D&D is its own sub-genre of fantasy, and the only thing it's emulating is D&D. Yes, that's circular. But that's how genres are.

The last example (what class is X) is the least bad--it's just pointless. Because you'll never get a good fit. Because X media is not D&D, and D&D is not X. Trying to build even classic characters such as Conan in D&D, although it's been done for a long time (even by Gary Gygax himself) ultimately fails, because Conan (as a literary hero) doesn't fit into the class/level mold well at all. He's got this feature from that level of that class, and this other feature of the other class from a different level, while not having the features of the previous levels. The abstractions are too different and incompatible.

The other ones are worse (again, IMO). D&D is not a LotR game. It takes some inspiration from LotR, blends it together with a lot of popular culture, lets it ferment for a few decades, and ends up with something that is similar but ultimately different. It's not a superhero game. Heck, you'd find that if you tried to build canon Batman in a dedicated supers game, you'd run out of build points way before you can hit those "core" abilities. And so you get friction. Lots of heat, no light. Referencing those other characters doesn't actually add to a conversation. It muddies it.

The core point here is that written fiction (or TV/movie/anime fiction) uses a whole different set of techniques, tropes, and mechanisms than TTRPGs. Characters in those media can do lots of things that are not well suited for a collaborative, party-based game, because they're single-author fiction and there's no need for gameplay mechanics, intra-party or party/world balance, and their worlds are completely different and written entirely around those characters. Importing them into a different context is disrespectful to


D&D, because it breaks all the assumptions and core mechanisms (including the core fiction) that the game is built on.
The settings of the D&D game (because importing Batman into Faerun doesn't fit)
The original work (because taking Batman out of his context inevitably lessens and muddies his character).


So my plea is that we should refrain from using other works in other media as comparison or argumentation points when talking about D&D. Let D&D stand (or fall) on its own merits. When discussing balance, don't say "but Harry Potter can..." (or "but Kaleidin...") When building characters for games, don't try to emulate fictional characters. You'll only end up disappointed. Start with a general, vague concept and lean into the class fiction.

/rant
Yeah I'm sure the entire D&D community will cease to see D&D as an extension of the genre and switch to seeing it as entirely separate because it would be more convenient for the designers. Especially since it became popular due to the cross-genre popularity of nerd culture in the first place, and the self-sustaining nature of cross pollinating nerd culture won't leave it behind in that circumstance.

Take 20 seconds and look up "MLP/Star Wars/Pokemon/Harry Potter/Doctor Who/Fallout/anything + MLP/Star Wars/Pokemon/Harry Potter/Doctor Who/Fallout/anything nerd culture" and you will see why this is not actually feasible nor desirable.

Lord Raziere
2020-08-19, 02:40 PM
Yeah I'm sure the entire D&D community will cease to see D&D as an extension of the genre and switch to seeing it as entirely separate because it would be more convenient for the designers. Especially since it became popular due to the cross-genre popularity of nerd culture in the first place, and the self-sustaining nature of cross pollinating nerd culture won't leave it behind in that circumstance.

Take 20 seconds and look up "MLP/Star Wars/Pokemon/Harry Potter/Doctor Who/Fallout/anything + MLP/Star Wars/Pokemon/Harry Potter/Doctor Who/Fallout/anything nerd culture" and you will see why this is not actually feasible nor desirable.

Yeah, pretty much. this stuff is too embedded now, and analogies a habitual universal thing about humanity we can't stop even if we wanted to.

we could probably try more general trope comparisons like saying that barbarian is basically the berserker archetype while ranger is the accurate archer archetype, which y'know doesn't say any specific characters but does give an accurate pop-cultural comparison. but we can't stop it entirely. its not possible.

Jay R
2020-08-19, 04:04 PM
I agree with everything the OP said except his conclusion.

Yes, D&D is its own genre.
Yes, a D&D character based on a fictional character or archetype will still be wildly different.

Nonetheless, people do build characters from specific or general models, and you will not get them to pretend otherwise.

These analogies and comparisons are 46 years old, have survived through wildly different versions of the game, and your desires will not stop them.

I have based D&D characters on Samantha Stevens, Theseus, Eiddileg, Fflewdder Fflam, Harold Shea, Griff, Tom of Warwick, Tarzan, Aladdin, Eilonwy, Happy, Grumpy, Gwystyl, Retief, my DM, a girlfriend, myself, and others. I’m aware that the mechanics will force the character to a very different end product, but it makes an excellent base to start.

[These days, I usually use a base character, and a specific difference, before I start building with the mechanics.]

When you see such an analogy , I recommend that you acknowledge the basic truth in it, and then discuss the limits of its value, rather than pretending such builds don’t exist.

Composer99
2020-08-19, 04:22 PM
If referring to a non-D&D character, story, or setting helps me to get a concept or point across, I will do so. If it doesn't, I won't.

If a player wants to emulate a particular non-D&D character, as long as they understand the limits that the system imposes on such an emulation, I don't see any problem.

Not really sure what the problem is.

Man_Over_Game
2020-08-19, 05:15 PM
If referring to a non-D&D character, story, or setting helps me to get a concept or point across, I will do so. If it doesn't, I won't.

If a player wants to emulate a particular non-D&D character, as long as they understand the limits that the system imposes on such an emulation, I don't see any problem.

Not really sure what the problem is.

It's that people use those comparisons to claim there's a problem with that game, as opposed to just basing the game on its own merit.

Player expectation is a really, really big deal. It's why telegraphing is becoming a bigger trend (on the micro level), and 4th Edition DnD was a failure (on the macro level).

And people who try to get started into a TTRPG don't try to play "Thornwind of the Evening Grace", they want to play Aragorn or Merlin.

They see a fantasy character, and expect to play that fantasy character, and when the game tells them they can't, it's the game that's wrong.

If people can push the blame onto something else, they generally will. And since the player knows what they want, so how could they be wrong?


So now that there's a 'faction' that believes that "This game is wrong, because it doesn't let me do what I want", which draws in other players who ran into the same issue who now have 'evidence' that the game is at fault (how could the game be right when so many people are saying it's wrong - if a bunch of players say it's bad, it must be bad), and so it sets a precedent to developers that in order to make a good game, it HAS to create Batman perfectly. Or it has to recreate Aragorn perfectly.

Obviously, this is a severe example, but I don't find it coincidental that most TTRPGs that are successful nowadays are the ones that don't have their own settings and can be modified to fit whatever it is you're looking for. Most of the ones with a unique setting often don't get traction and die out fast. Once upon a time, it was not nearly this way, where most TTRPGs also came with their own stories. DnD just happens to be so friggin' big that it's not really allowed to die unless something manages to be overwhelmingly better at doing what it does (which honestly shouldn't be that hard, main editions of DnD has always had crappy combat and crappy narrative rules).

But we're pickier now, nerdism is more mainstream, and we're honestly a bit more demanding (once upon a time, you played a game because it was the one you had, not always because it was very fun). Now instead of learning a TTRPG because that's what your friend was doing, you learn a TTRPG because it sounded fun to you.

And in that refining process, in that pickiness, we demand Batman, and if we can't have it that's on you.

Jay R
2020-08-19, 05:24 PM
Honestly, I've not seen that. Even in 3e. Nowhere does it say "you can play anything".

That’s true; it doesn’t say that in 3e. You have successfully demonstrated that something people have been talking about constantly since the mid-1970s did not grow out of rules published in the 21st century.


Nor does the advertising copy say that. It's specifically about heroic adventurers doing heroic things with lots and lots of assumptions. The "generic" myth seems to have come out of people injecting their own thing into it.

Simply untrue; it came out of the rules for Dungeons and Dragons, in 1974, which explicitly cited Conan, John Carter, Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser, and the de Camp & Pratt fantasies as the inspiration for the players. The rules also included hobbits, ents, and balrogs.

And by the way, most people who make such analogies know the limits to them. I base D&D characters on tropes and specific literary characters, but by the time the characters are finished, I have true D&D characters. The literary character is an inspiration, not a blueprint.


And later editions (4e and 5e) are even more explicit about this. They have dropped the myth.

You can’t “drop” something unless you picked it up first.

KineticDiplomat
2020-08-19, 05:26 PM
I suspect we're getting to the right answer by the wrong route. On one side, yes, D&D does absolutely sell itself as the fantasy game where you do fantasy things. It badly wants you to be able to be Legolas, Conan, or Batman. It deliberately and openly draws on them as sources and examples in many cases. It wants, so very badly, to be the system you can plug a fantasy character into from a broad range and have a broad range of fantasy adventures. I think most people above have cited quite a few examples in support of that.

But what it actually is is not a game of fantasy stories or fantasy adventure. It is a game about punching your way through increasingly punchy dungeons or foes that in a way that is hopefully chained to a story, but the story supports the dungeon punching MMORPG with dice, the MMORPG with dice is not there to support the story. Characters aren't expected to perform in a manner of characters; they occasionally add some RP to their dungeon punching. If it weren't obvious enough in the mechanics, the level system ensures it. Low level characters cannot be Gimli because they are low level characters. By the time they are mid level characters, they possess the ability to safely ignore the majority of things that would add any narrative drama to a story, but the big bads can't be big and bad enough to actually be Nazgul or whatever, because they'll just Roflstomp the characters. And then by the time the characters could have a chance to fight Voldemort, they're more or less butchering their way through a mythical bestiary.

Mechalich
2020-08-19, 05:28 PM
IMO, all of those are bad. Both for the game and for discussions of the game. D&D is not a generic game. That's an astonishing statement, so I'll repeat. D&D is not a generic game. The d20 System tried to be generic, but even 3e D&D did not. It does not try to be a game where you can build any fantastic character and play them. It's not even generic fantasy. Or even generic high fantasy. D&D is its own sub-genre of fantasy, and the only thing it's emulating is D&D. Yes, that's circular. But that's how genres are.

I agree that this is largely true. D&D is not generic, the different editions of D&D each have an implicit setting that follows from the rules they present and the game doesn't actually function properly if you deviate significantly from that implicit setting. The problem is that nobody wants to play the implicit setting and the specific sub-genre of fictional stories it creates, especially because that implicit settings doesn't even manage to match that of actual D&D based fiction. You can't use it to re-create the stories of Dragonlance, Forgotten Realms, or any other setting at least from 3e onward.

The TTRPG market is driven heavily by brand recognition, probably due to time constraints - to actually run any system multiple times means playing it over real-time years - and for various reasons D&D sits at the top of the heap which means it has the resources to produce a more expansive, better supported system than pretty much any other game (I'm including Pathfinder in the D&D umbrella here). That's why there's been such a huge movement overtime to produce modified rules sets (E6, etc.), heartbreakers based on older editions, and all sorts of other modifications to try and bend the D&D system into something that more effectively emulates the kind of gameplay the fanbase actually wants - this is admittedly different things at the same time.

Non-D&D characters are actually an extremely useful comparison point because they represent fantasy (and occasionally science fiction) concepts that people want to see in play. Additionally, many people, when they are making an argument that 'I should be able to play Character X' are actually implicitly arguing that 'D&D should be able to produce a world like the world of Character X's stories.' They don't want to simply be able to play as Conan they want to use the system to construct something vaguely resembling the Hyborian Age, but several editions can't do that. Again, most modern editions fail to even reasonable produce Dragonlance or FR.

Kyutaru
2020-08-19, 06:05 PM
But what it actually is is not a game of fantasy stories or fantasy adventure. It is a game about punching your way through increasingly punchy dungeons or foes that in a way that is hopefully chained to a story, but the story supports the dungeon punching MMORPG with dice, the MMORPG with dice is not there to support the story.
I don't find it to be that at all. It may seem that way to the newer crowds and to people who increasingly focus only on stats and optimization to ignore the rest but the game was always about the story first. There wasn't even an MMORPG to be had even as recently back as 2nd edition. Classes gained no new abilities when leveling up at all. A 1st level fighter and a 9th level fighter were identical aside from the extra health and attack bonus. Mages and Clerics were the same with casters merely getting access to more spells. Thief actually did gain something every level but it amounted to what we currently have as skill systems. The roleplay was actually more important and the combat/dungeons brutal in lethality to the point that every adventurer carried chalk, 10-foot poles, garlic, something made of silver, tacks, spikes, ropes, and all kinds of things one expect for an actual expedition.

Fast forward to now, nothing has changed on the roleplay side, it actually even got several upgrades and better handling of tests and the inclusion of DCs. Yet people see it somehow as less important because combat has all this crunch and optimization behind it because the combat = math and the roleplay = talking and imagination. Some people even expect the developers to quantify roleplaying into math because they don't understand it any other way! What was devised as a social experience has invited the less social math geeks to find their own fun in it and actually believe that's all there was to it. Talk about not seeing the forest for the trees.

So when combat is ironed out and mimicked across tables but stories and campaigns fluctuate (because who wants to replay the same story over and over) somehow that gets across the impression that D&D is about the consistent part instead of the part that made it famous. There was another game with a fixed combat AND a fixed story - HeroQuest. That's what D&D would have been if they tried to force everyone to use the same campaign, the same dungeons, the same storyline. That game is pure crunch. D&D is not.

Composer99
2020-08-19, 07:41 PM
So when combat is ironed out and mimicked across tables but stories and campaigns fluctuate (because who wants to replay the same story over and over) somehow that gets across the impression that D&D is about the consistent part instead of the part that made it famous. There was another game with a fixed combat AND a fixed story - HeroQuest. That's what D&D would have been if they tried to force everyone to use the same campaign, the same dungeons, the same storyline. That game is pure crunch. D&D is not.

I owned that game back in the day. Bought it on my 7th-grade class trip to Toronto. (That... probably tells you a lot about what I was like at 12 years old. :smallbiggrin:) Good times. Wish I still had the minis, if not the game itself.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 08:26 AM
So when combat is ironed out and mimicked across tables but stories and campaigns fluctuate (because who wants to replay the same story over and over) somehow that gets across the impression that D&D is about the consistent part instead of the part that made it famous. There was another game with a fixed combat AND a fixed story - HeroQuest. That's what D&D would have been if they tried to force everyone to use the same campaign, the same dungeons, the same storyline. That game is pure crunch. D&D is not.

I am not an optimizer to any degree, and never have been interested in it. I am, personally, deeply invested in story and world building as a GM.

5e is the most nod a D&D game has ever given to RP and Worldbuilding, and it's mostly trite and forgettable. RP will have minimal impact on the function of the game, which is not a universal truth of TRPGs.

D&D has a core gameplay loop that excludes RP as a component. It's not a hard thing to identify the core gameplay loop of a game if it is designed clearly, which D&D is. That gameplay loop is as described.

Find monsters, kill them, take their money and XP, use money and XP to obtain better tools/abilities for fighting bigger monsters that have more and better money and XP.

The "monsters" could be a cult or an ork incursion or soldiers in a complex political war or gian fiare-breathing ducks or whatever other window-dressing you want to put on it. Some of the dungeons are caves or castles or mountains or glades or forests or burning palaces or walking cathedrals or cloud cities, it's all the same core idea.

D&D functions like a musical. Musicals (not Operas) all have the same basic structure. Musical numbers strung together by stories that justify the musical numbers. Swap "musical numbers" with "dungeons" and you have how D&D works. Not every TRPG works this way. I'd even say the minority that I've played work this way.

So, the assessment of the basic D&D-supported campaign structure is accurate, regardless of the window trimmings.

Kyutaru
2020-08-20, 08:39 AM
5e is the most nod a D&D game has ever given to RP and Worldbuilding, and it's mostly trite and forgettable. RP will have minimal impact on the function of the game, which is not a universal truth of TRPGs.

D&D has a core gameplay loop that excludes RP as a component. It's not a hard thing to identify the core gameplay loop of a game if it is designed clearly, which D&D is. That gameplay loop is as described.Strongly disagree here. For starters, 2E was the bigger impact on RP and Worldbuilding with the DMG being invaluable for the process and full of charts and tables and descriptive prose that no longer exist. It even bears the greatest explanation of Alignment of any edition which still gets referenced to this day during threads on the subject. The AD&D DMG was a work of art and best portrayed the RP side of the game as much as the PHB did for the basic rules. As mentioned above, there wasn't much in the way of mechanics at all to the game as a whole and expecting monster chains of loot to work in an edition that promoted NOT fighting everything would be unfeasible. Contrary to what one might think when playing Baldur's Gate that is not how an AD&D campaign was setup to run and loot did not rain from the sky creating overpowered characters. Many of the items available were even beyond the reach of the character's level and some were invented specifically for the game. Everything from secret doors to traps presented major obstacles from the RP standpoint and full clearing was not possible for adventurers due to how potent the resource drain was and how elusive alternate paths were (no such thing as a Spot check), especially in a world without HD health replenishment forcing parties to use their treasure to buy overpriced healing. The result was a gritty campaign experience based in realism, not the superheroes of the modern editions that can do anything.

Mechalich did a writeup on the importance and financial impact of roleplaying on the genre here (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24672187&postcount=205) that adequately describes why it was so vital to the success of the product and not mere window dressing. The mechanics were the LEAST important thing about the games, so much so that the most successful games were the ones that focused heavily on the roleplay (Vampire, old D&D) while the ones that focused on the mechanics tanked (HeroQuest, 4th Edition D&D). 5th edition's return to fluff inclusion and denial of old optimization tricks show how the developers learned this.

Darth Credence
2020-08-20, 08:48 AM
5e is the most nod a D&D game has ever given to RP and Worldbuilding, and it's mostly trite and forgettable. RP will have minimal impact on the function of the game, which is not a universal truth of TRPGs.

Which version did you start with? Because I still have the supplements from AD&D like Creative Campaigning, which is all about world building and role playing. It's not the only one, but it's one I went back to look at when I started DMing again recently in 5e.

D&D can absolutely be a role playing focused game - the current game I'm running most certainly is. And by no means is the loop you described the only way you can play the game, because it in no way describes the game we have been playing. There has been a dungeon, sure, but that was to kick off the mystery at the heart of the game. Since then, the players have interrogated prisoners, investigated crimes in a city, participated in a trial, written songs about their adventures, bet on horses, ran a mud race, and went hunting/trapping a rare creature. The hunting/trapping is the closest thing to your loop that they have done, and it has been a minor part of the campaign. Reading this message board has made me incredibly grateful for my players - the way the game gets described here makes me think I must be about the luckiest DM around for coming across five people who all want to play the game as a role playing game rather than just an excuse to roll dice.

People who play it the way you describe it are generally doing so because that's what they want to play. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that - people should play it how they want to play it. But if that's not how you want to play it, it is not a fundamental system problem. It's a mismatched expectations of the group problem, or perhaps a DM problem. It is much, much easier as a DM to treat it the way you describe the game, because then all one has to do to build encounters is find monsters that will challenge the players for the current level and determine loot that will make them want to keep in that feedback loop. But that's a far cry from the idea that that is the only way it can be played, or even that it is the way that the game is meant to be played.

Composer99
2020-08-20, 09:00 AM
D&D has a core gameplay loop that excludes RP as a component. It's not a hard thing to identify the core gameplay loop of a game if it is designed clearly, which D&D is. That gameplay loop is as described.

Find monsters, kill them, take their money and XP, use money and XP to obtain better tools/abilities for fighting bigger monsters that have more and better money and XP.


(1) The edition of the game that actually leaned into the gameplay loop you describe was widely considered a disappointment.

(2) Lacking crunchier or more fulsome mechanics for non-combat interaction =/= excludes RP. Given what you state of yourself, it's surprising that you would state something that, intentionally or no, comes across as saying so.

Satinavian
2020-08-20, 09:20 AM
To be honest, I don't really care about the character-building part, as long as it's understood that you won't get a good match beyond the vaguest of concepts. That much. It irks me, but whatever. It sets bad expectations unless very carefully handled. As a (former) teacher, I'm really sensitive to bad analogies. They hurt much more than they help, because they are sticky. And when you actually try to learn the system, those bad analogies (lies told to children, so to speak) come back to bite you. Hard. Or cause disappointment--"You said I could be Batman, but..."I disagree.

I have done it a couple of times (still only a small fraction of my characters) and it has always worked out well. I have done other players doing it with varying success. It does take some system mastery to recognize which character can be built in which system and to what extend but if the player is aware of that, the experience will likely work out.


I care much more about the discussions and people saying "but X character can do Y and he's basically a Z-class, so that's a valid thing for Z class to do." That's just noise. Or saying that D&D is bad because you can't do <scenario from LotR/whatever>. It's completely missing the point of having a separate system and different worlds with different assumptions about things. It disrespects both the source material and D&D (and its settings) and makes it all a bland mush without any possibility of coherence.
To some extend i can agree. What works in some setting does not necessarily have to work in another. Or a given ruleset. If you play a setting and a ruleset, you generally stick to what is possible and appropriate there.

But... a system that is particularly bad at emulating the most popular works of its main genre is not a good system. And D&D is a bad match for most of contemporary fantasy. To some extend even fantasy based on D&D becuse authors often ignore some unwelcome rules for their storytelling/worldbuilding.

Pleh
2020-08-20, 09:20 AM
D&D can absolutely be a role playing focused game - the current game I'm running most certainly is. And by no means is the loop you described the only way you can play the game,

I agree. I believe there is a fallacy in saying D&D is not about RPing because there aren't well defined rules for it. The lack of rules does not necessarily imply a lack of importance.

I feel it's more accurate that D&D explicitly says the lack of structure to RPing is meant to free the DM and players to operate in any way they can imagine.

It's not like the blank spaces in a Mad Lib book mean those words or phrases in the story are unimportant. Rather, they are critical to the story and are left deliberately blank for the player to enjoy the fun of filling to discover the impact their choices have on the outcome.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 10:00 AM
Strongly disagree here. For starters, 2E was the bigger impact on RP and Worldbuilding with the DMG being invaluable for the process and full of charts and tables and descriptive prose that no longer exist. It even bears the greatest explanation of Alignment of any edition which still gets referenced to this day during threads on the subject. The AD&D DMG was a work of art and best portrayed the RP side of the game as much as the PHB did for the basic rules. As mentioned above, there wasn't much in the way of mechanics at all to the game as a whole and expecting monster chains of loot to work in an edition that promoted NOT fighting everything would be unfeasible. Contrary to what one might think when playing Baldur's Gate that is not how an AD&D campaign was setup to run and loot did not rain from the sky creating overpowered characters. Many of the items available were even beyond the reach of the character's level and some were invented specifically for the game. Everything from secret doors to traps presented major obstacles from the RP standpoint and full clearing was not possible for adventurers due to how potent the resource drain was and how elusive alternate paths were (no such thing as a Spot check), especially in a world without HD health replenishment forcing parties to use their treasure to buy overpriced healing. The result was a gritty campaign experience based in realism, not the superheroes of the modern editions that can do anything.

None of these points run counter to what I've said, so I don't know what you want me to say in response. I didn't say traps didn't exist. (Which are a mechanical bit, not an RP bit.) I didn't say RP is impossible. I didn't even claim that magic items raining from the sky is a needed part.

All I said was the loop is:
"Monster" -> "Loot" -> better tools -> Bigger "monsters."

As I'll address below, just because the "monster" isn't something you explicitly kill doesn't mean much.



Which version did you start with? Because I still have the supplements from AD&D like Creative Campaigning, which is all about world building and role playing. It's not the only one, but it's one I went back to look at when I started DMing again recently in 5e.

D&D can absolutely be a role playing focused game - the current game I'm running most certainly is. And by no means is the loop you described the only way you can play the game, because it in no way describes the game we have been playing. There has been a dungeon, sure, but that was to kick off the mystery at the heart of the game. Since then, the players have interrogated prisoners, investigated crimes in a city, participated in a trial, written songs about their adventures, bet on horses, ran a mud race, and went hunting/trapping a rare creature. The hunting/trapping is the closest thing to your loop that they have done, and it has been a minor part of the campaign. Reading this message board has made me incredibly grateful for my players - the way the game gets described here makes me think I must be about the luckiest DM around for coming across five people who all want to play the game as a role playing game rather than just an excuse to roll dice.

People who play it the way you describe it are generally doing so because that's what they want to play. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with that - people should play it how they want to play it. But if that's not how you want to play it, it is not a fundamental system problem. It's a mismatched expectations of the group problem, or perhaps a DM problem. It is much, much easier as a DM to treat it the way you describe the game, because then all one has to do to build encounters is find monsters that will challenge the players for the current level and determine loot that will make them want to keep in that feedback loop. But that's a far cry from the idea that that is the only way it can be played, or even that it is the way that the game is meant to be played.

If the game supports one playstyle way more than the others (ie, it makes it easy because there's lots of resources dedicated to that playstyle) then that's probably the playstyle meant to be used.

Just track what the system has built-in tools and rewards for, and that's what the system supports. Easy as.

That it CAN be used for other things doesn't mean squat in this case. I CAN use a truck to haul many passengers. But nobody would tell me that's something the truck was also designed for.

I'm glad that you and your players are finding D&D to be satisfactory for a campaign that doesn't use the majority of its features. I'd not choose D&D for that, but I don't doubt it's possible.


(1) The edition of the game that actually leaned into the gameplay loop you describe was widely considered a disappointment.

(2) Lacking crunchier or more fulsome mechanics for non-combat interaction =/= excludes RP. Given what you state of yourself, it's surprising that you would state something that, intentionally or no, comes across as saying so.

As to 1,
I started with 3.5 and it's loop was no different from 4e or 5e's. The surrounding bits and bobs were different, but the core gameplay loop hasn't changed since 1e.

As to 2,
I mean, choosing not to include anything on the RP side into the system proper would, pretty much by definition, mean they excluded RP from the system other than saying "make sure to RP."

What seems to be the universal misunderstanding is that you three seem to believe saying "D&D doesn't care what you do RP wise at all" is the exact same as saying "RP in D&D is impossible and dumb."

All I'm saying is that D&D comments as little as it can about RP, aside from an apparent splatbook of ideas and tips. Which, hey, I'm glad they used to talk about it. That doesn't change what the core gameplay loop is. It's not even a criticism of the system. Just a description of how it works and what it emphasizes. There's no need to rush to the defense of D&D. I like it as much as most. I just know what it's designed to be good at, despite its marketing.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 10:12 AM
I agree. I believe there is a fallacy in saying D&D is not about RPing because there aren't well defined rules for it. The lack of rules does not necessarily imply a lack of importance.

D&D is indifferent to how you RP. That's the point. RP a lot. RP not at all. The system doesn't care.
Hence, that's not an important part of the SYSTEM.

If you can run the system entirely without something and nothing breaks, that thing isn't important to the system.

If you don't RP while playing Apocalypse World, things start to break pretty quickly.



I feel it's more accurate that D&D explicitly says the lack of structure to RPing is meant to free the DM and players to operate in any way they can imagine.

It's not like the blank spaces in a Mad Lib book mean those words or phrases in the story are unimportant. Rather, they are critical to the story and are left deliberately blank for the player to enjoy the fun of filling to discover the impact their choices have on the outcome.

Again, that D&D says nothing at all about RP implies that it's not an important part of the system. Its importance is 100% up to the group. D&D has nothing to say about it.

Darth Credence
2020-08-20, 10:23 AM
D&D is indifferent to how you RP. That's the point. RP a lot. RP not at all. The system doesn't care.
Hence, that's not an important part of the SYSTEM.

If you can run the system entirely without something and nothing breaks, that thing isn't important to the system.

If you don't RP while playing Apocalypse World, things start to break pretty quickly.



Again, that D&D says nothing at all about RP implies that it's not an important part of the system. Its importance is 100% up to the group. D&D has nothing to say about it.

You can run D&D entirely without combat, and nothing breaks, therefore combat is not important to the system. I have absolutely run sessions without any combat, and we've had a great time. We don't do it every time, because we like combat, too, but the system is not going to fall apart if you are not doing combat and instead investigating mysteries through use of skills and divination magic. So by your logic, combat is irrelevant, contradicting your previous idea that that's all that matters.

And to your other comment, that the easiest way it can be played is the correct way to play it, is bunk. It's a lot easier to play a lot of games by ignoring the point of the game. poker would be easier if there was no betting, no bluffing - everyone just gets their cards, compares, and the best hand wins. The rules of poker are really just how to deal and what beats what, so thats what the tools most support. But it certainly isn't the way to play poker.

Kyutaru
2020-08-20, 10:30 AM
None of these points run counter to what I've said, so I don't know what you want me to say in response.They all do because the point was that your loop is incorrect. Primarily because...

As to 1,
I started with 3.5 and it's loop was no different from 4e or 5e's. The surrounding bits and bobs were different, but the core gameplay loop hasn't changed since 1e....this is a completely false statement indicative of a lack of experience with the original game. The shift from 1e/2e to 3e was one that shook mountains and severely changed expectations while engaging people that had previously had no interest in D&D at all due to...

If the game supports one playstyle way more than the others (ie, it makes it easy because there's lots of resources dedicated to that playstyle) then that's probably the playstyle meant to be used....this piece of tunnel vision. The game DID support roleplaying, what you actually mean is that it didn't quantify roleplaying into math. Such a thing is preposterous to begin with and the ones that struggle with the concepts presented in the book are the ones looking for tying dice rolls to everything explicitly as though THAT is the core design. It's a completely misguided view of the game and of roleplaying in general which is what led to the financial collapse of systems that ignored it. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24672187&postcount=205)

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 10:45 AM
You can run D&D entirely without combat, and nothing breaks, therefore combat is not important to the system. I have absolutely run sessions without any combat, and we've had a great time. We don't do it every time, because we like combat, too, but the system is not going to fall apart if you are not doing combat and instead investigating mysteries through use of skills and divination magic. So by your logic, combat is irrelevant, contradicting your previous idea that that's all that matters.

And to your other comment, that the easiest way it can be played is the correct way to play it, is bunk. It's a lot easier to play a lot of games by ignoring the point of the game. poker would be easier if there was no betting, no bluffing - everyone just gets their cards, compares, and the best hand wins. The rules of poker are really just how to deal and what beats what, so thats what the tools most support. But it certainly isn't the way to play poker.

You are right on the first point, partially. By D&D's assumptions, most of your XP and loot is coming from the results of combat. It has provisions in place for that not being the case, but that's not the central assumption of the system.

As I've said 3 times now: it is POSSIBLE to play D&D many different ways. That doesn't mean it's what it was designed for. D&D was designed to support a particular gameplay loop. Thats not a criticism. It's just what it supports naturally and easily.

On the second point, that it's the easiest way to play isn't my central point. It's the way to play that has the most support within the system. And, interestingly enough, the bit about poker is extremely relevant, mostly because it's inaccurate to my point. The rules of poker assume betting, and indicate the times, patterns, and practices of how betting works. (At least every version of the rules I ever looked up.) So the version with betting is the most supported way to play.

And, again, because it seems to get missed, it's fine if you wanna play it how you want. It's just not what D&D assumes you'll do and not what it has extensive tools to support.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-20, 10:53 AM
But... a system that is particularly bad at emulating the most popular works of its main genre is not a good system. And D&D is a bad match for most of contemporary fantasy. To some extend even fantasy based on D&D becuse authors often ignore some unwelcome rules for their storytelling/worldbuilding.

I disagree. This is only bad if the system is trying to emulate the genre as a whole. Which D&D (at least later editions) is emphatically not trying to do. And which I think is the right option. For one thing, "contemporary fantasy" is so broad that any system that tries to emulate it all will be paper thin on its own details, or highly abstract (which ends up looking like the same thing). D&D (the game) doesn't even try to emulate D&D (the written fiction). They're noted as two separate takes on similar, but not identical, worlds.

Conventional fiction is entirely a separate beast from TTRPGs, and will conversions between the two will fail. Even if based on the same worlds (like D&D fiction). It's why movies based on video games are almost uniformly bad--the two have greatly different storytelling techniques, worldbuilding techniques, and narrative structures. And tropes that work in one don't in the other (most of the time).

I have no issue with a game that doesn't try to emulate anything. That stands on its own. I have no issue with a game that tries to emulate some restricted sphere, as long as they do it well. And I don't have an issue (but won't want to play) games that try to emulate everything, as long as they don't make false promises.

I try to judge systems (as well as everything else) on the claims that the system makes. I don't blame a pitchfork for not being useful for eating soup. I judge pitchforks on pitchfork terms, and soup spoons on soup spoon terms. And to me, D&D (at least the editions I'm likely to play) doesn't make any claim to emulate anything, let alone "most of contemporary fantasy." So I'm not going to blame it for not doing something it doesn't even attempt or claim to attempt to do. And to the extent that other editions made claims they couldn't fulfill, that's the problem. They shouldn't have made those claims. In fact, I'd say that a large part of 3e's issue was in trying to make a genericizable system that could be reused for everything under the sun by changing the actual content. Generic frameworks are a tricky beast. Do one thing, do it well. Don't claim you can do more than you really can. That's my criteria.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 10:56 AM
They all do because the point was that your loop is incorrect. Primarily because...
...this is a completely false statement indicative of a lack of experience with the original game. The shift from 1e/2e to 3e was one that shook mountains and severely changed expectations while engaging people that had previously had no interest in D&D at all due to...

So in 1e gold wasn't xp? And gold wasn't primarily earned by going into dungeons?

"Completely false" my butt.



...this piece of tunnel vision. The game DID support roleplaying, what you actually mean is that it didn't quantify roleplaying into math. Such a thing is preposterous to begin with and the ones that struggle with the concepts presented in the book are the ones looking for tying dice rolls to everything explicitly as though THAT is the core design. It's a completely misguided view of the game and of roleplaying in general which is what led to the financial collapse of systems that ignored it. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24672187&postcount=205)

I don't recall claiming that RP needed to be tied to math nor dice to be a key part of a game's design, so I'm not sure why I'd defend this position I never even took.

There are a myriad of ways to make RP important to the gameplay loop of a system. D&D doesn't use any of them, and does so on purpose so that the level of RP in any campaign is up to the group. It's a deliberate decision. Hence why the RP-heavy splatbook that was mentioned was a splatbook and not a core rulebook. Which, again, I'm glad it exists.

But the idea that the core gameplay loop assumed by the system and around which it was designed has nothing to do with dungeons and loot is preposterous in the extreme, especially since 1e literally equated gold to xp.

For the 4th time, because this level of repetition is necessary I guess:
That the supported and assumed gameplay loop is X does not mean you are wrong or bad or foolish to play D&D in form Y. It's not what I would do, since I have access to systems, and players willing to use them, that align more readily to Y, so I'll just use those. Not everyone has that.

The amount of outrage that I'm being met with for saying "Dungeons and Dragons assumes both Dungeons and "Dragons" as part of the gameplay" is absurd.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-20, 10:56 AM
...this piece of tunnel vision. The game DID support roleplaying, what you actually mean is that it didn't quantify roleplaying into math. Such a thing is preposterous to begin with and the ones that struggle with the concepts presented in the book are the ones looking for tying dice rolls to everything explicitly as though THAT is the core design. It's a completely misguided view of the game and of roleplaying in general which is what led to the financial collapse of systems that ignored it. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24672187&postcount=205)

This. Very much this. Just because it's not a mechanical system doesn't mean it's not part of the system as a whole. This explicit "fluff vs crunch" dichotomy is a false one. "Fluff" rules are just as much rules as "crunch" ones. More so, in fact. You can't just strip off the surrounding text and treat the mechanics as a framework that you can hang anything on. Not without serious issues and dissatisfaction. Reductionism is trite and not very useful.

Kyutaru
2020-08-20, 10:58 AM
As I've said 3 times now: it is POSSIBLE to play D&D many different ways. That doesn't mean it's what it was designed for. D&D was designed to support a particular gameplay loop. Thats not a criticism. It's just what it supports naturally and easily.
It's more than possible, it's what it was designed for. Throwing yourself into fictional works as one of the characters. Literally the selling point of the game.

It was no coincidence that D&D borrowed so much from LOTR. They wanted you to be able to enter that world and others with characters of your own. But what it took for that was setting up guidelines for how your characters could interact with a fictional universe. That's literally the only point of the mechanics and rolls, to serve as the grand adjudicator and settler of conflicts between what the characters want to do and what they actually succeed at. How many of those works of fiction do you read that just have this combat loop of attacking monsters and taking their loot? A party adventuring in a story does the same sort of things as the characters in the story. D&D presented a way to involve players with the fiction and roleplay alongside their favorite heroes. A fact quite cemented by the EXAMPLE characters in the old PHB that specifically referenced famed heroes of mythology and fantasy.

What you seem to believe like many of the 3E starters is that D&D is a game about math, a core ruleset that promotes a tactical board game experience instead of understanding that is but the chassis that drives the vehicle. Take skateboards for example. By your interpretation, skateboards are nothing but rudimentary transportation device. Yet what makes them popular is everything else people use them to do, limited only by the imagination and personal skill. D&D serves as a rule foundation to build off of with old editions being effectively unplayable without ample amounts of homebrewing, which was the intention! Gygax himself indicated in the texts that what was present in the book served only as examples of what you could do with it and the creation of custom content was an expected part of the game. He gave us HIS spell list, HIS monsters, HIS campaign world and using those as "example DCs" we were able to create our own.

D&D is not a set of codified rules for a tactical skirmish, that would be games like Warhammer 40k, Chainmail, and Mage Knight. It is a framework which by design is meant to cover only the essential aspects of the game from which you construct everything else. Think SANDBOX, not THEME PARK.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 10:58 AM
This. Very much this. Just because it's not a mechanical system doesn't mean it's not part of the system as a whole. This explicit "fluff vs crunch" dichotomy is a false one. "Fluff" rules are just as much rules as "crunch" ones. More so, in fact. You can't just strip off the surrounding text and treat the mechanics as a framework that you can hang anything on. Not without serious issues and dissatisfaction. Reductionism is trite and not very useful.

It's also not my position.

Again.

Edit:
D&D very deliberately makes none/minimal demands about when/how RP should be carried out or what it should look like.
Other systems do, even without calling down math or dice.

D&D does this so that each group decides its own level of RP importance. This is a strength *and* a weakness. It means that you can RP as much as you want, when you want, and how you want, and the system won't stop you. Great!
The system also won't help you to facilitate RP, hence the amount of homebrew surrounding helping players RP more. (Which is often not actually very helpful because it DOES put it down to math and dice, as opposed to the methods that work better, such as Bonds, Instincts, and Goals.) For me, this cost is more than the benefit. Others may parse that math differently. Which is fine..

So again, not my strawman. Not gonna defend that position. I don't hold it. D&D has nothing to say about your RP, systematically speaking, and makes that choice on purpose. It doesn't mean the system is anti-rp nor that RP is incompatible with the system. Both of those are absurd. The system just makes the amount, type and importance of RP entirely the DM and Players' decision.

Kyutaru
2020-08-20, 11:04 AM
It's also not my position.

Again.

It very much is since you described monsters to loot as the core loop, namely all the math bits, and concluded that roleplaying was "not supported" by the books despite examples such as the AD&D DMG being almost entirely roleplay related.

Hytheter
2020-08-20, 11:09 AM
The fact that you can roleplay in D&D, and the fact that D&D is built around a loop of killing monsters and taking their stuff, aren't mutually exclusive.

Yes, you can obviously RP, but the rules don't really support it. There are no rules for the act of roleplaying, there are no ingame incentives for roleplaying, there are no systems that feed into roleplaying or that roleplaying feeds into. There's no loop. If you go for entire session without doing anything but roleplaying then you might as well have thrown the book away for all the good it did you.

But if you want to kill monsters and take their stuff? The rules have you covered. There are rules for killing monsters, in a staggering variety of ways and in a huge degree of detail. Killing monsters gives you XP, and taking their stuff gives you... their stuff... so you are incentivised to do so. And getting those things makes you more powerful, which makes you able to kill stronger monsters and take their better stuff. It's a gameplay loop. You don't have to use it that way, but the loop exists and is very much by design.

Now, whether this is even a bad thing is debatable. Maybe you don't need a book to tell you how to roleplay and just want the rules to get out of the way. But it's not debatable that the gameplay and mechanics of the game were designed primarily around fighting and improving your fighting ability, while the roleplaying is entirely left up to the players at the table. Other games have rules that explicitly drive roleplaying and that don't function without roleplaying. D&D is not such a game.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 11:20 AM
It very much is since you described monsters to loot as the core loop, namely all the math bits, and concluded that roleplaying was "not supported" by the books despite examples such as the AD&D DMG being almost entirely roleplay related.

So one book in 2e is the deciding factor about whether 5 entire editions of D&D had a certain outlook both as a whole and currently? That's a very bold claim.

Do you think "central gameplay loop" means "the entire scope of everything the system ever has or could contain?"
Because that's not what that means.

Animal Crossing has a central gameplay loop based on collecting things. That's the bit in the middle that everything else is branching from.
There is also paying off your house! (Supported by the collection loop)
There is also designing a cool house and earning points (supported by the collection loop)
There is also becoming friends with neighbors and interacting with them (supported by the collection loop, AND supports the collection loop)

And more besides.
None of those things ARE the loop, but they support the loop and are supported by it. And for some, these parts are *the funnest parts of the game.*

RP in D&D has a similar relationship to the loop. It supports and is supported by the central loop. It's not going to change the system very much if it goes out the window, but it would be less fun.

So, no, D&D doesn't support RP within its rules. (And not being math-tied isn't related) RP is still part of the game, though. But as I've said, it leaves the amount and importance up to the group, and so it says very little.

So no, not my position. I've not told you what your position is, please extend me the same basic courtesy.

Satinavian
2020-08-20, 11:22 AM
I disagree. This is only bad if the system is trying to emulate the genre as a whole. Which D&D (at least later editions) is emphatically not trying to do. And which I think is the right option. For one thing, "contemporary fantasy" is so broad that any system that tries to emulate it all will be paper thin on its own details, or highly abstract (which ends up looking like the same thing). D&D (the game) doesn't even try to emulate D&D (the written fiction). They're noted as two separate takes on similar, but not identical, worlds.
Every time a group want to say they want to play a campaign inspired by X and you have to say "D&D can't do that, try something else (Hârnmaster, Gurps, Savage World etc), that can do it better", D&D has lost a group.

It is not a problem if D&D can't do all of Fantasy. But it becomes a problem when D&D can only do D&D. The only people who might be inspired by D&D are already playing it.And half of those are already bored by always the same stuff and still want to bring in other inspirations.

Sure, niche systems than can do one thing can exist and be successfull. Mouseguard, Toon, Paranoia, Ars Magica, Mechwarrior, ... there is an endless variety of small focussed systems with a loyal fanbase. But D&D is not that. It wants mass appeal. And for that it has to be somewhat versatile.

Selrahc
2020-08-20, 11:35 AM
So, no, D&D doesn't support RP within its rules. (And not being math-tied isn't related) RP is still part of the game, though. But as I've said, it leaves the amount and importance up to the group, and so it says very little.

I'm really curious if the people disagreeing with you here have played many other RPG games.
It feels a little like somebody going "I've always been able to hammer in these nails with the sole of my boot. Why would I even want a hammer?"

DnD really is anemic in its non-combat systems. Compare it to something "Burning Wheel" or "Spire" or "Blades in the Dark" and it's night and day. Which is fine- it's not a big focus of DnD.

But then you have people insisting that their boot is a hammer, and that if you never used the boot to walk around in, that's fine because it's primarily a hammer anyway.

Kyutaru
2020-08-20, 11:39 AM
Yes, you can obviously RP, but the rules don't really support it. There are no rules for the act of roleplaying, there are no ingame incentives for roleplaying, there are no systems that feed into roleplaying or that roleplaying feeds into. There's no loop. If you go for entire session without doing anything but roleplaying then you might as well have thrown the book away for all the good it did you.Even back in 1e when combat was virtually non-existent we still had rules for roleplaying. They are there, in the books, you may be choosing to ignore them or glossing over anything that isn't reflected in the form of a chart or table. The entire skill system was designed for roleplaying, it even was originally called Noncombat Proficiencies. There was even an entire BOOK called the Complete Book of Noncombat Proficiencies identical to Complete Wizards or Complete Fighters etc. Dragon Magazine, an important source of new content back in the day, was routinely delivering roleplay-based fuel, ideas, and philosophical ideologies regarding how to run the game. The entire ability check system was present since the game's inception and was how the devs viewed the resolution of roleplay conflicts such as a chasm. Resolving these conflicts was much the same as resolving combat, you rolled dice and determined if you succeeded or not. Combat having more minutiae stems from combat being easier to parse into numerical format without jeopardizing the experience -- and EVEN THEN many combat skills had no effect unless the DM ruled they did, from illusions to charms to phantom walls to terrain manipulation.

To say that D&D has no rules for roleplaying is to not read the rules.


So one book in 2e is the deciding factor about whether 5 entire editions of D&D had a certain outlook both as a whole and currently? That's a very bold claim.
No, one EXAMPLE, the bold claim is yours that none others exist. And before you try sophistry here, yes that is your claim when you cite there being only one book in one edition across the span of all editions.


Do you think "central gameplay loop" means "the entire scope of everything the system ever has or could contain?"
Because that's not what that means.That's not been my position, in fact I quite clearly state last page that the mechanics are the least important aspect of the game. The roleplay loop is the central gameplay loop, not what you deem to be the central gameplay loop. If you don't understand the difference in viewpoints here then you're going to keep failing to see why these arguments are being made against you. It's because you're attesting to your viewpoint as fact when it very much is the clear opposite and open to contention. Combat is utterly irrelevant to Dungeons and Dragons and not what the central gameplay loop revolves around, a fact that was much clearer in the old days when the combat rules were as light as the rest of the game. Your mind has been convinced by your RECENT edition experience to see a game that was never designed to be what you think it was made for, despite me linking multiple times to evidence on another topic that proves you wrong. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24672187&postcount=205)


And more besides.
None of those things ARE the loop, but they support the loop and are supported by it. And for some, these parts are *the funnest parts of the game.*There are D&D campaigns without monsters at all. Campaigns without combat at all. What you claim as being irrelevant is not and what you find to be essential to the core experience is not. Ipso facto.


RP in D&D has a similar relationship to the loop. It supports and is supported by the central loop. It's not going to change the system very much if it goes out the window, but it would be less fun.You can replace RP with Combat and the statement hasn't changed.


So, no, D&D doesn't support RP within its rules. (And not being math-tied isn't related) RP is still part of the game, though. But as I've said, it leaves the amount and importance up to the group, and so it says very little.It very much is related because what you think the game "supports" is all the crunch that has to do with math. It supports and even rewards RP, encouraging XP and social encounters despite what you may believe. As crunchy of a combat system as 4th edition was it even tried to add "rule support" for skill challenges which backfired because free-form is the preferred rule support.


So no, not my position. I've not told you what your position is, please extend me the same basic courtesy.I strongly disagree. If we're going to be pedantic and expect literal quotes instead of what your views imply then you can't be reasoned with and this entire endeavor is pointless.


D&D is indifferent to how you RP. That's the point. RP a lot. RP not at all. The system doesn't care.
Hence, that's not an important part of the SYSTEM.

Again, that D&D says nothing at all about RP implies that it's not an important part of the system.

Just track what the system has built-in tools and rewards for, and that's what the system supports. Easy as.

I mean, choosing not to include anything on the RP side into the system proper would, pretty much by definition, mean they excluded RP from the system other than saying "make sure to RP."

D&D was designed to support a particular gameplay loop.

It's just not what D&D assumes you'll do and not what it has extensive tools to support.

Hytheter
2020-08-20, 11:46 AM
The entire ability check system was present since the game's inception and was how the devs viewed the resolution of roleplay conflicts such as a chasm. Resolving these conflicts was much the same as resolving combat, you rolled dice and determined if you succeeded or not.

Ability checks aren't a roleplaying mechanic, they're an action resolution mechanic. You use your stats and roll dice to overcome an obstacle. Picking locks and leaping across chasms isn't roleplaying any more than slicing up goblins is.

Darth Credence
2020-08-20, 11:53 AM
Roleplaying
Roleplaying is, literally, the act of playing out a role. In this case, it’s you as a player determining how your character thinks, acts, and talks.

Roleplaying is a part of every aspect of the game, and it comes to the fore during social interactions. Your character’s quirks, mannerisms, and personality influence how interactions resolve.

It goes on from there, covering descriptive and active approaches to role playing. Chapter 8 of the DMG also has a lot to say about this, but quoting enough of it would probably be beyond fair use.

Hytheter
2020-08-20, 12:02 PM
It goes on from there, covering descriptive and active approaches to role playing. Chapter 8 of the DMG also has a lot to say about this, but quoting enough of it would probably be beyond fair use.

That's just a description of roleplaying. It's not a system of rules and mechanics that facilitate roleplaying or tie it into the rest of the game.

Kyutaru
2020-08-20, 12:05 PM
Ability checks aren't a roleplaying mechanic, they're an action resolution mechanic.An action resolution mechanic for conflicts cropping up as the result of... roleplaying the exploration of areas. In fact, 5E describes in the core books the three pillars of the game being Exploration, Social Interaction, and Combat. Two of those three are steeped in roleplaying. When literal rules regarding that portion of the game exist, it makes one wonder what you think roleplaying rules look like. The chargen portions already have how you're meant to speak, act, dress, and behave according to backgrounds, races, locations, guilds, etc. Even in games like Vampire, a notoriously roleplay-heavy system, feeding and other behavior characteristics are merely extensions of the resolution of game mechanics.

Darth Credence
2020-08-20, 12:18 PM
That's just a description of roleplaying. It's not a system of rules and mechanics that facilitate roleplaying or tie it into the rest of the game.

It's an indication that the makers consider role playing to be central to the game, as they say that it is part of every aspect of the game. I posted it as a counter to people saying that the rules say nothing about role playing. There is also much more, but I can't exactly start posting large chunks of someone else's IP - a snippet like that would be fair use, but all of the rules would not. As it goes on, it specifically talks about how to role play with examples. The DMG covers even more of it, discussing how to role play an encounter, how to determine what the players have done and how it would impact a Charisma check, and advice on how the DM can effectively role play NPCs if they are not natural actors.

They absolutely tie things into the rest of the game, and give some small methods of using mechanical checks. But role playing is not about mechanical checks, so you're never going to find a table that says roll D20 to determine how you role play.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 12:30 PM
Even back in 1e when combat was virtually non-existent we still had rules for roleplaying. They are there, in the books, you may be choosing to ignore them or glossing over anything that isn't reflected in the form of a chart or table. The entire skill system was designed for roleplaying, it even was originally called Noncombat Proficiencies. There was even an entire BOOK called the Complete Book of Noncombat Proficiencies identical to Complete Wizards or Complete Fighters etc. Dragon Magazine, an important source of new content back in the day, was routinely delivering roleplay-based fuel, ideas, and philosophical ideologies regarding how to run the game. The entire ability check system was present since the game's inception and was how the devs viewed the resolution of roleplay conflicts such as a chasm. Resolving these conflicts was much the same as resolving combat, you rolled dice and determined if you succeeded or not. Combat having more minutiae stems from combat being easier to parse into numerical format without jeopardizing the experience -- and EVEN THEN many combat skills had no effect unless the DM ruled they did, from illusions to charms to phantom walls to terrain manipulation.
RP =/= Noncombat.

That should be obvious.



To say that D&D has no rules for roleplaying is to not read the rules.
I personally never claimed it had none. But I did claim it said as little as possible about it.



No, one EXAMPLE, the bold claim is yours that none others exist.
I never claimed no others exist. If you're here to hand me strawmen to defend I'll just dismiss you out of hand and find something better to do.

Again, I don't tell you what your claims are. Either afford me the same courtesy or stop bothering to respond.



And before you try sophistry here, yes that is your claim when you cite there being only one book in one edition across the span of all editions.
Only one book as been mentioned to me and it's not really my job to find every example of RP being mentioned. But, again, this is not related to my point so I'll ignore it.



That's not been my position, in fact I quite clearly state last page that the mechanics are the least important aspect of the game.
So children playing pretend are playing D&D?

If I change every rule of D&D via homebrew so that we're playing something identical to Dungeon World, am I playing D&D?

The mechanics define what the *game* part of the Role Playing GAME is. And that Game part is what I'm talking about.



The roleplay loop is the central gameplay loop, not what you deem to be the central gameplay loop.
Can you *define* the roleplay loop? How it works? What supports it? What systems rely on it?




If you don't understand the difference in viewpoints here then you're going to keep failing to see why these arguments are being made against you. It's because you're attesting to your viewpoint as fact when it very much is the clear opposite and open to contention.
If you don't have any idea how game design works, sure.



Combat is utterly irrelevant to Dungeons and Dragons and not what the central gameplay loop revolves arounda fact that was much clearer in the old days when the combat rules were as light as the rest of the game.
Is the game currently in those old days or has time passed since then and priorities changed? I don't particularly care how older editions did things, to be honest, since that's such a teeny tiny fraction of the current playerbase.



Your mind has been convinced by your RECENT edition experience to see a game that was never designed to be what you think it was made for, despite me linking multiple times to evidence on another topic that proves you wrong. (https://forums.giantitp.com/showsinglepost.php?p=24672187&postcount=205)
That's not proof, though? That's another person's take being elevated to gospel truth, which is exactly what you accuse me of, hilariously.



There are D&D campaigns without monsters at all. Campaigns without combat at all. What you claim as being irrelevant is not and what you find to be essential to the core experience is not. Ipso facto.
You can play Animal Crossing without collecting anything at all.

You can complete Super Mario 64 without collecting any stars if you do the right things, but nobody would say collecting stars is irrelevant to the core gameplay loop. Again, I don't think Core Gameplay Loop means what you think it means.



You can replace RP with Combat and the statement hasn't changed.
I can't even remember what I wrote but I'm gonna guess this is silly. I've been working on this post for a while and I'm tired.



It very much is related because what you think the game "supports" is all the crunch that has to do with math. It supports and even rewards RP, encouraging XP and social encounters despite what you may believe. As crunchy of a combat system as 4th edition was it even tried to add "rule support" for skill challenges which backfired because free-form is the preferred rule support.
Again:
Skill Checks and Ability Checks aren't RP. They're a spot where RP and Mechanics interact very closely, though.



I strongly disagree. If we're going to be pedantic and expect literal quotes instead of what your views imply then you can't be reasoned with and this entire endeavor is pointless.
I stand by my position, but you seem confused about what I'm saying and insist on telling me what my position is rather than asking for clarification, so I'd agree that this is going nowhere.

Also, it's not related to the point of the thread and should stop here either way.

Hytheter
2020-08-20, 12:37 PM
An action resolution mechanic for conflicts cropping up as the result of... roleplaying the exploration of areas. In fact, 5E describes in the core books the three pillars of the game being Exploration, Social Interaction, and Combat. Two of those three are steeped in roleplaying.

I don't see how exploration is roleplaying any more than combat is. Not that there's actually a system for exploration in modern D&D anyway - the lack of rules for this supposed pillar is a longstanding criticism of the game.


The chargen portions already have how you're meant to speak, act, dress, and behave according to backgrounds, races, locations, guilds, etc.

But those aren't rules. They're just suggestions. Ideas for how you might roleplay your character, but there are no rewards for doing so or consequences for ignoring it. And that's fine - I'm not making a value statement here.

But a game that actually had a system in place to facilitate roleplaying might overtly enforce those character traits, or give a mechanical reward for staying in character. Some games like certain PbtAs tie progression to roleplaying, so roleplaying is the only way to actually improve your character. Some games give you meta-currency for letting your character's flaws get them in trouble - FATE is designed strongly around this idea. Hillfolk is built to drive interpersonal drama between the players and its rules are designed accordingly. The rules directly lead the player towards roleplaying.

D&D has nothing like that - it tells you what roleplaying is and it gives you some pointers and ideas. But that's about it. The actual rules lead the player towards killing monsters and taking their stuff and just kind of expect you to roleplay in the meanwhile. And again, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just the way it is.

Willie the Duck
2020-08-20, 12:40 PM
I agree with everything the OP said except his conclusion.
Yes, D&D is its own genre.
Yes, a D&D character based on a fictional character or archetype will still be wildly different.
...
So now that there's a 'faction' that believes that "This game is wrong, because it doesn't let me do what I want", which draws in other players who ran into the same issue who now have 'evidence' that the game is at fault (how could the game be right when so many people are saying it's wrong - if a bunch of players say it's bad, it must be bad), and so it sets a precedent to developers that in order to make a good game, it HAS to create Batman perfectly. Or it has to recreate Aragorn perfectly.
...
And in that refining process, in that pickiness, we demand Batman, and if we can't have it that's on you.

I hate drawing conclusions based on unnamed groups of people we can't point to making ridiculous demands, but should such people exist (and of course there are undoubtedly some like this), you are correct that they are missing a point. And your first three lines are where I agree with you and the OP.

There are differences from the literary/cinema/comics/etc. characters people quite reasonably want to emulate and what they can do in the system to emulate such characters. People should recognize this, and not be too upset that the characters they have on paper don't 100% emulate them. First and foremost of all is because characters in stories always (to put them into game terms) roll 1s when the plot demands and 20s when the plot demands. Certain scenarios that work in fiction don't really work in games because of this. Example: you are riding your horse/driving a car/etc. towards a cliff over a lethal fall. In fiction, of course the hero makes the jump (unless it is their time to tragically die). In a game, they might not, so the GM has to have outcomes in mind (and, if you are balancing the situation towards some expected level of encounter difficulty, have to factor 'character might actually die' into that math) for if they do or do not make the jump. Those have genuinely different feels to them, such that having the scenario in a game isn't going to create the same atmosphere.

There are other differences, like it being perfectly fine in a work of fiction if one member of a party vastly outperforms the others or hogs the spotlight, whereas in games it creates problems. Regardless, these inherent differences should be considered when criticizing a game for not better emulating the experience of a fictional work, and if/when someone does do so (again I really dislike these convenient hypothetical naysayers), this is a limit on the validity of their critique.

That's not usually what people talk about, though (In my experience). Lots of it leans much more towards stuff like 'Dying Earth isn't my cup of tea, I don't want to play Vancian casting,' which is much more valid, but in that case the response should be something along the lines of 'well, good thing there are hundreds of TTRPGs out there that don't use Vancian casting!'


You are right on the first point, partially. By D&D's assumptions, most of your XP and loot is coming from the results of combat. It has provisions in place for that not being the case, but that's not the central assumption of the system.
Point of order, up until 1989, most of your XP came from the loot, not the combat. Combat was a way to attrite your resources, such that you had less time in-scenario left to acquire loot (and thus XP).


I'm really curious if the people disagreeing with you here have played many other RPG games.
It feels a little like somebody going "I've always been able to hammer in these nails with the sole of my boot. Why would I even want a hammer?"

DnD really is anemic in its non-combat systems. Compare it to something "Burning Wheel" or "Spire" or "Blades in the Dark" and it's night and day. Which is fine- it's not a big focus of DnD.
Burning Wheel is a great example of why many people do not want roleplay to become mechanized. Perhaps Dungeon World would be a better example?

As for the big focus of D&D -- the big focus of early D&D was exploration and the quest for treasure, not combat (the original books didn't really include a combat system, pretty much handing it off to using some other game's combat system). That's why there was so many non-combat systems such as the exploration mechanic, the wilderness hexcrawling mechanic, the careful monitoring on the encumbrance system forcing one to make tough decisions, the realm mechanics (which the designers thought would be the primary part of the game upon which most people would focus), and of course the GP=XP mechanic which highly disincentivized combat when other options existed. It is only really the player character build component of the game, what with to-hit numbers, AC, HP, saving throw tables, and so forth, which are particularly combat focused. If you look at any of the TSR-era gamebooks, a huge swath of the game rules are centered around how to emulate characters knocking around in a world going hither and yon.

Look, there is no doubt that post Forge era narrativist games have many mechanisms for which the mostly simulationist games that preceded them didn't feel the need. To dismiss them as being anemic in non-combat systems because of that is kind of a stretch, though.

Kyutaru
2020-08-20, 12:52 PM
I don't see how exploration is roleplaying any more than combat is. Not that there's actually a system for exploration in modern D&D anyway - the lack of rules for this supposed pillar is a longstanding criticism of the game.Wandering encounter tables, traps and hazards, heck wind velocity and weather, terrain types and their mechanical significance, carrying capacity and transportation vessels, is all nonexistent you. Heck past editions even included tables by terrain for what monsters you would find in them.


But those aren't rules. They're just suggestions. Ideas for how you might roleplay your character, but there are no rewards for doing so or consequences for ignoring it. And that's fine - I'm not making a value statement here.Then your statement is too narrow to ever be satisfied and disappointment is all that awaits your expectations.


But a game that actually had a system in place to facilitate roleplaying might overtly enforce those character traits, or give a mechanical reward for staying in character.These are specifically in the core books. How that gets perceived is ultimately subjective to each table and thus to each DM, who may or may not reward characters for doing so. It's been a standard part of the game for generations and what I'm noticing is that the groups you participate with are disregarding them.


Some games like certain PbtAs tie progression to roleplaying, so roleplaying is the only way to actually improve your character.This one of the XP award options presented in old DMGs, I don't remember if it's there in the new one. Story-based progression is an option with characters progressing entirely through roleplay-generated XP awards. Not all tables use it and it's not mandatory to the core rules because not everyone liked their progress being expressly dictated by the DM's subjective whims. Yet it's even common in Adventure League or normal campaigns to have flat XP bonuses presented to all participants for the adventure or have level up milestones instead of tracking experience points. These are in the books. D&D can be played more than one way and so presents more than one way to award XP.


D&D has nothing like that - it tells you what roleplaying is and it gives you some pointers and ideas. But that's about it. And again, I'm not saying that's a bad thing, it's just the way it is.The DMG has that content, not the PHB, but it is there.

Hytheter
2020-08-20, 01:08 PM
Then your statement is too narrow to ever be satisfied and disappointment is all that awaits your expectations.

Huh? What does this even mean and how does it relate to the quote it is framed as a response to?

Kyutaru
2020-08-20, 01:15 PM
Huh? What does this even mean and how does it relate to the quote it is framed as a response to?You stated they aren't the rules. Contextually, it means you decried the roleplay mechanics that lead to action resolution AND the roleplay rules pertaining to how characters are supposed to act so whatever YOUR definition of what the rules should be is too narrow for a developer to satisfy.

Additionally, the noncombat and roleplaying XP awards you were wondering about are on pg 68-70 of the 2E DMG, pg 168-169 of the 3E DMG, pg 121-122 of the 4E DMG, and pg 261 of the 5E DMG. Of them all, I most like the AD&D DMG which features Table 33: Common Individual Awards sampling XP awards for actions like "Player has a clever idea" or "Player roleplays his character well" as well as Table 34: Individual Class Awards sampling XP awards for actions like successfully researching a spell as a wizard, successful use of an ability as a rogue, or making a potion as a priest. D&D has always awarded you with XP beyond killing monsters. Even in the 1E days the focus was on obtaining the treasure by any means necessary, which did not mean trying to pick a fight with something that can easily defeat you. Overwhelming challenges were common in those editions and trickery/ingenuity was well rewarded.

Composer99
2020-08-20, 02:01 PM
So, at this point I am not sure that everyone is using the same operational definition of roleplaying.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-20, 02:04 PM
5e D&D actually defines its "core loop" in the Introduction to the PHB (emphasis mine):


The play of the Dungeons & Dragons game unfolds according to this basic pattern.

1. The DM describes the environment.

The DM tells the players where their adventurers are and what’s around them, presenting the basic scope of options that present themselves (how many doors lead out of a room, what’s on a table, who’s in the tavern, and so on).

2. The players describe what they want to do.

Sometimes one player speaks for the whole party, saying, “We’ll take the east door,” for example. Other times, different adventurers do different things: one adventurer might search a treasure chest while a second examines an esoteric symbol engraved on a wall and a third keeps watch for monsters. The players don’t need to take turns, but the DM listens to every player and decides how to resolve those actions.

Sometimes, resolving a task is easy. If an adventurer wants to walk across a room and open a door, the DM might just say that the door opens and describe what lies beyond. But the door might be locked, the floor might hide a deadly trap, or some other circumstance might make it challenging for an adventurer to complete a task. In those cases, the DM decides what happens, often relying on the roll of a die to determine the results of an action.

3. The DM narrates the results of the adventurers’ actions.

Describing the results often leads to another decision point, which brings the flow of the game right back to step 1.

This pattern holds whether the adventurers are cautiously exploring a ruin, talking to a devious prince, or locked in mortal combat against a mighty dragon. In certain situations, particularly combat, the action is more structured and the players (and DM) do take turns choosing and resolving actions. But most of the time, play is fluid and flexible, adapting to the circumstances of the adventure.

Note that the DM is in control, and the dice (and other mechanics) are there to help if he needs them. They're tools he uses, they are not the game itself.

Furthermore, the default (and design baseline) is such that gaining loot from adventures doesn't really bring you more power (no magic items are required or balanced against at the core level). So the assumption that the core gameplay loop is all combat is just plain not so in 5e.

--------

As to emulation causing loss of players--D&D doesn't emulate well at all. We all agree on that fact. And D&D is super-dominant in the TTRPG market. Combining 5e, PF, and PF2 (as they're all "D&D-like") in their emulation abilities, you get something like 80% of the current market from the data I've seen. And 60 percentage points of that is 5e D&D. And I highly doubt that most of them are playing X, but in D&D. In part because the 5e rules have very little to say on the matter (and in fact set "D&D worlds" apart from most fiction). So regardless of what earlier editions may have claimed, current D&D makes no such claim and is still tremendously popular, and the fastest growing game on the market. Still. After 6 years.

And anyway, emulation is so horribly uncreative. The thing that I enjoy most is building worlds that fit the D&D assumptions and letting players change them through their actions. And I've had tremendous success, across a dozen or more groups, getting buy-in and yes, great roleplay in this setting. Knowing that they're not following some pre-written story, that their actions actually change the world for other people, and responding to someone who has poured his soul into this world has left me with exactly zero murderhobos, edgelords, expies, or any of the other issues. If I were playing "Harry Potter, but in D&D", none of this would be possible. Only a diehard fan of HP would want to play in that game, and for them the inevitable discrepancies would pile up and shatter things. And I wouldn't be able to get into it nearly as much, being weighed down by the loads of pre-existing lore and expectations that cannot be met even in a generic system. D&D is best when it does D&D, not something else.

-------

As for mechanics for roleplay, I think people have a really narrow view of what roleplay is. Roleplay is all the decisions you make for a character, while staying in character. I was running a group with my nephews (ages between 8 and 13). The youngest, playing a married dwarf barbarian with anger issues, roleplayed a lot. Constantly. Charging straight in and smashing things is roleplay, for his character. If he'd try to have played "optimally" and been all paranoid and cautious, he'd have been out of character. On the flip side, my oldest nephew's character was raised by wolves and had a penchant for standing in the shadows. His choices to mostly back off and shoot from a distance were roleplay. It's all roleplay.

Further, all the text in the book is rules. Some of it's optional, others are guidance, but it's all part of the rules just as much. Including the parts that tell the DM that he doesn't have to use any of these rules and can make it up as he goes. That's also a rule. The idea that only mechanics matter or that only mechanics count as "rules support" is just not true. Remember, free-form is a rule set.

Taken from the 5e D&D DMG:

Dice are neutral arbiters. They can determine the outcome of an action without assigning any motivation to the DM and without playing favorites. The extent to which you use them is entirely up to you.

[...]

Remember that dice don’t run your game — you do. Dice are like rules. They’re tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player’s action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character’s plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage.


Rules are tools to help keep the action moving. They exist to help DMs make decisions, with a secondary benefit of helping players predict which actions are likely to succeed. But free-form is the default. And for a lot of things, free-form is way better than any rule set. For me personally, "rules support" for most social things ends up being way more constraining and obtrusive than having to decide on my own with less guidance.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 05:54 PM
It's an indication that the makers consider role playing to be central to the game, as they say that it is part of every aspect of the game. I posted it as a counter to people saying that the rules say nothing about role playing. There is also much more, but I can't exactly start posting large chunks of someone else's IP - a snippet like that would be fair use, but all of the rules would not. As it goes on, it specifically talks about how to role play with examples. The DMG covers even more of it, discussing how to role play an encounter, how to determine what the players have done and how it would impact a Charisma check, and advice on how the DM can effectively role play NPCs if they are not natural actors.

They absolutely tie things into the rest of the game, and give some small methods of using mechanical checks. But role playing is not about mechanical checks, so you're never going to find a table that says roll D20 to determine how you role play.

I'd agree with this sentiment. And as I said, 5e gives the most credence to RP out of the most recent editions. All I recall about RP being mentioned in the 3.5 DMG was that you could do a lot of rp or just a little, and.... that was pretty much it.

I'm glad they at least bring it up and establish an idea of what RP is meant to be as a baseline.

There are ways aside from math and dice to make RP a part of the game in a meaningful way. Be it mechanics that provoke questions about character thoughts, feelings, and actions, or establishing goals that lead to rewards or bonds between characters that have meaningful effects on the game. There's lots of ways! D&D doesn't use 'em, but they exist.

I find it extremely unlikely that the WotC r&d team doesn't know about these things and doesn't think about how to do similar. So I have to assume they're consciously choosing not to utilize them, which is a choice, and a meaningful one.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 06:17 PM
5e D&D actually defines its "core loop" in the Introduction to the PHB (emphasis mine):
That's as much "core gameplay loop" as saying "the core gameplay loop of Halo is moving the joysticks and pressing the trigger button." This describes the interface between real and fictional worlds, not the core gameplay loop.



Note that the DM is in control, and the dice (and other mechanics) are there to help if he needs them. They're tools he uses, they are not the game itself.
So back to my earlier question (maybe it was answered, this thread moved very quickly, so apologies if I'm asking for a repeat):
If I homebrew D&D until it's identical to Dungeon World... is it still D&D, or is it now a different thing?

If it's a different thing, rules matter.
If it's not a different thing, why do multiple systems even exist if they are all identical?



Furthermore, the default (and design baseline) is such that gaining loot from adventures doesn't really bring you more power (no magic items are required or balanced against at the core level). So the assumption that the core gameplay loop is all combat is just plain not so in 5e.
Read back. I never said it gave you more POWER. I said Gold and XP (the goodies that come from killing the monster) allow you access to more and better tools. A tool is not literally a piece of equipment. Class abilities, spells, magic items, literal equipment, potions, even the gold itself are Tools that assist you in tackling larger and more loot-dense "monsters."

Again, you don't know what a Core Gameplay Loop is as compared to an Interface as compared to Roleplay and its place in this complex interaction that is D&D.

Saying everything is RP means that RP is so broadly interpreted as to be meaningless.



Further, all the text in the book is rules. Some of it's optional, others are guidance, but it's all part of the rules just as much.
While I know what you mean, taken literally this implies the table of contents is rules.
Which, if that's part of what this means, is pretty obviously an absurd claim.



Including the parts that tell the DM that he doesn't have to use any of these rules and can make it up as he goes. That's also a rule. The idea that only mechanics matter or that only mechanics count as "rules support" is just not true. Remember, free-form is a rule set.
I don't recall anyone saying Rules Are King. I don't know who you're arguing against here, but it's nobody in this thread.




Rules are tools to help keep the action moving. They exist to help DMs make decisions, with a secondary benefit of helping players predict which actions are likely to succeed. But free-form is the default. And for a lot of things, free-form is way better than any rule set. For me personally, "rules support" for most social things ends up being way more constraining and obtrusive than having to decide on my own with less guidance.

Then that means you like the fact that D&D keeps its nose out of your RP.
Which is exactly our point.
Thanks!

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-20, 07:16 PM
There are ways aside from math and dice to make RP a part of the game in a meaningful way. Be it mechanics that provoke questions about character thoughts, feelings, and actions, or establishing goals that lead to rewards or bonds between characters that have meaningful effects on the game. There's lots of ways! D&D doesn't use 'em, but they exist.

I find it extremely unlikely that the WotC r&d team doesn't know about these things and doesn't think about how to do similar. So I have to assume they're consciously choosing not to utilize them, which is a choice, and a meaningful one.

You absolutely don't need mechanics (for which "dice and math" is shorthand) to make RP meaningful. My characters RP and it matters all the stinking time. Their decisions, their choices, their personalities drive the narrative in the direction it goes. They make choices for their characters in everything that they do. And that's the definition of RP. No fancy (and constraining and gameable) rewards, penalties, etc. needed outside those that naturally flow from the narrative. If they insult the king, they suffer the consequences. If they placate the silver dragon, he'll extend protection to their non-combatant charges. And depending on how they do so, the costs may vary. Do they trust <NPC>? That's RP. Do they charge blindly ahead? That's RP.

RP is not something separate from the rest of the game that needs its own separate rules. It's the core of everything. Making choices as if you were a fictional character.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 07:41 PM
You absolutely don't need mechanics (for which "dice and math" is shorthand) to make RP meaningful. My characters RP and it matters all the stinking time. Their decisions, their choices, their personalities drive the narrative in the direction it goes. They make choices for their characters in everything that they do. And that's the definition of RP. No fancy (and constraining and gameable) rewards, penalties, etc. needed outside those that naturally flow from the narrative. If they insult the king, they suffer the consequences. If they placate the silver dragon, he'll extend protection to their non-combatant charges. And depending on how they do so, the costs may vary. Do they trust <NPC>? That's RP. Do they charge blindly ahead? That's RP.

RP is not something separate from the rest of the game that needs its own separate rules. It's the core of everything. Making choices as if you were a fictional character.


I don't recall saying you need them or claiming them as superior to not having them. I stated exactly what I meant:
They exist, D&D doesn't use them, that's probably on purpose.
The end.

I happen to like those sorts of mechanics. Things like Fate's Aspect system are great for that sort of thing while also being as open as most freeform I've ever done. Or at least, more consistent.

What people don't realize is that I RP'ed freeform first, D&D second, and I freeform more than I tabletop. I value systems that can "fly by the seat of their pants" as it were, but if I want absolutely no rules involvement with my RP then I'm just gonna go play freeform. The constraints allow me to be creative in interesting ways and make interesting decisions with the tools I have.

It's 100% a matter of taste and preference. Modern D&D has a fairly laissez-faire approach to RP. Ie, "you should probably RP but the how and why and when is entirely up to you."

And that's fine. Doesn't mean anything except what it says on its face. There's no value in the statement, just an observation.

KineticDiplomat
2020-08-20, 09:09 PM
Of emulation and loops and other matters:

So, we all agree D&D does emulation and even reflection of anything that is not D&D poorly. It doesn't make a good Boromir, it doesn't tell the Lies of Locke Lamora, it won't let you be a Solomon Kane like character, or feel like a Conan movie, and on and on. What we disagree about is everything else.

We have some people saying "well, I would never want to play any story or characte like that, I only want what D&D gives me"; perhaps, but the wealth of people who want stories, archetypes, characters, and experiences that if not directly copied at least look like they're made out of the same stuff - and then explicitly use those examples as comparison to D&D, look for ways to use "realistic" things in D&D (we have a loooong running thread on that), and usually note that they wouldn't work in the system - is prima facie evidence that many people do in fact want D&D to provide fantasy outside D&D's basic capability. Presumably because it is the largest market share fantasy game, set many initial expectations and conventions by virtue of being the first, and for many people the only gateway they have into RPGs at all, they are playing D&D and not any one of the numerous superior systems. They want their fantasy, they just can't get it with this system. So while direct emulation is not a goal of the system, feeling like a fantasy story other than what D&D can give is very much is a goal of a large part of the audience.

From there, we have one side arguing that this is because D&D is not generic, it is it's own bold creative fantasy vision - you wouldn't confuse the Black Company and LotR, so why confuse D&D with anything else? Except for the fact that the owners of the franchise have explicitly stated they want to "reduce the barrier to entry as much as possible" for fantasy roleplay and "include many new ways to vividly experience worlds of heroic fantasy." They have had had influencers tell audiences that "one of the best starting points is to take something you like and figure out how to D&D-ify it.” They don't describe the play as D&D specific, rather it is "about storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery. Like games of make-believe, D&D is driven by imagination. It’s about picturing a crumbling castle in a darkening forest and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents." There is nothing in there that even remotely suggests it is supposed to be for a specific IP set, and their business practices also reflect this. Where possible, they have acquired specific IP rights (adventures in Middle Earth) or encouraged the deliberate tweaking of close to IPs (Xoth) for the exact idea that the D&D system is supposed to be very solidly generic and toolable to a new setting with minimum fuss.

So why does it fail? Because the mechanics are awful at anything other than what we would now think of as the MMORPG cycle. Don't get me wrong, that cycle has made a lot of people a lot of money and given other people something to do for untold millions of hours. There is some desperate defense here where people scream "nay, nay, thats not what it does", but I think that is more an effort to delusionally believe D&D can do what they want than an honest examination of a system. A system with some of the fastest and widest power progression in all of RPGS, the clearest and most distinct powers and limitations between very discretely defined levels and classes, a system firmly enshrined in the idea that X Level Appropriate Challenges (read, combat) should produce a level and Y amount of treasures, a system where the price scheming is based entirely on exponentially more monies coming in being needed for linearly better gear in order to keep reward and progression in balance (unless someone remembers they could buy a small nation for the cost of a +4 sword), and a system where the default setting is to go from "feeble rat killer" to "nigh on demigod" based on how many things of increasing big badness you kill. If I started to list all the systems for which this is not true, this would be a wikipedia page. This idea that the entire founding and guiding principle of the game is somehow just an unfortunate mechanical side effect of its true intent and nitpicking every tiny point is, bluntly, intellectual dishonestly on the level of declaring the earth is flat because they guy who said it was round left out a comma.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-20, 09:20 PM
Of emulation and loops and other matters:

So, we all agree D&D does emulation and even reflection of anything that is not D&D poorly. It doesn't make a good Boromir, it doesn't tell the Lies of Locke Lamora, it won't let you be a Solomon Kane like character, or feel like a Conan movie, and on and on. What we disagree about is everything else.

We have some people saying "well, I would never want to play any story or characte like that, I only want what D&D gives me"; perhaps, but the wealth of people who want stories, archetypes, characters, and experiences that if not directly copied at least look like they're made out of the same stuff - and then explicitly use those examples as comparison to D&D, look for ways to use "realistic" things in D&D (we have a loooong running thread on that), and usually note that they wouldn't work in the system - is prima facie evidence that many people do in fact want D&D to provide fantasy outside D&D's basic capability. Presumably because it is the largest market share fantasy game, set many initial expectations and conventions by virtue of being the first, and for many people the only gateway they have into RPGs at all, they are playing D&D and not any one of the numerous superior systems. They want their fantasy, they just can't get it with this system. So while direct emulation is not a goal of the system, feeling like a fantasy story other than what D&D can give is very much is a goal of a large part of the audience.

From there, we have one side arguing that this is because D&D is not generic, it is it's own bold creative fantasy vision - you wouldn't confuse the Black Company and LotR, so why confuse D&D with anything else? Except for the fact that the owners of the franchise have explicitly stated they want to "reduce the barrier to entry as much as possible" for fantasy roleplay and "include many new ways to vividly experience worlds of heroic fantasy." They have had had influencers tell audiences that "one of the best starting points is to take something you like and figure out how to D&D-ify it.” They don't describe the play as D&D specific, rather it is "about storytelling in worlds of swords and sorcery. Like games of make-believe, D&D is driven by imagination. It’s about picturing a crumbling castle in a darkening forest and imagining how a fantasy adventurer might react to the challenges that scene presents." There is nothing in there that even remotely suggests it is supposed to be for a specific IP set, and their business practices also reflect this. Where possible, they have acquired specific IP rights (adventures in Middle Earth) or encouraged the deliberate tweaking of close to IPs (Xoth) for the exact idea that the D&D system is supposed to be very solidly generic and toolable to a new setting with minimum fuss.

So why does it fail? Because the mechanics are awful at anything other than what we would now think of as the MMORPG cycle. Don't get me wrong, that cycle has made a lot of people a lot of money and given other people something to do for untold millions of hours. There is some desperate defense here where people scream "nay, nay, thats not what it does", but I think that is more an effort to delusionally believe D&D can do what they want than an honest examination of a system. A system with some of the fastest and widest power progression in all of RPGS, the clearest and most distinct powers and limitations between very discretely defined levels and classes, a system firmly enshrined in the idea that X Level Appropriate Challenges (read, combat) should produce a level and Y amount of treasures, a system where the price scheming is based entirely on exponentially more monies coming in being needed for linearly better gear in order to keep reward and progression in balance (unless someone remembers they could buy a small nation for the cost of a +4 sword), and a system where the default setting is to go from "feeble rat killer" to "nigh on demigod" based on how many things of increasing big badness you kill. If I started to list all the systems for which this is not true, this would be a wikipedia page. This idea that the entire founding and guiding principle of the game is somehow just an unfortunate mechanical side effect of its true intent and nitpicking every tiny point is, bluntly, intellectual dishonestly on the level of declaring the earth is flat because they guy who said it was round left out a comma.

It seems you're entirely talking about 3e here. None of this applies at all to 5e, for instance. 5e makes no attempt to be generic, whatsoever. They want to be broad, sure. But that's different. They want to be able to express lots of ideas. But they make no promises (or even claims) that you can represent other works of fiction within the stock system. They make very specific claims about what a "D&D world" is, and how it's structured. There are a whole raft of core assumptions that are violated by contemporary fantasy. And even a lot of D&D-esque fantasy. For instance, here's what they say in their House Style Guide:


A typical D&D story or adventure is part of the high fantasy subgenre of fantasy fiction, with the epic scope characteristic of that subgenre.

D&D is about small bands of characters embarking on adventures together. Teamwork and friendship are a huge part of what makes D&D distinct as a brand. The lone knight fighting a dragon is less characteristic of D&D than an adventuring team fighting a dragon. People on their own get into trouble; a team that works together can triumph.

So right up front, you're dealing with a subgenre of fantasy. The "High Fantasy" one. And there's stuff about epic scope. Then you have the bold section. This leaves out 99% of other fiction, even fantasy fiction. Because those have protagonists and supporting casts, generally. Not teams of equals. All those characters that people want to import? They're protagonists, and they're designed and scaled as such. They're not appropriate for a team game. Same goes for concepts that involve moving armies or hordes of creatures around. Note the "small" in "small bands".

And 5e makes no assumptions about "level appropriate encounters" as such. Nor does it assume any kind of wealth by level, or even that wealth brings power in any particular way. By default, you can't buy and sell magic items or even craft them. And even 20th level adventurers aren't demigods. They're powerful individuals, even superheros, but they're not demigods or fighting demigods (except through clever tricks that depower the avatars).

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-20, 09:51 PM
And 5e makes no assumptions about "level appropriate encounters" as such.

The Monster Manual has a section on challenge rating, its meaning and its usage. It might not speak the words "level appropriate encounters" but it indicates that a group of 4 lvl 3 characters should match up to 1 CR 3 monster, and etc etc.

So... it kinda 100% does make at least this assumption as part of its design.

Kyutaru
2020-08-21, 07:14 AM
Excerpts:

Pg 11 PHB; The Goal
Another major difference between role-playing games and other games is the ultimate goal. Everyone assumes that a game must have a beginning and an end and that the end comes when someone wins. That doesn't apply to role-playing because no one "wins" in a role-playing game. The point of playing is not to win but to have fun and socialize.

Pg 36 PHB; The Fighter
The fighter is a warrior, an expert in weapons and, if he is clever, tactics and strategy. There are many famous fighters from legend: Hercules, Perseus, Hiawatha, Beowulf, Siegfried, Cuchulain, Little John, Tristan, and Sinbad. History is crowded with great generals and warriors: El Cid, Hannibal, Alexander the Great, Charlemagne, Spartacus, Richard the Lionheart, and Belisarius. Your fighter could be modeled after any of these, or he could be unique. A visit to your local library can uncover many heroic fighters.

Pg 146 PHB; Encounters
Whenever a player character meets an NPC (nonplayer character), fights a monster, or even discovers a mysterious fountain in the woods, he is having an encounter. An encounter is any significant thing a character meets, sees, or interacts with during the course of a game. When a player character discovers a fountain of blue flame in the midst of the forest, its very strangeness forces the character to react and the player to think. Why is it here? Does it have a purpose? Is it beneficial or dangerous? Few characters are going to pass this by as just another flaming fountain in the forest. Encounters are vital to the game, for without them nothing can really happen to the player character. An adventure without encounters is like sitting in a room all day with no one to talk to and little to look at. It certainly wouldn't be very exciting. And who wants to play an unexciting role-playing game? Encounters provide danger, risk, mystery, information, intrigue, suspense, humor, and more.

Pg 9 DMG; The Fine Art of Being a DM
Being a good Dungeon Master involves a lot more than knowing the rules. It calls for quick wit, theatrical flair, and a good sense of dramatic timing- among other things. Most of us can claim these attributes to some degree, but there's always room for improvement. Fortunately, skills like these can be learned and improved with practice. There are hundreds of tricks, shortcuts, and simple principles that can make you a better, more dramatic, and more creative game master.

Pg 70 DMG; Individual Experience Awards
Individual experience point awards are given for things a player does or things he has his character do. Intelligent play is worth experience; good role-playing is worth experience; actions that fit the group's style are worth experience. Although some of these awards are tied to abilites, giving out these experience points is purely a discretionary act. It is up to the DM to decide if a player character has earned the award and, within a given ranger, to determine the amount of the award.

Pg 132 DMG; Should You Use Random Encounters?
Some argue that random encounters are foolish and should not be used. These people maintain that everything should be under the control of the DM, there should be no surprises for him while playing the game. Certainly, random encounters can be abused through overuse, and they can create illogical encounters. However, when used judiciously, random encounters add to everyone's fun in a couple of ways.

Willie the Duck
2020-08-21, 08:14 AM
The Monster Manual has a section on challenge rating, its meaning and its usage. It might not speak the words "level appropriate encounters" but it indicates that a group of 4 lvl 3 characters should match up to 1 CR 3 monster, and etc etc.

So... it kinda 100% does make at least this assumption as part of its design.

It benchmarks expected difficulty, but does not suggest that players should only be set against level appropriate encounters. I really don't think this shows the point KineticDiplomat was making, and PhoenixPhyre seems entirely reasonable pointing out that KD's points seem only to work regarding 3e. To further the point, TSR-era D&D explicitly did not set up balanced encounters (to the point of wilderness encounters coming off charts that did not change based on PC level), yet there were guidelines on determining how challenging a given monster encounter would be (usually HD, plus some adds for special abilities).

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-21, 09:20 AM
It benchmarks expected difficulty, but does not suggest that players should only be set against level appropriate encounters. I really don't think this shows the point KineticDiplomat was making, and PhoenixPhyre seems entirely reasonable pointing out that KD's points seem only to work regarding 3e. To further the point, TSR-era D&D explicitly did not set up balanced encounters (to the point of wilderness encounters coming off charts that did not change based on PC level), yet there were guidelines on determining how challenging a given monster encounter would be (usually HD, plus some adds for special abilities).

I'll note that, since I've not got a 5e DMG around to reference, as far as I know 5e doesn't do *anything* to give guidance about what a balanced, challenging, or oppressively hard encounter is, aside from what it says above.

However, D&D does assume the entire party isn't dying every encounter. There's an understanding that, ideally, the party is overcoming challenges as they come and getting rewarded in, at the very least, XP. This is a basic system assumption.

KineticDiplomat
2020-08-21, 11:47 AM
Re: Encounters and Progression.

1. The DMG defines defeating enemies as the core XP mechanic, with alternatives available. The base design is the bulk of XP comes from winning encounters.

2. What is a reasonable encounter? "A monster’s challenge rating tells you how great a threat the monster is. An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths. For example, a party of four 3rd-level characters should find a monster with a challenge rating of 3 to be a worthy challenge, but not a deadly one." Or, in another edition, a level appropriate encounter. Presumably DMs being DMs are going to float some encounters higher and some lower per flow of game, but the act of not killing the players while providing a challenge over time is going to bring you pretty close to that average.

3. Proceeding with level appropriate encounters produces a level every 10-15 encounters up through the mid game, and then every 8-9 encounters until the end. This roughly translates to two to four long rests per level for the entire run of the game...and notably given the somewhat longer nature of encounters near the end game implies a rough equivalency in real world time spent.

4. The DMG also tells us what the expectations for treasure are in order to remain level competitive. For levels 1-15, it is roughly 0.20-0.23 treasure hoards per CR equivalent encounter. It spikes to 0.3 per encounter in the end game to allow PCs to remain competitive.

So: The core advancement mechanism of the game runs on encounters, and the recommended balance for encounters that will challenge, but not kill, players will produce a level gain for a reasonably consistent amount of play time throughout the entirety of the game. This provides a consistent level of reward in terms of treasure per encounter, that scales with the equipping needs for new levels to the point where even though treasure and XP increase geometrically and provide the feel of progress, yet the rough same amount of time investment is needed from players before each hit of accomplishment before repeating a series of "worthy challenges" that will not kill the players in the next iteration.

So, we can quibble over what the semantics of that loop are, but that is indeed the math behind how D&D does gameplay loops. It is not math that allows for much narrative consistency in environments that aren't D&D.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-21, 11:54 AM
I'll note that, since I've not got a 5e DMG around to reference, as far as I know 5e doesn't do *anything* to give guidance about what a balanced, challenging, or oppressively hard encounter is, aside from what it says above.

However, D&D does assume the entire party isn't dying every encounter. There's an understanding that, ideally, the party is overcoming challenges as they come and getting rewarded in, at the very least, XP. This is a basic system assumption.

Except it does give lots of guidance about the difficulty levels one could expect (and what that means, and what the assumptions behind it are). What it doesn't do is tell you to only use "balanced, level-appropriate encounters". And yes, D&D does assume that the party will generally win.


Re: Encounters and Progression.

1. The DMG defines defeating enemies as the core XP mechanic, with alternatives available. The base design is the bulk of XP comes from winning encounters.

2. What is a reasonable encounter? "A monster’s challenge rating tells you how great a threat the monster is. An appropriately equipped and well-rested party of four adventurers should be able to defeat a monster that has a challenge rating equal to its level without suffering any deaths. For example, a party of four 3rd-level characters should find a monster with a challenge rating of 3 to be a worthy challenge, but not a deadly one." Or, in another edition, a level appropriate encounter. Presumably DMs being DMs are going to float some encounters higher and some lower per flow of game, but the act of not killing the players while providing a challenge over time is going to bring you pretty close to that average.

3. Proceeding with level appropriate encounters produces a level every 10-15 encounters up through the mid game, and then every 8-9 encounters until the end. This roughly translates to two to four long rests per level for the entire run of the game...and notably given the somewhat longer nature of encounters near the end game implies a rough equivalency in real world time spent.

4. The DMG also tells us what the expectations for treasure are in order to remain level competitive. For levels 1-15, it is roughly 0.20-0.23 treasure hoards per CR equivalent encounter. It spikes to 0.3 per encounter in the end game to allow PCs to remain competitive.

So: The core advancement mechanism of the game runs on encounters, and the recommended balance for encounters that will challenge, but not kill, players will produce a level gain for a reasonably consistent amount of play time throughout the entirety of the game. This provides a consistent level of reward in terms of treasure per encounter, that scales with the equipping needs for new levels to the point where even though treasure and XP increase geometrically and provide the feel of progress, yet the rough same amount of time investment is needed from players before each hit of accomplishment before repeating a series of "worthy challenges" that will not kill the players in the next iteration.

So, we can quibble over what the semantics of that loop are, but that is indeed the math behind how D&D does gameplay loops. It is not math that allows for much narrative consistency in environments that aren't D&D.

1. It presents it as one option among many. And encourages giving XP for overcoming non-combat challenges. It also presents (and official modules tend to actually use) two forms of milestones--one gives milestone XP for story things (which can be added to combat-based XP) or leveling without XP. Official modules (especially teh beginner ones) use the latter version. They simply say "the party levels up at story point X". And AL doesn't use XP at all. You get advancement for time spent playing. So not really.

2. The assumption of CR = Level is a horrible one that the text does not support using in any way. It even notes that that's a bad thing. It encourages using CR > level (for solo encounters, rarely), or most often CR << level (but in larger groups). This is extended in Xanathar's Guide. You can have a 1-20 campaign where you fight variants of orcs most of the way (capping at about CR 5).

3. No. That's a total misreading of the Adventuring Day Budget table.

4. No. There is no expectation of gear to remain "level competitive". The baseline is using the starting gear throughout the campaign, for all 20 levels. That's what the books are balanced around--magic items can't be bought or sold, and there's rarely any "improved" gear for sale (you can buy roughly one armor upgrade, which is pretty dirt cheap).

So no. Not really. Yes, the book assumes that there will be combat. But "slay monsters, get XP and loot, slay bigger monsters" just isn't a core assumption at all.

Willie the Duck
2020-08-21, 12:08 PM
However, D&D does assume the entire party isn't dying every encounter. There's an understanding that, ideally, the party is overcoming challenges as they come and getting rewarded in, at the very least, XP. This is a basic system assumption.

Okay, sure. D&D assumes you aren't constantly dying, and are working towards overcoming challenges. That's true, but also incredibly broad. Can you marry this back to the original discussion? What point do you posit it supports?

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-21, 01:30 PM
So no. Not really. Yes, the book assumes that there will be combat. But "slay monsters, get XP and loot, slay bigger monsters" just isn't a core assumption at all.

Let's go with this being true. We must then ask the following questions:
Why is there an entire book literally dedicated to Monsters if they aren't part of the core assumption of the system?
Why are said monsters found across the gammut of Challenge Ratings, and filling a variety of habitats?


Why does the system call itself "Dungeons and Dragons" if neither of those things are part of how it functions?

If the book assumes combat, and the most clearly defined rewards are from combat, and the majority of character abilities are for combat (or managing its consequences), and the largest section of the PHB aside from the spell list is Combat, and 3 books give recommendations for how to run combat, then how is it unreasonable to say that combat is pretty darn important in D&D?

If gaining XP and fighting bigger "monsters" (or challenges) isn't a core assumption, why does levelling up always improve combat abilities, and by extension increase the amount of "monsters" the characters can overcome?

Your entire argument breaks down to:
The books give alternative options and don't directly say what the loop is, therefore that's not the loop (even though the books could say the game is about collecting all of the Apple Strudels in the world on page 1 and all else being the same we'd quickly figure out that's just some very strange promotional copy).

I think it's because we let slide the contention that "if it's in the book, it's a rule" which is a bit absurd. I don't think the table of contents is rules, and I don't think a recommendation is a rule, nor that a listed alternative ranks equally to a baseline design element it would replace.

Taking Combat entirely out of D&D does indeed start breaking things.
In a D&D game where combat *will never, ever happen*, what does a Fighter do?
What would the Barbarian do?
How about a Ranger, assuming it's not in the outdoors?
What would the Paladin use the Smite feature for? Nobody will be getting injured so Lay on Hands is out, too.
The Rogue can operate a bit, but a lot of its features become useless as well.
EDIT:
Hell, the entire CONSTITUTION score is basically useless in this scenario.
Most of the Equipment chapter would cease being useful right out the gate, as well.
A few skills would start taking a severe backseat to others.
A lot of things start to go sideways, really.

It's almost as if every class was *specifically designed* on the assumption that *combat would happen* and that *combat would become more difficult/intense as time goes on.*

If the classes are almosy universally designed around this repeating progression of using abilities to solve combat problems leading to XP leading to better abilites that solve more combat problems, then maybe, just maybe, that repeating cycle might be really important to how the system is played.
Like... as if it were a piece of gameplay that loops around and is the core around which class abilities were designed...

But that would be silly.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-21, 01:40 PM
That's the fallacy of the excluded middle.

Yes, D&D assumes combat will happen and that characters will progress, including in combat-related ways. Sure. That doesn't mean that your conclusion (that combat is the most important thing, or the only thing that really matters) follows at all.

You can have progression without monster-based XP--the system fully supports giving levels for story beats completely unconnected to combat. You can have combat where the monsters don't progress in actual strength, but grow more numerous. You can have ones where complex traps provide most of the difficulty. And so on. There are actually whole sets of guidelines for campaigns were combat is highly infrequent and most of the work involves intrigue, politics, etc. Including variants for resting and progression.

There's a huge gulf between the (obvious and uncontested) fact that D&D assumes that campaigns will have some combat in them and that characters will generally advance and (falsely) saying that the only thing it really supports is combat. The first is uncontested, the second is unsupported.

KineticDiplomat
2020-08-21, 03:56 PM
How fortunate then that I'm not using the adventuring day budget guide, making it difficult to misread. I am using the XP/CR ratio. Lets take, say, level 4 vs CR 4. 1,100 XP per CR 4, 375 per player in the theoretical 4 player party.

That'll be 13.87x CR4 equivalent encounters to earn the 6,500 xp you need to level.

Or, conservatively, two to three long rests.

Lets try level 10. 5,900 xp per CR 10, 1,475 per player. So...14.24 CR 10 encounters to the next level.

Two to three long rests.

We can keep doing this. 10-15 encounter from level 3 onwards (as with any good accomplishment -> hook cycle the opening hits are easier and more instantly gratifying; levels one and two and are quite quick.)

8-9 after you cross past level 10. Longer fights, more consumed resources, more specific prep. Two to three long rests.

Every time. All the time. Whether you make those CR X encounters by using larger numbers of smaller CR creatures, or average out that 0.87th encounter with a boss fight, window dressing. The core math is built around the idea that you'll get level=cr as the average output over the course of a level. Sure, you had an easy moment where you let everyone flex on the goblin sentry, and a hard one with the orc warlock, doesn't matter - too far to one end, everyone dies, too far to the other you don't advance or have anything resembling a challenge. The law of averages has it. The math in the game lines up each and every time to bounce you through two to three long rests worth of CR equivalent encounters (no matter how you disguise those encounters with individual tricks) and then level you go.

It's hardly coincidental that you'll receive an individual treasure per roughly once every 1.3 CR equivalent counters across all levels. Or that the rough GP output from each and every tier if using the hoard rules will produce enough GP to be the equivalent to a few consumable items of equivalent power or one to two power appropriate permanent items.

Also tellingly, all those other lovely "Encounters" the DMG talks about? Suspiciously incapable of advancing you. A 'Deadly" level 4 encounter outside combat is worth 500 XP. "Could be lethal to one or more characters" is worth less than half of a fight where no is really expected to die and you could grind through six in a long rest. And it would be hard to believe that the GM had 25 or so "Deadly" exploration events in two sessions - if nothing else, almost by definition he would TPK the party - one might quite reasonably fight through six encounters in an evening and be leveled in two sessions of dungeonifying. One might even get the impression that a handful of non-combat encounters existed to salt and flavor the meat and potatoes.

Almost as if the core game play loop consisted of a small number of ancillary events, events using poorly defined systems that are often reduced to a single DC check, that then lead to a consistent number of combat encounters that, on schedule, will bump the PCs up a level every couple of sessions allowing them to fight new, slightly more powerful opponents in the next turning of the wheel.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-21, 04:15 PM
Ok, you win. Life's too short to keep arguing about this.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-21, 05:53 PM
That's the fallacy of the excluded middle.

Yes, D&D assumes combat will happen and that characters will progress, including in combat-related ways. Sure. That doesn't mean that your conclusion (that combat is the most important thing, or the only thing that really matters) follows at all.


HALT!
YOU'VE VIOLATED THE LAW!
That's not my point, not my position.

Combat is the Core Gameplay Loop. The game is designed around its inclusion and assumes its implementation. As evidenced by: The Classes, the clearest XP rewards, the NAME OF THE SYSTEM, etc.




You can have progression without monster-based XP--the system fully supports giving levels for story beats completely unconnected to combat. You can have combat where the monsters don't progress in actual strength, but grow more numerous.
Monsters growing in number while remaining the same strength is still an increase in challenge, so that is entirely moot, since the loop isn't that each individual monster will always and only increase in power, just that the challenges get harder.

And again, that you CAN do progression without any combay *at all, ever* doesn't mean the system won't get sideways and that this won't entirely invalidate entire classes. Keeping combat as a central pillar is the one surefire way that every class gets to do something. Which isn't unintentional.



You can have ones where complex traps provide most of the difficulty. And so on. There are actually whole sets of guidelines for campaigns were combat is highly infrequent and most of the work involves intrigue, politics, etc. Including variants for resting and progression.
*ahem*
If you CAN do it, it must be that the system is equally designed for it!
(Except that's not true.)



There's a huge gulf between the (obvious and uncontested) fact that D&D assumes that campaigns will have some combat in them and that characters will generally advance and (falsely) saying that the only thing it really supports is combat. The first is uncontested, the second is unsupported.
TWICE YOU'VE VIOLATED THE LAW. Put thpse strawmen away, please.

I never said the system ONLY supports combat. I said D&D has a lassaiz-faire approach to RP and it hands all of its importance or lack thereof over to the GM, but the system has this repeating cycle of (putting it VERY BROADLY),
Challenge/monster -> loot (gold/xp=loot) -> increased access to tools/abilities -> ability to face tougher "monsters"

That's why levels are a thing, and why you get *stronger* by level rather than growing purely in width, and why improving your character always means improving their ability to kill things/survive things trying to kill them.

If this ability to overcome increasingly lethal things wasn't part of the system, HP wouldn't increase.

In Apocalypse World, you grow laterally, growing a more varied toolkit but the abilities are all equally useful, and your Hitpoints never increase. Gear and equipment are pretty much moot. If you have a gun, that's gonna be your gun from session 1 to session 20, and generally the campaign is done before then.

Apocalypse World lacks the "kill->improve->kill bigger" loop, and that shows in the design choices that are made. It's much more focused on its own loop which it calls the Moves Snowball, which takes a chapter to explain but basically it means that Rolls should lead to more rolls and higher stakes as often as possible.

The problem is that you have people pointing out that most of the system is built around the assumption of this repeating cycle of increasing challenge, and you're stomping your feet and insisting that we're saying combat is All Holy And The Only Thing That Matters.

No. It's the core loop. The system runs best when going in that circle, and it works really well for maintaining that cycle. It can do other things, yes. And some of those other things are more fun to you than that loop. But pretending like Classes don't assume the loop is absurd.
Pretending like spell progression doesn't assume the loop is absurd.
Pretending the concept and content of levels doesn't assume the loop is absurd.

It doesn't mean you can't do anything else. That position is also absurd (hence why you keep insisting I hold it, when I don't and have repeated Ad Nauseum that I don't).

Again: Core Gameplay Loop =/= The Only Thing The System Can Do

Cluedrew
2020-08-21, 07:57 PM
This thread makes me sad because it has a lot of usually reasonable and thoughtful people "screaming" at each other.

To the original topic, I think I agree with the general idea of the first post: D&D is not a generic system and should not be criticized for not reflecting stories it is not intended to replicate. (Well we could argue about whether it promotes or at least does not fight the idea that it is a generic system and if marketing should be blamed, but its not a system design thing and I don't want to.)

There is a bit of a hiccup: What about D&D fiction? Because most of what I read has more in common with Lord of the Rings then mechanical D&D. Do you (PhoenixPhyre and anyone else) think it should be held account if it does not match the characters in D&D fiction? I don't even have any particular mismatches in mind, but for two examples I would be willing to forgive HP not being used as that abstraction isn't needed in a book but I am a bit critical of the fact the spell-casting system appears to be completely different.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-21, 09:13 PM
This thread makes me sad because it has a lot of usually reasonable and thoughtful people "screaming" at each other.

To the original topic, I think I agree with the general idea of the first post: D&D is not a generic system and should not be criticized for not reflecting stories it is not intended to replicate. (Well we could argue about whether it promotes or at least does not fight the idea that it is a generic system and if marketing should be blamed, but its not a system design thing and I don't want to.)

There is a bit of a hiccup: What about D&D fiction? Because most of what I read has more in common with Lord of the Rings then mechanical D&D. Do you (PhoenixPhyre and anyone else) think it should be held account if it does not match the characters in D&D fiction? I don't even have any particular mismatches in mind, but for two examples I would be willing to forgive HP not being used as that abstraction isn't needed in a book but I am a bit critical of the fact the spell-casting system appears to be completely different.

The D&D fiction I've read...varies. Strongly. Some of it talks about spell slots and making sure to prepare the right spells (playing the spell-casting mechanics pretty straight). Others handwave it completely. Part of that varies by author. It's been a very long time since I've read much of it (such as the Drizzt books), so I don't remember all the details, but I remember significant variation even within the stories. And I've read stuff by Ed Greenwood (of FR fame) saying that they really don't expect the fiction (in any edition) to really match the rules. It's all in an alternate continuity from the game adventures anyway. And it doesn't help that the fiction spans a huge number of editions and settings. Even the FR stuff written to bridge between 4e and 5e (the Sundering series) doesn't play 4e or 5e exactly straight.

But I'd fully expect written fiction to be quite different from the mechanics expressed in the TTRPG rules, almost by necessity. In my opinion, the game rules are merely the UI with which we manipulate fictional entities and translate our real-world intentions into in-universe actions and get feedback about them. They're not the actual operating physics of the universe (0), merely a convenient, game-suitable translation layer. Just like Warcraft fiction (1) doesn't reflect the rules of the video games (which are mostly UI and game conventions) more than notionally, I would expect the same of any game <--> novel/movie translation.

So I look at D&D fiction as D&D-adjacent, sort of "D&D seen through a fogged funhouse mirror". Same, honestly, with the video games (although those are closer). The more I've played at the table top, the more I've realized that there are fundamental, irreducible differences, even if the "ruleset" is very similar. I'll certainly play Baldur's Gate III when it comes out. But I won't compare it to the tabletop games. It's not just apples and oranges, it's apples and....monkeys. Both carbon-based, DNA-driven cellular organisms. But not really the same thing or comparable at all. They exist in separate "bins" in my headspace.

That's actually one of my major points--that "authored" or "pre-written" fiction (including video games) follows very different tropes, narrative elements, and has very different requirements than successful TTRPG adventures and systems. So you can't simply translate directly--such translations inevitably fail on both accounts. Heck, even translations between different pre-written media fail more often than not--turning books into movies (or vice versa) takes a rare talent and often ends up with substantial plot differences as well as character differences. The needs of the screen and the page are very different. And can anyone name the last video-game-based movie that was actually both a faithful representation of the gameplay and a good movie? I'd even say that one of the worst things that adventure writers can do is try to "play the book" by following a pre-written plot. And most novelizations of campaigns (ie the original Dragonlance adventures, which were basically written as a novel in the first place as I understand it) end up departing from the "real" events at the table. By necessity.

So for me, trying to import or emulate characters from other media is a big red flag that there are going to be translation difficulties. Is it insuperable? No. But it's a very big risk. And using those other-media characters or events as touchstones for the game runs the same risk in the other direction.

(0) Although I've taken pains in my setting to try to harmonize the two as much as possible. It's...incomplete. And large parts of the rules are incompatible with a coherent metaphysic as far as I can tell.
(1) which is, in my experience, almost uniformly bad both as fiction and as a reflection of the gameplay.

Mechalich
2020-08-21, 10:18 PM
With regard to D&D fiction it is very important to recognize that most of it was written in the late 1980s and 1990s (with a much smaller amount written in the 2000s and very little written after that). Consequently, D&D fiction is built around each author's understanding of 1e and 2e AD&D, which has very different power levels and very different world-building assumptions than later editions. Dragonlance, for example, seems to operate on the understanding that there are no more than a couple hundred wizards on the whole continent, and the core War of the Lance timeframe starts out with no spellcasting clerics at all.

Within that framework there's fairly good mechanical accuracy on a number of things. Spell slots are generally a thing (high-level wizards never seem to run out, but it is a rare novel that features more than one major combat per day) if interpreted somewhat loosely. Monster abilities are generally portrayed rather accurately - Lord Soth, notably, has exactly the abilities attributed to a standard Death Knight, but high-level monsters are rare. Magical items are likewise portrayed accurately but tend to be very rare. I mean, I haven't read the entire Drizzt series, but I strongly suspect he's still using the same two swords he had at the end of The Halfling's Gem back in 1990.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-21, 10:38 PM
Dragonlance, for example, seems to operate on the understanding that there are no more than a couple hundred wizards on the whole continent, and the core War of the Lance timeframe starts out with no spellcasting clerics at all.


Isn't that because part of the background to the War of the Lance has the gods (who control arcane magic as well as divine magic) having retreated from the world? That's less setting/mechanics dissonance, but being faithful to a (non-traditional) setting.




Magical items are likewise portrayed accurately but tend to be very rare. I mean, I haven't read the entire Drizzt series, but I strongly suspect he's still using the same two swords he had at the end of The Halfling's Gem back in 1990.

I believe that's correct. And especially for the 3e era, that's something that the books do very differently than the games--you rarely saw much progression even over years in-universe in the fiction. I mean, the endless Elminster stories show him growing, but from "Super Over Powered Archmage to Even More Super Over Powered Archmage and Divine Vessel" (power levels relative to the things he's facing in the fiction, not to the game itself). But Drizzt really doesn't mechanically grow. He's still doing the same things, the same way. Sure, he might be able to take on more goblins at his peak than in the first novel, but not the zero-to-demigod progression familiar from 3e (at least). I don't have enough references outside fiction or video games for 2e's power progression, but I'm pretty sure it was more than that--at the end of Baldurs' Gate II (and the expansion), you're throwing down with dragons and demon lords and wading through pools of high-power blood. In the books, however, there's much less of that. Over a much longer timeframe. Same goes for item-based progression. Drizzt gets his kitty pretty darn early on (in the first book IIRC). That and his swords are really all the significant items he has, and he's had those for decades (in universe time). And they make a big deal out of Bruenor making a magic item in one of the Cleric Quintet (or maybe the Icewind Dale books? I forget), and it's not even that grand of an item (by game standards).

Mechalich
2020-08-22, 01:09 AM
Isn't that because part of the background to the War of the Lance has the gods (who control arcane magic as well as divine magic) having retreated from the world? That's less setting/mechanics dissonance, but being faithful to a (non-traditional) setting.

While divine magic is indeed deliberately reduced, the number of wizards is not presented as abnormal. There simply weren't that many of them. And if anything, that's sort of the general baseline. In the fiction that originally inspired D&D wizards existed, but there were far less numerous than warrior types and also far less concerned with the everyday goings on of the world. That was part of the setting balance. Ed Greenwood peeled that back to a considerable degree when he produced the Realms, and it just kind of kept on snowballing after that.


I don't have enough references outside fiction or video games for 2e's power progression, but I'm pretty sure it was more than that--at the end of Baldurs' Gate II (and the expansion), you're throwing down with dragons and demon lords and wading through pools of high-power blood.

In BGII, almost all your power growth except spellcasting, after level 10 comes from acquiring an ever better collection of items. In 2e AD&D character progression was greatly decreased from ~ level 10 onward (the precise level varied from one class to another) with HP gain dropping off massively and very few additional powers being acquired. Numbers continued to go up (or in the case of Thaco down) but the gains were quite marginal. Late-game 2e growth was heavily swag dependent. Drizzt is similar to this, when he first appears - in publishing order - in the Icewind Dale books, he's already a level 10-ish ranger. Mechanically whatever levels he gains thereafter only adjust his abilities marginally (well except his magic resistance, that one keeps getting better until he becomes practically immune to magic, since I think drow nobility capped at 85% in 2e).


Over a much longer timeframe. Same goes for item-based progression. Drizzt gets his kitty pretty darn early on (in the first book IIRC). That and his swords are really all the significant items he has, and he's had those for decades (in universe time). And they make a big deal out of Bruenor making a magic item in one of the Cleric Quintet (or maybe the Icewind Dale books? I forget), and it's not even that grand of an item (by game standards). Over a much longer timeframe. Same goes for item-based progression. Drizzt gets his kitty pretty darn early on (in the first book IIRC). That and his swords are really all the significant items he has, and he's had those for decades (in universe time).

Character's in fantasy fiction almost never engage in the kind of constant, item-based treadmill that D&D enforces upon players in certain editions. 2e did indeed mandate that characters constantly upgrade their weapons (in order to be able to actually damage high-level foes), and 3e set the players on a brutal item-based bonus curve that essentially has to be met for certain classes to retain playability (Pathfinder: Kingmaker embraces this fully, and it's annoying).

That, at least, it certain one thing to be kept in mind when comparing characters from outside D&D, and indeed even from D&D fiction, to how they would work in D&D - whatever they did in the base fiction, in game all equipment is going to be fungible for the next best bonus. Nobody's using a single heirloom sword for their whole career. Most video games already embrace this paradigm anyway though, so it's rarely something that bothers players much.

Enixon
2020-08-22, 01:56 AM
But Drizzt really doesn't mechanically grow. He's still doing the same things, the same way. Sure, he might be able to take on more goblins at his peak than in the first novel, but not the zero-to-demigod progression familiar from 3e (at least). I don't have enough references outside fiction or video games for 2e's power progression, but I'm pretty sure it was more than that--at the end of Baldurs' Gate II (and the expansion), you're throwing down with dragons and demon lords and wading through pools of high-power blood. In the books, however, there's much less of that. Over a much longer timeframe. Same goes for item-based progression. Drizzt gets his kitty pretty darn early on (in the first book IIRC). That and his swords are really all the significant items he has, and he's had those for decades (in universe time). And they make a big deal out of Bruenor making a magic item in one of the Cleric Quintet (or maybe the Icewind Dale books? I forget), and it's not even that grand of an item (by game standards).


I kind of feel like it should be pointed out that in the first book he appears in (The Crystal Shard) Drizzt kills a Balor in single combat. I'm not sure how much "power progress" he could really have after pulling a stunt like that in his first story.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-22, 07:22 AM
First, D&D has repeatedly made the claim to be THE universal fantasy genre RPG, and has failed to live up to that claim, across multiple editions. Don't blame the general playerbase for treating the claim seriously when they try to do things with D&D that it can't handle, blame D&D for making false promises.

Second, D&D actually is its own genre, and is really only capable of handling "D&D style power progression odd world fantasy" well.

Third, what D&D fiction I've read has either just ignored the rules, or followed the rules so closely you can practically see the author rolling dice during the combat scenes.

Fourth, you can RP with any system, the system doesn't need to deeply ingrain mechanics for it... and those systems that have attempted to do so have also tended to end up with "story" mechanics instead that still leave all the real RP to the players (including the GM) so that they're expected to RP the results on the dice instead of rolling the dice to resolve immediate discreet actions.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-22, 11:45 AM
First, D&D has repeatedly made the claim to be THE universal fantasy genre RPG, and has failed to live up to that claim, across multiple editions. Don't blame the general playerbase for treating the claim seriously when they try to do things with D&D that it can't handle, blame D&D for making false promises.

I 100% do blame D&D for this turn of events. I've spent years now trying to clarify that what D&D claims it can do and what D&D can actually do are quite different.




Fourth, you can RP with any system, the system doesn't need to deeply ingrain mechanics for it... and those systems that have attempted to do so have also tended to end up with "story" mechanics instead that still leave all the real RP to the players (including the GM) so that they're expected to RP the results on the dice instead of rolling the dice to resolve immediate discreet actions.

In my experience it might be better said that both the action the roll implies is less distinct, and the results are equally broad.

To pull out my Favorite Child again, Apocalypse World, the move "Act Under Fire" is the broadest most. In general, if you don't know what move an action should be, start with Act Under Fire.

When you Act Under Fire, you're doing something that has a risk of going badly, which isn't one of the other moves. It's not just Do A Thing While Getting Fired At By Guns. The Fire can be anything that presents a risk.

You wanna lie to the local warlord? Act Under Fire.
(The Fire is: the Warlord might see through you)
You wanna sneak past a guard? Act Under Fire.
(The Fire is: you might get caught)
You wanna escape a burning building? Act Under Fire.
(The Fire is:... the fire.)

On a success, you do it. Whatever you wanted to do, you do it. The warlord believes you, the guards know nothing and you're like a ghost, you escape the burning building with no trouble.

On a partial success, you do it, but... there's some problems. Whatever makes sense in the fiction.
The warlord believes you, but finds the story farfetched and she's gonna look into it later.
The guards don't see you, but you leave evidence of your presence behind that could cause you trouble later.
You get out of the burning building, but you had to leave some of your stuff, or you got separated from your friends, or you got a nasty burn when you shouldered that smoldering door down.

On a miss, things go wrong.
The warlord sees through your lies and is furious at your audacity and dishonesty.
Your foot catches on a rock and the guards hear you and are coming at you, weapons drawn.
You're stuck in the burning building. You'll probably live, but if you do it's because someone saved you who will expect big-time repayment. Or maybe escape just isn't an option and you've gotta do something else to survive, and it's your problem to figure out what.

So, it's less about "kick down this door, then that one, then that one, rolling each time." Which I agree with.
Dying at door 2 or door 3 is not meaningfully different than dying at door 1. Whichever door it is, you're now Extra Crispy. So why would I have you do it again unless I'm trying to increase your failure chance?

But hey, that's just my reasoning. Otherwise I'm pretty much in agreement. The fiction-first systems abstract a lot more, because the drama between the characters and their motivations and relationships are more interesting than knowing how many bullets you have left or the specific physics. It's a preference thing.

Quertus
2020-08-22, 12:25 PM
Let's see if I can tease this apart, to explain my take on things.

The core concept for any of my characters is y'all - that is, it's whatever aspect of humanity, of human psychology, of the human experience that I'm interested in exploring at the moment.

For Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, that concept was the inability of some to grow beyond a very low bar, to ever really "get it". After years of playing MtG or D&D or Monopoly or whatever, their apparent ceiling was lower than my floor when I first started, or otherwise indicative of a surprising lack of growth. I wanted to replicate that concept, and it was instantiated as a D&D Wizard.

If one were to find the core concept of Conan, and then instantiate it in D&D, it might well instate as a Psion, or a Cleric. But you won't know until you can divorce the notion of Conan from the visual imagery and everything else that makes him "not a Psion".

Then there are two things which are a lot harder to tease apart: the feel, and the interface.

The feel of Quertus is "great power held back by his own tactical ineptitude". The interface for Quertus is a vast array of spells and items, some obviously better than others.

The feel of Conan is maybe "muscle and skill and cunning against the world"? (I'm not a Conan fan). The interface - like all interfaces - will vary by the underlying system.

So, the system determines the interface. And that system / interface can greatly impact the feel of the character. For example, would rolling the dice to determine the outcome of a MtG match or a videogame have the same feel as playing those games? Of course not - otherwise, people wouldn't spend gobs of money on those hobbies.

And that's part of my problem with "universal" systems - they often don't allow me to replicate the *feel* that I'm after. I can't get the appropriate risk/reward of playing a 2e Wild Mage or a Cultist of Tzeentch in GURPS, for example. So it's not "universal" in any meaningful way to me.

Then there's more insidious bits to "feel". For example, suppose you create a character based on… Deku (Izuku Midoriya). If he doesn't seem like he does in My Hero Academia, then it won't feel like Deku. But how does Deku feel? Well, if you aren't winning and overshadowing your teammates as much as you'd expect to, you might think that the character doesn't *feel* like Deku. Just like if Conan isn't defeating Wizards with nothing but his sword, some might say that he doesn't *feel* like Conan. Those are both problematic and likely toxic versions of "feel".

So, if those are bad, what does a *good* version of "feel" look like? Well, maybe expecting a rock-scissors-paper relationship between infantry, cavalry, and archers, or expecting water to beat fire. However, these are things that happen at the *system* level. So trying to *force* these feels, expecting them from systems that do not deliver, is bad, too. But waiting for a system where that's true before playing your character that requires such feel, or building a character to match the feel of the system, is wise.

So, what's my takeaway? Well, note that I used examples throughout my explanation. So I'd say that using examples is fine; having expectations for a system that do not *start* with the system, and demanding them to be true, is not.

-----

Hmmm… that may be misleading. "Desires" are fine; "expectations" and "demands", not so much. So, I would love to see a Fighter so skilled, he can one-shot a Dragon. How many systems let you do that? D&D isn't one of them. Oh, sure, you can be so strong and so enchanted that your 3e übercharger can turn the dragon into a thin red paste. And you can get lucky with a Vorpal Blade in numerous editions. But *skilled*? Forget about it. Closest you can get is a 2e Thief / 3e Rogue - and x5 damage / 10d6 sneak attack at 20th doesn't slay a terribly large Dragon.

However, the Wizard gets the chance to one-shot the dragon with their SoD spells (at least, under a GM who plays fair rather than fudging the dice "for the narrative"). Of course, I'm not sure that I'd call that "skill" either - especially when (in 3e) a SoL is considered the optimal Wizard play vs a Dragon.

So, in D&D, it's really hard to psi a character who comes off as skilled (except wheel compared to the tactically inept Quertus, of course).

-----

On the mechanical side, I've invented new classes / kits / prestige classes / etc to match my particular vision of what a foo (Jedi, MtG mage, Cultist of Tzeentch, D&D Wizard) should look like mechanically in a given system… and then started with that addition to the system to build a character who is a foo. Here, the examples of, "but Luke/Yoda/Vader / a white/blue/black/red/green deck / Quertus could…" directed my creation of the new class / kit / prestige class / whatever, but not the creation of the character themselves.

-----

D&D supports role-playing better than most systems do… by having no rules for it, no rules or gameable mechanics to get in the way of role-playing. Although I'm not sure what that has to do with the main topic… :smallconfused:

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-22, 12:50 PM
D&D supports role-playing better than most systems do… by having no rules for it, no rules or gameable mechanics to get in the way of role-playing. Although I'm not sure what that has to do with the main topic… :smallconfused:

It doesn't. It started as a discussion about what the Core Gameplay Loop of D&D is, and the role playing thing was a red herring to all that since nobody ever argued about how it handles RP.

However, I'd say D&D is best for RP in the same way the best way to teach a child to draw is to turn them loose with some paint on an easel.

For some, that limitless freedom is exactly what they need and want.

For some, maybe more supports and helps are needed to prevent them from thinking they can't do what they want, or to feel intimidated by having nothing to guide them.

I'll put it this way:
Apocalypse World, over the course of one session, took my Brother-in-Law from a place of being very skeptical about roleplaying and very uncomfortable with it, to getting so invested in the characters that he was delivering lines in-character that were causing other players to cry.

Yes, that's extreme and uncommon. But I've played D&D with him and never got that sort of behavior out of him.

I played D&D with one player for years, who preferred to play a sorcerer and use spells to find creative solutions. His RP was basically none.

Exposed him to Apocalypse World, and now he's become a master of role playing deeply unsettling Brainers who have actual goals and wants that impact other players, even if they are strange.

So, yeah, sometimes having little nudges in the system to ask deep questions and an encouragement to engage on that level is helpful.

I mean, when was the last time you played D&D and got to watch a player ask another player "For what do you crave forgiveness, and from whom?" As part of the game? That stuff changes how people approach the character. It's not just numbers on ph so many pages, but a real-ish someone they portray.

But that's MY experience and I won't claim it as superior. Just that there's no One True Right Way to foster RP.

Grek
2020-08-22, 04:25 PM
Note that the DM is in control, and the dice (and other mechanics) are there to help if he needs them. They're tools he uses, they are not the game itself.

No, that's not quite right. D&D is a table top role playing game, and all three of those elements factor into decision making.

There is a table, with people arranged around it and doing things atop it. Questions like "Do I play this campaign?" or "Do I play a cleric instead of a barbarian this time?" or "Do we want to play Spelljammer or Forgotten Realms this time?" or "Who will be the DM for this adventure?" or "Are we going for a silly tone or a serious tone?" or "Which books are we using this campaign?" are all table-based decisions, questions which can only meaningfully be answered by conferring with your fellow players and arriving at a solution that satisfies everyone.

There are roles, which those people play. Some of the roles are played by the DM and some of those roles are played by the other players. Questions like "Which village would the Gnoll Warlord attack?" or "Are we working for the King, or against him?" or "How does your paladin feel about taking the dead bandit's horse?" or "Would the Drow sell us giant spider mounts if we agree to work for them?" are all role playing questions, which are basically answered by doing improv theatre based on your character or setting concept. There's no wrong answers except for answers that 'feel wrong' for the character/setting.

And finally, there is the game itself. The rules, the dice and the decisions that you make according to those mechanics. Sometimes this is prosaic stuff where the answer doesn't matter so much as the fact that there is a definitive answer, ie. "How fast can I get there if I ride my horse?" or "Can my barbarian lift this giant boulder, or not?" but sometimes they are very important: "Does the King notice the poison in his drink?" or "Are we strong enough to defeat a dragon, and if so how badly do we get hurt trying?" These sorts of questions can't be fairly answered by the players (including the DM), because there will always be the temptation to give the answer which benefits their character(s). Thus, rules and randomness within those rules.

When the 5e DMG says that the rules don't make the game, they are using the term expansively to encompass the entire D&D experience, trying to convey the notion that sometimes it is appropriate to ignore what the dice say in favour of doing what your table agrees is best (ie. if the Random Encounter Table for a module comes up with Giant Spiders and you have an arachnophobe at the table, there's no shame in the DM saying 'no, the random encounter is more wolves') or answering the question for storytelling reasons (ie. if the DM says 'actually, I didn't realize you could teleport, could you ignore that option and go through the forest anyways? I don't have the King's Court ready yet' you should roll with that instead).

But if you decide to cut out the rules and the dice entirely, you are no longer playing a table top role playing game, you're just role playing at a table. Which is fine, that is an ancient and respectable tradition that dates back to our ancestors telling stories around the campfire. But it isn't really D&D either, it's some other sort of entertainment. The entire premise of a TTRPG is that the game parts will improve the experience and will be incorporated into the night's activities on that basis. If you reject that premise, you're rejecting the notion that you should be playing D&D as opposed to Munchausen.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-22, 04:52 PM
@Grek

Yes, if you do something no one has suggested and literally never use any of the rules or roll any dice, you're likely not playing D&D.

However, the 5e DMG specifically mentions that dice and rules are there to help move the action along. In fact, it specifically says that it is fully, 100% ok to ignore the dice and just work off of what people do for scenarios that would normally call for ability checks. So the rules specifically say that the dice aren't needed. They also say that it's also fully, 100% ok to always call for a check and do whatever the dice say. They also say that it's fully, 100% ok to pick and choose.

The rules give the DM tremendous (in fact total) control. This does not mean that the DM is never wrong. Because that's measured based on the needs and agreements of the table, not the rules themselves. Sometimes, following the (other) printed rules is the wrong thing to do. Sometimes it's the right thing to do. By the rules themselves. The rules give the DM discretion, and in fact require the DM to exercise discretion.

Thus, the rules are tools to be used when they help and are useful. Which is a lot of the time, they're decent rules (for the things I want to do anyway, YMMV). But unlike a board game (where every possible action is specified in the rules and the rules form a contract between the players and define what is and is not possible), TTRPG rules are scaffolding to reduce the workload of the players and DM and to provide a common set of language and action resolution mechanics. As well as promote a shared headspace. But ultimately, the only rules that matter are the ones decided on by the players (including the DM). No outside observer can say "you're playing it wrong" as long as people have agreed to the rules that they're using. That's the essence of an open system.

Kyutaru
2020-08-22, 05:33 PM
But if you decide to cut out the rules and the dice entirely, you are no longer playing a table top role playing game, you're just role playing at a table. Which is fine, that is an ancient and respectable tradition that dates back to our ancestors telling stories around the campfire. But it isn't really D&D either, it's some other sort of entertainment.
The rules are also the lines of text in the books, not just charts and tables and numbers. Phoenix quoted pg 6 of the PHB on the previous page which goes over the process for how to play the game, mentioning no mandatory dice rolls to do so. In fact, the rule for How to Play itself states "The DM decides what happens, often relying on the roll of a die to determine the results of an action" but per the grammar and previous rules the clause is optional. The DM decides what happens is the rule, dice be damned. You're free to view it another way at your tables but are not free to tell people they aren't playing D&D.

The DMG is the place to see the contradictions, simultaneously claiming the world is ancient and the world is new, the world is magical and the world is mundane, monsters are everywhere and monsters are uncommon. It all depends on the setting which is determined by the DM and supported in the rules either way. This applies even to official campaign settings, which vary in rules and aren't uniform. They encourage homebrew content all over the book which would conflict with your idea of what D&D is as it alters the rules. D&D is made up of rules but no one said they were the ones the book provides by default, and even in cases where you use the book's rules they provide multiple options to choose from. Such as the Experience awards that can be done in multiple ways, not just by monster body counts, such as the previously mentioned Milestones, something that even the developer's official Adventurer League elects to use. All of this is mentioned in a CORE RULEBOOK.

What makes a D&D character special is customizing it to be your own instead of choosing from a template list. What makes a D&D world special is customizing it in the same way. The table rules are another part of that which the DMG completely supports being selective over throughout it while offering multiple answers to the same questions.

pg 236 The Roll of Dice
Dice are neutral arbiters. They can determine the outcome of an action without assigning any motivation to the DM and without playing favorites. The extent to which you use them is entirely up to you.

pg 236 Ignoring the Dice
One approach is to use dice as rarely as possible. Some DMs use them only during combat, and determine success or failure as they like in other situations. With this approach, the DM decides whether an action or a plan succeeds or fails based on how well the players make their case, how thorough or creative they are, or other factors.

pg 236 The Middle Path
Many DMs find that using a combination of the two approaches works best. By balancing the use of dice against deciding on success, you can encourage your players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in the world. Remember that dice don't run your game -- you do.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-22, 07:42 PM
The rules are also the lines of text in the books, not just charts and tables and numbers.....[truncated for space]

Again, D&D is super skittish about suggesting a Correct Way To Play D&D, since this would run counter to their claim that D&D is the Fantasy Omnisystem.

The problem being that, sure, you can just have the DM call for no rolls and just decide arbitrarily how things happen. I myself played that way. Once... when I was 13. And it sucked. And not just because my DM was also 13. (Though that factored heavily.)

However, here's the thing:
Everything you're quoting from the DMG is true of literally every TRPG whether it's listed in the book or not. There is no Tabletop Police to come and chuck you in the Dice Cage for not playing by the rules. Literally everything quoted is basically "But remember: Rule 0 exists."

Sure, yeah, but the existence of rule 0 doesn't change what D&D was DESIGNED to be and how it was DESIGNED to work.

If D&D was designed to work without dice rolls, why are dice listed *everywhere?*
Why does everyone have HitDice?
Why does it specify the types of dice each weapon uses?
Why does it measure darn near everything numerical in Dice?

Probably because it was *designed to use dice.*

Do you honestly think the r&d team went and played the game with dice and then without dice to make sure everything worked the same both ways?
Do you really think they did all the math twice to make sure both diced and diceless were equally well balanced?

Or did they design the game one way and put in a paragraph that says "but we can't stop you from playing it some other way" as if that's a grand revelation?

These quotes don't mean anything, they're ALTERNATIVE rules, not CORE rules (aside from Rule 0 but let's be real here, that doesn't need to be codified) and so holding them up as being equally designed around is, has been, and remains...
Absurd.

Quertus
2020-08-23, 01:37 PM
It doesn't. It started as a discussion about what the Core Gameplay Loop of D&D is, and the role playing thing was a red herring to all that since nobody ever argued about how it handles RP.

However, I'd say D&D is best for RP in the same way the best way to teach a child to draw is to turn them loose with some paint on an easel.

For some, that limitless freedom is exactly what they need and want.

For some, maybe more supports and helps are needed to prevent them from thinking they can't do what they want, or to feel intimidated by having nothing to guide them.

I'll put it this way:
Apocalypse World, over the course of one session, took my Brother-in-Law from a place of being very skeptical about roleplaying and very uncomfortable with it, to getting so invested in the characters that he was delivering lines in-character that were causing other players to cry.

Yes, that's extreme and uncommon. But I've played D&D with him and never got that sort of behavior out of him.

I played D&D with one player for years, who preferred to play a sorcerer and use spells to find creative solutions. His RP was basically none.

Exposed him to Apocalypse World, and now he's become a master of role playing deeply unsettling Brainers who have actual goals and wants that impact other players, even if they are strange.

So, yeah, sometimes having little nudges in the system to ask deep questions and an encouragement to engage on that level is helpful.

I mean, when was the last time you played D&D and got to watch a player ask another player "For what do you crave forgiveness, and from whom?" As part of the game? That stuff changes how people approach the character. It's not just numbers on ph so many pages, but a real-ish someone they portray.

But that's MY experience and I won't claim it as superior. Just that there's no One True Right Way to foster RP.

"Best", not "right".

Your example about drawing is *perfect*. Last I knew, modern child's psychology said that young children should be given blank paper and asked to draw a lion (or just to draw), rather than being given an outline of a lion. And, clearly, at the high end, you wouldn't have gotten the Sistine Chapel (or any growth in any art) from stencils.

Same thing with role-playing. It's best not to stifle beginners with one particular stilted definition / style of role-playing. And the most advanced roleplayers will be held back by most frameworks.

However, there's a large middle ground where different tools can have various uses. As my attempts at "art" readily demonstrate.

So, as a gateway RPG, and to show for the highest ceiling, D&D has chosen the "best" answer in doing nothing.

Also, "best" is not a synonym for "universal". No, not even in the phrase "best practices". However, I do think that it was good to expose your friend to "no framework" first, so that you could accurately perceive the value that the system has on his performance.

But D&D could have multiple *optional* rules, or 5e's… bonds/goals(?)… without the system becoming completely suboptimal for role-playing - and it'd be more universal for that "middle" crowd in the process.

Or maybe that's what house rules and experience with other systems is for. Maybe blank canvases don't need to come with stencils attached.

EDIT: and, as fast as knowing things OOC, like "from whom they crave forgiveness"? I'd rather not taint my role-playing that way.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-23, 02:03 PM
"Best", not "right".

Your example about drawing is *perfect*. Last I knew, modern child's psychology said that young children should be given blank paper and asked to draw a lion (or just to draw), rather than being given an outline of a lion. And, clearly, at the high end, you wouldn't have gotten the Sistine Chapel (or any growth in any art) from stencils.

Same thing with role-playing. It's best not to stifle beginners with one particular stilted definition / style of role-playing. And the most advanced roleplayers will be held back by most frameworks.

However, there's a large middle ground where different tools can have various uses. As my attempts at "art" readily demonstrate.

So, as a gateway RPG, and to show for the highest ceiling, D&D has chosen the "best" answer in doing nothing.

Also, "best" is not a synonym for "universal". No, not even in the phrase "best practices". However, I do think that it was good to expose your friend to "no framework" first, so that you could accurately perceive the value that the system has on his performance.

But D&D could have multiple *optional* rules, or 5e's… bonds/goals(?)… without the system becoming completely suboptimal for role-playing - and it'd be more universal for that "middle" crowd in the process.

Or maybe that's what house rules and experience with other systems is for. Maybe blank canvases don't need to come with stencils attached.

Not only that, but tools are useful in some circumstances and for some tastes and for some people and not others.

I've taught lots of people D&D at this point--a dozen or more groups of almost entirely new players over the last five years. You know who the best roleplayers were? Not the ones with experience in TTRPGs. It was the new players. And especially the kids. The best, most fleshed out character, played the best I've seen in a long time came from my 8-year-old nephew, who'd never played before. He got super into it, came up with a simple, but well-suited character, and played it to the hilt. And generally, the ones least familiar with the tropes and "concepts" and "builds" made the characters with the most heart and who were the most connected to the setting[0].

The worst roleplayers I've ever had the misfortune of dealing with were long-time grognards, familiar with a bunch of different systems. They tended to treat their characters as mere bundles of mechanics--if there wasn't a mechanic that forced them to act a certain way, they'd look for the most mechanically-optimal route. Even if that didn't fit their character at all. The "noble samurai, bound by honor"...who had no compunctions about forcibly robbing someone because it was easier than talking to them and having to possibly pay money. The group of "noble" characters who completely blamed the mess they made all on another character who tried to do the right thing. Etc. Basically, they were chaotic evil wearing a false skin. But that's not the characters they built at all. Now correlation isn't causation. So I'm not saying that experiencing other systems or with TTRPGs in general makes you a worse roleplayer--that's just false. But it certainly is no guarantee (or even strong affect).

For me, "roleplaying mechanics" are worse than useless--they impose a "you must play this way" stricture that rarely fits what I want to do. There's a clear "this is the right way and that's the wrong way" to play in those systems. I want that to come from the setting and the events and the characters, not to be imposed from the outside by the rule system.

Others may vary, and good for them. But games are not inherently better or worse for having more or fewer "roleplaying mechanics"--it's just one choice about system design among many.

[0] probably the absolute single most important element in character design for me (especially when I'm the DM) is how the character fits into the world. It's one reason I want to be involved in character creation, so that I can help mold the world to the character and the character to the world. To find the places the character would be from, what they would know, how people would react to them. It's one reason I'm so dead-set against crude out-of-universe imports and expies--they never fit the world right. Same with complex backstories made in isolation--I'm totally willing to work with a player to fit their backstory into the world. There's tons of room for that. But there's also a lot of pre-existing stuff, and it has to remain consistent. Some races only live in certain areas, and nowhere else (halflings, I'm looking at you). Some cultures don't have nobles at all. Some cultures are landlocked. Inserting a mal-fitting character means that I, as the DM, have no way of knowing what that character would know. Which means that I can't do my usual to feed information to the character. They're a blank spot, bereft of ties to the world or to the situations. And that rankles a bit.

Quertus
2020-08-23, 03:11 PM
It's one reason I'm so dead-set against crude out-of-universe imports and expies--they never fit the world right.

Inserting a mal-fitting character means that I, as the DM, have no way of knowing what that character would know. Which means that I can't do my usual to feed information to the character. They're a blank spot, bereft of ties to the world or to the situations. And that rankles a bit.

Off topic, but, out of curiosity… pretend you built an open world, and someone brought an existing character who mechanically could travel there.

You'd be under no obligation to tell them what they know - because they obviously would know approximately nothing about that world. You would only have an obligation to be their eyes and ears, to explain what they *perceive*.

Would that "rankle"? Why / why not?

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-23, 04:03 PM
Off topic, but, out of curiosity… pretend you built an open world, and someone brought an existing character who mechanically could travel there.

You'd be under no obligation to tell them what they know - because they obviously would know approximately nothing about that world. You would only have an obligation to be their eyes and ears, to explain what they *perceive*.

Would that "rankle"? Why / why not?

Setting aside the "it can't happen because the metaphysics don't allow it" concerns, let me rank what would rankle from most rankle to least.

Someone from entirely outside the known universe (ie from another world with no connection to the current one). Here the issue is mismatch--I know exactly what the character knows, which is nothing. So all Intelligence DCs (other than Investigation) are DC: No, you know nothing. All Wisdom DCs are DC: No, you have no way of understanding anything you're perceiving. All social DCs are DC:No, because you have no way of communicating or understanding the local customs. I have no scale to judge how your physical abilities match (or don't) those of people on this world, so...all physical DCs are wildcards. That character has no (or completely unknown) access to the local magic. Because the rules are not the physics. They can't be--they're incoherent if used for that. I have no way of judging anything. So I'd have to make a whole bunch of on-the-fly guesses and rulings to fit them in.

This kind of character would be the most annoying--it means that I can't rely on any shared understanding of anything and have to basically give huge info-dumps every time I turn around, or leave the character completely out of everything. To me, that would feel like an attempt to hog the attention of the DM, because that's what it would require to DM for them and bring them into the fiction. And it says that the player isn't interested in be part of the world, but just a tourist. And, rightly or wrongly, that feels like a rejection of the world I've spent so much time and energy to build.

Someone from an undeveloped part of the known world who just arrived--say someone from another continent that I know exists but know nothing about. As long as the race isn't too weird, or it's one that has existence in the world, this one isn't as bad. The physical abilities are known, the metaphysics is compatible, etc. But the culture will be completely different and alien, as will the language and the history. So they won't be making any Intelligence (History) checks, and anything else like that will be at disadvantage (at best). And any Charisma checks will be at disadvantage, at least in the beginning.

Someone with an unusual background (ie from off the map) but who has been in the main area for a while. This one is pretty much fine. Sure, you're an exotic. But I expect adventurers to have picked things up pretty fast. So you'd know the language (with an accent). You'd have some understanding of the culture. And if you said you were curious, you'd probably have some ability to even know local religions and history. I'd probably not even have to assign any penalties. I'd not be able to be as generous with the automatic success knowledge things like I'd be for anyone who grew up around here, but you wouldn't be at disadvantage.

Someone from the known universe, but from the "wrong" area. A halfling from an area that halflings don't canonically exist in. Or a goblin without a tribe[0]. This would be weird and take adjustment--I'd have to figure out why and how such a thing was possible. But would be doable, if I liked the concept and the rough backstory. I'd really prefer that the player comes to me with this idea and lets me write it into the existing world, however. Maybe there really are halflings there, and I just don't know about them yet. Sounds like it could be interesting. This one would be an opportunity to collaborate with the player to build what they know and what they don't know.

-----------
I'm very generous with not requiring knowledge-type checks for things that the character, based on background (including region of origin), race, class, and backstory, etc, would just know. Checks are for details. But I'm also relatively hardline with refusing memory-type checks for things the character can't know. I don't care what the rules say--if this is the only one of this type of beast in existence and it was created yesterday, no Intelligence (X) check will tell you anything more than what you directly perceive. Even if it's totally non-threatening (ie CR 0). If the information has been hidden by the gods, no amount of raw intelligence is going to reveal it to you. That's only going to come through the events of the game itself. So for a character from completely outside the world, everything is in this DC: No, success not possible situation. And I have to tell you every single thing and the character has to experience it themselves. Effectively, they'd be an infant in an adult body. Incapable of knowing anything about the world until they'd experienced it themselves. And that bogs everything down entirely.

I have the same issue with isekai anime--they make no sense. Alien worlds have alien laws, including laws of nature. Unless you have a divine source pumping that info into your brain (and even then) you'd be completely incapable. You wouldn't even know what questions to ask. And that doesn't make a good party member IMO.

[0] This one has actually happened, and we figured it out. Normally as a setting thing goblins are tied to their tribe because they share a huge chunk of their mid- and long-term memory space with the tribe, so a tribeless goblin only has a very short memory. Other than the genetically hard-coded stuff, they're like cats on meth with opposable thumbs. Almost literally out of sight, out of mind. Very little object persistence beyond a minute or so. Not exactly appropriate adventuring material.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-23, 04:27 PM
"Best", not "right".

Your example about drawing is *perfect*. Last I knew, modern child's psychology said that young children should be given blank paper and asked to draw a lion (or just to draw), rather than being given an outline of a lion. And, clearly, at the high end, you wouldn't have gotten the Sistine Chapel (or any growth in any art) from stencils.

Having spent the last 6 years working with children, this is the exact opposite of how you teach them a skill.

It also runs counter to what any artist has ever said to me personally or spoken about in terms of learning to draw. Artists very, very rarely learn in a vacuum, or do so without being taught the basics of composition, anatomy, form, depth, shading, etc.

Anything you don't know how to do when you pop out of the womb is a skill, and we've known a lot about how humans most successfuly aquire skills. And it's rarely to give them a problem and wait.



Same thing with role-playing. It's best not to stifle beginners with one particular stilted definition / style of role-playing. And the most advanced roleplayers will be held back by most frameworks.


Except I've had far more experience in the opposite direction. I'm something of a theatre kid and I got into roleplay before I got into D&D, and I'm also a major outlier in how people come into the system. I was always ok with doing RP. Problem was, very rarely was anyone else at the table into it as much as I was across the various tables.

Being hands-off only helps improve the role-playing experience of those who either:
1. Are experienced enough that they don't need/want the RP part (I don't need them by any stretch. I do freeform RP all the dang time and I don't exactly get complaints.)
2. Are naturally going to take to it like a duck to water.




However, there's a large middle ground where different tools can have various uses. As my attempts at "art" readily demonstrate.

So, as a gateway RPG, and to show for the highest ceiling, D&D has chosen the "best" answer in doing nothing.
I think there's a weird idea that if a system provides supports for RP or has any location where RP and Mechanics bleed over, then they must be restrictive to RP.

Let me address this:
Apocalypse World has an End Of Session Move, which involves last-minute recordkeeping and a few other bits. One of which is the History (or Hx) move.
The Hx move goes like this:
Choose a character who knew you more by the end of this session. Tell them to increase their Hx with you by +1. OR, choose a character who knows you less now. Tell them to decrease their Hx with you by -1. If neither applies, choose arbitrarily.

So... how would this prevent you from roleplaying Quertus as usual, especially given that Hx has exactly two mechanical function, one which gives 1 xp when it triggers and the other which almost never comes up? (The Help/Interfere action. The former can only help you, obviously, and the latter is only in moments of PvP which... I think I've only had one campaign out of the 10+ I've run that had even a single Interfere roll.




Also, "best" is not a synonym for "universal". No, not even in the phrase "best practices". However, I do think that it was good to expose your friend to "no framework" first, so that you could accurately perceive the value that the system has on his performance.

Though he is one, I can say that this experience has been repeated with literally every player I've had come from D&D to Apocalypse World save for one, who actively didn't like RP and played D&D for the builds.



But D&D could have multiple *optional* rules, or 5e's… bonds/goals(?)… without the system becoming completely suboptimal for role-playing - and it'd be more universal for that "middle" crowd in the process.

Or maybe that's what house rules and experience with other systems is for. Maybe blank canvases don't need to come with stencils attached.

If what you want is a blank canvas, then certainly it should remain blank.

But to put forth that D&D's approach is literally the BEST approach across all available approaches is...
Elevating preference to the level of gospel, really.

D&D is best *only for those who want a hands-off approach to RP from the system.*

New Players who have never Roleplayed before in their lives (ie, haven't picked up that skill) aren't going to be exposed to "Ok now come up with a backstory and motivations and xyz so you can roleplay" with 0 guidance and just succeed automatically 99% of the time.

As I've said, nobody has to codify HOW YOU SHOULD RP THE CHARACTER to support RP and help players think about their character's motivations. There's a billion ways to do that which don't hinder RP at all. There's also ways that do, for sure, but saying "hey, this system has really supported my players in their RP" doesn't mean it hands them a script and director's notes.

BoringInfoGuy
2020-08-23, 04:44 PM
So, at this point I am not sure that everyone is using the same operational definition of roleplaying.

Be certain that everyone is NOT using the same operational definition of Roleplaying.

The classic style of Roleplaying is to have your character react as if he was a real person living in the game world. Thinking “in character” is name of the game. Once you have the concept down, you need to have very few rules about the Roleplaying aspect of the game. To clarify, I’m not saying that you can make do with a few rules about Roleplaying with room to add more. Game mechanics tied to Roleplaying can get in the way Roleplaying. Since it was said that Roleplaying is required in a PbtA, but only optional in D&D 5e To get why, let’s look at PbtA games.

PbtA is short for Powered by the Apocalypse, and refers to a family of games that use the same core mechanics developed for Apocalypse World.

I’m most familiar with the Sprawl, a cyber punk themed PbtA game. Most of the Gameplay takes place in two phases. The Legwork phase which starts with the Get the Job move and the Action Phase, which ends with the Get Paid move.

During the Legwork phase, players are likely to use the Declare a Contact move. The Player creates the contact, giving them a name, description, and explanation why some type of favor is owed between the contact and their character. Doing so adds to both their own characters story and adds a NPC to the game world.

When a player chooses to use Declare Contact, it is purely a player move. If you were a person living in The Sprawl, you could not suddenly decide you know a guy named Benji that is willing to sell you the ammo used in the prototype weapon you stole from the MegaCorp he works for. You simply cannot be thinking “in character” when creating an NPC.

If I’m trying to describe how a PbtA game is different than classic Roleplaying, Declare Contact is the best example I know to illustrate the difference.

If I’m looking for a classic Roleplaying experience, PbtA is a terrible system. It has some Roleplaying elements, but the game is about the mechanics that force you to stop thinking in character. Decide as your character that you want to fight? Use the Mix It Up move. You can fail, succeed, or succeed with complications. When the player gets complications he needs to pick two from a short list. That decision point is for the player to make as a storyteller, tweaking the direction of the narrative.

But PbtA games are not trying to give the classic Roleplaying experience. By design and intent, it delivers something very different. As a player, you have to think about, add to, and make decisions about the story. The one thing you don’t have to do is make any decisions about your character as if they lived in that world. You can, but better to think as a storyteller and decide what you want to happen to your character for the larger story.

Some may argue that PbtA games ARE Roleplaying games, but that is like trying to discuss the merits of Football while acting like American Football and Soccer Football are supposed to be the same game. You can point out some common elements, sure. But you end up with complaints that American Football does not have enough ball kicking and Soccer Football only has one player per team that seems to know how to grab the ball. Different games have different expectations. Having different descriptors helps you discuss games on their own merits.

D&D is the progenitor of Classic Roleplaying. As a player, the game is about making decisions for your character as if you were that character living in the game world.

PbtA is a Narrative / Storytelling system. As a player, the game is about making decisions about the story and how you want it to go.

Which is why complaining about the lack of narrative mechanics in 5e misses the point. It’s not a Narrative game. Yes, it does have a few Narrative mechanics, like Inspiration. But they are small in scope and effect. If you want to enjoy playing D&D 5e, (or any edition besides 4th), you have to sit down expecting a classic Roleplaying experience.

Adding PbtA or similar mechanics to D&D would not make it a better Roleplaying game, it would move it to being a Narrative game.

Final note. Neither type of game is BadWrongFun. But if you are trying to play either type of game with the Wrong set of expectations, it won’t be Fun, and the game design looks Bad.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-23, 05:04 PM
Final note. Neither type of game is BadWrongFun. But if you are trying to play either type of game with the Wrong set of expectations, it won’t be Fun, and the game design looks Bad.

Amen to that. All things in context and in support of the goals of the system. Mechanics and design that works for one system and its goals won't necessarily work for another system and its goals. And neither one is wrong or bad for doing so. Just different.

AdAstra
2020-08-23, 05:58 PM
Amen to that. All things in context and in support of the goals of the system. Mechanics and design that works for one system and its goals won't necessarily work for another system and its goals. And neither one is wrong or bad for doing so. Just different.

I will say that flexibility (if it's actually good flexibility, and not just being mediocre at everything) is generally a strength. Being able to run many different kinds of game with the same system is a virtue if held in isolation. But having a specific intended experience and way of playing is not a bad thing, either.

Cluedrew
2020-08-23, 06:07 PM
Your example about drawing is *perfect*. Last I knew, modern child's psychology said that young children should be given blank paper and asked to draw a lion (or just to draw), rather than being given an outline of a lion. And, clearly, at the high end, you wouldn't have gotten the Sistine Chapel (or any growth in any art) from stencils.You are also not going to do it without any paint brushes. And completely open role-playing doesn't give you a lot of tools either. Now this does depend on how "completely open" we are talking about, see part 3.


I've taught lots of people D&D at this point--a dozen or more groups of almost entirely new players over the last five years. You know who the best roleplayers were? Not the ones with experience in TTRPGs. It was the new players. And especially the kids.I have also noticed something a lot like this. Except it isn't "with experience in TTRPGs" its "with experience in D&D and little else". If they played all sorts of systems or none at all they are pretty good. If they have only played D&D then maybe you should watch out more.

Of course this is just an anecdote, I can't use it to prove anything. But I think it is because in the end D&D encourages you to do all those mechanically optimal things at the expense of role-playing and eventually it becomes a habit.



So, at this point I am not sure that everyone is using the same operational definition of roleplaying.Be certain that everyone is NOT using the same operational definition of Roleplaying.I'm also confused about what people mean by "role-playing mechanics".

The way people have been using it for most of the thread in a way that made me think it was talking about any mechanics that directly inform role-playing. Things that represent personality, social influence, mental health and so on (my thoughts on those are laid out in great detail in this thread (https://forums.giantitp.com/showthread.php?504803-It-s-not-my-fault-I-am-just-doing-what-the-dice-say-my-character-would-do!)). Here we seem to be talking about meta/narrative-level/abstract mechanics. Which is actually a separate idea even if they come up in many of the same systems.

So which one are we talking about? Are we talking about both? Even if we are talking they aren't the same thing and you can't make the same arguments about both.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-23, 06:16 PM
Be certain that everyone is NOT using the same operational definition of Roleplaying.

The classic style of Roleplaying is to have your character react as if he was a real person living in the game world. Thinking “in character” is name of the game. Once you have the concept down, you need to have very few rules about the Roleplaying aspect of the game. To clarify, I’m not saying that you can make do with a few rules about Roleplaying with room to add more. Game mechanics tied to Roleplaying can get in the way Roleplaying. Since it was said that Roleplaying is required in a PbtA, but only optional in D&D 5e To get why, let’s look at PbtA games.

PbtA is short for Powered by the Apocalypse, and refers to a family of games that use the same core mechanics developed for Apocalypse World.

I’m most familiar with the Sprawl, a cyber punk themed PbtA game. Most of the Gameplay takes place in two phases. The Legwork phase which starts with the Get the Job move and the Action Phase, which ends with the Get Paid move.

During the Legwork phase, players are likely to use the Declare a Contact move. The Player creates the contact, giving them a name, description, and explanation why some type of favor is owed between the contact and their character. Doing so adds to both their own characters story and adds a NPC to the game world.

When a player chooses to use Declare Contact, it is purely a player move. If you were a person living in The Sprawl, you could not suddenly decide you know a guy named Benji that is willing to sell you the ammo used in the prototype weapon you stole from the MegaCorp he works for. You simply cannot be thinking “in character” when creating an NPC.

If I’m trying to describe how a PbtA game is different than classic Roleplaying, Declare Contact is the best example I know to illustrate the difference.


The Declare Contact move is pretty dang unique to The Sprawl, and the Gameplay Phases are EXTREMELY unique to The Sprawl.

It's one of the most atypical PbtA games there is, so using it as an example of what they generally are is... flawed.



If I’m looking for a classic Roleplaying experience, PbtA is a terrible system.
If "To the players: your job is to play your characters as though they were real people, in whatever circumstances they find themselves—cool, competent, dangerous people, larger than life, but real." Is somehow different from "thinking in character" then please explain how.

When describing what a PbtA game is, maybe try the core system rather than an unusual offshoot.



It has some Roleplaying elements, but the game is about the mechanics that force you to stop thinking in character. Decide as your character that you want to fight? Use the Mix It Up move. You can fail, succeed, or succeed with complications. When the player gets complications he needs to pick two from a short list.

There can be outcomes that you select, yes, but these are rarely some deep story-shattering effect. In the original system, it's stuff like (if you succeed), "deal +1 Harm" or "take control of it", the "it" being the thing you wanted.



That decision point is for the player to make as a storyteller, tweaking the direction of the narrative.
Sorta. But to say this is unique to PbtA is being wildy disingenuous, as if D&D players don't have similar abilities (and stronger ones, even. Just try and tell me Teleport doesn't have stronger narrative influence than "deal a bit more damage".)



But PbtA games are not trying to give the classic Roleplaying experience. By design and intent, it delivers something very different. As a player, you have to think about, add to, and make decisions about the story. The one thing you don’t have to do is make any decisions about your character as if they lived in that world. You can, but better to think as a storyteller and decide what you want to happen to your character for the larger story.

I honestly don't think you've ever played a PbtA game.



PbtA is a Narrative / Storytelling system. As a player, the game is about making decisions about the story and how you want it to go.

Yuup. You've definitely never actually played a PbtA game. That or your MC for Sprawl was terrible.

THEN AGAIN, Sprawl actively gets flak among PbtA games since the characters are such a small piece of the machine. GRANTED, the characters are meant to feel like insignificant cogs grinding against the immense, people-eating machines that are the Corps. Which makes it EXTRA weird in PbtA terms since most PbtA games have the Characters as the most important characters in the story.



Which is why complaining about the lack of narrative mechanics in 5e misses the point. It’s not a Narrative game. Yes, it does have a few Narrative mechanics, like Inspiration. But they are small in scope and effect. If you want to enjoy playing D&D 5e, (or any edition besides 4th), you have to sit down expecting a classic Roleplaying experience.

Adding PbtA or similar mechanics to D&D would not make it a better Roleplaying game, it would move it to being a Narrative game.

Final note. Neither type of game is BadWrongFun. But if you are trying to play either type of game with the Wrong set of expectations, it won’t be Fun, and the game design looks Bad.

To clarify:
I never said D&D's design was bad. I don't know why that attitude keeps creeping in as if I'm screeching that it's bad.

It is what it is.

But as per my many years playing MORE THAN ONE PbtA system, this take on what PbtA systems is about as accurate as using Lancer as an example of how 4e worked. Yes, it carries a lot over, but there's a LOT of new stuff added on.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-23, 06:24 PM
I will say that flexibility (if it's actually good flexibility, and not just being mediocre at everything) is generally a strength. Being able to run many different kinds of game with the same system is a virtue if held in isolation. But having a specific intended experience and way of playing is not a bad thing, either.

If flexibility is a goal of the system, flexibility is good. But, like every other design decision (other than "don't be FATAL"), it has tradeoffs and requires compromises. Generally, flexibility and detail are in tension (not opposition per se, but tension). And flexibility is often scope limited. Even GURPS isn't totally flexible--getting anything other than "gritty, death is easy once combat starts" out of it requires significant work (from what I understand). In addition, "many different kinds of games" has definitional problems. And there's flexibility at multiple levels--flexibility in rules, flexibility in genres of games, flexibility in how much combat is expected, flexibility in DM style, flexibility in worldbuilding, etc.

So what I'm saying is yes. And no. And "it's complicated." But systems that lie about their goals and allowed styles shouldn't do that. If the game is going to be dogmatic about the allowed styles, it should just say so. For a given quality level, generic isn't better than specific, it's just different, with different tradeoffs chosen. And, personally, I take the puffery from previous editions of D&D about being generic as being just that. Puffery that they shouldn't have said, because in practice it's very much less so. You can still do a lot of different styles, but from a much more restricted palette than, say, FATE or GURPS. And restricted in different ways.

Fortunately for me, personally, 5e does 90% of what I really want from a system and supports my preferred styles pretty darn well, with the flexibility I need where I need it and the stable support in places I'd rather not have move. In fact, I find that I rarely have to adjust rules, although I often adjust content (mainly lore). The system's rules are adjustable enough within the rules themselves and have large swaths of expected DM involvement rather than being legalistic and locked down. But most of the classes are built on strong-enough archetypes that fit the world-styles I like so they need little adjustment, same with the basic core resolution mechanics. But the game also supports a wide variation of worlds and world-details, which lets me scratch the worldbuilding urge. And it supports the style of roleplaying I prefer (the Classic style mentioned above), and doesn't force the players into Author stance. And it's flexible about optimization levels, letting me play at different levels for different groups without really worrying about trivially broken things.

But that's entirely all personal taste. I can totally agree that it wouldn't fit for other people. That doesn't make it good or bad, just not suited.

Cluedrew
2020-08-23, 06:27 PM
Sorta. But to say this is unique to PbtA is being wildy disingenuous, as if D&D players don't have similar abilities (and stronger ones, even. Just try and tell me Teleport doesn't have stronger narrative influence than "deal a bit more damage".)I assumed they were talking about mechanics that let you make a decision the character doesn't make. Which are taboo in some circles because its not in-character (and not in D&D so they aren't used to it). Actually of the narrative role-playing games I know Powered by the Apocalypse systems tend to have the least. But as it is more than one system it is hard to measure.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-23, 06:38 PM
As far as PbtA goes, I've never actually played it. But I did read the core rules. The thing that jumped out at me from that was that it was very opinionated at the meta level. That there is One True Way To Play a PbtA game (which depends on the exact offshoot, but it's designed around very confining meta rules). This is backed up by reading lots of discussion from people wondering why it's not working for them, and others responding that it's because they deviated from the One True Way To Play (most often on the GM side of things).

And the character design seems to be highly straitjacketed. Since everything follows from the fiction (ie your Moves don't trigger unless you set up the fiction to trigger them), and the playbooks are highly built around very tight archetypes (no matter how you dress them up), you have to play each playbook pretty-much by the book or your stuff just won't trigger at all. It's designed to force you down a particular path. Or so it felt on a read through.

To me that feels very inorganic and forced. It is likely just my perception, but it stood out as highly repellent to my preferred style (which wants to focus on the world first and have characters that organically grow based on what they do, rather than having to fit some pre-determined mold). It felt like it wasn't trying to teach you to play an actual person but instead teaching you to play a caricature of a real person, dominated by a few things and with everything hinging on living up to those stereotypes. There's almost certainly more depth there, but the surface was enough to push me away entirely.

Cluedrew
2020-08-23, 07:02 PM
Sort of? Powered by the Apocalypse systems are (without exception I have found) focused. Why is there a "Powered by the Apocalypse" family? Well it is because Apocalypse World is masterpiece of system design. People saw it, got excited and then realized that it was focused on a very particular type of game that wasn't the one they wanted. So they took it apart and put it back together again to suit the game they wanted and from that came a bunch of Apocalypse World hacks. Eventually that got formalized into the Powered by the Apocalypse family and that is roughly where we are today.

So yes there is a one true way to play a Powered by the Apocalypse system. The way it was designed to be played. On one hand yes they are inflexible. On the other hand if your campaign matches that system they do so well. ALL of the best campaigns I have been in have been Powered by the Apocalypse systems and part of that is they don't have to compromise. They don't need mass market appeal not do they have to allow for half a dozen different campaign formats. Everything they have chosen is to make this one type of game the best it could be. The other parts of why my best campaigns were all in Powered by the Apocalypse are luck and the fact that the best GM I know only runs Powered by the Apocalypse.

As for characters... yeah that comes down to which system you pick, every one I have played has one play-book for all characters.

On Role-Playing Mechanic: Are we talking about personality or storytelling mechanics here? (I think the name should apply to the first one personally.)

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-23, 07:13 PM
Sort of? Powered by the Apocalypse systems are (without exception I have found) focused. Why is there a "Powered by the Apocalypse" family? Well it is because Apocalypse World is masterpiece of system design. People saw it, got excited and then realized that it was focused on a very particular type of game that wasn't the one they wanted. So they took it apart and put it back together again to suit the game they wanted and from that came a bunch of Apocalypse World hacks. Eventually that got formalized into the Powered by the Apocalypse family and that is roughly where we are today.

So yes there is a one true way to play a Powered by the Apocalypse system. The way it was designed to be played. On one hand yes they are inflexible. On the other hand if your campaign matches that system they do so well. ALL of the best campaigns I have been in have been Powered by the Apocalypse systems and part of that is they don't have to compromise. They don't need mass market appeal not do they have to allow for half a dozen different campaign formats. Everything they have chosen is to make this one type of game the best it could be. The other parts of why my best campaigns were all in Powered by the Apocalypse are luck and the fact that the best GM I know only runs Powered by the Apocalypse.


That (the focus) is a great thing, if what you want to play fits that style really well. And if it doesn't..... So in a sense, it's like my feeling about Apple products. If you stay in their "expected, happy path", things are great. Everything's smooth, intuitive, etc. But if you have a need or a desire that falls outside that path, woe betide you. You'll fight it all the way.

Which goes to my point that flexibility can be a strength or weakness. A very focused system can do one thing really really well. But if you want something different, you have to completely change the system. It's fragile under tweaking. And the inflexibility of the PbtA games extends to the worldbuilding--each game really only supports one style of world (or at least play area). Since I'm an inveterate, obligate worldbuilder (I can't run a game effectively in someone else's world without...tweaking things), that makes it a bad fit. Not a bad game, just a bad fit for me.




As for characters... yeah that comes down to which system you pick, every one I have played has one play-book for all characters.



I was probably using play-book wrongly. Basically what I meant was "class" or "class-equivalent". One "source of non-standard Moves". The one I happened to read (probably AW itself) put really strict limits on the personalities expressed by each of the class-equivalents.



On Role-Playing Mechanic: Are we talking about personality or storytelling mechanics here? (I think the name should apply to the first one personally.)

I use it for the first one, sort of. A role-playing mechanic is one that influences or imposes consequences (good or bad) on choices based on the expressed traits of the character. An example of such (in an under-developed form) is 3e D&D's alignment mechanics, especially for paladins. "You lose your class features if you do XYZ, as judged by the DM." is a role-play mechanic. And, in my opinion, a bad one (as in implemented in a way that degrades the play experience not just for the paladin's player but for the other players more often than not). But that's a separate thing. Another might be "if you act in accordance with your Traits, you get XP". Or "if XYZ happens, decrease your PDQ Trait's level by 1".

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-23, 07:15 PM
As far as PbtA goes, I've never actually played it. But I did read the core rules. The thing that jumped out at me from that was that it was very opinionated at the meta level. That there is One True Way To Play a PbtA game (which depends on the exact offshoot, but it's designed around very confining meta rules). This is backed up by reading lots of discussion from people wondering why it's not working for them, and others responding that it's because they deviated from the One True Way To Play (most often on the GM side of things).
Apocalypse World does indeed declare that there is One True Right Way to GM it. There is no Rule 0 in Apocalypse World.
But that's not supposed to expand into other games. There IS a right way to be the MC in Apocalypse World. Doesn't mean that translates into other systems.



And the character design seems to be highly straitjacketed. Since everything follows from the fiction (ie your Moves don't trigger unless you set up the fiction to trigger them), and the playbooks are highly built around very tight archetypes (no matter how you dress them up), you have to play each playbook pretty-much by the book or your stuff just won't trigger at all. It's designed to force you down a particular path. Or so it felt on a read through.

I'm not sure this follows. This is like saying "D&D says you're not attacking someone unless you swing a weapon at them, and that seems restrictive." I'd not call any Playbook in AW any more restrictive than a D&D Class, and none of the Move triggers are any more restrictive than spell requirements. And probably are less so than that.

For a Brainer to do a Deep Brain Scan requires:
Time and Intimacy (mutual or one-sided)
What are those? Whatever makes sense.

But I don't find the playbooks any more restrictive than the Druid class. (Really, how many truly unique takes on "magic nature person" are there out there?)

I've had a Faceless (the "angry guy" class) that was pretty much a pacifist and only fought to defend others. The way any playbook will.play out depends on which moves you pick, both from your playbook and from others. (That's right! As you level up you can take moves from different playbooks. The Faceless can take Skinner moves, if they want.)



To me that feels very inorganic and forced. It is likely just my perception, but it stood out as highly repellent to my preferred style (which wants to focus on the world first and have characters that organically grow based on what they do, rather than having to fit some pre-determined mold). It felt like it wasn't trying to teach you to play an actual person but instead teaching you to play a caricature of a real person, dominated by a few things and with everything hinging on living up to those stereotypes. There's almost certainly more depth there, but the surface was enough to push me away entirely.

If you're reading the MC section, yes. Most NPCs are going to just Not Be That Complicated. Because you're gonna have a lot of them..
A LOT of them.

If I have a Hardholder, I now have AT LEAST 10 named NPCs I'm gonna juggle just for them.
If I have a Chopper, add 5 more.
If I have a Maestro'd, I have at least 6 and then everyone in their crew.
This is before adding the regular names and faces they'll run into because this isn't just their people that live here. By the end of a good AW game, I've got 35+ named NPCs who directly interact with PCs on a regular basis and who may have different relationships with each one.
If all of them have complex motivations and backstories, that's gonna get overwhelming for everyone.
Much easier to note that Twice wants to bang Domino, but really hates her sister, Bebop.

All this to say, if it ain't your cup of tea I'm not gonna shove Oolong down yer throat. It's not for everyone. But AW does something I wish D&D did:
It owns what it is, and doesn't pretend to be anything else, doesn't claim strengths it doesn't have, and acknowledges its weaknesses. Do you want a realistic, gritty, survival experience in the Post Apocalypse? AW is not the system for that, Vince wouldn't tell you it is, and you'd be hard-pressed to find other Long-time AW players trying to sell it as such.

AW feels more like The Walking Dead than The Road. It's a character drama in the post-apocalypse, not a story of raw, desperate survival.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-23, 07:33 PM
I was probably using play-book wrongly. Basically what I meant was "class" or "class-equivalent". One "source of non-standard Moves". The one I happened to read (probably AW itself) put really strict limits on the personalities expressed by each of the class-equivalents.

There has never been an AW playbook that dictates your personality.

There is a "flavor preview" but D&D also has these for the classes. I guess D&D also puts strict limits on the personalities expressed by each class?

As I said before, I had a very gentle Faceless and she fit in just fine and got to use plenty of class features.

I played a Faceless who was basically a more crazy version of a Paladin who spoke to "the forgotten god"(his deceased wife) to recieve guidance and strike down "heretics."

I'm running group now where the Gunlugger is a woman locked in a giant spider-legged exosuit who speaks in computer and deals purely in cold, hard, shoot-first logic.

Before that the Gunlugger of the group was a pretty normal guy who was good with guns and helped keep the local speakeasy thug-free.

And before *that* the Gunlugger was a woman scorned, deeply invested in the wellbeing of her fellow men and deeply mixed feelings about the death of the world that both kept her so comfortable and caused her so much pain. (We brought our Apocalypse a bit closer to game start for the giggles.)

The system prevented none of that. Its only rule is that the Gunlugger gets the most and best guns by default, and barfs damage like there's no tomorrow.
Nowhere will you find a rule limiting the personality of a class.

About the closest you'll get is "brainers are creepy."
But they can see your darkest secrets by having "time and intimacy" with you and make you do their bidding on pain of psychic whippings.
I've seen non-creepy brainers, yes. But most people who play the Brainer WANT to be creepy, spooky, and weird. So... where is the problem?



I use it for the first one, sort of. A role-playing mechanic is one that influences or imposes consequences (good or bad) on choices based on the expressed traits of the character. An example of such (in an under-developed form) is 3e D&D's alignment mechanics, especially for paladins. "You lose your class features if you do XYZ, as judged by the DM." is a role-play mechanic. And, in my opinion, a bad one (as in implemented in a way that degrades the play experience not just for the paladin's player but for the other players more often than not). But that's a separate thing. Another might be "if you act in accordance with your Traits, you get XP". Or "if XYZ happens, decrease your PDQ Trait's level by 1".

I agree that the Paladin Alignment mechanic is awful. Glad it got nixxed.
(Also high-key glad that Alignment is now about as important as Eye Color in terms of mechanics.)

Lord Raziere
2020-08-23, 07:40 PM
I mean as far as roleplaying mechanics go, I prefer Fate over apocalypse world. it doesn't force you down any archetypes: you just pick your aspects and you gain or lose fate points depending on how hard you lean into them for good or ill. you basically define your own archetype to play out and its perfectly fine to not invoke an aspect when it would be stupid to do so. you can still be competent, effective and a good character without invoking them. and sometimes aspects just give you a benefit without even a fate point attached.

I do know however that others that I'll probably never play with say its too abstract to wrap their heads around so its not for everyone.

but I certainly prefer Fate over more blunt and clumsy roleplaying mechanics like 3.5 alignment or white wolf morality scores. while its true that 5e keeps it free, DnD didn't always do so and 3.5 can be said to be a prime example of bad roleplaying mechanics with its alignment and paladin stuff. and apocalypse world just never grabbed me, because I like playing my special snowflakes. though such characters themselves are hard to compare to anything when I make them, and I can only describe them in terms of how I take an archetype and subvert or play around with them. mostly because we've already seen the story of (character from other media) I don't want to repeat their story I want to make my own. so really my own position is a bit weird because any archetype or character I see is just a starting point for me to subvert and play with until they are my own. and when they are my own, its not really a problem that they don't measure up, because I already changed them enough to be their own thing. Not everyone goes to the effort though, so I can see why some would find hewing closer to the archetypes and characters they know useful.

though I do recommend the next time you think "I wanna play X" perhaps say "I wanna play X BUT..." or "what if X had Y?" things like that. mix it up a little.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-23, 07:43 PM
(Also high-key glad that Alignment is now about as important as Eye Color in terms of mechanics.)

Glad there's something we can both heartily agree on. One big "non-stock" thing about my home D&D world is that I've completely removed alignment as anything other than an individual descriptor of a current behavioral paradigm, a shorthand if you will. Every character has free will and angels are just as likely to be jerks as they are to be good. Same with devils, demons, etc. Every single person is an individual. There are still "good" and "evil", but they're not cosmological quantities.

As for the PbtA stuff, I'm totally willing to admit that I'm wrong about the inflexibility/constraints. Good. But as a matter of presentation, it certainly didn't come across that way.

And I think I was reading more of the GM side, because that's what had been pointed out as "obligatory to read for anyone who wants to be a good GM of any system." And my response was...ok? These are all things that are either highly specific to one system and the game it wants to be or obvious statements that have broad support elsewhere.

For me, personally, the idea of mandatory followers or antagonists is obnoxious. Both as a DM and as a player. As a DM, that's that many people I have to find room for in the ongoing narrative, which strongly limits the places they can go and the things they can do, and sucks up precious table time. As a player, I want to find or recruit my own allies (if any) and make my own enemies from the existing NPCs. And I want a tighter focus on the party (not necessarily my character), but the party.

One other thing that I've heard about AW specifically is that there isn't a notion of a "party" as the basic unit. That the players are expected to be at odds with each other quite frequently, or at least it's totally normal for that to develop. Personally, I hate PvP. In any game, from MMOs onward. I don't play competitive games. I strongly dislike active competition. So a game where the other players are expected to be antagonists or frequently at cross-purposes is, to me, just as appealing as a mandatory open-world PvP MMO. That is, not at all. But that's very firmly something I don't like, not something that is bad.

I think there's value in discussing flexibility in game systems, but I think I'll move that to a different, more focused thread.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-23, 07:47 PM
I mean as far as roleplaying mechanics go, I prefer Fate over apocalypse world. it doesn't force you down any archetypes: you just pick your aspects and you gain or lose fate points depending on how hard you lean into them for good or ill. you basically define your own archetype to play out and its perfectly fine to not invoke an aspect when it would be stupid to do so. you can still be competent, effective and a good character without invoking them. and sometimes aspects just give you a benefit without even a fate point attached.

I do know however that others that I'll probably never play with say its too abstract to wrap their heads around so its not for everyone.

but I certainly prefer Fate over more blunt and clumsy roleplaying mechanics like 3.5 alignment or white wolf morality scores. while its true that 5e keeps it free, DnD didn't always do so and 3.5 can be said to be a prime example of bad roleplaying mechanics with its alignment and paladin stuff. and apocalypse world just never grabbed me, because I like playing my special snowflakes. though such characters themselves are hard to compare to anything when I make them, and I can only describe them in terms of how I take an archetype and subvert or play around with them. mostly because we've already seen the story of (character from other media) I don't want to repeat their story I want to make my own. so really my own position is a bit weird because any archetype or character I see is just a starting point for me to subvert and play with until they are my own. and when they are my own, its not really a problem that they don't measure up, because I already changed them enough to be their own thing. Not everyone goes to the effort though, so I can see why some would find hewing closer to the archetypes and characters they know useful.

though I do recommend the next time you think "I wanna play X" perhaps say "I wanna play X BUT..." or "what if X had Y?" things like that. mix it up a little.

Honestly, I'd love to actually play FATE. I've read through (parts) of the freely available version and it sounds like it would be great for my "non-D&D" games. The ones that just don't fit the paradigm of D&D. And it's got some mechanical bits I've wanted to steal--thinking explicitly in terms of scenes (rather than concrete divisions of time) for resetting abilities, the more freeform aspects, etc.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-23, 08:08 PM
Glad there's something we can both heartily agree on. One big "non-stock" thing about my home D&D world is that I've completely removed alignment as anything other than an individual descriptor of a current behavioral paradigm, a shorthand if you will. Every character has free will and angels are just as likely to be jerks as they are to be good. Same with devils, demons, etc. Every single person is an individual. There are still "good" and "evil", but they're not cosmological quantities.
Indeed. All the rest of this, to me, so far reads a bit like highly opinionated lads at the pub having a hearty disagreement that's mostly just for the fun of the thing.

At least, that's how I feel.



As for the PbtA stuff, I'm totally willing to admit that I'm wrong about the inflexibility/constraints. Good. But as a matter of presentation, it certainly didn't come across that way.
If you skimmed the system as a preview and didn't read it, that tracks. The prose is jarring and in-your-face. It's easy to misread it as dictating how players should be, but really it's setting a tone.



And I think I was reading more of the GM side, because that's what had been pointed out as "obligatory to read for anyone who wants to be a good GM of any system." And my response was...ok? These are all things that are either highly specific to one system and the game it wants to be or obvious statements that have broad support elsewhere.

I'd say that a lot of its advice is stuff I'd never seen codified, and there's lots that I managed to steal and implement into other systems. (Threats, countdown clocks, a stash of MC Moves that I can repurpose if I'm ever stuck)

But the longer you've GMed, the more likely it is you've encountered these ideas.



For me, personally, the idea of mandatory followers or antagonists is obnoxious. Both as a DM and as a player. As a DM, that's that many people I have to find room for in the ongoing narrative, which strongly limits the places they can go and the things they can do, and sucks up precious table time. As a player, I want to find or recruit my own allies (if any) and make my own enemies from the existing NPCs. And I want a tighter focus on the party (not necessarily my character), but the party.
AW forbids the MC from planning the campaign out ahead of time. You improv session 1 and build from what the players have. It gives you a LOT of tools to help improv your session 1, of course, but that's another divergent point. And remember:
NPCs are super frail in AW. And you can stretch an antagonist to feature in the stories of multiple characters.




One other thing that I've heard about AW specifically is that there isn't a notion of a "party" as the basic unit. That the players are expected to be at odds with each other quite frequently, or at least it's totally normal for that to develop. Personally, I hate PvP. In any game, from MMOs onward. I don't play competitive games. I strongly dislike active competition. So a game where the other players are expected to be antagonists or frequently at cross-purposes is, to me, just as appealing as a mandatory open-world PvP MMO. That is, not at all. But that's very firmly something I don't like, not something that is bad.
Honestly, it doesn't happen that often. Quick spats here and there, but usually when the clocks start getting close to midnight, everyone gets over their feelings and deal with the problems. (Often too late, which is more fun for me. :D)



I think there's value in discussing flexibility in game systems, but I think I'll move that to a different, more focused thread.
I'll be there to screech incoherently whenever you need, Friend!

Cluedrew
2020-08-23, 08:10 PM
I could talk more about flexibility, about followers and about everything else but that's going further off topic so I feel like leaving it. I just wanted to address one thing:

On PvP: The characters trying to kill each other has nothing to with the players getting into a fight. Never confuse those two things. I once ran a campaign that was centered around a character conflicted the players decided the outcome of before the campaign started. That's not a general solution but it worked in this campaign.

Lord Raziere
2020-08-23, 08:13 PM
Honestly, I'd love to actually play FATE. I've read through (parts) of the freely available version and it sounds like it would be great for my "non-D&D" games. The ones that just don't fit the paradigm of D&D. And it's got some mechanical bits I've wanted to steal--thinking explicitly in terms of scenes (rather than concrete divisions of time) for resetting abilities, the more freeform aspects, etc.

Its just Fate, its not fully capitalized/an acronym anymore.

and yeah I'd Fate a great example of roleplaying mechanics and system in general myself. because no matter how abstract or concrete, funny or dramatic, or whatever, it all informs something important about your character. its all about how you define this and that and what your goal is with the system and the character. there are a lot of variations, with even system light and system heavy versions with Fate Accelerated and Strands of Fate. however its in many ways is a toolkit for the game you want as much as it is a game itself. you kind of have to define what your goal is to make proper use of it. because without that, you just have things that might potentially be a thing, but they're all unassembled and have to be put together the way it needs to work.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-23, 08:13 PM
I mean as far as roleplaying mechanics go, I prefer Fate over apocalypse world.... [truncated]

HOW DARE YOU!
jk.

I love FATE. But my personal hot take?
Fate Accelerated does a better job of maximizing the unique properties of FATE (Aspects, Stunts, etc) than FATE Core does, and is overall the better system.

String me up if you must.


But yeah, FATE is great!

Apocalypse World is my baby, but mostly because I vibe REALLY HARD with its tone. A tone I don't think FATE matches well. But FATE let me run a game where Gods and Machines were in a billion-years-long cycle of dominion over mankind while the players tried to break the wheel and the antagonist tried to escape into reality. (Our one, where we are now)

Twas great. 10/10 would run FATE again.

Lord Raziere
2020-08-23, 08:17 PM
HOW DARE YOU!
jk.

I love FATE. But my personal hot take?
Fate Accelerated does a better job of maximizing the unique properties of FATE (Aspects, Stunts, etc) than FATE Core does, and is overall the better system.

String me up if you must.


But yeah, FATE is great!

Apocalypse World is my baby, but mostly because I vibe REALLY HARD with its tone. A tone I don't think FATE matches well. But FATE let me run a game where Gods and Machines were in a billion-years-long cycle of dominion over mankind while the players tried to break the wheel and the antagonist tried to escape into reality. (Our one, where we are now)

Twas great. 10/10 would run FATE again.

Eeeh. Approaches were just never my thing. like, they are the one thing I will say is a bit too abstract for me, I prefer skills. I just work better with a bunch of skills I know that do this or that a few Approaches that don't really make sense to me.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-23, 08:46 PM
Eeeh. Approaches were just never my thing. like, they are the one thing I will say is a bit too abstract for me, I prefer skills. I just work better with a bunch of skills I know that do this or that a few Approaches that don't really make sense to me.

My biggest problem with the Approaches was Quick. It irked me.

Forceful, Flashy
Two F's. Nice.
Clever, Careful
Oh, two C's! I see a pattern
Sneaky,....Quick
REEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I genuinely have told players that I was renaming Quick to Swift.
Both because it fits the Paired Letter pattern and is a better word for what the Approach is anyways.

And I'd not mind a mesh of FATE's Approaches and something more PbtA-ish?
Like, in AW "Hard" is the stat for Strength, but also Toughguyness and Intimidatingness and Angriness.

I think retooling the Approaches into flavorized "stats" would make a lot of sense and could possibly work.

Like, for instance, you might have a Noir campaign and change the approaches to
Moxie
Grit
Privvy
Slick
Hush

Probably some other ones, I'm very tired and just spitballing. But the idea might have legs.

Quertus
2020-08-23, 11:54 PM
I think there's a weird idea that if a system provides supports for RP or has any location where RP and Mechanics bleed over, then they must be restrictive to RP.

Let me address this:
Apocalypse World has an End Of Session Move, which involves last-minute recordkeeping and a few other bits. One of which is the History (or Hx) move.
The Hx move goes like this:
Choose a character who knew you more by the end of this session. Tell them to increase their Hx with you by +1. OR, choose a character who knows you less now. Tell them to decrease their Hx with you by -1. If neither applies, choose arbitrarily.

So... how would this prevent you from roleplaying Quertus as usual, especially given that Hx has exactly two mechanical function, one which gives 1 xp when it triggers and the other which almost never comes up? (The Help/Interfere action. The former can only help you, obviously, and the latter is only in moments of PvP which... I think I've only had one campaign out of the 10+ I've run that had even a single Interfere roll.

… eh, far too many times, I've seen the one people *thought* knew them least be the one who actually knew they were allergic to peanuts / would take refuge in the church / were hurting / whatever.

That assumption of "you understand me better / poorly"? I'm guessing it "rankles" (I'm still not used to this new word).

So, I guess… there's only the question of how wrong it makes the game feel when someone you've given max Hx is utterly clueless, and someone you've given max negative Hx knows you like the back of their hand.

I'm not sure if it would really affect my role-playing of Quertus - at least, any more than any other thing that influences my perspective while playing. Which sounds like that puts it on the list of "things I don't want in a game".


But to put forth that D&D's approach is literally the BEST approach across all available approaches is...
Elevating preference to the level of gospel, really.

Ah, that one got lost in the edits: "best" from a marketing perspective *for the industry leader* as an introduction to RPGs. Based on the reasons you rejected, it would be their best choice, to make the "universal" game a flavorless blank slate / "add your own flavor as needed" in that regard. Whereas more niche games can market their niche flavors.

Satinavian
2020-08-24, 02:12 AM
It's one reason I'm so dead-set against crude out-of-universe imports and expies--they never fit the world right.I do agree with your view about actual universe travelling imports. But i disagree about expies. Over the decades i have seen more of them than i can remember. But most of them worked fine. Some examples i actually can remember :

- Lan al'Mandragoram from Wheel of Time for TdE : The character mechanically worked. But thematically failed because the original is about relations to other characters and personal culture. Without this, Lan is just some random warrior.
- Eyck of Denesle from the Witcher books (that was many years before the first game came out) : Boisterous, monster hunting, chivalrious knight ? No problem there. Perfect fit, mechanically and thematically
- Dilandau from Escaflowne for Shadowrun : The original is a cracy, bloodthirsty antagonist mech pilot, that is cracy because of augmentation experiments and has a love for burning things down. The mech was ditched but having a cracy street sam having lost sanity because of unethical augmentation experiments and some love for fire was an easy enough fit in a game that has phosphor grenades and flamethowers.
- Dilandau from Escaflowne for Mechwarrior RPG : Same character other system. This one can keep the mech (and load out flamers,inferno ammunition and a melee weapon) but had to dial down the cracyness to a level tolerabel for military units. Worked fine as well.
- Kirika from Noir for Shadowrun : Gifted pistol wielding teen assassin with nearly superhuman abilities ? Make an adept out out her and call it a day. The main problem with her during the play was that she actually got older and grew up and thus devieted from the source the longer she was played.
- Thufir Hawat from Dune for Shadowrun : SR has a magical traditions that are called mentat and building a magical character based on mental power and prophecies seemend workable enough. In the end this was a failure as SR magic is still too different and the character did more and more things that the original would never do. Also relations to other characters were different as well. It was a failure as Thufir but reasonably successful as a shadowrunner.
- Indiana Jones from the movies for TdE : The world has enough ancient ruins, a university and many other people interested in artifacts and it is a topic that comes up often enough in adventures campaigns. The concept worked well, except that the original regularly fights and the expy could not have the same fighting style and still be threatening so was a bit closer to a noncombattant.

Now you don't have to like those characters and not all worked as intended but how are they a special burdon for the GM ? Expies generally do fit the world, they are not the original. They are not the same character, just a similar one.



Same with complex backstories made in isolation--I'm totally willing to work with a player to fit their backstory into the world. There's tons of room for that. But there's also a lot of pre-existing stuff, and it has to remain consistent. Some races only live in certain areas, and nowhere else (halflings, I'm looking at you). Some cultures don't have nobles at all. Some cultures are landlocked. Inserting a mal-fitting character means that I, as the DM, have no way of knowing what that character would know. Which means that I can't do my usual to feed information to the character. They're a blank spot, bereft of ties to the world or to the situations. And that rankles a bit.I don't see why the DM has to do that. If the players know the setting (and they should know if it is not some exploration campaign) they should be able to do all this work themself.

Quertus
2020-08-24, 07:30 AM
But I'm also relatively hardline with refusing memory-type checks for things the character can't know. I don't care what the rules say--if this is the only one of this type of beast in existence and it was created yesterday, no Intelligence (X) check will tell you anything more than what you directly perceive. Even if it's totally non-threatening (ie CR 0). If the information has been hidden by the gods, no amount of raw intelligence is going to reveal it to you. That's only going to come through the events of the game itself. So for a character from completely outside the world, everything is in this DC: No, success not possible situation. And I have to tell you every single thing and the character has to experience it themselves. Effectively, they'd be an infant in an adult body. Incapable of knowing anything about the world until they'd experienced it themselves. And that bogs everything down entirely.

So, therefore, you never create anything new, because it requires you to tell them every single thing, and that bogs everything down entirely?

Or, these weren't meant to be together in this paragraph, and you use "amount of knowable information" as a pacing tool, and it rankles when the players set the pace instead?

Also, do you ever run parties of characters that come from different areas, where you have to explain things differently to different characters based on their different cultural interpretations of what they're seeing? Because that really "bogs things down" far more than just giving accurate descriptions ever could.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-24, 08:56 AM
I do agree with your view about actual universe travelling imports. But i disagree about expies. Over the decades i have seen more of them than i can remember. But most of them worked fine. Some examples i actually can remember :


It depends on how broad the expy is. Things like that can work, because they're really just generic themes, and mostly personality types. I'm talking ones where they don't actually universe travel, but you have someone manufacture a background that hits all the right events. Like "rich industrialist whose parents were murdered <in particular way> and who grows up to fight crime with gadgets and fisticuffs but strangely rarely kills anyone significant and lives in a cave underground and..."




I don't see why the DM has to do that. If the players know the setting (and they should know if it is not some exploration campaign) they should be able to do all this work themself.

I currently have ~500 articles written on my setting. And about 300 more waiting in the wings to be created. And mostly play with players who are brand new to TTRPGs in general. So having them all have to read and digest all of that....

And with a living setting, lots of the most recent generation of material is in my head because it's constantly changing at the detail level. Not really knowable by anyone else. But I can feed drips of "growing up in <area>, you'd know that <information>" through players. It also lets me set the DCs consistently (especially the things that a certain character would just know or can't know).


So, therefore, you never create anything new, because it requires you to tell them every single thing, and that bogs everything down entirely?

Or, these weren't meant to be together in this paragraph, and you use "amount of knowable information" as a pacing tool, and it rankles when the players set the pace instead?

Also, do you ever run parties of characters that come from different areas, where you have to explain things differently to different characters based on their different cultural interpretations of what they're seeing? Because that really "bogs things down" far more than just giving accurate descriptions ever could.

There's a lot of information that the character would know that I can't (because no words are enough) simply deliver. But I can use the things that characters would automatically know (unless they specifically tell me that they're low-information or outsiders) based on backgrounds (especially) to filter relevant information for what they're looking for. Or incorporate it into how other people react to them.

If someone stands completely outside of this, not just at the cultural level but at the raw metaphysics level, they're clueless and don't even have the context to ask questions. They're basically entirely excluded from the fiction at anything more than the gross physical level because they can't interact. No universal translators here, and just coming to the world doesn't mean you can cast your spells from outside--the power sources are different and the patterns aren't the same.

Amount of knowable information is for me to set DCs. Specifically, set knowledge DCs. For people from the main area (or who have spent enough time to learn the culture there), those are relatively similar and modulated more by background than by region of origin. For someone completely outside, they'd have to be roughly DC: No across the board.

And all my characters (by design) have spent a large amount of time in one shared-culture (although multicultural) area. That's a campaign constraint--everyone must have come in to the Federated Nations area and learned the language and culture. So while the cultures differ, they share enough that I can drop in little things as they go, mostly for humor or tone.

And I've created lots of new things, but they're parts of the exploration. And/or tied into things that the PCs already know about. This golem might be new, but they've fought and learned about golems before. So there are surprises, but also commonalities. And those new things are always encountered by players before they're made player-available--one of the big things a group can do is "unlock" new races, cultures, or nations by going there and learning about them and convincing them to be friendly. For example, gnomes are unknown, because no one's visited the local area where all the gnomes are yet (and they're xenophobic by design). They're considered mythical or extinct. So when a party met one of the rare exiled gnomes, they had very little referent at first.

But if I have to explain "yes, there are two moons" and work around the fact that you won't understand any of the layered symbolism in people's speech (because idioms regarding the moons are really common, especially in one area), I either have to chop out most of the richness of the setting or ignore the fact that you don't and can't understand anything. And that annoys me (rankles is "annoys").

This is one reason I specifically designed my setting to be closed. No travel in, no travel out. I don't want connections to the greater multiverse, because I want to do things differently and I really don't like a lot of the default settings of the multiverse. I want freedom to innovate, not to be chained down to what I consider a bunch of major worldbuilding mistakes (ie the entire Great Wheel and all its alignment-embedded nonsense, plus the infinite nature of the planes).

Satinavian
2020-08-24, 09:31 AM
I currently have ~500 articles written on my setting. And about 300 more waiting in the wings to be created. And mostly play with players who are brand new to TTRPGs in general. So having them all have to read and digest all of that....

And with a living setting, lots of the most recent generation of material is in my head because it's constantly changing at the detail level. Not really knowable by anyone else. But I can feed drips of "growing up in <area>, you'd know that <information>" through players. It also lets me set the DCs consistently (especially the things that a certain character would just know or can't know).
If i know enough of the setting to roleplay a character from X, i also know enough to write a backstory for a character from X.

Also i don't like playing games where the DM is the only one who knows the setting. A setting i don't know can't be a setting i am invested in and care about. It also hurts immersion to play clueless outsiders when on paper they grew up there.

Aside from explicite exploration campaigns i do want to have and read in the setting description before even starting to think about a character.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-24, 09:56 AM
If i know enough of the setting to roleplay a character from X, i also know enough to write a backstory for a character from X.

Also i don't like playing games where the DM is the only one who knows the setting. A setting i don't know can't be a setting i am invested in and care about. It also hurts immersion to play clueless outsiders when on paper they grew up there.

Aside from explicite exploration campaigns i do want to have and read in the setting description before even starting to think about a character.

I think I miscommunicated.

Players are more than welcome to read about the setting. I'd even encourage it. It's all publicly available in a wiki. I also prefer to be actively engaged in character creation, so I can fill in the details where they're not clear (or not complete...it's still very much a WIP).

But what I don't do is expect that people will do that before the first session. Because 90% of my history has been sitting down with people I haven't met (or kids in an after-school club) and introducing them to the entire system, including the setting. So the default is that no one knows anything about either the mechanics or the setting. And session 0 includes me working with individuals to build characters, usually starting by laying out my minis and asking which one(s) look interesting.

I don't even expect a full backstory by the time play starts--a background, yes (in the 5e mechanical sense). But the details can be filled in later. And I want to discuss it with the player so that we can make it fit better. There's lots of room to add things, but there are also setting constants that I'm not willing to break. For instance, if you want to be from a big city, there are a limited palette of ones to choose from, each with their own particularities. And most races are localized--you won't find humans as a significant native population in two of the 5 major nations, for instance. And dragonborn are only found as a native population in 1 nation, because they're pretty small in population. Goliaths only come from two, very different areas on this continent. Etc. All of these things are written down (both in the player guide and in the more voluminous wiki), but I don't expect people to read that before we begin. I'm totally ok with backfilling as we go.

But someone who by character design can't know anything about the setting, that's a problem for me.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-24, 10:44 AM
… eh, far too many times, I've seen the one people *thought* knew them least be the one who actually knew they were allergic to peanuts / would take refuge in the church / were hurting / whatever.
That's not quite what Hx means, and you decide if they've learned more about you or not. Or it can be arbitrary, since it doesn't work entirely as you think it does.

If I spent most of this session with Twice, I'm gonna give him the Hx bump. He doesn't have some new, deep understanding of my true self. But we're closer now than we were at the start, and maybe had a good conversation and found common interests.

You're interpreting it as "do they know my deepest self" when its more like "Who did I spend more time getting to know this session?"



That assumption of "you understand me better / poorly"? I'm guessing it "rankles" (I'm still not used to this new word).

So, I guess… there's only the question of how wrong it makes the game feel when someone you've given max Hx is utterly clueless, and someone you've given max negative Hx knows you like the back of their hand.
A wrinkle in this:
When you hit max Hx with a character (+4) they get 1xp and it immediately resets to +1.

Since it only comes up during session 1 and the end of each session 90% of the time, most of my players forget it exists. The Hx questions in session 1 are a bigger deal, but they're another thing entirely and someone has to opt-in.



I'm not sure if it would really affect my role-playing of Quertus - at least, any more than any other thing that influences my perspective while playing. Which sounds like that puts it on the list of "things I don't want in a game".
So... literally anything that influences your perspective while playing is a thing you don't want?

Spot checks are out, since they give more information which might change your perspective.

This seems like either a miswording or an entirely arbitrary dividing line based on one thing being a newer form of information to consider than another.

GRANTED, this isn't happening during regular play at all. This is the End of Session move. The role playing is over by the time this move comes into play anyways, it's just a way to consider what has happened during the session and who your character spent time with. And considering you don't raise YOUR Hx, it's even less of the concerns you have. You raise THEIR Hx (with you).

So, yeah, either I explained poorly or this is pretty much "yucky new things."




Ah, that one got lost in the edits: "best" from a marketing perspective *for the industry leader* as an introduction to RPGs. Based on the reasons you rejected, it would be their best choice, to make the "universal" game a flavorless blank slate / "add your own flavor as needed" in that regard. Whereas more niche games can market their niche

I don't use D&D as a first-time RPG anymore. The required frontloading and handholding required is intimidatingly large and I watch first timers quickly go from "oooh, fantasy elf game" to "oh no, Excel Sheet Simulator" as the first session wears on.

It's probably not, compared tonother math-heavy games, but if the most math-heavy game you've ever played is Monopoly, D&D is a pretty huge step up in complexity. (And most people don't finish their games of monopoly) Hence why I tend to go with Fate or AW, depending on their preferences for setting, genre, etc. It's a gentler intro, and a decent branching off point if they find they want more specifics to bite into, so I can say "then let's move to D&D now."

Darth Credence
2020-08-24, 10:46 AM
My experience in world building is much like yours, PhoenixPhyre. I have my own setting, and I have a whole bunch of articles involved with it (not as many as you have, only around 100 or so fully fleshed out) that the players are absolutely welcome to read as much as they want. (The ones they are not allowed to read, because they would not know them, are locked.) But for the most part, the players do not do so - everyone has their own lives, and reading pages of background is not necessarily how they want to spend it. So I try to make sure that when there is something they come across that they should know, I let them know they know it, and refer them to the specific document to review later.
I do run characters from different areas - I have one side of the world that doesn't know the other side exists as the main campaign area. The other side knows they exist, but has generally avoided them. At the start of the campaign, the side that knows was starting to send ships across the ocean, looking to make contact. One of my players looked at that and desperately wanted to be a hobgoblin, and they were only from the opposite side of the world. Well, he became one of the first explorers to the new world, and the ship he was on sank, leaving him as the only survivor he knows about. he pretty much knows nothing about the world the rest of the players grew up in, so we do have to deal with things that the rest of the players know that he doesn't. It actually helps some times, because we can use them explaining things to him as information dumps for everyone.

Hytheter
2020-08-24, 10:55 AM
(And most people don't finish their games of monopoly)

To be fair, that's partly because most people play monopoly with terrible house-rules that needlessly lengthen the game.

Kyutaru
2020-08-24, 11:03 AM
To be fair, that's partly because most people play monopoly with terrible house-rules that needlessly lengthen the game.
People also don't KNOW the rules to Monopoly. I have to teach how it's played every time I sit down to it. The most common mistake (besides Free Parking offering cash payouts) is to forget that auctioning off property you land on is happens to be a thing. So many people play it where if you don't buy the property then it just stays on the market. This needlessly lengthens the game by HOURS.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-24, 11:58 AM
To be fair, that's partly because most people play monopoly with terrible house-rules that needlessly lengthen the game.


People also don't KNOW the rules to Monopoly. I have to teach how it's played every time I sit down to it. The most common mistake (besides Free Parking offering cash payouts) is to forget that auctioning off property you land on is happens to be a thing. So many people play it where if you don't buy the property then it just stays on the market. This needlessly lengthens the game by HOURS.


I'm aware of both of these facts. And when I do enforce the traditional rules of Monopoly to make play quicker...

Most people still quit before it's over.

The main point is that D&D is several orders of magnitude more complicated than Monopoly, hence why I try for a slightly gentler entry into TRPGs with fewer moving pieces.

Lord Raziere
2020-08-24, 12:58 PM
I don't use D&D as a first-time RPG anymore. The required frontloading and handholding required is intimidatingly large and I watch first timers quickly go from "oooh, fantasy elf game" to "oh no, Excel Sheet Simulator" as the first session wears on.

It's probably not, compared tonother math-heavy games, but if the most math-heavy game you've ever played is Monopoly, D&D is a pretty huge step up in complexity. (And most people don't finish their games of monopoly) Hence why I tend to go with Fate or AW, depending on their preferences for setting, genre, etc. It's a gentler intro, and a decent branching off point if they find they want more specifics to bite into, so I can say "then let's move to D&D now."

Yeah DnD is horrible as a first time RPG. and isn't even flavorless, it has a lot of flavor that informs it, its not specific setting but its still has flavor. like the fact that its set in a certain era and genre is already too much, you need to cut that out, along with many of DnD's core assumptions to get flavorless. the only reason its even considered an option is because of its popularity forcing it to try to be universal even though thats so not what its designed for, in setting or in mechanics. its not universal, its niche with a lot of alt-niche support.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-24, 01:14 PM
For me, "roleplaying mechanics" are worse than useless--they impose a "you must play this way" stricture that rarely fits what I want to do. There's a clear "this is the right way and that's the wrong way" to play in those systems. I want that to come from the setting and the events and the characters, not to be imposed from the outside by the rule system.

Others may vary, and good for them. But games are not inherently better or worse for having more or fewer "roleplaying mechanics"--it's just one choice about system design among many.




PbtA is a Narrative / Storytelling system. As a player, the game is about making decisions about the story and how you want it to go.




I assumed they were talking about mechanics that let you make a decision the character doesn't make. Which are taboo in some circles because its not in-character (and not in D&D so they aren't used to it). Actually of the narrative role-playing games I know Powered by the Apocalypse systems tend to have the least. But as it is more than one system it is hard to measure.


Use of the Teleport spell may well influence the course and outcome of the series of fictional events that some may later assemble into a story after the fact. But that doesn't make it a "story" or "narrative" power. The Teleport spell is still the character affecting the world and other characters through their actions. A "story" power is one that allows the player to directly control the course of events, or directly impose even retroactive facts on the world the characters inhabit.

My classic example of a "story" power is the ability that one "class" in the FFG Star Wars RPG can obtain that allows them to impose a technological failure on the world, for retroactive reasons if they wish. The security droid glitches out because someone installed a bad replacement part last week. The door opens just in time to let the PCs escape because someone in maintenance happened to be running tests at that moment. Etc. It has nothing to do with the PCs actions, it's the player directly "telling story".


There is often misrepresentation of what a product/system is -- whether it's by the developer/publisher, or by the groups and players using that system, the term "RPG" or similar is often used for games that I would not consider "roleplaying games" in a strict sense because they're not structured around playing a character, they're structured around building a story and directing characters through that story.


One of the mechanical trends that I don't care for is the shift from "what does your character try to do at this moment, check to see if or how well it succeeds"... to "what does your character (or you as a player) want to happen in this scene, check to see if you get to control what happens in this scene with a single roll" with other players getting some degree of say in how their characters fit into that direction... it's a bit of a continuum, with different systems going more or less in that direction, but to me it's a clear sign that a system leans towards "storytelling" instead of "roleplaying".

See also, where the GM is instructed to turn questions about the setting back on the players. Direct example from book I picked up recently, player asks "Is there an expert on this sort of thing in town?" and the GM says "I don't know, you tell me." As a player, I've had a couple GMs who did that sort of thing, and I find it extremely frustrating. It blows up that little suspension of disbelief and the sense that these are people-who-could-be-real in a world-that-could-be-real.

PbtA comes across as a classic example of a game built to have the characters fulfill an established tropey role in a genre narrative, and to have the campaign "tell a 'good' story" as judged by that genre's tropes and conventions.


A lot of it seems to come down to an attempt to recreate a specific genre/story experience, collaboratively, rather than taking the characters through their world as they try to accomplish their goals and overcome setbacks.


As for roleplaying mechanics. I loath mechanics that try to tell a player what their character would or wouldn't do, or give other players any direct input on the matter, or penalize the character for violating some narrow conception of what the character is or is not. What I am OK with, if well done, are mechanics which reward for actually playing the character you built/brought. If a player builds the character with a low "stat" or some major issue, then somehow reward them for following through with it and not trying to ignore it or use their own abilities to make up for it.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-24, 04:57 PM
PbtA comes across as a classic example of a game built to have the characters fulfill an established tropey role in a genre narrative, and to have the campaign "tell a 'good' story" as judged by that genre's tropes and conventions.

What it comes across as and what it is are very different, then.
With the exception of turning setting questions on the players (which happens for one session since the setting doesn't exist before that and afterword such questions are usually sensical. Besides, if I have a Hardholder who has established a town in the wasteland, it makes sense that they'd know what the culture of the town they founded is.

But AW is pretty devoid of "I'm gonna metaphysically change the narrative" powers. Closest thing is the Savvyhead has a move that lets them just kinda... show up somewhere with no explanation. But the Savvyhead is meant to be WEIRD. And that's literally as "narrative bending" as any of the moves get.



A lot of it seems to come down to an attempt to recreate a specific genre/story experience, collaboratively, rather than taking the characters through their world as they try to accomplish their goals and overcome setbacks.

The motions Apocalypse World makes towards ensuring that things are consistently moving in a more chaotic direction are covert, rather than overt.

The math is such that if you have a +1 in something, there is a 50% chance (more or less) that you'll be getting a 7-9 or lower. Once you get up to a +3 this improves, but you can't reasonably get to a place where you're only using one stat consistently until the late game, and by that point you've got only.one or two sessions left and things have been chaotic for a while.

The GM is given moves that make situations MORE COMPLICATED. Not arbitrarily, but in ways that make some sort of sense.



As for roleplaying mechanics. I loath mechanics that try to tell a player what their character would or wouldn't do, or give other players any direct input on the matter, or penalize the character for violating some narrow conception of what the character is or is not.
The closest AW comes to the above is that with the Seduce/Manipulate rules, you can give them an OOC incentive, but the move won't even trigger without an IC incentive first. But you're not forced in either direction. On a 10+ they can use both incentives (get XP if you do, lose a stat highlight if you don't... basically get XP now or lose out on it later), on a 7-9 they pick one incentive or the other. On a Miss they get neither.

I'd say the Brainer does similar with In-Brain Puppet Strings, but the CHARACTER is aware of the threat of harm if they don't comply, so it's entirely within character. (Basically it's a move where it's "do what I want or I cause you Harm")



What I am OK with, if well done, are mechanics which reward for actually playing the character you built/brought. If a player builds the character with a low "stat" or some major issue, then somehow reward them for following through with it and not trying to ignore it or use their own abilities to make up for it.
AW leans more towards this end than the previous. Or at least, with how Stat Highlights typically work, this is what ends up happening.

Quertus
2020-08-24, 07:40 PM
A setting i don't know can't be a setting i am invested in and care about. It also hurts immersion to play clueless outsiders when on paper they grew up there.

Although I agree with the first sentence, I like for the GM to present a setting that I can grow invested in, that I can grow to care about.

Completely agree with the second sentence.


And all my characters (by design) have spent a large amount of time in one shared-culture (although multicultural) area. That's a campaign constraint--everyone must have come in to the Federated Nations area and learned the language and culture. So while the cultures differ, they share enough that I can drop in little things as they go, mostly for humor or tone.

And I've created lots of new things, but they're parts of the exploration. And/or tied into things that the PCs already know about. This golem might be new, but they've fought and learned about golems before. So there are surprises, but also commonalities. And those new things are always encountered by players before they're made player-available--one of the big things a group can do is "unlock" new races, cultures, or nations by going there and learning about them and convincing them to be friendly. For example, gnomes are unknown, because no one's visited the local area where all the gnomes are yet (and they're xenophobic by design). They're considered mythical or extinct. So when a party met one of the rare exiled gnomes, they had very little referent at first.

But if I have to explain "yes, there are two moons" and work around the fact that you won't understand any of the layered symbolism in people's speech (because idioms regarding the moons are really common, especially in one area), I either have to chop out most of the richness of the setting or ignore the fact that you don't and can't understand anything. And that annoys me (rankles is "annoys").

If I've got this right… you intentionally homogenize your PCs PoV, ensuring that your explanations are one dimensional, because you find multidimensional explanations annoying. If I've got that right, then thanks - that answers what I was curious about.

If I'm wrong, then… I guess my next question would be, what if the party were all land-locked, and encountered a culture with rich idioms related to waves, tides, etc caused by those two moons. Would you find it annoying to have to ignore all that richness, or to have the NPCs use those idioms around the PCs, and the PCs be incapable of making roles to understand anything?

Also, good to know that "rankles" can be replaced with "annoys". From context, I had thought that that was at least *close* to its meaning.


But someone who by character design can't know anything about the setting, that's a problem for me.

Yeah, that's another good way of stating the piece I'm trying to ask "why" about.

Cluedrew
2020-08-24, 07:55 PM
This thread has very little to do with its original topic. Well anyone have anything to say about that?


There is often misrepresentation of what a product/system is -- whether it's by the developer/publisher, or by the groups and players using that system, the term "RPG" or similar is often used for games that I would not consider "roleplaying games" in a strict sense because they're not structured around playing a character, they're structured around building a story and directing characters through that story.Yeah, I've only seen one system (Quest Landia or something) that went so far out that field it called itself a story-telling game instead of a role-playing game. However I don't think adding elements of a story-telling game is enough to make it not an role-playing game. If it was D&D would have no hope of being a role-playing game with all the war game in it... in fact I can still almost make that argument. But let us ignore that for now and focus on the first part.

Basically its not the presence of mechanics that decides what type of game it is but the focus. Consider Call of Duty added the ability to spawn buildings that produced units you could command. That is straight out of a strategy game. Is Call of Duty no longer a shooter? No, still a shooter because it has guns that you point at people and fire. Likewise abstract/story or any other type of mechanics don't make a game not a role-playing game until the focus of the game shifts away from the role-playing part and to something else. (Hence the D&D thing.)

And there are good reasons to have story-level mechanics in a role-playing game. Consider a character who has contacts everywhere. … You can't actually build contacts into the character which leaves a couple options. You could playout getting all those contacts, with a sufficiently long campaign it could work. You could just hope the GM remembers to include them, outside of a problem GM it is just an informal version of the next option. You can have a story ability to force contacts into existence. Now you might have to find some way to balance it but the point is it really just exists to have the character to their thing, reach out to the appropriate contact for info or a favour.

Pex
2020-08-24, 09:32 PM
This thread has very little to do with its original topic. Well anyone have anything to say about that?




I disagree. Speaking about characters is metaphorical. Knowing the character gives you a frame of reference to what's being talked about. When a new player wants to be like character X, all you have to do is tell him he can't be exactly like X because the game and that story don't follow the same rules. However, you can build a character that can do similar things. You can't be Captain America throwing your shield around knocking out bad guys and have it return to you. What you can do is play a golden boy warrior wielding a long sword and shield and be able to use your shield to help in battle. There's a feat to take specifically for shield use, plus as a Battlemaster Fighter you get various tricks that we can say is you using your shield in spectacular ways.

Quertus
2020-08-24, 10:13 PM
That's not quite what Hx means, and you decide if they've learned more about you or not. Or it can be arbitrary, since it doesn't work entirely as you think it does.

If I spent most of this session with Twice, I'm gonna give him the Hx bump. He doesn't have some new, deep understanding of my true self. But we're closer now than we were at the start, and maybe had a good conversation and found common interests.

You're interpreting it as "do they know my deepest self" when its more like "Who did I spend more time getting to know this session?"

They get a mechanical bonus to aid (or hinder) you, because reasons. To reflect… how in sync they are with you?

That sounds… really gamey and gameable. And likely to produce some rather unrealistic results.

And for all the negatives I see it causing, I'm missing how it is a *role-playing* boon. That was the claim, right? That it is a role-playing mechanic?


So... literally anything that influences your perspective while playing is a thing you don't want?

Spot checks are out, since they give more information which might change your perspective.

This seems like either a miswording or an entirely arbitrary dividing line based on one thing being a newer form of information to consider than another.

GRANTED, this isn't happening during regular play at all. This is the End of Session move. The role playing is over by the time this move comes into play anyways, it's just a way to consider what has happened during the session and who your character spent time with. And considering you don't raise YOUR Hx, it's even less of the concerns you have. You raise THEIR Hx (with you).

So, yeah, either I explained poorly or this is pretty much "yucky new things."

I think I'm the one who explained poorly. Kudos on realizing that there was likely a communication error.

In short, I don't want Meta constructs influencing character behavior. So perception? That's completely in character, that's great. But having incentives to adjust your role-playing to optimize this OOC mechanic? Not so much.

The only exception to this I can think of is "everyone having fun". I've learned that it's important to metagame for that OOC concern.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-24, 10:44 PM
They get a mechanical bonus to aid (or hinder) you, because reasons. To reflect… how in sync they are with you?
Sort of.



That sounds… really gamey and gameable. And likely to produce some rather unrealistic results.
The fame features people who can just kinda show up with no explanation if they do well on a Beggining-of-Session move.
AW never claims realism. It's not something it cares about. Consistency, peppered with just enough Weird to make the world feel odd, yes. Realism... no.

Also, on gameable:
To gain one level (ONE) via Hx, would take (assuming you began with a Hx of +3 with your helper at session 1, which is unlikely) 13 sessions.
Your average campaign is less than 20 sessions.

Hx will give you, if you go hard, about 1 level worth of XP in the entire. Damn. Campaign.

In a game where 1 level means very little.

Is it gameable?... I GUESS?! Dunno why you'd bother for so little.




And for all the negatives I see it causing, I'm missing how it is a *role-playing* boon. That was the claim, right? That it is a role-playing mechanic?
It's certainly not the best one, but I chose it because it's entirely noninvasive... if you're not hyper-sensitive about any little potential thing that might have you thinking out of character.
(In which case... why D&D, one of the gamiest systems, as a paragon of RP? Another inconsistency I'm noting here.)



It's literally "look back at what happened during this game. How has that affected your character's relationships with other characters? Let's give them a + for being a pal."

Oh no. What a terrible distraction from roleplaying to take 10 seconds to consider your character's relationships with other characters developing over time. It would have been fine if the system didn't remind me that this is a meaningful consideration.

The resistance to this idea is genuinely bizaare to me.




I think I'm the one who explained poorly. Kudos on realizing that there was likely a communication error.

In short, I don't want Meta constructs influencing character behavior. So perception? That's completely in character, that's great. But having incentives to adjust your role-playing to optimize this OOC mechanic? Not so much.

You... you do realize that most players aren't looking for ways to optimize the outcomes of these systems, yeah? For the subset who are, the thrill of being able to optimize via roleplaying is probably a bigger draw than the roleplaying. And... if you're trying to optimize in Apocalypse World...
Damage: Play Gunlugger. Done.
(It literally says in the book that if you wanna play the biggest bad***, play a Gunlugger.)
Social: Play Skinner. Done.
Heals: Play Angel. Done.

Optimizing in AW is super silly. It's not going to make a significant difference. An extremely optimized Gunlugger is going to overkill everything he fights by 2-3 Harm.
An entirely unoptimized Gunlugger will overkill everything he fights by 1-2 Harm.

Either way, that NPC is Super Dead. There's no meaningful difference in most scenarios. In a car-heavy campaign... maybe the above would be noticeably more effective at destroying cars?
But.. that's not a situation I've ever found myself in.



The only exception to this I can think of is "everyone having fun". I've learned that it's important to metagame for that OOC concern.

Of course.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-24, 11:08 PM
This thread has very little to do with its original topic. Well anyone have anything to say about that?

Frankly, it's nonsense. The number one reason people play D&D is because they are interested in the fantasy genre. And guess what? Most of the fantasy genre isn't D&D! Of course people are going to want to play Doctor Strange or Rand al'Thor or Jorg of Ancrath or Kylar Stern. Those are fantasy characters, and they are far more likely to be what people are excited about than "Ranger" is. Yes, D&D isn't a perfect match for all its source material. But no game is. Very often, even a game that is written in the setting of a specific TV show, book, or movie won't be a perfect match for the original source material. That doesn't mean people are wrong when they describe their Wizard as "like Quick Ben" or their Barbarian as "like Logen Ninefingers". Getting upset about those things is like getting upset that someone described their Shadowrun character as "like Molly Millions", even though Molly never had to worry about Spirits or Astral Perception or any other sort of magic, or because her particular set of abilities don't line up perfectly with the gear available to Street Samurai.

Mechalich
2020-08-25, 12:46 AM
Frankly, it's nonsense. The number one reason people play D&D is because they are interested in the fantasy genre. And guess what? Most of the fantasy genre isn't D&D! Of course people are going to want to play Doctor Strange or Rand al'Thor or Jorg of Ancrath or Kylar Stern. Those are fantasy characters, and they are far more likely to be what people are excited about than "Ranger" is. Yes, D&D isn't a perfect match for all its source material. But no game is. Very often, even a game that is written in the setting of a specific TV show, book, or movie won't be a perfect match for the original source material. That doesn't mean people are wrong when they describe their Wizard as "like Quick Ben" or their Barbarian as "like Logen Ninefingers". Getting upset about those things is like getting upset that someone described their Shadowrun character as "like Molly Millions", even though Molly never had to worry about Spirits or Astral Perception or any other sort of magic, or because her particular set of abilities don't line up perfectly with the gear available to Street Samurai.

D&D has a particular issue in that much of it's source material is seriously dated. The foundational source material for D&D included Tolkein - who remains very relevant - but also Michael Moorcock (Elric), Robert Howard (Conan), Fritz Leiber (Nehwon), and Jack Vance (Dying Earth), and a number of lesser-known authors (Le Sprague de Camp and such), active primarily in the 1950s, 1960s, and early 1970s. Those works were all popular in their day and mostly hold up, but they are no longer widely read even among fantasy fans and they certainly aren't the driving force in the genre. Fantasy itself was a much smaller pond at the time - something D&D actually can be fairly heavily credited for expanding - and whole subgenres were either in their infancy or did not even exist at the time - YA publishing, for one, wasn't a thing yet.

Consequently the source material the modern playerbase draws on for D&D and the source material the game was actually based on no longer match up, and probably haven't for the better part of twenty years.

4e did try to account for this, re-conceptualizing huge portions of the game. Unfortunately, by virtue of longevity, the game itself had become its own source material. In particular, the huge amount of fluff produced during the later portions of 2e - the material responsible for the TSR bankruptcy - continues to inform the structure of D&D play, settings, and world-building up to the present. Players were unwilling to discard this, especially older players who, though they may be a smaller portion of the overall playerbase, have disproportionate purchasing power to support the game.

The result is that the leading fantasy game in the US marketplace is not designed, and is in fact not capable of being designed, to reflect the kind of material being published in contemporary fantasy stories - prose literature, video games, comics, and otherwise. It's certainly possible to make a TTRPG system that better reflects the capabilities, personalities, and story tropes of modern High Fantasy Epics, but it is not possible to make D&D do that. In fact, I suspect it's already been done. However, the nature of the TTRPG marketplace means that it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible (caveat, in the US), for a game that does that to get enough attention to seize significant market share.

Kyutaru
2020-08-25, 07:07 AM
D&D has a particular issue in that much of it's source material is seriously dated.
Even 3E mixed up things with casters no longer having cast times, something Harry Potter popularized in the mainstream some three years earlier.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-25, 07:21 AM
Fast casting magic is a concession to the realities of tabletop gaming, not really a reaction to the genre. Even in Harry Potter, there's still plenty of potion-brewing and ritual magic that happens. It's just that having the Wizard wait three rounds for their spell effect to go off makes the game less fun.


4e did try to account for this, re-conceptualizing huge portions of the game.

Sure, but that wasn't done in any kind of attempt to catch up to the changing realities of the fantasy genre (even the ~2006 fantasy genre). The Fighter is still very much an action hero wannabe, the Ranger is still an Aragorn knockoff, and the Paladin isn't a concept that shows up very much in non-D&D fantasy. People accuse 4e of being tabletop WoW, but it didn't even include as many character concepts as WoW did. There's no Hunter type, no Death Knight, and no Druid (at least, at game release, which was what most people judged the game on). 4e's design goals were about allowing designers to pump out splat content, not allowing for genre emulation.

Cluedrew
2020-08-25, 07:37 AM
(In which case... why D&D, one of the gamiest systems, as a paragon of RP? Another inconsistency I'm noting here.)Because they all learned to role-play in D&D so their notion of role-playing and role-playing skills are all tuned for D&D. By feedback this makes D&D the best system for them to role-play in. Except that can't be quite right, if it was then people would be playing D&D light, like D&D but combats take way less time, just long enough to do your appropriate character decisions in them and no longer because that system is better for role-playing than D&D. I put it down to comfort and familiarity.

On the Topic: I'm going to agree with Pex, just because a system doesn't match a character exactly doesn't mean its not a useful comparison. And yes NigelWalmsley people are going to want to use them for inspiration as well. Mechalich's theory about D&D becoming its own source sounds right too. And that is part of the reason I come down so hard on D&D and its lore for not matching up. I mean I don't expect it to be perfect but with the possible exception of the first main Dragon Lance book, not a single one has the feel of being adapted from a D&D campaign.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-25, 07:37 AM
On that original topic, there's a grey area where a PC for a game using D&D (or other systems, this isn't unique to D&D) can be heavily inspired by a character from a fictional source, but can't BE that character. 5e can often handle characters inspired by That Guy From That One Book I Read, but it can rarely handle that exact character.

The problem comes from the mistaken expectation, on the part of anyone involved, that a broad range of characters can translate directly into 5e. Even what appears to be a simple rogue might translate to a 3rd level rogue one way, a 7th level rogue another way, and not at all in another way. The DM would need to be willing to swap out some abilities between classes, subclasses, and levels, and reskin some things, to faithfully map that character into D&D.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-25, 09:47 AM
On that original topic, there's a grey area where a PC for a game using D&D (or other systems, this isn't unique to D&D) can be heavily inspired by a character from a fictional source, but can't BE that character. 5e can often handle characters inspired by That Guy From That One Book I Read, but it can rarely handle that exact character.

The problem comes from the mistaken expectation, on the part of anyone involved, that a broad range of characters can translate directly into 5e. Even what appears to be a simple rogue might translate to a 3rd level rogue one way, a 7th level rogue another way, and not at all in another way. The DM would need to be willing to swap out some abilities between classes, subclasses, and levels, and reskin some things, to faithfully map that character into D&D.

Honestly, at the writing characters level, this was my main point. Inspiration? Sure. As long as it's quite broad inspiration. Personality usually transfers over fine (because there aren't very many mechanics tied directly to it so it's an open field). Backstory, not so much (unless you scrub it so heavily it's almost unrecognizable). Powerset? This one doesn't transfer at any kind of reasonable mechanical level. Not even between editions of D&D[0].

So if all you want is having someone who, when seen through drunk goggles, looks somewhat similar, sure. Knock yourself out. You can even make it fit (most) worlds pretty well. But if you're expecting (as I've seen many people do) to actually get an accurate mechanical model of that character (actually play Batman), you'll be strongly disappointed.

Throw in @Cluedrew's excellent point that D&D is the (somewhat snake-eating-its-tail) source of most of D&D's inspiration in the modern editions, with the other inspirations being both to old media and diluted by time and change at this point, and you have only limited scope for claiming that the modern editions are even trying to (or should be expected to) emulate much of modern fantasy.

[0] the omnipresent complaint that 5e can't do a good Warlord (from 4e). Or the need to completely rebuild characters from 3e into 5e (or vice versa), often losing large chunks of powersets. Etc.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-25, 01:24 PM
Honestly, at the writing characters level, this was my main point. Inspiration? Sure. As long as it's quite broad inspiration. Personality usually transfers over fine (because there aren't very many mechanics tied directly to it so it's an open field). Backstory, not so much (unless you scrub it so heavily it's almost unrecognizable). Powerset? This one doesn't transfer at any kind of reasonable mechanical level. Not even between editions of D&D[0].

So if all you want is having someone who, when seen through drunk goggles, looks somewhat similar, sure. Knock yourself out. You can even make it fit (most) worlds pretty well. But if you're expecting (as I've seen many people do) to actually get an accurate mechanical model of that character (actually play Batman), you'll be strongly disappointed.

Throw in @Cluedrew's excellent point that D&D is the (somewhat snake-eating-its-tail) source of most of D&D's inspiration in the modern editions, with the other inspirations being both to old media and diluted by time and change at this point, and you have only limited scope for claiming that the modern editions are even trying to (or should be expected to) emulate much of modern fantasy.

[0] the omnipresent complaint that 5e can't do a good Warlord (from 4e). Or the need to completely rebuild characters from 3e into 5e (or vice versa), often losing large chunks of powersets. Etc.

On the original topic, I have enjoyed TulokTheBarbarian's "How to Play ____ in D&D."

Most of the builds are clearly quite silly, it doesn't take the notion of representing them 100% faithfully as a goal, but has a certain subset of what the character does as what he wants the build to do.

So he built, as an example, the Ice Climbers. As one character, using a subclass from the Wildmount splatbook, and making random reflavoring calls. Ie, "You'll use padded leather armor so... let's call that a very heavy coat. Close enough."

He built Donkey Kong as a Bugbear Druid/Monk/Barbarian multiclass because in one game DK doesn't ride the animals, he swaps with them, and picking up Wildshape is easier than getting a decent mounted combat ability.

Basically, the series doesn't pretend that you can be anything exactly as it is, but it does approximate in a way that makes the builds interesting and clearly referential while not being super obvious if you don't already know what it is. (I mean, I wouldn't see an Eberron Orc Fighter 1/Druid 1/Barbarian 18 build as being a reference to Shrek without some guidance, but that video exists and to be honest... it's pretty great. )

So yeah, using a character as a loose guide or reference material is fine, and could even be funny in the right campaign. But if you wanna be X character EXACTLY, you're gonna have a bad time.

Man on Fire
2020-08-26, 06:02 AM
So often I see people referencing LotR characters/events, other fantasy fiction, superheroes, etc. Usually in one of a "well, Aragorn was a ranger, and..." or a "people want to play Batman, so..." or a "what class would X be..." context.

IMO, all of those are bad. Both for the game and for discussions of the game. D&D is not a generic game. That's an astonishing statement, so I'll repeat. D&D is not a generic game. The d20 System tried to be generic, but even 3e D&D did not. It does not try to be a game where you can build any fantastic character and play them. It's not even generic fantasy. Or even generic high fantasy. D&D is its own sub-genre of fantasy, and the only thing it's emulating is D&D. Yes, that's circular. But that's how genres are.

The last example (what class is X) is the least bad--it's just pointless. Because you'll never get a good fit. Because X media is not D&D, and D&D is not X. Trying to build even classic characters such as Conan in D&D, although it's been done for a long time (even by Gary Gygax himself) ultimately fails, because Conan (as a literary hero) doesn't fit into the class/level mold well at all. He's got this feature from that level of that class, and this other feature of the other class from a different level, while not having the features of the previous levels. The abstractions are too different and incompatible.

The other ones are worse (again, IMO). D&D is not a LotR game. It takes some inspiration from LotR, blends it together with a lot of popular culture, lets it ferment for a few decades, and ends up with something that is similar but ultimately different. It's not a superhero game. Heck, you'd find that if you tried to build canon Batman in a dedicated supers game, you'd run out of build points way before you can hit those "core" abilities. And so you get friction. Lots of heat, no light. Referencing those other characters doesn't actually add to a conversation. It muddies it.

The core point here is that written fiction (or TV/movie/anime fiction) uses a whole different set of techniques, tropes, and mechanisms than TTRPGs. Characters in those media can do lots of things that are not well suited for a collaborative, party-based game, because they're single-author fiction and there's no need for gameplay mechanics, intra-party or party/world balance, and their worlds are completely different and written entirely around those characters. Importing them into a different context is disrespectful to


D&D, because it breaks all the assumptions and core mechanisms (including the core fiction) that the game is built on.
The settings of the D&D game (because importing Batman into Faerun doesn't fit)
The original work (because taking Batman out of his context inevitably lessens and muddies his character).


So my plea is that we should refrain from using other works in other media as comparison or argumentation points when talking about D&D. Let D&D stand (or fall) on its own merits. When discussing balance, don't say "but Harry Potter can..." (or "but Kaleidin...") When building characters for games, don't try to emulate fictional characters. You'll only end up disappointed. Start with a general, vague concept and lean into the class fiction.

/rant

How about stop telling people what to do? I'm growing wary of d&d veterans complaining that people want to have fun playing d&d. Some of my favorite games were where I wasdeliberatelly basing my character on a ficitonal one - Spider Jerusalem in World of Darkness, Cassandra Cain in D&D, DP's Claudia in pathfinder. No one was upset, we all had fun, who are you to say we play the game wrong just because it doesn't fit your theories? Have tried to spend less time overanalyzing the game to feel superior and more playing with people?

Xervous
2020-08-26, 06:33 AM
How about stop telling people what to do? I'm growing wary of d&d veterans complaining that people want to have fun playing d&d. Some of my favorite games were where I wasdeliberatelly basing my character on a ficitonal one - Spider Jerusalem in World of Darkness, Cassandra Cain in D&D, DP's Claudia in pathfinder. No one was upset, we all had fun, who are you to say we play the game wrong just because it doesn't fit your theories? Have tried to spend less time overanalyzing the game to feel superior and more playing with people?

We are hardly looking at a case of wrongbadfun or similar. This is about square pegs, round holes, and the results of setting the expectation that you can often/always replicate a given concept in D&D faithfully. You are giving people a black box and telling them it works. Those who never see it fail will uphold the claim while others who experience a failed translation will learn the system is not all encompassing.

It can do a little on its own, you can stretch it to fit a great deal more, but some concepts just don’t work in D&D. If we are to pitch a generic statement of what characters you can create the list of restrictions is itself a specification by definition. Slap an asterisk on, add a “possibly” and the sales pitch becomes a lot more honest.

Man on Fire
2020-08-26, 06:51 AM
We are hardly looking at a case of wrongbadfun or similar. This is about square pegs, round holes, and the results of setting the expectation that you can often/always replicate a given concept in D&D faithfully. You are giving people a black box and telling them it works. Those who never see it fail will uphold the claim while others who experience a failed translation will learn the system is not all encompassing.

It can do a little on its own, you can stretch it to fit a great deal more, but some concepts just don’t work in D&D. If we are to pitch a generic statement of what characters you can create the list of restrictions is itself a specification by definition. Slap an asterisk on, add a “possibly” and the sales pitch becomes a lot more honest.

You know what? Watch Tulok tye Barbarian, he has made some seemingly impossible character builds in 5e without breaking it or using homebrews. He shows a little bit or refluffing goes a long way and that you worry too much

Ignimortis
2020-08-26, 07:01 AM
You know what? Watch Tulok tye Barbarian, he has made some seemingly impossible character builds in 5e without breaking it or using homebrews. He shows a little bit or refluffing goes a long way and that you worry too much

I've seen a few of these videos. They are, pardon me, cringe as hell. He hyperfocuses on some particular abilities a character has, without taking the feel of the character, or their general strong points, into account, and pays little to no heed to how those characters actually function in source material. Oh, and those builds are usually pretty underoptimized.

Xervous
2020-08-26, 08:00 AM
You know what? Watch Tulok tye Barbarian, he has made some seemingly impossible character builds in 5e without breaking it or using homebrews. He shows a little bit or refluffing goes a long way and that you worry too much

At the point of “watch” I’m relatively convinced it’s not a concise pitch. What you describe sounds more like an entertainment channel.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-26, 08:54 AM
I've seen a few of these videos. They are, pardon me, cringe as hell. He hyperfocuses on some particular abilities a character has, without taking the feel of the character, or their general strong points, into account, and pays little to no heed to how those characters actually function in source material. Oh, and those builds are usually pretty underoptimized.

Really? We're gonna go with "cringe?"

It's meant to be fun and a little silly, he never claims to be the definitive expert on any character, and his other goal is for the builds to be interesting.

Also, like... the limitations of D&D being what they are.

Man on Fire
2020-08-26, 03:13 PM
I've seen a few of these videos. They are, pardon me, cringe as hell. He hyperfocuses on some particular abilities a character has, without taking the feel of the character, or their general strong points, into account, and pays little to no heed to how those characters actually function in source material. Oh, and those builds are usually pretty underoptimized.
Underoptimized is bad how exactly? Because it proves there is more than one right way to play?

Seriously, his builds are pretty fun and I love tyhem for showing that no, you don't need to have mechanics that will 100% reflect every concept or idea, a bit of refluffing can help youre plicate general feel and purpose of various abilitties without relying on hundreds of splatbooks with obcure mechanics or homebrewing.

Ignimortis
2020-08-26, 08:40 PM
Really? We're gonna go with "cringe?"

It's meant to be fun and a little silly, he never claims to be the definitive expert on any character, and his other goal is for the builds to be interesting.

Also, like... the limitations of D&D being what they are.

The limitations are exactly the point. I'm all for concepts being accessible, but 5e is too limited even for some things that wouldn't be amiss, much less for something that doesn't fit the basic archetypes. And even then, there's a lot of times he fails to find the proper feel.

For example, why is Dante a Paladin 20? He never casts spells, he doesn't do smiting, he doesn't stop to heal, and the Devil Trigger could've been any of the Aasimars' racial transformation or Barbarian Rage. Despite how much I dislike the Champion, Barbarian 4 (Totem Warrior, since we are doing refluffing)/Champion Fighter 16 would've been better in almost every respect feel-wise. It would've been much weaker than actual Dante (obviously, since this is 5e), but the feel would've been there (regeneration, high AC even without armor, great with any weapon, can pick up a few feats to cover both handguns/swords, DT increases both damage and durability).


Underoptimized is bad how exactly? Because it proves there is more than one right way to play?

Seriously, his builds are pretty fun and I love tyhem for showing that no, you don't need to have mechanics that will 100% reflect every concept or idea, a bit of refluffing can help youre plicate general feel and purpose of various abilitties without relying on hundreds of splatbooks with obcure mechanics or homebrewing.

Underoptimized is bad because the videos say "how to play X", which is usually a pretty powerful character. Meanwhile, the suggestions are often to go with 10 CON for a frontliner or something like that.

And you do have to have certain mechanics to replicate the actual feel of the character. If a Dragoon can only Jump, at best, a few minutes per day, because the only way to get a super-high jump is to stack Monk and the Jump spell and the magic boots, then it doesn't feel anywhere close to the fantasy of the class.

Man on Fire
2020-08-27, 03:38 AM
The limitations are exactly the point. I'm all for concepts being accessible, but 5e is too limited even for some things that wouldn't be amiss, much less for something that doesn't fit the basic archetypes. And even then, there's a lot of times he fails to find the proper feel.

For example, why is Dante a Paladin 20? He never casts spells, he doesn't do smiting, he doesn't stop to heal, and the Devil Trigger could've been any of the Aasimars' racial transformation or Barbarian Rage. Despite how much I dislike the Champion, Barbarian 4 (Totem Warrior, since we are doing refluffing)/Champion Fighter 16 would've been better in almost every respect feel-wise. It would've been much weaker than actual Dante (obviously, since this is 5e), but the feel would've been there (regeneration, high AC even without armor, great with any weapon, can pick up a few feats to cover both handguns/swords, DT increases both damage and durability).



Underoptimized is bad because the videos say "how to play X", which is usually a pretty powerful character. Meanwhile, the suggestions are often to go with 10 CON for a frontliner or something like that.

And you do have to have certain mechanics to replicate the actual feel of the character. If a Dragoon can only Jump, at best, a few minutes per day, because the only way to get a super-high jump is to stack Monk and the Jump spell and the magic boots, then it doesn't feel anywhere close to the fantasy of the class.

And you are getting bogged down into minutia and a bunch of details instead of trying to replicate general feel of the character. No game is or should be about 100% acurrate reflection of every character* but about building them to capture their strong points in game in a way you can enjoy. You can easily refluff a lot of spells and just say they are this and that power. It is much better than going with the obsessive attempts to make EXACT COPY of every abilitty. A little creativity goes a long way.

* - Except GURPS because, as John Wick has said, GURPS is about making characters. Whic it accomplishes via advanced mathematics. And behaviors it rewards are advanced mathematics.

Xervous
2020-08-27, 06:37 AM
And you are getting bogged down into minutia and a bunch of details instead of trying to replicate general feel of the character. No game is or should be about 100% acurrate reflection of every character* but about building them to capture their strong points in game in a way you can enjoy. You can easily refluff a lot of spells and just say they are this and that power. It is much better than going with the obsessive attempts to make EXACT COPY of every abilitty. A little creativity goes a long way.

* - Except GURPS because, as John Wick has said, GURPS is about making characters. Whic it accomplishes via advanced mathematics. And behaviors it rewards are advanced mathematics.

Part of the problem is refluffing only goes so far. You can pitch every cosmetic detail you want to a point but there’s barriers at which the system just says no. Promising players that such boundaries don’t exist is false advertising. Refluff that -5 hp why don’t you.

Man on Fire
2020-08-27, 07:16 AM
Part of the problem is refluffing only goes so far. You can pitch every cosmetic detail you want to a point but there’s barriers at which the system just says no. Promising players that such boundaries don’t exist is false advertising. Refluff that -5 hp why don’t you.

You're looking for a hole where there is none.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-27, 08:41 AM
Part of the problem is refluffing only goes so far. You can pitch every cosmetic detail you want to a point but there’s barriers at which the system just says no. Promising players that such boundaries don’t exist is false advertising. Refluff that -5 hp why don’t you.


You're looking for a hole where there is none.

No, it's true, you can only refluff so far before running headlong into mechanics that just don't work for the character, or even the whole setting.

An RPG character inspired by a fictional character is not the same as a direct translation of the fictional character into D&D.

Xervous
2020-08-27, 08:42 AM
You're looking for a hole where there is none.

I’d like to be wrong, for 5e to be a flexible system that can express a broader variety of concepts faithfully. If you have a compelling argument or evidence to the contrary of my and others’ collective experience on top of the system’s capabilities as so defined in the PHB please by all means share it.

Man on Fire
2020-08-27, 08:54 AM
I’d like to be wrong, for 5e to be a flexible system that can express a broader variety of concepts faithfully. If you have a compelling argument or evidence to the contrary of my and others’ collective experience on top of the system’s capabilities as so defined in the PHB please by all means share it.

{Scrubbed}

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-27, 09:00 AM
{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

To be blunt, the tone conveyed by your posts doesn't foster conversation, it fosters confrontation.

Accusing people of "inflexibility" and "lack of creativity" is a huge assumption and more than a little insulting.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-27, 10:51 AM
For that I would have to see an argument and not an evident lack of creativity and flexibility on the part of the complainers. Give me an example maybe?

As much as I also enjoy the series for as fun as it is, acknowledging the limitations of D&D is very much part of the series as well. He regularly talks about some of the resultant nonsense that occurs and inaccuracies that you have to ignore or give a really dumb explanation.

D&D is not good at accurate replication. But trying to get the relative shape of a fictional character is doable.

Man on Fire
2020-08-27, 10:57 AM
As much as I also enjoy the series for as fun as it is, acknowledging the limitations of D&D is very much part of the series as well. He regularly talks about some of the resultant nonsense that occurs and inaccuracies that you have to ignore or give a really dumb explanation.

D&D is not good at accurate replication. But trying to get the relative shape of a fictional character is doable.

That's the point I was trying to make. There is no mechanic that can stop the latter and I find obsessing over the former misguided.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-27, 11:03 AM
That's the point I was trying to make. There is no mechanic that can stop the latter and I find obsessing over the former misguided.

It is quite possible for an RPG mechanic to simply be ill-suited for the thing one is trying to represent on the level of "feel".

Example -- There are a LOT of fictional settings with magic that D&D's spell system simply cannot capture the feel of -- and that shouldn't be surprising, because Gygax built it specifically to capture the feel of a specific set of works by a single author (http://www.dyingearth.com/files/GARY%20GYGAX%20JACK%20VANCE.pdf), it's even called "Vancian magic" in RPG parlance.

It doesn't help that every edition of D&D leans hard on the assumed/presumed "fluff", the implicit fiction layer. Maybe some version of the UA Mystic suits a character better, but their powers were imbued upon them by their deity, and in D&D that is a Cleric (or a Paladin in some editions) per the implicit fiction layer, and using the Mystic instead is swimming upriver against those assumptions, relying on the willingness of other players at the table to accept it.

kyoryu
2020-08-27, 12:16 PM
In general, the translation works if done in general and vague terms, and not well if done specifically.

"What's a Barbarian? Yeah, think of someone like Conan" Using the fictional character to describe the class
"You want to make a character like Conan? Start with a Barbarian, that'll get you a lot of that." Getting a character "like" a specific fictional character, understanding that the resulting character won't exactly match.

D&D can do a good job of the latter, and the former is a useful tool to describe things.

D&D is really bad at doing precise translations.

"What's a Barbarian? Well, it's Conan. Except that Conan can't really rage like a Barbarian can, and Conan can do these other things that aren't in the Barbarian class."
"You want to make Conan? Um. Start with a Barbarian. But you're going to need to pull in these other things, which also will pull in this other stuff that Conan can't do. So it won't work exactly right?"

A D&D Barbarian is not Conan, even if it's close in general terms. And in most cases, trying to make an accurate representation of a fictional character in D&D will fail.

And that shouldn't be considered a "failing" of D&D, since it's not really a goal of D&D.

Man on Fire
2020-08-27, 12:36 PM
It is quite possible for an RPG mechanic to simply be ill-suited for the thing one is trying to represent on the level of "feel".

Example -- There are a LOT of fictional settings with magic that D&D's spell system simply cannot capture the feel of -- and that shouldn't be surprising, because Gygax built it specifically to capture the feel of a specific set of works by a single author (http://www.dyingearth.com/files/GARY%20GYGAX%20JACK%20VANCE.pdf), it's even called "Vancian magic" in RPG parlance.

It doesn't help that every edition of D&D leans hard on the assumed/presumed "fluff", the implicit fiction layer. Maybe some version of the UA Mystic suits a character better, but their powers were imbued upon them by their deity, and in D&D that is a Cleric (or a Paladin in some editions) per the implicit fiction layer, and using the Mystic instead is swimming upriver against those assumptions, relying on the willingness of other players at the table to accept it.

Your first choice to prove me wrong was bassically claiming we cannot replicate a whole setting like Dragon Age {Scrubbed}

Willie the Duck
2020-08-27, 01:09 PM
That's the point I was trying to make. There is no mechanic that can stop the latter and I find obsessing over the former misguided.

There is very little controversy and very little to discuss in these points, other than the degree. I don't think anyone would disagree that a game is going to have gamist conceits for the explicit purpose of making the play of it, well, playable. On the other hand, there is nothing wrong with saying A does B well and C poorly, and perhaps if your conception of playing in the world of D requires good C, perhaps you should try system E which does it better. That's knowing your preferences, and the strengths and weaknesses of a system at meeting those preferences.

As to obsessing, this is an internet forum, pick things apart with obsessive fervor is kind of the resident hobby here (sometimes moreso than actual gaming). Is it "misguided?" Boy, well, that depends on what are ones goals, and thus what the endeavor is intending to guide.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-27, 03:33 PM
It is quite possible for an RPG mechanic to simply be ill-suited for the thing one is trying to represent on the level of "feel".

Example -- There are a LOT of fictional settings with magic that D&D's spell system simply cannot capture the feel of -- and that shouldn't be surprising, because Gygax built it specifically to capture the feel of a specific set of works by a single author (http://www.dyingearth.com/files/GARY%20GYGAX%20JACK%20VANCE.pdf), it's even called "Vancian magic" in RPG parlance.

It doesn't help that every edition of D&D leans hard on the assumed/presumed "fluff", the implicit fiction layer. Maybe some version of the UA Mystic suits a character better, but their powers were imbued upon them by their deity, and in D&D that is a Cleric (or a Paladin in some editions) per the implicit fiction layer, and using the Mystic instead is swimming upriver against those assumptions, relying on the willingness of other players at the table to accept it.




Your first choice to prove me wrong was bassically claiming we cannot replicate a whole setting like Dragon Age, which is moving the goalposts reeeely far.


The style/approach/feel of a character's magic is the issue in that example, setting can be taken entirely out of it. I didn't mention Dragon Age at all, or any other particular setting.

Of course, as the second paragraph points out, the question of setting can't be taken out of D&D itself -- D&D is not, never was, and probably never will be setting-neutral. There's an implicit setting, an implicit fiction layer, that's baked into D&D's mechanics and fluff, and part of the problem at hand here is that D&D is not as good at dealing with characters or settings that are too far out of sync with its implicit setting. Gygax designed the magic system to fit a very particular implicit fiction layer, one that matched the aforementioned works by Vance. 5e presumes that gods grant their chosen agents powers, that oaths have metaphysical impact on reality, that souls can be bargaining chips, that certain cosmologies exist, that songs (or other performances) can be magic, etc. Select individuals (PCs among them) are presumed to increase in skill and power dramatically, going from competent mortals to effectively demigods, and that's baked into the leveling system. So on, and so on, and so on.

The OP's worldbuilding has a large focus on creating a setting which fits 5e's implicit fiction layer, and thus is in sync with D&D's mechanics -- and the way I read it part of the problem he wanted to bring up in this thread is people trying to bring in characters who don't fit that implicit fiction and thus also don't fit his setting AND don't fit the way 5e's mechanics work.

And that brings us back to the fact that mechanics matter, and sometimes they just aren't suited for even the general feel and vibe of a character.

E: I get the sense, however, that system/setting incoherence is simply something that does not bother you, and you don't mind if the mechanical layer feels wildly different from the fiction layer.

Man on Fire
2020-08-27, 04:04 PM
The style/approach/feel of a character's magic is the issue in that example, setting can be taken entirely out of it. I didn't mention Dragon Age at all, or any other particular setting.

Of course, as the second paragraph points out, the question of setting can't be taken out of D&D itself -- D&D is not, never was, and probably never will be setting-neutral. There's an implicit setting, an implicit fiction layer, that's baked into D&D's mechanics and fluff, and part of the problem at hand here is that D&D is not as good at dealing with characters or settings that are too far out of sync with its implicit setting. Gygax designed the magic system to fit a very particular implicit fiction layer, one that matched the aforementioned works by Vance. 5e presumes that gods grant their chosen agents powers, that oaths have metaphysical impact on reality, that souls can be bargaining chips, that certain cosmologies exist, that songs (or other performances) can be magic, etc. Select individuals (PCs among them) are presumed to increase in skill and power dramatically, going from competent mortals to effectively demigods, and that's baked into the leveling system. So on, and so on, and so on.

The OP's worldbuilding has a large focus on creating a setting which fits 5e's implicit fiction layer, and thus is in sync with D&D's mechanics -- and the way I read it part of the problem he wanted to bring up in this thread is people trying to bring in characters who don't fit that implicit fiction and thus also don't fit his setting AND don't fit the way 5e's mechanics work.

And that brings us back to the fact that mechanics matter, and sometimes they just aren't suited for even the general feel and vibe of a character.

E: I get the sense, however, that system/setting incoherence is simply something that does not bother you, and you don't mind if the mechanical layer feels wildly different from the fiction layer.

You can easily replicate the "feel" of any type of magic in d&d without changing whole mechanics. Remember, Dragon Age and Warhammer may do a whole mechanical deal to justify why wizards are feared, distrusted and need to be tightly controlled and forced to join special organization and those who refuse are branded renegades and hunted down. D&D, without changing a bit of mechanics, did the same with Dragonlance. If you can play Rastilin Majere, you can play any character of darker shade of magic.

Year or so ago people asked how to replicate Dragon Prince's dark magic in d&d - magic that relies on sucking the life out of living creatures to cast spells and the answer was "change spell components to bugs". {Scrubbed}

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-27, 05:09 PM
You can easily replicate the "feel" of any type of magic in d&d without changing whole mechanics.

That's just not true. Plenty of magic systems have mechanics that are not compatible with D&D's spell slots paradigm (or spell points, or whatever One True System you choose). Traveler's Gate postulates a wide, wide range of magic systems, but to pick one you could look at Endross. Endross Travelers get a range of powers (basically lightning magic plus lightning summons), but the big thing is that they get stronger as they use their powers. How do you translate that to D&D? You could play them to use their lower level spells first, but that's not really satisfying (because it's essentially requiring that you behave in a tactically suboptimal way to match your concept), and it ultimately falls apart as you run out of magic fairly quickly. You need an actual mechanic that lets them do their "ramp up" thing.

And this is not really all that rare. In general, settings with defined magic systems can't just be dropped into D&D with no problems (and this is not, as some people suggest, just a problem with Vancian magic, it happens with Spell Points as well). If you want to support Allomancy or Surgebinding or Powder Mages or The Path, you need specific rules that are suited to the specific way those things work. In my opinion, that's desirable, as it means that individual characters feel different. Having every kind of magic be just "Spell Slots + Fluff" or "Spell Points + Fluff" makes characters boring.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-27, 06:16 PM
You can easily replicate the "feel" of any type of magic in d&d without changing whole mechanics. Remember, Dragon Age and Warhammer may do a whole mechanical deal to justify why wizards are feared, distrusted and need to be tightly controlled and forced to join special organization and those who refuse are branded renegades and hunted down. D&D, without changing a bit of mechanics, did the same with Dragonlance. If you can play Rastilin Majere, you can play any character of darker shade of magic.

Year or so ago people asked how to replicate Dragon Prince's dark magic in d&d - magic that relies on sucking the life out of living creatures to cast spells and the answer was "change spell components to bugs".{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}

If you insist on assuming that people who disagree with you are being inflexible, or lack imagination, or are obsessing, then I guess I'll insist that you simply aren't familiar with the full breadth of fictional magic systems and concepts that exist.

Oh well. :smallconfused:

(PS: at one point, Dragonlance specific gaming sourcebooks introduced three separate classes of Wizard, with their own XP progressions and spell lists and so on, to represent the three different "colors", despite being entirely derived from D&D... and yet here you are insisting that far more different magic concepts can easily be represented with the Vancian system of D&D.)



That's just not true. Plenty of magic systems have mechanics that are not compatible with D&D's spell slots paradigm (or spell points, or whatever One True System you choose). Traveler's Gate postulates a wide, wide range of magic systems, but to pick one you could look at Endross. Endross Travelers get a range of powers (basically lightning magic plus lightning summons), but the big thing is that they get stronger as they use their powers. How do you translate that to D&D? You could play them to use their lower level spells first, but that's not really satisfying (because it's essentially requiring that you behave in a tactically suboptimal way to match your concept), and it ultimately falls apart as you run out of magic fairly quickly. You need an actual mechanic that lets them do their "ramp up" thing.

And this is not really all that rare. In general, settings with defined magic systems can't just be dropped into D&D with no problems (and this is not, as some people suggest, just a problem with Vancian magic, it happens with Spell Points as well). If you want to support Allomancy or Surgebinding or Powder Mages or The Path, you need specific rules that are suited to the specific way those things work. In my opinion, that's desirable, as it means that individual characters feel different. Having every kind of magic be just "Spell Slots + Fluff" or "Spell Points + Fluff" makes characters boring.

Agreed, none of the magics you mentioned are really captured faithfully in detail or aesthetic by the Slots-n-Fluff or Points-n-Fluff.

See also the Avatar/Korra setting's Bending -- that simply doesn't work with D&D, the classes, character-to-class, character-to-magic-type, and everything else just don't fit.

(And "just fluff spell components as bugs and stuff" really doesn't capture Dragon Prince's dark magic at all, it's just a superficial nod to one aspect of it.)

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-27, 06:50 PM
See also the Avatar/Korra setting's Bending -- that simply doesn't work with D&D, the classes, character-to-class, character-to-magic-type, and everything else just don't fit.

What's the problem with Bending? Your class is Air/Water/Earth/Fire Bender (with Metal or Explosion or Lava Bending being PrCs), and you get to do that kind of bending. That works for the vast majority of stories you want to tell in the setting ("the Avatar and his buddies" is a problematic concept for a TTRPG), and even the Avatar is just either "you can pick abilities from any type of Bending" or "you Gestalt all four Bending classes together". It certainly doesn't work well with spell slots (or spell points, as Benders mostly seem to be limited by endurance and/or injuries), but Avatar seems like one of the better settings for a classed system.

Cluedrew
2020-08-27, 07:05 PM
Your first choice to prove me wrong was bassically claiming we cannot replicate a whole setting like Dragon Age, which is moving the goalposts reeeely far.
[…] "people want to play Batman, so..." […] "but Harry Potter can..." (or "but Kaleidin...") […]I mean considering the examples in the original post Dragon Age sounds very reasonable.

But really there are levels of "nearness" for this describing it very coarsely for a moment:
Same Setting: You should be able to almost trivially represent PC-like characters from your own lore.
Same Genre: Characters from other stories of a similar feel and setting will require adjustments but probably can be used in a way that is recognizable if definitely not the same.
Less In Common: If you switch from fantasy to sci-fi that is going to be much harder. A dragon-slayer might have no relevant skills in a detective game so... the result might just be gibberish or reduced to flavour text.
Something like that. By that measure I feel a lot of Dragon Age characters fit Dungeons and Dragons better than Batman does.

Man on Fire
2020-08-27, 07:08 PM
If you insist on assuming that people who disagree with you are being inflexible, or lack imagination, or are obsessing, then I guess I'll insist that you simply aren't familiar with the full breadth of fictional magic systems and concepts that exist.

Or I know that mechanics are not begin-all end-all of role-playing and that you can work with your gm to portray things as you want them to be.


(PS: at one point, Dragonlance specific gaming sourcebooks introduced three separate classes of Wizard, with their own XP progressions and spell lists and so on, to represent the three different "colors", despite being entirely derived from D&D... and yet here you are insisting that far more different magic concepts can easily be represented with the Vancian system of D&D.)


Yes and 3.5 was badly designed by someone who loved wizards too much, one bad installment doesn't change anything.


See also the Avatar/Korra setting's Bending -- that simply doesn't work with D&D, the classes, character-to-class, character-to-magic-type, and everything else just don't fit.

And yet Tulok built pretty good Aang and Toph builds that let you get the feel of these characters just fine. No homebrew either.


(And "just fluff spell components as bugs and stuff" really doesn't capture Dragon Prince's dark magic at all, it's just a superficial nod to one aspect of it.)

Having watched all 3 seasons of Dragon Prince I believe to make that claim you would have to do it with a show that doesn't have a magic system as horribly ill-defined as DP.


That's just not true. Plenty of magic systems have mechanics that are not compatible with D&D's spell slots paradigm (or spell points, or whatever One True System you choose). Traveler's Gate postulates a wide, wide range of magic systems, but to pick one you could look at Endross. Endross Travelers get a range of powers (basically lightning magic plus lightning summons), but the big thing is that they get stronger as they use their powers. How do you translate that to D&D? You could play them to use their lower level spells first, but that's not really satisfying (because it's essentially requiring that you behave in a tactically suboptimal way to match your concept), and it ultimately falls apart as you run out of magic fairly quickly. You need an actual mechanic that lets them do their "ramp up" thing.

Nop, what you described is a very good way to roleplay it - you start low and then go for higher stuff but you are a sprinter, not a marathon runner so you need to finish the fight quickly. Work with your party and develop tactics that compliment your limits, it makes for a great game and I would love to play with someone using their magic this way.


And this is not really all that rare. In general, settings with defined magic systems can't just be dropped into D&D with no problems (and this is not, as some people suggest, just a problem with Vancian magic, it happens with Spell Points as well). If you want to support Allomancy or Surgebinding or Powder Mages or The Path, you need specific rules that are suited to the specific way those things work. In my opinion, that's desirable, as it means that individual characters feel different. Having every kind of magic be just "Spell Slots + Fluff" or "Spell Points + Fluff" makes characters boring.

I see an unlimited sea of potential using just few shortcuts that make every character feel unique even if they are the same class. I don't know what you see, {Scrubbed}

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-27, 07:27 PM
Or I know that mechanics are not begin-all end-all of role-playing and that you can work with your gm to portray things as you want them to be.

They aren't, but that doesn't mean they aren't important. Can you portray a character whose crunch doesn't match their fluff? Sure. But such an experience is frustrating and unsatisfying. It creates dissonance when the description of your abilities implies different things from the reality of those abilities. If the fluff says that you weave tapestries of magic that combine multiple currents of magic into a more powerful whole, but the mechanics say that you get a bunch of discrete spell effects, the game is not properly supporting your character concept.


Yes and 3.5 was badly designed by someone who loved wizards too much, one bad installment doesn't change anything.

Uh, what? Pretty sure what he's talking about there has nothing to do with 3.5. The phrase "their own XP progressions" implies one of the earlier editions, which didn't have unified XP progressions.


Nop, what you described is a very good way to roleplay it - you start low and then go for higher stuff but you are a sprinter, not a marathon runner so you need to finish the fight quickly.

Except it isn't. Consider a basic tactical question: do you want fights to be long or short? Someone with spell slots (or spell points, or some other limited resource) wants them to be short. That way they have more resources for later fights, or at the very least don't run out of resources before running out of enemies. But the Endross Traveler doesn't want that. They want fights to be long, because the longer the fight lasts, the more powerful they become. Roleplaying can't square that circle. The Endross Traveler is, in fact, a marathon runner. That's the thing that they are, and if your suggestion is "play a sprinter", you have failed to deliver on that.


I don't know what you see, {Scrub the post, scrub the quote}.

The fact that you think this is a tradeoff is exactly the problem. Good mechanics help you tell the story. The reason The Stormlight Archive is a compelling series is because the mechanics of the magic system create good narrative moments (for example: the Oaths provide an in-world reason why characters have important personal revelations in climactic action sequences). Broadly, your position is just the Stormwind Fallacy, an argument that has been understood to be wrong for over a decade.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-27, 08:15 PM
Or I know that mechanics are not begin-all end-all of role-playing and that you can work with your gm to portray things as you want them to be.


This isn't just about roleplaying, it's about aesthetics as well, and fiction/mechanics

Never mind that, as NigelWalmsley points out, trying to draw a hard line between "mechanics" and "roleplaying" and then placing them in supposed opposite is just the Stormwind Fallacy.




And yet Tulok built pretty good Aang and Toph builds that let you get the feel of these characters just fine. No homebrew either.


Aang works if you squint. Kinda. With a 20th level 12-year-old. And pretend that Aang can only bend to the limited degree allowed by the Ki points.

Now represent all the benders who aren't the Avatar. The Toph build was unconvincing and convoluted.




Having watched all 3 seasons of Dragon Prince I believe to make that claim you would have to do it with a show that doesn't have a magic system as horribly ill-defined as DP.


Wait, who made DP an example here? :smallconfused:

It's not just about the in-setting system, it's about the aesthetics and whether they line up with the mechanics provided by D&D -- or any other system.




I see an unlimited sea of potential using just few shortcuts that make every character feel unique even if they are the same class. I don't know what you see{Scrub the post, scrub the quote}


See previous pointer to Stormwind Fallacy.

And this whole "you're just doing this badwrongfun thing because of your personal faults" tact you're still on is getting old.


....



They aren't, but that doesn't mean they aren't important. Can you portray a character whose crunch doesn't match their fluff? Sure. But such an experience is frustrating and unsatisfying. It creates dissonance when the description of your abilities implies different things from the reality of those abilities. If the fluff says that you weave tapestries of magic that combine multiple currents of magic into a more powerful whole, but the mechanics say that you get a bunch of discrete spell effects, the game is not properly supporting your character concept.


That's the point that I think is often missed, that it's not about whether you can make do with the mechanics, kludge something to together and make it "good enough", it's about whether the mechanics layer and the fiction layer feel like each other, or are dissonant, whether they create and then deliver on the same expectations, or different expectations.




Uh, what? Pretty sure what he's talking about there has nothing to do with 3.5. The phrase "their own XP progressions" implies one of the earlier editions, which didn't have unified XP progressions.


The original Dragonlance Adventures book was a supplement for AD&D, published in 1987. Not only did the three different "colors" of wizard have different spell selections and different XP progression, they were also affected by the phases of the moons via additional special rules. I'm not sure quite what to take from our erstwhile fellow poster's assumption that I was referring to 3.5e...




Except it isn't. Consider a basic tactical question: do you want fights to be long or short? Someone with spell slots (or spell points, or some other limited resource) wants them to be short. That way they have more resources for later fights, or at the very least don't run out of resources before running out of enemies. But the Endross Traveler doesn't want that. They want fights to be long, because the longer the fight lasts, the more powerful they become. Roleplaying can't square that circle. The Endross Traveler is, in fact, a marathon runner. That's the thing that they are, and if your suggestion is "play a sprinter", you have failed to deliver on that.


Yeap -- mismatched expectations, mismatched aesthetics.




The fact that you think this is a tradeoff is exactly the problem. Good mechanics help you tell the story. The reason The Stormlight Archive is a compelling series is because the mechanics of the magic system create good narrative moments (for example: the Oaths provide an in-world reason why characters have important personal revelations in climactic action sequences). Broadly, your position is just the Stormwind Fallacy, an argument that has been understood to be wrong for over a decade.


Indeed, the layers of an RPG should mutually support each other... if there's an assumption that mechanics and roleplaying are enemies, then something is broken.


Anyway, I don't think we're going to change Man on Fire's mind here, so I think I'm going to just let it go and let the thread get back to the OP's concern as much as it can at this point.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-27, 08:48 PM
Additionally, while it's true that the Stormwind Fallacy is an established thing, I think there's a degree to which it doesn't go far enough. Even if we accept that "roleplaying" and "rollplaying" are opposites, that doesn't mean that "roleplaying" is the correct way of enjoying a game. It's true that the game provides you with a set of tools to tell stories you care about. But it also provides you with a set of tools to create mechanical challenges. Just as there's nothing inherently wrong with a D&D session where you spend the majority of your time interacting with NPCs, learning about the setting, and engaging in character development, there's nothing wrong with a D&D session where you spend the majority of your time fighting enemies and making skill checks.


I'm not sure quite what to take from our erstwhile fellow poster's assumption that I was referring to 3.5e...

A lot of people enjoy using 3e as a punching bag, for reasons that range from "valid but exaggerated" to "completely absurd". In particular, people blame optimization culture on 3e, which is really strange for people who were actually paying attention to the designers of 3e, because they absolutely hated that culture. People who complain about how 3e "made it too much about the rules" are actually complaining about the fact that people care about the rules at all, which is not a legitimate criticism of 3e in particular, even if you don't also feel (as I do) that good rules are important.

Pex
2020-08-27, 11:13 PM
See also the Avatar/Korra setting's Bending -- that simply doesn't work with D&D, the classes, character-to-class, character-to-magic-type, and everything else just don't fit.



A 5E druid can get close if you purposely only choose elemental type spells. You may want to take Magic Initiate feat to pick up a couple of more Cantrips for simple bending. Unearthed Arcana (hopefully to appear in Tasha) Order Circle of the Stars allows you to transform into the "Avatar state". It's not an exact match, of course, but works to give the feel. You can't perfectly match being Aang, but that's not necessary. You can get an approximation.

Man on Fire
2020-08-28, 06:22 AM
They aren't, but that doesn't mean they aren't important. Can you portray a character whose crunch doesn't match their fluff? Sure. But such an experience is frustrating and unsatisfying. It creates dissonance when the description of your abilities implies different things from the reality of those abilities. If the fluff says that you weave tapestries of magic that combine multiple currents of magic into a more powerful whole, but the mechanics say that you get a bunch of discrete spell effects, the game is not properly supporting your character concept.

Or maybe you did not pick the right class combination for this character. Besides, I speak from experience that a little bit of refluffing goes a long way - I once built Captain Marvel/Shazam in 5e as a Tempest Cleric. He did have a lot of healing powers so I refluffed it as him being just so heroic and inspiring that his presence motivates others to keep fighting, something that is a big aspect of the character that someone focused entirely on getting the "magic system" accurately would not have.


Uh, what? Pretty sure what he's talking about there has nothing to do with 3.5. The phrase "their own XP progressions" implies one of the earlier editions, which didn't have unified XP progressions.

The original Dragonlance Adventures book was a supplement for AD&D, published in 1987. Not only did the three different "colors" of wizard have different spell selections and different XP progression, they were also affected by the phases of the moons via additional special rules. I'm not sure quite what to take from our erstwhile fellow poster's assumption that I was referring to 3.5e...

I am saying an exception does not break the rule. Dragonlance trying weird stuff to fix what wasn't broken doesn't change it did it right the first time just as how 3.5 being horribly designed game that forced you into very specific roles doesn't change other editions are more elastic and creative.


Except it isn't. Consider a basic tactical question: do you want fights to be long or short? Someone with spell slots (or spell points, or some other limited resource) wants them to be short. That way they have more resources for later fights, or at the very least don't run out of resources before running out of enemies. But the Endross Traveler doesn't want that. They want fights to be long, because the longer the fight lasts, the more powerful they become. Roleplaying can't square that circle. The Endross Traveler is, in fact, a marathon runner. That's the thing that they are, and if your suggestion is "play a sprinter", you have failed to deliver on that.

I care for combat to be fun. Building my party strategy around a limitation I cannot start with strong guns but need to escalate is more interesting to me than having to learn a new, boring math tree. Also, I find getting bogged down in mechanical details to be pointless. Work with your DM, see what can you get and accept you want to replicate general feel of what you like, not miniscule details.


The fact that you think this is a tradeoff is exactly the problem. Good mechanics help you tell the story. The reason The Stormlight Archive is a compelling series is because the mechanics of the magic system create good narrative moments (for example: the Oaths provide an in-world reason why characters have important personal revelations in climactic action sequences). Broadly, your position is just the Stormwind Fallacy, an argument that has been understood to be wrong for over a decade.

See previous pointer to Stormwind Fallacy.

Never mind that, as NigelWalmsley points out, trying to draw a hard line between "mechanics" and "roleplaying" and then placing them in supposed opposite is just the Stormwind Fallacy.

Additionally, while it's true that the Stormwind Fallacy is an established thing, I think there's a degree to which it doesn't go far enough. Even if we accept that "roleplaying" and "rollplaying" are opposites, that doesn't mean that "roleplaying" is the correct way of enjoying a game. It's true that the game provides you with a set of tools to tell stories you care about. But it also provides you with a set of tools to create mechanical challenges. Just as there's nothing inherently wrong with a D&D session where you spend the majority of your time interacting with NPCs, learning about the setting, and engaging in character development, there's nothing wrong with a D&D session where you spend the majority of your time fighting enemies and making skill checks.

Nice strawman you three build here, but I actually have a history of building optimized characters and roleplaying the hell out of that so trying to dismiss my arguments with this one is hitting on a wrong three. I do not believe optimization is preventing good roleplaying. I do not believe, however, that it is in any way, shape or form necessary to do so. What I also do not believe is that adding extra mechanics to reflect every small little thing is a) a waste of time on something that comes up almost never b) actually limiting the roleplaying because it wards off the roleplaying opportunitties behind an access to a specific mechanic c)in itself preventing good optimization and d) making the game too complicated and warding people off from it.

Pathfinder's infamous "Pass For a Child" feat isa good example of the first 3. A feat that a Halfling can take to gain an abilitty to fool people into thinking it is a human child. It made you waste a valuable mechanical resource, feats, on something that may come up maybe once a campaign, making it also a suboptimal choice. What's worse is that now, in the name of fairness, the DM had to prevent any other player from having their character pass for a child if they did not have that feat, thus preventing roleplay opportunitties. More mechanics killing both the roleplay and optimization.

I will however say this, based on my own experiences - any game that FORCES you to heavily optimize in order for you to have fun, like 3.5 or Pathfinder, is poorly designed. When I ran PF for my friends I once asked if a party of tier 1 casters could take a ranger of their level as a random encounter and was told it would be trivial. After a TPK same people told me this is "obviously" the fault of my players for "playing the game wrong". This taught me that attitude of heavy optimization has little to no actual bearing on how real people in real life WANT to play D&D.


This isn't just about roleplaying, it's about aesthetics as well, and fiction/mechanics

Aesthetics are something you can shape with your DM.


Aang works if you squint. Kinda. With a 20th level 12-year-old. And pretend that Aang can only bend to the limited degree allowed by the Ki points.

Now represent all the benders who aren't the Avatar. The Toph build was unconvincing and convoluted.

I enjoyed Toph build and think it worked great, especially when he found a way to use Wild Shape to do something I could see Toph doing - armor herself up using rock in combat need.


Wait, who made DP an example here? :smallconfused:

I'm jsut pointing out that you cannot say that DP has a deep and detailed, intriquate magic system when the show failed to define it. My original point was it was different from d&d magic but could easily be replicated by d&d magic without making up new mechanics.


It's not just about the in-setting system, it's about the aesthetics and whether they line up with the mechanics provided by D&D -- or any other system.

And so this is very much irrelevant to me. Aesthetics don't matter, you decide how to portray your hero and cooperate with your DM on that.


And this whole "you're just doing this badwrongfun thing because of your personal faults" tact you're still on is getting old.

Then let me phrase it differently - I beleive the attitude behind this whole line of argument you are doing is inherently toxic and at the bottom of it lie gatekeeping combined with a desire to asser your intellectual superiority. People saying this want mechanics to be complicated to keep anyone who is not into this sort of game to be scared by having to learn a ton of complicated waste of time to play a character they want. they want to scare newcomers from experimenting and making interesting things, force them into specific, outdated roles, to keep them from "rocking the boat". They want a way to make characters you want to be guarded behind a paywall of multiple splatbooks and research so that people who know all mechanics of the game enough to actually make them can feel smart and be looked up by community and I believe it is because they personally crave that kind of validation. If you disagree explain to me what other motives behind such gatekeeping attitude as shown in this thread could be there?


That's the point that I think is often missed, that it's not about whether you can make do with the mechanics, kludge something to together and make it "good enough", it's about whether the mechanics layer and the fiction layer feel like each other, or are dissonant, whether they create and then deliver on the same expectations, or different expectations.

This sounds like a "lack of session zero" problem, not a actual game problem.


Indeed, the layers of an RPG should mutually support each other... if there's an assumption that mechanics and roleplaying are enemies, then something is broken.

If mechanics stand in the way of roleplaying, as they did in 3.5, however....



A lot of people enjoy using 3e as a punching bag, for reasons that range from "valid but exaggerated" to "completely absurd". In particular, people blame optimization culture on 3e, which is really strange for people who were actually paying attention to the designers of 3e, because they absolutely hated that culture. People who complain about how 3e "made it too much about the rules" are actually complaining about the fact that people care about the rules at all, which is not a legitimate criticism of 3e in particular, even if you don't also feel (as I do) that good rules are important.


First of all, I have played 3.5 and Pathfinder 1e (a.k.a. 3.75) a lot and I can tell you simply, that if the developers hated the optimization culture of 3e then they utterly failed at designing a game that does not support it. In my experiences in the game the only way to build fun characters often was to heavily optimize and that in itself required an access to dozens of splatbooks and so gatekeept the newcomers behind the paywall. It forced people to play roles they were not interested in, but often pressured by rest of the group just because they were necessary. It had an overtly complicated mechanics system and I find it to be a horrible mispresentation to claim someone who doesn't like it jsut don't want any rules - I love simple and easy rules of 5e. I hated rules of 3./5 and Pathfinder because they were too complicated and turned every combat encounter into multi-hours slog that felt more like doing taxes than actually playing. Simplified rules that make combat flow are much, much better.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-28, 07:20 AM
Or maybe you did not pick the right class combination for this character.

Absolutely. I picked one who's mechanics don't match the fluff, instead of one who's mechanics do match the fluff.


a waste of time on something that comes up almost never

The mechanics of how a character's powers work come up every time you use that character's power. It's hard to imagine something that comes up more. If my Endross Traveler is forced to husband his resources and try to rush fights to a conclusion, instead of reveling in his ever-increasing power, then every single session is nothing but an extended rubbing of my nose in the failure of the system to allow me to play the character I want.


I will however say this, based on my own experiences - any game that FORCES you to heavily optimize in order for you to have fun, like 3.5 or Pathfinder, is poorly designed.

I've had fun (and played with people who had fun) playing core-only characters in 3e. You don't need to optimize it to have fun. Optimizing it allows you to do things you can't otherwise do, but other editions of D&D don't deliver those things at all, so that's a win for 3e no matter how you slice it.


If you disagree explain to me what other motives behind such gatekeeping attitude as shown in this thread could be there?

Well, speaking as someone who is in favor of classes that make it obvious what classes are trying to do, wants things to be mechanically balanced without fiddling, and fully supports Paizo's decision to have all the mechanically-relevant information from their books searchable and on the internet for free, it's hard to see what part of your attempt to put words in my mouth corresponds to my position at all. Having less stuff doesn't inherently make your game more accessible. If I want to play an Earthbender, it's easier to do that in a game with a hundred classes one of which is Earthbender than a game with thirteen classes where I need to find some guy's youtube channel to understand how to combine them into Earthbender.


Simplified rules that make combat flow are much, much better.

That's entirely valid position. Simple mechanics have virtues. They are, definitionally, simple. That can make them easier to learn, use, and adapt. But it also means that there are things they don't cover that more complicated mechanics do. If you want to argue that having a character who feels "kind of like" an Endross Traveler or a Mistborn or a Knight Radiant or a Powder Mage or an Earthbender is sufficient to make you happy, that's fine. But it is incorrect to assert that the mechanics of how those character's powers work do not effect how the stories told about them work, and uncharitable to claim that people who want more complicated characters must hate new players.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-28, 08:05 AM
Aesthetics are something you can shape with your DM.


Only if the DM is willing to alter mechanics.




Simplified rules that make combat flow are much, much better.


And yet you evidently like the Toph build, which isn't exactly simple... and it's also ironic, given your comments about "splatbook paywalls" below.




And so this is very much irrelevant to me. Aesthetics don't matter, you decide how to portray your hero and cooperate with your DM on that.


Do you realize you said that the aesthetics don't matter, and that player and DM should work together to establish and maintain the aesthetics of the character's abilities? :smallconfused:




This sounds like a "lack of session zero" problem, not a actual game problem.


No amount of session zero or rule zero will change the fact that there some mechanics are fatally mismatched with some abilities, characters, or entire settings.

No amount of talk will transform a screwdriver into a hammer, and while you can use a screwdriver to drive a nail in a pinch, it's going to be frustrating process that will remind you with every strike that you're using a screwdriver, and not a hammer, to do a job that the hammer is suited for and the screwdriver is not. Likewise, using a hammer to drive a screw.




Then let me phrase it differently - I beleive the attitude behind this whole line of argument you are doing is inherently toxic and at the bottom of it lie gatekeeping combined with a desire to asser your intellectual superiority. People saying this want mechanics to be complicated to keep anyone who is not into this sort of game to be scared by having to learn a ton of complicated waste of time to play a character they want. they want to scare newcomers from experimenting and making interesting things, force them into specific, outdated roles, to keep them from "rocking the boat". They want a way to make characters you want to be guarded behind a paywall of multiple splatbooks and research so that people who know all mechanics of the game enough to actually make them can feel smart and be looked up by community and I believe it is because they personally crave that kind of validation. If you disagree explain to me what other motives behind such gatekeeping attitude as shown in this thread could be there?


And this is where it comes to light that you're arguing with people who just are not here, against positions that we have not taken, assuming that different priorities and tastes in gaming are driven by the worst possible motivations. What you posted there has nothing to do with what anyone here has said, at best it's a gross misunderstanding, at worst it's an ugly strawman. Ironic that you're the one who has repeatedly and unabashedly insulted other posters for not agreeing with your One True Gaming Way -- "gatekeepers", "elitists", "lack of imagination", "obsessed", etc.

At this point the only reason I replied to you again was to make that last part absolutely clear -- whatever the reason, you don't appear at all interested in having a discussion with the people who are here, but rather in making uncharitable assumptions and arguing with someone else that maybe you wish was here.

Man on Fire
2020-08-28, 08:40 AM
Absolutely. I picked one who's mechanics don't match the fluff, instead of one who's mechanics do match the fluff.

Or maybe you could easily replicate what you want with Shadow Monk better than a Rogue. Or maybe you focused on superficial aspect of the character and made him a Bard when he is more of an Eldritch Knight who can play lute?


The mechanics of how a character's powers work come up every time you use that character's power. It's hard to imagine something that comes up more. If my Endross Traveler is forced to husband his resources and try to rush fights to a conclusion, instead of reveling in his ever-increasing power, then every single session is nothing but an extended rubbing of my nose in the failure of the system to allow me to play the character I want.

So you would give up on interesting combat and isntead slow down the game for everyone so that you can lord over your overtly complicated mechanics no one else uses? Sounds selfish.


I've had fun (and played with people who had fun) playing core-only characters in 3e. You don't need to optimize it to have fun. Optimizing it allows you to do things you can't otherwise do, but other editions of D&D don't deliver those things at all, so that's a win for 3e no matter how you slice it.


Except it's clear other editions can do it too and even can do it better and without optimization.



Well, speaking as someone who is in favor of classes that make it obvious what classes are trying to do, wants things to be mechanically balanced without fiddling, and fully supports Paizo's decision to have all the mechanically-relevant information from their books searchable and on the internet for free, it's hard to see what part of your attempt to put words in my mouth corresponds to my position at all. Having less stuff doesn't inherently make your game more accessible.

The money barrier is only one of barriers built by gatekeepers. Overt complexity in itself scares away new people who get confused in having all these mechanics dumped on them at once. The website also fails at delivering in clarity, the rules and all sections are provided in cofusing counter-intuitive manner that makes finding any rule you forgot a total pain. It all is still gatekeeping built into Pathfinder's system.


If I want to play an Earthbender, it's easier to do that in a game with a hundred classes one of which is Earthbender than a game with thirteen classes where I need to find some guy's youtube channel to understand how to combine them into Earthbender.

If I want to play an Earthbender it is easier to combine two base classes in a way that gives me what I want than that I hunt down a whole different splatbook, read...no, study 100+ pages in my spare time to understand a whole new class and a whole new magic system I will only ever use for this one character and then discover that the mechanics are broken and my character sucks and playing them is a painful chore. For an example, see Truenamer, a class that was blatantly trying to invoke magic from Earthsea and ended up worst class in the game.


That's entirely valid position. Simple mechanics have virtues. They are, definitionally, simple. That can make them easier to learn, use, and adapt. But it also means that there are things they don't cover that more complicated mechanics do.

And they can, I don't know, ADAPT, to cover those things easily. If you REALLY want to mechanically want to evoke a certain feel you can easier add or subtract mechanics from simpler, malleable rules than you can from overtly complex. But in my experience players want to keep it simple and don't like variant mechanics. A majority of times refluffing will take you a long way.


If you want to argue that having a character who feels "kind of like" an Endross Traveler or a Mistborn or a Knight Radiant or a Powder Mage or an Earthbender is sufficient to make you happy, that's fine. But it is incorrect to assert that the mechanics of how those character's powers work do not effect how the stories told about them work, and uncharitable to claim that people who want more complicated characters must hate new players.

And yet here we are in a thread where OP demands I stop playing the game the way he doesn't like, so apparently that is not fine for people like you and the op after all.

Willie the Duck
2020-08-28, 09:23 AM
Then let me phrase it differently - I beleive the attitude behind this whole line of argument you are doing is inherently toxic and at the bottom of it lie gatekeeping combined with a desire to asser your intellectual superiority. People saying this want mechanics to be complicated to keep anyone who is not into this sort of game to be scared by having to learn a ton of complicated waste of time to play a character they want. they want to scare newcomers from experimenting and making interesting things, force them into specific, outdated roles, to keep them from "rocking the boat". They want a way to make characters you want to be guarded behind a paywall of multiple splatbooks and research so that people who know all mechanics of the game enough to actually make them can feel smart and be looked up by community and I believe it is because they personally crave that kind of validation. If you disagree explain to me what other motives behind such gatekeeping attitude as shown in this thread could be there?

Man on Fire, have you ever seen someone on an online forum just completely flame out? You know, get so wrapped up in an argument that they lose sight of what is going on? Get it in their head that they are 100% right (not just their position, but the argument that they have made in-thread) and that the people to whom they are arguing their case, by the very nature of them picking around for weaknesses in said argument, are being completely unreasonable and genuinely unfair. Such that they eventually walk away from the thread patting themselves on the back for their moral and argumentation virtuousness and dumbfounded at all the horrid people with which they share a forum. That type of situation? I think we've all seen it, many have been that guy at some point (including some of the people with which you are having this fight). You very clearly do not realize that you are being that guy. You are being hostile, caustic, accusing your opposition of gatekeeping, and assuming that, for them to disagree with you, they must be doing it to try to sound smart. I highly suspect, that if you saw someone else on these boards behaving as you are right now, your impression of them would be very much as I've described above. Please, for your own sake, take a step back, and reassess the situation. You certainly aren't changing anyone here's mind on anything (the only real power any of us have on this board), and if you have an underlying point or want to promote an actual position, your current actions are in direct opposition towards achieving that goal.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-28, 10:28 AM
So you would give up on interesting combat and isntead slow down the game for everyone so that you can lord over your overtly complicated mechanics no one else uses? Sounds selfish.

It seems to me that having multiple different ways for characters to work in combat makes things more interesting, not less. If there are players or monsters whose abilities encourage them to extend or accelerate combats, that creates interesting dynamics. Whereas if everyone just has a pile of daily resources, every combat is just budgeting how many of those you get to use this time.


Except it's clear other editions can do it too and even can do it better and without optimization.

That's just not true. For example, 5e's decision to use Bounded Accuracy locks out concepts like "the PCs hold out against an army of demons", because there's no way to cleave through armies of chaff without unacceptable losses.


Overt complexity in itself scares away new people who get confused in having all these mechanics dumped on them at once.

Having a wider range of classes doesn't make any particular character more complex. In fact, there are mechanics that are actually less complex than the psuedo-Vancian system 5e favors, so there's a very real sense in which a wider range of mechanics makes the game more accessible. If people could play 3e-style Warlocks that just got a stack of powers to use at will, that would make it easier for them to get into the game.


But in my experience players want to keep it simple and don't like variant mechanics.

In 3e, overwhelmingly the most popular splatbooks and expansion classes were the ones that introduced new mechanics. People loved the Binders, Crusaders, Warlocks, and Incarnates of the world. Even though those classes were very often inferior to the core classes, or even to more powerful expansion classes. People really like variety. What they don't like is having to homebrew or houserule stuff, so I reject your paradigm of "you can just do it yourself" (which, incidentally, is the Oberoni Fallacy, more or less).


And yet here we are in a thread where OP demands I stop playing the game the way he doesn't like, so apparently that is not fine for people like you and the op after all.

You'll note that I dismissed OP's position as "nonsense" in my literal first post in this thread, so maybe you could avoid insisting that he and I are on the same side?

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-28, 10:42 AM
That's entirely valid position. Simple mechanics have virtues. They are, definitionally, simple. That can make them easier to learn, use, and adapt. But it also means that there are things they don't cover that more complicated mechanics do. If you want to argue that having a character who feels "kind of like" an Endross Traveler or a Mistborn or a Knight Radiant or a Powder Mage or an Earthbender is sufficient to make you happy, that's fine. But it is incorrect to assert that the mechanics of how those character's powers work do not effect how the stories told about them work, and uncharitable to claim that people who want more complicated characters must hate new players.



Having a wider range of classes doesn't make any particular character more complex. In fact, there are mechanics that are actually less complex than the psuedo-Vancian system 5e favors, so there's a very real sense in which a wider range of mechanics makes the game more accessible. If people could play 3e-style Warlocks that just got a stack of powers to use at will, that would make it easier for them to get into the game.


I'm rather perplexed by the assertion we're seeing that a double or triple Class mashup of re-fluffed powers and spells is somehow less complex than a straightforward build that directly represents the character.

But at this point we're getting into why I prefer HERO 4th/5th to any edition of D&D -- you just build the character, using the Powers, Talents, Skills, etc to model the character and their abilities into the game's mechanics. Instead of re-fluffing being a special thing that the GM has to agree to, the whole idea of HERO, especially when it comes to things like superpowers, magic, etc, is that the mechanics start out as "fluff"-agnostic and you're finding the mechanics that are most synchronous with the "special effects", that is, the aesthetics, of the character's abilities.

Mutazoia
2020-08-28, 11:16 AM
But what it actually is is not a game of fantasy stories or fantasy adventure. It is a game about punching your way through increasingly punchy dungeons or foes that in a way that is hopefully chained to a story, but the story supports the dungeon punching MMORPG with dice, the MMORPG with dice is not there to support the story.

Maybe that's the way YOU play D&D, but I've always run games of fantasy adventure. I take the time to plot out the story and make the game more than just "punching your way through increasingly punchy dungeons or foes". Ever hear of The Dragonlance books? The first series was basically just a campaign log for Weiss and Hickman's D&D campaign with a little literary touch-up. You have to have dice to determine the outcome of abstract things like combat. Otherwise, the game would be just a handful of people sitting around a table playing make-believe and drinking Mt. Dew, complete with "The orc hits you with it's sword" "nu-hu, I've got a forcefield." "the orc has a sword that ignores forcefields"

I'm not knocking it if you just want D&D to be an endless chain of combat with nothing else between, but don't assume that your lack of skill/desire/whatever to actually craft any kind of story for your players to be the norm.



Characters aren't expected to perform in a manner of characters; they occasionally add some RP to their dungeon punching. If it weren't obvious enough in the mechanics, the level system ensures it. Low level characters cannot be Gimli because they are low level characters. By the time they are mid level characters, they possess the ability to safely ignore the majority of things that would add any narrative drama to a story, but the big bads can't be big and bad enough to actually be Nazgul or whatever, because they'll just Roflstomp the characters. And then by the time the characters could have a chance to fight Voldemort, they're more or less butchering their way through a mythical bestiary.

Characters can't be characters? Really? What kind of abstract nonsense is this? Since we're using Tolkein characters as the analogy taboo here, let's look at Bilbo. A fat lazy hobbit at the beginning of the book, and a master thief stealing from a dragon by the end. So are you saying Bilbo can't be Bilbo because Bilbo can't steal from Smaug the moment the adventure begins?

Okay, to touch on the original topic:

The OP doesn't like analogy because he thinks it confuses people. Maybe it confuses you, or maybe you're just really bad at making analogies, but people use them every day to explain concepts that they are familiar with to people who are not. D&D is no exception.

As most people have never read the Conan books, likening the movie versions of Conan to a Barbarian is perfectly valid, as all movie betrayals of him have done so, especially the Jason Momoa version. The original Barbarian class design was based off of Conan.

The problem is, that there are some people who are literal thinkers. They have trouble with analogy because they tend to take information at face value and have trouble abstracting. They also have trouble making analogies. You seem to be one of those people. There's nothing wrong with this, but asking the rest of the "world" (or the playground in this case) to give up something you're not good at simply because you are not good at it, is asking a bit much.

kyoryu
2020-08-28, 11:24 AM
That's entirely valid position. Simple mechanics have virtues. They are, definitionally, simple. That can make them easier to learn, use, and adapt. But it also means that there are things they don't cover that more complicated mechanics do. If you want to argue that having a character who feels "kind of like" an Endross Traveler or a Mistborn or a Knight Radiant or a Powder Mage or an Earthbender is sufficient to make you happy, that's fine. But it is incorrect to assert that the mechanics of how those character's powers work do not effect how the stories told about them work, and uncharitable to claim that people who want more complicated characters must hate new players.

There's also a matter of build-time complexity vs. game-time complexity, and degrees of complexity besides.


Or maybe you did not pick the right class combination for this character. Besides, I speak from experience that a little bit of refluffing goes a long way - I once built Captain Marvel/Shazam in 5e as a Tempest Cleric. He did have a lot of healing powers so I refluffed it as him being just so heroic and inspiring that his presence motivates others to keep fighting, something that is a big aspect of the character that someone focused entirely on getting the "magic system" accurately would not have.

But when you think of that character is anything like healing close to what you think of? This just shows the difficulty of coercing a character concept into a class-based system. It's just hard, and there's almost inevitably some level of square-peg-round-hole going on.

Which is fine, but it also means that you're going to get something of an approximation (which is true in ANY system, but more true in class-based), and are more likely to get extra or missing bits. Also, it can require a lot more system mastery than other systems to get there.


I will however say this, based on my own experiences - any game that FORCES you to heavily optimize in order for you to have fun, like 3.5 or Pathfinder, is poorly designed. When I ran PF for my friends I once asked if a party of tier 1 casters could take a ranger of their level as a random encounter and was told it would be trivial. After a TPK same people told me this is "obviously" the fault of my players for "playing the game wrong". This taught me that attitude of heavy optimization has little to no actual bearing on how real people in real life WANT to play D&D.

Most games have some level of optimization. The difference with 3.x is:

1. The variance possible
2. The amount of non-obvious decisions you make to optimize
3. The amount of material you must pore through to optimize


I'm rather perplexed by the assertion we're seeing that a double or triple Class mashup of re-fluffed powers and spells is somehow less complex than a straightforward build that directly represents the character.

But at this point we're getting into why I prefer HERO 4th/5th to any edition of D&D -- you just build the character, using the Powers, Talents, Skills, etc to model the character and their abilities into the game's mechanics. Instead of re-fluffing being a special thing that the GM has to agree to, the whole idea of HERO, especially when it comes to things like superpowers, magic, etc, is that the mechanics start out as "fluff"-agnostic and you're finding the mechanics that are most synchronous with the "special effects", that is, the aesthetics, of the character's abilities.

Skill-based games are often easier to make arbitrary characters in - GURPS, Savage Worlds, Fate, HERO, etc. Almost by definition.

Kyutaru
2020-08-28, 11:35 AM
Most games have some level of optimization. The difference with 3.x is:

1. The variance possible
2. The amount of non-obvious decisions you make to optimize
3. The amount of material you must pore through to optimize

Yeah I'm not sure where the idea that you have to optimize in 3e comes from. The base game was made for minimal optimization and included no fancy PrCs or broken min-maxing outside of simply being a cleric. You can easily play 3e D&D without your character being a walking god and have fun. It's actually how it was supposed to be.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-28, 12:39 PM
But when you think of that character is anything like healing close to what you think of? This just shows the difficulty of coercing a character concept into a class-based system. It's just hard, and there's almost inevitably some level of square-peg-round-hole going on.

Which is fine, but it also means that you're going to get something of an approximation (which is true in ANY system, but more true in class-based), and are more likely to get extra or missing bits. Also, it can require a lot more system mastery than other systems to get there.


I missed their Shazam example in the midst of all the rhetoric, but ironically, that's a perfect example of a how strained and convoluted it is to map some characters into some systems. To be told "you just lack imagination" and then to find out that "imagination" is evidently trying to explain away healing powers that don't fit the character at all as "just really inspiring"... yeah...

If that works for some players, I'm not going to tell them they're wrong... but it doesn't clear my personal subjective bar for what works.

~~~

To me, the Allomancers of Mistborn are a good example of characters who can't be faithfully mapped into the standard assumptions of 5e -- that's not a knock on 5e or on Allomancers, it's just a statement of fact.

Allomancers don't have spell slots, they can keep using their powers as long as they have metal to burn and don't keel over from raw exhaustion... and there's even a metal they can burn to stave off exhaustion. They have a fixed list of powers based on what metal(s) they burn, but differing degrees of power and skill with those powers, and different "stunts" that they've mastered, especially the Mistborn when it comes to combining the effects of different metals. I'm sure someone has come up with a way to hammer that square peg into the 5e hole, but I'm also sure that I'd find it utterly unsatisfying. "Your spell components are all metal, now" would utterly fail to address the real disconnect.

Pex
2020-08-28, 02:12 PM
Okay, to touch on the original topic:

The OP doesn't like analogy because he thinks it confuses people. Maybe it confuses you, or maybe you're just really bad at making analogies, but people use them every day to explain concepts that they are familiar with to people who are not. D&D is no exception.

As most people have never read the Conan books, likening the movie versions of Conan to a Barbarian is perfectly valid, as all movie betrayals of him have done so, especially the Jason Momoa version. The original Barbarian class design was based off of Conan.

The problem is, that there are some people who are literal thinkers. They have trouble with analogy because they tend to take information at face value and have trouble abstracting. They also have trouble making analogies. You seem to be one of those people. There's nothing wrong with this, but asking the rest of the "world" (or the playground in this case) to give up something you're not good at simply because you are not good at it, is asking a bit much.

Typo, I'm sure, but I think you meant "portrayals". However, given the context of conversation comparing literary Conan to movie Conan your typo word is ironically apt for the situation for those who look negatively on the movies.
:smallbiggrin:

Quertus
2020-08-28, 02:35 PM
And you are getting bogged down into minutia and a bunch of details instead of trying to replicate general feel of the character. No game is or should be about 100% acurrate reflection of every character* but about building them to capture their strong points in game in a way you can enjoy. You can easily refluff a lot of spells and just say they are this and that power. It is much better than going with the obsessive attempts to make EXACT COPY of every abilitty. A little creativity goes a long way.

* - Except GURPS because, as John Wick has said, GURPS is about making characters. Whic it accomplishes via advanced mathematics. And behaviors it rewards are advanced mathematics.


Skill-based games are often easier to make arbitrary characters in - GURPS, Savage Worlds, Fate, HERO, etc. Almost by definition.

I would love to know how to make a 2e Wild Mage, or a Cultist of Tzeentch in GURPS that actually feels "right".


A dragon-slayer might have no relevant skills in a detective game so... the result might just be gibberish or reduced to flavour text.

Or the character might be useless, and have a great opportunity for growth. "Who am I when there aren't any dragons to slay?"


- I love simple and easy rules of 5e. I hated rules of 3./5 and Pathfinder because they were too complicated and turned every combat encounter into multi-hours slog that felt more like doing taxes than actually playing. Simplified rules that make combat flow are much, much better.

If it's taking you multiple hours to run a normal combat, you're doing something wrong.

Man on Fire
2020-08-28, 02:40 PM
Yeah I'm not sure where the idea that you have to optimize in 3e comes from. The base game was made for minimal optimization and included no fancy PrCs or broken min-maxing outside of simply being a cleric. You can easily play 3e D&D without your character being a walking god and have fun. It's actually how it was supposed to be.

This is contrary to 100% of my experience with 3.5 and Pathfinder, an experience that in the end drained me so much I quit it because it was a game in which you HAD to optimize and HAD to know ins and outs of dozens of books just to make a character that isn't "Tier 1" less alone anything evoking things in fiction you liked. I much prefer 5e which is the opposite of that, you really do not have to optimize to enjoy it.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-28, 04:49 PM
There's also a matter of build-time complexity vs. game-time complexity, and degrees of complexity besides.

This is definitely something that D&D has struggled with. It's often the case that characters which are mechanically quite simple to play require a great deal of system knowledge to build effectively. That's really disappointing, because it makes the system inaccessible for new players, particularly when there aren't simple to build alternatives. Very often you end up with something that's very easy to build being a nightmare to play, or with someone needing to help the new guy build a character that just ends up making standard attacks every round.


The difference with 3.x is:

I would say that the big issue with 3e is that there are very few options that are simple to build, simple to play, and reasonably effective. That's what you really want as a new player. It ultimately doesn't matter if you can spend six months doing spreadsheet accounting to build the perfectly optimal Artificer or not, because you can just not do that. The issue is that it's very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to say "I want to be an X", pick a class that does X, and end up with a reasonable character without a fairly high level of system mastery.


Skill-based games are often easier to make arbitrary characters in - GURPS, Savage Worlds, Fate, HERO, etc. Almost by definition.

Of course, skill-based games also come with downsides. Niche protection and character identity are harder in classless games. People like the idea of playing a Necromancer who does Necromancy that is distinct from the Pyromancy of the Pyromancer or the sneaking around of the Rogue. That's inherently harder to achieve in a system that doesn't have classes.

Mechalich
2020-08-28, 05:24 PM
This is definitely something that D&D has struggled with. It's often the case that characters which are mechanically quite simple to play require a great deal of system knowledge to build effectively. That's really disappointing, because it makes the system inaccessible for new players, particularly when there aren't simple to build alternatives. Very often you end up with something that's very easy to build being a nightmare to play, or with someone needing to help the new guy build a character that just ends up making standard attacks every round.

I think it's more that D&D has a problem matching simple and effective characters to common archetypes players actually want to base characters around. Warlock, for example, is a fairly simple and effective character that's easy for a new player to pick up. Sure, they won't get nearly everything they could out of their invocations, but just spamming eldritch blast constantly is sufficient to remain viable for a very long time. But what's a warlock? Well, it's a very specific thing that D&D created that doesn't really represent any form of fantasy character that immediately springs to mind, a character created of the game for the game really.

D&D's real problem is that the most common archetypes in fantasy literature are various forms of 'fighter' and 'rogue,' and yet those are the ones it has the most trouble representing. Part of that is inherent to the nature of tabletop gaming, which simply cannot hide power imbalances in the way source material can. Rand, Mat, and Perrin can be the three central heroes of the Wheel of Time but cannot form a three-man adventuring party together (this is actually one thing D&D fiction implicitly admits. Drizzts pals around with a bunch of other warriors, while Elminster hangs out almost exclusively with other high-level spellcasters).

In order to square the circle you absolutely have to pick a power level and make sure all available archetypes you game supports hit it. Because those groups are unequal in the source material that means either buffing or nerfing relevant archetypes. The tricky part is that fighters and rogues are much more common in the source material than clerics and wizards and represent orders of magnitude more members of the generic backdrop masses. If you buff the martials you create a superhero setting, there's simply no way around it. That's not a bad thing, it just is. The real issue here is that mean if you want playable high-powered spellcasters and any form of non-caster archetype at the same time, you're stuck with fantasy superheroes. You just can't build a quasi-medieval world with them still present as PCs.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-28, 06:03 PM
This is definitely something that D&D has struggled with. It's often the case that characters which are mechanically quite simple to play require a great deal of system knowledge to build effectively. That's really disappointing, because it makes the system inaccessible for new players, particularly when there aren't simple to build alternatives. Very often you end up with something that's very easy to build being a nightmare to play, or with someone needing to help the new guy build a character that just ends up making standard attacks every round.

I would say that the big issue with 3e is that there are very few options that are simple to build, simple to play, and reasonably effective. That's what you really want as a new player. It ultimately doesn't matter if you can spend six months doing spreadsheet accounting to build the perfectly optimal Artificer or not, because you can just not do that. The issue is that it's very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to say "I want to be an X", pick a class that does X, and end up with a reasonable character without a fairly high level of system mastery.


And that's why I've been scratching my head at some of the assertions of "simplicity" vs "complexity" in this thread.




Of course, skill-based games also come with downsides. Niche protection and character identity are harder in classless games. People like the idea of playing a Necromancer who does Necromancy that is distinct from the Pyromancy of the Pyromancer or the sneaking around of the Rogue. That's inherently harder to achieve in a system that doesn't have classes.


This has never really bothered me, because I tend to view niche or archetypal characters as a bit boring, and sometimes prone to having to sit on their hands and not touch things when outside their niche.





I think it's more that D&D has a problem matching simple and effective characters to common archetypes players actually want to base characters around. Warlock, for example, is a fairly simple and effective character that's easy for a new player to pick up. Sure, they won't get nearly everything they could out of their invocations, but just spamming eldritch blast constantly is sufficient to remain viable for a very long time. But what's a warlock? Well, it's a very specific thing that D&D created that doesn't really represent any form of fantasy character that immediately springs to mind, a character created of the game for the game really.

D&D's real problem is that the most common archetypes in fantasy literature are various forms of 'fighter' and 'rogue,' and yet those are the ones it has the most trouble representing. Part of that is inherent to the nature of tabletop gaming, which simply cannot hide power imbalances in the way source material can. Rand, Mat, and Perrin can be the three central heroes of the Wheel of Time but cannot form a three-man adventuring party together (this is actually one thing D&D fiction implicitly admits. Drizzts pals around with a bunch of other warriors, while Elminster hangs out almost exclusively with other high-level spellcasters).

In order to square the circle you absolutely have to pick a power level and make sure all available archetypes you game supports hit it. Because those groups are unequal in the source material that means either buffing or nerfing relevant archetypes. The tricky part is that fighters and rogues are much more common in the source material than clerics and wizards and represent orders of magnitude more members of the generic backdrop masses. If you buff the martials you create a superhero setting, there's simply no way around it. That's a bad thing, it just is. The real issue here is that mean if you want playable high-powered spellcasters and any form of non-caster archetype at the same time, you're stuck with fantasy superheroes. You just can't build a quasi-medieval world with them still present as PCs.


I think we've had that thread more than a few times around here. Personally, I agree with you, D&D puts itself in a situation where something has to give, but both it and some of its fans refuse to choose.

This also ties back to the very first post in the thread, in which PhoenixPhyre says (in my words, not his) that the things that work in fiction and the things that work in a TTRPG are not matched sets, they only form two somewhat overlapping areas of a Venn diagram.

If you want the ultrawizard and the "peak human with a sword, shield, and armor" characters together, you have to accept some power imbalance between the two, and there's no authorial control keep it in check when you're playing an RPG.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-28, 06:26 PM
I think it's more that D&D has a problem matching simple and effective characters to common archetypes players actually want to base characters around. Warlock, for example, is a fairly simple and effective character that's easy for a new player to pick up. Sure, they won't get nearly everything they could out of their invocations, but just spamming eldritch blast constantly is sufficient to remain viable for a very long time. But what's a warlock? Well, it's a very specific thing that D&D created that doesn't really represent any form of fantasy character that immediately springs to mind, a character created of the game for the game really.

I don't think that's a fair criticism of the Warlock. "Sell your soul to demons for power" is an established trope, and there are plenty of Warlocks in various parts of the source material. The Warlock's ability suite is a little weird (IIRC, they don't have any abilities that let them summon demons), but the concept is an established one.


If you buff the martials you create a superhero setting, there's simply no way around it. That's a bad thing, it just is.

It seems like you're defining "superhero setting" pretty loosely here. Most of the magic users in Sanderson's works are basically martials, and I wouldn't really describe the Cosmere as a superhero setting (well, maybe The Stormlight Archive). I also don't buy that a superhero setting is inherently a bad thing, particularly given the looseness with which you seem to be defining it. And it seems like you're implying this isn't a problem with spellcasters, which I don't understand at all, given that we think it's a problem in the first place.


This has never really bothered me, because I tend to view niche or archetypal characters as a bit boring, and sometimes prone to having to sit on their hands and not touch things when outside their niche.

Classless systems aren't necessarily any better at forcing people to branch out. Yes, you could buy up a wide range of abilities that make your character do a variety of stuff, but also you could hyper-specialize to a degree that's impossible in classed systems. The package of things that, say, the Cleric gives you is probably not what most Clerics would pick if they were allowed total customization.

Niche protection is a complicated subject, and while I agree that confining people to niches is bad, that doesn't mean you can't have strategies that are protected to some degree. For example, lots of different classes should get minions, but it's reasonable to have niches like "demon minions" or "waves of expendable chaff" belong to particular classes.


If you want the ultrawizard and the "peak human with a sword, shield, and armor" characters together, you have to accept some power imbalance between the two, and there's no authorial control keep it in check when you're playing an RPG.

FATE and similar systems would disagree. The Fighter needs to cheat to keep up. That's entirely possible to do within the confines of a TTRPG, provided you're willing to formalize and systematize that cheating. The issue is doing that is also unacceptable to the people who insist on mundane fighters. As far as I can tell, they really, genuinely want to have no abilities and succeed regardless of that.

Mechalich
2020-08-28, 08:48 PM
I don't think that's a fair criticism of the Warlock. "Sell your soul to demons for power" is an established trope, and there are plenty of Warlocks in various parts of the source material. The Warlock's ability suite is a little weird (IIRC, they don't have any abilities that let them summon demons), but the concept is an established one.

The 'sell you soul for power' part of the warlock is almost entirely post hoc. It has, as you noted, no relation to their ability suite. There are, in fact, several other ways to sell your soul to dark powers in D&D that make far more sense mechanically and aesthetically. The actual warlock is a mystically empowered character who hurls energy blasts, and while that's an established trope in certain types of anime and video games, its based primarily in mechanical factors (energy blasts are easy to animate) rather than any metaphysical basis for that particular power suite.


It seems like you're defining "superhero setting" pretty loosely here. Most of the magic users in Sanderson's works are basically martials, and I wouldn't really describe the Cosmere as a superhero setting (well, maybe The Stormlight Archive). I also don't buy that a superhero setting is inherently a bad thing, particularly given the looseness with which you seem to be defining it. And it seems like you're implying this isn't a problem with spellcasters, which I don't understand at all, given that we think it's a problem in the first place.

A superhero setting is any setting were the balance of power in the setting is held by a small number of individuals in relation to the population and that said individuals are completely capable of overwhelming the assembled resources of said population. Any setting where you can stack a few hundred people against an army of limitless size is a superhero setting. Many martials are superheroes - the ones in Stormlight Archive absolutely are (and to Sanderson's credit the worldbuilding of that setting at least somewhat reflects that reality). Most wuxia settings are built around the idea of martial superheroes, and so are most classical mythic settings (not for nothing do Marvel and DC directly import many mythic characters into their settings). Superhero settings are not inherently bad, but they have a range of specific issues that have to be addressed and, if one attempts to handle the existence of such powerful beings and the helplessness of the masses in a legitimate fashion, as opposed to glossing over it entirely as is far more common, an extremely strong tendency towards crushing grimdark.

The reason this isn't an issue with spellcasters is that spellcasters, above a fairly low power threshold, are already superheroes. Dr. Strange, to use a well-known example, has a lot in common with a D&D style wizard. He casts named effects using funny words and hand motions, studies books of arcane lore, utilizes magical items, deals with extradimensional entities, the works. The only real difference is that he's probably on some kind of spellpoint system rather than Vancian casting. You could easily take any number of D&D wizards and slot them into the Marvel wizard crew serving the Sanctums with minimal adjustment and you could do the same thing in reverse and dump Sanctum wizards into the Forgotten Realms without much trouble.

It is possible to have powerful magic-using characters in a quasi-medieval settings, but they have to be restricted to NPC roles. This was actually extremely common in the source material D&D was built around. Conan is the most powerful warrior (more or less) of the Hyborian Age and he spends most of his time dealing with the schemes of wizards. Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser likewise run most of their quests because either Ningauble or Sheelba are using them as errand boys. Even in Tolkien, the spellcasters (not just Gandalf, Elrond and Galadriel count too) are all background elements.

And in early D&D such powerful characters were mostly just that: background elements. Your character was a mook, not some high-level monstrosity, and those beings might occasionally show up to influence the plot, but you were scrapping along at the fantasy street level, not playing with the gods. However, that didn't last, because of course it didn't. Raistlin got to bid for all-powerful overgod status all the way back in 1986, and the earliest Forgotten Realms novel, Spellfire, included Elminster, Manshoon, and multiple dracoliches in 1988. This should have surprised no one, of course people want to play as the chosen world-conquering (or at least world-changing) heroes in their escapist fantasy games, and that's fine. It's just that mechanically representing a world-conquering hero is very different depending on the overall power level of the world - sometimes King Arthur is just a Roman officer with a good sense of tactics and a strong sword arm (as played by Clive Owen in the very lousy film of that name), and sometimes he's an extra-dimensional animated hero with steampunk battle weapons and a gold dragon in his shield who fights golem-monsters (as portrayed in the very campy early 1990s King Arthur and the Knights of Justice cartoon) - and if you try to represent what is ostensibly the same character using just one system it quickly becomes ridiculous.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-28, 09:39 PM
It seems like you're defining "superhero setting" pretty loosely here. Most of the magic users in Sanderson's works are basically martials, and I wouldn't really describe the Cosmere as a superhero setting (well, maybe The Stormlight Archive). I also don't buy that a superhero setting is inherently a bad thing, particularly given the looseness with which you seem to be defining it. And it seems like you're implying this isn't a problem with spellcasters, which I don't understand at all, given that we think it's a problem in the first place.


To some degree in much of original inspiring material the wizards might often be superhumans but they were also effectively NPCs, as Mechalich pointed out. Part of what happened is that D&D came along and ate its own tail and became its own inspiration as things progressed. It's more complicated than just that, but still.




Classless systems aren't necessarily any better at forcing people to branch out. Yes, you could buy up a wide range of abilities that make your character do a variety of stuff, but also you could hyper-specialize to a degree that's impossible in classed systems. The package of things that, say, the Cleric gives you is probably not what most Clerics would pick if they were allowed total customization.

Niche protection is a complicated subject, and while I agree that confining people to niches is bad, that doesn't mean you can't have strategies that are protected to some degree. For example, lots of different classes should get minions, but it's reasonable to have niches like "demon minions" or "waves of expendable chaff" belong to particular classes.


Part of it is my experience, in which Classes and the like are always keeping me away from abilities I want the character to have and imposing abilities I don't want the character to have. So to me, they look like "niche constraints" rather than enforcing at least a certain level of broadness. I can't think of a single instance in which Class or the like forced me to make my character more well-rounded or diversely competent.




FATE and similar systems would disagree. The Fighter needs to cheat to keep up. That's entirely possible to do within the confines of a TTRPG, provided you're willing to formalize and systematize that cheating. The issue is doing that is also unacceptable to the people who insist on mundane fighters. As far as I can tell, they really, genuinely want to have no abilities and succeed regardless of that.


There's also the question of whether one is speaking of direct mechanical balance, or "narrative" balance. Some systems get around it by focusing on impact on the "story" rather than direct mechanical impact... to those systems, or those who game as those systems would suggest, it doesn't matter if one character is half as powerful as the other if they both impact the "story" to the same degree, or have the same amount of control over the "narrative".

But I am curious exactly what you mean in this case by "cheat", and how it's formalized and systematized.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-29, 06:52 AM
There's also the question of whether one is speaking of direct mechanical balance, or "narrative" balance. Some systems get around it by focusing on impact on the "story" rather than direct mechanical impact... to those systems, or those who game as those systems would suggest, it doesn't matter if one character is half as powerful as the other if they both impact the "story" to the same degree, or have the same amount of control over the "narrative".

Separating the "Story/narrative" from the fiction of the game world this way seems so bizaare to me.

Does the ability to teleport across continents no change the story or narrative?

Does the ability to disintegrate people not have effects on the story or narrative?

Mechanical effects *are* story effects. So the mechanical/narrative balance thing is a very weird divide.

Anyhoots,
The sorts of games usually poo-poo'd as "story games" are usually Fiction First in orientation. Basically, they're more concerned about the fiction layer of the game (The invisible part we all have to imagine together because none of it is actually real) than they are about the mechanical part.

FATE does this by boiling down pretty much everything in the game down to what it actually does. Attack, Defend, Overcome an Obstacle, or Create an Advantage.

Pretty much everything I've seen in most RPGs fits into one of those 4 boxes, in terms of what they're meant to accomplish. I'm not thinking of anything that breaks that mold, really. Maybe spells that are purely for long-distance travel outside of combat? But you don't really roll for those anyways, so Fate would likely make it a stunt and call it a day.

In any case, Fate closes the Martial/Caster gap by bringing it down to their effect on the fiction layer (not the overarching story or narrative because that's gonna happen anyways, and extra pieces for that are pointless) and equalizing there. A wizard character could be more creative in how he creates an advantage, but it's going to affect rolls identically to anything similar the sword guy is gonna do, so I suppose in that way they're "mechanically balanced" in that the math doesn't change. But this directly translates to their ability to affect the fiction or the narrative/story.

Fate also doesn't really do that thing people claim where players just call forth things from the ether to be advantageous for them, unless there's a gap in established facts there and the request makes sense.

If you're fighting in The Grand Magister's Throne Room of white marble and gold, and you say "I wamna create an advantage and have there be a giant, bladed, meatgrinder maw I could kick the Magister into," I'm going to laugh and say "no, that's not how that works."

If you're there and unsure what to do on your turn, and you say "Is there a Chandelier I could swing from?" Well, if I have established that there's a Chandelier and I didn't add it to the scene aspects I'll just do that as a freebie because it's worth noting. If I didn't think about it, then I'll have them roll to Create an Advantage," and if they succeed the Chandelier is there and they're using it. If they fail, it's there but it's clearly rigged to drop off the ceiling.

But in that latter case there's an obvious gap in the fiction layer and having a big chandelier in a throne room is pretty par for the course, so it's not an unreasonable ask to have one be there. And just because I didn't mention it/think about it isn't a good reason for it to not exist.

Basically, in fiction-first, things have to follow logically from one thing to the next in the fiction layer. We'll bend the mechanics to fit the fiction rather than the other way around, most of the time.
Flexible mechanics make that easier.

Vahnavoi
2020-08-29, 07:39 AM
Separating the "Story/narrative" from the fiction of the game world this way seems so bizaare to me.

Does the ability to teleport across continents no change the story or narrative?

Does the ability to disintegrate people not have effects on the story or narrative?

Mechanical effects *are* story effects. So the mechanical/narrative balance thing is a very weird divide.

There's nothing weird about it. It's about what level player decisions operate on, which Max_Killjoy already detailed earlier: in a traditional roleplaying game, a player makes decisions as their character about what to do in a fictional situation. In a storytelling game, a player makes decision as an author about what kind of story to tell.

So in a storytelling game, no, the ability to teleport or disintegrate people does not change the story; you only can use those abilities when you have narrative license to. If you try to teleport without license, by authorial decision of another player, you are unable to; something happens to prevent that. If you try to disintegrate someone without that license, that character always dodges, or a piece of the ceiling falls at the exact same time to block that spell. Those are the mechanics.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-29, 08:08 AM
There's nothing weird about it. It's about what level player decisions operate on, which Max_Killjoy already detailed earlier: in a traditional roleplaying game, a player makes decisions as their character about what to do in a fictional situation. In a storytelling game, a player makes decision as an author about what kind of story to tell.

So in a storytelling game, no, the ability to teleport or disintegrate people does not change the story; you only can use those abilities when you have narrative license to. If you try to teleport without license, by authorial decision of another player, you are unable to; something happens to prevent that. If you try to disintegrate someone without that license, that character always dodges, or a piece of the ceiling falls at the exact same time to block that spell. Those are the mechanics.

I can safely say I've never encountered a system that works this way aside from Freeform or nearly-freeform GM-less systems like Fall of Magic.

Apocalypse World doesn't work like that. Nor does Fate. Nor do any of the games I've seen dismissed as "story games." I'm fairly sure this is a very rare phenomenon among games as described.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-29, 09:33 AM
The actual warlock is a mystically empowered character who hurls energy blasts, and while that's an established trope in certain types of anime and video games, its based primarily in mechanical factors (energy blasts are easy to animate) rather than any metaphysical basis for that particular power suite.

Or the Harry Potter books. Now, obviously Harry's abilities don't overlap super well with the Warlock's, but having a random suite of magical powers and attacking primarily by blasting people with magic is not something that only shows up in videogames. And almost no character has any particular "metaphysical basis" for their power suite.


A superhero setting is any setting were the balance of power in the setting is held by a small number of individuals in relation to the population and that said individuals are completely capable of overwhelming the assembled resources of said population.

So any setting with dragons in it? Smaug canonically drives the whole of the Kingdom Under The Mountain to flight, seizing its lands for himself, and making refugees of its people. Is Lord of the Rings a superhero setting? It seems like you've defined your terms entirely too broadly to be useful.

More broadly, I don't really buy the claims you're making about D&D's setting. The aesthetics may be medieval (which is grimdark on its own), but the social organization is closer to the bronze or iron ages, and the setting itself is post-apocalyptic. And in that context it's not at all weird to postulate very powerful magic. Because in that time period, people were totally on board with the idea that magic was real. The Illiad has the gods talking to people, invincible champions, and rains of blood, but there's no indication that it was understood at the time as a sensationalized account. In the context where D&D is actually operating, magic existing would change relatively little about society even at fairly high levels of power, because the people in those contexts believed magic existed.


This was actually extremely common in the source material D&D was built around.

That's true, but it's not like the alternative was entirely unknown either. Zelanzy's books are from roughly the same period, and they feature concepts like "overthrow the gods" and "everyone who matters has Plane Shift at will". The idea that magic users were in the background requires a limited view of the genre. And, of course, the genre has evolved, with virtually every modern fantasy novel accepting magic users as main characters. This is not something D&D did to itself, and since the entire rest of the fantasy genre seems to be fine with it, it seems like a stretch to claim it's any major problem for D&D.


But I am curious exactly what you mean in this case by "cheat", and how it's formalized and systematized.

It's pretty much exactly the thing you're talking about. ImNotTrevor is correct that you don't get to do whatever you want, but once your effect on the plot is direct rather than mediated through abilities, it doesn't really matter what your character concept is, because you get to do the same amount of "plot stuff" either way. And that kind of cheating is not necessarily bad. It's pretty necessary if you want to be able to tell stories like the Avengers movies, where one character has the power of "god of lightning" and another has the power of "archery".

Vahnavoi
2020-08-29, 10:02 AM
@ImNotTrevor:

I don't care whether AW or Fate are good examples of a storytelling game, you can argue that with someone who gives a damn about either.

What I'm interested in, is this: storytelling mechanics aren't rare. They can exist in the same system as roleplaying mechanics and in homebrew often worm their way into systems that otherwise lack storytelling mechanics. The most common is the idea, implemented in various ways, that a Player Character can't die without explicit player permission, because they're the protagonist of the story. Various metagame currencies, such as fate points, luck points, player vetos etc. are also examples, as these often don't represent any concrete effort on the character's part - they're authorial decisions by the player to nudge the course of the game in a desired direction. These are also the most common codified ways for a character to "cheat" their way out of an otherwise impossible situation.

It's worth noting that traditional roleplaying games do have one player who has the task and power to make authorial decisions - they're called a game master (or whatever is the company equivalent). Hence your long example of "fiction first" play using the chandelier only really describes how roleplaying games have always functioned - a player asks for information for their character to act on, the GM decides (before or after the fact) what the state of the world is and supplies the player with an answer.

Whenever a player other than the GM can decide whether that chandelier is there, independent of character ability, that's when you know they're engaging a storytelling mechanic instead of a roleplaying one.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-29, 11:58 AM
@ImNotTrevor:
I don't care whether AW or Fate are good examples of a storytelling game, you can argue that with someone who gives a damn about either.

Such hostility for literally no reason.
Chill, dude.

Your comment didn't come into being in a vacuum. These systems were being discussed in the same breath as Storytelling Games earlier in the thread. Hence my comment addressing this point in that larger context.

Thanks for making it clear that you're not here for the larger conversation, though.



What I'm interested in, is this: storytelling mechanics aren't rare. They can exist in the same system as roleplaying mechanics and in homebrew often worm their way into systems that otherwise lack storytelling mechanics. The most common is the idea, implemented in various ways, that a Player Character can't die without explicit player permission, because they're the protagonist of the story.
If your most common example is meant to be common, it's not very common. Some systems opt to avoid character death for a variety of reasons, but that's a question of Lethality, not Storytelling or No. But the homebrew rule that characters can't die unless the player gives their OK is... not common at all. In my 16 years with the game and having been in many games with many GMs in that time...
I've never encountered that rule. So I'm gonna doubt that it's ubiquitous.



Various metagame currencies, such as fate points, luck points, player vetos etc. are also examples, as these often don't represent any concrete effort on the character's part - they're authorial decisions by the player to nudge the course of the game in a desired direction. These are also the most common codified ways for a character to "cheat" their way out of an otherwise impossible situation.
These also aren't super common. And the named Fate Points of the same-named system don't work like that, either.

Are you SURE you've played with any of these mechanics?



It's worth noting that traditional roleplaying games do have one player who has the task and power to make authorial decisions - they're called a game master (or whatever is the company equivalent). Hence your long example of "fiction first" play using the chandelier only really describes how roleplaying games have always functioned - a player asks for information for their character to act on, the GM decides (before or after the fact) what the state of the world is and supplies the player with an answer.

Hence why the histrionics about the style where such things are not a big deal seem outlandish and strange to me.



Whenever a player other than the GM can decide whether that chandelier is there, independent of character ability, that's when you know they're engaging a storytelling mechanic instead of a roleplaying one.

And these mechanics aren't common.

Granted, in Fate you could ostensibly have a character with a Stunt that once per session creates an aspect called Convenient Placed Chandelier with a couple charges to just... create a chandelier in strange circumstances. But the GM would have to approve it and if they do, it definitely has an effect on the tone of the campaign.

And, honestly, having a humorous campaign where a character is constantly locating Conveniently Placed Chandeliers by sheer metaphysical luck wouldn't bother my sensibilities. At that point we'd be in for some cartoonish fun. But if I were running a serious campaign, then no.


As for the rest, sure. Story-focused mechanics exist. I'd never argue otherwise. I think they're less common than people seem to be wringing their hands about, but even story-focused systems were as common as mechanics focused systems.... what's the problem?

Vahnavoi
2020-08-29, 02:10 PM
Such hostility for literally no reason.
Chill, dude.

It amuses me you think there's any notable hostility behind my comment.


Your comment didn't come into being in a vacuum. These systems were being discussed in the same breath as Storytelling Games earlier in the thread. Hence my comment addressing this point in that larger context.

Thanks for making it clear that you're not here for the larger conversation, though.

If you ask me, the "larger conversation" lies beyond specific games such AW or Fate.


These also aren't super common. And the named Fate Points of the same-named system don't work like that, either.

I was not talking about Fate, which you should've gathered from how I prefaced my post. Ironically enough, Fate did not invent fate points (no capitalizations) and isn't the only game to include resources with that exact name, they exist in Rolemaster and elsewhere. Doubly ironically, your argument that Fate's fate points "don't work like that" is undermined by you immediately thinking up a way to make them work like that. And apparently playing a game like that strikes you as so exotic that you have to ask me for confirmation if I'm sure I've played with any of these mechanics? :smalltongue: Come on.


As for the rest, sure. Story-focused mechanics exist. I'd never argue otherwise. I think they're less common than people seem to be wringing their hands about, but even story-focused systems were as common as mechanics focused systems.... what's the problem?

It's not story-focused versus mechanics-focused. Again, it's decisions from a character's POV versus decisions from an authorial POV. There are mechanics heavy and mechanics light versions of both approaches. But the two lead to very different player experience, because the player is doing different things.

If you fail to see the problem, use the GM's role as a reference point, since, again, the GM is the one who traditionally does the authorial decision making. Start offloading tasks traditionally done by a GM on players and see how long it takes before they start complaining that it detracts from their focus on their character, or fail to carry out the task.

---

The rest of your post is your anecdote versus mine combined with "well I don't see what's wrong with it?" Well okay, somehow in 16 years of gaming you haven't seen your share of two common schemas for storytelling mechanics, and even where you've seen them, you're fine with them. My beef's not there. I was and am interested in showing how something you called "bizarre" is fairly straightforward.

ImNotTrevor
2020-08-29, 03:01 PM
It amuses me you think there's any notable hostility behind my comment.
Well there's some smug superiority around here for sure.




If you ask me, the "larger conversation" lies beyond specific games such AW or Fate.
Cool. I'm talking about the thread I've been in.
Welcome.




I was not talking about Fate, which you should've gathered from how I prefaced my post. Ironically enough, Fate did not invent fate points (no capitalizations) and isn't the only game to include resources with that exact name, they exist in Rolemaster and elsewhere.
Hence referring to fate points as described in Fate.



Doubly ironically, your argument that Fate's fate points "don't work like that" is undermined by you immediately thinking up a way to make them work like that.
Nothing I mentioned involved Fate Points. Stunts don't have a FP cost.

So... repeated question?



And apparently playing a game like that strikes you as so exotic that you have to ask me for confirmation if I'm sure I've played with any of these mechanics? :smalltongue: Come on.
Lol. I was questioning your claimed expertise. I still do.




It's not story-focused versus mechanics-focused. Again, it's decisions from a character's POV versus decisions from an authorial POV.
What prevents me from RPing from a stance of "what would make this scene more interesting/amusing/dramatic" rather than what my character would do in D&D?

Nothing, really.

Hence why I'm not worried about this distinction. It's not a system thing.



There are mechanics heavy and mechanics light versions of both approaches. But the two lead to very different player experience, because the player is doing different things.
Systems can certainly support certain approaches a bit better, but no system can enforce them.



If you fail to see the problem, use the GM's role as a reference point, since, again, the GM is the one who traditionally does the authorial decision making. Start offloading tasks traditionally done by a GM on players and see how long it takes before they start complaining that it detracts from their focus on their character, or fail to carry out the task.

I've never had these problems so...
Where's the problem?





The rest of your post is your anecdote versus mine combined with "well I don't see what's wrong with it?" Well okay, somehow in 16 years of gaming you haven't seen your share of two common schemas for storytelling mechanics, and even where you've seen them, you're fine with them. My beef's not there. I was and am interested in showing how something you called "bizarre" is fairly straightforward.

The mere existence of the mechanics isn't bizaare. Making the distinction as if mechanics and story are entirely distinct, separate things that don't interact, and any given rule either affects one or the other. When the two are intertwined.

Player positioning as far as roleplaying is a separate question.
Player narrative authority is another separate question.

These are things that also interact, and aren't 100% distinct and separate, but they're worth noting for what they are instead of combining into one thing.

But you seem pretty certain that I know nothing about anything so I'll stop wasting text on further responses since I don't think it'll be productive.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-29, 03:09 PM
It's pretty much exactly the thing you're talking about. ImNotTrevor is correct that you don't get to do whatever you want, but once your effect on the plot is direct rather than mediated through abilities, it doesn't really matter what your character concept is, because you get to do the same amount of "plot stuff" either way. And that kind of cheating is not necessarily bad. It's pretty necessary if you want to be able to tell stories like the Avengers movies, where one character has the power of "god of lightning" and another has the power of "archery".


OK, I wouldn't call that cheating, I'd call it an entirely different axis of engagement.

For those of us who prefer character-level, task-resolution setups, it's not really a solution to balance issues.

Man on Fire
2020-08-29, 10:00 PM
But when you think of that character is anything like healing close to what you think of? This just shows the difficulty of coercing a character concept into a class-based system. It's just hard, and there's almost inevitably some level of square-peg-round-hole going on.

Which is fine, but it also means that you're going to get something of an approximation (which is true in ANY system, but more true in class-based), and are more likely to get extra or missing bits. Also, it can require a lot more system mastery than other systems to get there.

I missed their Shazam example in the midst of all the rhetoric, but ironically, that's a perfect example of a how strained and convoluted it is to map some characters into some systems. To be told "you just lack imagination" and then to find out that "imagination" is evidently trying to explain away healing powers that don't fit the character at all as "just really inspiring"... yeah...

1. Or maybe, you know, I'm actually fan of the character on more than a superfficial level and I understand there is more to him than "flies, punches and shoots lightning". I understand that him being inspiring is what people love him for, that one of his iconic moments if when his appearance in "Justice" when a fight seemed lost inspired hope even in Superman himself. Maybe I know that banishment may not be a spell he casts but it is perfect to replicate an iconic moment from Shazam! Monster Society of Evil where he punches a monster so hard he opens a black hole that sucks it into another dimension.

2. Hit points aren't meant points. Even the 5e book and many experienced GMs advocate to not run them that way but either as a "plot armor" letting you avoid deadly hits and a strike that brings you down to zero being the one that actually gets you or as will to fight, where hitting zero is hitting your limit and falling not from a nasty wound itself but from not having more strength to keep going. And the reason why you cannot see beyond the idea of hit points experiencing physical wounds and healing only representing actual physical healing that I call your positions a sign of inflexibility and lack of imagination.

I was running Agaisnt the Cult of the Reptile God in 5e. Final bos cast a spell one-shotting the Dragonborn Paladin. Bard moved right after the monster and immediatelly casts healing word. I could have said how the Paladin lies unconcious and his wounds are closing and he wakes up. but instead I've choose to describe how as hee is falling down on his knees he hears bard yelling "don't you dare giving up!" and his resolve surge, he stops his fall mid-way and stands defiantly glaring at the villain, refusing to die. It was an epic moment that motivated entire party to fight harder. It is also something that would be missing with obsessive sticking to the mechanics.


If that works for some players, I'm not going to tell them they're wrong... but it doesn't clear my personal subjective bar for what works.


You'll note that I dismissed OP's position as "nonsense" in my literal first post in this thread, so maybe you could avoid insisting that he and I are on the same side?

I would believe you if you weren't in a thread where OP is telling everyone who doesn't play the way aligned with your, limited and boring, preference, that they're playing the game wrong and defending the op's stance when people take offense to it.


Most games have some level of optimization. The difference with 3.x is:

1. The variance possible
2. The amount of non-obvious decisions you make to optimize
3. The amount of material you must pore through to optimize

1 and 3 were overwhelming to new people, forcing them out of the game, while 2 was too little, there being at the end of the day staples that you had to take if you needed to work, like Power Attack for meele fighters or Spirit Lion Totem for Barbarians.


It seems to me that having multiple different ways for characters to work in combat makes things more interesting, not less. If there are players or monsters whose abilities encourage them to extend or accelerate combats, that creates interesting dynamics. Whereas if everyone just has a pile of daily resources, every combat is just budgeting how many of those you get to use this time.

So in other words you would instead of working with your party on tactics that allow you to get the feel of your character as you want them to play in combat and still be tactically useful you would rather just have mechanics that only you use, for yourself, to show off to others how cool you are. This is a bad attitude in my opinion, doesn't speak well of a good player behavior, more of ego over the teamwork


That's just not true. For example, 5e's decision to use Bounded Accuracy locks out concepts like "the PCs hold out against an army of demons", because there's no way to cleave through armies of chaff without unacceptable losses.

I do not see why. it feels more like your problem at the table to be honest.


Having a wider range of classes doesn't make any particular character more complex. In fact, there are mechanics that are actually less complex than the psuedo-Vancian system 5e favors, so there's a very real sense in which a wider range of mechanics makes the game more accessible. If people could play 3e-style Warlocks that just got a stack of powers to use at will, that would make it easier for them to get into the game.

Spare me the nostalgia. I do not see how a pile of different systems jsut added on top of one another with no rhyme or reason is not complicated. 5e making it all operate on one system is rather simple in my opinion.


In 3e, overwhelmingly the most popular splatbooks and expansion classes were the ones that introduced new mechanics. People loved the Binders, Crusaders, Warlocks, and Incarnates of the world. Even though those classes were very often inferior to the core classes, or even to more powerful expansion classes. People really like variety. What they don't like is having to homebrew or houserule stuff, so I reject your paradigm of "you can just do it yourself" (which, incidentally, is the Oberoni Fallacy, more or less).

In people really preferred how 3e or Pathfinder 1e did it, Pathfinder wouldn't have to make a new edition to try and keep up with 5e. The truth is that 3e was making the same mistake many other geeky media made in 2000s - focusing on the "veterans" who are already heavily invested into the hobby and can learn new mechanics easily since they have experience with it. Comic books made the same mistake and the same DC that at the end of that decade told Paul Pope they're not interested in selling to kids and teenagers but to live-long fans in their 30s and 40s now looks like it may be closed for failing to broaden their audiences enough to matter for the company owning them. You let nostalgia color your perspective. 3e has a reputation of being the least new-player friendly out of all d&d editions for a reason and at the end of the day your whole complaint feels to me no different than a guy rerading Marvel for 30 years mad the company made characters like Kamala Khan to appeal to new audiences instead of focusing enteirly on him.

And personally, do you know what for me were always binders, warlocks, incarnates or all those classes from tome of battle? A headache. They demanded me to learn new mechanics on top of already complicated game mechanics and I never managed to build one I would have fun playing. Same with Psionics.

Speaking of Psionics, not so long ago Unearthed Arcana tried to make psionic subclasses with a new mechanics of psionic dice that would decrease or increase depending on used powers. And it went over with players like a lead baloon, hence why they quickly made newer psioncis with that mechanic gone enteirly.

And accusation of Oberoni Fallacy is disengenious and manipulative. The idea that saying rules that are flexible enough to adapt to different things are better equals saying rules don't matter because you can change them proves a huge misunderstanding of whole argument.


Yeah I'm not sure where the idea that you have to optimize in 3e comes from. The base game was made for minimal optimization and included no fancy PrCs or broken min-maxing outside of simply being a cleric. You can easily play 3e D&D without your character being a walking god and have fun. It's actually how it was supposed to be.

If that was 3e's goal then congratulations, it failed. The game is notorious for the fact how in order to actually be effective you need to optimize and do it heavily and the player's handbook itself had classes that without heavy optimization were not worth taking like Monk or Fighter.


To me, the Allomancers of Mistborn are a good example of characters who can't be faithfully mapped into the standard assumptions of 5e -- that's not a knock on 5e or on Allomancers, it's just a statement of fact.

Challege accepted.


Allomancers don't have spell slots, they can keep using their powers as long as they have metal to burn and don't keel over from raw exhaustion... and there's even a metal they can burn to stave off exhaustion.

Sorcerer. The spell slots represent metal you burn, once you run out off it you cannot cast.


They have a fixed list of powers based on what metal(s) they burn, but differing degrees of power and skill with those powers, and different "stunts" that they've mastered, especially the Mistborn when it comes to combining the effects of different metals.

Which can be replicated by carefull spell selection.



I'm sure someone has come up with a way to hammer that square peg into the 5e hole, but I'm also sure that I'd find it utterly unsatisfying. "Your spell components are all metal, now" would utterly fail to address the real disconnect.

That's a you problem, not a reason to force ME to play it differently.



If it's taking you multiple hours to run a normal combat, you're doing something wrong.

Yes, I'm playing in 3e :p

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-29, 11:01 PM
Oh look, it came back to inform us that we're boring and ignorant and selfish and horrible again.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-29, 11:01 PM
So in other words you would instead of working with your party on tactics that allow you to get the feel of your character as you want them to play in combat and still be tactically useful you would rather just have mechanics that only you use, for yourself, to show off to others how cool you are.

I want to work with my party on tactics. That's what having different resource management systems accomplishes. Having a Rage Meter (like an Endross Traveler, or the Hulk) creates a tactical dynamic that encourages you to work with other people whose abilities are more front-loaded. Having powers that weaken you later in the fight encourages you to work with people who have more staying power. Having powers that require time to set up encourages you to work with people who can slow down fights. Having powers that summon allies encourages you to work with people who have AoE buffs. Having a variety of abilities is the single best way to encourage people to work together. It's why we have more than one class, and why the game is most interesting when classes work in different ways.


I do not see why. it feels more like your problem at the table to be honest.

Yes, 5e has a problem where it doesn't push low-level enemies off the RNG, making it impossible for high level characters to beat them in large numbers in the way they do in the source material. At my table I've solved this by playing games that do a better job of emulating the kinds of Epic Fantasy stories I think D&D is well suited for.


Spare me the nostalgia. I do not see how a pile of different systems jsut added on top of one another with no rhyme or reason is not complicated. 5e making it all operate on one system is rather simple in my opinion.

The complexity of the system is different from the complexity of any particular character. 3e certainly has a rich, detailed system that allows you to play a wide variety of characters. But it also has characters that are incredibly simple. Like the Warlock, who has a very short list of powers and uses them at will. That character is simpler than anything (at least any caster) that exists in 5e, because At Will is a simpler resource management mechanic than Spell Slots.


In people really preferred how 3e or Pathfinder 1e did it, Pathfinder wouldn't have to make a new edition to try and keep up with 5e.

Who was WotC trying to keep up with when they made 4e? Who was FASA trying to keep up with when they came out with the 2nd edition of Shadowrun? Companies release new editions of TTRPGs not because they are particularly trying to "keep up" with anyone else, but because they believe that new editions will sell better than old ones. Sometimes that is true (5e sells better than 4e did). Sometimes that is false (4e sold worse than 3e did). Market competition is certainly a factor, but it's far from the only one.


The truth is that 3e was making the same mistake many other geeky media made in 2000s

Interesting that you call the decision that resulted in a product line that, between 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder, lasted the better part of two decades a mistake. It's very difficult to do apples to apples comparisons between different TTRPG products for a host of reasons (notably: people do not publish hard numbers), but by my count 5e has about a decade to go before it can claim to have been as enduring a success as 3e was. I very strongly doubt it'll make it that far.


The idea that saying rules that are flexible enough to adapt to different things are better equals saying rules don't matter because you can change them proves a huge misunderstanding of whole argument.

5e does not provide adequate mechanics for any resource management system that is not "spell slots". That means it has the mechanical problem of not modeling things that are not spell slots. Claiming that you can fix that by pretending everything is spell slots is Oberoni. If you wanted to instead say that you don't care, and that you're fine with people getting the same kind of powers, even if those powers work in different ways, that would (again) be totally fine. But you seem unwilling to accept that someone might disagree with you in good faith on the question "are how a character's powers work important to that character".


Sorcerer. The spell slots represent metal you burn, once you run out off it you cannot cast.

Spell slots are a problematic representation of Allomancy for a number of reasons. They are fungible in ways Allomancy is not (you cannot turn Tin into Iron, but a 3rd level spell slot is a 3rd level spell slot), and they are not fungible in ways Allomancy is (you can cash in your Pewter at a faster or slower rate in a way that spell slots represent poorly if at all). The refresh period also matches up poorly with Allomancy. You may be satisfied with a Mistborn that works that way, but a fair analysis shows clear issues with it as a translation of the characters from Sanderson's works.


That's a you problem, not a reason to force ME to play it differently.

But your distaste for Tome of Battle is a reason to expunge it from the game entirely? Either we can live and let live, accepting that people with have other opinions about what makes for good mechanics, or all the people who disagree with you hate new players and want to bully them out of the hobby. You can't have it both ways.

Ignimortis
2020-08-29, 11:16 PM
I find it pretty funny that someone who argues that a lot of concepts are playable in D&D is defending 5e, which is the least non-core concept-friendly edition in 20 years, and deriding 3e, which had enough content to let you play almost anything outside of specific magic systems. Do mechanics not matter to you that much, Man on Fire? Can you accept that a dimension-cutting slash deals 1d8+STR damage, and someone who plays "just a dude with a sword" also does 1d8+STR damage on his clumsy swing of a rather dull broadsword, because they're both "refluffed" longsword attacks?

Lord Raziere
2020-08-29, 11:31 PM
I find it pretty funny that someone who argues that a lot of concepts are playable in D&D is defending 5e, which is the least non-core concept-friendly edition in 20 years, and deriding 3e, which had enough content to let you play almost anything outside of specific magic systems. Do mechanics not matter to you that much, Man on Fire? Can you accept that a dimension-cutting slash deals 1d8+STR damage, and someone who plays "just a dude with a sword" also does 1d8+STR damage on his clumsy swing of a rather dull broadsword, because they're both "refluffed" longsword attacks?

Well I can't speak for him.

And I do agree that using 5e for allomancy is not the best idea (I've seen some try homebrewing that though) for one, there is an official game for Mistborn roleplaying which even has a splat for the Wax and wayne era.

At the same time, I personally play Mutants and Masterminds so the difference between one slash or another being fluff is a pretty common occurrence to me and your in fact encouraged to make sure your attack/def values match the PL if you want your character to be competent meaning any attack you make is probably going to be a +10. so I'd be okay with it as long as the dimension-cutting slash has an additional effect tied to cutting a dimension like cutting across distance or sending them to another dimension while you slash them, both of which are pretty easy to build in that system. but then I guess you would be in agreement with such differences, because they are enhancements to the attack over the normal sword swing, even if its not in damage?

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-29, 11:43 PM
I don't actually have an issue with taking the position that a simpler system is better for any number of reasons. If you wanted to make the point that it is easier to run NPCs when all those NPCs work in one simple way, that would be entirely reasonable. If you wanted to claim that you don't care very much about mechanical complexity and would prefer to focus on the roleplaying aspects of the game, that would also be reasonable. Simple systems do have virtues, and those virtues are quite defensible if you're willing to make arguments defending the virtues they do have.

That said, 5e is not actually that good at being a simple system. It's certainly simpler than 3e, but if you really want to max out on simplicity what you actually want is something more in the vein of 4e, where characters actually work the same. But unlike 4e you'd want to push things much more towards at-wills, and to allow much more mixing and matching. Such as system would have the virtue of being pretty reasonable for representing things like our Endross Traveler or Mistborn. The Endross Traveler picks up his lightning magic and some kind of passive ability that grants you a stacking bonus when you use your powers, and refluffing is a lot more palatable for the Mistborn when you're not arbitrarily running out of metal when your spell slots are spent (your encounter powers are presumably various big bursts of metal, where you expend your whole supply).

My issue is with the blind refusal to acknowledge that a simplified system necessarily reduces the range of possible mechanics and/or that the mechanics by which characters powers operate are important to those characters.

Ignimortis
2020-08-30, 12:00 AM
Well I can't speak for him.

And I do agree that using 5e for allomancy is not the best idea (I've seen some try homebrewing that though) for one, there is an official game for Mistborn roleplaying which even has a splat for the Wax and wayne era.

At the same time, I personally play Mutants and Masterminds so the difference between one slash or another being fluff is a pretty common occurrence to me and your in fact encouraged to make sure your attack/def values match the PL if you want your character to be competent meaning any attack you make is probably going to be a +10. so I'd be okay with it as long as the dimension-cutting slash has an additional effect tied to cutting a dimension like cutting across distance or sending them to another dimension while you slash them, both of which are pretty easy to build in that system. but then I guess you would be in agreement with such differences, because they are enhancements to the attack over the normal sword swing, even if its not in damage?

Superhero games suffer from a Captain Hobo problem - it's just not as fun if you have two extremely tonally different characters at the same power level, unless the whole party agrees that is the exact point of the game and run it like One Punch Man, where the most powerful hero is just a guy who followed a workout routine, and all the super cyborgs, mutants, mages and demigods can't hold a candle to him. But if you have a super-serious Iron Man copy, and another player is running a cheesy mall cop who has armor of Tupperware and rides on a Segway, and your abilities do pretty much the same thing, that kinda kills the mood.

So I wouldn't like it if some dude with a dull sword can do the same damage as DMC Vergil, no, but they also probably shouldn't be in the same game, or at least at anywhere near same power level of the game.

Lord Raziere
2020-08-30, 01:00 AM
Superhero games suffer from a Captain Hobo problem - it's just not as fun if you have two extremely tonally different characters at the same power level, unless the whole party agrees that is the exact point of the game and run it like One Punch Man, where the most powerful hero is just a guy who followed a workout routine, and all the super cyborgs, mutants, mages and demigods can't hold a candle to him. But if you have a super-serious Iron Man copy, and another player is running a cheesy mall cop who has armor of Tupperware and rides on a Segway, and your abilities do pretty much the same thing, that kinda kills the mood.

So I wouldn't like it if some dude with a dull sword can do the same damage as DMC Vergil, no, but they also probably shouldn't be in the same game, or at least at anywhere near same power level of the game.

Okay?

I don't really see that as a problem, who would want to play a Captain hobo? makes no sense. generally my experience is M&M games are more tonally consistent than DnD, because the GM lacking a setting has to define it and everyone has to work with it, but when you try DnD, there is a whole load of unwritten and unspoken assumptions about how serious or not it is and everyone just assumes your playing with the same assumptions because "its DnD, everyone knows what that is!" and thus don't do the proper work of defining setting and tone among the players.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 08:16 AM
Superhero games suffer from a Captain Hobo problem - it's just not as fun if you have two extremely tonally different characters at the same power level, unless the whole party agrees that is the exact point of the game and run it like One Punch Man, where the most powerful hero is just a guy who followed a workout routine, and all the super cyborgs, mutants, mages and demigods can't hold a candle to him. But if you have a super-serious Iron Man copy, and another player is running a cheesy mall cop who has armor of Tupperware and rides on a Segway, and your abilities do pretty much the same thing, that kinda kills the mood.

So I wouldn't like it if some dude with a dull sword can do the same damage as DMC Vergil, no, but they also probably shouldn't be in the same game, or at least at anywhere near same power level of the game.


IMO almost any game requires some player-level agreement as to what the tone will be, or it will fall apart. And the players do agree to play in the setting the GM is using, which may make tupperware and a segway untenable as "superpowers".

But I've seen the same issue of unspoken and mismatched assumptions as to tone ruin some D&D campaigns, too.




I find it pretty funny that someone who argues that a lot of concepts are playable in D&D is defending 5e, which is the least non-core concept-friendly edition in 20 years, and deriding 3e, which had enough content to let you play almost anything outside of specific magic systems. Do mechanics not matter to you that much, Man on Fire? Can you accept that a dimension-cutting slash deals 1d8+STR damage, and someone who plays "just a dude with a sword" also does 1d8+STR damage on his clumsy swing of a rather dull broadsword, because they're both "refluffed" longsword attacks?


(The following is not to "instruct" you specifically, reading it I can see how it could come off that way, I'm just following up on your post.)

In HERO, all attacks are built from the ground up to match the "fluff" (ugh, hate that term, going to use the term "special effects" / SFX that HERO uses) both for that character's abilities and in the context of the setting, and I've come across players who A) think that they should build the character mechanically and then slap some SFX on as a thin veneer, or B) that they can decide on their SFX and then just build whatever sorta fits for the max mechanical potency without considering how it compares to other characters and the setting at all. The thing is, HERO has a core assumption that two attacks, one that's a rusty broadsword and one that's a dimension-cutting slash, would NOT be built the same, because they are NOT the same. If you want to play the Archer and the Thunder God on the same superhero team, that's typically handled by the Archer having more variety and versatility, and using technological or magical items to make up for the gap in inherent power, with both being built to the same number of points.

But that's a system that's straight character-level, task-resolution, and rarely if ever touches on "narrative balance", the closest it comes "narrative" is the Luck talent, which requires the GM to contrive a bit.

As was being discussed earlier, there are systems that go whole-hog on "what your attack is in detail doesn't matter, because it's An Attack for the purposes of how it functions in the story, and the story is what matters". Ironically for our one poster, D&D's closest brush with that approach was actually 4e, they were just doing it for entirely different reasons; otherwise D&D has never been a system that encourages treating the dimensional slash and the rusty broadsword as the same thing. For starters, D&D locks the dimensional slash or its equivalent away behind gaining levels in this or that character class, explicitly making it NOT an option for some first level character's basic abilities.

Ignimortis
2020-08-30, 09:04 AM
IMO almost any game requires some player-level agreement as to what the tone will be, or it will fall apart. And the players do agree to play in the setting the GM is using, which may make tupperware and a segway untenable as "superpowers".

But I've seen the same issue of unspoken and mismatched assumptions as to tone ruin some D&D campaigns, too.

(The following is not to "instruct" you specifically, reading it I can see how it could come off that way, I'm just following up on your post.)

In HERO, all attacks are built from the ground up to match the "fluff" (ugh, hate that term, going to use the term "special effects" / SFX that HERO uses) both for that character's abilities and in the context of the setting, and I've come across players who A) think that they should build the character mechanically and then slap some SFX on as a thing veneer, or B) that they can decide on their SFX and then just build whatever sorta fits for the max mechanical potency without considering how it compares to other characters and the setting at all. The thing is, HERO has a core assumption that two attacks, one that's a rusty broadsword and one that's a dimension-cutting slash, would NOT be built the same, because they are NOT the same. If you want to play the Archer and the Thunder God on the same superhero team, that's typically handled by the Archer having more variety and versatility, and using technological or magical items to make up for the gap in inherent power, with both being built to the same number of points.

But that's a system that's straight character-level, task-resolution, and rarely if ever touches on "narrative balance", the closest it comes "narrative" is the Luck talent, which requires the GM to contrive a bit.

As was being discussed earlier, there are systems that go whole-hog on "what your attack is in detail doesn't matter, because it's An Attack for the purposes of how it functions in the story, and the story is what matters". Ironically for our one poster, D&D's closest brush with that approach was actually 4e, they were just doing it for entirely different reasons; otherwise D&D has never been a system that encourages treating the dimensional slash and the rusty broadsword as the same thing. For starters, D&D locks the dimensional slash or its equivalent away behind gaining levels in this or that character class, explicitly making it NOT an option for some first level character's basic abilities.

But of course, I fully agree. That was my point - such things should be different mechanically, and D&D has always treated them as different things, and if a game cannot adequately reflect a concept mechanically, then it can be considered unplayable, or playable in a very small portion of the game (if you want to play a mage who can hop between worlds, that's not a level 1 concept, and quite a few games don't even provide the option). Refluffing can help to an extent, but you can't just refluff everything away, because refluffing strains the suspension of disbelief, and, at some point, suspends it by the neck. My personal issues with D&D come exactly from the lack of mechanical variety to certain archetypes that would make certain concepts playable.


Okay?

I don't really see that as a problem, who would want to play a Captain hobo? makes no sense. generally my experience is M&M games are more tonally consistent than DnD, because the GM lacking a setting has to define it and everyone has to work with it, but when you try DnD, there is a whole load of unwritten and unspoken assumptions about how serious or not it is and everyone just assumes your playing with the same assumptions because "its DnD, everyone knows what that is!" and thus don't do the proper work of defining setting and tone among the players.

True enough, although I've seen enough players who would've wanted to play Captain Hobo just to be contrarian and make fun of other people at the table for being too serious about playing superheroes. But yes, D&D has this problem in spades too, it's just that its' mechanics usually provide more of a common ground for most players to agree on tone.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-30, 09:09 AM
Also, the Captain Hobo problem isn't just with Captain Hobo. The same problem exists to a degree even in the source material when characters like Hawkeye or (some versions of) Batman try to team up with ones like Thor or Green Lantern. The idea of a literal Captain Hobo is a rhetorical device.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 09:15 AM
5e does not provide adequate mechanics for any resource management system that is not "spell slots". That means it has the mechanical problem of not modeling things that are not spell slots. Claiming that you can fix that by pretending everything is spell slots is Oberoni. If you wanted to instead say that you don't care, and that you're fine with people getting the same kind of powers, even if those powers work in different ways, that would (again) be totally fine. But you seem unwilling to accept that someone might disagree with you in good faith on the question "are how a character's powers work important to that character".

Spell slots are a problematic representation of Allomancy for a number of reasons. They are fungible in ways Allomancy is not (you cannot turn Tin into Iron, but a 3rd level spell slot is a 3rd level spell slot), and they are not fungible in ways Allomancy is (you can cash in your Pewter at a faster or slower rate in a way that spell slots represent poorly if at all). The refresh period also matches up poorly with Allomancy. You may be satisfied with a Mistborn that works that way, but a fair analysis shows clear issues with it as a translation of the characters from Sanderson's works.


The funny part is, I posted as to why spell slots don't work for Allomancy upthread, but it was soundly ignored in favor of more derision about my supposed motivations and lack of imagination.

Nothing about spell slots works like or feels like Allomancy.




But your distaste for Tome of Battle is a reason to expunge it from the game entirely? Either we can live and let live, accepting that people with have other opinions about what makes for good mechanics, or all the people who disagree with you hate new players and want to bully them out of the hobby. You can't have it both ways.


Yeah, I've noticed that funhouse mirror a few times now... somehow saying we want mechanics that better match the function and feel of character's abilities is "gatekeeping" and attacking their preferences, but blowing our off preferences as unimaginative is just standing up for their preferences?




I don't actually have an issue with taking the position that a simpler system is better for any number of reasons. If you wanted to make the point that it is easier to run NPCs when all those NPCs work in one simple way, that would be entirely reasonable. If you wanted to claim that you don't care very much about mechanical complexity and would prefer to focus on the roleplaying aspects of the game, that would also be reasonable. Simple systems do have virtues, and those virtues are quite defensible if you're willing to make arguments defending the virtues they do have.

That said, 5e is not actually that good at being a simple system. It's certainly simpler than 3e, but if you really want to max out on simplicity what you actually want is something more in the vein of 4e, where characters actually work the same. But unlike 4e you'd want to push things much more towards at-wills, and to allow much more mixing and matching. Such as system would have the virtue of being pretty reasonable for representing things like our Endross Traveler or Mistborn. The Endross Traveler picks up his lightning magic and some kind of passive ability that grants you a stacking bonus when you use your powers, and refluffing is a lot more palatable for the Mistborn when you're not arbitrarily running out of metal when your spell slots are spent (your encounter powers are presumably various big bursts of metal, where you expend your whole supply).

My issue is with the blind refusal to acknowledge that a simplified system necessarily reduces the range of possible mechanics and/or that the mechanics by which characters powers operate are important to those characters.


I don't really understand how someone could be absolutely fine with a fundamental mismatch between mechanics and SFX, but I can accept it and move on, it's not like their enjoyment offends me. It only becomes an issue for me in that so much of the new gaming material available, including some very interesting settings, is split three ways between OSR, 5e supplement, and "narrative control mechanics", none of which are at all my cuppa.

Where I just fundamentally disagree with some is the idea that D&D, even 5e, is a "simple system" when it comes to character creation and progression. If I have to take the right levels from the right class/subclass in the right order to make the character I want, run a real risk of falling behind mechanically if I don't get it just right, and run a real risk of losing even the general feel/aesthetic of the character if I don't get it just right... that's not what I consider simple. Hell, just the fact that character creation spreads out over the entire campaign and needs to be planned ahead makes it something I wouldn't call "simple".

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 10:02 AM
But of course, I fully agree. That was my point - such things should be different mechanically, and D&D has always treated them as different things, and if a game cannot adequately reflect a concept mechanically, then it can be considered unplayable, or playable in a very small portion of the game (if you want to play a mage who can hop between worlds, that's not a level 1 concept, and quite a few games don't even provide the option). Refluffing can help to an extent, but you can't just refluff everything away, because refluffing strains the suspension of disbelief, and, at some point, suspends it by the neck. My personal issues with D&D come exactly from the lack of mechanical variety to certain archetypes that would make certain concepts playable.


Back in the day, another player tried to make a thief/mage and "refluff" all his spells as "thrown knives"... not even thrown vials of potions and such, but literally thrown knives... which works when you're looking at magic missile, or reskinning some "bind in place" spell as pinning someone with thrown blades I guess... but falls apart fast after that.

Oddly, I think we're still on topic for the thread with this line of discussion, between it's still about how well you can fit a certain character into a certain setting or a certain system.




True enough, although I've seen enough players who would've wanted to play Captain Hobo just to be contrarian and make fun of other people at the table for being too serious about playing superheroes. But yes, D&D has this problem in spades too, it's just that its mechanics usually provide more of a common ground for most players to agree on tone.


The deliberate rug-puller, that guy who gets his main enjoyment out of ruining the mood/tone/atmosphere of a game, might be one of the worst gamer personality archetypes to end up in a campaign with. See also, 50%+ of all Malkavians in VtM, for starters.

OldTrees1
2020-08-30, 10:58 AM
The truth is that 3e was making the same mistake many other geeky media made in 2000s - focusing on the "veterans" who are already heavily invested into the hobby and can learn new mechanics easily since they have experience with it.

And personally, do you know what for me were always binders, warlocks, incarnates or all those classes from tome of battle? A headache. They demanded me to learn new mechanics on top of already complicated game mechanics and I never managed to build one I would have fun playing. Same with Psionics.

-snip-

Sorcerer. The spell slots represent metal you burn, once you run out off it you cannot cast.

-snip-

That's a you problem, not a reason to force ME to play it differently.


-snip-


-snip-


Wow that was a long argument subthread to go through.

0) None of you 3 agree with the OP's character limiting claim and it sounds like you all want to be able to play a diverse collection of characters in D&D.

1) Mechanical density can be overbearing or lacking. Different players will have different preferences on that. ToB gave Man of Fire a headache, which means ToB was not useful to Man of Fire. From their own experiences, 3E tended to require a lot of mechanical density (and system mastery, and optimization). Imagine sitting down to play 3E but having to do Pathfinder 2's worth of calculations per action. Having preferences on this topic is normal.

However it is also reasonable for a game to support multiple preferences. Both 3E and 5E have spectrums of complexity that still create viable characters. When you narrow it down to character concept those spectrums get smaller and less continuous, but they still exist.

To give 2 personal examples:
I prefer 5E's simplified Mage Hand Legerdemain over 3E's obscure Silver Key prestige class.
I prefer 3E's complex Tome of Battle over 5E's diluted Battlemaster Maneuvers.

Does this mean I want 3E to be simpler and 5E to be more complex? No. Nobody wins by shutting others out. And it sounds like you both think the other is trying to shut you out.

2) Mechanics have texture
Like it or not, mechanics have both applied and inherent flavor. Applied flavor is easily refluffed by removing it and replacing it. For example "this fireball is actually a cryo grenade I crafted this morning". However mechanics also have inherent flavor that cannot be removed as long as the mechanic remains unchanged. For example Fire Bolt can be used at-will but Scorching Ray runs out when you run out of spell slots. You can refluff Fire Bolt as Scorching Ray by pretending to run out of uses. But the inverse does not work, once you are out of uses of Scorching Ray then it becomes REALLY HARD to pretend it is a Fire Bolt you can continue to use.

3) Different people at different times care about different parts of the fluff when they are refluffing.
Who here cares about the inherent difference between Scorching Ray and Fire Bolt if they were refluffing Scorching Ray as Fire Bolt? Who here doesn't care about those inherent differences? Just because a difference is inherent, does not mean you will necessarily care about it. However since it is a difference, you might care about it. Both answers are valid. Neither is a lack of creativity nor a blindness.

So if we rewind all the way back to Tulok the Barbarian, some of those refluffs will work for some people. Others will wonder why the Benders run out of bending. And that is okay. It is okay to recognize that others will have different criteria for what should be conserved in a refluffing.

It is fair to say that 5E casters can be refluffed to match the Mage concepts of some players.
It is also fair to say that 5E vancian magic (even Warlock's vancian magic) cannot be refluffed to match my concept of a Mage.

4) Your subthread argument has some more nuances beyond that, but it did sound like you were talking past each other a lot.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-30, 11:00 AM
Nothing about spell slots works like or feels like Allomancy.

It's not quite nothing. Allomancy shares the (oft-maligned) property of Spell Preparation where you can run out of one type of magic while still having others available. Just as you can cast all your Fireballs while still having some Cloudkills, you can burn all your Atium while still having Iron. But overall it's really not a good fit.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 11:03 AM
It's not quite nothing. Allomancy shares the (oft-maligned) property of Spell Preparation where you can run out of one type of magic while still having others available. Just as you can cast all your Fireballs while still having some Cloudkills, you can burn all your Atium while still having Iron. But overall it's really not a good fit.

However, you can take a vial off that other Allomancer you just defeated, or one of your friends can toss you a vial, and "GULP", you've got more of that metal to burn.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 11:15 AM
0) None of you 3 agree with the OP's character limiting claim and it sounds like you all want to be able to play a diverse collection of characters in D&D.


Whether I want to or not isn't my point, I actually agree with the OP on the assertion that there are characters you just can't play in D&D, that don't fit the Class/Level mechanics, in 5e (or other editions).

One of the reasons, the one we've been arguing about with that other poster, is about whether "anything" can be built in D&D just by refluffing some mechanics -- I say NO, and evidently that makes me a gatekeeping elitist who wants to scare people away from D&D so I can have it all to myself? Which is laughable... I don't even like D&D, I don't play it, and one of the reasons is all of the characters and abilities and settings that it CAN'T handle unless you're willing to just IGNORE how those characters, abilities, and settings actually work.




So if we rewind all the way back to Tulok the Barbarian, some of those refluffs will work for some people. Others will wonder why the Benders run out of bending. And that is okay. It is okay to recognize that others will have different criteria for what should be conserved in a refluffing.

It is fair to say that 5E casters can be refluffed to match the Mage concepts of some players.
It is also fair to say that 5E vancian magic (even Warlock's vancian magic) cannot be refluffed to match my concept of a Mage.


I'd say that there comes a point where the mechanics just don't fit, and it becomes a question of whether a gamer is OK with that or not. Benders don't run out of Bending the way that Vancian casters run out of spell slots, and no amount of refluff can change that, it's only a question of whether one is OK with the dissonance.




4) Your subthread argument has some more nuances beyond that, but it did sound like you were talking past each other a lot.


The main "talking past" is the presumption of bad faith motives that one poster in particular is making about others who have different criteria for what works in a refluff.

Pex
2020-08-30, 01:28 PM
I'd say that there comes a point where the mechanics just don't fit, and it becomes a question of whether a gamer is OK with that or not. Benders don't run out of Bending the way that Vancian casters run out of spell slots, and no amount of refluff can change that, it's only a question of whether one is OK with the dissonance.




I think there's a compromise between the two, but I suppose it leans more towards accepting the dissonance. Watching an episode they don't do the major bending continuously. Epic battles are between high level characters, but when the battle is over they don't then do another epic battle soon after. Still, the battles appear to show spontaneous bending. That won't work in strict Vancian of 3E and earlier, but it does work in the loose Vancian of 5E. In 3E you would have to be a spontaneous caster and work with the DM to create an elemental spell list from all classes. Trouble is there is more than one encounter in an adventuring day, so how come you can't do the same tricks (out of spell slots)? In that there's a point. A solution is to embrace the 5 minute adventuring day. If it's a Bending Campaign where everyone is a Bender (Spellcaster class) it can work. There would only ever be one combat a day because both sides would be worn out. There are minor tricks Benders do often and forever. You see it clearly with Fire Benders hurtling bolts of fire. In 5E those are Cantrips. Not all Benders are seen doing the spectacular tricks. They're simply low level mooks. Playing a Bender in an otherwise D&D campaign probably can't work if the mechanics matter a whole lot to you where you can't accept the dissonance, but you can use D&D to play a Bender World Campaign. If you accept the dissonance then there's no problem of a Bender in D&D World. In 5E I find a Circle of the Stars druid makes for a good Avatar approximation.

Of course, all of this is just a tree in your forest conversation. :smalltongue:

Man on Fire
2020-08-30, 02:29 PM
Oh look, it came back to inform us that we're boring and ignorant and selfish and horrible again.

I find it funny you complain about how my criticism of your attitude and demands insulted in in the same sentence you deny to treat me as a person but betray you think of me as an object for you to kick.

Or to put it simple, I'm not an "it".


I want to work with my party on tactics. That's what having different resource management systems accomplishes. Having a Rage Meter (like an Endross Traveler, or the Hulk) creates a tactical dynamic that encourages you to work with other people whose abilities are more front-loaded. Having powers that weaken you later in the fight encourages you to work with people who have more staying power. Having powers that require time to set up encourages you to work with people who can slow down fights. Having powers that summon allies encourages you to work with people who have AoE buffs. Having a variety of abilities is the single best way to encourage people to work together. It's why we have more than one class, and why the game is most interesting when classes work in different ways.

Or you could just select different spells in order to emphasize what you want to be doing and work with your party for tactic that allows it.


Yes, 5e has a problem where it doesn't push low-level enemies off the RNG, making it impossible for high level characters to beat them in large numbers in the way they do in the source material. At my table I've solved this by playing games that do a better job of emulating the kinds of Epic Fantasy stories I think D&D is well suited for.


In 3e the problem was that at higher levels low-level monsters stopped being any sort of a threat and I do not know anyone who would be running a scene like you described due to the fact that combat in it had so many trhings to keep an eye on that running a mass combat with enemies who cannot hurt you would be a massive slog that kills any momentum in your game. And perosnally I always associate fantasy more with the fact that even heroes who slain all kinds of epic monsters may then go to an abandonment village and face a bunch of Goblins and Goblins can still pose a threat to them. Blame it on being raised on the Witcher series of book as in the last one Geralt, who has defeated countless monsters, deadly killers, elven warriors and evil wizards dies stabbed with a pitchfork during a riot

Also how did we go from "hordes of demons" to "low-level enemies" in span of one post? What are your heroes killing, 100 imps?



The complexity of the system is different from the complexity of any particular character. 3e certainly has a rich, detailed system that allows you to play a wide variety of characters. But it also has characters that are incredibly simple. Like the Warlock, who has a very short list of powers and uses them at will. That character is simpler than anything (at least any caster) that exists in 5e, because At Will is a simpler resource management mechanic than Spell Slots.

Too bad these "simple" characters have a whole new, confusing nad poorly explained mechanic at its core that is then added to a whole already messy system, increasing number of things we have to keep an eye on.


Who was WotC trying to keep up with when they made 4e? Who was FASA trying to keep up with when they came out with the 2nd edition of Shadowrun? Companies release new editions of TTRPGs not because they are particularly trying to "keep up" with anyone else, but because they believe that new editions will sell better than old ones. Sometimes that is true (5e sells better than 4e did). Sometimes that is false (4e sold worse than 3e did). Market competition is certainly a factor, but it's far from the only one.

3e was losing sales to other RPGs like World of Darkness as well as video games such like World of Warcraft at the time the shift to 4e has happenned, this is why 4e was clearly trying to imitiate MMO game design to appeal to that crowd.


Interesting that you call the decision that resulted in a product line that, between 3.0, 3.5, and Pathfinder, lasted the better part of two decades a mistake. It's very difficult to do apples to apples comparisons between different TTRPG products for a host of reasons (notably: people do not publish hard numbers), but by my count 5e has about a decade to go before it can claim to have been as enduring a success as 3e was. I very strongly doubt it'll make it that far.


I do not know where you have taken this "two decades" - 3.0 has been phased out for 3.5 in just 3 years and that itself lasted only five, giving us at best 8 years. If you are counting Pathfinder, then I cannot agree and find that dishonest and manipulative trick - Pathfinder is not official d&d an the end of the day. It would be like arguing for the enduring success of B/X because Labirynth Lord and Adventurer, Conquerer, King exists.

And second, your argument is in itself disingenuous. The short-term success that let 3.5 drown us with splatbooks had translated to inability to grow its audience and shrinking market base - as focusing on existing fanbase can do that as at first the people already invested in the hobby are willing to make big purchaches but then will start to dwindle as people move away from the hobby or pass away from old age.

And I'mg gonna say it - in 3e days d&d has been seen as hobby for losers and best portrayal of our interests in mainstream we could hope for was stuff like in Big Bang Theory, our community has been seen as notoriously hard to get into, not very friendly to newbies and especially unfriendly to women, one of 3e designers, Jonathan Tweet, outright stating he does not believe d&d is for women and that women are into LARPing because it's about "relationships and make-up" (https://twitter.com/caderaspindrift/status/1298022089039982594). By comparison 5e has 40% players be under age of 25 and near 40% be women (https://twitter.com/JimZub/status/1254177706528432128), and 2019 may be the best year for d&d in its entire history (https://screenrant.com/dungeons-dragons-best-year-sales-ever-wizards-coast/). When people now think of this game they think of Ciritcal Role, Adventure Zone, Dice, Camera, Action or Dimension 20 for how it looks like. I would say 5e has done more for the franchise than 3e and a lot of that lies in it being easy to learn and easy to teach so pardon me if I'm not waxing nostalgic over wanting to go back to the time everyone who didn't dedicate every second to this game, me included, was feeling unwelcome.

And if we want to be pedantic then BCEMI basically lasted 20 years, AD&D 1e lasted 12 and 2e - 11, all beating 3e by far.


5e does not provide adequate mechanics for any resource management system that is not "spell slots". That means it has the mechanical problem of not modeling things that are not spell slots. Claiming that you can fix that by pretending everything is spell slots is Oberoni. If you wanted to instead say that you don't care, and that you're fine with people getting the same kind of powers, even if those powers work in different ways, that would (again) be totally fine. But you seem unwilling to accept that someone might disagree with you in good faith on the question "are how a character's powers work important to that character".


5e has recognized that you do not need a bunch of mechanics that in the end only make the game confusing when in fact a vast majority of cases spell slots can easily represent them and the few that would be troublesome could be fixed with little work. And you can call me Oberon for it all you want, I don't care for made up fallacy to make number-crunchers sound smarter.


Spell slots are a problematic representation of Allomancy for a number of reasons. They are fungible in ways Allomancy is not (you cannot turn Tin into Iron, but a 3rd level spell slot is a 3rd level spell slot), and they are not fungible in ways Allomancy is (you can cash in your Pewter at a faster or slower rate in a way that spell slots represent poorly if at all). The refresh period also matches up poorly with Allomancy. You may be satisfied with a Mistborn that works that way, but a fair analysis shows clear issues with it as a translation of the characters from Sanderson's works.

At this point you're just being nitpicky and getting tangled in minute details I do not see coming up in game.


But your distaste for Tome of Battle is a reason to expunge it from the game entirely? Either we can live and let live, accepting that people with have other opinions about what makes for good mechanics, or all the people who disagree with you hate new players and want to bully them out of the hobby. You can't have it both ways.

Now, am I starting a thread how people who play game differently from me do it wrong and should stop? Or am I complaining someone else demands I stop having fun and you all are defending his demands out of misguided nostalgia for a poorly designed game?

And you want to blame someone for this whole system being thrown out of the window? Bladme 4e which made all martial classes like this and then flopped, making wotC think people do not want their meele classes to have anime powers.


That said, 5e is not actually that good at being a simple system. It's certainly simpler than 3e, but if you really want to max out on simplicity what you actually want is something more in the vein of 4e, where characters actually work the same.

Too bad 4e also had so many complicated mechanics that each fight became a slog as each round you couldn't just finish the turn you had to then calculate dozens of effects affecting a PC or an enemy, it failed at a meaningful progression, banned multiclassing beyond literally gluind two clases together and bored people to death.


My issue is with the blind refusal to acknowledge that a simplified system necessarily reduces the range of possible mechanics and/or that the mechanics by which characters powers operate are important to those characters.

And my problem is in your unwillingness to acknowledge all the evidence to the contrary.


Superhero games suffer from a Captain Hobo problem - it's just not as fun if you have two extremely tonally different characters at the same power level, unless the whole party agrees that is the exact point of the game and run it like One Punch Man, where the most powerful hero is just a guy who followed a workout routine, and all the super cyborgs, mutants, mages and demigods can't hold a candle to him. But if you have a super-serious Iron Man copy, and another player is running a cheesy mall cop who has armor of Tupperware and rides on a Segway, and your abilities do pretty much the same thing, that kinda kills the mood.

So I wouldn't like it if some dude with a dull sword can do the same damage as DMC Vergil, no, but they also probably shouldn't be in the same game, or at least at anywhere near same power level of the game.

Are you kidding me? this sounds awesome and I would love to be in such a game as either Vergil or Captain Hobo. imagine, in one team someone posessing mystical powers and unmatched skills, an arrogant champion....finding himself matched or even outshined by a humble man who lacks powers or technique but pushes through by sheer strength and tentancity. It sounds like an AMAZING roleplay opportunitty.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 03:20 PM
I find it funny you complain about how my criticism of your attitude and demands insulted in in the same sentence you deny to treat me as a person but betray you think of me as an object for you to kick.

Or to put it simple, I'm not an "it".


Then maybe stop treating the people who don't share your opinion on the matter being discussed as cardboard caricatures of someone else you wish you were arguing with, but who is absolutely not here. The "attitude" and "demands" you're accusing us of doesn't even exist here. You're clearly and plainly attacking a whole luggage train of baggage, but in this thread, you're the only one carrying it.

If you want to be treated like a person, start treating others like people. Until then, you're a gadfly.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-30, 03:33 PM
Or you could just select different spells in order to emphasize what you want to be doing and work with your party for tactic that allows it.

No, I can't, because the thing I want to be doing isn't "use spell slots". You seem to have some kind of mental block about acknowledging that people might care about mechanics. But people obviously do care about mechanics, because TTRPGs aren't all just "GURPS but with different fluff".


And perosnally I always associate fantasy more with the fact that even heroes who slain all kinds of epic monsters may then go to an abandonment village and face a bunch of Goblins and Goblins can still pose a threat to them.

And 3e can model that. E6 exists, and it delivers the experience you are asking for. It's just that 3e is a deeper system than 5e, and in addition to doing the things 5e does, it does other things. Maybe you don't care about those things, but lots of people do, and they made "3e, but more of it" the most successful game in the world for years (one of only two times any product not named "Dungeons and Dragons" has been the best selling TTRPG).


Also how did we go from "hordes of demons" to "low-level enemies" in span of one post? What are your heroes killing, 100 imps?

There are plenty of demons that are low level enemies, like the Dretch, Mane, or Babau. Those things are supposed to show up in hordes, and you are supposed to be able to cut them down like the chaff they are. To my knowledge, 5e can't deliver that, while 3e can. And, yes, 3e is not great at delivering that, but delivering that at all does put it ahead. And, yes, you can say you don't care about doing that, but you do need to acknowledge that doing that is a thing that people might care about doing, and that doing it is different from not doing it.


Too bad these "simple" characters have a whole new, confusing nad poorly explained mechanic at its core that is then added to a whole already messy system, increasing number of things we have to keep an eye on.

"You can use your abilities at will" is not a new mechanic, as that is how martial characters already used their basic attacks, bull rushes, and disarms. I suppose you might find it a confusing mechanic, but frankly if you find "you can use your abilities whenever you want" confusing, that seems like a you problem as that is the simplest possible resource management system. Poorly explained is, again, subjective, but I find the description of how Invocations work in Complete Arcane to cover most of the questions a reasonable person would have, and it's very up front about the fundamental "use them at will" aspect of things.


It would be like arguing for the enduring success of B/X because Labirynth Lord and Adventurer, Conquerer, King exists.

No, because those systems didn't (to my knowledge) promise backwards compatibility. Pathfinder did. The system created in 2000 has certainly been through changes, but it retains a clear common core.


And if we want to be pedantic then BCEMI basically lasted 20 years, AD&D 1e lasted 12 and 2e - 11, all beating 3e by far.

I wouldn't say that 20 years beats 19 "by far".


And I'mg gonna say it - in 3e days d&d has been seen as hobby for losers and best portrayal of our interests in mainstream we could hope for was stuff like in Big Bang Theory

I find it bizarre that you think "hit network sitcom" is a lower level of exposure than "internet streamers". Moreover, the linkage between any decision 5e made and the renewed cultural presence of D&D is, at best, deeply suspect. The big driver there is Stranger Things, and that A) doesn't use D&D mechanics and B) is referencing AD&D.


At this point you're just being nitpicky and getting tangled in minute details I do not see coming up in game.

No, that would be me complaining that 5e doesn't have spells that enhance senses in the right way, or that the mental magic lines up wrong. The objections I'm making are the most broad-strokes possible arguments. Your position appears to be that if you call it Allomancy, that's Allomancy-like enough for you. And maybe it is. But there are obvious differences between spell slots and even the most cursory reading of Mistborn.


Now, am I starting a thread how people who play game differently from me do it wrong and should stop?

The fact that you are doing that in someone else's thread instead of your own is not a detail I consider particularly important.


And my problem is in your unwillingness to acknowledge all the evidence to the contrary.

You haven't presented any "evidence". You've just repeatedly asserted that you are perfectly happy calling something that works nothing like Allomancy in either the broadest strokes or the most precise details is Allomancy. That's it. That's the whole argument. There's no evidence there for me to acknowledge. You haven't even provided any mechanical specifics beyond "you could be a Sorcerer". What spells would I take? What feats would I pick up? How might I customize the character to feel more like any of the particular Mistborn that appear in the series?

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 04:37 PM
No, that would be me complaining that 5e doesn't have spells that enhance senses in the right way, or that the mental magic lines up wrong. The objections I'm making are the most broad-strokes possible arguments. Your position appears to be that if you call it Allomancy, that's Allomancy-like enough for you. And maybe it is. But there are obvious differences between spell slots and even the most cursory reading of Mistborn.

...

You haven't presented any "evidence". You've just repeatedly asserted that you are perfectly happy calling something that works nothing like Allomancy in either the broadest strokes or the most precise details is Allomancy. That's it. That's the whole argument. There's no evidence there for me to acknowledge. You haven't even provided any mechanical specifics beyond "you could be a Sorcerer". What spells would I take? What feats would I pick up? How might I customize the character to feel more like any of the particular Mistborn that appear in the series?


At the bare minimum, recovery of spell slots via rest would need to be replaced with "gets more metal" -- no amount of sleeping will allow more Allomancy, and getting access to more metal potentially gives endless spell slots for days on end with no rest at all.

Then we'd need an entirely revised spell list, with some new limits and tweaks -- burning pewter can heal the allomancer, but not anyone else, there's nothing like a fireball in allomancy, etc. I'd have to go through the Mistborn RPG and the 5e books I picked up, and see if there are even working spells for all the effects that are detailed for different metals.

Then we'd still be stuck with the choice between balancing Mistlings and Mistborn as classes when in the source material they're just not balanced, or going with the source material and having unbalanced classes.

And that's scratching the surface.

Because it's not spell slots, it's at-will powers that require "fuel".

Man on Fire
2020-08-30, 04:49 PM
Then maybe stop treating the people who don't share your opinion on the matter being discussed as cardboard caricatures of someone else you wish you were arguing with, but who is absolutely not here. The "attitude" and "demands" you're accusing us of doesn't even exist here. You're clearly and plainly attacking a whole luggage train of baggage, but in this thread, you're the only one carrying it.

If you want to be treated like a person, start treating others like people. Until then, you're a gadfly.

Claiming you are not expressing attitudes I have acussed you of is not an evidence proving my claims wrong, especially when your behavior keeps contradicting this claim. Prove to me anything I acussed you of is false, I will wait.


No, I can't, because the thing I want to be doing isn't "use spell slots". You seem to have some kind of mental block about acknowledging that people might care about mechanics. But people obviously do care about mechanics, because TTRPGs aren't all just "GURPS but with different fluff".

I acknowledge people may care about mechanics. Obsessing over them to the point that your fun is ruined if mechanics don't reflect 100% acurrately the fluff is what I cannot wrap my head around.


And 3e can model that. E6 exists, and it delivers the experience you are asking for. It's just that 3e is a deeper system than 5e, and in addition to doing the things 5e does, it does other things. Maybe you don't care about those things, but lots of people do, and they made "3e, but more of it" the most successful game in the world for years (one of only two times any product not named "Dungeons and Dragons" has been the best selling TTRPG).

So I'm acussed of Oberoni nonsense when I point you can easily adapt 5e to circumstances due to its simplified mechanics but you guys want me to accept A WHOLE ALTERNATIVE SYSTEM OF PLAY THAT THROWS 14 OUT OF 20 LEVELS FOR ALL CHARACTERS OUT OF THE WINDOW as a vaild claim in defense of 3e. E6's existence is a proof that 3e is broken.

And I would argue that Pathfinder 1e was succesful...in its own niche. I knew much more people who play Warhammer, CoC and WoD than they play Pathfinder. I would even argue Numenera had better success and that too is coming to 5e.


There are plenty of demons that are low level enemies, like the Dretch, Mane, or Babau. Those things are supposed to show up in hordes, and you are supposed to be able to cut them down like the chaff they are. To my knowledge, 5e can't deliver that, while 3e can. And, yes, 3e is not great at delivering that, but delivering that at all does put it ahead. And, yes, you can say you don't care about doing that, but you do need to acknowledge that doing that is a thing that people might care about doing, and that doing it is different from not doing it.

"We did it badly" is not the argument you think it is. People say no d&d is better than bad d&d for a reason.


"You can use your abilities at will" is not a new mechanic, as that is how martial characters already used their basic attacks, bull rushes, and disarms. I suppose you might find it a confusing mechanic, but frankly if you find "you can use your abilities whenever you want" confusing, that seems like a you problem as that is the simplest possible resource management system. Poorly explained is, again, subjective, but I find the description of how Invocations work in Complete Arcane to cover most of the questions a reasonable person would have, and it's very up front about the fundamental "use them at will" aspect of things.


No, because those systems didn't (to my knowledge) promise backwards compatibility. Pathfinder did. The system created in 2000 has certainly been through changes, but it retains a clear common core.

Doesn't matter. If it's not a TSR/WotC product then it doesn't count for longevity of a TSR or WotC product. It's like saying 50 Shades of Grey make Twilling have seven books, not four.


I wouldn't say that 20 years beats 19 "by far".

It does beat 8 by very far, however. Pathfinder is not 3e.


I find it bizarre that you think "hit network sitcom" is a lower level of exposure than "internet streamers". Moreover, the linkage between any decision 5e made and the renewed cultural presence of D&D is, at best, deeply suspect. The big driver there is Stranger Things, and that A) doesn't use D&D mechanics and B) is referencing AD&D.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that network sitcom is portraying playing d&d as something worth of ridicule and expoects the audience to laugh at their characters for doing it?
Also, Ciritcal Role started in 2015 and Adventure Zone in 2014, both preceeding Stranger Things. D&D has been already at height of its popularity and I find it telling that you are rather willing to give credit to a nostalgia driven show giving few shot outs to AD&D than acknowledging contributions of shows that parked whole communities interested in d&d around them. As I do find the fact you were not able to in any way shoot down the reputation of 3e as least new-player friendly, sexism and gatekeeping expressed even by its developers or rising popularity of 5e among younger generations and women.


Your position appears to be that if you call it Allomancy, that's Allomancy-like enough for you.

And you fail to explain why it is not enough for you besides being deliberatelly unwilling to accept it for the sake of complaining.


The fact that you are doing that in someone else's thread instead of your own is not a detail I consider particularly important.

Between this line and Killjoy's post sure is there a lot of "it's okay when 3e fans do it" attitude here. I see the Op and you all are perfectly fine jsut starting a thread telling other people how they're playing the game wrong but thew moment someone doesn't want to go along and pretend it is raining when you spit in my face, you start crying victim. You're the bullies here.


You haven't presented any "evidence". You've just repeatedly asserted that you are perfectly happy calling something that works nothing like Allomancy in either the broadest strokes or the most precise details is Allomancy. That's it. That's the whole argument. There's no evidence there for me to acknowledge. You haven't even provided any mechanical specifics beyond "you could be a Sorcerer". What spells would I take? What feats would I pick up? How might I customize the character to feel more like any of the particular Mistborn that appear in the series?

If you are so desperate to ignore my arguments, why are you even participating in the conversation?

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 04:53 PM
Claiming you are not expressing attitudes I have acussed you of is not an evidence proving my claims wrong, especially when your behavior keeps contradicting this claim. Prove to me anything I acussed you of is false, I will wait.


So far you've been the only one in this thread repeatedly insulting others and dismissing their gaming preferences as "obsessions" and "lack of imagination" and "gatekeeping".

And when called on it, you demand that we prove your juvenile insults aren't true.




Between this line and Killjoy's post sure is there a lot of "it's okay when 3e fans do it" attitude here. I see the Op and you all are perfectly fine jsut starting a thread telling other people how they're playing the game wrong but thew moment someone doesn't want to go along and pretend it is raining when you spit in my face, you start crying victim. You're the bullies here.


What makes you assume that I'm a 3e fan? Ask anyone else here who isn't caught up in your 3e vs 5e fixation if I'm a fan of any sort of D&D, let alone 3e. I don't care how YOU play D&D, because even if we were somehow in the same gaming circles, I don't play D&D because it's bad at doing the things I want a system to do and bad at depicting the characters I want to play.

This is a perfect example of how you're not paying attention to what people are actually saying. As noted previously, for me, this is a criticism of D&D, regardless of edition, NOT an attempt to tell YOU how to play D&D. If you don't note any dissonance when using spell slots in the attempt to model someone using at-will fuel-driven magic, that's no skin off my nose -- but you didn't drop in to say "I'm fine doing it this way", you dropped in to call everyone who DOES experience fiction/mechanics dissonance names and accuse of them of being bad people.




If you are so desperate to ignore my arguments, why are you even participating in the conversation?


So far your only "arguments" have been "that doesn't bother me so it shouldn't bother anyone" and "anyone who is bothered by it is a stupid obsessive elitist gatekeeper with no imagination".

And clearly you have in intention to go beyond that point, or interest in responding to what others have posted.


So... /plonk (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plonk_(Usenet))

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-30, 05:56 PM
Then we'd need an entirely revised spell list, with some new limits and tweaks -- burning pewter can heal the allomancer, but not anyone else, there's nothing like a fireball in allomancy, etc.

That's not entirely fair. Just because the spell list has a spell on it doesn't require your character to take it. If you can build an Allomancer that gets all the appropriate powers without being stuck with powers that don't fit, I don't think it's fair to complain that other abilities exist that don't match up with your concept. After all, you can just not take those abilities. As you, in fact, did not.


Then we'd still be stuck with the choice between balancing Mistlings and Mistborn as classes when in the source material they're just not balanced, or going with the source material and having unbalanced classes.

I'm not sure that's necessarily relevant. Sure, if you want to do a Mistborn campaign, you need to figure out how Mistlings and Feruchemy and Koloss and Compounding and whatnot work. But I don't think that's really the spirit of the initial point. The initial idea was that you can't play a Mistborn, and that doesn't require any of those things. If you want to play a campaign where Vin teams up with Paul Atreides (from Dune), Simon (from Traveler's Gate), and Taniel Two-Shot (from The Powder Mage Trilogy), just making Mistborn work is entirely sufficient for that.

Which, of course, is not to say 5e does that, but I do think you're moving the goalposts a bit in the other direction, which is really unnecessary given the degree to which 5e falls flat here.


I acknowledge people may care about mechanics. Obsessing over them to the point that your fun is ruined if mechanics don't reflect 100% acurrately the fluff is what I cannot wrap my head around.

There is a large, large gap between "100% map the fluff" and "doesn't fall apart on any axis you choose to examine it immediately". For example, if you wanted to make the Oaths of the Knights Radiant part of the level-up process, I would consider that reasonable even though it doesn't match the fluff exactly.


So I'm acussed of Oberoni nonsense when I point you can easily adapt 5e to circumstances due to its simplified mechanics but you guys want me to accept A WHOLE ALTERNATIVE SYSTEM OF PLAY THAT THROWS 14 OUT OF 20 LEVELS FOR ALL CHARACTERS OUT OF THE WINDOW as a vaild claim in defense of 3e. E6's existence is a proof that 3e is broken.

E6 is proof that the advancement rules provided by 3e are unsatisfactory for some people. That's a completely legitimate criticism, and one I would not deny. If you said that you felt that shoehorning everything into the "power bump every ~13 encounters" paradigm 3e suggests was a bad idea, I would completely agree with you. The game's advancement system should be plot driven, and should allow people to keep playing at levels they enjoy rather than accruing powers that change their characters in ways they don't want.

But it's not proof that 3e is broken. It's an excellent example of how a deep system can allow multiple people to be happy. If you like the way the game works at 6th level (or 4th level or 13th level or 9th level) you can keep playing at that level. And people who like other levels can play at those levels instead. We don't need to boot anyone out of the game, we can each use the parts of it that we find compelling.


"We did it badly" is not the argument you think it is. People say no d&d is better than bad d&d for a reason.

Doing something badly is better than not doing it at all, because a system supporting something doesn't require you to do it. Skip Williams isn't going to come to your house and stab you if play a 3e campaign where the players never beat up an army of mooks. The option exists in 3e and does not in 5e. If you happen to think it's not worth doing, you can not do it. But there are people who think it is worth doing, and they benefit from playing a game that supports a wider range of concepts.


It does beat 8 by very far, however. Pathfinder is not 3e.

Pathfinder was explicitly launched as compatible with 3e. That was the design goal of the product as it was presented. It's like Age of Empires: The Forgotten, or for that matter, fanfiction. Just because the original creator isn't creating something anymore doesn't mean the product stops or ends.


Maybe it has something to do with the fact that network sitcom is portraying playing d&d as something worth of ridicule and expoects the audience to laugh at their characters for doing it?

It portrayed superheroes the same way, and now Avengers: Endgame is the highest grossing movie of all time. So if that's what mockery gets you, then sign me the hell up.


I find it telling that you are rather willing to give credit to a nostalgia driven show giving few shot outs to AD&D than acknowledging contributions of shows that parked whole communities interested in d&d around them.

Yes, I credit the thing that more people watched for exposing a topic to more people. Clearly this is proof of my nefarious anti-community agenda.


As I do find the fact you were not able to in any way shoot down the reputation of 3e as least new-player friendly, sexism and gatekeeping expressed even by its developers or rising popularity of 5e among younger generations and women.

I find it kind of insulting that you think women and young people are scared of complicated mechanics. But I don't really want to get into that, because unpacking your "women hate math" tier logic is going to result in a flamewar that gets one or both of us banned.


And you fail to explain why it is not enough for you besides being deliberatelly unwilling to accept it for the sake of complaining.

Actually, I've explained that several times. As have other people in this thread. The objections can be roughly summarized as:

1. The ways spell slots are restored do not match up with the ways Allomantic reserves are replenished. You don't get any Allomancy back for resting, and you can get Allomancy back without resting.
2. Spell slots do a poor job of modeling how metal is expended. You don't burn it in discrete chunks, but at a variable rate.
3. Spontaneous casting doesn't capture the different kinds of Allomantic effects. Mistborn can run out of one kind of metal without running out of others, which means that a generic pool of spell slots is unsatisfying for capturing the way their magic works.

Now obviously I could dive into minutiae about how this or that spell didn't line up well with what Allomancy can do, or how you ought to be able to loot spell slots as an Allomancer, or how 5e can't model some specific thing some specific Allomancer does at some point in the series, but that would be unfair. Not to mention unnecessary.


Op and you all

Again, what the hell "OP and y'all"? My only interaction with OP's point has been to explicitly reject it. You have yet to provide a coherent explanation for how we are on the same side.


If you are so desperate to ignore my arguments, why are you even participating in the conversation?

On the contrary, I'm desperate for you to make arguments with which I can actually engage.

Mechalich
2020-08-30, 06:36 PM
If you want to play a campaign where Vin teams up with Paul Atreides (from Dune), Simon (from Traveler's Gate), and Taniel Two-Shot (from The Powder Mage Trilogy), just making Mistborn work is entirely sufficient for that.


5e, and in fact no version of D&D, is trying to enable that. While D&D does claim some level of generic-ness, there are clearly sources that are well outside its wheelhouse. Honestly, Mistborn is arguably well outside that zone. So is Powder Mage, and Dune occupies another thematic universe entirely.

D&D embraces maximum kitchen-sinkage as a marketing ploy, because claiming to allow everything is an effective way to sell more books, but the game is not, and has never been that broad and is not actually intended to be so. A great many arguments in discussions of this kind really do hinge of that fact that D&D is marketed as something it is not for the purpose of maximizing market share and as a result there are many arguments based on what D&D falsely claims to be rather than what is actually is. That this varies by edition only makes matters more complicated.


E6 is proof that the advancement rules provided by 3e are unsatisfactory for some people. That's a completely legitimate criticism, and one I would not deny. If you said that you felt that shoehorning everything into the "power bump every ~13 encounters" paradigm 3e suggests was a bad idea, I would completely agree with you. The game's advancement system should be plot driven, and should allow people to keep playing at levels they enjoy rather than accruing powers that change their characters in ways they don't want.

But it's not proof that 3e is broken. It's an excellent example of how a deep system can allow multiple people to be happy. If you like the way the game works at 6th level (or 4th level or 13th level or 9th level) you can keep playing at that level. And people who like other levels can play at those levels instead. We don't need to boot anyone out of the game, we can each use the parts of it that we find compelling.

E6 is a fairly strong piece of evidence that a huge chunk of the system mechanics does not properly provide the gameplay experience that game claims to provide and has to be discarded to make the part that does - the first 6 levels - actually work. E6 is about more than stopping advancement, it's core function is to broadly excise all the high-level stuff (mostly spells and spell-like abilities) that render 3.X D&D settings absurd contrivances or Tippyverse-style magitech utopias. If you have to ban three-quarters of the game to make the game viable, that means the game, as published, is broken.

That's not a unique to D&D problem. VtM works drastically better if you eliminate whole chunks of the game. The Sabbat, for instance, basically annihilates the central premise of the Masquerade just by existing and if you want the idea of a secret vampire conspiracy to work you have to wholesale remove them as a thing.


Doing something badly is better than not doing it at all, because a system supporting something doesn't require you to do it.

This is not actually a tabletop design principle. The default of 'not doing something' is that the GM freeforms it, and it is entirely possible to produce a set of mechanics that are less satisfying than simply freeform RP for whatever the mechanism is. This is in fact common for social systems, which are often written terribly and permit outcomes such as 3e diplomancers by RAW that people recognize as ludicrous and are often dropped in favor of freeform roleplay with GMs arbitrating the outcome by fiat.

Bad rules are very often worse than no rules, especially because they empower certain player types to hide behind those rules and wield the rulebook as a cudgel against the GM and often other players. Likewise rules that are overly cumbersome are often worse than simple fiat rulings because many players will simply not use subsystems they find too complicated. Expansions of rules that introduce entirely new subsystems are often discarded because no one wants to bother to learn them - a huge portion of D&D tables exclude psionics with no regard for their merit, but simply because using them means learning more rules.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 06:46 PM
That's not entirely fair. Just because the spell list has a spell on it doesn't require your character to take it. If you can build an Allomancer that gets all the appropriate powers without being stuck with powers that don't fit, I don't think it's fair to complain that other abilities exist that don't match up with your concept. After all, you can just not take those abilities. As you, in fact, did not.


My point was that without a deeper dig, I'm not sure there are spells to cover all the different things it's been revealed that Allomancers can do on any single Class' spell list.

I agree that a character never HAS to take a spell just because it's there.




I'm not sure that's necessarily relevant. Sure, if you want to do a Mistborn campaign, you need to figure out how Mistlings and Feruchemy and Koloss and Compounding and whatnot work. But I don't think that's really the spirit of the initial point. The initial idea was that you can't play a Mistborn, and that doesn't require any of those things. If you want to play a campaign where Vin teams up with Paul Atreides (from Dune), Simon (from Traveler's Gate), and Taniel Two-Shot (from The Powder Mage Trilogy), just making Mistborn work is entirely sufficient for that.

Which, of course, is not to say 5e does that, but I do think you're moving the goalposts a bit in the other direction, which is really unnecessary given the degree to which 5e falls flat here.


I was just looking at the two general types of Allomancer and how hard it would be to make them both work, even without the rest of the setting.

But you're right, we can just stick to Mistborn and find more than enough problems trying to map the full suite into existing D&D classes, 5e or otherwise.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-30, 07:11 PM
D&D embraces maximum kitchen-sinkage as a marketing ploy, because claiming to allow everything is an effective way to sell more books, but the game is not, and has never been that broad and is not actually intended to be so.

D&D is absolutely kitchen sink fantasy. Core 3e has more kinds of fish people than core Shadowrun has metatypes. D&D is certainly worse than specialized systems at depicting the things those systems specialize in, but that's the nature of general systems. But it is absolutely a kitchen sink fantasy system, for better or for worse.


E6 is about more than stopping advancement, it's core function is to broadly excise all the high-level stuff (mostly spells and spell-like abilities) that render 3.X D&D settings absurd contrivances or Tippyverse-style magitech utopias.

Those are the things D&D settings claim to be. Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, and Spelljammer all lean into the crazy gonzo nonsense. E6 lets you turn a system that is very up front about going nuts at high levels into a passable LotR simulator. It does not fix a game that was claiming to be an LotR simulator, because contrary to your assertions on the topic, that is not what D&D has been for decades. Frankly, if you read the Immortals box set, it's unclear that was ever what it was trying to be.


This is not actually a tabletop design principle. The default of 'not doing something' is that the GM freeforms it, and it is entirely possible to produce a set of mechanics that are less satisfying than simply freeform RP for whatever the mechanism is.

Your ability to make stuff up is not a meaningful argument for or against any system, as every system allows you to make stuff up. True, you could make up some rules to replace 5e's lack of rules for beating up large numbers of enemies. But you could also make up different rules for doing that in 3e that you like better than the existing ones. Magical teaparty is certainly an option, but it's an option whose exercise means abdicating any meaningful discussion of the merits of the rules as presented.


a huge portion of D&D tables exclude psionics with no regard for their merit, but simply because using them means learning more rules.

For what it's worth, I've never encountered this in person. My experience has universally been that players and DMs are perfectly happy to let you play a Psion or Warblade, and I have seen players happily pick up new systems introduced to the table by someone else.

Pex
2020-08-30, 08:01 PM
E6 is a fairly strong piece of evidence that a huge chunk of the system mechanics does not properly provide the gameplay experience that game claims to provide and has to be discarded to make the part that does - the first 6 levels - actually work. E6 is about more than stopping advancement, it's core function is to broadly excise all the high-level stuff (mostly spells and spell-like abilities) that render 3.X D&D settings absurd contrivances or Tippyverse-style magitech utopias. If you have to ban three-quarters of the game to make the game viable, that means the game, as published, is broken.


E6 says nothing of the kind about 3E. I liked 3E just fine with all the power it provides at high level. What E6 does tell me is that the players who use it just don't like high power. They are unable to or refuse to adapt to the concept that things that are obstacles at low level eventually are no longer obstacles. Hyperbolicly speaking, they always want a chasm to be an obstacle to force the party to go another way or find a means to climb down then up the other side for environmental adventuring. They hate it when the party can fly or teleport across or otherwise avoid the chasm altogether. That's fine for them. That's their preference. Have fun, but their dislike does not mean 3E sucks and I'm wrong for liking the ability to fly or teleport or otherwise avoid the chasm altogether. 3E is not broken because Teleport or Wall of Force exist, which can be used to make a bridge. Eberron is proof itself that there was no universal dislike of magitech utopias. I know NPCs were generally low level, but it is similar to Tippyverse. There were people complaining 3E didn't officially bring back Planescape, another high power/magic setting.

Further, E6 was a Playground Forum thing. Don't recall if it existed when WOTC Gleemax was still around. It's a small subset of 3E players. It was hardly the be all end all of 3E gaming as a whole.

Mechalich
2020-08-30, 08:15 PM
D&D is absolutely kitchen sink fantasy. Core 3e has more kinds of fish people than core Shadowrun has metatypes. D&D is certainly worse than specialized systems at depicting the things those systems specialize in, but that's the nature of general systems. But it is absolutely a kitchen sink fantasy system, for better or for worse.

Having a whole bunch of fish people doesn't actually mean anything since all those fish people behave in fundamentally the same way. D&D takes a lot of forms of inspiration and then masses them into the same mechanical boxes and clings to the fact that they look different as being meaningful when it's not.


Those are the things D&D settings claim to be. Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, and Spelljammer all lean into the crazy gonzo nonsense. E6 lets you turn a system that is very up front about going nuts at high levels into a passable LotR simulator. It does not fix a game that was claiming to be an LotR simulator, because contrary to your assertions on the topic, that is not what D&D has been for decades. Frankly, if you read the Immortals box set, it's unclear that was ever what it was trying to be.

Three of those four settings are not officially supported by 3e, and the one that is, FR, specifically begs you not to go crazy with it in the setting book. TSR did indeed go nuts in the 1990s, and they went bankrupt because of it because while the respective fanbases for their crazy settings were fervent, they were also tiny. I know, I was heavily involved in the Planescape fan community. It was not large.

The actual settings created for 3.X D&D, Eberron and Golarion, explicitly disavow high-levels entirely by removing high-level NPCs from the world. Structured play in 5e does this also. Heck, even when 2e put out books for the gonzo settings they weren't about high-level play. Most published planescape adventures presumed characters no higher than around level 12.


Your ability to make stuff up is not a meaningful argument for or against any system, as every system allows you to make stuff up. True, you could make up some rules to replace 5e's lack of rules for beating up large numbers of enemies. But you could also make up different rules for doing that in 3e that you like better than the existing ones. Magical teaparty is certainly an option, but it's an option whose exercise means abdicating any meaningful discussion of the merits of the rules as presented.

If the average GM running an average gaming table can make something up that works better than the actual rules on the page, that matters quite a lot. This is extremely common. There are many systems that have functionally universal houserules (in the modern era of the internet this sometimes gets codified into actual errata). If a system has a rule that a clear majority of tables are actively rewriting, then that rule has negative utility. The overall point is that not having a rule means that functionality defaults to freeform, it doesn't simply disappear entirely. And that's inevitable in tabletop, you can't make rules to cover all possible situations, there will always be edge cases covered by fiat.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-30, 08:49 PM
Having a whole bunch of fish people doesn't actually mean anything since all those fish people behave in fundamentally the same way. D&D takes a lot of forms of inspiration and then masses them into the same mechanical boxes and clings to the fact that they look different as being meaningful when it's not.

Three of those four settings are not officially supported by 3e, and the one that is, FR, specifically begs you not to go crazy with it in the setting book. TSR did indeed go nuts in the 1990s, and they went bankrupt because of it because while the respective fanbases for their crazy settings were fervent, they were also tiny. I know, I was heavily involved in the Planescape fan community. It was not large.

The actual settings created for 3.X D&D, Eberron and Golarion, explicitly disavow high-levels entirely by removing high-level NPCs from the world. Structured play in 5e does this also. Heck, even when 2e put out books for the gonzo settings they weren't about high-level play. Most published planescape adventures presumed characters no higher than around level 12.


I agree with this. High-level play is, if anything, an accident rather than a design goal, even in 3e. The settings just fall apart under the strain. For better or worse, 5e essentially decided to rectify that by chopping the power level much lower than 3e and then stretching it over 20 levels. So high-level 5e play is basically low-level play, just more so. On purpose. I'll let others decide if that's a good thing or a bad thing for their own particular use case--I happen to like it.



If the average GM running an average gaming table can make something up that works better than the actual rules on the page, that matters quite a lot. This is extremely common. There are many systems that have functionally universal houserules (in the modern era of the internet this sometimes gets codified into actual errata). If a system has a rule that a clear majority of tables are actively rewriting, then that rule has negative utility. The overall point is that not having a rule means that functionality defaults to freeform, it doesn't simply disappear entirely. And that's inevitable in tabletop, you can't make rules to cover all possible situations, there will always be edge cases covered by fiat.

And the supposedly "universal" rules of 3e were some of the more broken parts. And more generic games require significant DM intervention (mainly in culling the available sources). This is a universal constant. Remember everyone--rules exist to help people do things easier than just doing it freeform (or making up their own rules). Many systems (and many rules within systems) horrifically fail at this task and should be houseruled, ignored, or worked around. Those games would be better off if those rules did not exist at all, as no rule is better than a bad rule.


5e, and in fact no version of D&D, is trying to enable that. While D&D does claim some level of generic-ness, there are clearly sources that are well outside its wheelhouse. Honestly, Mistborn is arguably well outside that zone. So is Powder Mage, and Dune occupies another thematic universe entirely.

D&D embraces maximum kitchen-sinkage as a marketing ploy, because claiming to allow everything is an effective way to sell more books, but the game is not, and has never been that broad and is not actually intended to be so. A great many arguments in discussions of this kind really do hinge of that fact that D&D is marketed as something it is not for the purpose of maximizing market share and as a result there are many arguments based on what D&D falsely claims to be rather than what is actually is. That this varies by edition only makes matters more complicated.


I totally agree with the first paragraph. And that was a large part of my OP.

The second--I'm not sure that 5e (in specifics) does make this claim even as a marketing ploy. Certainly none of the printed material does. It's very clear that it's only covering a small subset of the epic, heroic fantasy genre. Not all of fantasy. And it asks DMs to selectively pull from the stuff it provides to create their own coherent packages--there's no expectation that all of that exists in any particular world.

Now I've tried to do my best to make a place for everything in 5e D&D [1] in a coherent world. It's a partial success, with a bunch of tradeoffs. But that's certainly not the default. Even the Forgotten Realms departs from the "default" in many ways--there's a whole FR style guide talking about it for FR writers. Available for free, even.

[1] except mechanical alignment and the standard planar structure, because those can die in a fire. But that's my taste. YMMV.

Edit: I should note my own bias--my priority list goes something like:
* Internal setting coherence [2] and compatibility of characters to the setting.
* Rules that lend themselves to being used like tools where they enhance play instead of trying to dictate how things must go. In software development terms, I want simple libraries not opinionated frameworks.
* Ease of resolution. I have a low boredom threshold--having to look crap up kills the game for me. I'd rather do the "wrong" (ie non-simulationist or even wrong-by-the-rules) thing fast than the right thing...eventually.
* ... way down the list
* ability to play a wide variety of mechanically-different characters.
* ability to emulate other fiction
* ability to simulate reality. In fact, I'd rather leave this one off entirely. I don't want realism. I want it to promote a coherent fantasy setting, and expect that to differ from reality in very large, very fundamental ways. If it doesn't, that violates principle #1 (setting coherence).

[2] the main reason I dislike every published D&D setting is that they fail at this one, and hard.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-30, 08:51 PM
Having a whole bunch of fish people doesn't actually mean anything since all those fish people behave in fundamentally the same way. D&D takes a lot of forms of inspiration and then masses them into the same mechanical boxes and clings to the fact that they look different as being meaningful when it's not.

Yes, all the fish people in D&D exist within the rules of D&D. They also all swim, and can survive underwater. That does not, in point of fact, make them the same. They are mechanically different in ways you should be able to figure out on your own, and they fulfill various different narrative niches (though I will acknowledge that they are not all equally well developed). There's a reasonable point to be made that kitchen sink settings are inherently not very interesting, as nothing in them can be as detailed as something in a setting that is small enough for players to be familiar with everything in it, but D&D is by any reasonable definition of the term a kitchen sink setting.


The actual settings created for 3.X D&D, Eberron and Golarion, explicitly disavow high-levels entirely by removing high-level NPCs from the world.

That doesn't make them not the things you're complaining about. Eberron in particular is the Tippyverse in terms of setting design. It differs in the particulars of what magic is transforming the setting, but the entire pitch is "magic industrial revolution".


Most published planescape adventures presumed characters no higher than around level 12.

The mathematically inclined among us will note that twelve is twice as much as six. Those familiar with the evolution of D&D would also point out that 12th level was a lot closer to the endgame in AD&D than it is in 3e.

Max_Killjoy
2020-08-30, 08:56 PM
D&D is absolutely kitchen sink fantasy. Core 3e has more kinds of fish people than core Shadowrun has metatypes. D&D is certainly worse than specialized systems at depicting the things those systems specialize in, but that's the nature of general systems. But it is absolutely a kitchen sink fantasy system, for better or for worse.

...

Those are the things D&D settings claim to be. Dark Sun, Forgotten Realms, Planescape, and Spelljammer all lean into the crazy gonzo nonsense. E6 lets you turn a system that is very up front about going nuts at high levels into a passable LotR simulator. It does not fix a game that was claiming to be an LotR simulator, because contrary to your assertions on the topic, that is not what D&D has been for decades. Frankly, if you read the Immortals box set, it's unclear that was ever what it was trying to be.


I do think it's fair to say that there are gaps between what D&D has claimed to be, and what it has been and is -- and furthermore that those gaps are part of what lead, via some steps, to this thread being posted.




Your ability to make stuff up is not a meaningful argument for or against any system, as every system allows you to make stuff up. True, you could make up some rules to replace 5e's lack of rules for beating up large numbers of enemies. But you could also make up different rules for doing that in 3e that you like better than the existing ones. Magical teaparty is certainly an option, but it's an option whose exercise means abdicating any meaningful discussion of the merits of the rules as presented.


I do think there's a case to be made that bad rules can be worse than no rules, because as noted there are players out there who will use bad rules to object to / block attempts to create better rules.




For what it's worth, I've never encountered this in person. My experience has universally been that players and DMs are perfectly happy to let you play a Psion or Warblade, and I have seen players happily pick up new systems introduced to the table by someone else.


My experience way back when was that the objection was based on the premise the interaction between magic and psionics ranged from clunky to simply bad - but that would be AD&D and 2e.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-30, 09:02 PM
Max, I'd say that it's not so much the difference between what WotC sold D&D as and what they actually sold that sparked this as the difference between what most people assume D&D is and what it actually is trying to do. Especially with the two most recent editions, there's really not much marketing as "build any fantasy character" or "emulate all fantasy everwhere", at least that I can see. But people pull out those quotes from the OD&D manuals as if they're still relevant today. It'd probably be better if people just treated each edition as a completely separate game that happens to share some similarities and the brand name.



I do think there's a case to be made that bad rules can be worse than no rules, because as noted there are players out there who will use bad rules to object to / block attempts to create better rules.


And bad rules create bad expectations. And bad expectations (bad in the sense of not matching reality) create disappointed players (or bad players).

There's a principle of teaching--it's much harder to unlearn bad patterns of thought than to learn good ones from fresh. The first thing that the students accept generally sticks, even if it's bad and wrong. It's why the common practice of "lies told to children" and bad analogies/shortcuts is so damaging--they'll continue to use that (very limited utility) shortcut or lie everywhere and will reject the real, deeper explanations.

Same applies here--once people get an expectation it's really really hard to change. It's why bad DMs (especially those that induce paranoia and player-DM-mistrust) are so corrosive--they warp players for their future DMs, leading to more bad play.

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-30, 09:12 PM
I do think it's fair to say that there are gaps between what D&D has claimed to be, and what it has been and is -- and furthermore that those gaps are part of what lead, via some steps, to this thread being posted.

Sure. I'm not at all claiming the rules of D&D in any edition are without flaw. But at the same time, D&D is pretty open about being a kitchen sink epic fantasy game, and it delivers on that pretty well. Not perfectly, but better than pretty much any game that is trying to do that. I'm not really sure what Mechalich thinks D&D really is, but it seems to be a much more limited view of the game than is supported by much of anything.


I do think there's a case to be made that bad rules can be worse than no rules, because as noted there are players out there who will use bad rules to object to / block attempts to create better rules.

In my experience, it is far more common for DMs to overestimate their competence at creating rules than for players to insist on using bad rules in the face of a better alternative. As a result, I tend to prefer erring on the side of more rules, as that hedges the problems I have observed to be more prevalent.

PhoenixPhyre
2020-08-30, 09:20 PM
In my experience, it is far more common for DMs to overestimate their competence at creating rules than for players to insist on using bad rules in the face of a better alternative. As a result, I tend to prefer erring on the side of more rules, as that hedges the problems I have observed to be more prevalent.

And in my experience, the trouble lies in assuming that you need a "rule" for things. Or that rules constrain bad DMs. Because having rules doesn't mean people read or follow them--one of the key marks of a bad DM is that they haven't read (or didn't understand what they read) the rules. I've found that for the most part, people who knowingly depart from the rules (intentionally make changes after understanding the underlying reasons for the current ones) generally do a good job. People who just read titles of abilities (Sneak Attack is a frequent offender here), who only read the tables not the actual text of the DMG, and those who just don't read make bad rules, sure. But those would do just the same if the rules were 1000 pages long, full of every minutia (to take it to extremes). In fact, adding more rules is more likely to get people not to read them at all. Or not play the system.

I'd say it's best to create a framework of action resolution mechanics that work generally and then let people decide on exactly how to flip the content switches. You may want a game where martials are "grounded" (or not) in reality. Someone else may want something different. But forcing the decision at the system level will generally leave both groups dissatisfied, while saying "here's how you can decide, but the exact scale is up to you" only dissatisfies those (like Pex) who value uniformity between tables above most other things.

Ignimortis
2020-08-30, 09:38 PM
3e was losing sales to other RPGs like World of Darkness as well as video games such like World of Warcraft at the time the shift to 4e has happenned, this is why 4e was clearly trying to imitiate MMO game design to appeal to that crowd.

3e was absolutely not losing sales to WoD. That happened at the tall end of 2e, and by the time 4e's development started, White Wolf was about to go bankrupt because very few people liked NWoD and they themselves had killed off OWoD.



Are you kidding me? this sounds awesome and I would love to be in such a game as either Vergil or Captain Hobo. imagine, in one team someone posessing mystical powers and unmatched skills, an arrogant champion....finding himself matched or even outshined by a humble man who lacks powers or technique but pushes through by sheer strength and tentancity. It sounds like an AMAZING roleplay opportunitty.

To me, it sounds like trash. Why is this normal man, who somehow blunders through things that take actual effort from other heroes, this powerful? What's the reasoning behind that? He doesn't have devil blood, or hyper-tech, or any source of power at all. He's not even Conan, he's just a guy who, normally, would get easily beat up by any boot camp graduate, but somehow he's here and doing things just as well as someone who has trained their whole life to use superhuman powers. That kills the mood HARD.



Three of those four settings are not officially supported by 3e, and the one that is, FR, specifically begs you not to go crazy with it in the setting book. TSR did indeed go nuts in the 1990s, and they went bankrupt because of it because while the respective fanbases for their crazy settings were fervent, they were also tiny. I know, I was heavily involved in the Planescape fan community. It was not large.

The actual settings created for 3.X D&D, Eberron and Golarion, explicitly disavow high-levels entirely by removing high-level NPCs from the world. Structured play in 5e does this also. Heck, even when 2e put out books for the gonzo settings they weren't about high-level play. Most published planescape adventures presumed characters no higher than around level 12.

Eberron didn't have high-level NPCs in the world, but it sure did have high-level enemies. That was actually great, because that handily explained why the world hasn't been saved by Plot Device Holder #2048 and instead needed you to rise up.

---------------------------------
Frankly, high-level play never had a lot of fans in D&D. That's not because it had terrible rules in 3e, that's because it defies expectations of most players. People really, really want to run D&D like LotR and Conan, not Journey to the West or Final Fantasy. 5e capitalized on that want and desire to play the whole game in the same way, and while it was successful in that, it basically doesn't have high levels, it has low levels with higher numbers, and even then the numbers are higher only for the sake of pretending there is an actual change (which there isn't, unless you're a spellcaster).

NigelWalmsley
2020-08-30, 09:57 PM
Or that rules constrain bad DMs.

It's not about bad DMs, or good DMs for that matter. It's about average DMs. Most people who are running a game mean well, but are not terribly well-versed in how to design games (which is what tweaking rules is, when you get down to it). They would like to do a good job, and would like to let players do cool stuff, but they don't have the perspective to understand when a ruling will cause something colossally stupid to happen. Those are the people you write rules for.


I'd say it's best to create a framework of action resolution mechanics that work generally and then let people decide on exactly how to flip the content switches.

That's not unreasonable, but the way to deliver that is an enormously higher degree of rigor in the design of rules than almost any game has. To produce a game that is truly customizable, you have to not just have rules that work for whatever it is you have written them to do, but understand how those rules interact in such a way that you can figure out what effects particular changes will have, or what changes are necessary to produce a particular effect. Otherwise you end up with a state of affairs like 3e, where low magic campaigns disproportionately hose martial characters, or the various nightmares that are every version of the Matrix in Shadowrun. To produce a game players can customize, you have to produce a game you understand, and I honestly don't think most designers are up to that challenge.


3e was absolutely not losing sales to WoD. That happened at the tall end of 2e, and by the time 4e's development started, White Wolf was about to go bankrupt because very few people liked NWoD and they themselves had killed off OWoD.

Also because 3e ate Exalted's lunch. As far as I can tell, 4e was just a giant unforced error on the part of WotC. Frankly, a broad view of the TTRPG market suggests that companies mostly design things that work well by accident, with no real understanding of underlying principles. And regardless of what anyone says about how their favorite edition of D&D is the best because of its mechanics (including me) the reason D&D actually succeeds is because it's the only TTRPG you can namedrop to a random person and have them know what the hell you're talking about. At some point, the pendulum will swing back around towards the 3e side of things, and that edition will be wildly successful too. Because that's what D&D does, unless it is bankrupt, or actively lighting itself on fire.


That's not because it had terrible rules in 3e, that's because it defies expectations of most players. People really, really want to run D&D like LotR and Conan, not Journey to the West or Final Fantasy.

I think in some respects 3e suffered from coming out before the big superhero boom. In 2000, if you asked someone who the iconic Wizard was, they'd probably say Gandalf. Now it's a lot more likely to be Doctor Strange.


it has low levels with higher numbers

Thanks to Bounded Accuracy, it barely even has that. 5e is just E6 dragged out over 20 levels. That's all it is. If, and only if, all you believe D&D should be is E6, it is a superior product to 3e. If you want anything else at all out of your gaming experience, 3e is a better choice.

Lord Raziere
2020-08-30, 10:15 PM
Also because 3e ate Exalted's lunch. As far as I can tell, 4e was just a giant unforced error on the part of WotC. Frankly, a broad view of the TTRPG market suggests that companies mostly design things that work well by accident, with no real understanding of underlying principles. And regardless of what anyone says about how their favorite edition of D&D is the best because of its mechanics (including me) the reason D&D actually succeeds is because it's the only TTRPG you can namedrop to a random person and have them know what the hell you're talking about. At some point, the pendulum will swing back around towards the 3e side of things, and that edition will be wildly successful too. Because that's what D&D does, unless it is bankrupt, or actively lighting itself on fire.


I dunno.....

Dnd streams are a new hotness thats going around, and 5e is considered long and boring combat-wise by those who make those streams, its very possible those streamers will go in a more rules-lite direction to be more entertaining with quicker more dynamic combat and its likely the people tuning into those streams will follow their lead. they're not going to entertain anyone by flipping through books to constantly looking up specific rules. the more they can keep the action and story flowing the more they will be successful, and the more people will want to play a campaign much like theirs, considering the success of Critical Role and its effects on DnD, such streams are not insignificant.

Ignimortis
2020-08-30, 10:25 PM
Also because 3e ate Exalted's lunch. As far as I can tell, 4e was just a giant unforced error on the part of WotC. Frankly, a broad view of the TTRPG market suggests that companies mostly design things that work well by accident, with no real understanding of underlying principles. And regardless of what anyone says about how their favorite edition of D&D is the best because of its mechanics (including me) the reason D&D actually succeeds is because it's the only TTRPG you can namedrop to a random person and have them know what the hell you're talking about. At some point, the pendulum will swing back around towards the 3e side of things, and that edition will be wildly successful too. Because that's what D&D does, unless it is bankrupt, or actively lighting itself on fire.

Honestly, I agree with every single word. D&D will never be a total failure unless it fails on some basic principle. 3e was wildly successful, just not as much as 5e was, and that can be attributed to lower information spread speed due to little-to-no casual internet usage in the early 00s. I have never heard of any country (except Germany, where Dark Eye reigns) where D&D wasn't the most common and the most popular TTRPG.



I think in some respects 3e suffered from coming out before the big superhero boom. In 2000, if you asked someone who the iconic Wizard was, they'd probably say Gandalf. Now it's a lot more likely to be Doctor Strange.

Also this. 2000 is the year before Devil May Cry came out, before Final Fantasy went HD and mainstream (even VII got recognized as a run-away hit only a few years after release), and right after Baldur's Gate.



Thanks to Bounded Accuracy, it barely even has that. 5e is just E6 dragged out over 20 levels. That's all it is. If, and only if, all you believe D&D should be is E6, it is a superior product to 3e. If you want anything else at all out of your gaming experience, 3e is a better choice.

There's a reason why 3.5 and PF1e are still played by a lot of people despite being basically a 20-year old game at the core - they offer much more variety and ways to play than either 4e or 5e.

However, the majority of people actually do believe that D&D should be E6. I've played with any number of GMs who froth at the mouth at the idea that a level 12 character should be able to slaughter an arbitrarily large amount of level 1 goblins and orcs without much trouble. Most of them also used the phrase, I quote, "**** off with that DBZ bullcrap". Conversely, the only GM who agreed that things should become obsolete as encounters didn't ever run D&D and instead ran games where low-level enemies becoming obsolete would obsolete about 90% of possible encounters - normal humans are just not a problem for a Potence 5, Celerity 5, Fortitude 5 Brujah, and we both knew that, and so the game never reached that point.

Pex
2020-08-30, 10:28 PM
And the supposedly "universal" rules of 3e were some of the more broken parts. And more generic games require significant DM intervention (mainly in culling the available sources). This is a universal constant. Remember everyone--rules exist to help people do things easier than just doing it freeform (or making up their own rules). Many systems (and many rules within systems) horrifically fail at this task and should be houseruled, ignored, or worked around. Those games would be better off if those rules did not exist at all, as no rule is better than a bad rule.





Apply that to you know what, and we're on the same page. :smallwink:





Same applies here--once people get an expectation it's really really hard to change. It's why bad DMs (especially those that induce paranoia and player-DM-mistrust) are so corrosive--they warp players for their future DMs, leading to more bad play.

Hey, I resemble that remark! I once hurt the party in a long ago 5E campaign in getting treasure because I didn't think the DM was being Honest True generous in the context it was available. Turns out he was. We did finally get it, but it took a lot of party shenanigans to do, which was fun but still. He wasn't a "tyrannical" DM. It was my own paranoia getting in the way. In a current 5E campaign I come up with all sorts of paranoia worry of what could possibly happen that turns out the DM hadn't a clue what I was talking about let alone not even crossed his mind. It's all good as my character's paranoia has become a running in-joke we can all laugh-off. It fits in character because he's an Arcana Cleric, so he knows what magic can do.

Overall though I am able to trust my 5E DMs.

Really. :smallsmile:

Mechalich
2020-08-31, 12:37 AM
Honestly, I agree with every single word. D&D will never be a total failure unless it fails on some basic principle. 3e was wildly successful, just not as much as 5e was, and that can be attributed to lower information spread speed due to little-to-no casual internet usage in the early 00s. I have never heard of any country (except Germany, where Dark Eye reigns) where D&D wasn't the most common and the most popular TTRPG.

The claim that 5e is more successful than 3e was is questionable. 5e has deliberately limited the overall size of the edition to reduce production which makes it difficult to compare with a more traditional RPG that tried to maximize the amount of money it could make. 5e's marketing strategy is more a brand retention move than anything else. This is not inherently a bad idea: the D&D label slapped onto Baldur's Gate III has the potential to make more money than the sale of every 5e book ever printed or downloaded. D&D, and many other classic TTRPG IPs, are more valuable as product identity and legacy IP than as actual tabletop games - which is why White-Wolf is owned by Paradox now and the tabletop aspect is a forgotten afterthought. WotC paid a small marketing team to insure that D&D continued to exist as a published product in the form of 5e and they were able to ride an unexpected wave of popular references (Stranger Things being a big one) to far more relevance than was initially thought.


However, the majority of people actually do believe that D&D should be E6. I've played with any number of GMs who froth at the mouth at the idea that a level 12 character should be able to slaughter an arbitrarily large amount of level 1 goblins and orcs without much trouble. Most of them also used the phrase, I quote, "**** off with that DBZ bullcrap". Conversely, the only GM who agreed that things should become obsolete as encounters didn't ever run D&D and instead ran games where low-level enemies becoming obsolete would obsolete about 90% of possible encounters - normal humans are just not a problem for a Potence 5, Celerity 5, Fortitude 5 Brujah, and we both knew that, and so the game never reached that point.

This is mostly a worldbuilding issue, one that a huge number of people expect intuitively even if they struggle to articulate it. The simple reality is that in order for a fictional world to function in a self-consistent, reasonable fashion as anything other than a superhero setting, there has to be a ceiling on personal power, and that ceiling has to be below the ceiling on applied government power with a relatively small number of exceptions (BBEGs and other extinction level threats). Exactly where this occurs varies based on a variety of factors (technology is a big one), but as a rough rule of thumb any time you reach the point where an individual can beat an arbitrary number of enemies you have a problem. Because people start speculating about slaughtering whole towns by themselves and the like (and the evidence from video games is quite clear that if you actually build a system that lets people do that, they will, which is why video games have to supply quest-invincibility to key NPCs).

GMs, in particular tend to care about setting verisimilitude about 10,000 times more than players. Usually because they've put a lot of effort into building the setting (or expanding on some part of someone else's setting) and they want that work to actually have utility in the game rather than just having the party tear through the world like blood-soaked buzzsaws. Additionally, in worlds where personal power is all that matters it can be hard to tell interesting stories. DBZ is a nice extreme example because it can basically only tell stories about people punching other people in the face until they go away and tends to devolve into tournament arcs with considerable regularity. That isn't bad in and of itself, personally I like DBZ just fine, but while participating in a tournament can be fun for the player, it tends to be really boring for the GM.

Morty
2020-08-31, 06:02 AM
I find it pretty funny that someone who argues that a lot of concepts are playable in D&D is defending 5e, which is the least non-core concept-friendly edition in 20 years, and deriding 3e, which had enough content to let you play almost anything outside of specific magic systems. Do mechanics not matter to you that much, Man on Fire? Can you accept that a dimension-cutting slash deals 1d8+STR damage, and someone who plays "just a dude with a sword" also does 1d8+STR damage on his clumsy swing of a rather dull broadsword, because they're both "refluffed" longsword attacks?

If you compare just the core rules, I think 5E is about as versatile as 3E or even comes out on top. 3E's supposed versatility comes from a pile of splatbooks, most of which have about 10% worthwhile content in them. And which most players won't use. Granted, there's a difference between "possible at all" and "possible practically". You can, for instance, play a dual-wielder in core 3E, but you really don't want to. In 5E such a character is somewhat suboptimal but generally viable.