Should there be more Exploration/Interaction Rules?

[Sparky McDibben]

Took the time to read (quickly) through the Alexandrian article linked and discussed.

Very genuinely, thank you.

I'm not going to debate its exact holdings here, but I do at least feel it helped me understand more clearly what people mean by "structure" in this context. But I do still feel that more developed structures for the Exploration and Interaction pillars would be detrimental, so I'm going to shift from talking broadly and bring things down to a concrete example that most people already seem to gravitate towards when discussing these areas of gameplay: overland travel. I'm going to talk about how I handle it within the structures currently in the game, and then argue why a structure like the ones Tanarii and Sparky McDibben seem to be championing isn't compatible with it.

Make no mistake, overland travel is quite possibly my favorite part of running the game. The scenes from The Lord of the Rings describing walking, where they walk, what happens while they walk, and arguing about where they should walk next? Absolutely 100% my jam. I run games in which Natural Explorer is bonkers overpowered, and the food function of Goodberry is banned. All this to say I oppose adding structures for overland travel notbecause I think it's unimportant, but because it's really important to me.

Ooh, I smell an interesting take on OT coming up!

Overland travel (which tends to also include stretches of over-water travel, but you know) happens because the player characters are in one place and want to get to another. The goal is already defined from the outset. Story considerations add dimension to that goal: the players are operating within a limited time frame, or on limited resources to supply their journey. So I make the map of the region to be traversed with routes of varying trade-offs between swiftness & peril. I start with points A & B, and everything else on the map I create, the placement of mountains, hills, river crossings, settlements, is placed with some respect to how it impacts the journey between those two points (within the limits of geographic sense). What emerges is a modular web of pathways split by decision points; decide whether to take the mountain pass or trek around through the forest road. If you take the forest road, decide whether to take the winding path or try to bushwhack a more direct route. Ok, now you're at one of the towns by a river; do you cross here or follow the river downstream to another crossing? So on and so on. Then, with these various paths to reach the destination established, I plan the encounters of all kinds that are present along those routes. Here there are dragons, there avalanches. Here there are enchanted springs, there giant spiders. Here they charge you a steep toll to cross, there you must ford a swift and powerful river yourself. Here there are storms, there pirates. Generally I place them such that the most direct routes are often the most dangerous; if the player characters want to save time/supplies, they expose themselves to greater dangers. All routes will have encounters with no actual danger or serious consequences, but which give the chance to learn something or flex your roleplay muscles. With the encounters decided, I move on to the process of seeding the encounters. What local characters can share knowledge or aid for these encounters with the PCs? What clues can they pick up while traveling that alert them to the dangers? In fine, how do I communicate the information to the players which they can use to make decisions? All this planning, and specific, personalized decision-making allows for a really rich travel experience, where players have to negotiate difficult decisions, and are pushed to interact closely with the world and its characters in order to make it to their goal; and because the structure, if you like, is invisible to them, having been worked out by me in advance, they are free to approach it like an actual world in which their characters move and live.

This sounds like a pointcrawl, which an interesting and solid way to structure overland travel. It sounds like you're prioritizing player agency in how they plan their route, how they have to deal with encounters, etc. It sounds like the sort of campaign I would love to play in, albeit with much lower stakes than I would prefer.

I think that a more involved and procedural game structure for determining overland travel, like the one Sparky theorized for finding the lost city of Xajs'ajtyoeloal'paiowkahdiujaqdf'aksiuhdnthalds,

As an aside, props for going back and linking the complete word salad of a name. Nice. :)

is antithetical to this kind of approach. I have a structure that works really well for me and for the groups I tend to play with, because the system gave me the freedom to develop it, as well as numerous mechanics to handle the on-the-ground details.

That's fair - you have something that works for you, and you don't want to mess with it, because it works. But I would like to call out here that you still are using a structure, and it's one you had to hack together for yourself - D&D didn't provide you with one. That, in my mind, is the mark of a superior DM - you saw an obstacle to running the game you wanted to run, and you solved it. But a rules light structure is still a structure, and I would argue that the main difference between what you describe and what I describe are levels of danger and stakes. But at the end of the day, you're still using a structure. It's not as intense as what I prefer, but you're still using one. So I don't think we're antithetical, so much as using slightly different play styles. I don't think you're alarmist or hyperbolic (I mean, for the Internet!), but just wanting a slightly different experience.

Imagine if player character options had the same density of mechanical interaction & structural knowledge with the Exploration & Interaction pillars as they do with the Combat pillars.

Oh, sweet Christ, no. That's not what I want at all. Right now, because combat is the only game structure we've got, everything WotC designs hooks into it somehow. And you're right - it's exhausting. What I want, is to break that up - to spread the density of character options over three pillars, not just the one. One of the explicit design goals of 5e is to have every character class be able to "pull their own weight" in combat. Why not let them all pull their own weight in the other two pillars, too?

but turning the entire play experience into a succession of mini-games is not what I'd call progress; and that's what the systems proposed for 'structuring' Exploration & Interaction look like to me.

Then I have clearly explained them poorly. I'm not looking to take something away from you, especially if it's working. But I do find it easier to cut out things than to innovate new ones. I want support for me, as a DM, to make decisions grounded in the world and know how and why things are happening. It sounds like you want that, too, just with less in the way of tension and stakes. I don't want a bunch of mini-games, I want three fully supported pillars that bring out a unique, fun, and intense D&D experience.

It didn't really fit anywhere else in this post, so I'll just say as a footnote that I do agree with the people who have pointed out how scattershot 5e's presentation of its Exploration & Interaction rules is; some more cohesion in how that information gets presented would absolutely be a welcome change.

I agree with this sentiment, in general; while I find 5e's overland travel to be weak-sauce disjointed mechanics, a better layout might help highlight the good bits in there. One example of solid layout is the Mothership RPG (I don't know if you've seen it, but you should absolutely check out Pound of Flesh. Blew my mind).

I did have a question about your overland travel structure, Catullus64. How do you avoid wasted prep? Anytime you create a mutually exclusive branch, you've just wasted at least 50% of your prep - how do you get around that? Do you prep the whole thing up front, or do you want to prep until the players tell you their route? How do you handle mid-journey course changes? No pushback on this one, just curious how you do it.

[Catullus64]

I did have a question about your overland travel structure, Catullus64. How do you avoid wasted prep? Anytime you create a mutually exclusive branch, you've just wasted at least 50% of your prep - how do you get around that? Do you prep the whole thing up front, or do you want to prep until the players tell you their route? How do you handle mid-journey course changes? No pushback on this one, just curious how you do it.

To give an example, in a recent mini-campaign (4 sessions, ultimately) where the players were journeying across about 60 miles as the crow flies (so nearly twice that in walking-miles), the web of paths broke down into about sixteen legs with numerous possible configurations & branchings. The players ended up traversing a total of six of them, so that's ten sets of encounters that went unused.

Seems like a lot of wasted design effort, right? But since they never saw or even came anywhere near most of those encounters, I have those unused segments ready made to be used for the next overland travel journey, perhaps with some adjustments made for the particulars of environment or the level range. Indeed, most of the ones that I had planned for this campaign were retro-fitted from the unused encounters in previous campaigns; so it unfolds that for each journey, I only really have to design about a third or so of the possible encounters from scratch. (Also keep in mind that every fork in the road doesn't necessarily cut the possible future pathways in half, since paths tend to converge and criss-cross.)

If the journey is long enough that I have session breaks in the middle of it (which is usually), then I will typically spend a little more time refining and seeding for the encounters that the players' choices are setting them up for. As you pointed out, the first branch they choose to take will often narrow down the subsequent possible encounters, so I typically get a more precise idea of where they're likely to go. And usually, these journeys start with an extended sequence of player characters huddled in an inn or suchlike, poring over maps and discussing their route, so I am privy to a lot of their thinking about what kinds of choices they're likely to make.

Also, if you really want to make sure more of your content gets used, you can always pull out the Caradhras Gambit; make the encounters along one path so oppressively dangerous that the PCs go "screw this, not worth it, we're turning around and going the other way." I don't recommend using it too often, thought.

[Sorinth]

the structure, if you like, is invisible to them, having been worked out by me in advance, they are free to approach it like an actual world in which their characters move and live.

Being able to approach and interact with the world as if it were real is one of the big appeals of the game for me. Having a structure is great but I don't necessarily want to see it as a player. To switch to social pillar for a second, if the DM is using some sort of point system to handle the relationship between me and the various NPCs/Factions I don't want to know what my score is with each NPC/Faction is or how many points I would earn for doing a potential quest (Or rather I do want to know but it's more fun when I don't).

Rules and "structures" are scaffolds. And like construction scaffolds, they're intended to be torn down when the need for them is over. Not made permanent parts of the building. For me, personally, exploration and social structures are places where I don't need permanent scaffolds. I need tools to create scaffolds "on the fly" (ok, in prep time, mostly) for this specific situation. But that scaffold won't work for a different, even somewhat similar situation. Because the underlying building I'm trying to build isn't the same.

I find 5e gives me the tools I need for the games I want to run. Others may disagree; there's certainly lots of scope for more tools or for "pre-packaged scaffolds". But I'd prefer if those are kept where they are, as 3rd-party add-ons mostly. I want the core designers to focus on building tools and libraries (in the software sense[1]), not frameworks. Especially opinionated[2] frameworks.

[1] switching the metaphor here--a library is a piece of code, packaged for re-use by someone else. Effectively a toolbox. Frameworks are systems, skeletons to accomplish tasks, into which you plug your own code. Frameworks are necessary--the 5e core system (base resolution mechanic, underlying philosophy, the idea of class/race/background as your core, etc.) is a framework. But frameworks tend to warp the design around them. Adding more frameworks (or making an existing one more comprehensive and opinionated[2]) tends to produce monocultures. You must do it the framework's way, or else pain and bad experience. That's what I don't want.

[2] opinionated frameworks and libraries have, as the name suggests, strong opinions about how they're used. They force certain interaction paradigms that compel the software to flow in certain ways. The WPF Windows UI framework is a good example--it expects all interaction to be via Commands. Which produces a bunch of boilerplate and (among other reasons) basically compels one particular design methodology, which has its pros and cons. Doing it otherwise is hard and tends to be buggy. Apple's software is another example of an opinionated framework. Do it the Apple Way(tm) or suffer. Not what I want from a game.

Some great metaphors here, though I'm not sure everyone will appreciate the pain/frustration of working with opinionated frameworks.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Being able to approach and interact with the world as if it were real is one of the big appeals of the game for me. Having a structure is great but I don't necessarily want to see it as a player. To switch to social pillar for a second, if the DM is using some sort of point system to handle the relationship between me and the various NPCs/Factions I don't want to know what my score is with each NPC/Faction is or how many points I would earn for doing a potential quest (Or rather I do want to know but it's more fun when I don't).

Very much agreed. When the structures intrude into the conscious layer, it often breaks the flow and focuses attention on gaming the structure, not playing your character. I want rules and systems that are as transparent as possible and fade into the background, to be invoked only when needed (accepting the cost of doing so). Invoking rules and mechanics always carries costs.

Some great metaphors here, though I'm not sure everyone will appreciate the pain/frustration of working with opinionated frameworks.

For me, the idea of "rules as scaffolds" (mainly coming from a teaching/educational perspective) was key to changing how I approach games, game design, and DMing. Realizing that the rules are not the game and do not define the game was a game-changer (pun intended). My day job involves writing apps for Apple and Android...opinionated frameworks are the bane of my existence whenever the business wants something that deviates from the One True Way for that platform. The pressure to conform to the One True Way (which is often rather :sideways_owl:) is real and annoying.

[Kane0]

I've looked at the rules pretty extensively. The 5e team has really actually developed a pretty robust travel mechanic. There is a ton there to use to have a mechanically satisfying travel segment.

The only problem is that it's spread out over three books, on different pages and chapters. They also don't lay out a systemic way of running it for the GM. Which means the GM has to investigate and come up with it on it's own.

All Wizards needs to do, is to compile the rules into a few pages all at once and make sure that it goes into some easy charts with some math conversions and it all works beautifully.

Anyone know if this has already been conveniently compiled somewhere?

[Mjolnirbear]

I appreciate the desire for a rules-light system of travel, exploration, and social. A lot of the people here are ones I respect a great deal. That said, here is my take.

1) having the rules spread among books isn't just an organisation problem; it's an access problem. I have enough money to get any book I like, but I don't have Rime. How am I gonna use that system without buying it? How am I gonna know I *need* to buy it? How is the poor high school student gonna run their community game? Especially when the advice for running a game should be, ideally, in one book called the Dungeon Master's Guide?

2) the random encounters tables can be useful, but they seem to think that combat encounters are the only thing worth rolling for. What about the friendly hermit with a wild tale? What about the half-forgotten dwarven watchtower potentially filled with lore? What about the Mystic Spring of Mystical Magic rumoured to be found inside the Forest of Forgotten Fools? What about the wild night dancing by firelight within a caravan of wagons full of refugees? What about the troll under the bridge and the three goats gruff?

3) Navigating is a skill we don't really have anymore. We give addresses and let the GPS tell us how to get there. No one gives directions anymore like "Follow the river until you come to the old tree that has a knot that looks like a face. Cross the river and locate the mountain with the tallest peak. Head in that direction until you come to the forest, and follow the path you find within." Even maps were something only the rich and powerful actually had, for most of human existence. So we don't actually know how to run the exploration and travel part because we don't know what drives the kind of decisions needed. If you follow the river but don't cross at the old tree with a knot like a face, you might not see the mountain with the highest peak. If you don't see that, you're probably lost, and becoming un-lost in real life would be a process we should also see in the rules besides rolling a die. We need the process for navigating, and the process for becoming un-lost, to inform the systems of how to travel in the wilderness.

4) for social...I'm actually pretty happy with the social rules in general, except that they should have also been in the PHB instead of buried in the DMG Pg 244-245. Each NPC has a starting attitude, you have the potential to change that attitude, and the DCs for the cooperation you're trying to obtain are set by that attitude. Your insight check tells you the merchant is hostile to you, which tells you that getting the merchant to do anything involving even the finest bit of sacrifice is basically impossible, which tells you you need to ask for something they don't care about or figure out how to make them less hostile. It's rich, flexible, potentially rewarding, and useful in game terms. The only other thing missing is the lack of class abilities interacting with this besides skills and spells. For instance, a bard ability might be to change the attitude of the NPC temporarily by spending bardic inspiration. Most importantly, though, virtually nothing references this system (Out of the Abyss is the only campaign I can think of actually referring to changing attitude of NPCs) which means it's almost never used, where it *should* be referenced regularly ("If you find the bandits attacking the merchant's caravans and deal with them, the merchant's attitude improves to Friendly and getting her to part with her family heirloom/macguffin is easier to accomplish".)

5) any efforts in this area are hampered by half-assed ill-thought-out options like Outlander or ranger completely negating parts of exploration as well as the general inclination of the Devs to solve X problem with Y spell (goodberry, PWT, tiny hut, knock, etc) which locks these tools to casters instead of them being accessible to every character. In combat, every character has something to do; in exploration, it's casters or bust.

I've used Giffyglyph's Darkest Dungeons rules for exploration. It solved some problems, because it gives more Actions to do while travelling, tables to roll on while exploring, gives you a resource system to use for this pillar...but it feels very video gamey. It incorporates social encounters and random discoveries into the system, which I love, but is hampered its complexity. It turns options into buttons to press to maximize success instead of ways to tell a story. It also doesn't offer much in the way of creating challenging decisions, like whether to cut cross-country or keep to the safe route. It's still about getting from A to B, not about taking path X vs path Y.

I've used AngryDM's guides too. I like a lot of what he writes. But to be honest, he's allllllll over the place on his website, going from topic to topic like a drunken sailor. I really really value his explanations of why, for instance, you only call for a roll if theres a chance for success, a chance for failure, and a consequence of failure, or why it's important while running the game to understand how you're actually telling a story and need to know the question, the conflict, and the options in order for it to be a good story. But that comes at the cost of thousands of words per article; hardly easy to digest even for voracious readers such as myself.

[Mjolnirbear]

Apologies for the second post but the previous was long and this might otherwise be buried;

For both exploration and social, characters need class features that interact with the base rules.

Every class has features that interact with combat. To know how Extra Attack works, you need to know about the Attack Action. To know how Initiative works, you need to know the Turn Order works. To Sneak Attack when it's not your turn, you need to know about reaction attacks and weapons rules.

The class features almost never actually interact with exploration or social rules. There's no class feature referencing NPC attitudes, and the exploration rules aren't so much interacted with as bypassed (spells like goodberry, Outlander, ranger).

This lack of interconnectedness makes it too easy to leave these rules forgotten in a dusty corner or unexplored entirely.

The bare minimum to fix this is to give martials an overhaul to interact with both rulesets (since casters at least have some spells).

[KorvinStarmast]

Interesting point made in the series of "Structures" articles by Alexandrian.

"This is why you have to playtest"

Yep.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Apologies for the second post but the previous was long and this might otherwise be buried;

For both exploration and social, characters need class features that interact with the base rules.

Every class has features that interact with combat. To know how Extra Attack works, you need to know about the Attack Action. To know how Initiative works, you need to know the Turn Order works. To Sneak Attack when it's not your turn, you need to know about reaction attacks and weapons rules.

The class features almost never actually interact with exploration or social rules. There's no class feature referencing NPC attitudes, and the exploration rules aren't so much interacted with as bypassed (spells like goodberry, Outlander, ranger).

This lack of interconnectedness makes it too easy to leave these rules forgotten in a dusty corner or unexplored entirely.

The bare minimum to fix this is to give martials an overhaul to interact with both rulesets (since casters at least have some spells).

Why does this have to be on a class (rather than system) basis? As I play it, everyone interacts with social and exploration. The idea that you can only interact when you have an appropriately labeled button on your sheet is, I think, the core issue here. And it's antithetical to the kind of game I want to play.

A meta-system that sets the expectation that you primarily interact with the game via specific mechanics (ie by pushing buttons on your character sheet) is, in my opinion, better suited for a video game. The beauty of a TTRPG is that you can use rules as tools, on an as-needed, when-needed basis, but most of the time just directly interact with the fiction layer.

Combat, with its high stakes and high timing demands, requires more granularity. And allows more granularity, because it's basically always the same. Exploration and social events vary so much that any system that enforces it via class features will act as a procrustean bed or highly opinionated framework, telling players exactly how they must interact and DMs how they must structure their campaigns and scenarios (else you'll be causing balance issues by nerfing players and "ignoring their class features").

[pwykersotz]

I've used Giffyglyph's Darkest Dungeons rules for exploration.

I had never heard of Giffyglyph before, so I searched him up. His whole design doc is darned impressive, and it's really fun to read over. Thank you for mentioning this!

[Dr. Murgunstrum]

.

No, those are rules. Again, rules are not structure. Secondly, you're conflating exploration with overland travel, and those are not the same things. Finally, do you really run overland travel like this? I don't mean to be rude, but that sounds like a terribly boring session.

"Oh look, more bandits. Guess the DM rolled a 20 on the encounter check. Good thing we didn't have any choices about how to engage with those bandits, or where they hit us, or our route. Oh, what fun we're having."

What I want is a structure where my players can proactively gather information about their options (Agency!), plan their route (Agency!), choose how they use their cool class abilities to avoid or overcome obstacles (Agency!), deal with failure (Stakes!), have interesting complications arise (Stakes!), and then go in a dark hole in the ground in search of sweet, sweet LOOT.

No, it’s a play structure.

A rule is “I can move 3 miles per hour” or “Strong Winds give disadvantage on ranged weapon attacks and Perception checks relying on hearing. Also extinguished open flames, dispersed fog, and makes no magical flying almost impossible (must land or fall at end of turn). In a desert, gives disadvantage on Perception checks with sight.”

You’re confusing the rules for overland travel with the rules for overland exploration.

The rules for overland exploration are the play structure: you start in Phandalin and you want to go to Waterdeep, because you’ve explored wave echo and now you want to explore Undermountain, because you love exploring.

Now, I suppose we can back this train up further: perhaps you need to investigate rumours? Talk to the many members of caravans described in the published Phandalin, or the many people with contacts in Waterdeep who can tell you about waterdeep (and have this information published in their descriptions and their faction descriptions). So maybe there’s an Intelligence (investigation) or a charisma (investigation) or a charisma (persuasion) or an intelligence (history) or a raw intelligence or raw charisma check to answer your query “What’s there to explore around here?” and/or “Where is Waterdeep?”

(This is also a play structure clearly defined in the core rules: the player queries, the DM either answers or calls for a skill check with an appropriate skill)

So having learned of Waterdeep and Undermountain, and having gotten some directions with a series of skill checks (all of this is RAW and outlined in the PHB and DMG) you now know where Waterdeep is supposed to be and a few routes to get there. Waterdeep is 300 miles away as the crow flies (so thats 13 days if you can fly. Can you fly? Here’s a decision point!)

Now you get to go overland EXPLORING. You make a decision about how you will travel. You can’t fly, because you didn’t choose a race or class with flight, so I guess you’re walking. Having chosen to go to waterdeep and chosen to walk, you now get to choose your route: there are two roads that can get you there, or you can set out into the wilderness and travel off the road.

So you haven’t even left town and there’s a bunch of choices, meaningful choices, you have to make.

You now have to plan your route, account for the season, the weather, the perils of the forest or mountains or the bandits on a certain road. You need to budget for food, can you carry it, do you need a wagon or a mount?

All of this is a play structure. Perhaps it bores you? So forget the fun of planning a trip? Let’s get to the actual trip!

Being a bold explorer, you don’t need no stinkin’ roads: you’re gonna go in as straight a line as you can through the wilderness. Of course that CHOICE means rough terrain, and a higher frequency of encounters.

So now come the dice: day one, 8 hours of travel, 12 miles of rough terrain, 1.5 miles per hour, 18-20 will mean you discover something. Hour 1, nothing (I’ll give you a description of the weather I rolled [rain and fog, which mean things mechanically] and you can roleplay the joy of the open road, hour 2 you discover something! The map says you’re in a forest, I use the forest encounter table, it says it’s a griffin with an arrow in its wing! What do you do?

Of course, we don’t forget about the fog and rain. You’re in a deep, green grove, with thick red woods that stand out clear in the mist, and the rain, while still wet and present, doesn’t pour as relentlessly. Because the fog obscures things (weather mechanics!) before you discover the Griffin, it’s gonna be a perception check to see if you hear it’s whimpers. You fail!

Now we have set the scene: you find your way through a patch of trees and the Griffin is right in front of you, 15 feet down below, as the roots of a large cedar beside you suspend the ground above the clearing in pain and surprised by your approach! (It too failed it’s perception check to hear you) What do you do?

Now I know behind the screen that the encounter has a few skill check DCs and a reward baked in, but we’ve also done something emergent: now we know there are Griffins and Griffin Hunters in these woods.

You’re a nice person, so you don’t attack the Griffin. Instead you try and calm it down and pass your animal handling check and your medicine check, so now it’s able to fly away, but you rolled well and it likes you, so it will stick around and let you ride it for 1d10 days (this is a published encounter, FYI)

Suddenly, perhaps Undermountain can wait. Perhaps your exploration of the woods has spurred you to befriend the Griffin and find it’s hunters.

You and the Griffin head North for an hour, but find nothing (you rolled a 12) Another hour later, you roll an 18 and you find: bandits!

I mean, maybe this is boring. Maybe this isn’t what you mean by exploration.

But this IS exploration and it IS a play structure supported by mechanics in the core rule book and in published modules.

So whatever you’re complaining about, it’s not a missing exploration play structure. The rules for an emergent play structure are right there in the core books.

A series of choices by the the players and rolls on the exploration tables using the published rules have generated a bunch of Griffin hunting bandits in the woods a few hours from Phandalin. That’s about as pure D&D as it gets.

.

No. What you have described is a movement mechanic. Again, those are rules. Movement mechanics are actually like the third thing you need for any 'crawling structure. You need a map, a key, movement mechanics, and a way to trigger the keyed content. After that you can start adding stuff like timekeeping, random encounters, etc.

As I’ve already stated, maps are published and available. Or you can draw your own using the guidelines provided in the DMG.

Those maps have keys. And the way you trigger the content is either: move into it, because it doesnÂ’t require a skill check (I doubt Baldur’s Gate is too hidden) or encounter it (that old D20 mechanic)

So that’s the crawl structure, right there in the published books.

[Composer99]

I can't agree with PhoenixPhyre's characterisation of game structures as scaffolds. That's got them the wrong way 'round.

To my mind they're exactly what the word "structure" implies: the foundations, girders, joists, etc. that keep the game standing while everything else provides it with function and aesthetics.

You can't tear that down or you don't have a game at all.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I can't agree with PhoenixPhyre's characterisation of game structures as scaffolds. That's got them the wrong way 'round.

To my mind they're exactly what the word "structure" implies: the foundations, girders, joists, etc. that keep the game standing while everything else provides it with function and aesthetics.

You can't tear that down or you don't have a game at all.

You can have a game without any formal structures at all. I was engaging in a roleplaying game in those endless hours I spent talking through stories with my brother as a kid. No formal structures, no resolution mechanics, no mechanics at all. Heck, no discussed rules. But it was very much a game, and very much roleplaying.

The formal ruleset does not define the game. In fact, formal rulesets are secondary, and serve to assist the game that already exists. Sure, they're useful. But they're secondary. In an ideal world, we'd be able to interact with the fiction layer directly. And you can, if you've got a good freeform group who are all on the same page. Rulesets exist as crutches for the rest of us. But let's not put them any higher than that. Rulesets and rules structures serve the players, not vice versa. Rulesets are not the game. Rulesets are tools to be used by people while playing the game. Or discarded, set down, and only picked up when they're useful.

And any game that goes rules-first, where every interaction with the fiction must be channeled through a defined rule, is one that should be better played as a video game (because that's all that those can do). TTRPGs' primary advantage is that they can go beyond the ruleset without making formal rules to replace them.

[Mjolnirbear]

Why does this have to be on a class (rather than system) basis? As I play it, everyone interacts with social and exploration. The idea that you can only interact when you have an appropriately labeled button on your sheet is, I think, the core issue here. And it's antithetical to the kind of game I want to play.

A meta-system that sets the expectation that you primarily interact with the game via specific mechanics (ie by pushing buttons on your character sheet) is, in my opinion, better suited for a video game. The beauty of a TTRPG is that you can use rules as tools, on an as-needed, when-needed basis, but most of the time just directly interact with the fiction layer.

Combat, with its high stakes and high timing demands, requires more granularity. And allows more granularity, because it's basically always the same. Exploration and social events vary so much that any system that enforces it via class features will act as a procrustean bed or highly opinionated framework, telling players exactly how they must interact and DMs how they must structure their campaigns and scenarios (else you'll be causing balance issues by nerfing players and "ignoring their class features").

It's not about either class or system but about how they interact. That interaction layers itself and becomes richer and also more useful for evaluating other involved systems.

I'm not saying only class abilities would do this. I'm saying class abilities need to also take advantage of the system. Racial abilities need to take advantage of the system. Right now, class and racial abilities touch social encounters in skills and ability scores and that's it.

So anyone of any class can roll to persuade a merchant to give a discount. Anyone can ask for it, but as it stands at most tables, the DM says yes sure, no, or 'gime a roll' and then decide based on the result. That's it, every social encounter broken down to a single die roll. Most people don't even know about the starting attitude table!

So let's use that table as an example. Same merchant, same ask. First the DM decides the merchant's outlook. The player can work with that, or instead start with trying to change the outlook. So if the merchant is hostile, because he remembers three nights back someone that looked like the rogue sneaking away and the merchant's strongbox missing some coins, then there is a hook. The bard can try to butter up the merchant, or prove the rogue wasn't to blame, or they can ignore it and roll and simply fail. But that one layer, the attitude, suddenly make a social interaction more engaging, and interesting, and not something likely to be simply skimmed over.

That change is both simple, and rich, and already exists in the rules. I am largely happy with it because it is rich and useful and engaging.

So what if charm person didn't give you advantage on social rolls, but improved the attitude? Because advantage on social won't get you that discount from a hostile merchant, but suddenly being neutral might.

What if rogues had the ability to detect initial attitude? Or advantage on such checks (since really anybody should with Insight)? Part of a rogue's class package is about choosing your target wisely. How much more engaging would the world be if your player's rogue could interact with that?

So you say, presumedly, the rogue *can* do that with the rules as written. As I said, it's likely a simple insight check to determine attitude. Anyone can do it. And you'd be right.

But not everyone can cast charm person, a class ability. Where there is room for one class ability, there is room for more. Simply adding attitude to the social pillar gives you something that can be manipulated. When you're in a fight with an Indifferent/ Neutral guard, convincing said guard the fight isn't worth it is now much easier. When the barbarian rudely farts in front of the king while giving the finger, changing the attitude to hostile makes everything that much more challenging and offers concrete consequences for their actions.

What more could you do with attitude if you had class abilities that interacted with it? Detected it? Manipulated it? Used it? What if Acolyte gave you a base starting attitude of Neutral with those of your faith? What if your skill at fighting leads veterans to be less willing to engage in hostilities? What if a GOOlock could confuse a hostile enemy, turning it's attitude neutral for just long enough for his persuasion to work?

I'm currently the sickest I've been since before COVID and there's a lot of cold syrup in my system, so hopefully I've made it clear how a simple codified system need not limit options and could make it easier to engage with them. I don't want the video-game buttons. I don't want it bogged down like combat. I don't want "I press Persuasion" to be how social interactions work, and yet that is how they work in most games I've played in. Something that uses attitude need not fence in your options, but I for one would like to see how different classes engage it in their own way. Classes should, after all, mean more than just combat

[Dr. Murgunstrum]

(1) You'll notice that the bulk of my post was saying that the DMG needed to be better organised, not that it needed more rules. See, for instance, BoutsofInsanity's post.

So this boils down to people having difficulty parsing the existing structures?

Sure, though that complaint wonÂ’t likely stop: there’s no simple presentation because it’s too complex and covers too many scales and possibilities to ever be simply laid out, unless they perhaps released a rule book dedicated solely to those rules with them repeated in several places and contexts.

But of course, there would still be complaints if they released that incredibly not lucurative book idea, based on your next comment:

(2) Ghosts of Saltmarsh, Rime of the Frostmaiden, Xanathar's, and Tasha's all add optional additional content for out-of-combat material (for instance, the puzzles stuff in Tasha's, the expanded rules for overseas adventures in Saltmarsh, or tidbits like the avalanche content in Frostmaiden). It is simply false to claim that they address the deficiencies of the core rules.

So books that released after the core rules that address deficits in the core rules don’t address the deficits because they aren’t the core rules….

That’s a paradox that cannot be solved. Unless you’re proposing a 5.5 DMG that includes those rules as well. Would that address your concern here? Because if it doesn’t, then it can’t be addressed.

Until then, expansions are the only means of addressing empty design space.

And the optional comment is foolish: it’s simply choosing to ignore a solution to the problem. You can’t elect not to use the tools you’re given and complain you don’t have the tools.

(3) As for the core rules, you are simply mistaken. For all the rules that exist, "moving distances that take hours of travel" is a vestigial part of gameplay, relative to something like rolling initiative. WotC makes this clear based on how most adventures don't include any meaningful stakes for how long it takes to get from place to place, how much time the players choose to spend exploring an area, and the like. Tomb of Annihilation includes such stakes at the largest scale of the adventure, but not really at smaller scales of time or space. Likewise, the core rules of the game provide neither any kind of formalised structure that enables including meaningful stakes for the choices PCs make minute by minute or hour by hour or day by day, nor any guidance for DMs to make their own structures (either alongside or in place of a structure provided by the DMG itself). The problem with this lack might best be summarised by Rich Burlew's old articles describing his homebrew 3.5 Diplomacy rule: "In short, I want tools to use in the game, not a blank check to do what I want. I can already do what I want."

Hold on:

Are you actually arguing that time constraints are what make exploration meaningful.

Oh. No. You do not require a time limit for something to be a core part of your game.

And if you do, I’d recommend looking at the mechanic in Frozen Sick, which imposes exactly what youÂ’re describing to incentivize exploration.

So the officially published rules published by professionals account for this.

Not an issue, you just need to read more.

(4) The rules, guidelines, and content that exist are often unhelpfully vague, incomplete, or unhelpfully detailed.
- For an example of unhelpfully detailed, consider thin ice (DMG 111). Including thin ice in your game involves calculating the weight tolerance in pounds in each 10-foot-square area. That's four 5-foot squares on a battlemap. Do you really want to be calculating weight tolerance for, say, a fight on a frozen river, or when the party spends an hour crossing a frozen lake? And what about NPCs or monsters, whose weights often aren't described? Clearly, some kind of abstraction would have been superior - probably a small chance that a character who traverses an area of ice might fall through, with a larger chance for larger creatures, taking into account the difference between crossing a surface of potential thin ice over the short span of a fight, versus crossing a frozen surface over minutes or hours of time.

1. You understand the maximum weight tolerance is 300 pounds, yeah? And the minimum is 30? The calculations are trivial. Plus why don’t I have the weights of all the PCs readily available. It’s highly unlikely it can hold two at once, so there’s your rule of thumb; two PCs per 10 foot square. Apply to NPCs as well, done and done.

2. Why am I using exploration rules in combat? I’d just rule the strenuous activity breaks the ice. No calculations involved. You can’t fight on thin ice, there!

3. No party of adventurers is getting across a lake made entirely out of thin ice.(why am I putting a lake made entirely out of thin ice in my game? I don’t know. Is there one of these lakes in a published adventure, or is this just a bad DM problem?)

4. You understand this is a hazard?This is meant to be an exceptional moment, not a routine one. Exceptional moments warrant the prep work and calculations. I mean, combat demands the same degree of calculation and that doesn’t present an issue.

Those rules are helpful in designing an encounter that involves thin ice. There are many great moments of tension I can imagine involving PCs avoiding and navigating thin ice. Mazes, chases, Fox/hen puzzles.

You listed some bad designs, but there’s not a single rule in D&D that can’t be used to make a bad design.

- For an example of incomplete, consider the rules for foraging (also DMG 111). A simple procedure that accounts for how much time you spend foraging in total, and how much of that time is spent foraging as part of travel or as a distinct activity in and of itself (*), could have been just as easy while also being more comprehensive, as the existing content.

(*) The difference between "while we're traveling today from Point A to B, I'll do some foraging" and "while we're encamped here at Point B, I'll wander around a bit and forage" - the latter clearly does not require reference to setting a travel pace, only how much time you intend to spend doing so.

You’ve made a mistake: there aren’t two distinct activities. It’s just foraging, whether you’re moving or not. But you can also move while foraging, up to a normal pace.

There’s nothing vague, incomplete or complicated about it. You can forage as an activity, and how much you can forage, and at what DC is presented.

Would it have made more sense if it had read: Characters cannot forage while travelling at a fast pace?

Travel time is not connected to foraging, you simply cannot travel fast AND forage, which indirectly impacts your travel time.

[Sorinth]

It's not about either class or system but about how they interact. That interaction layers itself and becomes richer and also more useful for evaluating other involved systems.

I'm not saying only class abilities would do this. I'm saying class abilities need to also take advantage of the system. Racial abilities need to take advantage of the system. Right now, class and racial abilities touch social encounters in skills and ability scores and that's it.

So anyone of any class can roll to persuade a merchant to give a discount. Anyone can ask for it, but as it stands at most tables, the DM says yes sure, no, or 'gime a roll' and then decide based on the result. That's it, every social encounter broken down to a single die roll. Most people don't even know about the starting attitude table!

So let's use that table as an example. Same merchant, same ask. First the DM decides the merchant's outlook. The player can work with that, or instead start with trying to change the outlook. So if the merchant is hostile, because he remembers three nights back someone that looked like the rogue sneaking away and the merchant's strongbox missing some coins, then there is a hook. The bard can try to butter up the merchant, or prove the rogue wasn't to blame, or they can ignore it and roll and simply fail. But that one layer, the attitude, suddenly make a social interaction more engaging, and interesting, and not something likely to be simply skimmed over.

That change is both simple, and rich, and already exists in the rules. I am largely happy with it because it is rich and useful and engaging.

So what if charm person didn't give you advantage on social rolls, but improved the attitude? Because advantage on social won't get you that discount from a hostile merchant, but suddenly being neutral might.

What if rogues had the ability to detect initial attitude? Or advantage on such checks (since really anybody should with Insight)? Part of a rogue's class package is about choosing your target wisely. How much more engaging would the world be if your player's rogue could interact with that?

So you say, presumedly, the rogue *can* do that with the rules as written. As I said, it's likely a simple insight check to determine attitude. Anyone can do it. And you'd be right.

But not everyone can cast charm person, a class ability. Where there is room for one class ability, there is room for more. Simply adding attitude to the social pillar gives you something that can be manipulated. When you're in a fight with an Indifferent/ Neutral guard, convincing said guard the fight isn't worth it is now much easier. When the barbarian rudely farts in front of the king while giving the finger, changing the attitude to hostile makes everything that much more challenging and offers concrete consequences for their actions.

What more could you do with attitude if you had class abilities that interacted with it? Detected it? Manipulated it? Used it? What if Acolyte gave you a base starting attitude of Neutral with those of your faith? What if your skill at fighting leads veterans to be less willing to engage in hostilities? What if a GOOlock could confuse a hostile enemy, turning it's attitude neutral for just long enough for his persuasion to work?

I'm currently the sickest I've been since before COVID and there's a lot of cold syrup in my system, so hopefully I've made it clear how a simple codified system need not limit options and could make it easier to engage with them. I don't want the video-game buttons. I don't want it bogged down like combat. I don't want "I press Persuasion" to be how social interactions work, and yet that is how they work in most games I've played in. Something that uses attitude need not fence in your options, but I for one would like to see how different classes engage it in their own way. Classes should, after all, mean more than just combat

I guess this is a case of too each their own because I find that using the attitude stuff from the DMG doesn't lead to a richer experience but in fact the complete opposite. And adding features that directly interacted with the attitude would make it even worse. Instead of actually engaging with the merchant as a person, players will engage with them as a mini-game.

[Sorinth]

I can't agree with PhoenixPhyre's characterisation of game structures as scaffolds. That's got them the wrong way 'round.

To my mind they're exactly what the word "structure" implies: the foundations, girders, joists, etc. that keep the game standing while everything else provides it with function and aesthetics.

You can't tear that down or you don't have a game at all.

I think the key part of PhoenixPhyre's metaphor is that they want to create different/unique buildings. If the structure is the foundation, girders, joists, etc... and it's highly defined by the game then all buildings end up looking the same which is a problem. They don't want convincing a king to join a war and getting a discount on your rooms from the innkeeper to look/feel the same. They want convincing the king to be complex and elaborate series of tasks/challenges that takes multiple sessions, and they want the haggling to be simple and short.

Or at least that's my take on what I want.


Now it's true the DMG could do a better job of offering guidance on how to build unique/different things, and adding some more concrete examples would probably be a good thing. For example, it's common in stories for the hero to have to complete some task to prove themselves and only then will a person agree to help. It's type of game structure that can be used for the innkeeper and the task be something like clean the dishes, or kill some rats in the cellar, or it can be used for the king where the task(s) are suitably difficult/heroic. But at the end of the day it's not something that should be part of the "core" game rules because I don't every social encounter to play out like that. If the king's task is to convince a local dragon to also join the war effort I don't want the dragon to also be I'll help you if you perform some task for me.

[Catullus64]

What more could you do with attitude if you had class abilities that interacted with it? Detected it? Manipulated it? Used it? What if Acolyte gave you a base starting attitude of Neutral with those of your faith? What if your skill at fighting leads veterans to be less willing to engage in hostilities? What if a GOOlock could confuse a hostile enemy, turning it's attitude neutral for just long enough for his persuasion to work?

Despite the general objections I've been raising in this thread, gameplay structures to inform stuff like social interaction can be done well, but I think they should be categorically DM-facing structures. The moment players are asked to engage directly with those mechanics, to peer behind the curtain in the way they often do during combat, is when I think you start skirting the territory of mini-game land.

A positive version of what you suggest might involve something like a table of attitude levels, with examples of what each attitude actually looks like in terms of behavior across multiple scenarios; a guide for how the DM can roleplay different attitudes across different types of NPCs.

The negative version is one in which players have the capacity essentially brute-force a roleplaying encounter using their features. Imagine if, while making an entreaty at the court of the king, a player is inarticulate, presumptuous, and rude while making their case, but uses features which are optimal for this kind of scenario. If the DM decides that that the king angrily dismisses them without hearing another word, it's hard to imagine that player not being salty, because it seems like the DM is just ignoring the game rules to arrive at his preferred outcome. If the game rules tell you that you can directly interface with certain structures, it has to follow through on that, which is why I'm not convinced that more intense structure wouldn't have some detriment of roleplaying.

I wish you comfort in your sickness, and a speedy recovery.

[Tanarii]

Despite the general objections I've been raising in this thread, gameplay structures to inform stuff like social interaction can be done well, but I think they should be categorically DM-facing structures. The moment players are asked to engage directly with those mechanics, to peer behind the curtain in the way they often do during combat, is when I think you start skirting the territory of mini-game land.

Conversely, it gives the players a way to determine "what do I do next" in a way that interfaces with their goals.

The simple example is game structures for interacting with an urban adventure. If you have a game structure that works like a dungeon, they're going to have to tell you each street they walk down, with encounter checks and distance traveled per turn being important. If you have one that instead is node-based, they can interact with the nodes by telling you which node they're transiting to next. They don't need to understand the entire structure, but they do need enough visibility into this organization to tell you what's next.

Similarly for a wilderness exploration structure, they may need to inform you of destination node and route, or they may need to tell you direction of travel and general activity within each watch (time frame).

[Mjolnirbear]

I guess this is a case of too each their own because I find that using the attitude stuff from the DMG doesn't lead to a richer experience but in fact the complete opposite. And adding features that directly interacted with the attitude would make it even worse. Instead of actually engaging with the merchant as a person, players will engage with them as a mini-game.

Whereas I see it as a way to reward players for great ideas and awesome roleplaying without having to also ignore their charisma stat.

"Sure. You can try to bribe the guard. You argument is strong and your approach is super convincing. You've offered more gold than they will ever see in their natural life. The guard is now Indifferent, now let's see how your your 8 charisma does. Roll persuasion. DC is now 10 instead of 20."

[Sorinth]

Whereas I see it as a way to reward players for great ideas and awesome roleplaying without having to also ignore their charisma stat.

"Sure. You can try to bribe the guard. You argument is strong and your approach is super convincing. You've offered more gold than they will ever see in their natural life. The guard is now Indifferent, now let's see how your your 8 charisma does. Roll persuasion. DC is now 10 instead of 20."

To be clear I don't actually use the attitude stuff from the DMG. But your example seems to lack context. Why is there even a roll, if you've offered more gold then they will ever see in their life and made a strong argument/approach then it should be an auto-success without a roll. That's the rules for skill checks.

Now if this guard is actually honorable and it's only those great arguments/approach/bribe size that is even giving the player a chance of success, then why wouldn't the 8 charisma impact the chance of success?


Also I would point out you've proposed that there are features on the player side to directly impact the attitude which doesn't actually solve your problem because if they don't have the feature they are in the same situation. Now you might say that's a player choice, they chose not to be good an bribes, which I get, but it's also irrelevant. The problem was that despite coming up with a strong argument, a super convincing approach and a huge bribe they have got little for it. And that's true regardless of whether a feature out there could've done something, because the end result is you are telling the player it doesn't matter whether they come up and execute a great plan it's still a question of whether you have the button on your character sheet, so don't even bother coming up with a good plan just grab the feature on next level up and then you don't even need a good plan you just use your feature.

[Sorinth]

Conversely, it gives the players a way to determine "what do I do next" in a way that interfaces with their goals.

The simple example is game structures for interacting with an urban adventure. If you have a game structure that works like a dungeon, they're going to have to tell you each street they walk down, with encounter checks and distance traveled per turn being important. If you have one that instead is node-based, they can interact with the nodes by telling you which node they're transiting to next. They don't need to understand the entire structure, but they do need enough visibility into this organization to tell you what's next.

Similarly for a wilderness exploration structure, they may need to inform you of destination node and route, or they may need to tell you direction of travel and general activity within each watch (time frame).

If the game is telling the players what they should be doing next then it will likely reduce player creativity. When faced with a challenge instead of brainstorming a solution they will consult the rules which tells them what they have to do to overcome the challenge and they'll be much more likely to just do that instead of trying to come up with an out of the box solution (And depending on the rules there's a decent chance the out of the box solution will be punished in someway. See PhoenixPhyre's post about opinionated frameworks).

Now I'm not saying one type of play is better then the other, and I completely understand how not knowing what to do next because you can do anything you want can be frustrating/intimidating. But I prefer the game to encourage creativity, as a DM I like it when I create a challenge with several solutions and the players come up with something I never thought of. And as a player I like trying to come up with solutions where anything and everything is on the table. There's no perfect game that will suit everybody's tastes which is why a key part of D&D is homebrew where every table takes what they like and ignores what they don't like. And the test of a good system is that you can take out or plugin what you want and the end result actually works reasonably well.

[Pex]

I think his assertion is built on a faulty premise:



It's true that Combat is the most developed structure of D&D (by design - the very name of the game emphasizes combat after all), but that's not the same as saying that combat is the only pillar with any development. Yes, the core rules for the other two pillars are contained within a relatively small portion of the DMG (242-245) but there are numerous official rules there and elsewhere if you want to add texture, like Background Proficiencies, Environment design and Honor.

Moreover, it's outright false to say that because Combat is the most developed, they can't add things that impact the other two pillars. Both Xanathar's and Tasha's proved that to be wrong - Xanathar's through things like Downtime rules and expanded tool proficiencies, and Tasha's through expanded Parley, Hazard, Phenomenon and Puzzle rules, as examples. None of these new rules are aimed at the Combat pillar.

There's also my favorite idea of adding example DC tables for skill use to help DMs understand what can be done with them. When the DM has to make it up some will default to everything hard because otherwise there's no challenge or otherwise feel a player doing something just because he wants to is too powerful. The game does tell the DM that's what should happen if the DM says the situations warrants it. However, without examples of those situations the DM just decides no situation ever warrants it. Even when a die roll is warranted, the learning DM needs to know the comparison of difficulties because different DMs have different opinions on the difficulties of tasks.

There already exists tables for object hardness and NPC reactions to social skill use, so 5E is not diametrically opposed to DC tables for skill use as an atrocity to gaming as some people think, facetiously speaking. This was before the Xanathar book, in the DMG. The problem is they are hard to find it's likely many players and DMs don't even know they exist. They should be moved to the PHB skills section or where ever they publish the DC tables if they ever do this.

In essence having more interaction rules already exists if you know where to look. There's room for a bit more rules on exploration and interaction without burying the learning DM in complex gobbledygook.

[Sorinth]

There's also my favorite idea of adding example DC tables for skill use to help DMs understand what can be done with them. When the DM has to make it up some will default to everything hard because otherwise there's no challenge or otherwise feel a player doing something just because he wants to is too powerful. The game does tell the DM that's what should happen if the DM says the situations warrants it. However, without examples of those situations the DM just decides no situation ever warrants it. Even when a die roll is warranted, the learning DM needs to know the comparison of difficulties because different DMs have different opinions on the difficulties of tasks.

There already exists tables for object hardness and NPC reactions to social skill use, so 5E is not diametrically opposed to DC tables for skill use as an atrocity to gaming as some people think, facetiously speaking. This was before the Xanathar book, in the DMG. The problem is they are hard to find it's likely many players and DMs don't even know they exist. They should be moved to the PHB skills section or where ever they publish the DC tables if they ever do this.

In essence having more interaction rules already exists if you know where to look. There's room for a bit more rules on exploration and interaction without burying the learning DM in complex gobbledygook.

Wouldn't a better solution be a chapter/section in the DMG that offers guidance on how the different DC values will impact play? What if it talked about what happens when you set DCs too high, too low, or call for a series of checks any which causes failure and how to create fun/interesting challenges that require more then just rolling well. Wouldn't that be a better then a bunch of tables that give example DCs?

[Pex]

Wouldn't a better solution be a chapter/section in the DMG that offers guidance on how the different DC values will impact play? What if it talked about what happens when you set DCs too high, too low, or call for a series of checks any which causes failure and how to create fun/interesting challenges that require more then just rolling well. Wouldn't that be a better then a bunch of tables that give example DCs?

No because the DM still has to make it up. It will be more confusing worrying about the pitfalls of being too high or too low. A DM can overreact and have one DC for everything. What is too high? What is too low? The learning DM may be afraid to make anything 25 or even 20 when that is the correct value, and there's nothing lower than autosuccess so autosuccess never happens because of worry about being too low. Maybe there's no DC at all. If the player rolls a high number, success. If the player rolls a low number, fail. If in the middle then add in modifiers. If a high value, success. If still middle, fail. Might as well have flipped a coin. With DC tables learning DMs have something to compare when something inevitably happens that's not specifically listed on the table. There's confidence in referencing a listed thing that's close enough to what is happening and use that number.

[Dr. Murgunstrum]

No because the DM still has to make it up. It will be more confusing worrying about the pitfalls of being too high or too low. A DM can overreact and have one DC for everything. What is too high? What is too low? The learning DM may be afraid to make anything 25 or even 20 when that is the correct value, and there's nothing lower than autosuccess so autosuccess never happens because of worry about being too low. Maybe there's no DC at all. If the player rolls a high number, success. If the player rolls a low number, fail. If in the middle then add in modifiers. If a high value, success. If still middle, fail. Might as well have flipped a coin. With DC tables learning DMs have something to compare when something inevitably happens that's not specifically listed on the table. There's confidence in referencing a listed thing that's close enough to what is happening and use that number.

Spot on. Example DCs are far more valuable than any discussion about how to set a DC.

What the DMG could use are more examples of extended skill challenges in different scales (the combat 6 second scale, the dungeon 1-10 minute scale, the wilderness 1 hour-8 hour scale)

I think such examples would provide more clarity for people having difficulty with the rules as written in this thread.

[Tanarii]

If the game is telling the players what they should be doing next then it will likely reduce player creativity. When faced with a challenge instead of brainstorming a solution they will consult the rules which tells them what they have to do to overcome the challenge and they'll be much more likely to just do that instead of trying to come up with an out of the box solution (And depending on the rules there's a decent chance the out of the box solution will be punished in someway. See PhoenixPhyre's post about opinionated frameworks).

Now I'm not saying one type of play is better then the other, and I completely understand how not knowing what to do next because you can do anything you want can be frustrating/intimidating. But I prefer the game to encourage creativity, as a DM I like it when I create a challenge with several solutions and the players come up with something I never thought of. And as a player I like trying to come up with solutions where anything and everything is on the table. There's no perfect game that will suit everybody's tastes which is why a key part of D&D is homebrew where every table takes what they like and ignores what they don't like. And the test of a good system is that you can take out or plugin what you want and the end result actually works reasonably well.

No game can be completely open ended. But if you'll note my explanation, the benefit of a game structure is more "how do I communicate my next goal to the DM properly so they can resolve it" than just "what is my next goal". But it also has the added benefit that it gives new players direction on how to play the game.

Because throwing a bunch of rules without game structures at a new player and saying "okay now go play" is a way to lose new players.

Why do you think the most common root-level scenario DMs run are linear adventure scenarios?

It's also why Starter kits always include a basic adventure. Sadly since In Search of the Unknown and Keep on the Borderlands, the starting rules don't provide necessary game structures, and the starting module doesn't explain how to design around them. That's what made those two modules works of art. They created DMs that understood underlying principles.

[Sparky McDibben]

No game can be completely open ended. But if you'll note my explanation, the benefit of a game structure is more "how do I communicate my next goal to the DM properly so they can resolve it" than just "what is my next goal". But it also has the added benefit that it gives new players direction on how to play the game.

Because throwing a bunch of rules without game structures at a new player and saying "okay now go play" is a way to lose new players.

Why do you think the most common root-level scenario DMs run are linear adventure scenarios?

It's also why Starter kits always include a basic adventure. Sadly since In Search of the Unknown and Keep on the Borderlands, the starting rules don't provide necessary game structures, and the starting module doesn't explain how to design around them. That's what made those two modules works of art. They created DMs that understood underlying principles.

This. Just...so much this. The Caves of Chaos has problems, don't get me wrong, but it does a damn fine job of explaining to the DM, "This is how we resolve conflict in this game; this is how we communicate information to players, and what information to communicate."

[Sorinth]

No game can be completely open ended. But if you'll note my explanation, the benefit of a game structure is more "how do I communicate my next goal to the DM properly so they can resolve it" than just "what is my next goal". But it also has the added benefit that it gives new players direction on how to play the game.

Because throwing a bunch of rules without game structures at a new player and saying "okay now go play" is a way to lose new players.

Why do you think the most common root-level scenario DMs run are linear adventure scenarios?

It's also why Starter kits always include a basic adventure. Sadly since In Search of the Unknown and Keep on the Borderlands, the starting rules don't provide necessary game structures, and the starting module doesn't explain how to design around them. That's what made those two modules works of art. They created DMs that understood underlying principles.

I'm not sure I quite buy into the "I don't know how do I communicate my next goal to the DM properly" because it's still very much a game where you can straight up ask the DM "how can I go about trying to do X". Hell you can even ask for hints if your stuck and have no idea what to do next.

I actually agree that the aim should be to help the DM understand the underlying principles. And a big reason for that is because you'll want to switch between structures, so in your urban adventure sometimes you'll want to be doing something street by street, sometimes you'll want nodes, somethings you'll just want high level goals/plans all in the same city same adventure. Just like you might have a hexcrawl but at times you'll want to skip over that and just narrate a journey from one place to another.

[Psyren]

No because the DM still has to make it up. It will be more confusing worrying about the pitfalls of being too high or too low. A DM can overreact and have one DC for everything. What is too high? What is too low? The learning DM may be afraid to make anything 25 or even 20 when that is the correct value, and there's nothing lower than autosuccess so autosuccess never happens because of worry about being too low. Maybe there's no DC at all. If the player rolls a high number, success. If the player rolls a low number, fail. If in the middle then add in modifiers. If a high value, success. If still middle, fail. Might as well have flipped a coin. With DC tables learning DMs have something to compare when something inevitably happens that's not specifically listed on the table. There's confidence in referencing a listed thing that's close enough to what is happening and use that number.

My rule of thumb is to define "hard" by tier: 15 at Tiers 1 and 2, 20 at Tier 3, 25 at Tier 4. What is considered a hard task for characters changes as they advance through those tiers.

Concerning autosuccess, I think that never calling for a roll just because the PC will blow it out of the water is a mistake. You don't want to overdo it, but the occasional "roll {thing} that I already know you're super special awesome at" makes the player feel powerful and brilliant.