D&D 5e Discussion

Aegeri

If I removed everything I disliked about races and such as being playable, I would have cut out a lot of races from 4E (Dragonborn included). But after a while I realized this wasn't actually very important to me and removing things I just disliked was a lazy way of doing things. Finding a way of adding something proved much better design wise and meant that anyone could play one of my games, knowing everything in 4E was in the game. Albeit I wasn't really investing in "building" my own worlds, because I was using Dark Sun (Discussed below), Eberron, Forgotten Realms and the PoL setting. The last three of whom are considerably "Kitchen Sink" like and it's easy to write anything you want into them. Although having a party of freaks who don't look human is somewhat odd world verisimilitude wise, so is having a group of basically super human individuals who slay dragons, cast spells that can level entire buildings and have probably (by the end of their careers) become massive political hotspots by themselves. So I can't really see the point in banning or discouraging anything anymore.

It was far more interesting an exercise to either force the player to justify why it was there, or come up with my own reason it was in the game in the first place. For example I used to ban Warforged from FR, now I don't really care and allow a player to select from a bunch of plausible origins - or just make up their own (so long as it's reasonably logical). If I was building my own world, making use of everything possible - even the aspects I don't like that much - proves much more useful in the long run. When I can just tell people about what their particular favourite race is doing, as opposed to just going "No, I don't like that" I had a lot more success with getting people invested and drawing new players. I had fantastic player retention in 4E, which aside from the system itself I like to think was just attributable to a much better attitude that I fostered in this regard.

The only exception was Dark Sun and that's because I decided to enforce it "By the RAW" very deliberately. Really that was to enforce tone by removal of certain mechanics like divine classes and emphasis on psionics instead. Given that 4E was wonderfully designed to allow many different (highly effective) leaders as opposed to "remove divine, now the party has nobody who can effectively heal" then that felt pretty decent. But again I was running something like 3 games and 2 of those had absolutely no restrictions on what my players could take. The Dark Sun game had the agreement of everyone going into it (and I pretty firmly said "This is by the book Dark Sun"). At the same time, I gave the option of another Eberron campaign (which would again be completely kitchen sink) to the players - but they went with the Dark Sun setting.

Vanguard

Denada wrote: »

I think that's the crux of the disagreement. Mechanics do not themselves create tone. Mechanics are designed specifically to support an intended tone that gets decided upon beforehand. I can't imagine that someone looked at Burning Wheel and said "Oh, this has a Steel mechanic. I guess we should describe combat as being more intense and deadly then."

Denada wrote: »

SageinaRage wrote: »

Denada wrote: »

I think that's the crux of the disagreement. Mechanics do not themselves create tone. Mechanics are designed specifically to support an intended tone that gets decided upon beforehand. I can't imagine that someone looked at Burning Wheel and said "Oh, this has a Steel mechanic. I guess we should describe combat as being more intense and deadly then."

This is like saying that fluff doesn't create tone, it just supports a tone that was decided beforehand. Of course it was created beforehand, tone isn't created accidentally, it's done intentionally using tools like mechanics and fluff. The fact that a tone was decided beforehand is a truism, and not really an argument for anything.

Other than that, you've just got another unsupported assertion that mechanics don't create tone.

"This is like saying that fluff doesn't create tone, it just supports a tone that was decided beforehand."
-Correct!

"Of course it was created beforehand, tone isn't created accidentally, it's done intentionally using tools like mechanics and fluff."
-Correct! And also the reason I used words like "intended" and "designed"!

"The fact that a tone was decided beforehand is a truism, and not really an argument for anything."
-Correct!

"Other than that, you've just got another unsupported assertion that mechanics don't create tone."
-Correct! Because they don't! "Steel" does not create tone. It is created to support a desired tone. "Hit Points" do not create tone. Hit Points are created to support a desired tone. It's not a statement about whether mechanics and tone are linked. It's a statement about the nature of that link, really more along the lines of where these things come to be in the design process of a game. Think of it as a chicken and egg statement. The tone comes first.

Just look at WotC's 5E posts. They've all been about what kind of "tone" and "feel" the designers want for the game, and how they're trying to design and choose mechanics, fluff, art styles, and even logo styles that support that tone. They're not starting with "Okay guys, Hit Points. Let's make a game that feels like Hit Points."

I think this is the best post in this line of discussion, but I have a few questions: is tone flavor? Or are we running with flavor as fluff? I remember, I think it was one of your posts, that you said rather than flavor perhaps we should call it tone instead? Maybe I'm wrong.

If tone is flavor, we have new complications to this argument. The majority position has been that flavor is decided by fluff. This post implies that flavor (tone) is supported/reinforced by the fluff and the crunch and the interaction of the two. Is this a sound reading of this argument? If so, I agree. I'm very skeptical of dichotomies and have never agreed that there are only two components to the game (fluff and crunch).

SageinaRage

Ok I'm now completely convinced that everyone here agrees on everything, it's just that we used different words for things, or something.

Huuuuuugs.

Vanguard

Fuck you don't touch me.

Spoiler:

I keed.

Denada

Yeah, that was me that was saying we should probably use some term other than flavor. And I also think everyone here is basically in agreement. Most of the arguments and disagreements have been about semantics more than anything.

Vanguard

Denada wrote: »

Yeah, that was me that was saying we should probably use some term other than flavor. And I also think everyone here is basically in agreement. Most of the arguments and disagreements have been about semantics more than anything.

I think there's been semantic confusion, but we are in a different place than where we began. Your previous post is much different than SJs, "What mechanics don't add flavor, fluff does lol". At this point we've defined three things: tone, fluff, and crunch. In the beginning, there was only two.

Aegeri

I think you can enforce a feel of the game with rules mechanics to a degree: For example Dark Sun lacking divine classes means that you do actually get a different feel out of DS compared to other settings. Mostly because you make players go to other classes with a different set of mechanics - like Psionics - instead. At the same time, this feel isn't terribly enforced by rules because you can just as easily end up with the same thing in a regular campaign: Plenty of workable healing options so a lack of divine classes isn't infeasible.

Where you might have a very different set of mechanics was banning divine classes, then having to half ass some other way of getting healers back into the game if other classes don't do it as well. 2nd edition Dark Sun is like that, because the tone and feel of the game relies on "Elemental Clerics", who are basically divine clerics but pretending to be elemental because the entire game doesn't work when you don't have a healer. A core difference in tone between 4E Dark Sun and 2E Dark Sun (that often gets complained about) is that elemental clerics were basically given zero attention in the newer setting. That's an example of mechanics reflecting the flavor/tone of the game: In 2E you needed to half ass some concept in there to maintain a healer. 4E doesn't need to do that and so they didn't bother officially supporting it in the rules - you just didn't need it.

I even think I can find a quote from one of the designers on 4E Dark Sun saying exactly that as well (Maybe Rodney Thompson? It's been so long now).

Edit: I am also probably going to sign up for the open playtest. So if you are Australian and in Sydney, want to see if 5E is a total trainwreck or not (it most likely is) then I am more than happy to run a game of 5E with you (or for an existing group, I don't really mind). Just send me a PM and we'll work something out.

Amigu

I can't figure out how to pm on my phone but I'm in if you run a game! I have like at least two other players who've been keen to play again since I dropped the ball on DMing too.

Aegeri

That would be good. We shall organize something then. I think I know a couple of people who might want to try some 5E. Running a game IRL isn't terribly work intensive and I am free most Saturdays, so hopefully we can get something together.

bss

I hope someone runs a playtest on the forum because I don't really have any interest in playing it just yet but I would like to observe something.

---

This is a place where the 4e rules really help us out. 2e Dark Sun really suffered from a dearth of characters in the leader (healer) role. Most elemental clerics were mediocre healers at best, and not many people wanted to play a templar to be the party healer.

So in 4e, you can have warlords and bards and ardents (well, you’ll see them soon) anchoring your party in the leader role. With gods absent from the setting, it feels like the best implementation of the setting to remove the divine power source, and let people explore the alternatives.

the man him-fucking-self, Rich Baker

Aegeri

I would be considering doing that, but unfortunately without a functional computer (still!, but soon I will have a new one sigh) it's just not possible for me to do so at the moment.

Amigu

I hear you don't need a functional computer you can play just fine with the broken computer module

bss

Just be sure that you swap the dice module back in first, because doing the seeds and crypto hashes for a pseudorandom number generator by hand can be a bitch.

DMBrendon

Aegeri wrote: »

I think you can enforce a feel of the game with rules mechanics to a degree: For example Dark Sun lacking divine classes means that you do actually get a different feel out of DS compared to other settings.

This is a great example of how mechanics change things. Little mechanics may not change the tone at all, but big mechanics do, I wonder where the line is. One of the things I liked about earlier editions was that different classes had different mechanics so that they felt very different to play (Fighter vs. Mage). I also favour the traditional method of handling turning undead for this reason, when people suggest that it should just be a spell. The only real disadvantage I see is that it makes it harder to balance.

SJ

Except that, in that case especially, you're talking about the background having an effect on the mechanics, not the other way around. The tone and etc already exists, and it's being represented mechanically via class availability.

Antimatter

http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/blog/2012/05/10/goblins_care_only_about_your_axe
http://community.wizards.com/dndnext/blog/2012/05/16/skills_and_task_resolution
hrm

Denada

I like what they've been saying so far about backgrounds and divorcing skills from class selection. It feels like there's been a noticeable shift in tone since Monte Cook left, and the articles and blog posts have become more positive.

Brainleech

they have been but then I only started to look at them again since the end of March

Vanguard

That's a neat idea, writing the combat abilities to function according to more abstract and concrete styles of play.

I still think we're going to have the problem of figuring out what rules are being used, but it does seem like they're stepping closer to their intentions with these decisions.

Mikey CTS

Hmm I think I like this idea of lumping feats, skills, etc. into a single category and calling it traits. They've always had a tough time balancing feats based on the combat/roleplay/exploration paradigm. So dump them and balance them against skills. I think it can work but I'm skeptical as they've never been able to balance feats against themselves. How can they balance feats against skills if they can't balance a feat against other feats?

Nealneal

My impression was that feats would be combat related things, skills would be exploration type things, and traits would be RP types things. In that case, you can take the RP and exploration feats and move them to skills and traits. That way feats only have to be balanced against other combat options, skills only have to be balanced against other skills and traits only have to be balanced against other traits. I like the idea of it, but I need more concrete examples before I am sold completely.

Mikey CTS

Nealneal wrote: »

My impression was that feats would be combat related things, skills would be exploration type things, and traits would be RP types things. In that case, you can take the RP and exploration feats and move them to skills and traits. That way feats only have to be balanced against other combat options, skills only have to be balanced against other skills and traits only have to be balanced against other traits. I like the idea of it, but I need more concrete examples before I am sold completely.

I maybe explained it poorly. My reading was they were going to lump skills and feats together with new "rp mechanics" then called them all "Traits". You'd have X number of Trait points at character creation and level to spend. Examples they listed were Trained in Charm (Charisma), Extra Language, and Workshop. Trained in Charm is the example of a "skill", Extra Lanauge is the "feat" example, while Workshop is the example of a "roleplay" trait.

Someone earlier in the thread called it D&D with GURPS tacked on, and that seems pretty apt now.

Nealneal

Based on the blog posts, the way they've described it is themes (right now they seem to essentially be 4e builds) provide a preset package of feats. You can not take a theme and pick up feats individually when you would normally get them. Backgrounds are your skill packages. They are seperate from class though since they want to get away from class hemming you in with what you can possibly be good at. Finally traits are supposed to be things like the workshop or whatever that add flavor, and can be used for RP stuff, but are less mechanical in nature. But you're not going to be choosing a Theme over a Background or a Trait. They will all be seperate resources. For instance at first level you might get your theme, your background skills and one trait, then at second you get another feat, and third you get another trait. Like I said, I like the IDEA of it, but I need to see the implementaion of it to be a believer.

Mikey CTS

It seems that their thought process is a bit scattered, cause that's not what I took away from this blog post at all. Maybe I'm not understanding the concept that author is trying to convey. With the date of the open playtesting around the corner that has me very concerned. They should really have a more concrete foundation than this, shoudn't they?

Denada

I think the particular "this" they're discussing isn't even part of their "concrete foundation". As far as I can tell, the only thing they've got concrete are the absolute most basic mechanics, like d20s, Hit Points, Levels, Races, Classes, etc. Themes, backgrounds, traits, and all that stuff are part of the playtest to see if people like it. At least that's the impression I'm getting.

Mikey CTS

I'm not sure they've even got the "core material" together yet, but I'm treading dangerously close to speculation having not seen the full material yet. You're right, this is part of the "modular system" they're attempting to create and thus optional, and likely subject to heavy alteration over the course of the upcoming playtest. Hopefully for the best.

Antimatter

http://wizards.com/dnd/Article.aspx?x=dnd/4ll/20120521
Hit Dice are back.

no thank you.

SUPERSUGA

Level was pretty much synonymous with Hit Dice in 4e, so I don't see this as a big change. Not sure how I feel about rolling to see how much HP you regain upon resting, but it sounds pretty trivial to me.

I'm really struggling to get a vision of where 5e is at right now, so very much looking forward to being able to look at something resembling a playable draft.

Aegeri

It's actually a huge change: They are literally replacing a system that worked extremely well in 4E called Healing Surges with "Roll random shit and hope your fighter doesn't roll a 1 on his d10 or we need the Cleric anyway". They are literally trying to solve the problem of "How do I heal without healing surges as a mechanic, without just blatantly adding healing surges as a mechanic?" and it's hilariously clumsy to read. Healing surges were fantastic because they were not random. You always knew how much you had and how much you would get + whatever magical healing added on top.

Having this stuff utterly random completely goes against the concept you don't need magical healing: Precisely the opposite effect occurs.

Aegeri

DOUBLE POST.

Grog

If the spider drops the fighter, it lands a deadly attack. The wound is vicious and ugly. It bleeds freely, and only prompt attention or sheer luck can save the fighter. If mundane bandages are all the fighter's companions have on hand, it will take a couple of days for the fighter to return to action. At this point, there's a chance that the fighter will have a lasting scar, and he or she needs magic to get back into the fight in the short term.

Ok maybe I'm taking this out of context, he was just explaining the idea of hit points after a-

It's important to note that Hit Dice come into play to represent mundane healing. Potions and spells restore hit points and ignore Hit Dice. If a character relies on natural healing, it takes quite a while to recover.

Oh. Fun.

Jam Warrior

I kinda see what they're going for in that they want characters to have some ability to natuarlly heal but not to be as durable as 4E charcters were without magical intervention. This doesn't sound at all like it's making the Cleric optional though.

So three day until we see what's the proper state of play in the play test?

bss

After a couple weeks of vague-but-encouraging non-mechanical articles, I was waiting for the other, shitty, shoe to drop, and the hit points article did not disappoint.

Aegeri wrote: »

It's actually a huge change: They are literally replacing a system that worked extremely well in 4E called Healing Surges with "Roll random shit and hope your fighter doesn't roll a 1 on his d10 or we need the Cleric anyway". They are literally trying to solve the problem of "How do I heal without healing surges as a mechanic, without just blatantly adding healing surges as a mechanic?" and it's hilariously clumsy to read. Healing surges were fantastic because they were not random. You always knew how much you had and how much you would get + whatever magical healing added on top.

Having this stuff utterly random completely goes against the concept you don't need magical healing: Precisely the opposite effect occurs.

Right. I don't know how they miss it (or fail to address it) but randomized healing just makes the fighter more swingy, because either he rolled 10s on his Nd10 healing and he's good to go because he's back in juggernaut mode, or he rolled 1s and he dies like a punk next adventure. A bigger random number is only an illusion of durability.

And I don't know why they thought to reuse the name of a totally different mechanic. That's just retarded.

Grog wrote: »

If the spider drops the fighter, it lands a deadly attack. The wound is vicious and ugly. It bleeds freely, and only prompt attention or sheer luck can save the fighter. If mundane bandages are all the fighter's companions have on hand, it will take a couple of days for the fighter to return to action. At this point, there's a chance that the fighter will have a lasting scar, and he or she needs magic to get back into the fight in the short term.

Ok maybe I'm taking this out of context, he was just explaining the idea of hit points after a-

It's important to note that Hit Dice come into play to represent mundane healing. Potions and spells restore hit points and ignore Hit Dice. If a character relies on natural healing, it takes quite a while to recover.

Oh. Fun.

This is the part that does it for me. This area of the article is the rejection of 4e's style of play. When the game was to capture the best elements of all editions, for 4e they apparently meant surface cosmetic elements ("Check it out, guys! We have at-will powers and themes! We soooooooo love 4e!") rather than capture or maintain (or allow) 4e's improvements on balance or approach to high heroics.

Who is ready for the playtest! I might glance at the material between Diablo III and my 4e character builder clean room implementation farting around.

Vanguard

Personally, I like randomness in my games. I know I am very much alone in this, but one thing I have to comment on is

bss wrote: »

randomized healing just makes the fighter more swingy, because either he rolled 10s on his Nd10 healing and he's good to go because he's back in juggernaut mode, or he rolled 1s and he dies like a punk next adventure. A bigger random number is only an illusion of durability.

A d10 does have other numbers besides 1 and 10. I understand these are the outliers, but rolling a 6,7,8, or 9 is still going to give him a solid second wind.

Nealneal

This terrible healing article combined with the paladin alignment requirements have convinced me that unless major changes come from the playtest, I will not be playing Next at all. I will stick around through the playtest and try to give good feedback. I hope that things aren't as bad as the design team has presented, but I am not optimistic. WotC seems determined to trash everything related to 4e.

Grog

Vanguard wrote: »

Personally, I like randomness in my games. I know I am very much alone in this, but one thing I have to comment on is

bss wrote: »

randomized healing just makes the fighter more swingy, because either he rolled 10s on his Nd10 healing and he's good to go because he's back in juggernaut mode, or he rolled 1s and he dies like a punk next adventure. A bigger random number is only an illusion of durability.

A d10 does have other numbers besides 1 and 10. I understand these are the outliers, but rolling a 6,7,8, or 9 is still going to give him a solid second wind.

I think the point is more that this doesn't give him much of an advantage over a wizard in terms of durability. All it gives him is the chance to be a bit more durable.

Mikey CTS

Mmm and my claim regarding them not having the core material together proves to be valid.

Vanguard wrote: »

Personally, I like randomness in my games. I know I am very much alone in this, but one thing I have to comment on is

bss wrote: »

randomized healing just makes the fighter more swingy, because either he rolled 10s on his Nd10 healing and he's good to go because he's back in juggernaut mode, or he rolled 1s and he dies like a punk next adventure. A bigger random number is only an illusion of durability.

A d10 does have other numbers besides 1 and 10. I understand these are the outliers, but rolling a 6,7,8, or 9 is still going to give him a solid second wind.

You have missed his point. They are trading consistancy for randomness. With this system, they have effectively made it so that you cannot rely on natural healing. What made the second wind mechanic work was that it was consistant and reliable. You could count on it in a pinch. This new mechanic basically makes it so some days you're completely crippled and other days you're ready to go. There is nothing fun about having to go back to town or make camp for days on end for healing. This is his complaint. By removing a consistant, reliable mechanics (static hp per level/healing surge), they're making the game less fun for character's who only real advantage is their hit point totals.

If they're going to make fighters roll for both hit points per level and healing, well then they should enforce the same mechanic for spellcasters. "But Mikey, wizards will have to roll for hit points, too," you say? We already recognize that without powers a fighter's primary resource is his hit points. Not so for spellcasters. Their primary resource is spells. Yet, spellcasters get a static number of spells per level and day. They get the full alotmont of spells their level allows. I say, force them to roll to gain new spells per level and to memorize new spells at the start of each day. If they roll poorly, well, that's just the randomness of dice! Doesn't sound like much fun, does it?

Vanguard

I didn't miss the point. I'm not sure you read my post. I said I liked randomness in my games, but understood that others don't.

In other news, DCC RPG literally just dropped on my desk. Holy shit, this book is thicker than the Pathfinder core book.

Mikey CTS

Vanguard wrote: »

I didn't miss the point. I'm not sure you read my post. I said I liked randomness in my games, but understood that others don't.

In other news, DCC RPG literally just dropped on my desk. Holy shit, this book is thicker than the Pathfinder core book.

Then I apologize for misunderstanding your post.

What is DCC RPG? I know Iron Kingdoms is supposed to hit this summer, and I'm pretty excited to get a look at that, but I'm not sure what DCC is. First I've heard of it.

Vanguard

Mikey CTS wrote: »

Vanguard wrote: »

I didn't miss the point. I'm not sure you read my post. I said I liked randomness in my games, but understood that others don't.

In other news, DCC RPG literally just dropped on my desk. Holy shit, this book is thicker than the Pathfinder core book.

Then I apologize for misunderstanding your post.

What is DCC RPG? I know Iron Kingdoms is supposed to hit this summer, and I'm pretty excited to get a look at that, but I'm not sure what DCC is. First I've heard of it.

Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG. It's a hybrid of Appendix N influence, 1st edition flavor, and simplified 3rd edition mechanics (no complicated skill system, no feats, no attacks of opportunity). It ditches Vancian magic, too. Spellcasters now have to roll to cast spells.

The game will be available in stores later this week, maybe as early as tomorrow.

Edit: Actually, it looks like it came in today. My FLGS had some, so I grabbed a second copy of the book, though not the deluxe edition.