The issue with illusion magic in D&D/traditional fantasy RPGs is that it does not interact with the encounter and HP/resource use structure in a way that will work properly.
It either works and lets you smartly skip stuff (for one spell slot? Shame on you).
Or it doesn't and lets you get like, what, a sneak attack if the GM's nice?
Why is the focus always on the mechanical result though and not the way you got there?
Nobody tells people about how they got a sneak attack on the whozits for extra damage. They tell stories the about the time the wizard used this awesome illusion that fooled all the bad guys and the rogue got to sneak around because of the distractions and landed a sweet backstab on the big bad guy and everyone cheered.
This gets into the larger philosophical arguments about D&D so I'm not sure you're going to get a satisfying response, but let me give you my perspective as someone who has played a lot of D&D but kind of doesn't like it anymore.
The first part is that combat in D&D is always a mechanically-based system with mechanically-based results. In many groups you'll never hear the sweet backstab story because they did the math and decided that everyone getting the jump on the bad guys and the wizard having an extra 2nd level spell was more important than the rogue getting a single sneak attack, especially since the rogue would likely have trouble finishing the job when the warrior couldn't get past the mooks to engage the big bad and get them more sneak attacks.
Now maybe it's a big bad that's a terrifying sorcerer with no HP and your rogue is an assassin so they get an auto crit and one-shot them. That's pretty sweet. But D&D isn't a game about one big dramatic combat and your wizard only has so many spell slots. Every time they choose the illusion they're filling a slot that may potentially do nothing for the chance that it one-shots a sorcerer.
Alternately, your group figures out it's quite mechanically efficient. Now your open each of your session's 2-4 combats per session with the wizard casting illusion so the rogue can get in a free sneak attack. The 17th time your wizard makes an illusion of a big troll and says "boo" is a lot less exciting than the first, and your wizard is probably pretty bored at looking at their list of 2nd level spells and just picking illusion over and over again.
Now at this point you may be thinking, who the hell thinks that much or that broadly about D&D? And the answer is people who play a lot of D&D. And there are a lot of people who play D&D. In fact I would venture that there are more people in the world who are playing in two simultaneous D&D campaigns than there are people who are playing any other RPG. If it's not more, it isn't far off. So D&D as a game that encourages people to play a lot of and nothing but D&D, whether in its mechanics, its marketing, or its socialization, falls prey to the consequences of people who play enough of a game that they can't not see the "game" part.
Now you're probably thinking, wouldn't we be better off if they played an RPG other than D&D? And yes, yes we would.
I too have played a lot of D&D, for a long time now, and I think I might like it more than ever! And I can state, which just as much confidence as you are now, that not every group reduces itself to shaving HP off a monster on a battlemap. Not every group falls into a boring routine that repeasts every session. A routine that, by your description, seems that all the fun is sucked out of the game at all. I don't know anyone who plays like that, and I've been playing D&D for more than 20 years now. If that's been your experience for all the D&D that you've played? Well.... that sucks for you, man. But you are painting with a brush that I do not think is as wide as you think it is.
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KwoaruConfident SmirkFlawless Golden PecsRegistered Userregular
We finished the campaign of Gloomhaven Jaws of Lion, it was really fun! The last couple missions were tough but it was a good time. We technically have one side mission available to us but we're probably not gonna play it, instead we're gonna take a break and then move on to ye olde gloomhaven
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
The issue with illusion magic in D&D/traditional fantasy RPGs is that it does not interact with the encounter and HP/resource use structure in a way that will work properly.
It either works and lets you smartly skip stuff (for one spell slot? Shame on you).
Or it doesn't and lets you get like, what, a sneak attack if the GM's nice?
Why is the focus always on the mechanical result though and not the way you got there?
Nobody tells people about how they got a sneak attack on the whozits for extra damage. They tell stories the about the time the wizard used this awesome illusion that fooled all the bad guys and the rogue got to sneak around because of the distractions and landed a sweet backstab on the big bad guy and everyone cheered.
This gets into the larger philosophical arguments about D&D so I'm not sure you're going to get a satisfying response, but let me give you my perspective as someone who has played a lot of D&D but kind of doesn't like it anymore.
The first part is that combat in D&D is always a mechanically-based system with mechanically-based results. In many groups you'll never hear the sweet backstab story because they did the math and decided that everyone getting the jump on the bad guys and the wizard having an extra 2nd level spell was more important than the rogue getting a single sneak attack, especially since the rogue would likely have trouble finishing the job when the warrior couldn't get past the mooks to engage the big bad and get them more sneak attacks.
Now maybe it's a big bad that's a terrifying sorcerer with no HP and your rogue is an assassin so they get an auto crit and one-shot them. That's pretty sweet. But D&D isn't a game about one big dramatic combat and your wizard only has so many spell slots. Every time they choose the illusion they're filling a slot that may potentially do nothing for the chance that it one-shots a sorcerer.
Alternately, your group figures out it's quite mechanically efficient. Now your open each of your session's 2-4 combats per session with the wizard casting illusion so the rogue can get in a free sneak attack. The 17th time your wizard makes an illusion of a big troll and says "boo" is a lot less exciting than the first, and your wizard is probably pretty bored at looking at their list of 2nd level spells and just picking illusion over and over again.
Now at this point you may be thinking, who the hell thinks that much or that broadly about D&D? And the answer is people who play a lot of D&D. And there are a lot of people who play D&D. In fact I would venture that there are more people in the world who are playing in two simultaneous D&D campaigns than there are people who are playing any other RPG. If it's not more, it isn't far off. So D&D as a game that encourages people to play a lot of and nothing but D&D, whether in its mechanics, its marketing, or its socialization, falls prey to the consequences of people who play enough of a game that they can't not see the "game" part.
Now you're probably thinking, wouldn't we be better off if they played an RPG other than D&D? And yes, yes we would.
I too have played a lot of D&D, for a long time now, and I think I might like it more than ever! And I can state, which just as much confidence as you are now, that not every group reduces itself to shaving HP off a monster on a battlemap. Not every group falls into a boring routine that repeasts every session. A routine that, by your description, seems that all the fun is sucked out of the game at all. I don't know anyone who plays like that, and I've been playing D&D for more than 20 years now. If that's been your experience for all the D&D that you've played? Well.... that sucks for you, man. But you are painting with a brush that I do not think is as wide as you think it is.
That's fine. I was explaining a perspective that you inquired about. You can believe or not believe it at your leisure.
I mean, I love grid based tactical RPGs like The Banner Saga and Disgaea, and when I was introduced to D&D it was via a late 3.5 era starter set that included dungeon tiles and miniatures. I love combat in D&D and am having to make an effort to have marginally less of it in my current campaign to satisfy a player who got into D&D through Critical Role and therefore expects less combat and more roleplay.
My campaign is only three sessions old at this point, but my Sorcerer player is using a lot of illusion spells in conjunction with Pyrotechnics.
On the second session the party snuck up on three hobgoblins trying to get a larger group of rebellious goblins in line. He cast Pyrotechnics to create a smoke cloud and used Minor Illusion to make the sound of a hobgoblin war cry, setting the two sets of goblinoids against each other while the party picked off any that emerged from the smoke cloud (I was honestly hoping the party would side with the rebel goblins, one of whom had cleric spells that could aid the party, but oh well).
On the third session he used Silent Image to make an illusion of a dragon leaving the area as another group of goblinoids began to emerge from a tunnel. He and the rest of the party then hid, himself scrunching up on the ground and using Minor Illusion to make an illusory crate appear around him. Unfortunately one of the hobgoblins tried to open the crate, revealing the illusion for what it was and exposing the Sorcerer. After a brief conversation with the hobgoblin warlord who was open to the party helping them fight a mutual enemy (before capturing the weakened party afterwards to sell into slavery to the duergar), the Sorcerer used a Subtle Spell Minor Illusion to create the sound of a dragon's roar before suggesting the party and the goblinoids should get quickly get a move-on before the supposed dragon returned (before any of the goblinoids could inspect the bodies and see that the dead had clearly not been killed by a dragon).
Later on in that same session he used Minor Illusion to lure some grimlocks to one spot where they could be more easily targeted by the party and their temporary goblinoid allies.
The campaign's still young, but the Sorcerer player has gotten some mileage out of his illusion spells so far. Going forward I'm going to try and design some scenarios where I can imagine illusion spells being especially handy.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Look I'm not here to tell anyone they're playing pretend wrong, it's great that you've hit a stride that you are comfortable with that is fun for everyone involved and that is important.
But nothing you described was actually supported by the mechanics of the game and at some point you are just improvising all of it. That's rad if that works for you, but you're going out of your way to do things that D&D explicitly doesn't engage with mechanically and that's kind of the entire point of this discussion.
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
Look I'm not here to tell anyone they're playing pretend wrong, it's great that you've hit a stride that you are comfortable with that is fun for everyone involved and that is important.
But nothing you described was actually supported by the mechanics of the game and at some point you are just improvising all of it. That's rad if that works for you, but you're going out of your way to do things that D&D explicitly doesn't engage with mechanically and that's kind of the entire point of this discussion.
What's wrong with improvising? Are you not supposed to improvise when playing TTRPG's? I don't think determining the results of an illusion spell is in any way going out of my way to make D&D do things it explicitly doesn't do. I don't agree with that premise.
Major Image in D&D 5e says: "You create an illusion. Anyone viewing said illusion can make a check to see through the illusion." Now, to me, that reads as the player creates whatever scenario he wants, lets say a fake wall of fire, and that its up to the Dungeon Master to interpret how those who see this illusion react. That's a little loosey-goosey and leaves lots of room for creative, role playing work. The DM decides that the Orcs who are running after the party stops short at the wall, and spend some time inspecting the wall and/or freaking out a bit at a wall of fire that just appeared. Mechanically this represents the Orcs spending their action on their turns to make their checks to determine if they see through the illusion or not. Some of them may pass, some of them may fail. Those that pass tell the others its a fake and continue the chase. Or maybe they all failed and throw a fit as the party gets away.
Actual text of Major Image:
Major Image
You create the image of an object, a creature, or some other visible phenomenon that is no larger than a 20-foot cube. The image appears at a spot that you can see within range and lasts for the Duration. It seems completely real, including sounds, smells, and temperature appropriate to the thing depicted. You can't create sufficient heat or cold to cause damage, a sound loud enough to deal thunder damage or deafen a creature, or a smell that might sicken a creature (like a troglodyte's stench).
As long as you are within range of the Illusion, you can use your action to cause the image to move to any other spot within range. As the image changes location, you can alter its appearance so that its movements appear natural for the image. For example, if you create an image of a creature and move it, you can alter the image so that it appears to be walking. Similarly, you can cause the Illusion to make different sounds at different times, even making it carry on a conversation, for example.
Physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an Illusion, because things can pass through it. A creature that uses its action to examine the image can determine that it is an Illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the Illusion for what it is, the creature can see through the image, and its other sensory qualities become faint to the creature.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the spell lasts until dispelled, without requiring your Concentration.
How would this scenario be handled then in another fantasy themed TTRPG? What does Pathfinder say about the mechanics of illusion spells? Warhammer? Dungeon World? I'm not being snarky here, I genuinely am not familiar with those systems. What do they do, mechanically, that D&D does not in this illusion scenario?
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3cl1ps3I will build a labyrinth to house the cheeseRegistered Userregular
Absolutely no one has said "improvising is bad."
What people have said is "D&D as written does not support what you have done, it's entirely improvisation, if you prefer that improvised gameplay there are systems that better support it mechanically than D&D."
How would this scenario be handled then in another fantasy themed TTRPG? What does Pathfinder say about the mechanics of illusion spells? Warhammer? Dungeon World? I'm not being snarky here, I genuinely am not familiar with those systems. What do they do, mechanically, that D&D does not in this illusion scenario?
I'm curious about this, too. Maybe I'd understand the problem if I had specific examples of how illusions are used in games that aren't D&D or its kin.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
edited September 2020
Dungeon World doesn't actually have any illusion spells of that sort. It's got invisibility and mirror image and such, but not something as freeform as Major Image.
That said, casting a spell in Dungeon World is always the same, so presumably it would just be 10+ it succeeds, 7-9 it succeeds but you forget the spell (or other drawback), and 6- it fails. For something like Major Image, I would assume succeed is defined as "the target(s) believe that the illusion is real" and I would probably add in that you have a penalty to cast additional spells while it is ongoing, but that's essentially all there would be.
If I was a GM and I was confronted with a player casting this, yeah, my answer would be that the target believes that illusion is real and modifies their behavior thusly. Which is essentially what people are saying they've done in D&D. If the player was trying to stretch things a bit or using the illusion against someone who would likely be wise to that sort of thing, I might add in a Defy Danger (INT) to see if they were convincing enough with it, because I feel like the 7-9 there (hard bargain, worse outcome, or ugly choice) would present some fun opportunities.
Alternately, of course, if there was an illusion in the world (which could readily happen because NPCs aren't beholden to PC spell lists), then I would just be having the players make a discern realities check and hope they're smart enough to ask "What here is not what it appears to be?"
Just to be explicit, so we're all on the same page:
This spell (that I just made up) does not use or interact with any actual game mechanics:
Spectral Dragon
The caster conjures up the image of a dragon. The illusion is under the caster's control.
This spell (that I just made up) does use or interacts with actual game mechanics (maybe not D&D ones, it's been a while since I read the rules and don't recall all the proper terms):
Frightful Wyrm
The caster conjures up the image of a dragon. Any non-friendly creature with Int 3+ within a 50 yard radius of the dragon image has to make a Will saving throw each round or be Feared; those who make the save are Surprised for 1 round. The dragon image lasts for 3 rounds and is under the caster's control. Moving the dragon image around also moves the dragon image's frightful aura.
It's been a while since I looked, but as I recall D&D illusion spells are kinda in the middle. They have some rules governing them (their level, how long they last, etc), but they don't always give you a specific mechanical effect that happens when you cast the spell. If there is no specific mechanical effect, then it's up to the players at the table to decide, in the moment, what effect the spell will have on the game. If the players need to come up with the rules for this interaction themselves, then that means - by definition - that the rules aren't a part of D&D. The same interaction could have happened while playing any other game - Pathfinder, 13th Age, Vampire, even my critically-acclaimed, award-winning, fan-favorite, completely imaginary game "Dorks in a Basement".
It could have even happened without playing any specific game at all.
This does not make the experience bad, it does not make the illusion spell bad, it does not make D&D bad. It does mean that D&D does not have any mechanical support for that specific illusion spell.
One of the wisest lessons I took away from all the RPG discussions on this forum is this: The interactions that a game has rules for are the interactions that a game considers important. They are the interactions that the game wants players to engage in, in the hope that those interactions will create a certain experience for the players. If a game does not have rules for a certain interaction, then the game doesn't consider that interaction very meaningful to whatever experience it's trying to create.
Follow-up: If you want to play a game that creates a certain experience, then you would be best served by looking for a game that has rules that attempt to generate that experience.
For example: You can do a murder investigation game in D&D, and it would probably be a cool fun time, and would be a good diversion from eradicating goblins or haggling with Elf Queens. However, D&D doesn't really support investigation gameplay. You can Intimidate a witness or Search a room or something, but anything beyond that is ad hoc improvisation by the players, and is not governed by the rules of D&D. Heck, D&D doesn't even tell you exactly what Intimidating a witness will do! It's up to the DM to decide if they want to drop you a clue! On the other hand, the Gumshoe System is designed explicitly for running games about investigation. Robin D. Laws spent a lot of time and effort thinking about what makes investigations fun, what makes investigations stall and be unfun, and designed rules to maximize the former and minimize the latter. If you want a fun investigation diversion, you can of course drop it into your D&D game, but if you want a game about investigation, it would probably make more sense to use something like the Gumshoe System.
You can use D&D to do a game about being moody monster teenagers who are falling in love with, lusting after, and having crushes on each other, but D&D does not have rules to facilitate any of that. It would be almost indistinguishable from doing an acting exercise without any dice, rulebooks, or character sheets in sight. On the other hand, Monsterhearts is designed explicitly to create this kind of experience. It has rules specifically for the interactions of moody, hormonal teenagers who want to jump each other's bones.
D&D doesn't have mechanics for sharing an intimate, post-coital moment with another person because that is not an experience that it is trying to evoke for the players. It does have rules for lockpicking, flanking, or hiding behind cover, because that is very important to the experience it's trying to evoke. Monsterhearts, by contrast, very much does have mechanics for sharing an intimate, post-coital moment with another person, but doesn't care even a little bit about lockpicking.
Neither game has rules for, e.g., pooping, because that's not part of the fantasy either game is trying to engage in - although I assure you that pooping is a very real concern both when trying to sneak up on a lich and when trying to woo your crush. Rest assured that my upcoming "Dorks in a Basement" game has very granular rules for how much pizza and Funyuns you can eat before you have to poop.
Realistically, it's not always possible to choose the game that best creates the experience you want. Maybe you want a bunch of different experiences, in which case a GURPS or a D&D might be the best lowest common denominator. Maybe you don't really care about the specific experiences because the experience you actually want is an evening with your pals. Maybe your pals want investigations but don't want to play Gumshoe. Maybe you're all tired 30-somethings who don't want to spend the time learning new rules. Maybe you have only ever heard of D&D, and don't even know that a Gumshoe exists! All very real, reasonable, and legit reasons.
There is a certain charm to having creativity with such loose effects. Illusion box for hiding in past patrols, illusion hole in the ground to deter somebody from crossing, personally knowing somebody has a phobia and illusion terrorizing them, etc. It’s thrilling when it works. Unfortunately there’s a buncha agreements between GM and players it chafes.
Bypassing a few too many campaign challenges at once, debates over how characters would react to specific stimuli, preparing for the wide variety of potential effects without encounter design becoming stale, players narrowing down to a small list of effective tricks instead of being creative, etc.
I think the fulfillment of the fantasy is too uncommon for how disruptive players get over chasing it. I would probably constrain it by choosing a specific narrative manipulation you want(false obstruction, object of distraction, mundane concealment) and let the player choose what sorta image would fulfill that task and roll for effectiveness. Ideally there would be a negotiation with the GM on what the target thinks about the illusion vs what would dispel it but that seems like still too much busywork. Essentially a buncha minor mechanical effects bundled into one spell that may be a little underwhelming individually but has value in flexibility.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
There is a certain charm to having creativity with such loose effects. Illusion box for hiding in past patrols, illusion hole in the ground to deter somebody from crossing, personally knowing somebody has a phobia and illusion terrorizing them, etc. It’s thrilling when it works. Unfortunately there’s a buncha agreements between GM and players it chafes.
Bypassing a few too many campaign challenges at once, debates over how characters would react to specific stimuli, preparing for the wide variety of potential effects without encounter design becoming stale, players narrowing down to a small list of effective tricks instead of being creative, etc.
I think the fulfillment of the fantasy is too uncommon for how disruptive players get over chasing it. I would probably constrain it by choosing a specific narrative manipulation you want(false obstruction, object of distraction, mundane concealment) and let the player choose what sorta image would fulfill that task and roll for effectiveness. Ideally there would be a negotiation with the GM on what the target thinks about the illusion vs what would dispel it but that seems like still too much busywork. Essentially a buncha minor mechanical effects bundled into one spell that may be a little underwhelming individually but has value in flexibility.
Skill Challenges can also help facilitate a bit more free form gameplay, with the understanding that each player is going to garner a success or failure on their turn, without something completely annihilating a challenge the DM had prepped.
I'm going to be running a skill challenge dinner party tomorrow, and it will be very free form! The players will know the stakes, the scene and probably at least a couple of the NPCs. What they do to generate successes though will be completely up to them, but whatever it is, it won't end up game breaking.
This requires real good communication between the DM and the Players though, in regards to expectations, but I think it can be real fun while still providing a framework to allow their mechanical abilities and role playing abilities to shine.
One of the wisest lessons I took away from all the RPG discussions on this forum is this: The interactions that a game has rules for are the interactions that a game considers important. They are the interactions that the game wants players to engage in, in the hope that those interactions will create a certain experience for the players. If a game does not have rules for a certain interaction, then the game doesn't consider that interaction very meaningful to whatever experience it's trying to create.
Follow-up: If you want to play a game that creates a certain experience, then you would be best served by looking for a game that has rules that attempt to generate that experience.
For example: You can do a murder investigation game in D&D, and it would probably be a cool fun time, and would be a good diversion from eradicating goblins or haggling with Elf Queens. However, D&D doesn't really support investigation gameplay. You can Intimidate a witness or Search a room or something, but anything beyond that is ad hoc improvisation by the players, and is not governed by the rules of D&D. Heck, D&D doesn't even tell you exactly what Intimidating a witness will do! It's up to the DM to decide if they want to drop you a clue! On the other hand, the Gumshoe System is designed explicitly for running games about investigation. Robin D. Laws spent a lot of time and effort thinking about what makes investigations fun, what makes investigations stall and be unfun, and designed rules to maximize the former and minimize the latter. If you want a fun investigation diversion, you can of course drop it into your D&D game, but if you want a game about investigation, it would probably make more sense to use something like the Gumshoe System.
You can use D&D to do a game about being moody monster teenagers who are falling in love with, lusting after, and having crushes on each other, but D&D does not have rules to facilitate any of that. It would be almost indistinguishable from doing an acting exercise without any dice, rulebooks, or character sheets in sight. On the other hand, Monsterhearts is designed explicitly to create this kind of experience. It has rules specifically for the interactions of moody, hormonal teenagers who want to jump each other's bones.
D&D doesn't have mechanics for sharing an intimate, post-coital moment with another person because that is not an experience that it is trying to evoke for the players. It does have rules for lockpicking, flanking, or hiding behind cover, because that is very important to the experience it's trying to evoke. Monsterhearts, by contrast, very much does have mechanics for sharing an intimate, post-coital moment with another person, but doesn't care even a little bit about lockpicking.
Neither game has rules for, e.g., pooping, because that's not part of the fantasy either game is trying to engage in - although I assure you that pooping is a very real concern both when trying to sneak up on a lich and when trying to woo your crush. Rest assured that my upcoming "Dorks in a Basement" game has very granular rules for how much pizza and Funyuns you can eat before you have to poop.
Realistically, it's not always possible to choose the game that best creates the experience you want. Maybe you want a bunch of different experiences, in which case a GURPS or a D&D might be the best lowest common denominator. Maybe you don't really care about the specific experiences because the experience you actually want is an evening with your pals. Maybe your pals want investigations but don't want to play Gumshoe. Maybe you're all tired 30-somethings who don't want to spend the time learning new rules. Maybe you have only ever heard of D&D, and don't even know that a Gumshoe exists! All very real, reasonable, and legit reasons.
Oh, I agree with all that. I'm aware other games exist that are more focused and specialized for certain subjects and much better than just trying to make D&D do everything. I'd like to try some one day. However, I didn't really get to play any TTRPGs for years until D&D 5E exploded in popularity. I bought a lot of D&D 4E books, but by far the most use I've gotten out of them is to mine for things I can adapt for 5E.
I am still curious how other games would handle illusions specifically in a way superior to how D&D 5E does them, though. Part of the point of illusion spells in D&D 5E, to me anyway, is that they're more freeform and allow more creative freedom versus the more clearly defined spells like fireball.
D&D 4E's take on illusions was more combat centric and defined. Instead of having "make an illusion" spells, you might have something like this:
False Fissure
Encounter Power
"You cause an illusion of a rift opening in the earth, causing your foes to scramble away from the edge."
Area Burst 2 within 10 squares
Int vs Will
Hit: Targets take psychic damage, slide 3 squares, and believe the area of the burst is a bottomless pit (save ends). If they enter into the space of the burst while under this effect they take psychic damage and fall prone.
D&D fans who didn't like 4E hated this approach. They didn't like how rigidly defined illusion spells had become and that most spells had to deal damage.
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Really most of the conversations in regards to D&D come back to how much a group is willing to engage in "mother may I" with the DM. Some groups are awesome RPers with a really excepting DM, and some aren't. 4e as noted above tried to take away as much of the ambiguity as it could, and really emphasized the "Game" in TTRPG, which I don't have a problem with. I think the problem with modern D&D is that it doesn't do a great job in helping DMs be great at the free-form stuff.
Like this is a snippet from the "Objectives" section under encounters in the DMs Guide.
"Make Peace. The characters must convince two opposing groups (or their leaders) to end the conflict that embroils them. As a complication, the characters might have enemies on one or both of the opposing sides, or some other group or individual might be instigating the conflict to further its own ends."
this is super cool! HOW do you do it though? There aren't any suggestions or examples! The DM's Guide is chock full of super cool ideas, but no explanations on how a new DM might go about actually implementing it!
Here is another section in "A World of Your Own" Section 2 of the DM's Guide, spoilered for length.
Immersive Storytelling
Waterdeep is threatened by political turmoil. The adventurers must convince the Masked Lords, the city’s secret rulers, to resolve their differences, but can do so only after both the characters and the lords have come to terms with their differing outlooks and agendas. This style of gaming is deep, complex, and challenging. The focus isn’t on combat but on negotiations, political maneuverings, and character interaction. A whole game session might pass without a single attack roll.
In this style of game, the NPCs are as complex and richly detailed as the adventurers, although the focus lies on motivation and personality, not game statistics. Expect long digressions from each player about what his or her character does, and why. Going to a temple to ask a priest for advice can be as important an encounter as fighting orcs. (And don’t expect the adventurers to fight the orcs at all unless they are motivated to do so.) A character will sometimes take actions against the player’s better judgment, because “that’s what the character would do.”
Since combat isn’t the focus, game rules take a back seat to character development. Ability check modifiers and skill proficiencies take precedence over combat bonuses. Feel free to change or ignore rules to fit the players’ roleplaying needs, using the advice presented in part 3 of this book.
I've bolded the part of interest. I checked session 3, I don't see any advice for changing the rules to help implement this. Or even any gameplay suggestions for HOW to run a game like this. There's lots of random tables to building encounters, and npcs and motivations and stuff, but nothing on how to actually use any of it.
A different person in my group is GMing this current DnD campaign and man I am spending a lot of it bored. It is a whole bunch of: you are in a room, what do you do? Followed by having basically go through the motions of inspecting everything just to have any theatre of the mind or goal established at all. Same with towns: you are in a town, what do you do? Like, I don't know, you're the DM, you tell me what's worth engaging with in this initially nondescript location.
I'm doing more and more just zoning out until the other players go through the "walk over there and look, walk over there and look, etc" phase and there's actually something to do
How would this scenario be handled then in another fantasy themed TTRPG? What does Pathfinder say about the mechanics of illusion spells? Warhammer? Dungeon World? I'm not being snarky here, I genuinely am not familiar with those systems. What do they do, mechanically, that D&D does not in this illusion scenario?
Pathfinder says basically the same thing as D&D, because ... it's basically D&D.
Consider FATE, though. In a FATE game, I might have the character aspect that I am a powerful illusionist. In battle, I can use my Lore skill to cast illusions that confound and distract (or disrupt) my enemies. So, when I cast such a spell, I get to create an aspect on the scene like, "Illusionary Ogre" that has a couple of free invokes on it (depending on how well I rolled to cast the spell).
At that point, I - or anyone on my team - can spend those invokes to accomplish things: make a badguy run away, give a bonus to someone's attack, etc.
A different person in my group is GMing this current DnD campaign and man I am spending a lot of it bored. It is a whole bunch of: you are in a room, what do you do? Followed by having basically go through the motions of inspecting everything just to have any theatre of the mind or goal established at all. Same with towns: you are in a town, what do you do? Like, I don't know, you're the DM, you tell me what's worth engaging with in this initially nondescript location.
I'm doing more and more just zoning out until the other players go through the "walk over there and look, walk over there and look, etc" phase and there's actually something to do
One of the few advantages of me spending years desperately wanting to play D&D but not having opportunities was that I had plenty of time to read up on how to DM at least decently.
So far in my new campaign I've established the central "safe zone" (Seven-Pillared Hall), made a map listing the primary establishments of note, gave PCs that I feel would be particularly knowledgeable about the area relevant lore, had NPCs instigate conversation and casually mention other NPCs or things that I think might grab the players' attention, have scattered about unusual items, and have had events happen nearby that the players can choose to investigate or ignore as they see fit (for example, upon leaving Gendar's Curios & Relics they heard sounds of a scuffle and saw people fleeing from nearby Rothar's Tap Room; they ignored the hook).
I also use maps very often (and probably don't verbally describe the scenery enough...) so players can just see things on the map and have their PC investigate.
I also told the player group today they're going to likely have a week of downtime and presented multiple options. One player decided he wants to start working on a combination mine and headquarters for the party. He took notice when I mentioned in the first session that the local Dwarven mining company was looking for prospectors, and in session two the party found a book on constructing fortifications and a book on Dwarven blacksmithing techniques. He specifically mentioned the prospector job and the two books in a private message to me as things he wants to follow up on. I had honestly only included those things for flavor, but now I'm looking into how to help the player pursue his goal (the DMG does have rules for construction of various buildings and running a business, though I think I'm going to modify things to accomplish them faster).
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Yea, if I'm showing characters a scene (versus them going someplace on their own accord) there better be stuff for them to fucking do and at least some of it should be obvious.
How would this scenario be handled then in another fantasy themed TTRPG? What does Pathfinder say about the mechanics of illusion spells? Warhammer? Dungeon World? I'm not being snarky here, I genuinely am not familiar with those systems. What do they do, mechanically, that D&D does not in this illusion scenario?
Pathfinder says basically the same thing as D&D, because ... it's basically D&D.
Consider FATE, though. In a FATE game, I might have the character aspect that I am a powerful illusionist. In battle, I can use my Lore skill to cast illusions that confound and distract (or disrupt) my enemies. So, when I cast such a spell, I get to create an aspect on the scene like, "Illusionary Ogre" that has a couple of free invokes on it (depending on how well I rolled to cast the spell).
At that point, I - or anyone on my team - can spend those invokes to accomplish things: make a badguy run away, give a bonus to someone's attack, etc.
I've played one game of FATE in pbp here on the forums so I recognize a bit if what you are saying.
But, what's the difference in using your invokes, or letting another use them, to gaining or granting Advantage in D&D? You do something rad, and another of your party benefits. The improvisation involved in FATEs invokes, IIRC, are even more loosely defined than D&D.
FATE is a more narrative game where the looseness is intended to foster more collaborative storytelling. So why is that loosey goosey-ness acceptable in FATE but not in D&D? How is the mechanic of gathering a bunch of +1's from various invokes on your next role practically any different than being granted Advantage? I don't see it.
This is a genuine question that I am asking out of ignorance, because I haven't read 5th Ed D&D rules at all, and it's been probably a decade since I read any other D&D rules:
Do the D&D rules actually and concretely say "casting this illusion spell will grant you and your party advantage on X"? Or is that something that the players and the DM have agreed upon as a reasonable mechanical implementation of the illusion spell?
Another player also captured two chokers and wants to train them during downtime. Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes specifically notes that chokers make terrible guard beasts and don't follow instructions, but I don't want to just shoot down his idea, so I'm instead looking to make the training process kind of a clusterfuck.
First off, chokers would normally never be allowed in the Seven-Pillared Hall, but the leader of the Enforcers is a mischievous ogre who wants an excuse to butt heads. On a whim he'll allow the chokers so long as they wear collars with the PC's name on them at all times so he'll know who to come after if the chokers, well, choke someone. Next the chokers will likely want to climb up and find a hole to squeeze into as they do in the smaller caverns and tunnels of the Underdark, so the PC will need to buy specially made armor for the chokers to keep them from squeezing through narrow cavities as they normally can. Maybe even special gloves to keep them from being able to wring someone's neck or scratch with their needle-covered palms. Naturally everybody's gonna know about the guy with the chokers, seeing as the Hall is a small place, so he'll probably be known as "that guy with the chokers". Also, the Hall is equipped with magically automated ballistae to shoot at things on the ceiling or too high on the walls and pillars that could prey on the people below (like, for example, chokers). Chokers also like eating goblins most of all, and goblins are freely allowed in the Hall, so that's another problem.
Alternatively the PC could find a place to stay just outside the well-protected Hall. The chokers might sneak out while the PC is in their fey trance and attack people entering and leaving the Hall before retreating to the PC's lair. After a few days of this a new band of adventurers gets a mission to take care of a couple of chokers and the strange man reported to be their evil master (surely a misunderstanding the PC can resolve peacefully, right?).
If the PC keeps at it after all this perhaps the chokers might start to obey him...on a successful Charisma check made at disadvantage. One week isn't quite long enough to train notoriously uncooperative Underdark monsters, after all!
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MsAnthropyThe Lady of Pain Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the Rhythm, Breaks the RhythmThe City of FlowersRegistered Userregular
How would this scenario be handled then in another fantasy themed TTRPG? What does Pathfinder say about the mechanics of illusion spells? Warhammer? Dungeon World? I'm not being snarky here, I genuinely am not familiar with those systems. What do they do, mechanically, that D&D does not in this illusion scenario?
Pathfinder says basically the same thing as D&D, because ... it's basically D&D.
Consider FATE, though. In a FATE game, I might have the character aspect that I am a powerful illusionist. In battle, I can use my Lore skill to cast illusions that confound and distract (or disrupt) my enemies. So, when I cast such a spell, I get to create an aspect on the scene like, "Illusionary Ogre" that has a couple of free invokes on it (depending on how well I rolled to cast the spell).
At that point, I - or anyone on my team - can spend those invokes to accomplish things: make a badguy run away, give a bonus to someone's attack, etc.
I've played one game of FATE in pbp here on the forums so I recognize a bit if what you are saying.
But, what's the difference in using your invokes, or letting another use them, to gaining or granting Advantage in D&D? You do something rad, and another of your party benefits. The improvisation involved in FATEs invokes, IIRC, are even more loosely defined than D&D.
FATE is a more narrative game where the looseness is intended to foster more collaborative storytelling. So why is that loosey goosey-ness acceptable in FATE but not in D&D? How is the mechanic of gathering a bunch of +1's from various invokes on your next role practically any different than being granted Advantage? I don't see it.
In the FATE creating aspects and invoking them for different character actions within the game fiction is the core set of mechanics—whereas for D&D it is reducing the number of monster hit points in the world. The FATE example is cromulent precisely because the illusion aspect allows the character to engage in the core set of mechanics in a fixed way. The way that impacts the fiction may drastically differ in session to session, but the way it impacts mechanically does not. In D&D many illusion spells do not at all engage directly with the core mechanic set, meaning the results must be adjudicated or improvised (often resulting in annoying games of ‘mother may I?’). A D&D illusion would not be different, provided the rules for the spell in question specified that it granted Advantage.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Because FATE is a looser and more narrative game?
Or to put it another way, D&D has unified rules for most of its mechanics. The illusionist getting to do loose narrative storytelling while the rogue is carefully arranging themselves to apply the right set of conditions to get off a sneak attack? It's two people playing different games.
This is a genuine question that I am asking out of ignorance, because I haven't read 5th Ed D&D rules at all, and it's been probably a decade since I read any other D&D rules:
Do the D&D rules actually and concretely say "casting this illusion spell will grant you and your party advantage on X"? Or is that something that the players and the DM have agreed upon as a reasonable mechanical implementation of the illusion spell?
The rules do not say anything like that, no. Those spells are very loosely defined. Minor illusion, the spell so basic it doesn't even take a spell slot, reads:
You create a sound or an image of an object within range that lasts for the duration. The illusion also ends if you dismiss it as an action or cast this spell again.
If you create a sound, its volume can range from a whisper to a scream. It can be your voice, someone else’s voice, a lion’s roar, a beating of drums, or any other sound you choose. The sound continues unabated throughout the duration, or you can make discrete sounds at different times before the spell ends.
If you create an image of an object—such as a chair, muddy footprints, or a small chest—it must be no larger than a 5-foot cube. The image can’t create sound, light, smell, or any other sensory effect. Physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an illusion, because things can pass through it.
If a creature uses its action to examine the sound or image, the creature can determine that it is an illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the illusion for what it is, the illusion becomes faint to the creature.
Oops, I just realized that you posted the text of "Major Image" in an earlier post!
The description of that spell has almost no game rules language in it. It mentions the mechanics for how the illusion can be overcome by others, and how it improves when you're higher level, but that's about it. Unless there is another block of text elsewhere in the rules that says how all illusions are handled, mechanically, then there is absolutely no rule for what this illusion can and cannot do.
Not having rules for something isn't a moral failing or anything, but it does mean that it's completely open to interpretation. Maybe one DM decides that the most you can do is distract one single NPC for one single turn, giving them disadvantage, and that's it. Maybe another DM decides that you can use this spell to give Malthecor the Unclean, Underpriest of Moander, the arch-nemesis for your campaign, a heart-attack, taking him out in one single turn. In any case, D&D doesn't have anything to say on what you should do with this image that you create. Meanwhile, it has extremely specific thoughts on how you can use your warhammer to hit something.
FATE, on the other hand, has some concrete rules on how aspects can be created and invoked, and what invoking them accomplishes. There is absolutely room for narrative wankery, but D&D says "You make a hologram", while FATE says "You make a hologram. This adds the illusory image aspect to the current scene that can be invoked by players to earn +2 or a reroll on an action".
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
One of the wisest lessons I took away from all the RPG discussions on this forum is this: The interactions that a game has rules for are the interactions that a game considers important. They are the interactions that the game wants players to engage in, in the hope that those interactions will create a certain experience for the players. If a game does not have rules for a certain interaction, then the game doesn't consider that interaction very meaningful to whatever experience it's trying to create.
Follow-up: If you want to play a game that creates a certain experience, then you would be best served by looking for a game that has rules that attempt to generate that experience.
For example: You can do a murder investigation game in D&D, and it would probably be a cool fun time, and would be a good diversion from eradicating goblins or haggling with Elf Queens. However, D&D doesn't really support investigation gameplay. You can Intimidate a witness or Search a room or something, but anything beyond that is ad hoc improvisation by the players, and is not governed by the rules of D&D. Heck, D&D doesn't even tell you exactly what Intimidating a witness will do! It's up to the DM to decide if they want to drop you a clue! On the other hand, the Gumshoe System is designed explicitly for running games about investigation. Robin D. Laws spent a lot of time and effort thinking about what makes investigations fun, what makes investigations stall and be unfun, and designed rules to maximize the former and minimize the latter. If you want a fun investigation diversion, you can of course drop it into your D&D game, but if you want a game about investigation, it would probably make more sense to use something like the Gumshoe System.
You can use D&D to do a game about being moody monster teenagers who are falling in love with, lusting after, and having crushes on each other, but D&D does not have rules to facilitate any of that. It would be almost indistinguishable from doing an acting exercise without any dice, rulebooks, or character sheets in sight. On the other hand, Monsterhearts is designed explicitly to create this kind of experience. It has rules specifically for the interactions of moody, hormonal teenagers who want to jump each other's bones.
D&D doesn't have mechanics for sharing an intimate, post-coital moment with another person because that is not an experience that it is trying to evoke for the players. It does have rules for lockpicking, flanking, or hiding behind cover, because that is very important to the experience it's trying to evoke. Monsterhearts, by contrast, very much does have mechanics for sharing an intimate, post-coital moment with another person, but doesn't care even a little bit about lockpicking.
Neither game has rules for, e.g., pooping, because that's not part of the fantasy either game is trying to engage in - although I assure you that pooping is a very real concern both when trying to sneak up on a lich and when trying to woo your crush. Rest assured that my upcoming "Dorks in a Basement" game has very granular rules for how much pizza and Funyuns you can eat before you have to poop.
Realistically, it's not always possible to choose the game that best creates the experience you want. Maybe you want a bunch of different experiences, in which case a GURPS or a D&D might be the best lowest common denominator. Maybe you don't really care about the specific experiences because the experience you actually want is an evening with your pals. Maybe your pals want investigations but don't want to play Gumshoe. Maybe you're all tired 30-somethings who don't want to spend the time learning new rules. Maybe you have only ever heard of D&D, and don't even know that a Gumshoe exists! All very real, reasonable, and legit reasons.
This is an excellent encapsulation of what I have generally been trying to say about D&D generally
D&D has good mechanical resolution for Fighting Monsters, and pretty poor mechanical resolution for almost literally anything else. It's also not really well built for Fighting Monsters in unorthodox methods. It's the "shaving HP off monsters" thing, that's really all the game is built to provide.
When you do other stuff within the game that is not really supported by the system, in a way you kind of stop playing D&D and start just riffing with the DM outside of any system. This isn't explicitly a Wrong or Bad way to have fun with a group, I just feel like it is important to realize what the game system you are playing is giving you vs what it isn't. And to bring it back around to the original post, it's why Illusion spells in D&D give me a headache, because it is the system explicitly telling you "We aren't handling this part, you figure it out"
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MaddocI'm Bobbin Threadbare, are you my mother?Registered Userregular
To put it another way, in that example of FATE's handling of it vs D&D
Fate gives you the mechanical resolution, and leaves you to provide the narrative resolution
D&D leaves you to handle both the mechanical and the narrative resolution
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webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
My backstory for my Tabaxi Rogue Swashbuckler for our upcoming Rhime of the Frostmaiden campaign later this year.
Ice in Summer was a kit, 9 years old when his parents brought him by ship to the far north, to start a new life full of adventure and opportunity. He still remembers that voyage to this day. Of a sunnier, happier time. A time of limitless possibility. Of salt air blowing through the sails. Of the cold crisp ocean spray over the prow and the breaching of whales out in the distance.
This dream only lasted about 6 months before his Dad left them, leaving a mysterious metallic disc to remember him by, a disc that Ice wears to this day. From then on, Ice worked with his mother in the rendering factories, processing the whale fat brought in by the ships, to extract that precious oil that keeps everything lit and oiled throughout the region. This work was smelly, dangerous and poor paying. As soon as he was able, Ice joined up with the whaling fleet. A nimble Tabaxi who could work the rigging like very few could, he quickly found his place on board. He used the extra money he made as a sailor to help support his mother, even as she became sick and had to stop working. This went on for a couple years, until inevitably he came home from a voyage to find that she had passed while he was away.
A grown Cat now, in his mid 30's, Ice fell into the bottle. His life became a blur of sailing, whaling, drink and story telling. He can barely recall the last 6 years, until just recently. That fateful voyage, over a year after the sun failed to rise, is branded vividly in his mind. Coming back to port, they were set on by Corsairs, eager to strip them of their cargo and what valuables could be found. The crew put up a great fight, and during the scuffle an explosion rocked the ship, casting Ice overboard along with a large amount of flotsam. when he came to he was cold, alone and with no sign of either ship. Close to shore he was able to paddle in on his scrap of wreck and using a board as a paddle. Only thanks to his thick covering of fur was able to make his way back to the 10 towns area, penniless, in rags and disgustingly sober.
Ever since, Ice has been working odd jobs, spinning tales in the taverns and inns for the few travelers who still dare this far north. Working just enough to keep himself in drinks and a warm hayloft to pass out in. The few friends he still has among the ships have tried to get him to come back to the life. He can't though... There are too many memories that are too vivid, either with joy or horror, associated with the sea now.
I just also want to extremely stress that I don't think D&D is Bad or Evil or Wrong, or that anyone who plays it is those things, or that anyone who prefers it is those things. I think that D&D has a lot of flaws (just like every single game), I think it's very good at certain things (just like every single game), I think that like any gigantic institution it is laden with an incredible amount of baggage (some of which I think is rad, like all the campaign settings and shared culture of Head of Vecna/"I attack the gazebo"/dorks being able to bond over knowing what a catoblepas is and all that junk; some of which I think is bad, like the way it generally shies away from large-scale changes or the way it acts as a cultural monopoly).
I just think that like food or genre, when it comes to games (tabletop or video or whatever) it's totally fine to have favorites, and it's totally fine to have things you consume on the regular, but I think it's healthier to occasionally branch out to - or at least read about - other stuff. After all, if you eat pepperoni pizza every single day, exclusively, you might never know that you actually love sausage pizza way more.
This is a genuine question that I am asking out of ignorance, because I haven't read 5th Ed D&D rules at all, and it's been probably a decade since I read any other D&D rules:
Do the D&D rules actually and concretely say "casting this illusion spell will grant you and your party advantage on X"? Or is that something that the players and the DM have agreed upon as a reasonable mechanical implementation of the illusion spell?
The latter. Same goes for spells like Thaumaturgy, which is an at-will cantrip that can let you, for example, make your eyes glow red, change the colors of nearby flames, and cause "harmless tremors" in the ground for one minute. It's admittedly kind of annoying. Certain similar spells published later, like Ceremony, have more concrete guidelines for what they do mechanically.
An early catchphrase of the 5E designers was "rulings, not rules", likely as an attempt to mollify 4E haters who thought that edition codified everything too much and took freedom away from the DM. A lot of early 5E design was probably intended to satisfy opponents of 4E (hell, late 4E design and marketing was definitely intended to sway 4E haters, especially the 4E Red Box and D&D Essentials). I think that's because before Critical Role and other popular actual play shows (but mostly Critical Role, which is so popular it's getting a two season animated series on Amazon Prime after the Kickstarter for a single 22 minute animated special far, far exceeded its funding goal) older DMs were the ones bringing in new players. Although 4E sold well enough to justify publishing way more content in its four year lifespan than 5E has in six, the "D&D 3.75" game Pathfinder gave it solid competition and may have even outsold D&D 4E books in gaming stores (that's not counting online orders or larger retailers).
Fast forward to today and D&D 5E is doing better in terms of sales and number of players than any other edition in the game's history while Pathfinder 2E is barely a blip on the radar in comparison. Critical Role is almost certainly the primary reason (I say this as someone who isn't really a big Critical Role fan but uses the setting because it is heavily inspired by 4E's Dawn War setting lore), causing WotC to officially acknowledge Critical Role and its characters. This started with Descent into Avernus. Actor Joe Manganiello played his Critical Role character Arkhan the Cruel during an official promotional livestream, and Arkhan himsef was featured in the published adventure with the Hand of Vecna, which he acquired in the final episodes of Critical Role's first campaign. Then WotC officially published a Critical Role campaign setting guide called Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (which got a ton of pre-orders on Amazon the day it was announced), a follow up to the Critical Role Tal'Dorei campaign setting guide published by Green Ronin years earlier (despite the official line from the D&D designers being that every campaign setting is in the same Multiverse, the Wildemount Raven Queen uses the 4E depiction of the deity used by Critical Role rather than the much, much different, non-deific interpretation described in 2018's Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes).
Had Critical Role begun as a 4E game or stayed a Pathfinder campaign as it originally started (I bet the people at Paizo hate knowing that) before the livestream show began history would likely be very different. Regardless, WotC now knows they don't need to cater to the old guard to get new D&D players and are more focused on drawing in Magic: The Gathering players as evidenced by the company publishing two MtG campaign setting guides (Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica and Mythic Odysseys of Theros) and announcing a Forgotten Realms MtG set. Further, monster design has went from being rather boring in the 5E Monster Manual to getting progressively better and more similar to 4E monster design in terms of tactical complexity and unique abilities as time goes on.
Yeah my character's family has magically forgotten her and I tried to think of things she'd say or events she'd try to reference to jog their memories or even to bring up discrepancies to make them feel like something weird is going on.
I tried to think all weekend about this. About family history to bring up. Wanting a big emotional scene where she recounts how much they mean to her and bringing up lists of events that were both meaningful and mundane. Couldn't think of fuck-all.
I have no idea what to do in this situation as a player. Just completely blanking on what do have her do or how to interact with them.
Made me realize I basically don't know shit about this character i've been playing for a year, and i'm too bad at thinking on my feet and improvising to do anything emotional or interesting. Kind of makes me want to just stop playing.
Or to put it another way, D&D has unified rules for most of its mechanics. The illusionist getting to do loose narrative storytelling while the rogue is carefully arranging themselves to apply the right set of conditions to get off a sneak attack? It's two people playing different games.
FATE, on the other hand, has some concrete rules on how aspects can be created and invoked, and what invoking them accomplishes. There is absolutely room for narrative wankery, but D&D says "You make a hologram", while FATE says "You make a hologram. This adds the illusory image aspect to the current scene that can be invoked by players to earn +2 or a reroll on an action".
I find these posts amusing because the designers of D&D 4E made unified rules for all the classes and clearly defined what their powers could do twelve years ago.
Until D&D Essentials, every class had a Power Source and a Role that served as the guideline for what a class was designed to do and how they did it, and every class, from Fighter to Wizard, had At-Will, Encounter, and Daily Powers that were rigidly defined in unambiguous language. Magic users were forced to "play the same game" as Fighters, Rogues, etc by making their combat spells synergize with other classes' abilities (for example, a Wizard, as a Controller role class, might magically damage an enemy and cause them to move into a position where the Fighter and Rogue flank them) and relegating non-combat magic to costly, time intensive rituals (the Knock spell takes an action, where the 4E Knock ritual took ten minutes). Classes that couldn't use magic still got the same number of Powers as they leveled-up, so a much larger number of fantastical martial options became available than in any other edition. By the end of 4E there were actually more Powers published for Fighters than there were for Wizards!
The problem is that 4E only lasted four years, and the latter half had many attempts to try and pacify the "4E is WoW" crowd that were very vocal online (not here, though; 4E threads hit 100 pages at a rapid pace and were extremely positive about the game). Plus WotC published an enormous amount of content in a short amount of time, whereas 5E has a much slower pace of releases and has been very stingy about introducing new player options. Also, despite the most ignorant 4E haters claiming the game was "dumbed down", in truth the amount of things players had to keep track of and opportunities to act out of turn could get very high, meaning the game demanded players' constant attention lest they miss their chance to use their immediate interrupt Encounter power that triggers when an enemy hits an ally with a melee attack within 5 squares to deal Dexterity modifier damage and impose a -2 to all of an enemy's defenses until the end of its next turn.
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StraightziHere we may reign secure, and in my choice,To reign is worth ambition though in HellRegistered Userregular
Yeah 4E was great, no arguments here
Like, I don't particularly like D&D, but I'm on record as saying that if I'm going to play D&D, I want it to be 4E, because I think that is overall the best execution of D&D's premise and its strengths
Like, I don't particularly like D&D, but I'm on record as saying that if I'm going to play D&D, I want it to be 4E, because I think that is overall the best execution of D&D's premise and its strengths
Honestly I'd like to have played and ran 4E way more than I ended up doing, and I wish 5E had inherited more of 4E than it did, but I still like 5E as a player and as a DM and recognize things about 4E looking back at it that I don't much care for.
Too bad the well is pretty thoroughly poisoned for 4E. I've only had one early 20 something player who had positive things to say about 4E, with the others either knowing nothing about it or saying they heard it was bad. The DM in the game I play in on Wednesdays is an old school D&D fan whose only comment on 4E is that it was a disaster.
Fast forward to today and D&D 5E is doing better in terms of sales and number of players than any other edition in the game's history while Pathfinder 2E is barely a blip on the radar (the more niche "Old School Renaissance" movement is pretty much dead, as well).
Just as a point of clarity, and I know you don't actually care, but the bolded is just not true.
OSR is doing better than it's ever been. Zweihander is huge, Stars Without Number is popular, Old-School Essentials is large, Five Torches Deep brings OSR into 5E, and many others that I'm too tired to think of right now.
It's a niche, and it's never going to be bigger than 5E, but it's not even remotely dead or dying, it's doing great and continuing to grow.
Fast forward to today and D&D 5E is doing better in terms of sales and number of players than any other edition in the game's history while Pathfinder 2E is barely a blip on the radar (the more niche "Old School Renaissance" movement is pretty much dead, as well).
Just as a point of clarity, and I know you don't actually care, but the bolded is just not true.
OSR is doing better than it's ever been. Zweihander is huge, Stars Without Number is popular, Old-School Essentials is large, Five Torches Deep brings OSR into 5E, and many others that I'm too tired to think of right now.
It's a niche, and it's never going to be bigger than 5E, but it's not even remotely dead or dying, it's doing great and continuing to grow.
Oh, sorry then. I've just seen it mentioned way less now than I used to, but I guess that's because conversations have moved elsewhere. I'll edit my post.
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admanbunionize your workplaceSeattle, WARegistered Userregular
OSR kind of just goes on and you usually only hear about it when one of the bad actors in the movement does something bad, which is why it hasn’t really come up since ZakS... well, y’know.
The current slate of games I’m running has two OSR games (Stars Without Number and Zweihander) and no PbtA or Forged in the Dark games! The last game is Burning Wheel.
I love playing PbtA/Forged games but I don’t feel like running them these days. Probably because I’ve run 90+ sessions of Blades and a bunch of PbtA but there are definitely common themes between the games I’m running that don’t work with PbtA/Forged.
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I too have played a lot of D&D, for a long time now, and I think I might like it more than ever! And I can state, which just as much confidence as you are now, that not every group reduces itself to shaving HP off a monster on a battlemap. Not every group falls into a boring routine that repeasts every session. A routine that, by your description, seems that all the fun is sucked out of the game at all. I don't know anyone who plays like that, and I've been playing D&D for more than 20 years now. If that's been your experience for all the D&D that you've played? Well.... that sucks for you, man. But you are painting with a brush that I do not think is as wide as you think it is.
That's fine. I was explaining a perspective that you inquired about. You can believe or not believe it at your leisure.
I mean, I love grid based tactical RPGs like The Banner Saga and Disgaea, and when I was introduced to D&D it was via a late 3.5 era starter set that included dungeon tiles and miniatures. I love combat in D&D and am having to make an effort to have marginally less of it in my current campaign to satisfy a player who got into D&D through Critical Role and therefore expects less combat and more roleplay.
My campaign is only three sessions old at this point, but my Sorcerer player is using a lot of illusion spells in conjunction with Pyrotechnics.
On the second session the party snuck up on three hobgoblins trying to get a larger group of rebellious goblins in line. He cast Pyrotechnics to create a smoke cloud and used Minor Illusion to make the sound of a hobgoblin war cry, setting the two sets of goblinoids against each other while the party picked off any that emerged from the smoke cloud (I was honestly hoping the party would side with the rebel goblins, one of whom had cleric spells that could aid the party, but oh well).
On the third session he used Silent Image to make an illusion of a dragon leaving the area as another group of goblinoids began to emerge from a tunnel. He and the rest of the party then hid, himself scrunching up on the ground and using Minor Illusion to make an illusory crate appear around him. Unfortunately one of the hobgoblins tried to open the crate, revealing the illusion for what it was and exposing the Sorcerer. After a brief conversation with the hobgoblin warlord who was open to the party helping them fight a mutual enemy (before capturing the weakened party afterwards to sell into slavery to the duergar), the Sorcerer used a Subtle Spell Minor Illusion to create the sound of a dragon's roar before suggesting the party and the goblinoids should get quickly get a move-on before the supposed dragon returned (before any of the goblinoids could inspect the bodies and see that the dead had clearly not been killed by a dragon).
Later on in that same session he used Minor Illusion to lure some grimlocks to one spot where they could be more easily targeted by the party and their temporary goblinoid allies.
The campaign's still young, but the Sorcerer player has gotten some mileage out of his illusion spells so far. Going forward I'm going to try and design some scenarios where I can imagine illusion spells being especially handy.
But nothing you described was actually supported by the mechanics of the game and at some point you are just improvising all of it. That's rad if that works for you, but you're going out of your way to do things that D&D explicitly doesn't engage with mechanically and that's kind of the entire point of this discussion.
What's wrong with improvising? Are you not supposed to improvise when playing TTRPG's? I don't think determining the results of an illusion spell is in any way going out of my way to make D&D do things it explicitly doesn't do. I don't agree with that premise.
Major Image in D&D 5e says: "You create an illusion. Anyone viewing said illusion can make a check to see through the illusion." Now, to me, that reads as the player creates whatever scenario he wants, lets say a fake wall of fire, and that its up to the Dungeon Master to interpret how those who see this illusion react. That's a little loosey-goosey and leaves lots of room for creative, role playing work. The DM decides that the Orcs who are running after the party stops short at the wall, and spend some time inspecting the wall and/or freaking out a bit at a wall of fire that just appeared. Mechanically this represents the Orcs spending their action on their turns to make their checks to determine if they see through the illusion or not. Some of them may pass, some of them may fail. Those that pass tell the others its a fake and continue the chase. Or maybe they all failed and throw a fit as the party gets away.
Actual text of Major Image:
You create the image of an object, a creature, or some other visible phenomenon that is no larger than a 20-foot cube. The image appears at a spot that you can see within range and lasts for the Duration. It seems completely real, including sounds, smells, and temperature appropriate to the thing depicted. You can't create sufficient heat or cold to cause damage, a sound loud enough to deal thunder damage or deafen a creature, or a smell that might sicken a creature (like a troglodyte's stench).
As long as you are within range of the Illusion, you can use your action to cause the image to move to any other spot within range. As the image changes location, you can alter its appearance so that its movements appear natural for the image. For example, if you create an image of a creature and move it, you can alter the image so that it appears to be walking. Similarly, you can cause the Illusion to make different sounds at different times, even making it carry on a conversation, for example.
Physical interaction with the image reveals it to be an Illusion, because things can pass through it. A creature that uses its action to examine the image can determine that it is an Illusion with a successful Intelligence (Investigation) check against your spell save DC. If a creature discerns the Illusion for what it is, the creature can see through the image, and its other sensory qualities become faint to the creature.
At Higher Levels: When you cast this spell using a spell slot of 6th level or higher, the spell lasts until dispelled, without requiring your Concentration.
How would this scenario be handled then in another fantasy themed TTRPG? What does Pathfinder say about the mechanics of illusion spells? Warhammer? Dungeon World? I'm not being snarky here, I genuinely am not familiar with those systems. What do they do, mechanically, that D&D does not in this illusion scenario?
What people have said is "D&D as written does not support what you have done, it's entirely improvisation, if you prefer that improvised gameplay there are systems that better support it mechanically than D&D."
I'm curious about this, too. Maybe I'd understand the problem if I had specific examples of how illusions are used in games that aren't D&D or its kin.
That said, casting a spell in Dungeon World is always the same, so presumably it would just be 10+ it succeeds, 7-9 it succeeds but you forget the spell (or other drawback), and 6- it fails. For something like Major Image, I would assume succeed is defined as "the target(s) believe that the illusion is real" and I would probably add in that you have a penalty to cast additional spells while it is ongoing, but that's essentially all there would be.
If I was a GM and I was confronted with a player casting this, yeah, my answer would be that the target believes that illusion is real and modifies their behavior thusly. Which is essentially what people are saying they've done in D&D. If the player was trying to stretch things a bit or using the illusion against someone who would likely be wise to that sort of thing, I might add in a Defy Danger (INT) to see if they were convincing enough with it, because I feel like the 7-9 there (hard bargain, worse outcome, or ugly choice) would present some fun opportunities.
Alternately, of course, if there was an illusion in the world (which could readily happen because NPCs aren't beholden to PC spell lists), then I would just be having the players make a discern realities check and hope they're smart enough to ask "What here is not what it appears to be?"
This spell (that I just made up) does not use or interact with any actual game mechanics:
This spell (that I just made up) does use or interacts with actual game mechanics (maybe not D&D ones, it's been a while since I read the rules and don't recall all the proper terms):
It's been a while since I looked, but as I recall D&D illusion spells are kinda in the middle. They have some rules governing them (their level, how long they last, etc), but they don't always give you a specific mechanical effect that happens when you cast the spell. If there is no specific mechanical effect, then it's up to the players at the table to decide, in the moment, what effect the spell will have on the game. If the players need to come up with the rules for this interaction themselves, then that means - by definition - that the rules aren't a part of D&D. The same interaction could have happened while playing any other game - Pathfinder, 13th Age, Vampire, even my critically-acclaimed, award-winning, fan-favorite, completely imaginary game "Dorks in a Basement".
It could have even happened without playing any specific game at all.
This does not make the experience bad, it does not make the illusion spell bad, it does not make D&D bad. It does mean that D&D does not have any mechanical support for that specific illusion spell.
Follow-up: If you want to play a game that creates a certain experience, then you would be best served by looking for a game that has rules that attempt to generate that experience.
For example: You can do a murder investigation game in D&D, and it would probably be a cool fun time, and would be a good diversion from eradicating goblins or haggling with Elf Queens. However, D&D doesn't really support investigation gameplay. You can Intimidate a witness or Search a room or something, but anything beyond that is ad hoc improvisation by the players, and is not governed by the rules of D&D. Heck, D&D doesn't even tell you exactly what Intimidating a witness will do! It's up to the DM to decide if they want to drop you a clue! On the other hand, the Gumshoe System is designed explicitly for running games about investigation. Robin D. Laws spent a lot of time and effort thinking about what makes investigations fun, what makes investigations stall and be unfun, and designed rules to maximize the former and minimize the latter. If you want a fun investigation diversion, you can of course drop it into your D&D game, but if you want a game about investigation, it would probably make more sense to use something like the Gumshoe System.
You can use D&D to do a game about being moody monster teenagers who are falling in love with, lusting after, and having crushes on each other, but D&D does not have rules to facilitate any of that. It would be almost indistinguishable from doing an acting exercise without any dice, rulebooks, or character sheets in sight. On the other hand, Monsterhearts is designed explicitly to create this kind of experience. It has rules specifically for the interactions of moody, hormonal teenagers who want to jump each other's bones.
D&D doesn't have mechanics for sharing an intimate, post-coital moment with another person because that is not an experience that it is trying to evoke for the players. It does have rules for lockpicking, flanking, or hiding behind cover, because that is very important to the experience it's trying to evoke. Monsterhearts, by contrast, very much does have mechanics for sharing an intimate, post-coital moment with another person, but doesn't care even a little bit about lockpicking.
Neither game has rules for, e.g., pooping, because that's not part of the fantasy either game is trying to engage in - although I assure you that pooping is a very real concern both when trying to sneak up on a lich and when trying to woo your crush. Rest assured that my upcoming "Dorks in a Basement" game has very granular rules for how much pizza and Funyuns you can eat before you have to poop.
Realistically, it's not always possible to choose the game that best creates the experience you want. Maybe you want a bunch of different experiences, in which case a GURPS or a D&D might be the best lowest common denominator. Maybe you don't really care about the specific experiences because the experience you actually want is an evening with your pals. Maybe your pals want investigations but don't want to play Gumshoe. Maybe you're all tired 30-somethings who don't want to spend the time learning new rules. Maybe you have only ever heard of D&D, and don't even know that a Gumshoe exists! All very real, reasonable, and legit reasons.
Bypassing a few too many campaign challenges at once, debates over how characters would react to specific stimuli, preparing for the wide variety of potential effects without encounter design becoming stale, players narrowing down to a small list of effective tricks instead of being creative, etc.
I think the fulfillment of the fantasy is too uncommon for how disruptive players get over chasing it. I would probably constrain it by choosing a specific narrative manipulation you want(false obstruction, object of distraction, mundane concealment) and let the player choose what sorta image would fulfill that task and roll for effectiveness. Ideally there would be a negotiation with the GM on what the target thinks about the illusion vs what would dispel it but that seems like still too much busywork. Essentially a buncha minor mechanical effects bundled into one spell that may be a little underwhelming individually but has value in flexibility.
Skill Challenges can also help facilitate a bit more free form gameplay, with the understanding that each player is going to garner a success or failure on their turn, without something completely annihilating a challenge the DM had prepped.
I'm going to be running a skill challenge dinner party tomorrow, and it will be very free form! The players will know the stakes, the scene and probably at least a couple of the NPCs. What they do to generate successes though will be completely up to them, but whatever it is, it won't end up game breaking.
This requires real good communication between the DM and the Players though, in regards to expectations, but I think it can be real fun while still providing a framework to allow their mechanical abilities and role playing abilities to shine.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
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Oh, I agree with all that. I'm aware other games exist that are more focused and specialized for certain subjects and much better than just trying to make D&D do everything. I'd like to try some one day. However, I didn't really get to play any TTRPGs for years until D&D 5E exploded in popularity. I bought a lot of D&D 4E books, but by far the most use I've gotten out of them is to mine for things I can adapt for 5E.
I am still curious how other games would handle illusions specifically in a way superior to how D&D 5E does them, though. Part of the point of illusion spells in D&D 5E, to me anyway, is that they're more freeform and allow more creative freedom versus the more clearly defined spells like fireball.
D&D 4E's take on illusions was more combat centric and defined. Instead of having "make an illusion" spells, you might have something like this:
False Fissure
Encounter Power
"You cause an illusion of a rift opening in the earth, causing your foes to scramble away from the edge."
Area Burst 2 within 10 squares
Int vs Will
Hit: Targets take psychic damage, slide 3 squares, and believe the area of the burst is a bottomless pit (save ends). If they enter into the space of the burst while under this effect they take psychic damage and fall prone.
D&D fans who didn't like 4E hated this approach. They didn't like how rigidly defined illusion spells had become and that most spells had to deal damage.
Like this is a snippet from the "Objectives" section under encounters in the DMs Guide.
"Make Peace. The characters must convince two opposing groups (or their leaders) to end the conflict that embroils them. As a complication, the characters might have enemies on one or both of the opposing sides, or some other group or individual might be instigating the conflict to further its own ends."
this is super cool! HOW do you do it though? There aren't any suggestions or examples! The DM's Guide is chock full of super cool ideas, but no explanations on how a new DM might go about actually implementing it!
Here is another section in "A World of Your Own" Section 2 of the DM's Guide, spoilered for length.
Waterdeep is threatened by political turmoil. The adventurers must convince the Masked Lords, the city’s secret rulers, to resolve their differences, but can do so only after both the characters and the lords have come to terms with their differing outlooks and agendas. This style of gaming is deep, complex, and challenging. The focus isn’t on combat but on negotiations, political maneuverings, and character interaction. A whole game session might pass without a single attack roll.
In this style of game, the NPCs are as complex and richly detailed as the adventurers, although the focus lies on motivation and personality, not game statistics. Expect long digressions from each player about what his or her character does, and why. Going to a temple to ask a priest for advice can be as important an encounter as fighting orcs. (And don’t expect the adventurers to fight the orcs at all unless they are motivated to do so.) A character will sometimes take actions against the player’s better judgment, because “that’s what the character would do.”
Since combat isn’t the focus, game rules take a back seat to character development. Ability check modifiers and skill proficiencies take precedence over combat bonuses. Feel free to change or ignore rules to fit the players’ roleplaying needs, using the advice presented in part 3 of this book.
I've bolded the part of interest. I checked session 3, I don't see any advice for changing the rules to help implement this. Or even any gameplay suggestions for HOW to run a game like this. There's lots of random tables to building encounters, and npcs and motivations and stuff, but nothing on how to actually use any of it.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
It's also rubbish at teaching you to play anything else.
Which is why it's bad for D&D to be people's first roleplaying game.
Rock Band DLC | GW:OttW - arrcd | WLD - Thortar
I'm doing more and more just zoning out until the other players go through the "walk over there and look, walk over there and look, etc" phase and there's actually something to do
PSN: Robo_Wizard1
Pathfinder says basically the same thing as D&D, because ... it's basically D&D.
Consider FATE, though. In a FATE game, I might have the character aspect that I am a powerful illusionist. In battle, I can use my Lore skill to cast illusions that confound and distract (or disrupt) my enemies. So, when I cast such a spell, I get to create an aspect on the scene like, "Illusionary Ogre" that has a couple of free invokes on it (depending on how well I rolled to cast the spell).
At that point, I - or anyone on my team - can spend those invokes to accomplish things: make a badguy run away, give a bonus to someone's attack, etc.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
One of the few advantages of me spending years desperately wanting to play D&D but not having opportunities was that I had plenty of time to read up on how to DM at least decently.
So far in my new campaign I've established the central "safe zone" (Seven-Pillared Hall), made a map listing the primary establishments of note, gave PCs that I feel would be particularly knowledgeable about the area relevant lore, had NPCs instigate conversation and casually mention other NPCs or things that I think might grab the players' attention, have scattered about unusual items, and have had events happen nearby that the players can choose to investigate or ignore as they see fit (for example, upon leaving Gendar's Curios & Relics they heard sounds of a scuffle and saw people fleeing from nearby Rothar's Tap Room; they ignored the hook).
I also use maps very often (and probably don't verbally describe the scenery enough...) so players can just see things on the map and have their PC investigate.
I also told the player group today they're going to likely have a week of downtime and presented multiple options. One player decided he wants to start working on a combination mine and headquarters for the party. He took notice when I mentioned in the first session that the local Dwarven mining company was looking for prospectors, and in session two the party found a book on constructing fortifications and a book on Dwarven blacksmithing techniques. He specifically mentioned the prospector job and the two books in a private message to me as things he wants to follow up on. I had honestly only included those things for flavor, but now I'm looking into how to help the player pursue his goal (the DMG does have rules for construction of various buildings and running a business, though I think I'm going to modify things to accomplish them faster).
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I've played one game of FATE in pbp here on the forums so I recognize a bit if what you are saying.
But, what's the difference in using your invokes, or letting another use them, to gaining or granting Advantage in D&D? You do something rad, and another of your party benefits. The improvisation involved in FATEs invokes, IIRC, are even more loosely defined than D&D.
FATE is a more narrative game where the looseness is intended to foster more collaborative storytelling. So why is that loosey goosey-ness acceptable in FATE but not in D&D? How is the mechanic of gathering a bunch of +1's from various invokes on your next role practically any different than being granted Advantage? I don't see it.
Do the D&D rules actually and concretely say "casting this illusion spell will grant you and your party advantage on X"? Or is that something that the players and the DM have agreed upon as a reasonable mechanical implementation of the illusion spell?
First off, chokers would normally never be allowed in the Seven-Pillared Hall, but the leader of the Enforcers is a mischievous ogre who wants an excuse to butt heads. On a whim he'll allow the chokers so long as they wear collars with the PC's name on them at all times so he'll know who to come after if the chokers, well, choke someone. Next the chokers will likely want to climb up and find a hole to squeeze into as they do in the smaller caverns and tunnels of the Underdark, so the PC will need to buy specially made armor for the chokers to keep them from squeezing through narrow cavities as they normally can. Maybe even special gloves to keep them from being able to wring someone's neck or scratch with their needle-covered palms. Naturally everybody's gonna know about the guy with the chokers, seeing as the Hall is a small place, so he'll probably be known as "that guy with the chokers". Also, the Hall is equipped with magically automated ballistae to shoot at things on the ceiling or too high on the walls and pillars that could prey on the people below (like, for example, chokers). Chokers also like eating goblins most of all, and goblins are freely allowed in the Hall, so that's another problem.
Alternatively the PC could find a place to stay just outside the well-protected Hall. The chokers might sneak out while the PC is in their fey trance and attack people entering and leaving the Hall before retreating to the PC's lair. After a few days of this a new band of adventurers gets a mission to take care of a couple of chokers and the strange man reported to be their evil master (surely a misunderstanding the PC can resolve peacefully, right?).
If the PC keeps at it after all this perhaps the chokers might start to obey him...on a successful Charisma check made at disadvantage. One week isn't quite long enough to train notoriously uncooperative Underdark monsters, after all!
In the FATE creating aspects and invoking them for different character actions within the game fiction is the core set of mechanics—whereas for D&D it is reducing the number of monster hit points in the world. The FATE example is cromulent precisely because the illusion aspect allows the character to engage in the core set of mechanics in a fixed way. The way that impacts the fiction may drastically differ in session to session, but the way it impacts mechanically does not. In D&D many illusion spells do not at all engage directly with the core mechanic set, meaning the results must be adjudicated or improvised (often resulting in annoying games of ‘mother may I?’). A D&D illusion would not be different, provided the rules for the spell in question specified that it granted Advantage.
"The only real politics I knew was that if a guy liked Hitler, I’d beat the stuffing out of him and that would be it." -- Jack Kirby
Or to put it another way, D&D has unified rules for most of its mechanics. The illusionist getting to do loose narrative storytelling while the rogue is carefully arranging themselves to apply the right set of conditions to get off a sneak attack? It's two people playing different games.
The rules do not say anything like that, no. Those spells are very loosely defined. Minor illusion, the spell so basic it doesn't even take a spell slot, reads:
It is a problem.
The description of that spell has almost no game rules language in it. It mentions the mechanics for how the illusion can be overcome by others, and how it improves when you're higher level, but that's about it. Unless there is another block of text elsewhere in the rules that says how all illusions are handled, mechanically, then there is absolutely no rule for what this illusion can and cannot do.
Not having rules for something isn't a moral failing or anything, but it does mean that it's completely open to interpretation. Maybe one DM decides that the most you can do is distract one single NPC for one single turn, giving them disadvantage, and that's it. Maybe another DM decides that you can use this spell to give Malthecor the Unclean, Underpriest of Moander, the arch-nemesis for your campaign, a heart-attack, taking him out in one single turn. In any case, D&D doesn't have anything to say on what you should do with this image that you create. Meanwhile, it has extremely specific thoughts on how you can use your warhammer to hit something.
FATE, on the other hand, has some concrete rules on how aspects can be created and invoked, and what invoking them accomplishes. There is absolutely room for narrative wankery, but D&D says "You make a hologram", while FATE says "You make a hologram. This adds the illusory image aspect to the current scene that can be invoked by players to earn +2 or a reroll on an action".
This is an excellent encapsulation of what I have generally been trying to say about D&D generally
D&D has good mechanical resolution for Fighting Monsters, and pretty poor mechanical resolution for almost literally anything else. It's also not really well built for Fighting Monsters in unorthodox methods. It's the "shaving HP off monsters" thing, that's really all the game is built to provide.
When you do other stuff within the game that is not really supported by the system, in a way you kind of stop playing D&D and start just riffing with the DM outside of any system. This isn't explicitly a Wrong or Bad way to have fun with a group, I just feel like it is important to realize what the game system you are playing is giving you vs what it isn't. And to bring it back around to the original post, it's why Illusion spells in D&D give me a headache, because it is the system explicitly telling you "We aren't handling this part, you figure it out"
Fate gives you the mechanical resolution, and leaves you to provide the narrative resolution
D&D leaves you to handle both the mechanical and the narrative resolution
This dream only lasted about 6 months before his Dad left them, leaving a mysterious metallic disc to remember him by, a disc that Ice wears to this day. From then on, Ice worked with his mother in the rendering factories, processing the whale fat brought in by the ships, to extract that precious oil that keeps everything lit and oiled throughout the region. This work was smelly, dangerous and poor paying. As soon as he was able, Ice joined up with the whaling fleet. A nimble Tabaxi who could work the rigging like very few could, he quickly found his place on board. He used the extra money he made as a sailor to help support his mother, even as she became sick and had to stop working. This went on for a couple years, until inevitably he came home from a voyage to find that she had passed while he was away.
A grown Cat now, in his mid 30's, Ice fell into the bottle. His life became a blur of sailing, whaling, drink and story telling. He can barely recall the last 6 years, until just recently. That fateful voyage, over a year after the sun failed to rise, is branded vividly in his mind. Coming back to port, they were set on by Corsairs, eager to strip them of their cargo and what valuables could be found. The crew put up a great fight, and during the scuffle an explosion rocked the ship, casting Ice overboard along with a large amount of flotsam. when he came to he was cold, alone and with no sign of either ship. Close to shore he was able to paddle in on his scrap of wreck and using a board as a paddle. Only thanks to his thick covering of fur was able to make his way back to the 10 towns area, penniless, in rags and disgustingly sober.
Ever since, Ice has been working odd jobs, spinning tales in the taverns and inns for the few travelers who still dare this far north. Working just enough to keep himself in drinks and a warm hayloft to pass out in. The few friends he still has among the ships have tried to get him to come back to the life. He can't though... There are too many memories that are too vivid, either with joy or horror, associated with the sea now.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
I just think that like food or genre, when it comes to games (tabletop or video or whatever) it's totally fine to have favorites, and it's totally fine to have things you consume on the regular, but I think it's healthier to occasionally branch out to - or at least read about - other stuff. After all, if you eat pepperoni pizza every single day, exclusively, you might never know that you actually love sausage pizza way more.
The latter. Same goes for spells like Thaumaturgy, which is an at-will cantrip that can let you, for example, make your eyes glow red, change the colors of nearby flames, and cause "harmless tremors" in the ground for one minute. It's admittedly kind of annoying. Certain similar spells published later, like Ceremony, have more concrete guidelines for what they do mechanically.
An early catchphrase of the 5E designers was "rulings, not rules", likely as an attempt to mollify 4E haters who thought that edition codified everything too much and took freedom away from the DM. A lot of early 5E design was probably intended to satisfy opponents of 4E (hell, late 4E design and marketing was definitely intended to sway 4E haters, especially the 4E Red Box and D&D Essentials). I think that's because before Critical Role and other popular actual play shows (but mostly Critical Role, which is so popular it's getting a two season animated series on Amazon Prime after the Kickstarter for a single 22 minute animated special far, far exceeded its funding goal) older DMs were the ones bringing in new players. Although 4E sold well enough to justify publishing way more content in its four year lifespan than 5E has in six, the "D&D 3.75" game Pathfinder gave it solid competition and may have even outsold D&D 4E books in gaming stores (that's not counting online orders or larger retailers).
Fast forward to today and D&D 5E is doing better in terms of sales and number of players than any other edition in the game's history while Pathfinder 2E is barely a blip on the radar in comparison. Critical Role is almost certainly the primary reason (I say this as someone who isn't really a big Critical Role fan but uses the setting because it is heavily inspired by 4E's Dawn War setting lore), causing WotC to officially acknowledge Critical Role and its characters. This started with Descent into Avernus. Actor Joe Manganiello played his Critical Role character Arkhan the Cruel during an official promotional livestream, and Arkhan himsef was featured in the published adventure with the Hand of Vecna, which he acquired in the final episodes of Critical Role's first campaign. Then WotC officially published a Critical Role campaign setting guide called Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (which got a ton of pre-orders on Amazon the day it was announced), a follow up to the Critical Role Tal'Dorei campaign setting guide published by Green Ronin years earlier (despite the official line from the D&D designers being that every campaign setting is in the same Multiverse, the Wildemount Raven Queen uses the 4E depiction of the deity used by Critical Role rather than the much, much different, non-deific interpretation described in 2018's Mordenkainen's Tome of Foes).
Had Critical Role begun as a 4E game or stayed a Pathfinder campaign as it originally started (I bet the people at Paizo hate knowing that) before the livestream show began history would likely be very different. Regardless, WotC now knows they don't need to cater to the old guard to get new D&D players and are more focused on drawing in Magic: The Gathering players as evidenced by the company publishing two MtG campaign setting guides (Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica and Mythic Odysseys of Theros) and announcing a Forgotten Realms MtG set. Further, monster design has went from being rather boring in the 5E Monster Manual to getting progressively better and more similar to 4E monster design in terms of tactical complexity and unique abilities as time goes on.
I tried to think all weekend about this. About family history to bring up. Wanting a big emotional scene where she recounts how much they mean to her and bringing up lists of events that were both meaningful and mundane. Couldn't think of fuck-all.
I have no idea what to do in this situation as a player. Just completely blanking on what do have her do or how to interact with them.
Made me realize I basically don't know shit about this character i've been playing for a year, and i'm too bad at thinking on my feet and improvising to do anything emotional or interesting. Kind of makes me want to just stop playing.
I find these posts amusing because the designers of D&D 4E made unified rules for all the classes and clearly defined what their powers could do twelve years ago.
Until D&D Essentials, every class had a Power Source and a Role that served as the guideline for what a class was designed to do and how they did it, and every class, from Fighter to Wizard, had At-Will, Encounter, and Daily Powers that were rigidly defined in unambiguous language. Magic users were forced to "play the same game" as Fighters, Rogues, etc by making their combat spells synergize with other classes' abilities (for example, a Wizard, as a Controller role class, might magically damage an enemy and cause them to move into a position where the Fighter and Rogue flank them) and relegating non-combat magic to costly, time intensive rituals (the Knock spell takes an action, where the 4E Knock ritual took ten minutes). Classes that couldn't use magic still got the same number of Powers as they leveled-up, so a much larger number of fantastical martial options became available than in any other edition. By the end of 4E there were actually more Powers published for Fighters than there were for Wizards!
The problem is that 4E only lasted four years, and the latter half had many attempts to try and pacify the "4E is WoW" crowd that were very vocal online (not here, though; 4E threads hit 100 pages at a rapid pace and were extremely positive about the game). Plus WotC published an enormous amount of content in a short amount of time, whereas 5E has a much slower pace of releases and has been very stingy about introducing new player options. Also, despite the most ignorant 4E haters claiming the game was "dumbed down", in truth the amount of things players had to keep track of and opportunities to act out of turn could get very high, meaning the game demanded players' constant attention lest they miss their chance to use their immediate interrupt Encounter power that triggers when an enemy hits an ally with a melee attack within 5 squares to deal Dexterity modifier damage and impose a -2 to all of an enemy's defenses until the end of its next turn.
Like, I don't particularly like D&D, but I'm on record as saying that if I'm going to play D&D, I want it to be 4E, because I think that is overall the best execution of D&D's premise and its strengths
Honestly I'd like to have played and ran 4E way more than I ended up doing, and I wish 5E had inherited more of 4E than it did, but I still like 5E as a player and as a DM and recognize things about 4E looking back at it that I don't much care for.
Too bad the well is pretty thoroughly poisoned for 4E. I've only had one early 20 something player who had positive things to say about 4E, with the others either knowing nothing about it or saying they heard it was bad. The DM in the game I play in on Wednesdays is an old school D&D fan whose only comment on 4E is that it was a disaster.
Just as a point of clarity, and I know you don't actually care, but the bolded is just not true.
OSR is doing better than it's ever been. Zweihander is huge, Stars Without Number is popular, Old-School Essentials is large, Five Torches Deep brings OSR into 5E, and many others that I'm too tired to think of right now.
It's a niche, and it's never going to be bigger than 5E, but it's not even remotely dead or dying, it's doing great and continuing to grow.
DIESEL
Against the Fall of Night Playtest
Nasty, Brutish, and Short
Oh, sorry then. I've just seen it mentioned way less now than I used to, but I guess that's because conversations have moved elsewhere. I'll edit my post.
The current slate of games I’m running has two OSR games (Stars Without Number and Zweihander) and no PbtA or Forged in the Dark games! The last game is Burning Wheel.
I love playing PbtA/Forged games but I don’t feel like running them these days. Probably because I’ve run 90+ sessions of Blades and a bunch of PbtA but there are definitely common themes between the games I’m running that don’t work with PbtA/Forged.