I haven't played in a 5e playtest yet and I haven't even read the docs all the way through, so please feel free to dismiss this post as the vague impressions of an under-informed idiot.
That being said, my beef with the most recent draft of the D&D Next playtest docs is the same one I had with 4e: my own personal D&D sweet spot, the hard-scrabble death-at-any-moment fiasco of levels 1-3, is no longer supported. Here's a simple example of why my style of play doesn't work with these rules: The pregen halfling rogue and elf mage each have 16 hit points. A standard kobold's spear does d8-2 damage, an orc's axe does d8+1. Crits do max damage, rather than extra damage.
Stop me if I'm getting any of this wrong, but it looks like that means these starting wimps can't be killed by a single blow from baseline opposition. For me, all other questions about what should and shouldn't be in the new edition pale in comparison to this simple issue. If by the numbers I can't murder your starting PC with a single lousy orc-stab, I don't want to play. It's that effing simple for me.
Depending on the edition and the hit dice used and the Con rules, some PCs have always had enough hit points to be able to shrug off that first strike. Even in OD&D a fighter can start with 7 hit points when most monsters do only d6. But most PCs in most editions are vulnerable to one or two blows from any random goon and that's the way I like it.
Back when 4e came out I agreed with the observation that 1st level 4e PCs read like 4th level or so characters under previously editions. The run of Wessex where each PC was from a different system supported that thesis. Zak's first level 4e dude outperformed other characters of second or higher level. The power level has been noticeably toned down, but I still say that an elf MU that can cast 3 first level spells per day and an unlimited number of magic missiles and shocking grasps ain't no 1st level character in my book.
But Jeff, once the modules are implemented it'll all become clear that your kind of D&D is well supported, you might be thinking. That may be so. But let me tell you the bigass problem with this modular system: it will needlessly complicate any published adventures. Will the adventures be written for all possible module combos? Will some be horribly broken with the wrong modules in play? Will a starter adventure written for Elfy McInfiniteMissiles even work as a reasonable challenge for starting characters run with the OSR-friendly modules? WotC's track record on published adventures is already dubious in my opinion, this module approach will only make them wonkier.
I like simple solutions to problems whenever possible. Here's the one I advocated back at the start of 4e: tell the 4e fans to start at a higher level. I've played many campaigns where we skipped the rat-punching, die-from-nicking-yourself-while-shaving stage. The way we did that was to build 3rd or 4th level characters. That's what the original Dark Sun rules said to do right in the book, right? Why can't we go back to that approach? Me and my fellow Old School sadomasochists get to play levels 1 to 3 (or whatever) and all the sane players just start at level 4 or so.
I've raised this idea before and at least a couple of 4e fans pushed back at it, claiming that it was unfair of me to suggest that they shouldn't get to play through all twenty levels. (The unquestioned expectation that their PC will survive that long is symptomatic of the huge gulf in playstyle that the poor bastards at WotC have to bridge.) So instead, here's a suggestion for WotC: level zero. Don't stick it in a sidebar or an appendix or otherwise marginalize it. Just write into the main body of the rules a level 0 for each class that more closely cleaves to the 3 hit point, one spell per day, crappy thief percentage losers we all know and love.
It's Over Nine Thousand
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All of the Marvels, by Douglas Wolk, isn't really about one man's
experience of reading 27,000 Marvel comics, although it touches on that.
It's not a histo...
While i think that WOTC announced they were still fiddling with HP - I think your idea is awesome, and I second that emotion.
ReplyDelete- Ark
The level 0 idea is a good one, but I still like old-school starting at level 1 and power gaming to starting at level 4.
DeleteI used to be of this opinion but after running several basic D&D games that all ended in tpk's and getting to play in several sessions of Labyrinth Lord this past year that had about an 80% casualty rate, I'm tired of all the dying. I'd like to roll up a character and actually care about them before 3rd level. Right now I don't even bother naming them before then because I know they are almost certainly going to die. This also why I'm not down with the new DCC game. I ran a playtest game of that with the horde of zero level pc's and watched them all die like flies. Yes, it was amusing but that is not the stuff that a long term campaign is built on.
ReplyDeletePlus, think about it. Why on oerth is a 3' tall kobold or goblin as tough or tougher than a normal 6' tall human? Why is a 10' fall usually fatal? Why can a house cat kill a magic user?
I'll reserve my complaints about 5e until after my group actually gets to play it.
Try using different strategies. Dying all the time is a sign that you're doing something wrong. Surviving can and does happen. Maybe try luring some monsters from the dungeon and ambushing them with a barrage of crossbow bolts. Be creative. Go for a big score, it's just as deadly but if you survive you'll level much faster. Head on down to dungeon level 2 or 3 right away.
Delete>>Why on oerth is a 3' tall kobold or goblin as tough or tougher than a normal 6' tall human?
They're fitter and more experienced then men because they fight all the time. Like little midget Conans.
>>Why is a 10' fall usually fatal?
I once saw a man take a 10' fall onto concrete. He hit his head and had to be rushed to hospital. In a dungeon situation he probably would have died. And keep in mind 33% of the time it's doing 1 or 2 damage only. Make the first 10 feet a d4 if it bugs you.
>>Why can a house cat kill a magic user?
Power creep. That's not right.
I've heard though, that played as written they're like creepy lovecraftian supercats.
I think the cat was Rolemaster.
Delete>>Why on oerth is a 3' tall kobold or goblin as tough or tougher than a normal 6' tall human?
I'll give you 5 bucks to get into a fight with a bob-cat without using weapons. I'll give you 10 to fight a wolf pack bare-handed. You may find them pretty tough.
The cat thing is 3E. The basic housecat stats could kill a 1st level 3e wizard with ease, especially if he had the wrong spells prepped.
DeleteI love running the low levels, because it's a great place to focus on the characters, their environment, NPCs, motivations, goals... Making players care about their characters and setting so that when real risk comes knocking on their door, they'll actually have something to lose. So I'm with Mike on this.
ReplyDeleteWhy DO you want to murder a PC with a single orc-stab?
Of course, if you don't like 5e, you need not invest in it. There's a LOT of D&D product for other editions out there. Whenever I get the urge to run D&D, I take out my 2nd edition books. And if you really need to, for whatever reason (players only interested in 5e), houserule that healing isn't possible, or orc stabs do more damage.
I DON'T want to murder PCs with a single orc-stab BUT sometimes dudes get hit with a sword and they just die. It should be something of a nail-biter getting into a fight that WILL end in someone dying (because, really, how many D&D gamers ever take prisoners or surrender?), because no matter how tough you are, sometimes, the arrow hits you in the spot your mom held you while burning away your mortality.
DeleteThe desire to simulate movies and novels where the protagonists will of course survive, because there's another 200 pages/45 minutes left in the story is always going to be at odds with the desire to depict grubby men and women seeking a better life than dirt farming going out, getting stabbed by an orc, and then dying of blood poisoning - or sometimes, eventually becoming the King of Atlantis. I'm curious how 5th edition will accommodate these opposing goals without being two entirely separate games.
I know you portray quick deaths as a story, but all I see is as story that ENDS. And not a very good one.
DeleteDon't get me wrong, I believe in consequences, but I'd rather have consequences that a character must live with, or of finality is achieved, that it mean something to the player.
You're right, these two styles ARE at odds. In one instance, we're playing a story (that follows dramatic rules), in the other, a game (that follows mathematical/logical rules). I've never really heard players speaking fondly of those stories aborted when they got blood poisoning at level 2, but obviously, there are groups who like that sort of thing. I'm just the kind of gamer who'd rather not go back to chargen every couple weeks.
but D&D IS a game that follows mathematical/logical rules.
DeleteDo people speak fondly of the guys who die of blood poisoning at level 2? Not really, but they DEFINITELY do speak fondly of the guys who survive against all odds and make it to level 5 or 10. Not every story is (or should be) a good one...
Yes after playing some labyrinth lord I realized how much fun it was to play first level again and dialed back the starting HP in my Beacon game. You can always increase starting levels but you can't easily dial back below first level.
ReplyDeleteSpecifically speaking of the endless supply of magic missiles, I think that's something that the modularity is going to cover for you. In yesterday's Legends and Lore column, Mike Mearls says "If you want an old-school feel, remove both the cleric and the wizard minor spells, and give the wizard a brace of daggers."
ReplyDeleteI'd probably make them 1st level spells, rather than remove them altogether, but you get the idea.
I rather like the idea that they're once more encouraging the DM to fiddle with the rules. Harkens back to the earliest days of the game, where a group could use Greyhawk but not Blackmoor, half of Eldritch Wizardry, and two articles from Strategic Review, and it was the norm to have such a patchwork.
When I started playing, the DMG wasn't out yet. We played using Holmes, Greyhawk, Blackmoor, the PHB, and the MM. None of us had the "white box" rules. (It was white box by then, not brown box, sigh.)
DeleteWhen the DMG finally came out, about a year from when I began playing, games rapidly crystallized to the three core hardcovers, and, in my case, Arduin. Arduin rocks like, uhm, a mountain. Made of rocks.
"Harkens back to the earliest days of the game, where a group could use Greyhawk but not Blackmoor, half of Eldritch Wizardry, and two articles from Strategic Review, and it was the norm to have such a patchwork."
DeleteOh yes! Takes me back! My houseruled games were quite clearly the product of a demented teenage mind.
I was initially thinking "what madness is this?", but the level zero solution is actually quite acceptable.
DeleteThey might be encouraging people to fiddle with the rules, but there are major gripes from the usual quarters about how this edition already gives "too much" to the DM. The repeated "ask the DM to adjudicate" references are rubbing a number of people the wrong way. And this is something I'm enjoying a lot, to be perfectly honest.
ReplyDeleteAnd no, Jeff, you're not wrong. They specifically set starting HP at a level that would remove some of the "swinginess" of low level gaming. I.e., specifically that a 1st level character can be dropped by a single blow from even a lowly kobold, which is something that a lot of these new folks think is "unheroic."
For all those that are complaining about parties that die, perhaps the thing you should do is become a better player.
ReplyDeleteIt is your skill at avoiding the combat that is an indicator of your skill as a player.
"OK, I stay home and plant turnips. If I see a sign of invading orcs, I call for the Village Watch and then go hide in my basement."
DeleteSkillful players roll halflings who scout, have dwarves in the front, with elves and humans in the back, carry polearms, and in general act like a squad of commandos, instead of a bunch of frat guys.
DeleteIf your characters die, look to the beam in your own eye.
Lizard, are you trolling the comments section of my blog?
Delete"It is your skill at avoiding the combat that is an indicator of your skill as a player."
DeleteFor some games, sure. I started playing back in the mid 80's, red box in my grubby little hands and I've never been in a game where we utilized hordes of henchmen (I can't be sure there were /none ever/, but I don't recall them) or felt that we needed to avoid combat at all costs. I've always preferred a two fisted, rockem sockem style of gaming and while ODnD may not have been the best place for it we did it...
There hasn't been one true way of running this game since Gygax let someone else run a game.
If that's the only way you can avoid combat, then you demonstrate C's point.
DeleteThe difference, AFAICT, is that earlier editions rewarded you for avoiding needless combat, whereas later editions say "Why throw in a potential combat if you don't want a combat to occur?"
That is actually a pretty big divide in assumptions, and is probably the biggest hurdle to WotC's goals with this edition.
Well, the biggest after their own lawyers, anyway! lol
"Skillful players roll halflings who scout, have dwarves in the front, with elves and humans in the back, carry polearms, and in general act like a squad of commandos, instead of a bunch of frat guys."
DeleteMan, I'm looking all over the place to give you a +1 to your reply, -C. Player skill isn't just avoiding combat, its taking active steps to give you the best advantage possible. Taking something on straight up mano e mano should only happen by accident. You generally want to have a solid plan before you enter combat. Plans are more reliant on the environment and what actions the players are taking rather than the skills, freats, powers, and attributes on the character sheets.
Rather than "skill at avoiding combat" I prefer to think of it as one's "skill at surviving encounters" which may very well mean running for your damn life but it doesn't sound so wuss-tastic.
DeleteNot trolling, but my own experiences in AD&D 1e were very much not "Try to avoid fights" (the fact we were all 14 and homicidal maniacs, but that's redundant, might also have been part of it), and I really have issues with the idea that "If you use the game rules, you're doing something wrong" as a design ethos.
DeleteWe pretty much kicked down the door, killed whatever was in the room, looted the corpses, and moved to the next room. You know the card game "Munchkin"? That was pretty much the style of play we used in real D&D. Kick, kill, loot, next!
I won't even discuss my list of magic items, which substituted for a personality. "So, tell me about your character." "Well, he's got a +5 sword, and +5 armor, and a helm of brilliance, and..."
"Skillful players roll halflings who scout, "
DeleteScouting is useless, as in oD&D it is determined randomly, if you notice the monster (or the monster notices you, or both).
"have dwarves in the front, with elves and humans in the back, carry polearms, "
All of which, is using character abilities, NOT player skill.
"and in general act like a squad of commandos, instead of a bunch of frat guys."
I reject the idea, that this is how D&D is supposed to be played (nothing in Gygaxes or Arnesons writings suggests so).
@Alexandro
DeleteI got your post at work, so I had a lot of time to think about it. I'm going with the assumption that it was just posted because you lack information, and not as a troll or some sort of other negative interaction.
"Scouting is useless, as in oD&D it is determined randomly, if you notice the monster (or the monster notices you, or both)."
Yes, in that one version, before basic, there was no explicit numerical advantage for halflings. This came immediately after (see Mentzer 64/65 for infravision/hiding elf/hobbit abilities) But sinceand elves have infravision (Greyhawk Suppliment I) and do not need a light source, it is certainly in their favor to scout ahead. This is in OD&D and is NOT useless.
All of which, is using character abilities, NOT player skill.
No. Character abilities are how well they hit, how tall they are, what weapons proficiencies they have.
You, deciding to arrange them in a strategically advantageous position is a tautologically self-evident manifestation of player skill.
"I reject the idea, that this is how D&D is supposed to be played (nothing in Gygaxes or Arnesons writings suggests so)."
In this very thread(!) is this quote! It is Gygax, writing in the players handbook, the specific instruction of "act like a squad of commandos, instead of frat guys" to all the players of the game!
You may reject the fact that the world is round, but it does not stop the planes from flying, nor the earth from rotating. The example of writing that "suggests so" doesn't exist, because he didn't suggest -- he explicitly instructed!
"Avoid unnecessary encounters. This advice usually means the difference between success and failure when it is followed intelligently. Your party has an objective, and wondering monsters are something which stand between them and it. The easiest way to overcome such difficulties is to avoid the interposing or trailing creature if at all possible. Wandering monsters typically weaken the party through use of equipment and spells against them, and they also weaken the group by inflicting damage. Very few are going to be helpful; fewer still will have anything of any value to the party. Run first and ask questions later. In the same vein, shun encounters with creatures found to be dwelling permanently in the dungeon (as far as you can tell, that is) unless such creatures are part of the set objective or the monster stands between the group and the goal it has set out to gain." AD&D 1e PHB, pg. 109. (Apologies for quoting this again in this thread.)
There is also the matter of wandering monsters (in the time it takes your elf to scout the corridor, there is a chance of a monster attacking the party or cutting off your retreat).
Delete"You, deciding to arrange them in a strategically advantageous position is a tautologically self-evident manifestation of player skill."
Your decision is using the optimum combination of character abilities (HP, attack options, gear) to get the desired result.
If this is player skill, then using your Search skill to find traps, while taking a Synergy bonus from your Dungeoneering skill, is also player skill (You, deciding to use your skill, while remembering drawing on your characters previous experience with dungeons, is a self-evident manifestation of player skill.)
"In this very thread(!) is this quote!"
It is at the end of the thread and I'm pretty sure it was written after my comment, but that is beside the point.
Dude, there is a loooooong way from this quote to "acting like a squad of commandos". Also there is this:
"In like manner, consider all of the nasty things which face adventurers as the rules stand. Are crippling disabilities and yet more ways to meet instant death desirable in an open-ended, episodic game where participants seek to identify with lovingly detailed and
developed player-character personae? Not likely! Certain death is is undesirable as a give-away compaign. Combat is a common pursuit in the vast majority of adventures, and the participants in the campaign deserve a chance to exercise intelligent choice during such confrontations. As hit points dwindle they can opt to break off the encounter and attempt to flee." (AD&D Dungeon Master Guide, 1st Edition).
Players learn the game by trying things, not by paranoidly prodding/scouting everything and not interacting with the enviroment at all. Combat is an important part of learning and entering combat is not the equivalent of a death-sentence (interestingly, Gygax goes on to write, that larger HP-scores cause *more* character deaths than low ones, because it is harder to see the death coming - a very interesting idea).
I've always been a fan of the starting level = desired power level approach too, but zero level is a nice compromise. Perhaps one hit die for zero levels with no class or theme, but some sort of apprenticeship thing going on. If the PC survives to first level, she comes into her class and optionally picks a theme (if the game uses them). So at first level a character would have one default hit die and one class hit die. I bet that would play pretty well.
ReplyDeleteIt is your skill at avoiding the combat that is an indicator of your skill as a player.
ReplyDeleteTo some people, the combat is the fun part of the game though. This is the equivalent of rolling diplomacy to avoid roleplaying (mutatis mutandis, of course). If skillful play is avoiding the part of the game they enjoy, that's problematic.
I agree with you, by the way, but many players don't. It seems to me there is space in the game for both types.
I saw a wonderfully painful post on the forums claiming that d&d has ALWAYS been combat-centric even from 0e, and almost felt inclined to make a rebuttal but realized it would just waste half of my day away in a flame war so I stopped myself.
DeleteFor better or worse, 3e's high level of crunch really did turn d&d into primarily a combat game in the minds of most.
I always assumed that people in 1st and 2nd edition were proud of not getting into fights for the same reason people are proud of not getting jury duty - they both either end so quickly you wonder why you even bothered to show up or go on far beyond the point at which you're still having fun, and both are filled with lots of rules that go against all common sense.
DeleteI had no idea it was 'about skill as a player'.
0-level: just race and background, hp= hit die
ReplyDeleteThat a house cat could kill a 1st level wizard is merely an indication that the Awesome-inator has been turned up to ELEVEN.
ReplyDeleteOkay, yeah, flippant answer - but accurate in my head at least.
:)
- Ark
I completely agree, "Killed my a 10 foot drop?" HILARIOUS!
DeleteSpoken like a person who has never seen a corpse of a fall victim. Sorry, but in real life that does happen.
DeleteI have indeed seen the corpse of a fall victim and I am trained and certified in fall protection; that doesn't make it unfunny when Wylie E Coyote falls 100s of feet.
DeleteLaughing when your PC dies is one of the hidden joys of D&D.
I'm also amused that some would use reality to justify stuff that happens in D&D, the mechanics of which have never seemed particularly simulationist to me.
Delete@Siskoid
DeleteBut that can go both ways. Can we not then discount the incredulouness with which the death dealing 10 foot drop was bemoaned? After all, in reality, many people survive 10 foot drops and D&D is not a simulationist game so the character should die and any appeals to reality are simply silly.
There is definitely a huge assumption among players of newer edition(s) that the characters should be Heroes From Level One, rather than becoming heroes through acts of derring-do and sheer luck. That premise is confusing to me--if your character is already a hero at level 1, how did that end up happening? The transition from guy-on-the-street to hero-of-tales is pretty significant, and it's lame to just skim over that part of the game entirely in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteOf course, these are the same folks who are complaining both that there needs to be a mechanical system in place to prevent monsters from ganging up on the wizard(s) and that wizards are too powerful at high level. Bizarre internal mental confusion going on there.
Starting with a character who's not an established hero and has lots of room to grow is a totally different matter from starting with a character who is just insanely fragile against the threats the world throws at him. Of course, as every superhero movie ever has demonstrated, origin stories are overrated. There are just so many things people take as necessary basically only because they've been in D&D for a long time.
DeleteI don't know who's saying there needs to be "a mechanical system in place to prevent monsters from ganging up on the wizard(s)," though it is nice to give fighters a way to stop enemies from attacking their more vulnerable friends, especially given that that's something any decently capable fighter should be able to do. Likewise, there's nothing wrong with wizards being powerful, except for the part where the same wizard is expected to be on a team with non-wizards who he can completely obviate in every way if he wants.
But no, there's no particular mental confusion.
I thoroughly agree, Jeff.
ReplyDeleteIf a group wants tougher beginning characters, just pick a higher level and start them at that. Goodness knows it happens all the time. And goodness knows that even Gary Gygax used to do it sometimes.
First, let me note that, if a wizard doesn't fear death at the claws of his familiar, it's not old school D&D!
ReplyDeleteSecond, it's inevitable that the more complex character creation is, the more the game system is biased towards not having you die from a single attack or bad die roll. Taking an hour to make a character, only to die in a minute, turns people off. (I had one DM back in High School who had a trap that did something like 2d6 damage right at the entrance to a dungeon. I had no fewer than 5 characters walk into the trap and die, one after the other. I was starting to hope that maybe the bodies would eventually clog the blade mechanism...)
I like deep, complex, fiddly, character creation -- GURPS and Hero are my systems of choice, if possible. 4e is probably the simplest chargen system I could ever find myself enjoying. 3e is pretty good. FantasyCraft is good, too. Therefore, while I look back on the days of "Hah! Fred The Fighter III is dead! Bring on Fred the Fighter IV!" with misty reverence, I understand why game design has, overall, veered far away from that.
That said, I think you're absolutely correct. I would like the concept that PCs at "first" level are, for game purposes, more like 3rd-5th, and that mechanics exist to model "1st" level characters with very low hit points, attacks, etc. This is also useful for building commoners, merchants, apprentices, and so on. (I miss 1e cantrips, and the table that showed how the most basic apprentice wizard might have 1 such cantrip, such as "Flavor", and be able to cast it 1/day. Now, THERE'S a challenge! ("Don't you dare kill me, ogre! For I can make my flesh taste like brussel sprouts, and you'll regret eating me!")
Mike Mearls was on a podcast that aired along with the release of the 5E meterial. He specifically calls out HP as something they are working on, saying that the current HP for characters (and monsters?) is too high. So that is probably something that will change. They discuss a few other things coming up, so if you have a half hour it's worth listening to.
ReplyDeleteAbout magic missiles: I know the magic missile thing is something that people complain about often. The thing is, in an old school game you often end up with wizards who also double as the character from Desperado with a million throwing knives. Players were already routing around that gap in a wizards power, and in a way that seems counter-intuitive for the class. At least to me, anyway. (Though I guess the fact that the modern magic missile never misses is kind of obnoxious?)
I was always a big fan of Dark Sun. Their approach to having heroes starting out rough and tough always seemed like a good way to go. (They also started with inflated attribute scores.)
I'd rather have the throwing knives; unlimited spells goes against the concept and flavour of Vancian magic. If I had to swing it, I'd give wizards unlimited cantrips - really weedy stuff, nothing damage dealing but spells they can use creatively to distract or impede opponents while letting the fighters handle the bloodshed.
DeleteMore than just concept and flavor. It's about being assigned 'something to do' on your turn.
DeleteWithout 'something to do' you have to think and mess around. Maybe you throw sand in the orc's eyes. Maybe you tackle the evil wizard who's waving that wand around. Or maybe... or maybe... or maybe...
Or maybe you just blast him for a d4 like you did last turn, and the turn before....
Being assigned something to do is certainly a problem. It still seems like you could get around that by making the magic missile and the bag full of daggers mechanically equivalent. One if just more flavourful than the other.
DeleteVancian magic is a bit of a sacred cow. DCC RPG probably has the most interesting magic system i've read about in a long time. And it seems like a better representation of fantasy literature.
On magic missiles and bags of daggers:
Deletehttp://untimately.blogspot.com/2012/04/cantrip-scrolls.html
I might guess that it's an artifact of this being a playtest. I mean, there's only so much playtesting you can do when you character is surprised and dies immediately.
ReplyDeleteBut then Mary Sue, my half-elf fighter/mage/thief might die!
ReplyDelete"level 0 for each class that more closely cleaves to the 3 hit point, one spell per day, crappy thief percentage losers we all know and love"
ReplyDeleteWhile I wouldn't mind if that was in the rules (cause it would be easy enough to ignore) I'm fairly sure I've never loved them... not even in that module that had you make 0 level villagers and graduate to your class at the end...
And I don't have any desire to kill my first level PCs with a single orc blow... or a house cat for that matter.
I think the crux of the matter is that if you don't like housecat death but I, do we can both be accommodated nicely if I start at level 1 and you start at level 3. However if you start at level 1 where does that leave me. I can always go play my own game or make house rules I suppose but the point is that it sends the message that my fun is wrong fun.
DeleteCan I ask a silly question?
ReplyDeleteAre the benefits we (i.e., DIY D&D people) anticipate from D&D Next - an expanded player base, maybe a new rules lingua franca that might encourage more people to write modules - really substantial enough to merit losing too much sleep over how the system ultimately shakes out? From where I sit, the deprofessionalization of RPG production is a positive trend. If so many of us are happy to make and share "D&D" content for free, why is it necessary to fret about WotC? Maybe I'm missing some crucial angle here; if so, I hope someone will set me straight.
I don't think anyone is really losing any sleep over the whole thing, but WOTC is actively seeking to woo old school gamers. It's well known that the big dogs of WOTC read Jeff's blog. Therefore, this a good place to provide feedback.
DeleteAlso, bitching about the current state of your hobby is kinda part of the hobby. :)
I played through it and I enjoyed it. I liked that they gave more power to the DM, clearly moving over to the "rulings vs. rules" idea. I had the feeling that a lot of the things in the starting characters they gave you were just set up in a way so that you could playtest with them.
ReplyDeleteMy response to a lot of the questions my players had when it came to certain things was, "It's a playtest, let's just ignore it."Like when they couldn't add up the Hit Points, or the attack bonus with their weapons.
Either way, we all enjoyed playing it though...I'm looking forward to more.
The starting hitpoint levels seem to compensation for the number of creatures that can attack simultaneously in the Caves of Chaos. If players hit the first pit trap in the first kobold area then a huge swarm of rats will flood over them, while kobold guards attack, while reinforcements stream in from another area.
ReplyDeleteThe rats grant advantage when there are more than two of them. TPK is still very easy to achieve, even if it takes and extra round or two.
And some critters are even deadlier than their old school counterparts. Look at the buffed up gnolls or a flock of 13 stirges. The damn stirge attacks stack an effect that goes disadvantage, unconscious, dead regardless of hit points.
This game is plenty deadly, especially to Pathfinder trained parties.
My biggest gripe so far is the boosted XP values for everything. A single kobold grants 75 XP !!! Come on man. They should be half to a quarter of that, and even that is high.
I think you hit it on the head. As long as the monsters are worth XP, then players will feel encouraged to kill them. The mechanics of the game are dedicated to preventing you from being a "skillful player" as described earlier.
Delete@Degenerate: For me at least, it's not about TPKs or how dangerous monsters can be. It's all about whether you can be killed in one hit. The tone of the game shifts when you can no longer die from a single sword blow.
DeleteYes, but note the inflated XP requirements -- 2000xp for 2nd level, 6000 for third.
ReplyDelete(Also I was expecting Jeff to throw in at least a token complaint about all the classes having the same leveling requirements.)
I made the mistake of letting my players roll 4D6 drop the lowest stats and using AD&D style con bonuses. I also let them bleed out up to negative max hp. This was a sop for new players used to MMOs etc, but it really makes a difference a fighter with 2 extra HP is just that much more survivable. They just refuse to die, though accidents can and have happened.
ReplyDeleteStill I'm not really dissatisfied. I think 1st levels are supposed to be a bit hardier than you average townsfolk - 1st level fighters are 'Veterans' after all. Still I intend to offer a gang of zero levels option for the next replacement, even allowing the surviving mooks split the XP of the dead amongst the survivors so the slog to first is not interminable, while preserving the feeling of being dungeon fodder.
I agree with you 100%, Jeff. 4E abandoned D&D's big tent in multiple ways, and although the designers of 5E are intermittently talking a good game about bringing that big tent back I have yet to see any concrete evidence that it's going to happen.
ReplyDeleteWe're supposed to accept that the magical word "modular" is going to be a cure-all. But, like you, I'm not seeing how this "modular" concept is actually supposed to work in practice. Instead, it seems almost certain to by a kludgy, unbalanced mess that will simultaneously shatter the valuable network externalities that D&D still possesses.
In the closed playtest 1st level playtest is every bit as deadly as any classic edition of D&D. It plays out differently but the result is the same. This is because the monster did a lot of damage and had a reasonable chance of hitting the players. The Public Playtest toned this down a bit but only a bit. On the flip side the monster hit points have been slightly increased. I expect when I run my next playtest session it will play out roughly the same.
ReplyDeleteAnd the most important aspect of all this is the flattened power curve. D&D Next character start more capable than their classic edition counterpart but then only increases in power slightly afterward. At 10th level they are obviously behind their classic Edition counterparts, at least in the closed playtest.
I believe the flattened power curve is going to be the signature feature of D&D Next.
Anyway just take the fighter and the Moradin cleric and run up against 4 orcs and look at the results.
I think that having characters with low hit points and low ability scores allows for a different style of DMing.
ReplyDeleteInstead of creating challenging combats and striving to damage the characters, you can just rely on every random encounter to be a challenge all on it's own. Even the rats. Instead of thinking like an adversary, the DM is free to focus on being a neutral arbitrator of events. It changes the tone at the table in ways that I find extremely enjoyable.
Games with the PCs that vulnerable can be fun sometimes but they shouldn't be the default. The base rules should reflect what the majority will want to play and should be a bit forgiving for new players.
ReplyDeleteIt is a pretty easy house rule to play with lower hitpoints at first level if you want to. Just Add CON bonus instead of CON to your starting hitpoints. That will get you in the range you want.
Personally I hope that D&D Next ends up with a base set of options that are extra gritty like this, plus another that are super heroic too.
Many games do.
DeleteThe majority would start the game with wands of wishing if they could.
DeleteThe designers can't actually give in to that demand. Paradoxically, the game is better when they don't get what they want.
"The majority would start the game with wands of wishing if they could."
DeleteWow that's disingenuous. Apparently wanting to have a character that's not ridiculously, insanely fragile is the same thing as wanting to be able to wish for anything ever many times over.
"The majority would start the game with wands of wishing if they could."
DeleteI have to concur with the commenter above: I doubt that anyone over the age of 13 would want to start the game with a bunch of omnipotent wishes. Everybody in their right mind agrees (whether or not they'd articulate it this way) that much of what makes the stakes of a game valuable consists in challenges; we differ, I think, on what kind of challenges we want to be tasked with and how we want the rules of a game (as opposed to the socially emergent dynamics of a table) to produce them.
While I completely see your concerns, Jeff, a simple solution is to not add the Con Ability Score to starting Hit Points. Something to keep in mind. And yeah, I know that means you've got to create a house rule, but at least its a simple solution.
ReplyDelete1. It's easier to ramp things up than to scale things back. If you want invincible first level PCs in your games, you can easily start players at higher levels, give them healing potions that work (even after death), etc. Tell a player you are starting them at level 0 or reducing HP to 1d6 when the rules say they should have 16 HP is going to start off your campaign with some sour grapes.
ReplyDelete2. My biggest beef w/the newer rules is that magic becomes less of an event. It's already an everyday happening, why does it have to be a 2/3/4x a day event? How come no one has come up with spells that you can only cast once a month/year/decade?
But aren't you and your players on the same page? When you propose a campaign, that's when you should be discussing tastes and rules changes.
DeleteA lot of this comes down to NPE (Negative Play Experience). If dying in one blow creates a NPE for the majority of players - and I believe it does - then WotC are correct in designing a game where it doesn't happen easily.
For the hobby to survive and thrive, it's got to bring in new players. New players musn't suffer NPE or they risk not sticking with it. Hardened, long-time players may have other tastes and have more experience in avoiding NPE, houseruling games, etc. To those players, I say that 1) you can keep playing older editions or other games, or easily 'port over elements from those editions to a newer edition, because you have the experience to do so. And 2) if you have such strong opinions about what D&D is becoming, why are you even thinking of investing in an entirely new version when an older version works for you? I just don't get that.
In my mind, the new D&D must be the gateway drug AD&D was for me at the tender age of 13 or 14. I invested a lot in AD&D and 2e, and then flew off to more varied pastures both in terms of genre and system. Nothing I ever read about 3rd, 3.5 or 4th ever made me think 2nd ed. had been beaten as far as what I wanted to do with my gaming hours, so I never upgraded. If those games brought in new players AND KEPT THEM (the D&D brand and market share are enough to recruit, but retention is key) then mission accomplished. That another edition is already required may mean it wasn't mission accomplished (that's as maybe), so they really do need to design this one with recruitment AND retention in mind. Playing only to older gamers is a non-starter (just look at the comic book industry for a similar navel-gazing, head in the sand, dwindling market example).
Bro, we just disagree on a lot of things, so I am going to bow out on this one respectfully...but I will say that I think you only have to look at the success of something like Grognardia's kick-starter or DCC to see how catering to older gamers might not as much of a non-starter as you think.
DeleteI mean for a new edition of D&D, not for gaming in general.
Delete@Siskoid: The point is that if D&D maintained its big tent status you wouldn't have to be talking about rule changes at all.
DeleteHere's a link to a long post that's worth reading on approximately this subject: http://www.enworld.org/forum/new-horizons-upcoming-edition-d-d/317715-very-long-combat-sport-vs-combat-war-key-difference-d-d-play-styles.html
ReplyDeleteTLDR version: Some people like combat-as-sport style play, where the teams are pretty evenly matched. Telling these guys that avoiding combat is part of the skill of the game isn't going to go over well without some pretty detailed explanations.
Other people (like a lot of folks here) like combat-as-war style play, where getting into a fight is seriously risky and you don't bother attempting it unless you're either desperate or have managed to fool yourself into believing you have such a massive tactical advantage that you can win before the other guys get a turn.
I have no idea how to reconcile these, but including a treatise on the different styles and encouraging people who like the former to start their games at level 3 or 4 seems reasonable.
"I have no idea how to reconcile these"
DeleteI wouldn't try to reconcile them. I'd just point out that they are different, and encourage players and DMs to think and communicate honestly about what style they want before they start playing.
The thing about that is, if you write a system that CAS people are going to be happy about, it's probably going to leave out a bunch of stuff (e.g., save or die) that CAW people want. I guess you could put a bunch of that stuff in its own supplement.
DeleteAlso, I don't think CAW works without XP-for-gold or equivalent. There has to be something besides fighting where you can get a good chunk of experience (because avoiding fights is part of the skill) and it can't be as vague as "do what the DM thinks is worth XP", because that smacks too much of railroading. But xp-for-gold is a thing that bugs a lot of people, too.
The system actually has to support both things if it's going to suggest that you pick the one you want.
Success in the Modern Pencil n Paper gaming world is selling 10,000 copies
ReplyDeletefor an entire print run . . ..
(Ask Micheal Curtis how many copies of the Dungeon Alphabet he has sold?)
the DnD basic set was selling 12,000 copies a month in its peak
we need to LISTEN UP and accept the fact that our hobby is fading
As longshoreman-philosopher Eric Hoffer observed,
“every great movement begins as a cause,
eventually becomes a business,
then degenerates into a racket.”
"we need to LISTEN UP and accept the fact that our hobby is fading"
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me that the hobby itself has never had it better: Lots of people from all over the world exchanging ideas and connecting with each other, exploring new ways to play (some of which, naturally, emerge from the excavation of old ways to play!). However, like virtually all kinds of culture-work in 2012 from orchestral music to photography, I don't know that designing tabletop RPGs will remain a remunerative proposition for much longer. Lord knows plenty of people are willing to perform that essentially immaterial labor for free. (I raised this point earlier in the thread.)
I wish Mearls and company luck in producing a system that will attract new players to the fold, but look: Nobody has to buy or sell D&D for us to play it.
"The HP is too damn high!"
ReplyDeleteFor some reason, whoever gets the final say with D&D seems to hate the idea of having the ability to play different kinds of campaign.
ReplyDeleteIt's particularly strange given the emphasis on options for character creation.
If players get bored with only one kind of fighter, why don't they get bored with only one kind of campaign? Conversely if having lots of suggestions for house rules is confusing, why isn't having lots of options in character creation?
3rd edition was interesting in that it had lots of options, but they tended to be tucked away in the Dungeon Masters Guide.
ReplyDeleteI only looked at the 3.5 DMs Guide recently.
If I'd known that you could play it with laser weapons, no equipment lists and no skills I would have been a lot more interested.
Where does it suggest not using skills or equipment lists?
DeleteNot trying to be a jerk here, just actually curious. Thought I looked through that book a bunch of times, but don't remember seeing those ideas. If you have page numbers, I'd like to look it up.
Although I know the modularity of DDN gets tossed around as a design intent, I'm sort of surprised that WotC doesn't just try to provide two different games....continuation/development of 4E and a concerted effort at returning to an old school D&D at the same time. Why try to make One Game to Rule Them All when you could have two editions to cater to such diverse crowds? I guess its a matter of resources, and the problem with how to drive maximum sales volume per product....but still. Anyway, as a 30+ year old school gamer I've never liked the low starting hit points of characters for two reasons: players hate feeling so weak at such low levels, and on the rare occasion I've gotten to play in some die hard old school campaigns it was not at all the experience I want out of a good campaign (i.e. story and meaning). I was in a 6 month campaign once that meet weekly and I have a total of 17 character deaths over the length of the module (The Deserts of Desolation series), and my cohorts often fared little better. By the end of that run we all realized that none of our existing characters had a single clue as to why we were there or what our place in the scheme of things was; we were just meat fodder for a complex world run by a cosmic serial killer. It was, of course, at least partially bad DMing, but it was also due to the rigid adherence to the rules as written, for which the DM had a fetishistic fascination. I've always kept that experience in mind; death should be a risk for players, not an accident (unless they do it to themselves). I'm not a push-over DM, but I do like it when players actually want to become attached to their characters, or care about the story, or even name themselves because they don't fear insta-kills for the first two or three months of play. And telling people to start at level 3 (my default approach to Pathfinder these days, and 2nd edition back in the 90's) is also telling people that they must of necessity skip over what their characters were doing at levels 1 and 2 just to get a minimum fun play experience. So yeah, this is something I've hated for thirty years and I'm glad to see its trending toward characters who can take a hit or two before dying these days. Conversely, I really hope they stay away from the 3rd and 4th edition infinite HP problem; I am a much bigger fan of the 1/2E flattening of hit points after level 9ish, and am very tired of stat blocks with 1,400 HPs in them.
ReplyDeleteTori, does starting at level 3 really change your play experience though? Because making level 1 the equivalent of level 3 certainly changes the play experience of those who like a more deadly low-level game.
DeleteMy own personal preferred compromise at this time is to avoid the constitution component of starting HP, but to make the initial number of hit dice variable per campaign. This is nice because it doesn't seem to interact with many other rules subsystems. Thus, you could start your PCs with 4 hit dice, and Jeff could start his with 1, and the problems of all seem to be solved.
I'm also curious why they dont' keep 4E around. It may be very different than the editions before it, but it does do tactical combat very well.
DeleteIt'll still be "around" so long as it remains in stock (and pdfs never really go out of stock after that). Wizards has also reissued some TSR-era rulesets, so really, there are options for old schoolers on the market.
DeleteIt's hard to take predictions about the end of things seriously. Is D&D as popular as it once was? No, but RPGs are hardly in decline. Go into a gaming store and you have more options than ever before, and, to be honest, the best ones usually don't have the D&D stamp on them. I guess that's the real tragedy.
ReplyDeleteOne thing they need to do when presenting the "old-school" options of 5e is explicitly state that the players should be avoiding combat when they don't have some sort of advantage. I think if the original games had been more explicit about this, some people might not have had such a bad reaction to them.
ReplyDeleteAs for the modules, I expect that we'll have a couple of "standard option packages" emerge for organized play and modules will usually be based around one of them. That way you know if you only need to make a few tweaks or if you need to change quite a bit. I could easily see two different versions of a module available as PDF, or an appendix giving stats for the other standard.
Yeah, if only Gary Gygax has written something like this...
Delete"Avoid unnecessary encounters. This advice usually means the difference between success and failure when it is followed intelligently. Your party has an objective, and wondering monsters are something which stand between them and it. The easiest way to overcome such difficulties is to avoid the interposing or trailing creature if at all possible. Wandering monsters typically weaken the party through use of equipment and spells against them, and they also weaken the group by inflicting damage. Very few are going to be helpful; fewer still will have anything of any value to the party. Run first and ask questions later. In the same vein, shun encounters with creatures found to be dwelling permanently in the dungeon (as far as you can tell, that is) unless such creatures are part of the set objective or the monster stands between the group and the goal it has set out to gain." AD&D 1e PHB, pg. 109.
...if only...
--Fred the Dwarf
If we've learned one thing in the past 30 years, it's that there are more ways to play D&D than the way(s) Gary Gygax envisioned. Some people enjoy combat-as-war, some like combat-as-sport, some combat-as-poetry, some combat-as-slapstick.
DeleteTo paraphrase Hölderlin: this is the era of Gary Gygaxes, of kings, no longer. You and your friends are living people, and you may prosecute your campaign - your _D&D_ campaign, in fact, and nobody has the right to dispute that designation - however you desire.
"If by the numbers I can't murder your starting PC with a single lousy orc-stab, I don't want to play. It's that effing simple for me. " --- This here is EVERYTHING wrong D&D and the Old School. If you just want to play "Let random effects kill you and you probably shouldn't even bother giving your PC a personality" fantasy Vietnam simulators, why not play the dozens of dungeon crawl boardgames out there?
ReplyDeleteWrong?
DeleteIt just isn't a game focused on combat. It's one focused on intelligent avoidance of risk.
Just because it isn't the type of game you like to play doesn't make it wrong.
I elaborate here.
Notice, Jeff didn't really say it was "wrong" he just said he didn't want to play that way. I think part of the disconnect is that while combat WAS a strong part of the original way to play, you're talking about guys who came from wargaming and loved a tactical challenge. The game was about DIFFICULT combat. On purpose. When newer people started playing who didn't have that tactical education, the way to survive the game as written was to AVOID combat. But considering how a LOT of the rules are about combat, it's not unfair to say that if you find that combat game as-written to be unsurviveable due to non-grognard mindset, you would feel gypped that a big part of your game is non-playable. Adjustments in that light make sense. But I think it's very true that combat WAS a key part of the original game, despite its difficulty. I think it's also true that the "avoid encounters" strategy was one that came out of emergent gameplay, and got incorporated somewhat into early iterations of the rules (after all, there's LOTS of other stuff to do). But later iterations decided that rather than have a part of the game that's meant to be avoided, why not actually make that part more playable. Part of that had to do with juicing up starting PCs. I agree, a better solution would have been "For X kind of scope of play, begin characters at Y level" rather than ramping up level 1. But hey, my game is still playable the way I want it. So I ain't care.
DeleteYeah C, didn't you know? There's only one right way to play your fantasy elves.
ReplyDeleteI participated in the friends-and-famIly playtest. I didn't get to read the doc but I played in a session, and I can attest that our lives were frequently in grave danger from low level monsters. At one point we turned and ran like hell from an encounter and it distinctly felt like the Old Days.
ReplyDeleteYeah, combat really is more dangerous than it seems. I ran a playtest game last night and my group of 4 pc's couldn't get past the front door of the goblin den. They killed 12 goblins and the ogre, but half of the party was also unconscious. It was a close thing. Seemed very much like 1st level to me. Maybe not Basic D&D 1st level - more like AD&D 2e 1st level in difficulty.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to offer an alternative suggestion to "Why don't people to find it too hard just start at a higher level".
ReplyDeleteWhy would you not simply scale up the monster damage? If the kobolds aren't deadly enough, you as DM can just roll a d10 instead of a d8, or have them do d8+4 instead of d8+1. It's a simple enough solution, and if you're a fan of the old school ways then surely a bit of house ruling isn't a new concept. The DM might not even have to mention it's a house rule if you're rolling behind a screen.
I think one of the problems is whenever I hear people complaining about how easy D&D is these days compared to the deadly old editions is this... people want it this way. More specifically, younger players and new players want it this way. This isn't the 1970's or the 1980's anymore. We are in an era where if you say "think of an iconic RPG" to a child or a teenager, they'll be more likely to respond "Skyrim" than "D&D".
You might find it dull or boring, but new players in general do not find it fun if their character dies within minutes of them starting to play. And if your only response to them being disappointed is to tell them: "You're playing it wrong, you should have avoided combat, you need to be a better player." Then they're liable to just put down the dice and go back to the XBOX.
So maybe the publishers need to skew things on the easy side a bit, to coddle the younger players. Because that's their expectation, and we can get into what's wrong with the youth of today but let's leave that aside for another day. The point is though, if the RPG industry as a whole wants to grow, or at the very least not shrink, it needs new players getting interested in tabletop RPGs.
And new players are less likely to make houserules and changes. If they've never played RPGs before they will probably start at level 1, like the book tells them to, and then go from there. It's counter-intuitive for a new player to start at a higher level, because the lower levels are too hard. That's not how things work in video games, the challenges always start off easy then ramp up!
Now, I'm not saying that D&D should be just trying to emulate video games (a complain I've heard many old schoolers level at 4th edition). But to stress my point again, the older fans can adapt, they know how to house rule things, tweak what they don't like. New players will probably just walk away if their first impression isn't a good one. And maybe it's a problem that they have this expectation of being a big damn hero from level 1, but you can't try to sell to the audience you wish existed, you have to deal with the audience that is actually there.
This is just the way younger players think, and those are the expectations they have. And if all old schoolers do is say "You should be a better player then. Why, back in my day..." rather than try to engage with new players, then things will never improve.
I completely agree. The HP was also my main criticism of the rules.
ReplyDeletehttp://billygoes.blogspot.co.il/2012/06/5e-playtest-postmortem.html
A thought on the 'for the children' excuse.
ReplyDeleteFull disclosure that is fairly obvious from the story - I'm primarily a White Wolf player (this does mean certain assumptions about play style are used in the example that are disconnected from DnD at large, but I think the example still works, so bear with me). Several years ago, when they were at the height of their 'Nu World of Darkness' years, they put out a game called 'Scion', about playing the children of gods. I and my friends were really excited, until we actually got the books. Then, we learned that over sixty pages of the book were devoted to a way-too-detailed adventure, which was tailor-made to the six pre-generated characters in the book (who were themselves conceived with all of the worst excesses of bad game writer narcissism). Sixty pages is way too much space to devote to a White Wolf adventure (heck, maybe to ANY adventure that isn't an entire campaign), and the game certainly could have used the extra pages to actually explain how to run it (or they could have cut the adventure out and made the whole thing cheaper, either way). I brought this up, and people's argument was that it was for newer gamers, to help them learn how to play.
There are a couple things wrong with that argument, but I'll stick to the relevant one - if that was the intent, than it is offensive and insulting to younger people. You're telling me that a new GM has to be told that 'now would be a good time to slow down the action and let everyone try out roleplaying their characters'? And that the players need to be spoon-fed the personalities of these characters, right down to who has crushes on whom? That basically means that you're saying that nobody at the table is capable of imagining anything whatsover. That's incredibly insulting, which is why I doubted it was their intent.
Same thing here. I started playing DnD in the mid nineties, which I guess makes me old by the idiotic definitions we now use for such things. But I didn't start out at the common game at the hobby shop, or in my older cousin's campaign, or anything like that. I had the books, and I taught my friends how to play. If you asked us about iconic roleplaying games, we'd probably say Shining Force or Final Fantasy before mentioning the tabletop game. We certainly didn't play in the Old School way - there were probably four deaths in six years, and only one that wasn't raised afterwards. But I managed to figure out how to do that on my own. Which is why I think that to say that kids today can't figure out how to change the rules because of video games strikes me as insulting. I refuse to believe that the last fifteen years has seen such degeneration in society that our children are complete drooling idiots that have to be spoonfed everything, and that it is all World of Warcraft's fault. I think that if they want to play a tabletop game, and they want it to feel like Skyrim, they'll figure out a way to get the Dragon Shouts in.
Personally, I think the problems and weird inflation of hit points and so forth is the fault of the thing that always makes DnD worse - organized play. My problems with 3rd and 4th edition had less to do with the rules as written, and more with the assumptions people made about how it should be played, which was generally the fault of organized play. *That* is the part that runs into MMO mentality, because things like WoW do it much more efficiently. I have a friend who's a big fan of 4th, and he *loathes* the Encounters program. If you want to blame anything, blame that.
Oh, and, as to the argument that Old Schoolers can just negatively adjust things to fit their tastes - true. Entirely true. But, I agree with Tenkar - it is always easier to add than to subtract. As bizarre as this may sound, I also feel that, if you arrive at a different style of gaming by adding something, if feels more inclusive than if you need to remove it (that may entirely be personal perspective though). More importantly, though, is the question of 'why?' Somebody who wants to play Old School has plenty of options that are simpler than 'you could play 5e and spitball lowering the Hit Points'; there'd have to be something more to make it worth the effort. Granted, it's way too early to assume that there won't be other bits that make it worthwhile, or that there won't be a discussion on lower hit point levels and so forth. Right now, it's all about amusing ourselves with guessing games, which is fun in its own way.
DeleteLinked this article to a friend, and his reaction was: "I propose a house rule to double all damage suffered by 1st level PC's for being 'Total Fucking Newbs.' "
ReplyDelete