5e - why you think it sucks, and why you're wrong

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Slick is right. We love to tinker and house-rule...but one tends to choose the system that starts closest to what one wants and then jump off from there. I'd even go a bit further and say adding is conceptually "nicer" than subtracting. Where I am right now with 5e is wanting to understanding it better so I can cherry-pick some of it's tastier fruits (like advantage/disadvantage rolls). But my impression iis that the base-system starts out catering way too much to the player's fancy for my table and is missing some of the more "balancing" aspects of the game. That said---and to the original point of the post---it doesn't "suck", I get a very 2e vibe from it except with very foreign mechanics. I'd personally choose it over 3e/4e in a pinch.

To TerribleSorcery's point, regardless of whether it's true or not, calling other systems "niche" and "elitist" isn't good diplomacy (although it can be a fun conversion starter). One of the difficulties you have---as the defender of the mainstream product---is that there is a greater possibility that folks do know what you are playing, whereas (minority) advocates of "ancient/endangered" systems have a greater reason to shout about what is "being lost". 5e DM's don't really have to "move the needle", they've already got things going the direction they prefer.

I don't like avocados either.
 
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DangerousPuhson

Should be playing D&D instead
One of the difficulties you have---as the defender of the mainstream product---is that there is a greater possibility that folks do know what you are playing, whereas (minority) advocates of "ancient/endangered" systems have a greater reason to shout about what is "being lost". 5e DM's don't really have to "move the needle", they've already got things going the direction they prefer.
My intent is not to extol the virtues of 5e, but rather to draw attention to weak module publishers as the culprit for a lot of the bad optics into the system. The problem is that I'm doing so within an OSR community - I wouldn't have to make this point if I were writing in a 5e community, because those people already know the system, and have formed their opinions based on actually playing 5e rather than basing it on seeing a bunch of "Worst Evar!?!" posts for 5e products and assuming the system is to blame. I see a ton of "I've never actually played 5e, but from what I've seen of it..." style responses on here, and that's problematic for me.

Yes, I'll often get deviated into a zillion other directions when I post, and mostly those directions involve me having to defend the 5e system and re-iterate what it is about OSR systems that doesn't appeal to me. That too becomes problematic because people want to fixate on the branching points rather than the main debate. So I end up throwing out some statements like "you can change whatever you want in the system" or "OSR systems are being churned out for ego's sake rather than for any practical purpose", simply because over enough debate time those points bubble to the surface. Then you guys get into it, circling around an argument like vultures, waiting to cherry-pick yet another tangent to go off on - it gets exhausting reading so much off-topic arguing with no connection to the main point of the thread (especially when Squeen sinks his claws into something and goes off for ten paragraphs of new tangents - no offense buddy).

So while you guys see "DP is saying 5e works when you change it" or "DP just called us all hipsters", I want you to know that what you're reading is the off-topic dialogue that bubbles up when I'm forced into so many argumentative tangents. My intent is not to be some ambassador for 5e; my intent is to correct the optics on what I believe to be an emerging misunderstanding about the system.
 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
...it gets exhausting reading so much off-topic arguing with no connection to the main point of the thread (especially when Squeen sinks his claws into something and goes off for ten paragraphs of new tangents - no offense buddy).
You know you love it. (heh. cool. claws!)

And that reminds me...
 

Ice

*eyeroll*
I know that a lot of RPGers want to try them all, but If I join a jeep club, it's because I have a jeep I want that takes me to all those places out in the wild to enjoy the wild. It isn't to test drive every jeep model that comes up year-upon-year, or talk about how to get max horsepower out of the engine in a garage full of gearheads. So long as it gives me the experience I want, I'm not really looking to invest again because the 2020 has bluetooth and a cup warmer.

I know every inch of the one I've driven for decades, every vibration, and other feedback loops most don't even notice; and it never fails in getting me to that wild outdoors that's the real driver for my participation in the hobby.
Interesting take, but I am not sure that the jeep metaphor is entirely accurate.

A better metaphor for designing and running a campaign is putting together a collage. I think I saw Jeff Rients use this metaphor on his blog recently (so credit to him). You take a bunch of pieces, some of which you make, some of which you just cut out, then stick them together in a coherent fashion to make your own personalized thing to share with all of your goober friends (my friends are goobers, anyways). The rule system you use is a bit like the backing material and glue that hold everything together. They all essentially do the same thing, but different mediums can have wildly different effects on how the collage actually comes out.

Personally, experimenting with this 'backing material' has helped me becoming a much better DM, as well as refine my own tastes a bit.

One of the most salient things that I have learned is that you can't necessarily see how the largest differences between systems will manifest themselves without actually trying them. I didn't know what I didn't like about 5e until I went back and played DCC and 1e for a while. On the same token, I remember as a kid going from 2e to 3e and thinking that 3e was going to be god-awful, but it actually got rid of most of the issues I had (at the time) with 2e. I just had to get over the 'NEW THING BAD' feeling and actually try it.

Of course, now I view 3e as the worst of all systems but I wouldn't have been able to see that unless I tried 5e.

And my opinion of 5e has changed as I've experimented with different systems. 5 years ago, when I picked up the 5e starter box and got back into DMing, I would have said Race-As-Class was horrendously stupid, but now that I've actually used Race-As-Class, I really prefer it. Lots of aspects of different game systems are like that. They look unbelievably weird at first, but then once you try it and adapt, they feel considerably different than you thought they would.

Experimenting with new systems is also fun and entertaining because it forces the players to also think outside of their comfort zone, which can be a lot more engaging. Seeing my players do new and unexpected things is my favorite part of DMing. I still remember the first time I tried 1e with my group. One of the players decided to make a magic-user and at first said something like "this is bullshit, I only get one spell?" He spent a long time looking through the spell list to find the right one. Later, when they were in the dungeon, after running a way from a bunch of horrible monsters/traps, the party was ambushed by a group of Halflings. He then cast his single spell, which was Sleep, putting all of the Halflings to sleep. He then said "ok, I can just going to go cut their throats now," to which I replied "no, you can't do that." He then read the spell to me verbatim and I realized he was right. He gleefully moved his miniature around the battle mat proving he could make it to all of them before the effects of Sleep wore off. I laughed so hard I nearly cried because it was so unexpected and comical. Also, I think that player had fun looking through the spells, knowing he could only take one, and then deciding on Sleep, which is a spell he would have just skipped in his native 3.5e for a damage dealing spell. Being off balance and trying new things made that session more fun for both of us.

While you can kind of tweak your system to your liking, a lot of systems have considerable differences which you can't necessarily see until you try a different rule set and are a bit off-balance. Here in lies the crux for me. I am not advocating 'trying all of the newest ones,' I am just advocating getting out of your comfort-zone every once in a while. Try a one-shot of some weird system you've never used before. Try running the same dungeon you made in two different systems. You'll get better as a DM and you might even find a few less than obvious things you want to incorporate into your material that you write/your regular game. It's also pretty fun (in my opinion, of course.), though it might be slightly uncomfortable at first, like jumping into a pool of cold water.

Like any skill (DMing and making content are definitely skills), being outside of your comfort zone will make you view things differently and definitely improve your abilities overall. It has certainly helped me and it's been fun along the way!

That was more words than I intended.
 

EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
Interesting take, but I am not sure that the jeep metaphor is entirely accurate.
We'll have to agree to disagree on the metaphor, because buying a bunch of different systems and then customizing one of them to your exact tastes is right in line with what I was thinking when I wrote it.

Experimenting with new systems is also fun and entertaining because it forces the players to also think outside of their comfort zone, which can be a lot more engaging. Seeing my players do new and unexpected things is my favorite part of DMing. I still remember the first time I tried 1e with my group. One of the players decided to make a magic-user and at first said something like "this is bullshit, I only get one spell?" He spent a long time looking through the spell list to find the right one. Later, when they were in the dungeon, after running a way from a bunch of horrible monsters/traps, the party was ambushed by a group of Halflings. He then cast his single spell, which was Sleep, putting all of the Halflings to sleep. He then said "ok, I can just going to go cut their throats now," to which I replied "no, you can't do that." He then read the spell to me verbatim and I realized he was right. He gleefully moved his miniature around the battle mat proving he could make it to all of them before the effects of Sleep wore off. I laughed so hard I nearly cried because it was so unexpected and comical. Also, I think that player had fun looking through the spells, knowing he could only take one, and then deciding on Sleep, which is a spell he would have just skipped in his native 3.5e for a damage dealing spell. Being off balance and trying new things made that session more fun for both of us.
Laughing comically is the goal of every RPG session, but I've been playing long enough that "see how these mechanics work at the table" doesn't give that to me anymore. The unfamiliarity is a cool part of learning RPGs - it's part of what makes those first sessions golden. But it also can't be prolonged or replicated. What you describe would be annoying to me, as I'm not all that interested in learning how the mechanics interact with common tactics - that's an intermediate phase.

I'm much more interested in getting past the unfamiliarity and the norming, and staying in the competent application phase; i.e., we all know how the ruleset works, and now it's purely about - what can you do with this thing we all know like the back of our hands? I want the thing, the scenario, the content the rule set is supposed to facilitate. The rule set itself is supposed to fade into the background but many gaming groups continually apply familiar content tropes to different rule sets to see how they handle them, as a primary goal of the activity. Because it's easier to evaluate the rule set with understood baselines.

While you can kind of tweak your system to your liking, a lot of systems have considerable differences which you can't necessarily see until you try a different rule set and are a bit off-balance.
I'm disinterested in that. Also why I'm not wholly aligned with the OSR, which is now primarily about going through 73 versions of near-D&D to find the holy grail that expresses someone's (or a group of someones') idiosyncratically perfect game; the platonic ideal that's either perfectly realistic or perfectly "elegant", depending, and corrects those irritating stray hairs which kept people from wholly giving themselves over into a seamless mitty-like dream whenever they chose.

1E isn't flawless, but its very close to that for me. There's just no reason for me to move on from very very good to chasing candidates containing the difference between that and pitch-perfect. What I want out of an RPG session is delivered equally well by 90% and 100% "perfect" mechanics/ rules vehicles since it's external to any rules. But it can't be achieved if most people are figuring out how the rules work; it absolutely requires the core of the play group to be well-past that stage.
 
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gandalf_scion

*eyeroll*
Although nobody asked me, I want to throw in my two cents because I love the topic of 1e house rules and have two recommendations. One: I find that most of us never used the BtB armor class adjustments for weapons; therefore employing them is, ironically, akin to a house rule. I highly recommend those oft-neglected armor class adjustments as they offer critical detail on distinctions between different weapons. Two: if you cut all measures of game time in half (make a turn five minutes, a round 30 seconds, and a segment three seconds) the otherwise goofy 1e time and distance scales become much more plausible. I suspect Gary's one-minute round was a legacy of his time in war gaming, where one needs time padding for command and control functions that do not occur in role playing as it has evolved - into smaller groups. His original vision seemed to include larger groups (many early modules propose seven or more players) for which the one minute round would have accounted for "command and control" functions that fell away as most groups usually cluster around four players.
 

EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
@EOTB: Do you ever make 1e system adjustments/house-rules, or is it strictly by-the-book?
Strictly BTB 1E is a pipe dream, because its written too loosely for an agreed-upon interpretation of taht to exist; I play by the book as I understand it, but there are many people with as much experience in the system who've come to other conclusions in good faith on some particulars.

I make rare adjustments from time to time. As I've gotten older most of those are adding back in stuff that I didn't understand until more of the system was used. There's a sort of feedback loop where I'd start out with stripped down play-process mechanics - "just the basics" - but with the extra character/content choices that are primarily out-of-play concerns. Then, when all of that was mentally automatic I started using the WvAC.

So after WvAC became 2nd nature, I moved on to incorporating situational modifiers such as attacking from height, cover/concealment, etc., into the sceanrios. Lately I've re-examined the DMG unarmed combat system and found it a hidden gem. (Conventional wisdom bashes this but its really quite nifty, gives the lightly armored character a distinct set of tactical advantages/options, and works well). Depth makes everything more vibrant, but only if the core objective (fast/fun play session) is in hand.

I can hold one "remember this" item in my head at a single time without slowing down play. Not slowing down play is the #1 DMing rule IMO. The basic play process is all that's necessary to craft a tremendously fun evening; the rest is sprinkles that accentuate. So I won't spoil a play session stopping the action "to get something right". There's no point getting a play session wrong (slow play) in order to get a non-critical detail "right". That's an OCD/ego error. Don't let your ego fuck up your ability to provide a fun play session.

But yes, small adjustments.
  • the unarmed combat rule about rolling a small % variable and deciding to apply that to chance to hit, or hit result, for example. It's slowing down play as people agonize over the two choices for no real benefit or result change most times.
  • most UA classes and races - no thanks
  • Dragon mag NPC classes - maybe/case-by-case (no samurai/ninja/death master, yes to bandit and some others)
  • combat is rolled in the open - the players see the to-hit and damage rolls
  • I have a time tracker that sits out in view. Whenever players check traps, hear noise, stop moving, etc., they have to roll the # of rounds this takes (if random), and can see the hand on the spinner move towards the next random encounter check/torch burnout/mandatory rest period - whatever. But they concretely see how their choices (or lack of decisiveness) affect their risks or supplies.
  • Players roll the random encounter check, not me. They also roll the table result if a RE occurs. They don't have the table contents, but they know that very high or low results are more "special" than middle results. If they have a good memory and are in the same area, they may recall a previous result was monster "X". (This does them no good, but makes the players groan in anticipation if the previous encounter took a lot out of them)
What I find is that even if a particular rule, in isolation, isn't how I would write it at first glance - the way it interacts with other rules almost always provides the dynamic I'm looking for. In my experience, most DMs start chucking rules based upon whether it is how they would write it upon first glance, and then wonder why they get bubbles in parts of the system which are related (but they don't discern).

Most other stuff I leave up to the table. I think critical hit systems are dumb, but if the table wants one I'll incorporate whatever they want, so long as it isn't weighted against the monsters ("prove it" systems are weighted against the monsters). But remember - I roll combat in the open. So there's zero DM mercy if we all see the dice dictate that your 7th level character just was beheaded by a kobold - them's the breaks.
 
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squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Ok DP. I see what you mean. One sentence, and I derailed your thread again. :)

(...but it had sorta run its course.)

Ironically, the two awesome responses by Gandalf_scion and EOTB are precisely what I'm looking for in cyberspace---learning what works from others so I can become a better DM. Especially when it comes from a deeper understanding of the cogs that drove the original system design.

I see two clear votes for weapons vs. AC, and now I'm curious enough to try adding it.

Between EOTB and Anthony Huso's recent blog posts, I'm starting to feel a strong pull out of the 0e and into the 1e camping. Oh the decisions!

I do like that D&D is a smorgasbord, and you get to pick and choose---but the point I perceive from EOTB (and others) is that D&D evolved organically, and like any complex (natural) system, the parts that balance its ecosystem are not obvious. What's more, we (humans) have a tendency to trample all over the natural balance in pursuit of our short-sighted desires. I think there is some of the modern-world excess in all of the latter editions---including 1e (looking at you UA). Good intentioned logical constructs spring from the minds of men, but are designed in vacuum with insufficient feedback---or, I suspect, by the one-sided feedback of polling novice players on what they "want" more of---until the unbalanced result collapses and drowns in its own waste-products. (Oops! Time for another rule-set reboot!)

That's why, almost 50 years later, it's so useful to hear which mechanics consistently work for folks. EOTB's rubic of "slows down play" and "Don't let your ego fuck up your ability to provide a fun play session." sound like good touchstones to me.

Less helpful is, "Everything's great at my table. I just make it work on the fly."

As for house-rules/style, EOTB's having players roll random encounters would probably go against the "immersive" (OD&D?) vibe I love. Too much looking-behind-the-curtains spoils the Grand Illusion, i.e. "this is a game...here's how this piece works...be strategic or suffer the consequences." That might be a bridge-to-far for my tastes...even though I once believed the same about weapons vs. AC. [In his post (above), he posits expert players who all grok the rules...so maybe that's the difference.]

Thanks all.
 
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EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
As for house-rules/style, EOTB's having players roll random encounters would probably go against the "immersive" (OD&D?) vibe I love. Too much looking-behind-the-curtains spoils the Grand Illusion, i.e. "this is a game...here's how this piece works...be strategic or suffer the consequences." That might be a bridge-to-far for my tastes...
I've only started doing this in the past couple of years, and even to veteran players it seems weird at first. I do it for two reasons:

1) I'm trying to get players to feel things. Tension, elation, fear, greed, etc. You want tension? Put the die whose result may drain away critical resources, into the hands of the players and make them roll it. Everyone at the table is watching that baby spin; they are 100% engaged with the game at that moment in time, even if they've been mentally wandering otherwise;

2) especially with veteran players, if they see the DM is not keeping track of certain things faithfully either out of disinclination, or just too many balls in the air at one time, they absolutely will and should take advantage. Why wouldn't I check for traps and listen at every single door if there's no mechanical reason not to? Immersive DMs tend to (IME) want to get to what they consider immersive, which are descriptions of what players see, hear, etc. OK. Sure. I'd like to have as many hit points as possible when I'm dealing with what that DM is eager to immerse me in. So I'm going to hazard check all the time, and I'll make sure its quick and smooth at the table so it's as low-drag as possible on game play.

But if you were in a party of people down in some unfamiliar labyrinth with roving killer nightmares, would you be moving quick or slow? I'd be moving quick. So in a counter-intuitive way, really driving home the cost of fucking around reorients play back to an immersive dynamic. Immersion is when action is moving nonstop; when the situation changes bang-bang-bang, and to stop paying attention is to create a problem you'd rather not have. Putting these dynamics right in the players' faces has made play much more bang-bang-bang then it ever was without them.

Basically, I find "DM mystery" and "player ignorance" to be vastly overrated and not useful to creating immersive play. They can aid in creating a visual in each individual player's and DM's imagination that is itself abstractly immersive when considered independent from play, but the play process necessary to construct that imaginary visual using mystery and ignorance is itself less immersive, in meatspace. If that make any sense. This is why I'm proudly a gamist. I'm trying to make the play process bang-bang fun around the tabletop instead of prioritizing how we might imagine it really looked for those characters, in our heads, simultaneous with the process of playing. Trust me, when the dice are bagged up and the players are reconstructing the night's events from their character's perspectives - they're still seeing that immersive abstract "movie" in their heads, anyway.
 
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squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Basically, I find "DM mystery" and "player ignorance" to be vastly overrated and not useful to creating immersive play.
...
Trust me, when the dice are bagged up and the players are reconstructing the night's events from their character's perspectives - they're still seeing that immersive abstract "movie" in their heads, anyway.
As always, you make a persuasive argument. There is no doubt that moments of high drama can be focused around the dice roll (e.g. saving throws!), and that in retrospective those mechanics can mentally disappear, leaving an immersive recollection.

You would almost have me convinced were it not for my experiences as a player. I recall vividly how well it can work when a large portion of the mechanics happen behind a screen. Hearing the sound of rolling dice is one thing...understanding what is rolled, why, and how often has one major drawback (IMO)---it exposes how incredibly simple the game is.

I learned a great DM (mine was) is an illusionist who makes it appear as though even random mechanics are a seamless virtual world. We weren't little tikes he was fooling either---high school and college-aged players. We all had the 1e books, but he was an iconoclast who followed the beat of his own drum. We had no way of knowing when and how the published rules has been twisted or bent, and he rarely revealed his hand.

We serious enjoyed the process of "not knowing" and figuring things out from the verbal feedback. It was another kind of exploration.

Again, it may be your veteran players who understand the 1e system to a tee making the difference. Perhaps trying to pull the wool over their eyes as to what's happening with the dice is an exercise in futility. I dunno. (Your comment in one of Bryce's reviews about the utility of standard magic items also alludes to a different play-style than what I'm trying to recreate.)

However, with my novice players, things have worked out well so far---even though I've let them see more of the dice than I did in the 70's and early 80's. Still, even after five years, I think of myself as a novice DM and continue looking for ways to improve.

With that in mind, here's another quasi-tangential question for this hijacked thread: How to best introduce the Weapons-vs-AC mechanic to a game?
  1. Just tell the players I am going to use it, and then show them a weapons table with the pluses and minuses?
  2. Or should I just start using them, and find a verbal way to imply certain weapons are having trouble, and let them work out the details for themselves? (As you might do in life or a video game.)
Happy Thanksgiving.
 
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EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
Hope your TG was a good break as well!

I learned a great DM (mine was) is an illusionist who makes it appear as though even random mechanics are a seamless virtual world. We weren't little tikes he was fooling either---high school and college-aged players. We all had the 1e books, but he was an iconoclast who followed the beat of his own drum. We had no way of knowing when and how the published rules has been twisted or bent, and he rarely revealed his hand.
This is the way most people play D&D, so you're not wrong even though we want different things. I don't think the michael jordan school of DMing is iconoclastic though - I think it's the role most DMs want to play for their groups. Instead, I think the john stockton school of DMing is what's iconoclastic to conventional RPG wisdom.

We serious enjoyed the process of "not knowing" and figuring things out from the verbal feedback. It was another kind of exploration.
It is another kind of exploration. I agree there, and I also agree that people who enjoy the light bulb/realization feeling will eat it up. And it's not inherently at odds with what I advocate, but it's very hard for many DMs - especially those who are very, very leaning toward the michael jordan school - to use it selectively. I see it often used where the default interaction starts without enough information to really make smart decisions, requiring default 20-questions period(s) that eat up table time like pac-man on a powerpill - the character almost always has to "earn" the information to make a meaningful, good decision through their Q&A instead of that dynamic being used selectively. When abused (and I'm not suggesting you're abusing it!), it turns into a "you're so smart" intellectually-driven minigame where the players and DM take turns (more than one type) subtly appreciating how the other is demonstrating either exceptional creativity or exceptional intelligence.

On the other hand, I want to see whether the intellectual player wilts or blossoms when information that's at-hand and given freely, but could be either signal or noise, is combined with time pressure (they often hate this, because it plays opposite to their strengths and removes the subtle confirmation of "right" that comes from a Q&A). And at heart I'm closer to this guy than the so-smart minigame-lovin DM:

 

squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Cute clip.

When I say my DM was an iconoclast, I was referring to how he lived nearly all of his (short) life, not necessarily as a DM. He was a strong advocate of mind over muscle (liking the original Star Trek far more than the original Star Wars), so yes...he did want us to be intelligent (while giving the token appearance of rooting for the monsters), but it was never about "beating" him. What he wanted to do most, it seemed, was laugh himself silly at our crazy hi-jinks.

Also, there was no "minigame" of guessing. The players just had to fiddle with things to learn what they did...or else blissfully ignore the often two-edged magics and get by via more mundane (and reliable) methods. At its best, you knew what you'd know---requests for out-of-game knowledge reveals were usually met with the reply "How would you know?".

Not to be my usual argumentative self (as I have a feeling I could learn a lot from how you play), but you did gloss over the key point I was trying to make in that by exposing the (essentially simple) mechanics of play so transparently, it does "flatten" the game a bit. Potentially reducing it to, "So THAT'S all that's going on? Just a X probability of (this) or (that)? Rinse and repeat?". For those seeking to suspend disbelief, you are potentially making that immersion a bit more difficult. Agreed?

There is a wonderful quote in Blaylock's "The Elfin Ship" when the elves reluctantly show the "scientist-type" the cockpit of their flying ship. He see the vision he was expecting of many gyroscopic-ally whirling parts and asks them "How many gears are there in there?". The pilot replys, "As many as you like."

To me, that's the DM's illusion---one of a far more elaborate simulation. And because there is a real Ghost In the D&D Machine (the DM), the system is actually far more robust than the rules alone might suggest.

That said, your emphasis on time-pressure is brilliant and probably not emphasized enough.
 
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EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
When I say my DM was an iconoclast, I was referring to how he lived nearly all of his (short) life, not necessarily as a DM. He was a strong advocate of mind over muscle (liking the original Star Trek far more than the original Star Wars), so yes...he did want us to be intelligent (while giving the token appearance of rooting for the monsters), but it was never about "beating" him. What he wanted to do most, it seemed, was laugh himself silly at our crazy hi-jinks.
Sounds like he was taken before his time, and that's always unfortunate. I'm glad you all were able to play together and laugh like crazy over RPGs.

Also, there was no "minigame" of guessing. The players just had to fiddle with things to learn what they did...or else blissfully ignore the often two-edged magics and get by via more mundane (and reliable) methods.
This can be done well, and you remember it fondly so it was done well. Most RPGers agree that there are a few different major components to RPGs: interaction/roleplay/talking, tactics/strategy, and exploration/discovery. Which is salt and which is meat and which are the potatoes will vary from person to person. That's all.

What you describe with widget fiddling I really enjoy as salt, and enjoy map exploration as potatoes, but neither to me are meat. That doesn't mean you shouldn't enjoy it as meat, if that's what you are describing. I do know games I've sat in on where most others enjoyed it as meat, and it's those games I'm thinking of when I post.

you did gloss over the key point I was trying to make in that by exposing the (essentially simple) mechanics of play so transparently, it does "flatten" the game a bit. Potentially reducing it to, "So THAT'S all that's going on? Just a X probability of (this) or (that)? Rinse and repeat?". For those seeking to suspend disbelief, you are potentially making that immersion a bit more difficult. Agreed?
I'm nearly aligned with you right up until the end. It would make some types suspension/immersion more difficult - that I agree.

But in the quote farther above, do you see how making that knowledge uncertain/variable merely caused you to rely on a different constant?

Every game requires constants to unlock the variables. It's all math; it's all algebra in narrative drag, even if never acknowledged. What is the variable the group has the most fun unlocking? I find the most fun for what I'm looking for out of the game is unlocked by making some mundane game mechanic risk constants known. Your group preferred the constant of getting by via more mundane/reliable methods and bypassing *magic* that often enough couldn't be reasonably determined to be helpful or harmful to your overall goal.

I don't want players to default towards ignoring magic or reliance on oft-repeated rules of engagement. I want the players to guesstimate their risk level sufficiently to feel comfortable enough to engage with magic they don't understand, and try unique and untested strategems. Even if it doesn't seem directly connected, risk and risk-taking are based on overall/total unknowns - each person has a "risk budget". Make unquantified risks too great and people refuse to engage with the biggest wildcards. Reduce risk in any area, increase the chance of dealing with even highly-variable wildcards.

This is how casinos keep you on the floor - they make the most mundane expenses (room, food, shows) explicitly, reasonably cheap so you develop a budget of what you're comfortable losing (in theory) gambling. And next thing you know you've blown two month's pay on slots because the machine was an exciting variable causing you to want to push your luck somewhere past the budget you'd promised yourself. But if the cost of staying at Las Vegas was different for each person, and largely a black box until your card was charged, then you'd be much less willing to pull a one-armed bandit for a few hours.
 
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squeen

8, 8, I forget what is for
Every game requires constants to unlock the variables. It's all math; it's all algebra in narrative drag, even if never acknowledged. What is the variable the group has the most fun unlocking? I find the most fun for what I'm looking for out of the game is unlocked by making some mundane game mechanic risk constants known. Your group preferred the constant of getting by via more mundane/reliable methods and bypassing *magic* that often enough couldn't be reasonably determined to be helpful or harmful to your overall goal.
I think I understand what you are getting at. You feel it's counterproductive (i.e. less fun) to obscure certain routine mechanics because it slows down getting to your "meat"---that being tactics/strategy/resource-management. I find that totally legitimate. In contrast, I think I lean a bit more towards exploration of the unknown. All in al,l it's a neat tirade of classifications. Thanks for that.

With regard to how we (as players) reacted to the wild-cards in the environment (e.g. magic), it's not the case that it was avoided. Quite the opposite. We'd routinely uncork the genie from its bottle whenever a) our backs were up against the wall, b) we felt like fiddling with new stuff, or c) out of a devilish desire to unleash some "crazy". Not very strategic, I'll admit---but still lots of fun.

Also, since found magic tended to be hit-or-miss, I (as a magic-user PC) was very motivated to try to create new spells and magic items (potions mostly) since those were easier to control. The game does internally re-balance itself to a certain degree.

My DM's world and dungeons were vast---much bigger than and nearly oblivious to the PCs (by default, although you could start the dominoes falling if you managed to get enough leverage). For the most part, after nearly a decade of play, we barely scratched the surface. The notion of "winning" was quite vague. Instead it was Rogue-like in that you wondered how far you might get before (by pushing your luck) something inevitably "got" you. What was fun was seeing how big a splash you could make in the pond on your way out. Through interacting with folk like yourself, I am trying to get a sense of if that style of play is atypical or not. In the past, when I've sat at stranger's tables (e.g. GenCon), their D&D felt like wearing a pair of shoes a size or so too small. I'm not sure if that's a feeling that would disappear with familiarity or not.

Cheers.
 

EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
All of that is why D&D took off so well - it was loose enough to scratch several types of itches that no other activity really did.

My DM's world and dungeons were vast---much bigger than and nearly oblivious to the PCs (by default, although you could start the dominoes falling if you managed to get enough leverage). For the most part, after nearly a decade of play, we barely scratched the surface. The notion of "winning" was quite vague. Instead it was Rogue-like in that you wondered how far you might get before (by pushing your luck) something inevitably "got" you. What was fun was seeing how big a splash you could make in the pond on your way out. Through interacting with folk like yourself, I am trying to get a sense of if that style of play is atypical or not. In the past, when I've sat at stranger's tables (e.g. GenCon), their D&D felt like wearing a pair of shoes a size or so too small. I'm not sure if that's a feeling that would disappear with familiarity or not.
It sounds like he was tremendously creative, and you all enjoyed it very much. This is what I'm talking about when I say the MJ style of DMing - it's an expository of the DM's talent, and the game will be structured primarily to drive the revealing of more and more of that creativity - the value proposition to the players is something new and wondrous to explore/discover, and the value prop to the DM is an audience to share/experience their creativity with. Again, this isn't "wrong", but I prefer a game with more traction, where action leaves imprint and persistent change. I prefer players desiring to make a concrete impact on the world around them - that it is different due to their choices and actions. If they make none it will move along a path - it doesn't need them in any way - but activity in pursuit of a goal can make a change; the PCs are X-factors so what will they do with it? Anything?

They also can sit back and enjoy my mysteries and creativity - if that's what they want out of the game I can provide that in spades, just like John Stockton can take the shot. But I'm here to set them up to take shots. That's my true role and purpose in the game as DM; creating the world used as the stage to move around in is ultimately entertaining filler to generate interest on their part to get involved somewhere in a way that I am not driving in any way shape or form, but only determining the reactions to.

The style of play I advocate is definitely atypical. It was, I think, presumed in how the 1E DMG discusses the game, but it was not how most players used the game, or the direction the game evolved towards. It takes new players in my games a while for everything to click that they're much more responsible for what happens next than in most games, and passivity isn't rewarded with the game finding you (so to speak). When that light bulb finally goes off some love that responsibility and some don't. But as long as there's at least a couple of players who do, the rest can follow their lead and let them determine the group's action just as a DM often does at other tables.
 

Beoric

8, 8, I forget what is for
I see two clear votes for weapons vs. AC, and now I'm curious enough to try adding it.
Gah! If you mean AD&D weapons vs AC tables, here is a strong vote against.

Also, AD&D segment based order of attacks can die a fiery death, especially in connection with weapon speed factor.

Both of these options add complexity and slow combat based largely on out of combat equipment decisions. Moreover, they aren't interesting decisions, they are simple math decisions. WvAC tables in particular are a case of character optimization without interesting trade-offs - some weapons are clearly better against heavy armor, and some are clearly better against light armor, so you always take one of each. I'm pretty sure the statistically optimized weapons are a solved problem.

I am relatively sure that, given DM and players of equal familiarity with their respective systems, I can run a 4e combat at least as quickly as most can run a strictly by the book 1e combat using equivalent PCs and monsters. I'm absolutely positive I can make it feel faster, especially if I am using a VTT.
 

EOTB

So ... slow work day? Every day?
Speed factor has nothing to do with segment your attack goes on; it breaks some tied die rolls when both are using weapons, and it sometimes allows someone attacking a spellcaster in melee to go early, before a spell would complete, but speed factor is a corner case rule, not a commonly-applied one. It does work pretty well if used as described when it applies, though. The fighter who's willing to go with "statistically non-optimal" weapons can get a chance to shine in those sorts of tense moments (ties, going against an enemy spellcaster).

Fixing the round at 10 ticks (call them segments or whatever you want) while saying that actions taking more than 10 ticks have to wait until the next round was a big factor reigning in magic-users. As soon as 2E went to an infinite number of ticks in a round, with bigger numbers just going last (but in the same round), high level spell-casters' power level took off like a rocket and the "quadratic wizard/linear fighter" problem was born.

As for decisions that are uninteresting simple math decisions - that applies equally to any decision a character could make that produces a modifier to a roll. Armor is an uninteresting feature of the game since the statistically optimal armors are a solved problem (and almost always chosen), and all they do is give a negative modifier to an attack roll.

For the statistically-optimized weapon(s), if the weapons list for each class is strongly enforced, only fighters have access to most of the "best" weapons. If clerics are allowed slings (example of common house rule with ripples) that means hammers and clubs are no longer valued as missile options. Most of the best weapons are also low-frequency magical items. This combined with the realization from players that every fighter taking 2-handed sword means that some fighters are likely to wait a long time as magical long swords, broad swords, etc., are sold due to lack of suitors often self-corrects the white room problem you identify. Of course, if a DM places magic items influenced by what a party can use, or eschews item saving throws as uninteresting complexity which results in magic items lasting nearly forever once gained, those are other examples of common house rules causing their own ripples.

All the algebra that affects the game is not explicit in the rule books.
 
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