I'm sure D&D6e will be a huge success among certain types of players/DMs
From Peril in Pinebrook, the new official starting adventure:
Disclaimer, my sources in the twatter tell me this is so, if it's not then please provide evidence so I can correct them.
https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/peril-in-pinebrook-free-dnd-adventure/ (https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/peril-in-pinebrook-free-dnd-adventure/)
I do agree to a point on the attack thing.
I once used alpha strike, focus fire tactics on the characters in a D&D game, and wiped the party. I tend not to do that anymore. I will have the opponents target on a semi-random fashion.
The rest is narrative trash. A GM should not fudge things unless absolutley necessary, because fudging things skews the ability for the players to assess threat.
This leads to the inevitable "Adult red dragon? The GM will save us. Yawn."
The "odds" should change because the players made a choice that affected the situation, not because the GM is holding their hand when they're losing.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 22, 2023, 05:13:00 PM
I do agree to a point on the attack thing.
I once used alpha strike, focus fire tactics on the characters in a D&D game, and wiped the party. I tend not to do that anymore. I will have the opponents target on a semi-random fashion.
The rest is narrative trash. A GM should not fudge things unless absolutley necessary, because fudging things skews the ability for the players to assess threat.
This leads to the inevitable "Adult red dragon? The GM will save us. Yawn."
The "odds" should change because the players made a choice that affected the situation, not because the GM is holding their hand when they're losing.
For some monsters it makes sense to have them switch their target, for others it doesn't, it can't be a hard rule on one way or the other, also sometimes the circumnstances might make it make sense or stop making sense.
This book's advice feels similar to the whole quantum ogre side of things. Where DMs are essentially supposed to change the circumstances to give the illusion of victory rather than trying to simulate a situation or the like. Player choice kinda gets trampled on, I feel, if there isn't the potential to succeed, fail, or otherwise alter the outcome on your own merits. Reminds me of the wizard of Oz's whole setup with the machine and the like.
My 2c from twitter:
---
"Fudging" and "illusionism" are popular in 2023.
It's okay if your table likes them, but I hate to see it taught as if that is the ONLY valid playstyle.
ESPECIALLY while you are learning the game.
--
I don't like this, but if your table wants kids gloves this is a valid playstyle... just be honest that this is what you're doing.
I think kids have to learn honesty and fair play too.
---
You absolutely can run a game where no PCs ever die for good.
E.g., Dark Souls. Or Toon.
Just be honest to your players about it.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 22, 2023, 04:57:01 PM
I'm sure D&D6e will be a huge success among certain types of players/DMs
From Peril in Pinebrook, the new official starting adventure
Naw this is just some 10 page freebee WOTC threw up on DNDBeyond. Most will never see it. It was released "inspired by The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons" which is part of their "perfect for new and younger players" line, and not even associated with the upcoming new edition. See here (https://dnd.wizards.com/products/the-practically-complete-guide-to-dragons?icid_medium=ddb&icid_source=article-1625&icid_campaign=free-intro&icid_content=practically-dragons).
Quote from: Mistwell on December 22, 2023, 06:14:19 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 22, 2023, 04:57:01 PM
I'm sure D&D6e will be a huge success among certain types of players/DMs
From Peril in Pinebrook, the new official starting adventure
Naw this is just some 10 page freebee WOTC threw up on DNDBeyond. Most will never see it. It was released "inspired by The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons" which is part of their "perfect for new and younger players" line, and not even associated with the upcoming new edition. See here (https://dnd.wizards.com/products/the-practically-complete-guide-to-dragons?icid_medium=ddb&icid_source=article-1625&icid_campaign=free-intro&icid_content=practically-dragons).
Except they both are made by the same kind of people in the same corporation and it shows said corporation mindset you're totally correct, it has nothing to do with the next edition made by said corporation.
The generations of absolute pathetic wretches that modern Liberalism has produced are shocking and loathsome.
Quote from: Mistwell on December 22, 2023, 06:14:19 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 22, 2023, 04:57:01 PM
I'm sure D&D6e will be a huge success among certain types of players/DMs
From Peril in Pinebrook, the new official starting adventure
Naw this is just some 10 page freebee WOTC threw up on DNDBeyond. Most will never see it. It was released "inspired by The Practically Complete Guide to Dragons" which is part of their "perfect for new and younger players" line, and not even associated with the upcoming new edition. See here (https://dnd.wizards.com/products/the-practically-complete-guide-to-dragons?icid_medium=ddb&icid_source=article-1625&icid_campaign=free-intro&icid_content=practically-dragons).
Giving New and Younger players terrible GM advice doesn't bode well for their competency in writing RPGs.
Whether for 5E or 6E, this adventure certainly showcases the same WOTC quality that we have all come to know well.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 22, 2023, 04:57:01 PM
I'm sure D&D6e will be a huge success among certain types of players/DMs
From Peril in Pinebrook, the new official starting adventure:
Disclaimer, my sources in the twatter tell me this is so, if it's not then please provide evidence so I can correct them.
https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/peril-in-pinebrook-free-dnd-adventure/ (https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/peril-in-pinebrook-free-dnd-adventure/)
I'll have to show it to my one "special" player that when there is a sign on the guillotine that tells the player to stick his dick into and receives a prize, who does that that he shouldn't be killed for his own stupidity. I really only give him one death due to not knowing rules, like not using disengage because he wanted his attack to move away from the ogre at level 1 and getting crit killed. Then there were about 5 other player deaths, the only other legitimate one was the cleric didn't have lesser restoration up and he became a shadow. The other three was stupidity. So five deaths for a campaign, three of which were stupidity. Not going to coddle players, you do something stupid at the wrong place you die. Hell I remember I had one idiot stick their nose in a pile of a known drug that causes mutation, the characters appendages turned to snakes and bit them to death.
The stupidity from 5E players only are truly amazing. They don't realize the world has rules and the rule of cool won't save them from being retarded.
A few things to unpack there.
To start with, I'm with everyone else here in being very against illusionist gm-ing. I think this forum tends to trend towards the simulationist end of the GSN paradigm. Personally I'm unapologetically much more gamist in my approach, in that I'll generally prioritize a functionally playing game over one that accurately simulates reality. Even then, one of the basics of a functioning game is that the rules apply consistently and evenly, and that no one gets to cheat. To use a videogame analogy, having the DM change the rolls/stats behind the screen is akin to a videogame where the hit-detection malfunctions and it becomes unpredictable whether a weapon model colliding with a character model will cause damage, or a boss monster reads your inputs to attack you at the exact instant you start healing. It's the game itself cheating. I GM by a strict rule that once the "pieces are on the board", i.e., once I've described the scenario or written it down in my adventure notes, I take my hands off. No changing stats, no spawning monsters, etc. The rolls are the rolls.
I say that to say this:
------------------------------------------------------
Where it says that "they don't want the excitement to lead to certain character death", I actually kind of agree. I highlight the word "certain", because that's key to the issue. For character death to be certain, the encounter must not reasonably be survivable, escapable or avoidable. Probably sounds like a low bar, but I've seen GMs fail to meet it. I call this out, because periodically I see people talking tough about how fairness doesn't matter in an RPG, and I always have the same thought: If your GM locked your level one character in a room with an ancient dragon and then proceeded to burn you to death in the first turn, I bet you'd be annoyed.
That's obviously an extreme example, but it makes the point. You don't need to --and shouldn't-- carefully balance every encounter to give the players a 76% chance of victory, but it's also a really dumb idea to railroad them into defeat.
-------------------------------------------------------
I also wonder to what extent it's actually fair to blame WOTC for this. Trust me, I hate WOTC as much as the next man, but I'm not sure they're the ones driving the general trend towards Illusionism. From what I've seen that trend is driven more by social media, RPG influencers and particularly youtubers. It's probably more fair to blame the Sly Flourishes, the "How to be a Great GM"s and the Matt Mercers of the world. WOTC might just be trying to chase what they perceive as the going trend in the hobby, albeit incompetently.
-------------------------------------------------------
A couple of people have mentioned target prioritization for NPCs. That's a tough one if you're trying to be the hands-off impartial GM. I always try to work out in my head what the individual monster's perspective is, and how tactical its thinking might be, but at the end of the day, the GM is benefitting from a detached bird's eye view from the encounter. It's very easy to accidentally play the monsters as either too efficient or too stupid. One thing I've considered trying is writing out in advance how a monster does target priority, so that at least I'm sure I'm not letting myself be influenced by the dynamic at the table.
------------------------------------------------------
Just a weird coincidence, but this video popped up in my feed yesterday, making the argument that the 5e stat blocks are subtly designed for illusionist DM-ing. Kind of interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6CVeiPvR34
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
A few things to unpack there.
To start with, I'm with everyone else here in being very against illusionist gm-ing. I think this forum tends to trend towards the simulationist end of the GSN paradigm. Personally I'm unapologetically much more gamist in my approach, in that I'll generally prioritize a functionally playing game over one that accurately simulates reality. Even then, one of the basics of a functioning game is that the rules apply consistently and evenly, and that no one gets to cheat. To use a videogame analogy, having the DM change the rolls/stats behind the screen is akin to a videogame where the hit-detection malfunctions and it becomes unpredictable whether a weapon model colliding with a character model will cause damage, or a boss monster reads your inputs to attack you at the exact instant you start healing. It's the game itself cheating. I GM by a strict rule that once the "pieces are on the board", i.e., once I've described the scenario or written it down in my adventure notes, I take my hands off. No changing stats, no spawning monsters, etc. The rolls are the rolls.
I say that to say this:
------------------------------------------------------
Where it says that "they don't want the excitement to lead to certain character death", I actually kind of agree. I highlight the word "certain", because that's key to the issue. For character death to be certain, the encounter must not reasonably be survivable, escapable or avoidable. Probably sounds like a low bar, but I've seen GMs fail to meet it. I call this out, because periodically I see people talking tough about how fairness doesn't matter in an RPG, and I always have the same thought: If your GM locked your level one character in a room with an ancient dragon and then proceeded to burn you to death in the first turn, I bet you'd be annoyed.
That's obviously an extreme example, but it makes the point. You don't need to --and shouldn't-- carefully balance every encounter to give the players a 76% chance of victory, but it's also a really dumb idea to railroad them into defeat.
-------------------------------------------------------
I also wonder to what extent it's actually fair to blame WOTC for this. Trust me, I hate WOTC as much as the next man, but I'm not sure they're the ones driving the general trend towards Illusionism. From what I've seen that trend is driven more by social media, RPG influencers and particularly youtubers. It's probably more fair to blame the Sly Flourishes, the "How to be a Great GM"s and the Matt Mercers of the world. WOTC might just be trying to chase what they perceive as the going trend in the hobby, albeit incompetently.
-------------------------------------------------------
A couple of people have mentioned target prioritization for NPCs. That's a tough one if you're trying to be the hands-off impartial GM. I always try to work out in my head what the individual monster's perspective is, and how tactical its thinking might be, but at the end of the day, the GM is benefitting from a detached bird's eye view from the encounter. It's very easy to accidentally play the monsters as either too efficient or too stupid. One thing I've considered trying is writing out in advance how a monster does target priority, so that at least I'm sure I'm not letting myself be influenced by the dynamic at the table.
------------------------------------------------------
Just a weird coincidence, but this video popped up in my feed yesterday, making the argument that the 5e stat blocks are subtly designed for illusionist DM-ing. Kind of interesting.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6CVeiPvR34
I find negative reinforcement tends to get players to learn targeting. Like allowing a wizard to get off that second lightning bolt off because everyone decided to take out the 10 hp guards because it was epic, rather than stopping the guy doing AE 35hp a shot. I'm expecting a potential TPK now due to that decision by players who damn well know better and decided fuck it, they are fighting push overs. Open the wrong secret door, say hello to the huge dragon. Oh, you are opening giant doors in what appears to be an obvious dragon's lair and you just killed a sub-boss that was behind a red dragon illusion and you are pikachu surprised a huge red dragon is there and you have 6 level 11's but you have players a few players with 20 hps because you weren't thinking? Sucks to be you guys. And then when the red dragon puts up a faustian bargain where you give one of your magic items and he'll let you live and one player decides fuck that, you aren't getting his bow +1, well good luck players.
If more DM's played the game as it is and kept the rolls the way it is, we'd all have better games and not seeing complete and utter fuck ups like what I just DM'd today. 50/50 chance of a TPK by a CR Easy with six level 11's due to poor play and poor role playing experience. When given a chance of life and come back later when healed but to reach for defeat for most of the party, that is called stupidity.
They seem to think that younger players will be too dumb to notice the obvious fudging or that they won't find it condescending and annoying. Also, a lot of the people supporting this act like D&D 5e is some grim and gritty game where death is always right around the corner. It's not. It's really, really not. 5e characters go down fairly often but they rarely actually die. If you are worried about characters dying, the obvious solution would be to have characters start at level 3 and give them a few healing potions. The odds of a character dying outright from damage at that level are pretty much zero. The characters will be a bit more complicated but they will all have their class' signature ability at that point. It's a big step up in capability. If you are really worried, you can always throw in a tag-along support character with spells like bless and healing word to buff them and pop them back up when they go down. You probably won't need it though. The CR system tends to deliver very easy encounters if you use it as is. It considers an encounter with 4 cr 1/2 thugs to be of medium difficulty for a group of 4 level 3 PCs. It's not. It's really, really not. The PCs will win easily. If you bother with the healbot npcs, it's only insurance in case they get really unlucky in one of the encounters. I have had a monster get 4 crits in a row. It doesn't happen often but it happens.
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 23, 2023, 06:59:38 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
A few things to unpack there....
------------------------------------------------------
Where it says that "they don't want the excitement to lead to certain character death", I actually kind of agree. I highlight the word "certain", because that's key to the issue. For character death to be certain, the encounter must not reasonably be survivable, escapable or avoidable. Probably sounds like a low bar, but I've seen GMs fail to meet it. I call this out, because periodically I see people talking tough about how fairness doesn't matter in an RPG, and I always have the same thought: If your GM locked your level one character in a room with an ancient dragon and then proceeded to burn you to death in the first turn, I bet you'd be annoyed.
That's obviously an extreme example, but it makes the point. You don't need to --and shouldn't-- carefully balance every encounter to give the players a 76% chance of victory, but it's also a really dumb idea to railroad them into defeat....
I find negative reinforcement tends to get players to learn targeting. Like allowing a wizard to get off that second lightning bolt off because everyone decided to take out the 10 hp guards because it was epic, rather than stopping the guy doing AE 35hp a shot. I'm expecting a potential TPK now due to that decision by players who damn well know better and decided fuck it, they are fighting push overs. Open the wrong secret door, say hello to the huge dragon. Oh, you are opening giant doors in what appears to be an obvious dragon's lair and you just killed a sub-boss that was behind a red dragon illusion and you are pikachu surprised a huge red dragon is there and you have 6 level 11's but you have players a few players with 20 hps because you weren't thinking? Sucks to be you guys. And then when the red dragon puts up a faustian bargain where you give one of your magic items and he'll let you live and one player decides fuck that, you aren't getting his bow +1, well good luck players.
If more DM's played the game as it is and kept the rolls the way it is, we'd all have better games and not seeing complete and utter fuck ups like what I just DM'd today. 50/50 chance of a TPK by a CR Easy with six level 11's due to poor play and poor role playing experience. When given a chance of life and come back later when healed but to reach for defeat for most of the party, that is called stupidity.
As far as the dragon goes, it seems like you gave them a more than fair shot. Under the three-fold test I put forward above, the encounter was both avoidable and escapable, and might even be survivable with 6 level 11s, so it'd definitely be kosher by me.
When it comes to the wizard, I'm of two minds. Maybe this is a generational thing. I play with a slightly younger crowd, and a lot of them are big videogamers, so I've never had to teach anyone basic game tactics like focusing down the enemy's chief damage dealer. If anything I experience the opposite problem. I might be alone in this, but there's a nebulous point where too much tactical efficiency starts to feel like metagaming to me. Flip your scenario on its head a little: Imagine a character has three goblins trying to murder them with spears, and they ignore the proximate threat to get more damage on the big bad one of their allies is fighting. Tactically correct, but I have difficulty believing it's what the character would do in the situation.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 22, 2023, 04:57:01 PM
I'm sure D&D6e will be a huge success among certain types of players/DMs
From Peril in Pinebrook, the new official starting adventure:
Disclaimer, my sources in the twatter tell me this is so, if it's not then please provide evidence so I can correct them.
https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/peril-in-pinebrook-free-dnd-adventure/ (https://dungeonsanddragonsfan.com/peril-in-pinebrook-free-dnd-adventure/)
That DM Tip, is hot garbage. It makes every encounter meaningless. Nothing will truly ever be a threat.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 22, 2023, 05:23:24 PM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 22, 2023, 05:13:00 PM
I do agree to a point on the attack thing.
I once used alpha strike, focus fire tactics on the characters in a D&D game, and wiped the party. I tend not to do that anymore. I will have the opponents target on a semi-random fashion.
The rest is narrative trash. A GM should not fudge things unless absolutley necessary, because fudging things skews the ability for the players to assess threat.
This leads to the inevitable "Adult red dragon? The GM will save us. Yawn."
The "odds" should change because the players made a choice that affected the situation, not because the GM is holding their hand when they're losing.
For some monsters it makes sense to have them switch their target, for others it doesn't, it can't be a hard rule on one way or the other, also sometimes the circumnstances might make it make sense or stop making sense.
I simulate all that with semi-randomness. I'll say "These giant ants will attack whoever's closest randomly between the closest-ests" or "These goblins will throw flaming pitch at the casters or ranged if they can, or anybody if they can't" that kind of thing. And any focus fire is due to the dice picking among available targets.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 09:03:26 PM
When it comes to the wizard, I'm of two minds. Maybe this is a generational thing. I play with a slightly younger crowd, and a lot of them are big videogamers, so I've never had to teach anyone basic game tactics like focusing down the enemy's chief damage dealer. If anything I experience the opposite problem. I might be alone in this, but there's a nebulous point where too much tactical efficiency starts to feel like metagaming to me. Flip your scenario on its head a little: Imagine a character has three goblins trying to murder them with spears, and they ignore the proximate threat to get more damage on the big bad one of their allies is fighting. Tactically correct, but I have difficulty believing it's what the character would do in the situation.
Yep. I don't mind player metagaming, because that's their "hero's edge". The opponents may make decisions that are not tactically perfect because in the heat of an encounter, things happen. Some Dwarf gets in your face and that wizard can wait a turn or two.
Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 24, 2023, 04:12:09 PMSome Dwarf gets in your face and that wizard can wait a turn or two.
I felt this was appropriate for this thread. This is an excerpt from a book I'm reviewing right now under guidance for the GM.
Quote You need to deal out pain. Hurt the protagonists every chance you get.
They're built to take it and get stronger for it. Make sure that happens.
You play to challenge your players. Put your antagonists in the way of
what they want. See how the protagonists overcome those challenges
and see where the story goes from there.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 09:03:26 PM
Quote from: honeydipperdavid on December 23, 2023, 06:59:38 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
A few things to unpack there....
------------------------------------------------------
Where it says that "they don't want the excitement to lead to certain character death", I actually kind of agree. I highlight the word "certain", because that's key to the issue. For character death to be certain, the encounter must not reasonably be survivable, escapable or avoidable. Probably sounds like a low bar, but I've seen GMs fail to meet it. I call this out, because periodically I see people talking tough about how fairness doesn't matter in an RPG, and I always have the same thought: If your GM locked your level one character in a room with an ancient dragon and then proceeded to burn you to death in the first turn, I bet you'd be annoyed.
That's obviously an extreme example, but it makes the point. You don't need to --and shouldn't-- carefully balance every encounter to give the players a 76% chance of victory, but it's also a really dumb idea to railroad them into defeat....
I find negative reinforcement tends to get players to learn targeting. Like allowing a wizard to get off that second lightning bolt off because everyone decided to take out the 10 hp guards because it was epic, rather than stopping the guy doing AE 35hp a shot. I'm expecting a potential TPK now due to that decision by players who damn well know better and decided fuck it, they are fighting push overs. Open the wrong secret door, say hello to the huge dragon. Oh, you are opening giant doors in what appears to be an obvious dragon's lair and you just killed a sub-boss that was behind a red dragon illusion and you are pikachu surprised a huge red dragon is there and you have 6 level 11's but you have players a few players with 20 hps because you weren't thinking? Sucks to be you guys. And then when the red dragon puts up a faustian bargain where you give one of your magic items and he'll let you live and one player decides fuck that, you aren't getting his bow +1, well good luck players.
If more DM's played the game as it is and kept the rolls the way it is, we'd all have better games and not seeing complete and utter fuck ups like what I just DM'd today. 50/50 chance of a TPK by a CR Easy with six level 11's due to poor play and poor role playing experience. When given a chance of life and come back later when healed but to reach for defeat for most of the party, that is called stupidity.
As far as the dragon goes, it seems like you gave them a more than fair shot. Under the three-fold test I put forward above, the encounter was both avoidable and escapable, and might even be survivable with 6 level 11s, so it'd definitely be kosher by me.
When it comes to the wizard, I'm of two minds. Maybe this is a generational thing. I play with a slightly younger crowd, and a lot of them are big videogamers, so I've never had to teach anyone basic game tactics like focusing down the enemy's chief damage dealer. If anything I experience the opposite problem. I might be alone in this, but there's a nebulous point where too much tactical efficiency starts to feel like metagaming to me. Flip your scenario on its head a little: Imagine a character has three goblins trying to murder them with spears, and they ignore the proximate threat to get more damage on the big bad one of their allies is fighting. Tactically correct, but I have difficulty believing it's what the character would do in the situation.
For now they are playing with 5E by the book drow, can't wait for them to go into the Descent into the Depths that I'm setting up. My favorite so far is Ridodre a fighter/wizard who dual wields his poisoned short swords as an Echo Knight / Graviturgist, who will echo into the players and then green flame blade them and then gravity well them over the cliff using no resources as an opener will be very fun. and then push It's going to be a fun time in the old town tonight as they run into the drow as written by the module with updated classes for 5E.
If you take Descent into the Depths + Vault of the Drow and then the Drow of the Underdark for 3E, you get a much better defined drow city, albeit at a later state than Gary's modules but you can retcon them and use a lot of its content to really flesh out the city. Having Thazirdun "driders" with squid tentacles than spiders, and high level fight/cleric or fighter/mages the old 1E ran is fun. It gives them casters that are tank mages and hard to kill and able to cast spells between 1st-4th so you aren't going to game breaking spells for most of the leaders of the houses.
I have looked through the encounters in the adventure. I don't know why they are talking about the PCs facing certain death but it's not specific advice for this adventure. The first fight is very easy. The second one is a little harder but the adventure gives the players a surprise round right off the bat. The characters will not be in dire peril here. They won't be in much peril at all. The chances of a character actually dying are pretty much zero.
Quote from: yosemitemike on December 24, 2023, 08:28:02 PM
I have looked through the encounters in the adventure. I don't know why they are talking about the PCs facing certain death but it's not specific advice for this adventure. The first fight is very easy. The second one is a little harder but the adventure gives the players a surprise round right off the bat. The characters will not be in dire peril here. They won't be in much peril at all. The chances of a character actually dying are pretty much zero.
Perhaps you're underestimating the retardation of the new crop of players?
No holding a sword, that's phallic rape-culture. No magic missile, your caster uses Wiccan essential-oils magic. No Clerics, too much Christian baggage. These things really pull down your combat potential.
Quote from: Grognard GM on December 25, 2023, 10:30:10 AM
Quote from: yosemitemike on December 24, 2023, 08:28:02 PM
I have looked through the encounters in the adventure. I don't know why they are talking about the PCs facing certain death but it's not specific advice for this adventure. The first fight is very easy. The second one is a little harder but the adventure gives the players a surprise round right off the bat. The characters will not be in dire peril here. They won't be in much peril at all. The chances of a character actually dying are pretty much zero.
Perhaps you're underestimating the retardation of the new crop of players?
No holding a sword, that's phallic rape-culture. No magic missile, your caster uses Wiccan essential-oils magic. No Clerics, too much Christian baggage. These things really pull down your combat potential.
The only want I can see a character dying is if they insist on attacking the good aligned, not hostile dragon for some reason. I don't know why they would escort the baby there, fight to protect the dragon's eggs and then suddenly decide to attack the adult dragon. That would be certain death all right. The players would have to go out of their way to be dumb though.
Funnily enough, I've found players can tell when you're "holding back". This was an issue I ran into back when I ran 3.5e in high school. The guys could tell the enemies were cycling attacks to take the pressure off them. When I stopped doing that, I found (unsurprisingly) it made combat much more interesting. Years later and with much more experience I don't give the players an inch. If they wanna rush into a room with 10 orcs, they're taking that risk. Even the 5e players I've gamed with enjoyed the risk and rewards much more. Hell, when I first introduced the idea of rolling for ability scores it blew some of their minds, and it isn't like it's some revolutionary idea. You just work with what you get and gauge your moves from there.
One thing I've learned pouring over the AD&D DM's guide: if you're gonna reward creativity, you've gotta punish stupidity.
Quote from: 1stLevelWizard on December 25, 2023, 12:34:23 PM
Funnily enough, I've found players can tell when you're "holding back". This was an issue I ran into back when I ran 3.5e in high school. The guys could tell the enemies were cycling attacks to take the pressure off them. When I stopped doing that, I found (unsurprisingly) it made combat much more interesting. Years later and with much more experience I don't give the players an inch. If they wanna rush into a room with 10 orcs, they're taking that risk. Even the 5e players I've gamed with enjoyed the risk and rewards much more. Hell, when I first introduced the idea of rolling for ability scores it blew some of their minds, and it isn't like it's some revolutionary idea. You just work with what you get and gauge your moves from there.
One thing I've learned pouring over the AD&D DM's guide: if you're gonna reward creativity, you've gotta punish stupidity.
I'm well known among my circle of friends as being a rather harsh GM. Sometimes I overhear convos about how hard a game or a session was that I ran. It's almost like a point of pride that they survived. (As far as I know, I'm just running things as they should be but maybe I'm not fudging things enough?) To my face, they tell me they loved the game.
I never have an issue getting players, my biggest problem is getting schedules to line up. Often this means I'm running with 2-3 players and this tends to lead into a buddy cop feel and lots of hirelings and retainers. Sometimes I run two different games at the same time.
Imagine wanting to win a Olympic gold medal in weightlifting, but skipping leg day because it sucks. That's what that advice is. Oh, you still expect the gold, though. Just because.
Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 23, 2023, 08:45:23 AM
Whether for 5E or 6E, this adventure certainly showcases the same WOTC quality that we have all come to know well.
I see you're willing to take responsibility for your sloppy and lazy mistakes as usual. At least you got some clicks though, right?
Quote from: Mistwell on December 27, 2023, 10:51:39 PM
Quote from: Exploderwizard on December 23, 2023, 08:45:23 AM
Whether for 5E or 6E, this adventure certainly showcases the same WOTC quality that we have all come to know well.
I see you're willing to take responsibility for your sloppy and lazy mistakes as usual. At least you got some clicks though, right?
When are you going to take responsibility for Communism?
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
A few things to unpack there.
To start with, I'm with everyone else here in being very against illusionist gm-ing. I think this forum tends to trend towards the simulationist end of the GSN paradigm. Personally I'm unapologetically much more gamist in my approach, in that I'll generally prioritize a functionally playing game over one that accurately simulates reality. Even then, one of the basics of a functioning game is that the rules apply consistently and evenly, and that no one gets to cheat. To use a videogame analogy, having the DM change the rolls/stats behind the screen is akin to a videogame where the hit-detection malfunctions and it becomes unpredictable whether a weapon model colliding with a character model will cause damage, or a boss monster reads your inputs to attack you at the exact instant you start healing. It's the game itself cheating. I GM by a strict rule that once the "pieces are on the board", i.e., once I've described the scenario or written it down in my adventure notes, I take my hands off. No changing stats, no spawning monsters, etc. The rolls are the rolls.
Most video games DO cheat. When tested against the non-cheating version, players always report worse enjoyment compared to the cheat. Stuff like subtle auto aim to help the player shoot in FPS, or making the AI catch up faster in racing games, or fudging the RNG for item drops.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic on December 28, 2023, 02:44:23 AM
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 23, 2023, 05:06:27 PM
A few things to unpack there.
To start with, I'm with everyone else here in being very against illusionist gm-ing. I think this forum tends to trend towards the simulationist end of the GSN paradigm. Personally I'm unapologetically much more gamist in my approach, in that I'll generally prioritize a functionally playing game over one that accurately simulates reality. Even then, one of the basics of a functioning game is that the rules apply consistently and evenly, and that no one gets to cheat. To use a videogame analogy, having the DM change the rolls/stats behind the screen is akin to a videogame where the hit-detection malfunctions and it becomes unpredictable whether a weapon model colliding with a character model will cause damage, or a boss monster reads your inputs to attack you at the exact instant you start healing. It's the game itself cheating. I GM by a strict rule that once the "pieces are on the board", i.e., once I've described the scenario or written it down in my adventure notes, I take my hands off. No changing stats, no spawning monsters, etc. The rolls are the rolls.
Most video games DO cheat. When tested against the non-cheating version, players always report worse enjoyment compared to the cheat. Stuff like subtle auto aim to help the player shoot in FPS, or making the AI catch up faster in racing games, or fudging the RNG for item drops.
That's a fair criticism. I generally regard a bit of auto aim as a fair compensation for the awkwardness of aiming with a controller, but the point remains. I was thinking more of action games (in the God of War/Devil May Cry/Dark Souls vein), where consistency is key to making the higher skill floor seem fair. In that context you see a lot of player complaints over stuff like input reading, weapon clipping, move-assist/snapping, overgenerous hotboxes etc.
Maybe there's another analogy to tabletop games there. The higher the stakes in the game are, the more important that consistency becomes. Probably players are less inclined to mind that sort of GM "cheating" as I would call it, if they're in the kind of game where they know the cheating is always done to lower the risk to the PCs.
Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 08:49:26 PMI have had a monster get 4 crits in a row. It doesn't happen often but it happens.
Probability is a religious belief. Unless this is your 160,000th monster turn and/or you're doing 160,000 monster turns in a reasonable period of time.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 12:21:02 PMMaybe there's another analogy to tabletop games there. The higher the stakes in the game are, the more important that consistency becomes. Probably players are less inclined to mind that sort of GM "cheating" as I would call it, if they're in the kind of game where they know the cheating is always done to lower the risk to the PCs.
It was said way up in the thread, but this is really about managing expectations. If your players expect you behave as the clockwork god, you shouldn't be considering the possible outcomes of the encounters when you plan them. You should just deduct the natural world the way it is.
On the other hand if you are brand new to GMing, are doing it for people who are brand new to RPGs, and they have an expectation of "this will be more fun than the video games I could play instead" you probably want to help them out.
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 28, 2023, 03:17:09 PM
Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 08:49:26 PMI have had a monster get 4 crits in a row. It doesn't happen often but it happens.
Probability is a religious belief. Unless this is your 160,000th monster turn and/or you're doing 160,000 monster turns in a reasonable period of time.
No, it's a mathematical concept. Speaking of mathematical concepts, there's a thing called clustering. I am not talking about a theoretical statistical probability. This is a thing that happened in a game I was running within the last year.
Quote from: yosemitemike on December 28, 2023, 11:55:54 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 28, 2023, 03:17:09 PM
Quote from: yosemitemike on December 23, 2023, 08:49:26 PMI have had a monster get 4 crits in a row. It doesn't happen often but it happens.
Probability is a religious belief. Unless this is your 160,000th monster turn and/or you're doing 160,000 monster turns in a reasonable period of time.
No, it's a mathematical concept. Speaking of mathematical concepts, there's a thing called clustering. I am not talking about a theoretical statistical probability. This is a thing that happened in a game I was running within the last year.
Yep. Play enough games invovling dice and you will see some bizzare, counterintuitive shit. "Lucky" streaks and "unlucky" streaks happen.
Also also, mass market dice have biases. Biases strong enough to be noticed during an evening's worth of gaming, and can have an effect greater than some rules!
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1alv05cXh0WhNaFPoq3LNzxmv6veurf6utV1kMQAYDQw/edit#heading=h.bojve7q9v4yt
Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 29, 2023, 02:14:18 AM
Yep. Play enough games invovling dice and you will see some bizzare, counterintuitive shit. "Lucky" streaks and "unlucky" streaks happen.
Last night I saw three NPCs all roll natural 20s on the same saving throw, on VTT no less. ;D
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 28, 2023, 03:25:10 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 12:21:02 PMMaybe there's another analogy to tabletop games there. The higher the stakes in the game are, the more important that consistency becomes. Probably players are less inclined to mind that sort of GM "cheating" as I would call it, if they're in the kind of game where they know the cheating is always done to lower the risk to the PCs.
It was said way up in the thread, but this is really about managing expectations. If your players expect you behave as the clockwork god, you shouldn't be considering the possible outcomes of the encounters when you plan them. You should just deduct the natural world the way it is.
On the other hand if you are brand new to GMing, are doing it for people who are brand new to RPGs, and they have an expectation of "this will be more fun than the video games I could play instead" you probably want to help them out.
I'm not going to be the guy who says only my way is fun. I've played with plenty of people who prefer the "GM as storyteller" model, but I think the "clockwork god" model has some benefits people don't always realize. In practice, I think almost everyone (including myself) winds up running their games somewhere between the extremes of the two. It's a question of emphasis.
You mentioned new GMs. One of the bigger issues with the emphasis on the GM as a storyteller or a curator-of-fun which no one talks about, is that it creates a kind of "cult of the GM" by painting GMs as these brilliant auteurs that can improvise the Lord of the Rings while herding a group of players into following the story, but also incorporating them into the creative process. Firstly it's just annoying to me to see people hero-worshipping their GMs like they're gods among men. More importantly, it's one of the bigger reasons why newer players are so often scared to run their own games. Phrased that way, GM-ing is a pretty daunting prospect. Gauging your players' engagement or curating the difficulty level on the fly requires a degree of social adeptness that some people find very difficult. Telling the prospective new GM that "all you have to do is set up a plausible scenario and then reasonably adjudicate how it responds to the players' actions" is a lot less demanding.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 09:34:38 AM
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 28, 2023, 03:25:10 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 28, 2023, 12:21:02 PMMaybe there's another analogy to tabletop games there. The higher the stakes in the game are, the more important that consistency becomes. Probably players are less inclined to mind that sort of GM "cheating" as I would call it, if they're in the kind of game where they know the cheating is always done to lower the risk to the PCs.
It was said way up in the thread, but this is really about managing expectations. If your players expect you behave as the clockwork god, you shouldn't be considering the possible outcomes of the encounters when you plan them. You should just deduct the natural world the way it is.
On the other hand if you are brand new to GMing, are doing it for people who are brand new to RPGs, and they have an expectation of "this will be more fun than the video games I could play instead" you probably want to help them out.
I'm not going to be the guy who says only my way is fun. I've played with plenty of people who prefer the "GM as storyteller" model, but I think the "clockwork god" model has some benefits people don't always realize. In practice, I think almost everyone (including myself) winds up running their games somewhere between the extremes of the two. It's a question of emphasis.
You mentioned new GMs. One of the bigger issues with the emphasis on the GM as a storyteller or a curator-of-fun which no one talks about, is that it creates a kind of "cult of the GM" by painting GMs as these brilliant auteurs that can improvise the Lord of the Rings while herding a group of players into following the story, but also incorporating them into the creative process. Firstly it's just annoying to me to see people hero-worshipping their GMs like they're gods among men. More importantly, it's one of the bigger reasons why newer players are so often scared to run their own games. Phrased that way, GM-ing is a pretty daunting prospect. Gauging your players' engagement or curating the difficulty level on the fly requires a degree of social adeptness that some people find very difficult. Telling the prospective new GM that "all you have to do is set up a plausible scenario and then reasonably adjudicate how it responds to the players' actions" is a lot less demanding.
It also leads to GM burnt out.
The Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 08:52:57 AM
Quote from: Ratman_tf on December 29, 2023, 02:14:18 AM
Yep. Play enough games invovling dice and you will see some bizzare, counterintuitive shit. "Lucky" streaks and "unlucky" streaks happen.
Last night I saw three NPCs all roll natural 20s on the same saving throw, on VTT no less. ;D
It's because the bell curve is only guaranteed over infinity. Any sample smaller than that will not perfectly follow the curve.
Belief that it will is faith, ergo religion.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 09:34:38 AM
One of the bigger issues with the emphasis on the GM as a storyteller or a curator-of-fun which no one talks about, is that it creates a kind of "cult of the GM" by painting GMs as these brilliant auteurs that can improvise the Lord of the Rings while herding a group of players into following the story, but also incorporating them into the creative process. Firstly it's just annoying to me to see people hero-worshipping their GMs like they're gods among men. More importantly, it's one of the bigger reasons why newer players are so often scared to run their own games. Phrased that way, GM-ing is a pretty daunting prospect. Gauging your players' engagement or curating the difficulty level on the fly requires a degree of social adeptness that some people find very difficult. Telling the prospective new GM that "all you have to do is set up a plausible scenario and then reasonably adjudicate how it responds to the players' actions" is a lot less demanding.
While this may be true, we don't need to solve for it as this advice appears before a preprinted adventure put out by a company that pretty much exclusively provides those. Their advice need not worry about building your writing skills, because that's not helpful towards their "under monetized" problem.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 11:11:17 AMThe Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.
So again, we're talking about advice in front of a preprinted 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game that's about to be run. There's no world building task to be done here. If anything you'd better hope you don't accidentally contradict BG3.
And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision". It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 11:11:17 AMThe Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.
So again, we're talking about advice in front of a preprinted 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game that's about to be run. There's no world building task to be done here. If anything you'd better hope you don't accidentally contradict BG3.
And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision". It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.
All the more reason not to take stupid decisions.
Or switch to a game that allows you to roll a character in 15 minutes tops.
Hell I would be playing HERO if I found that 3 hours for chargen is an acceptable ammount of time to waste.
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 01:02:46 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 11:11:17 AMThe Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.
So again, we're talking about advice in front of a preprinted 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game that's about to be run. There's no world building task to be done here. If anything you'd better hope you don't accidentally contradict BG3.
And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision". It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.
All the more reason not to take stupid decisions.
Or switch to a game that allows you to roll a character in 15 minutes tops.
Hell I would be playing HERO if I found that 3 hours for chargen is an acceptable ammount of time to waste.
Are you suggesting the paragraph should read "go buy something else"?
At the very least, to offer my own unsolicited opinion, paragraphs shouldn't suggest deceiving players or solidly fudging the game without an equally solid degree of open communication prior and letting folks know that this will be a part of their game. Likewise, if you don't feel comfortable with a bad roll, and would want to change it or the circumstances to ignore poor player choice... maybe a good piece of advice would be don't make the roll and/or let folks know you're gonna cut 'em some slack/railroad a bit. Or even just set up the circumstances not to require obvious Deus ex Machina?
Really, I'm just a bit bummed that not only did they push illusionism and quantum play, but they also didn't properly go into how that can be done less terribly, or that there are solid alternatives for good reason. Or why folks might prefer something else depending. I get that it's just a short blurb, but that's also part of my problem with it when the topic touched upon is so potentially important and perhaps even somewhat nuanced. (Though personally I'm very much more simulationist/clockmaker god even in my rather limited and frequently module-centric DMing. Which is how both I and my players tend to like it, especially when I'm the one DMing.)
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 01:11:32 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 01:02:46 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 11:11:17 AMThe Clockwork god mode is better because it allows you to have ALMOST zero prep for every game day, with a few exceptions here and there mainly when creating the world for the first time.
So again, we're talking about advice in front of a preprinted 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game that's about to be run. There's no world building task to be done here. If anything you'd better hope you don't accidentally contradict BG3.
And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision". It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.
All the more reason not to take stupid decisions.
Or switch to a game that allows you to roll a character in 15 minutes tops.
Hell I would be playing HERO if I found that 3 hours for chargen is an acceptable ammount of time to waste.
Are you suggesting the paragraph should read "go buy something else"?
I thought it already read like that?
Quote from: GeekyBugle on December 29, 2023, 01:02:46 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM
So again, we're talking about advice in front of a preprinted 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons game that's about to be run. There's no world building task to be done here. If anything you'd better hope you don't accidentally contradict BG3.
And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision". It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.
All the more reason not to take stupid decisions.
Or switch to a game that allows you to roll a character in 15 minutes tops.
I have never seen three hours for generating a new 1st level character in 5E. About 15 to 30 minutes is typical -- and that's similar to my experience of AD&D1 using Method I. 5E has two other mechanical choices (namely, picking a background and picking class skills), but it is faster with equipment because it has simplified equipment options by class and background. With character generation software, that time is cut in half.
In any case, for "Peril in Pinebrook", character creation is grabbing a premade character template and filling in a few (A or B) choices - which is less than a minute - similar to some PbtA games. There's no rolling dice or copying down anything from a rulebook. It'd be fairly trivial to just add a few more pages to give some more character templates, if one wanted a deadlier scenario.
That said, when I was an adult and ran for younger kids (under 10), I did go more on easy mode and didn't kill off characters for stupid moves. I ran more kidsy games like Faery's Tale or Monster Island where at most characters were defeated and/or got into trouble, but they weren't killed. I introduced more deadly games for kids around middle school age (11 to 13).
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:50:12 PM
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 09:34:38 AM
One of the bigger issues with the emphasis on the GM as a storyteller or a curator-of-fun which no one talks about, is that it creates a kind of "cult of the GM" by painting GMs as these brilliant auteurs that can improvise the Lord of the Rings while herding a group of players into following the story, but also incorporating them into the creative process. Firstly it's just annoying to me to see people hero-worshipping their GMs like they're gods among men. More importantly, it's one of the bigger reasons why newer players are so often scared to run their own games. Phrased that way, GM-ing is a pretty daunting prospect. Gauging your players' engagement or curating the difficulty level on the fly requires a degree of social adeptness that some people find very difficult. Telling the prospective new GM that "all you have to do is set up a plausible scenario and then reasonably adjudicate how it responds to the players' actions" is a lot less demanding.
While this may be true, we don't need to solve for it as this advice appears before a preprinted adventure put out by a company that pretty much exclusively provides those. Their advice need not worry about building your writing skills, because that's not helpful towards their "under monetized" problem.
Sure. I was moving beyond the scope of the OP with what I was talking about there. Circling back to that original quote, I would happily concede that a TPK on the first session might give a bad impression to first-time players (particularly, as JHKim mentioned, if they are children), though IME it's equally likely to be something they find funny. At any rate, it's worth recognizing that this is presumably intended to be someone's first introduction to the concept of DM-ing, and might therefore have an undue influence on their attitude going forward.
There, I would echo the sentiments in kindameh's comments above, and take issue with the way the advice is framed. If WOTC gave me the quote to edit, I'd probably rephrase the first paragraph to something like:
"A Dungeon Master's first responsibility is to make fair and impartial rulings on the results of the PCs' actions. Failure to do this can cause your to players feel cheated and care less about the game world. However, there may be times when in order to keep the game fun, you want to tip the odds a little in their favor."
I would then keep the second and third paragraphs substantially similar, strip out the 4th paragraph (because it's dumb), and replace it with a reminder that while you can do this kind of thing, you should be very careful about how often you do it and how much you let it affect outcomes.
EDIT: Various spelling and grammar corrections.
For those who haven't looked it over, "Peril in Pinebrook" is a kidsy adventure where a patrol happens on a newborn baby silver dragon, and they have to help it back to its mother. Getting through the caves, they have a fight with "living icicles" - then three tricks/traps - then a fight with some "egg snatchers".
It's intended to be played in 60 to 90 minutes for complete newbies to D&D. (It's technically 22 pages, but most of that is introductory material and character sheets.)
It's a free download here: https://media.wizards.com/2023/downloads/dnd/Peril_in_Pinebrook_COMPLETE.pdf
Quote from: jhkim on December 29, 2023, 03:08:38 PM
In any case, for "Peril in Pinebrook", character creation is grabbing a premade character template and filling in a few (A or B) choices - which is less than a minute - similar to some PbtA games. There's no rolling dice or copying down anything from a rulebook. It'd be fairly trivial to just add a few more pages to give some more character templates, if one wanted a deadlier scenario.
Yeah, true, fair point.
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:44:47 PM
It's because the bell curve is only guaranteed over infinity. Any sample smaller than that will not perfectly follow the curve.
Belief that it will is faith, ergo religion.
I didn't say anything like that and we are talking about a D20 roll so there's no bell curve anyway.
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM
It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.
Why? It takes 5-10 minutes to make a 1st level 5e character.
Quote from: yosemitemike on December 29, 2023, 06:45:40 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM
It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.
Why? It takes 5-10 minutes to make a 1st level 5e character.
As mentioned in the post you just replied under, yes, that's the case with a premade. Pick one, decide what you want to name it, customize it a little, and go.
Most characters are more than this in 5e land. They almost invariably have:
1) Some kind of pre-planned multi class progression...
2) ...sourced from at least three books. The most recent ones have the juiciest options, especially if it's MTG.
3) A detailed backstory.
If you have a backup character made you could well be good to go in five minutes. If you don't care about using more than the PHB or care how the character will "build" then sure.
I haven't known anyone who plays 5e that way since about 2015.
Quote from: jhkim on December 29, 2023, 03:49:24 PM
For those who haven't looked it over, "Peril in Pinebrook" is a kidsy adventure where a patrol happens on a newborn baby silver dragon, and they have to help it back to its mother. Getting through the caves, they have a fight with "living icicles" - then three tricks/traps - then a fight with some "egg snatchers".
It's intended to be played in 60 to 90 minutes for complete newbies to D&D. (It's technically 22 pages, but most of that is introductory material and character sheets.)
It's a free download here: https://media.wizards.com/2023/downloads/dnd/Peril_in_Pinebrook_COMPLETE.pdf
Ok so that does add quite a lot of context, particularly the following passage:
"DM Tip: A character that reaches 0 hit points falls unconscious and remains unconscious until they regain hit points through healing. At the end of the encounter, any unconscious player characters regain 1 hit point automatically."....which pretty much moots the entire question of character death.
But I now have new questions, chief among which being "Who is the target demographic for this?" The plot hook (return a cute baby animal to its mother) is the kind of thing you'd put in a book for toddlers. Obviously the game is too complicated and abstract for that, even this simplified version of it. It might be understandable to kids in the 6-8 year old range, but that seems a stretch to me, and honestly some of the material in the adventure is verging on being too violent for them.
A bit of googling got me to this somewhat disturbing website: https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/educators.
The site describes the adventure as being for "players of all ages" which is useless. However, it also claims that it offers resources for the 4th-6th and 6th-8th grade ranges. From context, I'd guess this is intended for the upper end of that range. If so, then I suspect they've hilariously misread what appeals to the target demo. Age 11-13 was around around the time I started playing D&D, and the chief appeals for my friends and I were making badass characters, slaughtering goblins, and looking at the dryad's boobies in the monster manual. Obviously that's boys, but the few girls I knew at that were into roleplaying at that age were still not into this kind of twee-ness. They wanted to play mysterious witches and tomboy assassins.
Frankly, I think that education website answers my question. It's not a product aimed at children at all. It's aimed at middle-aged (probably female) teachers, and what they
think adolescents should be interested in.
Making this kind of safe, morally prudish first impression does not strike me as a well-considered means of getting rebellious teenagers interested in roleplaying.
EDIT: On top of that, the module really doesn't showcase the strengths of roleplaying. There's no map to explore, no decisions to make, no puzzles to solve or hostile NPCs to deal with. I'd expect a kid having this as their first impression of D&D to come away with the idea that it's a less interesting version of a board-game.
SECOND EDIT: I went and asked my wife, and she said the whole saving the baby dragon plotline would probably appeal to most 11-13 year old girls, so I guess there's that.
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 06:52:25 PM
Quote from: yosemitemike on December 29, 2023, 06:45:40 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM
It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.
Why? It takes 5-10 minutes to make a 1st level 5e character.
As mentioned in the post you just replied under, yes, that's the case with a premade. Pick one, decide what you want to name it, customize it a little, and go.
Most characters are more than this in 5e land. They almost invariably have:
1) Some kind of pre-planned multi class progression...
2) ...sourced from at least three books. The most recent ones have the juiciest options, especially if it's MTG.
3) A detailed backstory.
If you have a backup character made you could well be good to go in five minutes. If you don't care about using more than the PHB or care how the character will "build" then sure.
I haven't known anyone who plays 5e that way since about 2015.
Which noob, playing in a baby-GM's first adventure, has a pre-planned multi class progression, mapped out from at least three books?
As I have already acknowledged, this one has premades.
Typical 5e does not.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 08:52:14 PMIf so, then I suspect they've hilariously misread what appeals to the target demo. Age 11-13 was around around the time I started playing D&D, and the chief appeals for my friends and I were making badass characters, slaughtering goblins, and looking at the dryad's boobies in the monster manual. Obviously that's boys, but the few girls I knew at that were into roleplaying at that age were still not into this kind of twee-ness. They wanted to play mysterious witches and tomboy assassins.
All modern media is created by middle aged wine aunts, who think they are young and hip, so what they produce actually only appeals to middle aged wine aunts.
Imagine if, when a kid learning D&D, you mom had decided to chaperone, and re-write anything in the books that she found problematic. That's the modern D&D intro experience.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 08:52:14 PM
EDIT: On top of that, the module really doesn't showcase the strengths of roleplaying. There's no map to explore, no decisions to make, no puzzles to solve or hostile NPCs to deal with. I'd expect a kid having this as their first impression of D&D to come away with the idea that it's a less interesting version of a board-game.
I 'member when an introductory module was a half finished dungeon and the instructions to "finish it yourself, ya lazy shit". :D
Quote from: jhkim on December 29, 2023, 03:49:24 PM
For those who haven't looked it over, "Peril in Pinebrook" is a kidsy adventure where a patrol happens on a newborn baby silver dragon, and they have to help it back to its mother. Getting through the caves, they have a fight with "living icicles" - then three tricks/traps - then a fight with some "egg snatchers".
It's intended to be played in 60 to 90 minutes for complete newbies to D&D. (It's technically 22 pages, but most of that is introductory material and character sheets.)
It's a free download here: https://media.wizards.com/2023/downloads/dnd/Peril_in_Pinebrook_COMPLETE.pdf
I would describe it more as "female-y" than "kidsy." It's designed to appeal to girls and women so they can go "awwwweee, so cute."
I cannot think of a worse thing to do to a young boy just getting into RPGs than to cheat, even on their behalf, and have them find out about it. It would absolutely crush them and any feeling of meaning or accomplishment they got from the game. Little boys I run for would rather have a hard game that has meaning rather than to always win.
There's a thousand ways you can give players an out without cheating. Remember, all your monsters and bandits are NPCs as well. You can have a winning monster or bad guy offer a Faustian deal, have them snatch something from the player and run off laughing, get called home by his wife while saying "you're dead next time."
You can also handle PC death in a way that improves player engagement too. Give the young player a new PC sheet and tell him to quickly roll up a new PC "so you can avenge your father's death." Tell them that because of their selfless sacrifice that lives were saved. Make up a quick song about the heroic death about the PC that all the bards are singing now.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 08:52:14 PM
But I now have new questions, chief among which being "Who is the target demographic for this?" The plot hook (return a cute baby animal to its mother) is the kind of thing you'd put in a book for toddlers. Obviously the game is too complicated and abstract for that, even this simplified version of it. It might be understandable to kids in the 6-8 year old range, but that seems a stretch to me, and honestly some of the material in the adventure is verging on being too violent for them.
A bit of googling got me to this somewhat disturbing website: https://dnd.wizards.com/resources/educators.
The site describes the adventure as being for "players of all ages" which is useless. However, it also claims that it offers resources for the 4th-6th and 6th-8th grade ranges. From context, I'd guess this is intended for the upper end of that range. If so, then I suspect they've hilariously misread what appeals to the target demo. Age 11-13 was around around the time I started playing D&D
I would guess it's aimed at age 8-10. Cutesy Pokemon have been popular in that age range, among both boys and girls. It's the age when they'll still enjoy stuffed animals, but are starting to read more complex books - but animal-themed books like Warriors or Redwall are still popular. When I first ran Faery's Tale for my son he was around 8 or so, and I had a similar scenario, actually. I don't think the scenario is too violent for 8-10.
Quote from: ForgottenF on December 29, 2023, 08:52:14 PM
EDIT: On top of that, the module really doesn't showcase the strengths of roleplaying. There's no map to explore, no decisions to make, no puzzles to solve or hostile NPCs to deal with. I'd expect a kid having this as their first impression of D&D to come away with the idea that it's a less interesting version of a board-game.
SECOND EDIT: I went and asked my wife, and she said the whole saving the baby dragon plotline would probably appeal to most 11-13 year old girls, so I guess there's that.
I don't think it's a particularly good scenario - but there is three tricks/traps including one puzzle - a riddle where the answer is saying "silver dragon" in Draconic using to the vocabulary sheet provided.
Greetings!
Well, Leftists in particular seem to believe that everyone in society is a hopelessly ignorant child in desperate need of Leftist supervision and "education." As a trickle-down from that dynamic, then there are the hordes of garden-variety Feminists. Toss in the "Wine Aunts" I guess. *Laughing* It all goes hand-in-hand with the helicopter parent thing, being over-protective, and creating a life-bubble where young people--especially kids--are constantly coddled, and ultimately they are mentally and emotionally crippled into a state of being perpetual children, or adolescents at best.
Cue the research on universities providing classes to college students on ADULTING. Yes, there are college classes now for teaching college students basic skills and knowledge in managing to function as adults.
I started playing D&D with groups of friends when I was 10 years old.
All of the groups I played with were into Lord of the Rings, Conan, Excalibur, the Crusades and the Knights of the Round Table. Everyone enjoyed slaughtering whole trainloads of Orcs and evil humanoids, looting monster lairs, and bringing death, fire, and destruction to everyone that opposed them. Along the way, of course, having some big-boobed barbarian chicks was also welcome.
Burning evil cultists alive. Staking vampires through the heart. Having enemy spies and assassins crucified. Ruthlessly hacking down all of the Orc tribe--male, female, young. They all got the sword and maybe a fireball.
There is definitely a weird disconnect and dissonance between what lots of these "adults" involved with gaming think kids like--and what I experienced as a young kid playing D&D. ALL of my friends were the same way, too. "Murder Hobo's" may be a term the kids think is original to now, but my D&D groups were hip-deep in blood, fire, and gold, starting at a young age.
Adventures saving a baby dragon. Hmmm. Ok, that's a fine enough main plot, but why is the adventure module otherwise so sugar-coated and sweet? Where is the blood and screaming? Where is the HATE? Where is the vengeance? The GOLD and TREASURES! Where is the drive for conquest and triumph?
If I got this module, I would have to heavily modify and change it, even if I was DMing the module for kids. Lately, these kind of modules remind me of the Barbie dolls and doll house play that 7 and 8 year old girls enjoyed playing when I was a kid. Definitely not for kids interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons though, for sure.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
As I was out on deck doing my morning rounds, I was thinking about this adventure and chewing on why I don't like it.
I think this adventure was specifically designed to not appeal to male players. It's the D&D equivalent of the MSheU movies being put out by Marvel Studios. They have a formula for sucking:
1. put out a product that geared towards a demographic that's not the core audience
2. tell the core audience "it's not for you" when they complain
3. call the core audience a bunch of bigots when they don't buy the product
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 06:52:25 PM
1) Some kind of pre-planned multi class progression...
2) ...sourced from at least three books. The most recent ones have the juiciest options, especially if it's MTG.
3) A detailed backstory.
None of this is at all necessary to make a 5e character.
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 06:52:25 PM
Most characters are more than this in 5e land. They almost invariably have:
1) Some kind of pre-planned multi class progression...
2) ...sourced from at least three books. The most recent ones have the juiciest options, especially if it's MTG.
3) A detailed backstory.
If you have a backup character made you could well be good to go in five minutes. If you don't care about using more than the PHB or care how the character will "build" then sure.
I haven't known anyone who plays 5e that way since about 2015.
How are you calibrating your sense of "most" or "typical"? Perhaps "haven't known anyone" is a product of local table culture?
Of the last 20+ 5e characters I've seen in campaigns I've DM'd/played in, over the last 4 years, there's been exactly one multiclass, which wasn't pre-planned, over ~ 100 sessions / ~ 100 level-ups. Maybe two have had detailed backstory? (Admittedly, 4 of those 20+ PCs were pregens.) Only one brought in a homebrew DMsGuild class.
Arguing against the idea of a meta in 5e isn't worth the effort. First I'd need to prove I am omniscient. Then I would need to prove a negative. All for something that is very obvious (5e is not OSR.). No thanks. If my opinion isn't valid to you that's your loss in this case because I happen to be right.
Quote from: SHARK on December 30, 2023, 03:04:41 AM
There is definitely a weird disconnect and dissonance between what lots of these "adults" involved with gaming think kids like--and what I experienced as a young kid playing D&D. ALL of my friends were the same way, too. "Murder Hobo's" may be a term the kids think is original to now, but my D&D groups were hip-deep in blood, fire, and gold, starting at a young age.
Adventures saving a baby dragon. Hmmm. Ok, that's a fine enough main plot, but why is the adventure module otherwise so sugar-coated and sweet? Where is the blood and screaming? Where is the HATE? Where is the vengeance? The GOLD and TREASURES! Where is the drive for conquest and triumph?
If I got this module, I would have to heavily modify and change it, even if I was DMing the module for kids. Lately, these kind of modules remind me of the Barbie dolls and doll house play that 7 and 8 year old girls enjoyed playing when I was a kid. Definitely not for kids interested in playing Dungeons and Dragons though, for sure.
Not all kids or adults are the same. Years ago when my son was 8, he loved stories like The Hobbit, Narnia, Redwall, and Protector of the Small. He wasn't into blood and hatred and vengeance. He usually wanted to be the big-hearted good guy who protects the weak, rather than bullying and plundering. Even in his love for kaiju, he liked the idea of Godzilla as the protector of Earth against evil aliens like Mecha-Godzilla or Ghidorah, rather than being the villain.
On the other hand, my friend Lee's 11-year-old is playing in my current D&D campaign, and he's enjoying being a dark Loki-like sorcerer who is being tempted by evil. Nothing wrong with kids who are into grimdark blood and guts looting, but it's not the totality of all kids. There can be different modules based on taste.
I remember back in 2007, I ran a rescue as my scenario when I was running D&D for an 11-year-old's birthday party, and it went over pretty well.
https://jhkimrpg.livejournal.com/59156.html
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 30, 2023, 08:54:20 AM
Arguing against the idea of a meta in 5e isn't worth the effort. First I'd need to prove I am omniscient. Then I would need to prove a negative. All for something that is very obvious (5e is not OSR.). No thanks. If my opinion isn't valid to you that's your loss in this case because I happen to be right.
Dude, you're 100% fucking wrong. The first two points are true of late 3.X D&D, but not any 5th edition game I ever played in, and the third is a product of jackasses and has nothing to do with the actual game itself. So, whatever.
Quote from: Brad on January 03, 2024, 07:07:54 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 30, 2023, 08:54:20 AM
Arguing against the idea of a meta in 5e isn't worth the effort. First I'd need to prove I am omniscient. Then I would need to prove a negative. All for something that is very obvious (5e is not
OSR.). No thanks. If my opinion isn't valid to you that's your loss in this case because I happen to be right.
Dude, you're 100% fucking wrong. The first two points are true of late 3.X D&D, but not any 5th edition game I ever played in, and the third is a product of jackasses and has nothing to do with the actual game itself. So, whatever.
If I wasn't wrong, what kind of evidence would we see? For example, if there's a meta in 5e, would it be possible for people to earn money making content for it?
Might that money surpass what most OSR creators see from their RPG pursuits?
What if there were thirty or so of these on YouTube?
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 03, 2024, 08:09:56 PM
If I wasn't wrong, what kind of evidence would we see? For example, if there's a meta in 5e, would it be possible for people to earn money making content for it?
Might that money surpass what most OSR creators see from their RPG pursuits?
What if there were thirty or so of these on YouTube?
You're wrong, sorry. Youtube videos don't make actual play non-existent. The only thing that literally matters. I am not saying none of that exists, I am simply saying your opinion that EVERYONE plays that way is absolute horseshit and trying to imply anyone disagreeing with the necessity of all these extra books and countless hours of theorycrafting are just WRONG is beyond the pale. Why don't you fuck off back to RPG.net or something?
Quote from: Brad on January 03, 2024, 09:17:08 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 03, 2024, 08:09:56 PM
If I wasn't wrong, what kind of evidence would we see? For example, if there's a meta in 5e, would it be possible for people to earn money making content for it?
Might that money surpass what most OSR creators see from their RPG pursuits?
What if there were thirty or so of these on YouTube?
You're wrong, sorry. Youtube videos don't make actual play non-existent. The only thing that literally matters. I am not saying none of that exists, I am simply saying your opinion that EVERYONE plays that way is absolute horseshit and trying to imply anyone disagreeing with the necessity of all these extra books and countless hours of theorycrafting are just WRONG is beyond the pale. Why don't you fuck off back to RPG.net or something?
As predicted, you demand omniscience and ask me to prove a negative.
Then you Other me.
All I did was ask the question - what would it look like if 5e had a meta?
It seems you're saying that so long as a single game you personally observe doesn't have one, none exists.
Then you offer me to fuck off.
Quality discussion, isn't it?
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 03, 2024, 09:21:20 PM
All I did was ask the question - what would it look like if 5e had a meta?
What is a meta?
Quote from: Aglondir on January 03, 2024, 10:06:48 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 03, 2024, 09:21:20 PM
All I did was ask the question - what would it look like if 5e had a meta?
What is a meta?
It's when analyzing the mechanics or construction of a thing becomes as much of a pass time as the actual thing. In games and Internet culture it tends to become advice.
5e examples are +20 perception bards, falling damage from summoned creatures who can summon creatures, or stacking sorcerer and fighter to stealthily cast prestidigitation twice in the same turn.
Or everything printed in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything, honestly.
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 03, 2024, 09:21:20 PM
Quote from: Brad on January 03, 2024, 09:17:08 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 03, 2024, 08:09:56 PM
If I wasn't wrong, what kind of evidence would we see? For example, if there's a meta in 5e, would it be possible for people to earn money making content for it?
Might that money surpass what most OSR creators see from their RPG pursuits?
What if there were thirty or so of these on YouTube?
You're wrong, sorry. Youtube videos don't make actual play non-existent. The only thing that literally matters. I am not saying none of that exists, I am simply saying your opinion that EVERYONE plays that way is absolute horseshit and trying to imply anyone disagreeing with the necessity of all these extra books and countless hours of theorycrafting are just WRONG is beyond the pale. Why don't you fuck off back to RPG.net or something?
As predicted, you demand omniscience and ask me to prove a negative.
Then you Other me.
All I did was ask the question - what would it look like if 5e had a meta?
It seems you're saying that so long as a single game you personally observe doesn't have one, none exists.
Then you offer me to fuck off.
Quality discussion, isn't it?
You're just getting out of it exactly what you put into it. I keep waiting for you, in a single thread somewhere on this site, to express an opinion worth even considering. Alas, mene mene tekel upharsin...
Quote from: Eirikrautha on January 03, 2024, 10:16:03 PM
You're just getting out of it exactly what you put into it. I keep waiting for you, in a single thread somewhere on this site, to express an opinion worth even considering. Alas, mene mene tekel upharsin...
Okay, but why are you monitoring me at all? Who am I that requires your blessing? And who are you to give it?
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 03, 2024, 09:21:20 PM
All I did was ask the question - what would it look like if 5e had a meta?
This might be what you want to change the subject to, but that's not what you said that we've been responding to:
Quote from: mcbobbo on December 29, 2023, 12:56:01 PM
And while I'm making that point, let me also point out that character creation is not "roll in order and make one decision". It takes about three hours for you to get back into the game after you die.
And then you doubled down on your claims of generality with:
Quote from: mcbobbo
Most characters are more than this in 5e land. They almost invariably have:
1) Some kind of pre-planned multi class progression...
2) ...sourced from at least three books. The most recent ones have the juiciest options, especially if it's MTG.
3) A detailed backstory.
"Most", "almost invariably". Sounds to me like you're spending too much time keeping up with the meta and the Youtubers and not enough time playing the game?
The assertion that you need 3 hours to get back into the game is still bullshit.
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 03, 2024, 08:09:56 PM
If I wasn't wrong, what kind of evidence would we see? For example, if there's a meta in 5e, would it be possible for people to earn money making content for it?
Might that money surpass what most OSR creators see from their RPG pursuits?
What if there were thirty or so of these on YouTube?
The existence of a meta is not necessary to explain the success of D&D themed reality shows like Critical Role any more than a cooking meta is necessary to explain the success of cooking reality shows. There are a number of other possible reasons including much more obvious ones. The existence of successful D&D themed reality shows does not prove the existence of a 5e meta at all.
Quote from: Naburimannu on January 04, 2024, 04:29:51 AM
"Most", "almost invariably". Sounds to me like you're spending too much time keeping up with the meta and the Youtubers and not enough time playing the game?
I definitely watch too much YouTube, but most of it is political.
The topic for me hasn't changed, but let's recap.
This specific adventure uses premades, and I was incorrect to assume players would want to research before replacing their character if they die.
In general, however, they would absolutely put more effort into it than someone would in an OSR game.
And so long as this is the case, killing them when they do not expect it should be a last resort.
Seems very cut and dried to me.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 04, 2024, 04:56:22 AM
The assertion that you need 3 hours to get back into the game is still bullshit.
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 03, 2024, 08:09:56 PM
If I wasn't wrong, what kind of evidence would we see? For example, if there's a meta in 5e, would it be possible for people to earn money making content for it?
Might that money surpass what most OSR creators see from their RPG pursuits?
What if there were thirty or so of these on YouTube?
The existence of a meta is not necessary to explain the success of D&D themed reality shows like Critical Role any more than a cooking meta is necessary to explain the success of cooking reality shows. There are a number of other possible reasons including much more obvious ones. The existence of successful D&D themed reality shows does not prove the existence of a 5e meta at all.
It was hyperbolic, but far from false.
I made no mention of reality shows like Critical Role. I'm referencing channels pulling down enough income to replace jobs that are solely about mechanical ideas for 5e. There are MANY of them. If there's no audience for these because no one thinks about the meta, how do you explain it?
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 04, 2024, 09:08:57 AM
Quote from: Naburimannu on January 04, 2024, 04:29:51 AM
"Most", "almost invariably". Sounds to me like you're spending too much time keeping up with the meta and the Youtubers and not enough time playing the game?
I definitely watch too much YouTube, but most of it is political.
The topic for me hasn't changed, but let's recap.
This specific adventure uses premades, and I was incorrect to assume players would want to research before replacing their character if they die.
In general, however, they would absolutely put more effort into it than someone would in an OSR game.
And so long as this is the case, killing them when they do not expect it should be a last resort.
Seems very cut and dried to me.
Greetings!
I remember during the 3E days, while I loved the system, and the skills, and the trainloads of detail and customization--all of that recalled the glories of Rolemaster--on one hand, it was a fantastic system, and just awesome.
However, the flaw gradually grew and grew over time, as more skills, more abilities, more special whatever, continued to grow and add layer upon layer to Character creation. Even making NPC's as the DM became a double-edged sword--part joy, and part mind-numbing pain. For Player-Characters it often took them *hours* to make up a character. Levelling up? Yeah, that, too, could take considerable time. As the DM, even when I embraced some aspects of shortcuts, copy-paste, and pre-made templates--creating NPC's also became a chore.
These considerations had a subtle, cascading effect.
No one wanted their characters to die. EVER. Likewise, I was loathe to have any favoured NPC Henchmen, friends, and sidekicks ever die, either. Creating their replacements would take all weekend. *Laughing*
I *love* detailed, robust systems. I also love detailed characters. I appreciate Players that are passionate, and eager to put in the time and effort to create, detail, and develop their characters in realistic, interesting, and believable ways.
However, as alluded to in my commentary, in the current D&D, all of these trends in spending hours and hours creating characters--that can't or shouldn't die--all of that gets supported dynamically within the game system and rules, essentially creating unstoppable superheroes. THAT dynamic right there totally transforms a campaign, and unless you are purposely going for the Superhero theme, none of those changes and dynamics brought or infiltrated into the game are good. It surely ruins a well-thought out, planned campaign. Such can on the surface be great fun for the Players--but increasingly, as we have seen by many people's testimonies about 5E, especially with DMing the game--all of that becomes very much not fun.
So, I say forget the several hours of character creation, long and over-wrought, dramatic backstories, and all the new BS.
Make the whole process short, quick, and brutal. If the Players survive past, 3rd level, what have you, then they can begin to set out some roots and develop more detailed relationships with characters, NPC's, and so on. That's all fine, and I think generally expected, and good.
But early on? In the beginning of character creation?
No. Keep it quick, simple, and brutal.
That is easier for you, the DM, and there won't likely be the sweet rivers of tears for the Players when their characters that have 10-pages of epic, super-hero backstories all before Level 1 get ripped apart and devoured by monsters.
Or brutally spit-roasted over a roaring fire and devoured by the Orcs.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK
Quote from: SHARK on January 04, 2024, 09:35:04 AM
So, I say forget the several hours of character creation, long and over-wrought, dramatic backstories, and all the new BS.
Make the whole process short, quick, and brutal. If the Players survive past, 3rd level, what have you, then they can begin to set out some roots and develop more detailed relationships with characters, NPC's, and so on. That's all fine, and I think generally expected, and good.
But early on? In the beginning of character creation?
No. Keep it quick, simple, and brutal.
That is easier for you, the DM, and there won't likely be the sweet rivers of tears for the Players when their characters that have 10-pages of epic, super-hero backstories all before Level 1 get ripped apart and devoured by monsters.
So long as the expectation is set ahead of time that this will be the case, I completely agree.
If you're picking up new players as a new GM and this is everyone's first experience with TTRPGs, then I advise against meat grinders and character funnels.
That's the funny thing about advice, it's very situational.
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 04, 2024, 09:12:51 AM
It was hyperbolic, but far from false.
I made no mention of reality shows like Critical Role. I'm referencing channels pulling down enough income to replace jobs that are solely about mechanical ideas for 5e. There are MANY of them. If there's no audience for these because no one thinks about the meta, how do you explain it?
It was both.
All that proves is that D&D has a system. It doesn't prove that it has a meta.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 04, 2024, 08:54:10 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 04, 2024, 09:12:51 AM
It was hyperbolic, but far from false.
I made no mention of reality shows like Critical Role. I'm referencing channels pulling down enough income to replace jobs that are solely about mechanical ideas for 5e. There are MANY of them. If there's no audience for these because no one thinks about the meta, how do you explain it?
It was both.
All that proves is that D&D has a system. It doesn't prove that it has a meta.
Ultimately it's irrelevant. There's a non-zero risk that a 5e player will want to research which character build they want to use next. And that's as much as I need to make my case.
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 04, 2024, 09:04:50 PM
Ultimately it's irrelevant. There's a non-zero risk that a 5e player will want to research which character build they want to use next. And that's as much as I need to make my case.
That's a far cry from saying that it will take a player 3 hours to get back into the game which is what you initially claimed.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 04, 2024, 09:48:08 PM
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 04, 2024, 09:04:50 PM
Ultimately it's irrelevant. There's a non-zero risk that a 5e player will want to research which character build they want to use next. And that's as much as I need to make my case.
That's a far cry from saying that it will take a player 3 hours to get back into the game which is what you initially claimed.
No, it's really not.
The typical 5e player who participates in the meta will suffer player elimination until the next session.
There's no material difference between that and my, admittedly hyperbolic, statement.
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 04, 2024, 09:54:47 PM
No, it's really not.
The typical 5e player who participates in the meta will suffer player elimination until the next session.
There's no material difference between that and my, admittedly hyperbolic, statement.
Yes, it really is.
Bollocks. People who plot out their builds like that have several already made at any given time. They can be back in the action immediately. I am also still not sold on the idea that 5e has a defined meta or that most players adhere to it if such a thing even exists in any meaningful concrete sense.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 05, 2024, 03:12:30 AM
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 04, 2024, 09:54:47 PM
No, it's really not.
The typical 5e player who participates in the meta will suffer player elimination until the next session.
There's no material difference between that and my, admittedly hyperbolic, statement.
Yes, it really is.
Bollocks. People who plot out their builds like that have several already made at any given time. They can be back in the action immediately. I am also still not sold on the idea that 5e has a defined meta or that most players adhere to it if such a thing even exists in any meaningful concrete sense.
A new PC can be rolled up quickly but it's been my experience that most players like to pour over all their options (with five fuckin' books, no less) every time they do a new PC. It's not unusual to see even an experienced player take over an hour to prepare a new PC.
As a response, I flat out ban Tasha's (or anything printed since) and only allow the PHB and one other book for PC creation. I also require a session 0 where everyone rolls up two PCs with all the players present and everyone picks one PC and hands me the sheets for the rest. When a PC dies, I will hand them a PC from the stack at random. This, with a number of other house rules, PC creation and combat rules cheat sheets, a primer for the setting, any starter handouts, a contact list and links to online resources, and any other things I feel players need are written out and given to players before session 0 as a packet. I have had players read my house rules and back out and I've had a few try to negotiate a rule or so away but I've never had anyone express any discontent once play has started. I find that in the end, players get that much of what I'm doing is for the benefit of the whole table.
I've mentioned elsewhere, I'm a pretty draconian GM when it comes to sticking to the rules as decided on and keeping the results of rolls. I didn't start out this way, I got tired of my games getting wrecked due to people pushing on my flexibility on some things. What I didn't expect is that now the players thank me for my rigidness as it makes them feel as if the game is being run honestly and fairly.
tl;dr Players can waste a lot of time in PC creation unless you hold their feet to the fire to get it done.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 05, 2024, 03:12:30 AM
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 04, 2024, 09:54:47 PM
No, it's really not.
The typical 5e player who participates in the meta will suffer player elimination until the next session.
There's no material difference between that and my, admittedly hyperbolic, statement.
Yes, it really is.
Bollocks. People who plot out their builds like that have several already made at any given time. They can be back in the action immediately. I am also still not sold on the idea that 5e has a defined meta or that most players adhere to it if such a thing even exists in any meaningful concrete sense.
You could likewise not be sold on the curvature of the earth. But to me it's simply true. I've already done way more than is necessary to make you aware of it. You could go check for Treantmonk, DNDshorts, Indestructoboy, (and on and on), observe the view counts on their monetized videos, tally up their Patreon support numbers, look at their kick-started books, and so on. You'll find more total money than is typical for the OSR, which I hope we both agree exists. What other burdens do I reasonably owe your denial?
It's certainly plausible that some metagamers have characters ready. But again they'd need to have that expectation set up front. Death is rare in 5e.
Set expectations up front.
Quote from: BadApple on January 05, 2024, 04:12:18 AM
tl;dr Players can waste a lot of time in PC creation unless you hold their feet to the fire to get it done.
Yes. The only thing I'd point out is there are players who wouldn't choose to play an RPG that doesn't allow for this investment of time. They like to game the system for maximal effect. They don't consider it a waste. WotC calls them Spike. We used to call them Munchkins. But they are out there still today.
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 05, 2024, 09:03:43 AM
You could likewise not be sold on the curvature of the earth.
There's the bad faith argument. That was inevitable.
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 05, 2024, 09:03:43 AMWhat other burdens do I reasonably owe your denial?
Some evidence beyond your assertion that the success of these shows is caused by the existence of a meta rather than obvious things like people looking for stuff they can use in their games.
Actually, nevermind. It's not worth my time.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 05, 2024, 09:21:13 AM
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 05, 2024, 09:03:43 AM
You could likewise not be sold on the curvature of the earth.
There's the bad faith argument. That was inevitable.
Don't mischaracterize what I said. You could be a Flat Earther and be right for all I know. I simply don't have a reason to care one way or the other.
Quote from: yosemitemike on January 05, 2024, 09:21:13 AM
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 05, 2024, 09:03:43 AMWhat other burdens do I reasonably owe your denial?
Some evidence beyond your assertion that the success of these shows is caused by the existence of a meta rather than obvious things like people looking for stuff they can use in their games.
Actually, nevermind. It's not worth my time.
At what point did I claim people metagame without using that knowledge in their games?? And I'm the one arguing in bad faith?? OF COURSE they use it at the table. That's why character creation takes longer for this type of player. Like, honestly, what the hell?
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 05, 2024, 09:07:48 AM
Quote from: BadApple on January 05, 2024, 04:12:18 AM
tl;dr Players can waste a lot of time in PC creation unless you hold their feet to the fire to get it done.
Yes. The only thing I'd point out is there are players who wouldn't choose to play an RPG that doesn't allow for this investment of time. They like to game the system for maximal effect. They don't consider it a waste. WotC calls them Spike. We used to call them Munchkins. But they are out there still today.
Yeah... a guy that wants to take an hour at my table during a session is going to get kicked. You want to be a munchkin, do it on your own time. I got up and walked away from a table once where other players were pressuring me to let a guy roll up a new PC rather than take one of the back-ups.
We've discussed this before.
If you want to run a high lethality game, that's your gig. But don't expect me to expend more than a token effort on giving my PC some characterization if he's got approximately the same survival chances of a rookie in X-Com.
The same goes for optimization and character construction. If you're playing in a high lethality game, you might not want to spend all that time teasing out every scrap of bonus if you run the risk of it all going to waste the next time you fail a saving throw. Save the optimization for later levels.
Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 05, 2024, 10:14:52 AM
We've discussed this before.
If you want to run a high lethality game, that's your gig. But don't expect me to expend more than a token effort on giving my PC some characterization if he's got approximately the same survival chances of a rookie in X-Com.
The same goes for optimization and character construction. If you're playing in a high lethality game, you might not want to spend all that time teasing out every scrap of bonus if you run the risk of it all going to waste the next time you fail a saving throw. Save the optimization for later levels.
Right, and without putting words in your mouth:
Would you prefer to know up front?
and
Is 5e typically high-lethality in your experience?
Quote from: mcbobbo on January 05, 2024, 10:19:50 AM
Quote from: Ghostmaker on January 05, 2024, 10:14:52 AM
We've discussed this before.
If you want to run a high lethality game, that's your gig. But don't expect me to expend more than a token effort on giving my PC some characterization if he's got approximately the same survival chances of a rookie in X-Com.
The same goes for optimization and character construction. If you're playing in a high lethality game, you might not want to spend all that time teasing out every scrap of bonus if you run the risk of it all going to waste the next time you fail a saving throw. Save the optimization for later levels.
Right, and without putting words in your mouth:
Would you prefer to know up front?
Yes. Springing 'high lethality' at the outset without warning is a cocksucker move. Ramping up difficulty is a different thing, as well as leaving pointed reminders (dead adventurers are good for this) that things are getting serious.
Quote
and
Is 5e typically high-lethality in your experience?
No. It's actually hard to die in 5E unless you spectacularly fuck up, outside of a handful of effects.
Greetings!
There are people that are only interested in a game if it allows for a huge investment of time.
Yeah, I can see that being true.
5E D&D started out reasonably simple and quick. Gradually, however, it too, has continually embraced more, and more, and more.
It is not difficult for even a normal, average player that isn't a wanna-be failed drama student, to easily take several hours to make up one character.
I don't purposely run a "Killer Campaign"--but there is a decent degree of danger. As always, though, the lethality factor for *Stupid Characters* remains extremely high. *Laughing*
All of this shrieking about 5E players is one reason that I love Shadowdark.
Shadowdark is engineered from the very beginning to be simple, quick, and brutal.
Roll 3d6 dice, place stats in order. A few randomized dice rolls to determine a special class ability, a starting Adventurer's Gear Pack, a small selection of spells, and done.
Creating an entirely new Character that is ready to adventure takes less than 10 minutes. If you wanted to really stretch it, you could run to the local convenience store for a Big Gulp tanker soda and some smokes, and by the time you got back, a player could be done rolling up their Shadowdark Character, have them fully detailed, and at that point, have also added whatever enhanced details. *Laughing*
It probably isn't wise to invest more than 15 minutes of time into creating a Character for Shadowdark. In Shadowdark, the Player Characters are not built from the beginning to be uber-powerful superheroes. Their characters are normal people, with maybe a bit more talent or luck than the average person. Not by much though, in any event. Shadowdark Charaacters don't start out special at all. YOU need to work at becoming special.
Semper Fidelis,
SHARK