D&DNext: Playtest Review

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 2:10 am

Winnah wrote:There is a big difference between being able to run a satisfying game and being surrounded by lazy fucking players who refuse to run a game.

DMing does take a little work, but a lot of what makes for a good game comes from player participation, whether is it keeping a campaign journal, instigating plots or just goofing around in character.

My best games were certainly not a result of me bestowing some incredible storycrafting on the guys I play with. I consider a game a success if I can engage the majority of the players. When that happens, it is not something I can take 100% of the credit for.

+1 In one of my best games a small group of random NPCs I made up on the spot became a hit at the table. The most popular of which was a twelve year old mute boy named "Gunz" by the players. The only reason I made the boy ad other NPCs up was because earlier in the story while shit was going down one of the players decided to use up his time saving random people. The best part of GMing (for me) is when I hear about games I ran talked about years later even by members of the group who QUIT the campaign. And its never how well crafted the story was (though sometimes it is) its all about what "happened" and how everyone reacted to it. People who play DnD don't care much about a well crafted story, they care about having a good fuckin' time.

DSMatticus · Post by **DSMatticus** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 2:55 am

Completely unsurprisingly, most of the people who sit down to DM are not talented authors. You cannot tell a story that will keep 3-4 people interested and call it a TTRPG because you happen to have the reader/listener play minigames at key points.

The only way you're going to make something anyone cares about is by actually letting them share and craft their piece of the story. Because listening to the DM ramble about what he thinks is cool is boring. But an organic story unfolding from randomness and the decisions of four+ people can be awesome (and frequently, hilarious), and plus: the standard of amusement is actually lower, because people understand that it is not scripted, so when something awesome happens it's actually awesome, as opposed to somebody writing shit down that seems awesome to them (which frequently turns out to be lame).

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 3:58 am

If a GM is going to sink any time into preparing something, he should prepare setting and characters. Those can always be picked up from where the players were expected to go and dropped to where they are (with possibly some modifications to make sure player decisions still count for something), so they're less likely to be wasted, and they're things which the players can interact with and thus have fun with. Anything that prepares you to improvise an entertaining response to player actions rather than exposit three paragraphs of backstory is a good thing.

EDIT: At the same time, Koumei's visual puns seem like the kind of thing that would fall under "exposition" and probably required at least a few seconds of thought to set up, and they were one of my favorite parts of her game. So I dunno.

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Sun Jun 10, 2012 5:58 am

Exceptions shouldn't dictate your rules. Just because there's one guy who actually makes riddles a cool part of his games doesnt mean they're generally good standard practice. Same applies to Koumei's puns.

CapnTthePirateG · Post by **CapnTthePirateG** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 4:08 am

Mearls on Monsters here.

In which he reveals that he's designing monsters to fit flavor, but is largely pulling numbers out of his ass. Oh, and it's based of the 4e system. Damn it.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 5:06 am

I like how he decides that rules for auto-hits with beak attacks when enemies are skewered on hooks is a basic mechanic you should see in the Hook Horror. Seriously: WTF? It could just have a regular grab routine. Or the hooks could do something else. Hell, the hooks don't have to be separate attacks. It could just have an attack called "hooks". Saying that has to have a clunky 4e-style writeup of every clunky mechanic it had in 2e is just admitting defeat.

-Username17

rasmuswagner · Post by **rasmuswagner** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 6:49 am

That statblock is god damn AD&D all over again. I got sick of every monster inventing new rules for every corner case and nothing working as a unified system a long, long time ago.

tussock · Post by **tussock** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 7:34 am

How the Hook Horror works should damn well be in the Hook Horror entry, page-flipping mid-combat is annoying as hell. It should also use the same basic mechanics as everything else which does that. I mean, that's basically a Rend/Rake attack performed with the beak, which is fine; those things should totally work the same unlike they do in 3e (where everyone's Rend works differently, which is also different to Rake, and a Grab which might Constrict).

Unless they shouldn't work the same, because sometimes you need a different mechanic to get the job done.

ModelCitizen · Post by **ModelCitizen** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:33 am

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Mearls on Monsters here.

In which he reveals that he's designing monsters to fit flavor, but is largely pulling numbers out of his ass. Oh, and it's based of the 4e system. Damn it.

He says he wants class-leveled NPCs to work, although that's impossible to judge until there's a nearly-complete monster manual. Back in 2007 they could have easily made the same claim about 4e. Theoretically supporting class-leveled NPCs doesn't mean shit if all the monsters are built to different numeric constraints than PCs, and the monster manual is full of non-classed NPCs with better per-level numbers and special abilities that PCs aren't allowed to have. Which is how the orcs and gnolls work in the playtest.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 1:20 pm

RE: comments in that thread.

Not that 4E monsters weren't themselves boring and disassociative, so, while I can laugh at 4Erry denial that 4th Edition monsters were at some sort of 'sweet spot' I can totally understand their dismay that 5E D&D monsters are going to be even more boring and disassociative. But like I said, the denialism blunts all of my sympathy.

Otakusensei · Post by **Otakusensei** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 8:35 pm

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Mearls on Monsters here.

In which he reveals that he's designing monsters to fit flavor, but is largely pulling numbers out of his ass. Oh, and it's based of the 4e system. Damn it.

I can dig that he's going back and pulling info from earlier editions, but that stat block... Maybe I'm playing too much Pathfinder lately, but that block looks more 3.P to me than 4th ed. That says all sorts of bad things about 5th ed. right there, i.e. efforts to put the genie back in the bottle, etc.

I managed to avoid most of 4th ed. despite spending two days a week at a gaming store, so I'm really wondering why we're bothering with 5th. Plenty of people have told me that there needs to be a game called D&D and that it needs to be the flagship of the industry, but I can say with all honestly that one of those statements is already false.

We all kinda know where this 5th ed. thing is going. Without real inspiration and revolution, is there any reason to even have it?

(Besides the cash...)

FatR · Post by **FatR** » Mon Jun 11, 2012 9:46 pm

CapnTthePirateG wrote:Mearls on Monsters here.

In which he reveals that he's designing monsters to fit flavor, but is largely pulling numbers out of his ass. Oh, and it's based of the 4e system. Damn it.

I'm more bothered by the fact that he (a)couldn't find a better example monster than boring-ass Hook Horror (b)monsters will remain statblocks with a tiny bit of fluff. I prefer longer monster descriptions that can give an idea about what the heck this monster is and adventure ideas, involving it.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 1:55 am

Another fun quote. I'm still not sure if this guy was trolling or not.

I have to agree with Valdark, in pre 4E games the fighters and other martial classes would dominate the field. 9 out of 10 times all the opponents would be dead before the wizard was able to finish casting his spell.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 2:59 am

FatR wrote:I'm more bothered by the fact that he (a)couldn't find a better example monster than boring-ass Hook Horror (b)monsters will remain statblocks with a tiny bit of fluff. I prefer longer monster descriptions that can give an idea about what the heck this monster is and adventure ideas, involving it.

The 3.5 MM5 had a little more info in the Ecology section than I was really interested in as a DM, being mostly full of shite that seriously did not matter. Then there was the fucking Lore table with Knowledge check results. Mother FUCK those were useless.

But what really soured me on those things was the way the mechanical information was presented. The statblocks had information spread out in ways that made it very difficult to get a quick grasp on the critter's capabilities, what with all the redundant presentation of information. It seriously couldn't get any worse than -

Oh, yeah. 4e monster books. Fuck me. Could we have a happy middle ground between the two?

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 4:53 am

NineInchNall wrote:
FatR wrote:I'm more bothered by the fact that he (a)couldn't find a better example monster than boring-ass Hook Horror (b)monsters will remain statblocks with a tiny bit of fluff. I prefer longer monster descriptions that can give an idea about what the heck this monster is and adventure ideas, involving it.
The 3.5 MM5 had a little more info in the Ecology section than I was really interested in as a DM, being mostly full of shite that seriously did not matter. Then there was the fucking Lore table with Knowledge check results. Mother FUCK those were useless.

But what really soured me on those things was the way the mechanical information was presented. The statblocks had information spread out in ways that made it very difficult to get a quick grasp on the critter's capabilities, what with all the redundant presentation of information. It seriously couldn't get any worse than -

Oh, yeah. 4e monster books. Fuck me. Could we have a happy middle ground between the two?

The 4e Monster Manual had lore tables. I can't remember the Monster Manual 5 format, because once I realized that there were like 12 actual monsters in it and the rest was was filler text, maps of simple dungeons, and poorly made classed NPCs of already existent monsters, I put it back on the fucking shelf. That was more than 4 years ago, so there's no way I could tell you any of the nitty gritty of it.

Personally, I think lore charts could be good. They could be a list of Chuck Norris Facts about Hobgoblins or whatever, and that could be some good plot hooks. But the clowns they have actually writing these are clowns. This is the actual (and iconic) Bear Lore check result table:

4e Monster Manual wrote:Bear Lore
A character knows the following information with a successful Nature check.
DC 15: Bears generally live in forests and caves. Cave bears are ferocious predators that make their lairs deep underground and are accustomed to darkness. Dire bears are savage hunters that eat humanoids as readily as game animals.
DC 20: Dire bears typically maul prey with their claws or crush them to death with their thick, bestial arms.

Yeppers: DC 20 Nature Check to know that Dire Bears have claws. WTF?

But if you had people who weren't clowns writing the damn thing, you could put a possible story seed in every bear lore result. Like "bears are trained as hunting and guard animals by stone giants" or some shit. And that would make the monster manual more useful rather than less.

-Username17

unnamednpc · Post by **unnamednpc** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 8:18 am

FrankTrollman wrote: But if you had people who weren't clowns writing the damn thing, you could put a possible story seed in every bear lore result.
-Username17

Yeah, but then you couldn't fit them all in the same car.

NineInchNall · Post by **NineInchNall** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:29 am

FrankTrollman wrote:The 4e Monster Manual had lore tables. I can't remember the Monster Manual 5 format, because once I realized that there were like 12 actual monsters in it and the rest was was filler text, maps of simple dungeons, and poorly made classed NPCs of already existent monsters, I put it back on the fucking shelf. That was more than 4 years ago, so there's no way I could tell you any of the nitty gritty of it.

Personally, I think lore charts could be good. They could be a list of Chuck Norris Facts about Hobgoblins or whatever, and that could be some good plot hooks. But the clowns they have actually writing these are clowns. ... But if you had people who weren't clowns writing the damn thing, you could put a possible story seed in every bear lore result. Like "bears are trained as hunting and guard animals by stone giants" or some shit. And that would make the monster manual more useful rather than less.

Yeah, most of my problems with MM4 and MM5 were about implementations rather than the "ideas" behind them. It is certainly possible to make some useful lore tables for monsters and PrCs, but the assclownhatholes that WotC taps/tapped for material can't/couldn't write for shit. Which is impressive considering their origin in the depths of humanoid bowels.

Honestly, when it comes to a monster, I want to know what it is, where it is, and why it is. If it's intelligent, I'd also care to know how it is. Other than that, give me the mechanical information in an easily parsed format. It is counterintuitive to create a statblock (or PrC presentation format) that presents information that one truly doesn't care about (i.e., "this is how you roleplay such-and-such.")

While I'm at it, when did the term roleplay become synonymous with play-acting? I mean, ... the fuck? Simply making any sort of decision based on the parameters of one's character (i.e., role) is role-playing. So how did the term get hijacked by fucking method-acting, pretentious, auto-fellating sphincter-lovers?

Fuchs · Post by **Fuchs** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 9:46 am

The lore entries were probably shaped by mechanical criteria - like "information about attack routines has to be DC 20" or so, without taking into account how stupid that makes the entries of most of the monsters.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 3:43 pm

More brilliant game design from over at the WotC forums:

Personally I want something like E6 but as E30. All class features, skill systems, and themes to be designed to go all the way to the "level cap". Then at a certain point you can buy "Destinies" with XP to place on top of the base class much like 4e.

Hulk of Strength
15,000 XP
Level 21 or higher

Strength +5
AC +2
Double Carrying Capacity and Jump Distance

Eladrin
20,000 XP
Level 18 or higher
Elf or Half elf

Type changes to Outsider (Eladrin)
Whirlwind blast at will
Tongues
Fly speed 100 ft

Yeah, apparently having a higher carrying capacity and jump is not only equivalent to at will whirlwind blast and flight, but actually better because it requires a higher level.

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:05 pm

Seerow wrote:More brilliant game design from over at the WotC forums:

Personally I want something like E6 but as E30. All class features, skill systems, and themes to be designed to go all the way to the "level cap". Then at a certain point you can buy "Destinies" with XP to place on top of the base class much like 4e.

Hulk of Strength
15,000 XP
Level 21 or higher

Strength +5
AC +2
Double Carrying Capacity and Jump Distance

Eladrin
20,000 XP
Level 18 or higher
Elf or Half elf

Type changes to Outsider (Eladrin)
Whirlwind blast at will
Tongues
Fly speed 100 ft
Yeah, apparently having a higher carrying capacity and jump is not only equivalent to at will whirlwind blast and flight, but actually better because it requires a higher level.

This reads as parody, actually. If I wanted to illustrate the "Fighters can't have nice things" mindset I'd be hardpressed to come with better abilities than those.

It's like:
Epic Angel Summoning
Requisite: Angel Summoner 20
You can summon angels on spots that don't require line of sight. Angelic creatures are automatically friendly to you.

Epic BMX Tricks
Requisite: BMX Bandit 20
You get a +2 on your rolls to pull stunts with your BMX and a +5 on your jump distance (+10 with a running start).

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:11 pm

nockermensch wrote: This reads as parody, actually. If I wanted to illustrate the "Fighters can't have nice things" mindset I'd be hardpressed to come with better abilities than those.

It's like:
Epic Angel Summoning
Requisite: Angel Summoner 20
You can summon angels on spots that don't require line of sight. Angelic creatures are automatically friendly to you.

Epic BMX Tricks
Requisite: BMX Bandit 20
You get a +2 on your rolls to pull stunts with your BMX and a +5 on your jump distance (+10 with a running walking start).

Fixed that for you. You jump with a walking start in 5e.

-Username17

fectin · Post by **fectin** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:26 pm

Actually, that seems like a workable system. The examples are shite because the costs are way off (maybe? Does anyone actually know what 5e balance looks like yet?), but think if they were instead:

Hulk of Strength
1,000 XP
Level 5 or higher

Strength +5
AC +2
Double Carrying Capacity and Jump Distance

Eladrin
2,000 XP
Level 8 or higher
Elf or Half elf

Type changes to Outsider (Eladrin)
Whirlwind blast at will (maybe remove this; it may be too dumb if it's level appropriate at level 8)
Tongues
Fly speed 100 ft

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 5:58 pm

rasmuswagner wrote:That statblock is god damn AD&D all over again. I got sick of every monster inventing new rules for every corner case and nothing working as a unified system a long, long time ago.

Yeah. This reminds me of flinds in 2E (shorter, stocky dog-headed gnolls) and flindbars (metal nunchucks). They could disarm you with them unless you made a save vs. wands.

Ugh.

Dominicius · Post by **Dominicius** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:22 pm

fectin wrote:Actually, that seems like a workable system. The examples are shite because the costs are way off (maybe? Does anyone actually know what 5e balance looks like yet?), but think if they were instead:

The proper way to do such a system is to have Final Fantasy style AP, call them epic points if you want. As you level you get more AP that get taken up by epic abilities as for what these epic abilities are here are some examples:

Hulking Strength
Required Level: 5
Epic Points: 1
Effec: Your carry capacity is increased by x10.

Light Fall
Required Level: 4
Epic Points: 1
Effect: You never take damage from falls.

Master of Arms
Required Level: 3
Epic Points: 1
Effect: You can inflict damage appropriate to your level without needed to use an item with the [Weapon] tag. You can just as easily use spoons, rose petals or your fists.

Knockback
Required Level: 8
Epic Points: 3
Effect: Enemies you hit are knocked into another zone on a critical hit and receive falling damage if it applies to the zone and the battlefield. Enemies with Light Fall receive far less extra damage.

Shockwave
Required Level: 8
Epic Points: 2
Effect: Your [Melee] weapons also count as [Ranged] weapons and vice versa.

Immortality
Required Level: 12
Epic Points: 4
Effect: You do not age, become immune to any diseases and normal weapons cannot inflict fatal wounds upon you. Your hp is also increased by a quite a lot.

Flight
Required Level: 9
Epic Points: 3
Effect: You can fly through sheer force of your will.

If you want to get more into it you could also include some negative epic aspects.

Phylactery
Required Level: 7
Epic Points: -2
Effect: You have an item that houses your soul/heart/whatever. If it is destroyed then you die.

Red Glowing Weakspot
Required Level: 1
Epic Points: -1
Effect: You have a huge and obvious weakspot on your body. This makes critical hits twice as likely to land on you.

Seerow · Post by **Seerow** » Tue Jun 12, 2012 6:50 pm

Well they posted some more. Here are some examples of what real epic fighters should be doing. None of this anime bullshit.

Epic Background: King
Requirement: you must have conquered the right to be king, either by bloodline or by force.
Description: Your actions made you a king of the land... [fluff text here].
Benefits: +2 bonus to tests related with the kingdom's maintenance; proficiency with diplomacy or +4 competence bonus to diplomacy if you already have it.
Background Feature: You never pay for anything and you always have advantage in social actions within your kingdom.
XP Cost (special): you need to accumulate enough XP as if you had to level up the next level twice, or [a big value here] XP, at your DM's discretion.

Epic Theme: Epic Slayer
Requirement: Slayer Theme
Description: You are a fearsome Slayer [fluff text here].
Benefits: When you miss an attack, you still deal damage equal to half the ability score you used to deal damage
XP Cost: [very big number here] XP

Epic Class Feature: Epic Weapon Focus
Requirement: Fighter class
Description: Your technique with weapons is epic [fluff text here, please]
Benefits: Each time you 'buy' this epic class feature, you add +2 to the damage you deal with weapons
XP Cost: [number here] XP