Linear Warriors/Quadratic Wizards > LW/LW in D&D.

[Username17]

My only objection to the original premise is essentially the same Bears raised, to wit, that whether your guidelines are good, bad, or nonexistent, you still have anything you have at the kindly mercy of your DM and the friendly agreement of your fellow players not to flip the table or laugh you out of the room.

This is basically completely wrong and you should feel ashamed of yourself.



Fundamentally in an RPG game it is possible for any player (whether they are the MC or not) to persuade the other people at the table to move the story in any direction, to include or not include any elements, and to treat any procedures at all as "the rules." But while it is demonstrably true that any conceivable procedures or story elements are possible and can be introduced by any of the people at the table, it is nonetheless true that the different positions of the players at the table matter and that the presented rules and setting of the game also matter.

When you and I are both at the table, it is entirely possible for me to persuade you to have your character do something. But despite the fact that I could use my powers of persuasion to have your character perform any action, it is fucking obviously true that you have a more meaningful and tangible control over your character's actions than I do. Similarly, I could persuade the MC to handle criticals in some manner or another, but it's still importantly true that the MC has more of a say as to what the critical hits houserules being used in our game are, and also importantly true that even though the number of potential rules we could be using is infinite it still fucking matters what the written rules actually are.

An electron can at any moment be anywhere in the universe. Its location is probabilistic and it doesn't have to move through intervening space from one instant to another. But there is still a point of space where it is most likely to be at any given point in time, and it is still useful to know and describe where that point is, even though there's literally an infinite number of other places it might possibly be.

No, you aren't likely to use the entire rules in the Stronghold Builder's Handbook as-is. But it still matters what those rules are, and it still matters that they exist. Because the rules you actually use are much more likely to be reasonably close to what's written in that book than they are to be some sort of pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey hack. The fact that two possibilities are both possible doesn't mean that they are both equally likely. And if there's some god damn rules in a god damn book, possibilities that are reasonably similar to those rules are a metric ass tonne more likely than possibilities that are not.

And that is why the Stronghold Builder's Handbook is actually really good for the game. Because despite the fact that what is written is probably going to be somewhat dissimilar to what is actually used, it is almost assuredly going to be very similar in a lot of ways. And that essentially pushes a really large amount of the infinite possibilities outside the part of the probability space you are ever likely to see in your entire gaming life. While shit games like 4e and 5e don't have anything like that and don't push those things out of the probability space.

Basically, you're making a weird Oberoni-esque fallacious argument that rules don't matter at all. And you're wrong. Your idea is bad, and you should feel bad.

-Username17

[ACOS]

@Xhieron:
Within that wall-o-text, I think that you may be minimizing the value of codified rules in terms of player empowerment.

Without a codified rule for a thing, you're left with the whims of MC, which ranges from "fuck you, no" to "meh, whatever", and NI iterations of inconsistency in between. It can really be a fucking mess.
Other than consistent expectations (which is HUGE, btw), there's another aspect that codified rules provides: many MCs go with the "fuck you, no" option simply because they don't want to be bothered with the work of actually codifying anything, for a variety of reasons. Most MCs (at least in my experience) are more likely to let something in as long as all the work has already been done for him -and- said material appears to have been vetted. Building the framework is the hard part; tinkering around within an already-established framework is much easier (relatively speaking, at least).



[edit] It looks like Frank already said this better than I did ... oh well.

[TarkisFlux]

Defaults are important. There are measurable psychological effects associated with assigning things to defaults. People are more likely to use them as-is or to use them as a starting point for their own modification because it is less work to use what's there or make minor changes than to start from scratch. Even if they do build something from scratch, they compare against the replaced rules to make sure they work better in whatever case they're actually concerned with. Default rules in an RPG are treated as (at weakest) very strong recommendations and are presumed (sometimes improperly) to have had actual testing done on them to ensure that they function appropriately. This adds the weight of authority behind them, and if you don't think people wank to designer intent in RPGs I have unkind things to say to you. Social pressures against changing rules is hardly uncommon either.

So yes, defaulting to having rules for things that your game is supposed to model is actually rather useful. It sets expectations on both sides of the screen, serves as the starting point for modifications, and places the onus on the modifier to justify their modifications. And setting those things against rule 0 makes it less likely that a random and uninformed ruling shuts down something that the game intended to allow. All of those things increase the ability of players to act consistently in the world and make informed choices about their future options, which is the fucking definition of agency.

[Xhieron]

So, is getting insulted by Frank the way you guys baptize people here? I kind of got the impression earlier that that might be the case, and it really makes me feel like I kind of belong. That said, it also looked like the etiquette was to just grin, bear it, and try to engage with Frank in the hope of getting a constructive conversation out of it.

I don't really agree with that. I'll talk to Frank when Frank decides he's not going to be an insulting prick anymore. When you start your response with an insult, even a funny insult, it just really makes me tune out. An asshole wearing a funny meme hat is still an asshole. I don't know why you spent so much energy typing up a response if you didn't want to have a conversation.

As for ACOS, Tarkis, and Whipstitch, a lot of the interested responses seem to be based on what most MCs will do, or maybe to put it a better way, what we think a reasonable MC would do (since that ideally makes it less of an unknown). That is, a lot of MCs might let stuff slide because they might want to defer to a written rule--and that's a good argument for codified rules--but that doesn't eliminate the MCs discretion. The choice is still subjective.

Like I said before, there are a lot of good arguments in favor of codified rules, among them that in the L&D paradigm the reasonable MC is more likely to let players do things he or she might not otherwise allow. All three responses make strong arguments in favor of more codification.

The corresponding criticism would be that 5e by departing from that paradigm risks the MC having no guidance to enable players to do things. That's a legitimate criticism and a risk that I would agree is present. But the risk need not materialize.

That's not to say "Well you're playing MTP anyway so nothing matters," but rather that "This edition is not L&D and I want to play L&D because L&D is what I think makes D&D D&D" is not a strong argument against 5e (or any edition). You can have that opinion, but the opinion doesn't actually say anything substantive about how good the game is, because the notion that strict, thorough codification is a defining characteristic of D&D (or of a good game in general) is not only subjective, but transparent. Thorough codification is as dependent on MC management as any narrative game.

[erik]

Xhieron, you're using way too many words to not make your point and fail to rebut the main criticism, that rules to set guidelines are better than no rules with no guidelines.

Your argument that was taken to task was that you are still [implied] equally at the mercy of your peers, which is not the case since you can more often than not point to the rules and people will fall in line. No, it doesn't eliminate MC discretion, but it minimizes it. And to disregard that minimization is what people find so toxically obtuse about your stance.

So, is getting insulted by Frank the way you guys baptize people here?
[...]
When you start your response with an insult, even a funny insult, it just really makes me tune out.

In this sense it is a baptism but it doesn't have to come from Frank, he's just a more prolific poster which ups those odds. The people who cannot shrug off insults and get to the meat of the matter generally don't fare as well and bugger off. Which I suppose is a good thing. I'd rather deal with overt but harmless insults than have to tippy-toe around passive aggressive bullshit as found on most other forums.

[rasmuswagner]

...Like I said before, there are a lot of good arguments in favor of codified rules, among them that in the L&D paradigm the reasonable MC is more likely to let players do things he or she might not otherwise allow. All ...

New poster, rulings not rules guy, verbose, doesn't respond to counterarguments. I'm getting a whiff of crusty sockpuppet.

[mean_liar]

...That's not to say "Well you're playing MTP anyway so nothing matters," but rather that "This edition is not L&D and I want to play L&D because L&D is what I think makes D&D D&D" is not a strong argument against 5e (or any edition).

The argument against the lack of L&D support is subjective. Not being able to engage with that is a departure from 3e. Most here find that specifically to be bad, but that is a mere preference as to what constitutes DnD. Whether or not that's a strong argument against 5e is subject to the delivery of the argument, and "what is DnD".

The argument of having and not having rules being equivalent because they're still both subject to the GM is not. A game's subsystem that players want to pursue is objectively clearer for all parties with rules, than with no rules.

[zugschef]

Sounds a lot like him who must not be named.

[Xhieron]

Xhieron, you're using way too many words to not make your point and fail to rebut the main criticism, that rules to set guidelines are better than no rules with no guidelines.

Your argument that was taken to task was that you are still [implied] equally at the mercy of your peers, which is not the case since you can more often than not point to the rules and people will fall in line. No, it doesn't eliminate MC discretion, but it minimizes it. And to disregard that minimization is what people find so toxically obtuse about your stance.

Who's holding up no rules with no guidelines? I don't think anyone has suggested or intended to promote that no rules are better than some rules or that such a game exists. I also don't think anyone has said or meant to say that any amount of rules is better than a smaller amount of rules (or vice versa). 5e is not a game with no rules. If someone actually believes it is (or that it's equivalent thereto), then please say so--it would certainly explain the hostility.

I guess the issue is that I don't take your posited minimization for granted, because I don't actually have much faith in any given writer to test and balance his or her game. Even if I did, though, I think that would be much more a question of preference and design philosophy than quality.

I'll cheerfully concede that here most folks prefer a crunchy experience, and if you set out to design a game with a lot of crunch, you have a duty to balance it and make rules that are appropriate, fair, etc. But that's not the only way to design a game. Clearly the folks working on 5e wanted to make it less crunchy than 3e and intended there to be a higher ratio of MC:rules. That doesn't make the game bad by itself. That's my objection. The game is bad for lots of reasons, but in my opinion, that's not one of them.

I don't think that having rules or not having rules are equivalent by any means. I just think that preferring one or the other is a matter of taste.

[erik]

Don't be a twit. We were talking with respect to specifics (Logistics). And in that specific sense, 5e is a game with no rules.

As such, 5e has no rules to govern with and you are left entirely to MC fiat, as compared to 3e which at least indicates that things should be possible within the rules and gives instruction on how it can be done.

You have stated that having rules doesn't minimize the chance of MC bullshit
and you have said whether your guidelines are good, bad, or nonexistent, you still have anything you have at the kindly mercy of your DM. You are equating good, bad and nonexistent rules. You are stating that their existence has no effect on whether an MC is likely to play ball. And that's ludicrous.

Who's holding up no rules with no guidelines? You are. In the parts I cited in this very post. In the quote that started Frank on his rebuttal. You keep saying things that equivocate having no rules with having rules.

I don't think that having rules or not having rules are equivalent by any means. I just think that preferring one or the other is a matter of taste.

This is "Keep government's hands off my medicare" level crazy! "I don't think they are the same, they are just different in ways that cannot be measured."

I don't know why you spent so much energy typing up a response if you didn't want to have a conversation.

[Whipstitch]

Being condescended to by Frank is only one small step on your journey to becoming a man. You still need to be sent to the burn ward by Kaelik and become locked in an argument so obtuse that you're frankly amazed these people even exist. And no, this thread doesn't qualifies for that last one yet. On a scale of 1-to-Shadzar you need at least a Silva.

[RadiantPhoenix]

So, is getting insulted by Frank the way you guys baptize people here?

There once was a locked thread...

[Xhieron]

I don't know why you spent so much energy typing up a response if you didn't want to have a conversation.

Oh! Right, that's like what I said before, about Frank? Right? So you're mocking me and being clever. And that's some kind of coda on your big slam, or something? Is that how it works? Is there a crowd somewhere oohing and ahhing that I don't know about?

Well take a second and enjoy that if you want, I'll pretend to be cowed, then I'll enjoy calling you on it, and then when we're both done we can get back to the actual argument. Whenever you're ready.

So your position is that 5e has no rules, and I'm the one being obtuse? Not having as many rules as 3.5 or as you want doesn't mean the game has no rules, in the specific Logistics sense, whatever the fuck that means, or in any other.

It looks to me like there's a disconnect between the kind of book criticism I'm dealing with here and actual play experience. To be honest it's a little frustrating, because I take it for granted that everybody who posts here has actually played these games, or some game, with an actual group of people and an MC.

Even if in 3.5 a book somewhere gives you a hard and fast DC for a skill check, a reasonable DM--not even a spectacular one, but just one that isn't asleep at the screen--will from time to time change the DC. The DC is dependent on the DM, and it's still dependent on the DM even if the DM doesn't change it at all. Likewise if the DM assigns it without even opening the book, and likewise if the book doesn't exist and the DM assigns it arbitrarily. "It's arbitrary in 5e but not arbitrary in 3.5" is bullshit, because the system in place that renders it non-arbitrary in 3.5 is not inherently more reliable than the DM. Sometimes it's a good system and sometimes it's not, but I don't think anybody would honestly argue that it's acceptable to tell the DM during play that he has to follow the rules unless he's making a mistake (as opposed to a decision).

The book being thorough makes a difference when you're sitting in a room with it away from the table (I can build my sky-castle by myself with the book), but you're still going to have to bring your product to the table if you mean to actually play the game, and that means involving other people (is that actually consensus reality?).

The impression I get from this argument--not you specifically erik, just in general--is that people think that if only there were more rules you could hamstring that tyrannical MC to save yourself from having to put up with a miserable game, bully the weak-willed MC into letting you run roughshod over RAI, and better approach a more ideal gaming experience based on your desires. That may in fact be true for some tables, but it's definitely not true in general. With more rules you can abuse them and bend them to your will and then bring the result to the table and play, right? No, actually you totally can't do that, and the density of the book doesn't actually change it.

"You must be this crunchy to be D&D" is not an acceptable standard by which to judge any RPG. The fact, for example, that the abstract stealth rules in 5e are terrible doesn't make 5e terrible, because the non-abstract stealth rules in 3.5 were also terrible, and that game was pretty damn good.

There are good criticisms to 5e--Lago made some in the OP, and that's why I got into this discussion in the first place. The fact that in some instances bounded accuracy means you can't get off the RNG at any level, for example (I don't remember if he actually made that point or not, but it's a fair criticism), is a major mark against the edition for high level play.

I feel like those criticisms are weakened by bad ones, to wit, that DM fiat is relied upon more (not exclusively, just more) in 5e than 3.5. That may be something you don't like about the game, but it doesn't make the game inferior to its predecessors in isolation. Sitting down with a bunch of friends, getting drunk, and playing a two hour game of MTP with no books and no dice wouldn't be measurably worse than playing D&D if that's what you and your friends wanted to do. Opinion matters, and continuity with previous editions matters, of course, but the games are actually subject to criticism on their merits, and that means that good criticism actually has to go to the merits.

[Username17]

Sounds a lot like him who must not be named.

Basically... yes. When Spuds McKenzie here rants about how no rules vs any rules is just a preference thing, that sounds like when Muppet-Janice made that haiku about left handed scissors. And when Asparatodd here says he doesn't need to respond to arguments of people who don't live up to his own arbitrary rules of message board argument that he himself doesn't live up to even a little bit, that's a bit like when MasterCheef did... well... exactly that. And of course the thing where BelleTain here is making long tl;dr screeds about something something rules are bad, that is highly reminiscent of when BollWeabil did that thing.

So right now, I am giving this about a 1 in 5 chance of being a sock puppet for that guy.

-Username17

[ishy]

Even if in 3.5 a book somewhere gives you a hard and fast DC for a skill check, a reasonable DM--not even a spectacular one, but just one that isn't asleep at the screen--will from time to time change the DC.

So in your games, sometimes your PCs with +0 jump can jump over 2 inch tall fences and sometimes PCs with +40 jump can't, depending on whatever the DM feels like at the moment?
And you think that is good DMing?

[Xhieron]

Even if in 3.5 a book somewhere gives you a hard and fast DC for a skill check, a reasonable DM--not even a spectacular one, but just one that isn't asleep at the screen--will from time to time change the DC.

So in your games, sometimes your PCs with +0 jump can jump over 2 inch tall fences and sometimes PCs with +40 jump can't, depending on whatever the DM feels like at the moment?
And you think that is good DMing?

Nope.

Didn't say that; didn't mean that.

[Dean]

If you want to know what he means you've got to ask him. Remember? Dont take his text to mean what it says, let him tell you what it means and if there's any glaring problems just let him explain them too, cyclically, forever.

Its easy to see why the rulings not rules crowd feels the way they do given their incapability to write anything that conveys any meaning.

[NineInchNall]

If you want to know what he means you've got to ask him. Remember? Dont take his text to mean what it says, let him tell you what it means and if there's any glaring problems just let him explain them too, cyclically, forever.

Its easy to see why the rulings not rules crowd feels the way they do given their incapability to write anything that conveys any meaning.

Why does that make me think of conversations with theologians and philosophers of religion?

[TarkisFlux]

Frank did not insult you. Frank insulted your original objection and then told you that you should feel badly about holding that position. If you can't separate having your ideas insulted from being personally insulted yourself, I suggest you find a nice hugbox to hang out at instead.

Just to remind you, this is what people are arguing with you about and are hostile to:

My only objection to the original premise is essentially the same Bears raised, to wit, that whether your guidelines are good, bad, or nonexistent, you still have anything you have at the kindly mercy of your DM and the friendly agreement of your fellow players not to flip the table or laugh you out of the room.

And less so this new thing that you've shifted your goal posts (here, I'll be charitable) clarified yourself into:

Clearly the folks working on 5e wanted to make it less crunchy than 3e and intended there to be a higher ratio of MC:rules. That doesn't make the game bad by itself. That's my objection. The game is bad for lots of reasons, but in my opinion, that's not one of them.

The former is a terrible position that belies a deep ignorance or misunderstanding of human psychology and averages. While I won't say you should feel bad for having held it initially, you should feel bad if you continue to hold it at this point. The latter is fine. Having different design goals (like not including L&D) and thus differing amounts of rules (less in this case) does not make a game bad in and of itself. They can make a game less suited for a particular use, but not necessarily bad. Failure to meet intended objectives makes a game bad in and of itself, and this isn't a thread about 5e's failures on that point.

Even if in 3.5 a book somewhere gives you a hard and fast DC for a skill check, a reasonable DM--not even a spectacular one, but just one that isn't asleep at the screen--will from time to time change the DC.

So in your games, sometimes your PCs with +0 jump can jump over 2 inch tall fences and sometimes PCs with +40 jump can't, depending on whatever the DM feels like at the moment?
And you think that is good DMing?

Nope.

Didn't say that; didn't mean that.

Then what the fuck did you mean? A reasonable DM will randomly change DCs for no reason? Will make mistakes? Will apply conditional modifiers in line with the actual rules? Something else?

[Orion]

I call bullshit on the entire sockpuppet discussion. If you seriously only give it a 20% chance a ne wposter is a sock puppet, then you should keep that opinion to yourself, because you have an 80% chance of poisoning the well. When a new poster is accused of being a sockpuppet of someone they've never heard of (hell, someone I'm not sure I've heard of), there's really no way for them to participate constructively. At best it's an off-topic derail.

Also: instructing people to feel bad is in fact an insult. It is in fact the ur-insult from which all insults spring. We do insults here, so that's fine, but don't pretend that it's not. "Your ideas are bad and you should feel bad" is not an ad hominem argument, because you're not relying on the insult to discredit the idea; it's and argument followed up with an insult.

Finally, it's worth nothing that there exist internet communities that forgo both gratuitous insults and rampant passive aggression. There aren't many of them, and I've never encountered one in gaming, but it's a conceptual possibility. We do insults here and I enjoy that; it's a personal preference that doesn't need to be justified. If you do try to justify it by claiming the only choices are pervasive insults, pervasive passive-aggression, or stifling hugboxing, then your argument is bad and you should feel bad.

[TarkisFlux]

Also: instructing people to feel bad is in fact an insult. It is in fact the ur-insult from which all insults spring. We do insults here, so that's fine, but don't pretend that it's not. "Your ideas are bad and you should feel bad" is not an ad hominem argument, because you're not relying on the insult to discredit the idea; it's and argument followed up with an insult.

Fair enough.

[Xhieron]

I think it's fair for me to decide I'm not going to put up with someone being an asshole, whether they're insulting me or my position. I'll concede that I may have been a little predisposed to thinking Frank's a prick before I posted here, but that wouldn't make me wrong to decide not to take shit from him.

My original position, the position I've been clarifying, and my position now is that you play the game with a DM, and the DM has to make calls at the table. You don't just play the book. A game's instruction for the DM to make a call based on less guidance than another game doesn't make it good or bad. That fact has no qualitative value at all. "5e is bad because I have to get DM approval to stealth" is not a good criticism of 5e compared to 3.5--you had to get DM approval to stealth in 3.5 too. The difference is that in 3.5 sometimes the things you wanted to do came with a chart.

The original position I was criticizing could be distilled like this: In 3.5 I got a corvette because the book said I got a corvette. There's no corvette in the 5e PHB so I don't get a corvette and 5e is worse than 3.5. Both of the conclusions are irrational, and the second doesn't follow the first. You could in fact get a corvette in 5e--just not from the book--and the corvette's presence or absence is immaterial--well not immaterial, but far from the entire discourse--to whether 3.5 or 5e is better.

Finally, as to the last quote, what I said was what I actually said. Sometimes DMs change DCs. Is that not something everybody knows? Sometimes they change them for good reasons, sometimes for bad reasons, and sometimes for no reason at all ("eh, feels like a DC 26 to me"). A reasonable DM will sometimes arbitrarily raise or lower a DC--sometimes, in fact, to avoid something ridiculous like a proficient character having a chance of failure (though that would probably be done better by not having a roll at all despite the fact that the game calls for one). And sometimes he'll do it without the rules telling him so.

EDIT: I didn't realize previously that this kind of thinking is not, as I assumed, common sense, and is in fact radical and makes me part of a camp or movement. Do I get a hat or a flag? Are there any songs to learn?

[zugschef]

"Your ideas are bad" is not an argument.

[Whipstitch]

The difference is that in 3.5 sometimes the things you wanted to do came with a chart.

My objections to your statements has nothing to do with the wall of text that came before the above quote. My objections are simply about the relative value of those charts. Those charts matter a lot to me, and I'm not going to temper my own opinions of 5e merely because other people may have different judging criteria than I do. To do so would be a waste of time on the level of appending "But that's just my opinion..." to all my posts. Christ.

Anyway, if you want to know why I value those charts it's because rule sets are there so hopefully the group can have pre-existing agreements and so that a non-trivial portion of work has already been performed by the game designers for the DM and by extension the group. It's just like playing soccer or whatever--yes, the rules are in many ways arbitrary and judgement calls will be necessary. Different people will even have different aesthetic arguments about what a proper game should look like and sometimes those disagreements will even turn out to be intractable and prevent play from continuing. But even imperfect rules can be useful because it gives people a rough idea of what is intended to happen before play even begins despite the fact that writers cannot possibly be expected to account for every eventuality. Also, it's important to note that most of us here do not believe Magic Tea Party and Rule Zero are things that must be excised entirely from games. Rather, it's that we believe that Magic Tea Part and Rule Zero are free. Defaulting to them is an occasional necessary evil, but I will nevertheless question the value of any rule book that charges me cash money and fails to offer a satisfactory number of useful alternatives to Magical Tea Party. Because again, I can play Magical Tea Party for free and my niece already knows all the rules.

The original position I was criticizing could be distilled like this: In 3.5 I got a corvette because the book said I got a corvette. There's no corvette in the 5e PHB so I don't get a corvette and 5e is worse than 3.5. Both of the conclusions are irrational, and the second doesn't follow the first. You could in fact get a corvette in 5e--just not from the book--and the corvette's presence or absence is immaterial to whether 3.5 or 5e is better.

Bullshit. It's Dungeons and Dragons, a game where mercenaries have been running off to the borderlands to raid keeps and become lords since the late '70s. It's "irrational" to expect rules about such things only in the nihilistic sense where nothing is ever owed to us by the universe. But in a more conversational sense where we're simply talking about fan relationships to product, I don't find it particularly weird that people feel a bit shafted when the "Dungeons" half of the D&D equation gets short shrift.

[ACOS]

So, the only way people are allowed to have nice things is if their long-lost rich uncle happens to remember them in his will? otherwise, fuck off?

Sorry, once you've had blackjack+hookers, there's no going back to farm life where everywhere you go involves going uphill both ways in the snow. (unless you happen to be one of those crazies that "win their fortune and decide to live in the woods killing their food with their bare hands")