D&D5e as played by students who never played DND

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OgreBattle
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D&D5e as played by students who never played DND

Post by OgreBattle »

Had my RPG class students run and play DnD5e on their own, so they have to figure out the rules. So two groups formed to play the starter adventure.

Observations...

Group 1:
- thought spells needed to charge up for a turn, that's how they read 'full round', but it also made aesthetic sense to them for chanting and gathering magical energy to be slower than swinging a blade

- misread an encounter so there were 50 goblins, they then decided that the lvl1 fighter's greatsword can 'whirlwind attack' all adjacent goblins, and the lvl1 rogue can make an acrobatics roll to dash through multiple goblins hitting them all.

- did the ambush check by "the player that didn't do anything yet will roll"

Group 2:
- Skill checks were just rolled on a d20 with no modifiers

- decided "only person walking in front uses wisdom check to see if ambush detected".

- Used the healing skill to attempt to calm an animal. Used INT for healing because... well they're university students who have friends studying to be doctors, it takes a lot of memorization and logic to do that. Wisdom was seen as the perception stat.

So both groups did not do stealth vs ambush as "everyone rolls to detect". Nobody had an obsession with 'mundanes can't do kungfu stuff' because everyone here in Thailand grew up with Hindu epics, kungfu, manga, anime, and so on.

Both groups did not attempt dialog with goblins, they did attempt to handle dogs though.
Last edited by OgreBattle on Fri Sep 20, 2019 6:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
K
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Post by K »

That's very amusing. I sometimes watch DnD with newbies and am surprised by how many assumptions they have that are wrong, but perfectly reasonable and probably should be part of the rules.
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Post by Suzerain »

That's probably about what the developers want for the play experience of 5e, with the caveat that group 1 has more interesting noncasters than the game actually has. Overall the rules seem to be working as intended (i.e. not working but also nobody cares)
Heaven's Thunder Hammer
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Post by Heaven's Thunder Hammer »

I approve of this and would love to see more.
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

Their current assignment is the Tomb of Horrors, my introduction was "you know those bullshit hard Mario levels people make, well..."
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Re: D&D5e as played by students who never played DND

Post by Whatever »

OgreBattle wrote:Group 1:
- thought spells needed to charge up for a turn, that's how they read 'full round',
I'm not aware of any "full round" spells in 5e. Where did they even find that term?
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OgreBattle
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Re: D&D5e as played by students who never played DND

Post by OgreBattle »

Whatever wrote:
OgreBattle wrote:Group 1:
- thought spells needed to charge up for a turn, that's how they read 'full round',
I'm not aware of any "full round" spells in 5e. Where did they even find that term?
youtube videos of D&D
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

Tomb of Battle Report

Party A, everyone is a pure spellcaster or spellcaster multiclass

- Summoned vampires to walk in front of them and trigger traps
- Encountered gem crushing gargoyle
- Trap room with wall closing in, one character enlarges to slow wall as another casts dig to make a space for them to avoid being crushed, they then cast find direction to dig into an open room
- Used a wish spell to get the "boss of the dungeon" in front of them
- Vampires sucked into skull
- 2 party members sucked into skull during combat
- Exorcism on skull, skull tries to dig away, they dig after it and cast Force cage cast on skull, vanish cast on eyes to remove gems from skull, skull is trapped
- Gems placed in gargoyle's hands to free trapped party members
- Dungeon boss effectively neutralized, everyone walks into the open mouth portal and dies

feedback: "This dungeon isn't so much challenging as it is... random and sometimes bad design. There's nothing to indicate that the colored tiles can have to be touched in a certain order, or crushing 10 gems for an invisible gem, other than really tedious actions."
Last edited by OgreBattle on Thu Oct 31, 2019 7:02 am, edited 2 times in total.
hyzmarca
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Post by hyzmarca »

OgreBattle wrote:Tomb of Battle Report

Party A, everyone is a pure spellcaster or spellcaster multiclass

- Summoned vampires to walk in front of them and trigger traps
- Encountered gem crushing gargoyle
- Trap room with wall closing in, one character enlarges to slow wall as another casts dig to make a space for them to avoid being crushed, they then cast find direction to dig into an open room
- Used a wish spell to get the "boss of the dungeon" in front of them
- Vampires sucked into skull
- 2 party members sucked into skull during combat
- Exorcism on skull, skull tries to dig away, they dig after it and cast Force cage cast on skull, vanish cast on eyes to remove gems from skull, skull is trapped
- Gems placed in gargoyle's hands to free trapped party members
- Dungeon boss effectively neutralized, everyone walks into the open mouth portal and dies

feedback: "This dungeon isn't so much challenging as it is... random and sometimes bad design. There's nothing to indicate that the colored tiles can have to be touched in a certain order, or crushing 10 gems for an invisible gem, other than really tedious actions."
Okay, that's cool and smart. Except for the walking into the open mouth portal bit.
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Post by Iduno »

OgreBattle wrote:Tomb of Battle Report
- Dungeon boss effectively neutralized, everyone walks into the open mouth portal and dies
It's the ending that really makes that story.
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

Students cleared the Tomb of Horrors, they had a party named after Buddhist monks of history as they figured monks are the kind of people who will purposefully enter a horrible tomb of horrors.

"This is like Pokemon" they summoned a lot of monsters. One of the vampires got trapped and yelled "Master save meee!!" and they dug through the wall. Buddhist monks often reform evil spirits by making them do good deeds.

---

Students are now playing After Sundown

One group is playing as "One Piece in modern times, taking on the wealthiest corporation on earth", willpower powers are seen as Haki in One Piece.
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OgreBattle
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Post by OgreBattle »

I ran a simple game based on my skill challenge system for my students

They pick 4 skills out of this list...
Strength, Agility, Sense, Logic
Combat, Stealth, Finesse
Charisma, Animal Handling
Engineering, Medicine

Most of them didn't pick combat, as it was put in the same category as the rest they got a good spread of skills.

The scenario was "Orcs will attack tomorrow, wat do in the town??"

Preparation phase- Everyone uses one skill to prepare for the attack, scout whatnot

That gives bonuses to the meat of the session, orcs attack. My skill challenge system is... get X successes before Y turns.

So they prepared for the attack by rebuilding old walls, organizing the able bodied villagers, planning choke points. Once the orcs attacked...

Turn 1- The combat oriented character stands at the front of the chokepoint with village militia, the tactician character organized them in a good formation. Other characters find good positions

Turn 2- Orcs came from the river unexpectedly and burn the library (plot critical), party now has to split their goals from minimizing villager casualties to putting the fire out

Turn 3- Engineering skill character collapses library room to trap orcs and stop spread of fire, agile character helps a villager escape with books

It went well, rules were very loose, direct combat was maybe 30% of their actions, non-combat characters felt useful and clever too.

So people who have little experience with D&D aren't going to start stabbing everything if they're presented with rules that don't focus way more on combat than anything else.
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