D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[Maxperson]

I gotta admit, as a player that’s generally my reaction to DMs who do this. How do I do it? I don’t know. I don’t care either. I just do it, stop trying to monkey’s paw things and get to the results.

The how is completely uninteresting and only being done so you can say no/nerf the idea/throw roadblocks up so I have to faff about for the next X amount of time until I satisfy your sense of “challenge”.

I took the background specifically so I don’t have to do this. It just gets done.

If you’re not going to allow it, just tell me that and quit wasting my time. If you are going to allow it, then quit wasting g my time and let’s go. In either case, quit wasting my time.

That is not what he said. Nothing about his post indicated that the roleplaying portion was being done to nerf or deny an ability. That blunt or block portion was talking about only the ability itself being faulty in how it's written and used without roleplay.

 

[Maxperson]

How much does it take to roleplay. Is "attack with my sword" roleplaying? Do they have to say how they search for traps, or can they just say "search for traps"? Do the other things in the game as written need much roleplaying?

Yes it's technically roleplaying. It's about .1 on a scale of 0 to 10, though. You can't get much more minimal than "I attack" and "I'm playing a ranger guys!" At the other end are things like Critical Role and freeform roleplaying.

 

[Maxperson]

There is no emergent shared storytelling here. For there to be shared storytelling, the player needs to have any level of authority in order to be able to share in story telling. But, there's no shared authority. Just the player endlessly being required to jump through arbitrary hoops until the DM is satisfied.

The player has full authority over what he character thinks, says and tries to do.

According to the game, I have the authority, as a player, with this background, to declare that X is true in the game. Whatever that X is, doesn't really matter. Maybe it's a safe place to stay for the night, or sending a message, or booking passage on a ship. That's my authority for taking this background. Now, that authority has just been rejected by the DM who has decided, solely based on whatever he or she feels is "appropriate" and in return, I now have to jump through whatever totally arbitrary hoops that DM has decided to plonk down.

This is wrong. According to the game you have that authority unless the DM decides it shouldn't be that way for some reason. The rules serve the DM, not the other way around. 5e does not in any way, shape or form give the player unlimited authority to decide how background abilities work.

 

[Maxperson]

Yup, we're here to role play. Does that mean I have to play out, in real time, in first person, every single interaction with every single person we meet? Bugger that. Talking to random NPC who DOES NOT MATTER is pointless. The only reason I "have" to talk to the ship's captain is because the DM is forcing it. I don't want to. The ship's captain is utterly irrelevant to what we are doing. After we arrive at Point B, he will never be seen again.

Talking to random NPCs is not pointless to everyone, which is why it's so important to find a table where the players and DM share your desires for the game. As for the NPC not mattering, I can't tell you how many times an NPC that does not matter gets turned into an NPC that does matter through roleplaying. And countless other times a recurring relationship with the NPC is formed and even if he doesn't become an NPC that matters a lot, that relationship itself matters to a lot of people who play the game.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

In my experience, when they say "no" it's because they feel like there should be some sort of nebulous concept of "challenge" here and feel that if we're not rolling a check for some reason, we're getting things for free.

I am really sorry that you only have those experiences.
At least now I know why you fight for those little scraps of agency left.

 

[Hussar]

Also, the whole problem some - including me - are having with this is that the outcome of the interaction is foregone, where it shouldn't be. There should always be a chance of failure, even if small, and the rules need to reflect this.

Bingo. This is where I get off the train. No. There doesn't need to "always" be a chance of failure. One of the best rules in 3e was Take 20. 5e incorporates the same idea in that if there's no actual consequence for failure, don't roll.

I have a power that makes this a foregone conclusion. It only works in this one, very specific, very narrow situation. There are a thousand other things I'll have to make checks and fail at that you can narrate to your heart's content.

Letting the players just win sometimes without futzing about with a bunch of pointless crap is the best DMing advice I have ever received.

 

[Hussar]

Level Up, for instance, is clearly written by people who like Lord of the Rings, which is almost entirely about encounters while on the road to destroy the One Ring. It never would have become even remotely famous if we removed all that content and simply teleported from the Shire directly to Mount Doom.

And there's a very, very good reason I don't play Level Up.

 

[Hussar]

Look at my examples up there. In fact, look at any example I have made in this thread. Show me how any potential disadvantage there might be from rolling the dice or talking outweighs all the potential gains you can get.

Because your examples are all pointless? They have nothing to do with the actual adventure that I sat down to play? That adventure is at Point B. We KNOW that it's at Point B because that's the whole point in going to Point B. A bunch of random encounters? Who cares. Stop wasting the group's time. The ONLY reason you're dragging this crap in is because the player apparently cannot just simply use their ability.

Again, no wonder players simply abandon backgrounds and whatnot in favor of spells as soon as they can. Oh goodie - we know we want to go to point B. We've TOLD the DM that we want to go to Point B. We all agree that the adventure that we'Re all really excited about is at POint B.

But instead of going to Point B, we're going to have a bunch of random encounters that are utterly pointless and meaningless. Wow. Be still my beating heart. Also no wonder that people's games fall apart all the time. Remember that? Remember how virtually no one actually manages to complete a campaign?

I've done the "journey" a million times. You know what I haven'T done? Completed a campaign very often. Forty years of gaming and I've seen campaigns come to an actual conclusion maybe, maybe six or seven times. And I know I'm not alone here. The hobby is littered with the corpses of dead campaigns that died without crossing the finish line.

Maybe if DM's learned to pull their thumb out and get going once in a while, campaigns would actually conclude regularly instead of once in a blue moon.

 

[CreamCloud0]

Bingo. This is where I get off the train. No. There doesn't need to "always" be a chance of failure. One of the best rules in 3e was Take 20. 5e incorporates the same idea in that if there's no actual consequence for failure, don't roll.

I have a power that makes this a foregone conclusion. It only works in this one, very specific, very narrow situation. There are a thousand other things I'll have to make checks and fail at that you can narrate to your heart's content.

Letting the players just win sometimes without futzing about with a bunch of pointless crap is the best DMing advice I have ever received.

i mean it's very different meanings if by 'there's always a chance of failure' they mean
'this isn't 100% guaranteed because there's a chance for any given attempt to fail, just because'
or if it's
'this isn't 100% guaranteed because there may be extenuating circumstances to account for that prevent it's success in certain situations'

 

[Hussar]

Talking to random NPCs is not pointless to everyone, which is why it's so important to find a table where the players and DM share your desires for the game. As for the NPC not mattering, I can't tell you how many times an NPC that does not matter gets turned into an NPC that does matter through roleplaying. And countless other times a recurring relationship with the NPC is formed and even if he doesn't become an NPC that matters a lot, that relationship itself matters to a lot of people who play the game.

Remember though, the ONLY reason I'm talking to this NPC is because the DM is forcing me to. I didn't choose to. I chose to exercise my character ribbon - I get free passage and off we go. Boom done. The whole "talking to random NPC's" is entirely the DM's idea. I showed zero interest in it beforehand. I made it clear that I didn't want to talk to this NPC. But, I have to jump through the DM's hoops in order to get to where I actually WANT to be, so, dance monkey player dance for the DM.