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

[Maxperson]

Again, the thing is, you're not going to go to London, Paris, Belgium, etc all at once in a short span.

This is a background that going to come up once in like 10 sessions and your character will only be using it when they need to know someone.

The mechanic isn't saying you literally know someone in every town, just that you happen to know someone in the places where it matters.

It is in fact saying you know someone in every town, because my players at least come up with ideas all the time. If one came up with an idea to go over with the person they want to contact, the ability allows them to use it in a village of 30 people that they happen to be in at the moment.

If there are no limitations over where they can use it, it's usable literally everywhere. Hell, it doesn't even require you to be in a town. You can, by RAW, use it in the middle of nowhere. You just walk over to the local criminal hermit you know or elf behind a tree and have him run a message for you.

 

[Vaalingrade]

RAW does not and never will matter in the face of actual use cases.

There's no value in arguing with hyperbolic extremes.

 

[Maxperson]

Dude, you are most certainly not alone here.

Same here, but what I suspect is happening is that he's typing out his thoughts as he thinks them, much like I do. And much like I do, sometimes those thoughts change a bit in the middle. I almost always go back over my posts and clean up the message so that it looks like one coherent thought. Sometimes I forget and later on when I look at the post again, even I wonder what the hell I was thinking.

 

[Maxperson]

RAW does not and never will matter in the face of actual use cases.

There's no value in arguing with hyperbolic extremes.

I've seen it happen. Players in the middle of some small village get an idea and want to use X ability to get a message to someone. Are you saying that the ability should be denied if they try to use it in a small village?

 

[Vaalingrade]

I've seen it happen. Players in the middle of some small village get an idea and want to use X ability to get a message to someone.

Okay?

Is that supposed to be bad?

How is that supposed to support the idea that the ability literally means you know someone in every town? You happen to know someone in th towns where you invoke the ability.

Are you saying that the ability should be denied if they try to use it in a small village?

I have no idea how you got to this question.

The whole point I've been making is that there's no good reason to deny access to that ability at all ever. How does that in any way bend all the way around in such a spine shattering contortion to 'this ability should be denied'?

 

[Maxperson]

Okay?

Is that supposed to be bad?

How is that supposed to support the idea that the ability literally means you know someone in every town? You happen to know someone in th towns where you invoke the ability.

Because you can't name a town where it won't work. That means someone he knows is in every last one of those towns, and out in the middle of nowhere local to the PC, to carry messages.

The whole point I've been making is that there's no good reason to deny access to that ability at all ever. How does that in any way bend all the way around in such a spine shattering contortion to 'this ability should be denied'?

Right, so it works in the middle of a desert, because someone is going to be wandering by or something, local to him to carry the message.

It's that sort of absurdity which causes us to say no to abilities which say such absurd things happen.

 

[Lanefan]

As someone who is very much in your second group I can point to exactly why with your ravine example.

Firstly, I’ve smelled the roses fifteen times before and they’ve smelled the same every time. Maybe just once we can skip them?

Secondly, I know exactly how that ravine example will play out and to me that’s got nothing to do with challenges or roleplay. Five characters will make their checks and the dc will be at least a 30% fail. Meaning that failure is effectively guaranteed. Doesn’t matter what I say or do. We will fail.

Seems to me you didn't quite read what I wrote.

To refresh your memory: it's a given they'll succeed at getting out of the ravine. The roll - just one roll for the whole party - serves as a guide to how easy/painless/quick that success was. If they roll particularly poorly on the party roll, only then do we go to individual rolls to see who took how much pain and-or whether there's any other long-term consequences.

Because that's the thing: even the most mundane-seeming of actions (or combats!) can occasionally go wrong and cause medium to long term headaches......

Yeah, those bandits that attacked us in the woods were a pushover, too bad one of 'em got Jocasta with a poisoned dart and put her down for the week it took us to find someone that could cure it.

We got clear of the caves OK but scrambling up out of that last ravine was a beast - Falstaff broke four potion vials when he fell, and we were all so exhausted once we finally got out that it took us an extra two days to get back town; and who knows what we missed in that time.

Welp, now we have to go find Terrance - climbing that tower went wrong and he'd be dead if he didn't have Featherfall, but while he was drifting the gale blew him who-knows-how-far away - he could have landed in the next county!

And in case you think those far-fetched, as a DM I've actually seen the first example happen and as a player I've seen the third. The second is just a continuation of the ravine-climbing example from upthread.

 

[Hussar]

Because that's the thing: even the most mundane-seeming of actions (or combats!) can occasionally go wrong and cause medium to long term headaches......

Yeah. Only "occasionally" seems to mean "every single time, because the DM is going to manipulate the math until the every action is an exercise in punishment.

Good grief, I've climbed out of more than a few ravines. I've never broken any bones. I've never suffered more than a skinned knee. Yet, here we are, with a fairly significant chance that climbing out of a ravine will damage the party enough to be actually noticed.

Again, I just have zero interest in this @Lanefan. I'm sorry but I don't. The ravine is pointless. Getting out of the ravine is pointless. We're going to get out. The ravine has nothing to do with the adventure. It's pointless die rolling for no reason other than the DM feels this bizarre need to roll dice. I mean, good grief, in our session last night I declared that I stabbed a dagger into a door. Not to break the door. Just stab a dagger into the door.

And the DM insisted that I roll an attack. After all, I might roll a 1 and critical fumble. FFS. It's so frustratingly pointless.

edit to add.

It should come as no surprise that we probably would not enjoy each other's games. We are not going to see eye to eye here. For me, in my perfect world, The Lord of the Rings is 90 pages long and starts in Mordor. I am simply not interested in "the journey" very much any more. We have a goal - go there. I don't want fifteen different sidebars going on. I will happily ignore every single side quest you put in front of me. I will gleefully ignore 90% of things in a campaign that aren't directly related to the main plot of the campaign. I simply do not care anymore. I've had all caring beaten out of me by an endless stream of DM's who seem to think that every single trivial, pointless exercise needs to be played out in excruciating detail.

So, no. I no longer care. As a DM, I would never in a million years have five different ships going to the same destination. You'd get one. And, unless there was something particularly interesting that needed to be doing on the way from A to B, I'm simply going to redline the journey and get to the next thing that actually advances the plot story of the game. You want to put me in the drivers seat? Great. I'll do that too. But, that means when I give you a goal, I expect that the campaign will be about that goal until that goal is achieved. And, again, I will ignore to the best of my ability anything that isn't part of that goal. Linear or sandbox, I'm pretty content so long as we're not spending endless time on pointless, meaningless play.

 

[tetrasodium]

Okay?

Is that supposed to be bad?

How is that supposed to support the idea that the ability literally means you know someone in every town? You happen to know someone in th towns where you invoke the ability.


I have no idea how you got to this question.

The whole point I've been making is that there's no good reason to deny access to that ability at all ever. How does that in any way bend all the way around in such a spine shattering contortion to 'this ability should be denied'?

Taking this set of related points a bit out of order, he "got this" because that is literally what benefit the ability grants and not being able to go to a town where it's not true is a problem because they cut the strings of responsibility and obligation those benefits carry. I linked to and quoted a description of them in play earlier. Without that kind of push mechanic to match you have guaranteed success push button solutions in game world problems that the PCs are unreasonably insulated from needing to act like they are part of or care about.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Because you can't name a town where it won't work. That means someone he knows is in every last one of those towns, and out in the middle of nowhere local to the PC, to carry messages.

Right, so it works in the middle of a desert, because someone is going to be wandering by or something, local to him to carry the message.

It's that sort of absurdity which causes us to say no to abilities which say such absurd things happen.

I can't see who you are arguing against but, if we're debating about the Criminal background, I think we should revisit the wording of the Feature (PHB p. 129):

You have a reliable and trustworthy contact who acts as your liaison to a network of other criminals. You know how to get messages to and from your contact, even over great distances; specifically, you know the local messengers, corrupt caravan masters, and seedy sailors who can deliver messages for you.

Ok, so maybe we should step back and consider a few things about this Background Feature:
1. How does the Feature work?
2. What does the PC gain from using the Feature?
2. How can a DM make this Feature jive with the fiction?

As a PC with the Criminal Background, you have a contact and you know how to get messages to and from your contact. Doesn't mean the contact always has an answer or a way to help you if it doesn't make sense in the fiction and it doesn't necessarily mean that the delivery of said message happens in a timeframe that is immediate or useful.

You also know the local messengers (etc) that can help you achieve this delivery of said message. Your Background has to do with where you came from - what you did before you started adventuring (PHB p125). You know the folks in the area where you were a criminal - maybe that's a village or a town or a city or even a region where you were a criminal. You don't (necessarily) know the messengers (etc) all over the world. Point is to clarify that with the DM during character creation - neither the player nor the DM should be making assumptions.

Even if the contact is a great distance away, your local contacts can help you achieve the delivery of a message - that is, if you are in that local area. Beyond that, you know how to get messages to and from your contact. You still might have a chance to do it outside of your local network if you inquire with the right people. In a village of 30? Maybe there's someone who has sending stones that can reach your contact or someone else in your network. Maybe there's someone travelling to the big city down river next week. Maybe there's a travelling merchant. Maybe there's [insert reasonable fictional bit here]. In other words: this background feature can be invoked anywhere in the game world with a little creativity but, again, there is no guarantee on timeline to get messages to the contact and there is no guarantee to the actual benefit of getting said messages to your contact.

So... why the pushback when someone tries to use it? It's not the "Insta-win" button that some are trying to make it out to be. Rather, it is a basic feature of the PC that, when invoked, develops their character arc and can either push the overall story in interesting directions or simply provide a fun vignette or side-story.