Level Up (A5E) What am I missing?

[TheOneGargoyle]

Hi,

I was super excited when I heard about an advanced, "crunchier" version of 5e, so I'm trying to get my head around what you're doing here and.... I'm confused.... and feel like I'm missing something fundamental.... So please forgive my questions in advance if they seem ill - informed.

First off, I should probably say I've been DM-ing for coming up to 40 yrs, since Red box days, through every edition. So I'm not a n00b when it comes to D&D. And through it all I've always been a "crunch over fluff" kind of guy. Don't get me wrong, I love the RP side of the game, but I'm keenly interested in the mechanics too. Hence why I thought Level Up! sounded so intriguing.

Ok, that said, I've downloaded a few of the play test docs, read some of the forum threads and, well, as I said above, I feel like I'm missing something obvious & fundamental.

So, questions :
* Is there some sort of introduction, overview, scene setting, big picture type of document that I can read that will put all these small bits & pieces into context? I'm feeling like I don't understand where any of the bits fit.
* Is there some sort of glossary or something that can tell me what some of these terms mean? I don't know what is meant by heritage, culture, archetypes, settler, beserker, pioneer?
* Is there some intention or plan about how different this is going to be from base 5e? I thought the idea was to have A5e be fully backwards compatible with 5e, so I don't understand why it seems like it's proposing to change all these mechanics & terminologies ?
* I know WotC are on a big diversity & inclusiveness push, which is great, but there seems a real risk of going too far the other way and making everything the same and exceedingly bland because anything different might be offensive to someone somewhere and trigger off outrage / cancel culture.... Is that what's happening here too? Can't we just assume positive intent in a made up game about imaginary realities and go from there?
* Is there a sense or idea of how much power creep is expected / acceptable from this version? Does "crunchier" necessarily mean overpowered compared to the base game? I guess I'm trying to understand whether the two are meant be to be able to be played together (some players are definitely not interested or capable of a crunchier version) or whether the expectation is that the game needs to be one or the other? And if there's a big power jump, what does that mean for using published content intended for the base game?

Sorry for so many questions that probably seem terribly uninformed - as I say I've only just discovered this and I've probably just missed the great big obvious Mission / Vision Statement which answers all my questions, so feel free to just point me at it if that's the case and I'll read up.

Thanks, excited to see where this goes!

 

[Morrus]

That’s a heck of a list of questions!

Have you checked out the website? Most of those questions are answered there, plus there are several playtest documents you can look at. For example, heritage, culture etc. is all explained in the first playtest document. There are overviews, FAQs etc there too.

In answer to one of your questions (position statement really), no I don’t think the game we are making is going to be bland. I think it’s going to be really exciting and have lots of depth and character customisation.

 

[Faolyn]

* I know WotC are on a big diversity & inclusiveness push, which is great, but there seems a real risk of going too far the other way and making everything the same and exceedingly bland because anything different might be offensive to someone somewhere and trigger off outrage / cancel culture.... Is that what's happening here too? Can't we just assume positive intent in a made up game about imaginary realities and go from there?

Can we assume it?

Please explain how anyone is "making everything the same and exceedingly bland."

 

[tetrasodium]

I'm nobody special so take it with a grain of salt, hopefully this helps at least a little.

Hi,

I was super excited when I heard about an advanced, "crunchier" version of 5e, so I'm trying to get my head around what you're doing here and.... I'm confused.... and feel like I'm missing something fundamental.... So please forgive my questions in advance if they seem ill - informed.

First off, I should probably say I've been DM-ing for coming up to 40 yrs, since Red box days, through every edition. So I'm not a n00b when it comes to D&D. And through it all I've always been a "crunch over fluff" kind of guy. Don't get me wrong, I love the RP side of the game, but I'm keenly interested in the mechanics too. Hence why I thought Level Up! sounded so intriguing.

Ok, that said, I've downloaded a few of the play test docs, read some of the forum threads and, well, as I said above, I feel like I'm missing something obvious & fundamental.

So, questions :
* Is there some sort of introduction, overview, scene setting, big picture type of document that I can read that will put all these small bits & pieces into context? I'm feeling like I don't understand where any of the bits fit.

I think that you might be looking for something that is still being written or not yet in a playtestable form. Can you give some examples? There is a pair of settings (zietgeist & burning skies)

* Is there some sort of glossary or something that can tell me what some of these terms mean? I don't know what is meant by heritage, culture, archetypes, settler, beserker, pioneer?

Some terms are present in old editions (ie provoke) others maybe not specifically defined as different from dictionary meaning. Settler I think is a renamed colonist/pioneer or something from the origins/background packet if I remember correctly without opening the doc itself. If that doesn't help, can you give some examples?

* Is there some intention or plan about how different this is going to be from base 5e? I thought the idea was to have A5e be fully backwards compatible with 5e, so I don't understand why it seems like it's proposing to change all these mechanics & terminologies ?

compatible & identical are different things. 5e really strips down a lot of areas for the game by removing entire sections, changing that would often entail rebuilding areas.

* I know WotC are on a big diversity & inclusiveness push, which is great, but there seems a real risk of going too far the other way and making everything the same and exceedingly bland because anything different might be offensive to someone somewhere and trigger off outrage / cancel culture.... Is that what's happening here too? Can't we just assume positive intent in a made up game about imaginary realities and go from there?

Keep in mind that settings like eberron darksun & others have different roles than "in the forgotten realms" for a lot of races. Being pretty familiar with all three they seem to be doing a nice job of including hooks for each without dumping an excessive amount of setting specific lore into the mechanics themselves.

* Is there a sense or idea of how much power creep is expected / acceptable from this version? Does "crunchier" necessarily mean overpowered compared to the base game? I guess I'm trying to understand whether the two are meant be to be able to be played together (some players are definitely not interested or capable of a crunchier version) or whether the expectation is that the game needs to be one or the other? And if there's a big power jump, what does that mean for using published content intended for the base game?

Any time you start mixing systems you should be applying whatever conversion doc for the mix If you look at the webpage & the people involved you can get a sense of how broad the rebuild is (ie even monsters) while previews have talked about plans for skills spells & archetypes. Right now things are probably a good ways away from the point where even the beginnings of a conversion doc are reasonable. A conversion doc isn't always involved though, the 3.5->3.5 one was pretty simple & frequently was not really even needed.

Sorry for so many questions that probably seem terribly uninformed - as I say I've only just discovered this and I've probably just missed the great big obvious Mission / Vision Statement which answers all my questions, so feel free to just point me at it if that's the case and I'll read up.

Thanks, excited to see where this goes!

 

[Faolyn]

Keep in mind that settings like eberron darksun & others have different roles than "in the forgotten realms" for a lot of races. Being pretty familiar with all three they seem to be doing a nice job of including hooks for each without dumping an excessive amount of setting specific lore into the mechanics themselves.

That's almost certainly not what OP meant; he meant "but if orcs and drow aren't Always Evil, that means I have to come up with motivations for them to be bad guys and the PCs won't be able to kill people just because of their species unless they (the PCs) are evil!"

Darryl, if that's not what you mean, I apologize. But literally--and I do mean literally--every other person I've spoken to who has used the terminology you did meant that.

 

[TheOneGargoyle]

That’s a heck of a list of questions!

Haha, I know, sorry about that ! I'm just excited to know ALL OF THE THINGS !!

Have you checked out the website? Most of those questions are answered there, plus there are several playtest documents you can look at. For example, heritage, culture etc. is all explained in the first playtest document. There are overviews, FAQs etc there too.

I have checked out the website (it's looking pretty good btw!). I read the Features & FAQs sections in their entirety, but haven't read all the playtest documents (yet).
I've now downloaded and read the first Playtest document on Origins, and yes, I see now that one is all about Heritage and Culture (cool idea btw - separate the Nature vs Nurture components IIUC?).
I have to say, I LOVE the Paragon Gifts ! This was always something I loved in previous editions of D&D where you could take racial levels to really embody & be a paragon of your race. This is excellent
I haven't yet found the overview though - have I missed it somewhere ? Or do you mean the Home page when you say that ?

I'm nobody special so take it with a grain of salt, hopefully this helps at least a little.

Thanks Tetrasodium

I think that you might be looking for something that is still being written or not yet in a playtestable form. Can you give some examples? There is a pair of settings (zietgeist & burning skies)

I think what's happened is I'm very much a "top-down", "big picture first" kind of guy so I always look for the big summary thing to start me off and then dive down into the detail once I know how it all links up. So, although campaign/world settings are great (and I would definitely like to look into those in time), I was more meaning something to give me the overall view of LevelUp! in one place. I think you're right that this doesn't exist yet and probably you guys have all been in this conversation for a while so you already know how it all fits together so you don't need it. Maybe at some point in the future it could be something to help introduce top-down people like me to LevelUp.

Some terms are present in old editions (ie provoke) others maybe not specifically defined as different from dictionary meaning. Settler I think is a renamed colonist/pioneer or something from the origins/background packet if I remember correctly without opening the doc itself. If that doesn't help, can you give some examples?

Yes, looking into the Origins playtest doc has already clarified a number of those terms for me, I think again, there probably hasn't been a need for a glossary (yet), maybe it's a future thing.

compatible & identical are different things. 5e really strips down a lot of areas for the game by removing entire sections, changing that would often entail rebuilding areas.

100% agree. I'm just trying to understand if there is some litmus test/plan/strategy/benchmark to help determine how much change is desirable, when should something be changed (ie only if strictly necessary? sparingly ? liberally? everywhere we possibly can?) to know what the end-state we're aiming for is ? Do we want something that is a) as close to 5e as possible only making changes that are really needed, b) vaguely similar to 5e but with lots of changes that we prefer, c) a real stretch from 5e with most things changed, or d) as differentiated as humanely possible while still being able to trace it's roots back to 5e ?

Keep in mind that settings like eberron darksun & others have different roles than "in the forgotten realms" for a lot of races. Being pretty familiar with all three they seem to be doing a nice job of including hooks for each without dumping an excessive amount of setting specific lore into the mechanics themselves.

Absolutely. Which I think is a really interesting line of thinking. Just how much lore pertains to the core concept & identity of a race and how much is flexible & customisable. For example, are elves always shorter on average than humans ? Some settings have them taller than humans. Some settings have them longer-lived than humans but still mortal, and some have them immortal (I like the way you've straddled that hurdle in the Origins playtest btw), etc.

Any time you start mixing systems you should be applying whatever conversion doc for the mix If you look at the webpage & the people involved you can get a sense of how broad the rebuild is (ie even monsters) while previews have talked about plans for skills spells & archetypes. Right now things are probably a good ways away from the point where even the beginnings of a conversion doc are reasonable. A conversion doc isn't always involved though, the 3.5->3.5 one was pretty simple & frequently was not really even needed.

Yeah, fair enough. Sometimes we have to wait for shiny new toys. I'm not always so good with patience (Yeah, yeah, yeah, "Patience", how long will THAT take??) LOL !

That's almost certainly not what OP meant; he meant "but if orcs and drow aren't Always Evil, that means I have to come up with motivations for them to be bad guys and the PCs won't be able to kill people just because of their species unless they (the PCs) are evil!"
Darryl, if that's not what you mean, I apologize. But literally--and I do mean literally--every other person I've spoken to who has used the terminology you did meant that.

No offense taken at all (I'm literally the opposite of outrage culture LOL!).
I can totally get where you're coming from though if you've had lots of people saying that to you. Sorry to hear that man, that must be a drag :-\
I've no issue at all with Drow not being evil (no hate for the Drizz't man!), or orcs for that matter either.
Hehe, to give you an example, I DM a game where my (sometimes a little murder-hobo-ish) players had PC's supposedly of Good alignment. When the invading giants attacked their village, the players decided that it was ok to sneak into the giants camp and slaughter their women and children in their sleep (because they're EVIL!). They were quite confused and shocked when I pointed out that the people being evil here where the PCs, not the giants. LOLOLOL !

I do however think there's a really interesting conversation to be had here though (which LevelUp's splitting race into Heritage & Culture gives nice tools to btw), which is, let's say a particular Orcish Culture (not Heritage!) has Savagery as a core tenet, they prize it, value it, esteem those who display it - how does someone who grew up in that Culture relate to that quality ?
Does that mean that every player character has be particularly savage in nature/demeanor ? No, of course not. But will they have to decide for themselves whether they embrace that savagery, reject it utterly, or find a balance somewhere in the middle wrt it ? Yeah, they probably will.
And will they have to contend with other's prejudices, perceptions & biases on that front because most of the people from their culture act that way so people expect them too as well ? Most likely.

In answer to one of your questions (position statement really), no I don’t think the game we are making is going to be bland. I think it’s going to be really exciting and have lots of depth and character customisation.

Can we assume it?

Please explain how anyone is "making everything the same and exceedingly bland."

Hmmm... I think I worded that question poorly. It wasn't meant to say that I think LevelUp will be bland. It was designed to be part observations, part question but I think they were conflated. I'll try a different tack:

• My Observation #1 - It seems to me that WotC are changing a lot of their wordings, terminology to be more in line with diversity & inclusiveness. I think this is great.
• My Observation #2 - It seems to me that there is a risk that WotC might go too far and end up eroding points of difference that I think are key to core concepts of making fun & interesting systems, worlds, characters etc. I don't think this would be a great outcome. Other's might not see this as being an issue, might not agree there is a risk of this happening with WotC, might think it's a good outcome, etc depending on their perspectives.
• Question (meant to be an honest, open enquiry) - Do we think there is a risk/danger of this happening with LevelUp ? (Answer might be no, that would be desirable to me).
• Example #1 - It seems strange to me to move stat bonuses from race (I guess we are talking about Heritage in LevelUp) to backgrounds - does this not mean that stat-wise, dwarves are no tougher than gnomes, elves are no more nimble than dwarves, etc so from an ability point of view, all individuals of all races are identical ? I mean, I understand the desire for customisability (is that even a word?) but do we not think there are biological differences that would show up as tendencies to different stat distributions ? Of course there is a huge variation, and individuals can be unique snowflakes, and training is important, but isn't that what skill trainings in backgrounds are for ?

* Example #2 - The choice to make the subraces Cultures .... that would tend to imply that there aren't biological differences b/w subraces in this version ? So for example, Shadow Elves (Drow?) have the same hair, skin, eye colouring etc that wood elves & high elves ? Is that really what we want ? Again, of course there is the ability to have customisation for individuals, but isn't the dark skin and pale hair of drow as distinct from the earthy tones of the wood elves part of the core concept of those subraces ? Or are we saying like Tetrasodiums comment above that these sorts of things are left to the campaign setting and might be different in different worlds ? In which case, wouldn't it still be valuable to have defaults or examples or starting points that people can change if they wish to and make a conscious choice to depart from ?

Again, apologies if this question shows I don't understand ground LevelUp has already covered elsewhere.

Thanks for the multiple responses to this newbie's many & involved questions

 

[TheOneGargoyle]

Oh, another random question (I guess this is about the Origins playtest doc - should I be posting this in the thread for that playtest doc instead of here?): I notice that the Backgrounds generally give +1 to 2 stats, which would mean characters using the standard array or point buy methods would only end up with a max starting score of 16 as opposed to the base 5e possible 17. Is this slightly lower starting stats one of the things LevelUp would implement to offset some of the additional capabilities introduced and hence reduce the overall power creep ? Is that the rationale behind it ?

 

[TheOneGargoyle]

Also, the kickstarter link does not seem to work and I can't find LevelUp when I search on kickstarter for it - is anyone able to check and/or advise please ?

 

[tetrasodium]

Oh, another random question (I guess this is about the Origins playtest doc - should I be posting this in the thread for that playtest doc instead of here?): I notice that the Backgrounds generally give +1 to 2 stats, which would mean characters using the standard array or point buy methods would only end up with a max starting score of 16 as opposed to the base 5e possible 17. Is this slightly lower starting stats one of the things LevelUp would implement to offset some of the additional capabilities introduced and hence reduce the overall power creep ? Is that the rationale behind it ?

Right now it's not stated but there is an interesting recent discussion on attribute generation over here. The timeframe question in your other post is I think they sketched out a year long process.. Having lower starting attributes as you note would also allow more room for growth & magic item progression beyond the one & done that o5e encourages... especially if they give us body slots or similar instead of attune slots even if it's just a variant sidebar a GM can point at. The kickstarter hasn't happened yet so it's just a signup for notice when it does.

 

[TheOneGargoyle]

Awesome, thanks @tetrasodium