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

[Hriston]

Yes & no,... 5E kinda drops the ball hard on explaining ravenloft to the point of giving an impression where Barovia=Ravenloft rather than just one of many domains within ravenloft & really dowbplays the idea of ravenloft itself being actively hands on horrible maybe sentient world that might be capable of seeing beyond the 4th wall. That almost extends to the point that it gives the appearance of not ever being considered as a distinct thing. Wealth can help obtain things in ravenloft, but often it takes something more special like obtaining it somehow making things unpleasant for an individual that The Dark Powers feel deserve special torment. That's so true that the researcher background feature is practically the very definition of what sort of hubris that might cause The Dark Powers to single someone out for torment.

While there are domains within ravenloft that are almost certain to have more comprehensive resources, crossing into another domain deliberately by choice & expecting to get where you hoped is a bit of a stretch most of the time. Even if Ravenloft allows you to cross domains as you hoped it's entirely possible that it might do so purely to torment you

I’m not sure what this post has to do with what I posted. My post was about Barovia, while you’re mostly talking about Ravenloft which I understand is a synonym for the Domains of Dread as a whole. You seem to agree, however, there are places and people within Barovia from which certain information might be found. With reference to hubris, I think that plays well with a feature like Researcher which rests on a belief that you know something. I would refrain, myself, as DM, from treating such beliefs as false or as having particularly negative consequences as a result of hidden, DM-only information that hasn't been established at the table and would introduce such consequences typically as the result of failed ability checks.

 

[Hriston]

Very much this.

And it has nothing to do with player entitlement or powergaming or taking advantage of the DM. Usually, it comes from the player in some variation of: "As my character's background is [x], I'd like to ask/look/snoop around to see if there is a [y] in the area" - where [y] is something related to their background. In most cases, as DM, I'll do what I can to make that happen. It might be a given or it might include some kind of ability check. But I'm not nearly so talented (nor do I have the time) as to have every detail of every environment figured out ahead of time.

Reminds me of a combat scene in a tavern/ballroom/grand hall and the player of the ranger (or monk or rogue or...) asks "Is there a chandelier?" I'm nearly always going to say "Why yes, there is a chandelier! What did you have in mind?"

Nor is it particularly desirable to have every detail figured out ahead of time! Leaving those "blank spaces" unestablished in the fiction allows room for the player to add the kind of mundane details that make the 2014 background features work.

 

[tetrasodium]

I’m not sure what this post has to do with what I posted. My post was about Barovia, while you’re mostly talking about Ravenloft which I understand is a synonym for the Domains of Dread as a whole. You seem to agree, however, there are places and people within Barovia from which certain information might be found. With reference to hubris, I think that plays well with a feature like Researcher which rests on a belief that you know something. I would refrain, myself, as DM, from treating such beliefs as false or as having particularly negative consequences as a result of hidden, DM-only information that hasn't been established at the table and would introduce such consequences typically as the result of failed ability checks.

Have you been trying to act as some authority over how PCs pulled from fr will be affected without knowing the relationship between Ravenloft and Barovia?

Did you not bother to check the relationship between Ravenloft and Barovia at any time since you started this dozens of pages back?


Barovia is part of Ravenloft where it is one of the domains overseen by The Dark Powers that control Ravenloft . It's like a Disney world vacationers in Florida making vacationers subject to US law or a mars Rover being subject to the planetary conditions of mars.

 

[Hriston]

There's no shade thrown on anyone else's game by stating that a chapter in the phb is directed at the wrong side of the GM screen. With it's efforts to mechanically override the gm. As to your gameplay example request?... Have you not been following the thread? Quite a few posters have literally provided examples of how the mistargeted section results in players feeling justified in both telling the gm what they must do and how the GM still needs to do the kind of stuff they have for decades prior to 5e. You would need to first explain why the gm should not be the one to decide when s background provides some relevant enough reason for the NPCs being run by the gm to react in a given way.

Okay, so no actual examples of background features creating an adversarial feeling at the table? A post number would be helpfull if you have any particular ones in mind.

 

[James Gasik]

This whole "override the GM" thing is ridiculous. 5e was written to be a collaboration between players and the DM. But don't take my word for it:

L: How important is role-playing in Dungeons & Dragons? It felt to me like 4th Edition was basically a war game. There were so many powers and combat took forever. But now combat is very quick, and I think that feels more like the D&D that I grew up with.

JC: It's vital. D&D is, at its heart, a storytelling game where everyone at the table is a collaborator in the creation of the story. We felt it was important to embrace roleplaying and embrace it in a prominent way—not only on the character sheet, but also in the amount of pages we devoted to it in the Player's Handbook on personalities and backgrounds. Partially to wave the flag of storytelling and roleplaying, but also because if a group isn't into a lot of storytelling and roleplaying, and they really do want a more tactical "fight monsters, get experience," it is much for them to ignore the roleplaying material than it is for us to have a game that's serving just the tactical play and having to try to make it clear that there's still a roleplaying game.

Source

 

[Hriston]

They seem to me to suggest exactly the same sort of DM consideration...? Not I'm the ham-fisted way the 2014 Backgrounds did, but it fits with layer 5E publications exactly.

You said "2014 'Features'". Now you're subbing in later publications? Wth?

 

[el-remmen]

“D&D is, at its heart, a storytelling game”

Calling D&D a storytelling game is a pet peeve of mine. I don’t care which edition is being talked about. There are story telling games - like Once Upon a Time - but D&D is more a story making game and that is an important distinction for me.

 

[James Gasik]

Calling D&D a storytelling game is a pet peeve of mine. I don’t care which edition is being talked about. There are story telling games - like Once Upon a Time - but D&D is more a story making game and that is an important distinction for me.

Hey, when one of the guys who worked on the current game says that, you can argue with him that it's not true, but that's basically Death of the Author in action, isn't it?

Now yes, absolutely, there are games that are better at doing this than D&D, but that's never stopped people from using D&D to create and tell stories.

 

[Hriston]

The extra work, while simple for some, might require more work for other DMs. If they have poured work into their setting, and it doesn't fit because it wasn't covered in session zero or because it was unforeseen, then it might require a lot of work. Different tables, different games.

Again, I don't think there is any "extra work" because most DMs aren't going to put in design work on the kind of mundane details background features allow a player to add. All it requires is an attitude which admits not every detail of the setting has been decided on in advance.

 

[Hriston]

But thst seems to be a problem with phrasing in the 2014 books, since the reality is closer to the latter in practice.

This seems like a different claim. Instead of saying the text of the UA sample backgrounds connects your character to the world just as well as the 2014 background features (which I understood was your claim), now you're saying the sample backgrounds are effectively the same because "the reality... in practice" is no one used the 2014 backgrounds to connect their characters to the world in the first place. This is false. I use the 2014 background features in a way the sample backgrounds do not replicate.