D&D 5E [+] What can D&D 5E learn from board games?

EzekielRaiden

Follower of the Way
I find "spotlight balance" to work perfectly fine at our 5e table and, I'd be willing to guess, at other tables as well. It has nothing to do with the system, however, and everything to do with the social contract. If you have a group of players who are playing their PCs as a cohesive party and a DM and players who are making sure everyone has a chance to contribute, it all works out. If a fellow party member happens to be more powerful in combat because... magic... then I'm cheering them on - our party is that much more powerful and we're all sharing in the XP and loot anyway. If that same player is dominating every pillar of play and not finding ways to let others contribute, we have a different problem on our hands.

I guess, as I re-read what we've both written, perhaps we agree more than it might seem at first. I find "balance" on its own to be a fruitless goal. And what you say about magic holds true, IMO, as it makes "balance" really hard to achieve. Sharing the spotlight, on the other hand, is very much a worthy and attainable goal, regardless of any imbalance in powers.
Okay...so...how do you do that, when (as you say) one person could just do everything? Because I'll be honest, it would feel rather patronizing to be guaranteed a spotlight as BMX Bandit while running dungeons with Angel Summoner. "Oh, it's okay BMX Bandit! Your bike tricks were totally super important and valued!"
 

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Okay...so...how do you do that, when (as you say) one person could just do everything? Because I'll be honest, it would feel rather patronizing to be guaranteed a spotlight as BMX Bandit while running dungeons with Angel Summoner. "Oh, it's okay BMX Bandit! Your bike tricks were totally super important and valued!"

Unclear what you are talking about maybe because I'm (perhaps blissfully) not familiar with either entity to which you refer. Perhaps you can try an example using something more generically D&D?
 

Unclear what you are talking about maybe because I'm (perhaps blissfully) not familiar with either entity to which you refer. Perhaps you can try an example using something more generically D&D?
BMX Bandit and Angel Summoner are two characters.

The idea is that BMX Bandit is just some guy who rides a BMX bike while Angel Summoner is a guy who can summon angels. Essentially: Angel Summoner gets stuff done. BMX bandit rides a bike. In some degenerate cases this is analogous to what can happen in certain role playing systems where there is an extreme amount of imbalance between certain classes. For example an optimised druid with an animal companion that is stronger than the group's fighter.
 

BMX Bandit and Angel Summoner are two characters.

The idea is that BMX Bandit is just some guy who rides a BMX bike while Angel Summoner is a guy who can summon angels. Essentially: Angel Summoner gets stuff done. BMX bandit rides a bike. In some degenerate cases this is analogous to what can happen in certain role playing systems where there is an extreme amount of imbalance between certain classes. For example an optimised druid with an animal companion that is stronger than the group's fighter.

Ah, thanks for the translation and welcome to the forum!

Do you consider 5e (the subject of this thread) one of those "certain role playing systems"?

I'm not clear how degenerate cases really prove much of anything when we're discussing a table of cooperating players who are willing to share the spotlight. Degenerate cases typically don't exist at such tables.
 

Okay...so...how do you do that, when (as you say) one person could just do everything? Because I'll be honest, it would feel rather patronizing to be guaranteed a spotlight as BMX Bandit while running dungeons with Angel Summoner. "Oh, it's okay BMX Bandit! Your bike tricks were totally super important and valued!"

Degenerate example aside, the example I gave was of someone trying to do it all and not sharing the spotlight. In 5e, if you have a party of PCs around the same level and players willing to share the spotlight, your concerns would not come to fruition, IMO.
 

Ah, thanks for the translation and welcome to the forum!

Do you consider 5e (the subject of this thread) one of those "certain role playing systems"?

I'm not clear how degenerate cases really prove much of anything when we're discussing a table of cooperating players who are willing to share the spotlight. Degenerate cases typically don't exist at such tables.
Thanks for the welcome!

I think my previous post was perhaps a bit unclear. I didn't want to edit it retroactively, but what I meant is that it is certainly possible to have situations in most versions of D&D where balance is absolutely crazy bad. I mean that a well built Druid in 3.5 (or PF1) could have an animal companion that by itself was stronger than the fighter.

In think in order for my comment to not derail this thread too much I'll add some of my own commentary to the OPs discussion points. I think that YES roleplaying games can learn a lot from board games.

I think there's plenty of material to learn from and incorporate (optionally). For example it seems pretty clear to me that material like the old Birthright campaign setting was inspired by war games, and that's the kind of thing I want systems to cover:
  • A domain level of play where you rule a realm
  • A structured way to handle location based play, such as adventuring in a particular town
  • A proper wilderness system (even if it's kinda negated by some classes)
I also think it's important not to go too hard into props. For example I wouldn't like to see a game overly rely on things like custom cards. I'd prefer simple stuff like counters and tokens and perhaps dedicated game boards.
 

Okay...so...how do you do that, when (as you say) one person could just do everything? Because I'll be honest, it would feel rather patronizing to be guaranteed a spotlight as BMX Bandit while running dungeons with Angel Summoner. "Oh, it's okay BMX Bandit! Your bike tricks were totally super important and valued!"
Not for nothing, I don’t think 5e really qualifies as an example of a game where this sort of thing happens.

But even in extreme cases, it’s usually easy enough for the dm to create personal challenges or connections to draw someone into the spotlight, and it takes a very pushy player to mess that up.
 

overgeeked

B/X Known World
Not for nothing, I don’t think 5e really qualifies as an example of a game where this sort of thing happens.

But even in extreme cases, it’s usually easy enough for the dm to create personal challenges or connections to draw someone into the spotlight, and it takes a very pushy player to mess that up.
Play a non-caster in a party with casters. It happens all the time. You don't need a rogue when you have a wizard, etc.
 

EzekielRaiden

Follower of the Way
Do you consider 5e (the subject of this thread) one of those "certain role playing systems"?
While 5e is significantly better than 3.X (3.0, 3.5, and PF1e), that is somewhat like saying that the top of Mount Everest is significantly more survivable than the vacuum of space. The statement is completely true--not even just technically true--but "more survivable" and "not dangerous to survival" are not the same thing.

So, while I fully grant that 5e has come down from the bonkers extremes of the past, I still find that it gives much too much to some and basically nothing to others. Keep in mind, part of my reasoning there is that I consider common, shared baselines to not count for or against either side. That is, for example, every character gets four skill proficiencies as an absolute baseline, so "you can contribute through skill checks" is irrelevant--everyone can do that, that's background radiation. Bards and Rogues get more skills and a wider selection, so that does count to some extent (albeit, IMO, relatively weakly.) Now, if skills were as broad and flexible as they were in 4e, this might be a different story, but I fear 5e has mostly hewed to the narrow methods of 3.X and previous editions.

I'm not clear how degenerate cases really prove much of anything when we're discussing a table of cooperating players who are willing to share the spotlight. Degenerate cases typically don't exist at such tables.
Well, the issue is that the system itself was the degenerate case. It didn't even have to be Druid, though that class was the one most prone to it (literally just taking one PHB feat was enough to make the Druid the second- or third-most powerful class in the whole game, and even without Natural Spell, Druids were still crazy strong.)

Again, the issue (for me) is not solely "the Druid can fix everything, and is choosing to fix everything, so no one else has anything meaningful to do." Instead, it is that a Druid simply trying to play well--not even trying to do amazing!--CAN at any point do that. Meaning, the only reason I get to contribute anything meaningful is because said Druid is choosing not to do everything. Hence why I said it feels patronizing, and why I referenced Angel Summoner and BMX Bandit, which you should totally watch if you haven't. Five minutes of pretty good humor, almost Pythonesque.

If you have even a moderately well-built Wizard or Cleric in the party, they can do just as well, just in their own way. That's why we have "God Wizard" builds (which, while the guide is written tongue-in-cheek, really do present allowing others to do things as a gracious act, since it would be quicker and simpler to do it yourself if you really wanted to.) That's why we have "CoDzilla" (Cleric or Druid zilla.) Given you're unfamiliar with the Angel Summoner reference, you're probably unfamiliar with those terms as well. Point being, some classes were just head and shoulders above everyone else; for them, optimizing simply made them grossly overpowered as opposed to slightly overpowered, while for classes like Monk, Fighter, and Paladin, optimization was necessary just to pull your own weight.

Degenerate example aside, the example I gave was of someone trying to do it all and not sharing the spotlight. In 5e, if you have a party of PCs around the same level and players willing to share the spotlight, your concerns would not come to fruition, IMO.
And I responded with an example of someone who not only could try to do it all, but who really could say, "Anything you can do, I can do better." Instead, they graciously allow me to do it myself, even though my efforts will be inferior to theirs. That bothers me almost as much as the person who hogs the spotlight. And no amount of niceties on the part of the player can fix this--it is literally baked directly into their choice of playing one of those "tier 1" classes. (Archivist, Artificer, and Spell-to-Power Erudite were the other three classic "tier 1" classes, though the Artificer required rather more optimization than the others of its tier.)

5e, as stated, is much better about this than 3e was. I'll never deny this. But I still find that the high-tier classes (primarily Wizard, Bard, and Cleric) leave the low-tier classes (Rogue, Fighter, Monk) in the dust for nearly every contribution they could make, unless of course the latter choose spellcasting subclasses. And then there's the poor Ranger, that not even spellcasting compensates for. Non-spellcasters (and Rangers) are simply, consistently, permanently at a disadvantage compared to spellcasters, and non-spellcasting solutions are essentially always inferior to spellcasting solutions for the vast majority of problems a party can face. Why bother bringing a Fighter when a Paladin is just as good for combat and brings a bunch of extra flexibility too?

I don't like playing a game and feeling like a second-class citizen solely because I feel like playing a monk this campaign.
 
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EzekielRaiden

Follower of the Way
Not for nothing, I don’t think 5e really qualifies as an example of a game where this sort of thing happens.
Whereas I do. Not as extreme as 3e did. But it still happens.

But even in extreme cases, it’s usually easy enough for the dm to create personal challenges or connections to draw someone into the spotlight, and it takes a very pushy player to mess that up.
But anyone can get that. Indeed, I would argue everyone should get that. I, as GM, always put effort into doing that.

That's a baseline. Everyone should get that. You shouldn't play favorites with narrative import.
 
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