Want to play D&D 5E? You can May 24th!

[cawshis]

Jenskot:

Lack of Macros - It might be more my style of play, but I don't want to have to tell the DM specifically where I do things like "search." You describe a room to me with a tapestry and a desk...any rational thinking human being is going to search both when doing a search. Don't make me say "I search the tapestry." and then I "search the desk."
It's also a given as an adventurer that in my search, I am also: Searching for traps, inspecting things a bit closer and trying to notice anything that might be noticed. This is the behavior of a normal human being.
In other words, I don't like the "GOTCHA!" moments of me saying "I look at the door" and the DM goes "pit trap at the door!"
My answer: WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I WAS LOOKING FOR AROUND THE DOOR?"

Social Interaction is still stupid:
Again, this might be a preference of style, but here's a few examples to start:

Combat:
Player: I attack the goblin with my warhammer!
*rolls die*
DM: You hit and kill the goblin.
Player: I bring my warhammer down and crush his skull! Brains fly out of the goblin's ears! YEEEAAAHHHHHH

Noncombat:
Player: I want to leap across the open pit!
*rolls dexterity*
DM: You need a 15 as it is a rather large pit…oh no! You failed. Your character takes a running start and jumps...and realizes while in mid-air there is no way he will make it! He misses the ledge, strikes the wall on the other side and hits the bottom hard! Take *rolls die* 6 points of damage. You’re at the bottom of the pit…it’s filled with the bones and debris of previous adventurers.

Social Interaction:
Player: I tell the Orcs that they need to surrender to us and leave the area forever!
*picks up die to roll to intimidate the orcs*
DM: The Orc Chieftain says why should we surrender? We are stronger than you!
Player: Oh really? I don't think that you are! We'll slaughter you and your families if you don't give up.
*goes to roll, but is stopped by the DM*
DM: The chieftain laughs and says you can't destroy us. We have the power of Yuggoth!
Player: Belor will eat Yuggoth for breakfast, you small-toothed goblin-lover!
*Still no goddamn roll*
DM: You dare call me a goblin-lover, pink skin!?!

Player directly to DM: WHEN THE FUCK DO I ROLL!?!

For me, there is a real mechanical disconnect in social interactions. I want to state an action, roll and then roleplay. Every time. I don’t want to have to figure out what trigger might resolve this social interaction without rolling the die (As it is entirely arbitrary since it’s up to the DM anyway). I don’t want to have to figure out what magical keywords in our conversation might scare the Orcs more or less. I want to ROLL. THEN ROLEPLAY. If I roll and fail, I’ll roleplay how badly my PC bungled his intimidate…if I succeed, we can RP that.

If there is secret-DM information that we need to get via Social discussion, I want to roll for it. If there is a priestess who has a secret quest, I want to roll for it. If the dragon is willing to share some gold with me instead of facing my blade, I want to roll for it.

I don’t want to have to talk about it until after I rolled. I can’t narrate a warhammer turning a goblin into a brain piñata until I’ve rolled. I don’t get why we have to narrate social interactions until the DM decides some trigger has been hit. It drives me nuts.

I have the rules now and need to read them, so maybe we’re playing it differently than intended. But this is a behavior I hated in OS D&D and still hate.

[jenskot]

Cool, makes sense! Thanks for going into that detail.

[chrisg]

FWIW Cawshis, that sounds like DM style more than anything in the rules.

The playtest rules do have some detail about searching IIRC, as in they do encourage you to be specific. I'd have to go look it up to see exactly how they're slicing that onion.

As far as the social interaction goes, the rules are pretty silent. Which is a problem. If Burning Wheel has taught me anything (and it's taught me so much), it's that rules for social interaction make for better roleplaying.

[cawshis]

I don't even know if it's DM style, Chrisg.

I'm of the opinion that it might *just* be my problem to solve as a player. I don't like roleplaying games that require me to guess the secret. I'd rather just roll. Which is why I was so happy with 4th.

[jenskot]

I like where they are headed so far. Good direction. I do wonder, however, how they are going to sell me MOAR STUFF if they keep the rules as simple as they are now. I'm guessing plug-in mods (like SKILLZ and FEATZ!)...but how many of those are they going to be able to cram out?

There is a sacred cow that says:

"Product targeted at the DM only sells one copy to a group. Product targeted at the players sells multiple copies to the group. If you want to make money, focus on selling Player handbooks and splat books."

There is a lot of logic to that. But it also might be part of the reason 4E didn't do as well as 3E. Once a group has bought all your splat books, they have extra incentive not to switch editions. It can also lead to burnout and people abandoning your game all together.

Additionally, what was true 10 years ago may be less relevant now. Another sacred cow, "adventures don't sell". Paizo killed that sacred cow.

I could easily see Wizards make D&D Next practically free and then make money off of monthly/yearly subscriptions with Player & DM Tools + adventure content. I would pay a subscription if the tools make running D&D super easy. "What should we do tonight? Let's play D&D. Let me launch the online tools... click a few buttons... bam... 10 minutes later we are ready to play!"

If that isn't enough money, sell D&D Boardgames that are also compatible with the D&D Next RPG. Release RPG adventures that use the components from the boardgames. "Wait, all the tiles and minis I need are in the D&D Boardgame that shares the same name as this awesome RPG adventure I just downloaded... and the D&D Boardgame is GMless so it's something my players can buy so I as the DM don't have to pay for everything... sold!"

[Questionor]

I don't even know if it's DM style, Chrisg.

I'm of the opinion that it might *just* be my problem to solve as a player. I don't like roleplaying games that require me to guess the secret. I'd rather just roll. Which is why I was so happy with 4th.

I think it *is* GM style vs your style. To say it isn't is to say you are wrong for feeling that way.
I've had this problem with many many GMs in many different RPGs.
I want to bluff someone. Why the hell do I need to come up with what is a good thing to say? It's my character that has the super high bluff skill not me.
I don't need to demonstrate to a GM that I as a person know how to swing a sword for my character to do it, why do I need to do that for the bluff skill or other social skills?

I'm not that big on the burning wheel system but I LOVE the whole battle of wits rules in it. I wish every RPG had something similar.

[Deliverator]

Cawshis, my brother, I am so with you!

That said, what we're talking about here is actually a really complex issue. After all, any die roll has to have some fictional trigger, right? You don't roll to see if you hit until you announce that you're swinging your weapon, after all. So the question you're really asking is, at what point am I swinging my "social hammer"? And I agree that's long been unclear in many editions of D&D and other games. But, fortunately we live in a time when we have tools for understanding intent and task much better. In your orc chieftain example, I think the GM should have you roll Intimidate as soon as it's clear what you want to accomplish—get the orcs to leave. Then say, ok, but if you fail, they're going to have a "take no prisoners" attitude when they fight you (or something).

It would be easy enough to put such things in the rules of 5E, and I hope they do. But then we get to what, in my experience, is the *real* problem with this sort of situation: the GMs not actually knowing the games' skill rules. Jenskot and I have discussed this before—it's easy to get people to learn numerical rules, but hard to get them to learn procedural, social rules. But those latter are just as deeply a part of the structure of the game as the purely numbers-based stuff.

In other words, it's the gaming culture here that's the problem, the one that says that social situations are always ad hoc and up to GM judgment as to whether you can even roll or not. The 5E people are going to have to devote a lot of page-count to upending that idea.

Matt

[elricz]

If there is secret-DM information that we need to get via Social discussion, I want to roll for it. If there is a priestess who has a secret quest, I want to roll for it. If the dragon is willing to share some gold with me instead of facing my blade, I want to roll for it.

This is a good point, because from the player perspective there may be no difference between secret DM information and no information at all. To analyze one example from the game: a party of 5 is trying to intimidate a full tribe of 40 kobolds that are protecting their home. I cannot think on anything that can be said that can work in this case, so I am not asking for a roll because as DM I don't think that the task is possible, and rolling a 20 would not make it magically happen. Now if a player comes with an idea that makes sense, that can enable the roll, but the process is not about guessing the secret from the DM (at least in cases like this)

Lack of Macros - It might be more my style of play, but I don't want to have to tell the DM specifically where I do things like "search." You describe a room to me with a tapestry and a desk...any rational thinking human being is going to search both when doing a search. Don't make me say "I search the tapestry." and then I "search the desk."

There were some gotcha moments like skipping the treasure on the big rat, so I hear what you say. In this case, the rules only noted to be explicit in the searches, but that don't prevent macros per se. There are rules for "take 20". that is basically spend 20 times the normal time. That can be a good option: spend one hour searching the full room, or potentially 5 minutes by targeting the right spot.

I miss the map and minis and would rather have them than not.

That was my choice, as I wanted to try that out; it is not spelled out in the rules that you don't use map and minis. I like that there is an option, and I will try with them next time.

[Seth]

Boy, just looked at this and so much to comment on, I can't help myself!

Player directly to DM: WHEN THE FUCK DO I ROLL!?!

1) AD&D actually relied on rolls heavily for this stuff. Charisma gave you a reaction adjustment and loyalty modifier, to be used with parley and moral rules. In practice a lot of DM's didn't use those rules, but that's another issue.

2) I think defining reactions by rolls too much scares some that you're taking the "R" out of the "RPG", but that can lead to the opposite, which I agree isn't right either.

3) I think it's valid to judge some DCs as very high, and if a DC is so high it's mathematically impossible for the character to succeed, there's no need to roll (auto-success on a 20 is not a universal rule, Pathfinder/3.5 doesn't have auto success for skill checks, for example). Also, it's valid for the DC to change depending on the situation, especially for social situations. For example, simple verbal threats might have one DC, but threats backed up by a display of power might have another, and threats including something the target uniquely fears another. So, lots of times the talking has to come first, so the DM can determine what the DC of the roll is. This is just the same as having to know what section of the room you're searching, or which kind of attack you're using against what monster... and just like when the monster's invulnerable to some kind of attack, a given social approach might not have a chance of working.

4) Player problem solving has long been an element of these games. I think a necessary part - the 'G' in the RPG. But there are good puzzles and bad puzzles. "All you can do is keep trying things until you hit the solution by chance" are really bad puzzles. Good puzzles have pieces, bits of information, that when put together correctly, can yield a solution. The correct role of rolls is to determine how many and which pieces of the puzzle you get to work with. That can make the puzzle really easy, or fails make it impossibly hard, but putting the pieces together is where player skill and game play is.

"Product targeted at the DM only sells one copy to a group. Product targeted at the players sells multiple copies to the group. If you want to make money, focus on selling Player handbooks and splat books."

I observed before I think that's a misguided approach. It forgets that while there's a limit on how many times you can convince players to buy handbooks over and over, there's no limit on how many adventures you can sell DMs. Rules are made to be reused, but adventures are made to be played, discarded, and replace by ones.

I do wonder, however, how they are going to sell me MOAR STUFF if they keep the rules as simple as they are now. I'm guessing plug-in mods (like SKILLZ and FEATZ!)...but how many of those are they going to be able to cram out?

ON the flip side - something about AD&D/OD&D that gets missed is that it actually wasn't a game Rather it was a collection of rules that one could use, salad bar style, to make a game. Luke Crane made a good point in a seminar last PAX East, that Redbox was their first attempt to make D&D an actual game with a consistent rule set. BUT then turned around and contradicted that approach by continuing to produce and sell more rules in a manner that ultimately undermined that consistency. Looks like now they're trying to go back to that original salad bar/a la cart D&D model.

[chrisg]

@Cawshis, I checked the playtest documents' text regarding traps and searching. It's interesting.

The "How To Play" document, which is basically the players' handbook, specifically mentions that you need to be specific when searching. It uses the example of an item hidden beneath a set of folded clothes in the top drawer of a bureau, and how merely saying you were looking around the room at the walls and furniture would not be enough specifics to give you a chance to find the item.

Then it explains why this specificity is important: traps. It says that to be fair, you need to be specific, so the DM can't say that you triggered a trap if your intention wasn't to rifle the drawer.

It sounds to me like your DM is following those instructions, perhaps a bit too explicitly. But s/he may also be missing some instructions about traps.

In the "DM's Guidelines" document, it says that not only can you search for traps while moving, but a single check covers 10 minutes of movement! So it seems like being super-specific doesn't have anything to do with whether you find the trap or not, just whether you run into it. In other words, by my reading you shouldn't need to have macros for finding traps--the rules assume that you are being an intelligent person who spends a lot of time hanging around in places with deadly traps, and act accordingly.

The section about searching specifies that you can find traps while searching, and discussing the time it takes to search a simple area like a bare room vs a cluttered desk.

tl;dr: your DM should be asking you to be specific about where and how you're searching, but only so he can determine if it's possible to find something--including a trap. Whether you specify that you're searching "the door" or "the whole area" shouldn't have much to do with whether you find a pit trap!