[Movie] Dungeon & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves

[Syegfryed]

It’s pretty clear at this point that you are just not getting it and won’t. If I say subclass puts you in narrow lanes and your response is that the player can pick a different subclass, you just don’t want to engage with what I am saying at all.

The restaurant comparison is the best example of this. You completely sidestepped by metaphor by talking about ordering off menu, rather than engaging with the point I made.

The thing is, maybe the system isn't for you, cause there is no problem whatsoever in having many choices, if you follow the intent and the design behind the game

[Biomega]

I feeel like putting a /s tag on things is the equivalnet of having to explain a joke.

It's the risk we take with Poe's Law.

But I'm with you - let the dullards deal with their own inability to detect sarcasm, no need to lower standards or dumb down statements just because someone somewhere hasn't learned how to parse statements properly.

[Kathandira]

I really don't want to read through an itemized debate between people. But it pains me to see people arguing over the rules and limitations of D&D.

This is sort of a problem I have with TTRPGs and Gamers. If you look at it as a Game to be won, I feel you miss out on a huge component of the game.

I feel people invest too much into the combat capabilities of their characters, and not enough on the actual out of combat flavor. Like a sorcerer who only uses spells that cause damage. Great to have in a fight, but basically useless the rest of the time.

I suggest finding a DM who is willing to run a campaign which is very lite on combat. A campaign which is more about the role playing, mystery, and intrigue. Dungeons and Dragons is not explicitly a fantasy combat simulator, that is more Warhammer's forte. Classes and Subclasses have a lot of non-combat abilities that should not be overlooked. They are there for a reason, and the campaign should be built so that the OOC side of each class can be explored.

[NineSpine]

The thing is, maybe the system isn't for you, cause there is no problem whatsoever in having many choices, if you follow the intent and the design behind the game

Which of these two options gives you more choices:

1. You can watch any one of the 100 movies on this list.
2. You can watch any movie you want.

You are trying to argue that 1 provides more options than 2. It's nonsense.

There is nothing PCs can do in 5e that they can't do in an OSR game, but on top of that they can also go beyond the restrictions a subclass puts on them in 5e.

[KainneAbsolute]

Simulationists loved 3e. 3e felt custom-made (it really wasn't) to get people to build entire worlds by making NPC and monster building very formulaic (though the methodology was abysmal). It was far less effective in actual play; it would start slowing down at about lvl 6 and slow to a crawl above lvl 12. But for people who did not actually PLAY the game but liked to talk about it, 3E was the best edition?

Maybe it is true because power gaming was extremely popular (especially PC that can kill the gods in 1 round, in level 1). During those days, that source material was abundant, contradictory, ambiguous (unless the book writer clarified the rule), etc. On the other hand, it was widely accepted (at least in the forums I visited) that creation rules were a bad design and challenge rating adjustments were wrong. There were forums dedicated to correcting them, balancing classes, and making combat faster (swarm mechanics existed before even swarm mechanics existed!).

I guess that's why house rules were necessary, to avoid the adventures from getting out of control (even if the DM only used the core books). However, there was also abundant discussion about role-playing, and how, story-wise, it was impossible to create even the low-tier op class combinations. Combat had an essential focus in 3.5, but I felt that DMs wanted to create compelling stories and roleplaying.

But a lot of the advice about roleplaying and combat came from actual gameplay. For example, there were many class handbooks, and the S-tier spells weren't the ones that did damage or the instant kills (many hated them a lot because those spells ruined roleplaying), but the utility and versatile ones that allowed you to improve your roleplaying capabilities (entertain a crowd, disguise, hide a whole terrain, etc.). In part, 4 edition was hated because the abilities were translated into damage, movement, or moving your enemy. There wasn't space for those spells that allowed clever non-aggressive solutions using your imagination. In other words, that allowed you a roleplaying opportunity that can let you succeed or lose. In 3 and 3.5, if your suffered intelligence loss due to a psychic-like attack, you needed to interpret your character (not only the loss in your skill capabilities). In the 4th edition, it was "ok, you got 1d4 of psychic damage". If a demon attacked you using the image of your beloved one (and you failed the save roll), you needed to interpret it considering how convincing the DM was, your background, and the spell power. The effect was very ambiguous, but it was funny. In 4th edition, it was "1d4 of psychic damage and the next round you attack the nearest party member".

Personally, all those forum debates were helpful for me because I mastered a pretty long adventure that reached epic levels, and I needed ideas to shorten combat encounters and enhance roleplaying.

[Syegfryed]

Which of these two options gives you more choices:

1. You can watch any one of the 100 movies on this list.
2. You can watch any movie you want.

You are trying to argue that 1 provides more options than 2. It's nonsense.

There is nothing PCs can do in 5e that they can't do in an OSR game, but on top of that they can also go beyond the restrictions a subclass puts on them in 5e.

My guy, the only nonsensical thing is to believe 5e would be the 2. The thing is, you want another system, not 5e

And like i said, its perfectly fine, you are just giving some weird examples that don't reflect how the game is played, like the "pet" thing.

[draynay]

I feel people invest too much into the combat capabilities of their characters, and not enough on the actual out of combat flavor. Like a sorcerer who only uses spells that cause damage. Great to have in a fight, but basically useless the rest of the time.

I suggest finding a DM who is willing to run a campaign which is very lite on combat. A campaign which is more about the role playing, mystery, and intrigue. Dungeons and Dragons is not explicitly a fantasy combat simulator, that is more Warhammer's forte. Classes and Subclasses have a lot of non-combat abilities that should not be overlooked. They are there for a reason, and the campaign should be built so that the OOC side of each class can be explored.

People tend to build their characters in whatever way is most fun to them, but you make a good point that DMs can do a better job making out of combat activities fun.

I know I have a hex blade warlock which can be pretty OP especially if I built it to be, but I took the Actor feat and Master of Many Faces to disguise myself and my voice because cleverly avoiding combat is just as fun to me. Thankfully the DM in that game rewards clever behavior; I've had other DMs who only prepared a fight and so we're getting it no matter what.

[Ghost of Cow]

I really don't want to read through an itemized debate between people. But it pains me to see people arguing over the rules and limitations of D&D.

This is sort of a problem I have with TTRPGs and Gamers. If you look at it as a Game to be won, I feel you miss out on a huge component of the game.

I feel people invest too much into the combat capabilities of their characters, and not enough on the actual out of combat flavor. Like a sorcerer who only uses spells that cause damage. Great to have in a fight, but basically useless the rest of the time.

I suggest finding a DM who is willing to run a campaign which is very lite on combat. A campaign which is more about the role playing, mystery, and intrigue. Dungeons and Dragons is not explicitly a fantasy combat simulator, that is more Warhammer's forte. Classes and Subclasses have a lot of non-combat abilities that should not be overlooked. They are there for a reason, and the campaign should be built so that the OOC side of each class can be explored.

A lot of it just depends on what people like.

The core of all the rules in most systems revolve around the character building and combat, which go hand in hand. Beyond that though, a DM could create an entire campaign that's completely combat-free and that'd be fine, too. But at some point I suppose people would ask if they're actually playing [Insert game here] or just having a collaborative writing session.

[Kyphael]

Wait, I thought he was being sarcastic, taking the piss out of the over woke crazies - you mean he was being serious?

I thought so, I have a hard time detecting sarcasm in pain text that omits "/s." Kudos to those who can, I sure never can. I also find it's easy to say some racist shit and then back peddle and go "what? No, get out of here, I was being sarcastic."

[Evil Midnight Bomber]

I thought so, I have a hard time detecting sarcasm in pain text that omits "/s." Kudos to those who can, I sure never can. I also find it's easy to say some racist shit and then back peddle and go "what? No, get out of here, I was being sarcastic."

I'm not sure how "the role for the Dragon should be based on ability...not scale colour" could ever be taken as anything but sarcasm.

[MCMLXXXII]

I'm not sure how "the role for the Dragon should be based on ability...not scale colour" could ever be taken as anything but sarcasm.

Well to be fair, it wouldn't surprise me if some of the usual suspects said something like that. They can bitch about almost every single thing.

[Nymrohd]

I thought so, I have a hard time detecting sarcasm in pain text that omits "/s." Kudos to those who can, I sure never can. I also find it's easy to say some racist shit and then back peddle and go "what? No, get out of here, I was being sarcastic."

Don't feel too bad. The world at large but also this forum houses enough people whose opinions stretch credulity.

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Well to be fair, it wouldn't surprise me if some of the usual suspects said something like that. They can bitch about almost every single thing.

They HAVE bitched about that.

[draynay]

I'm not sure how "the role for the Dragon should be based on ability...not scale colour" could ever be taken as anything but sarcasm.

Some people take draconic representation very seriously.

[VMSmith]

If you haven't yet, all of you who love D&D really need to read some Knights of the Dinner Table. I can't emphasize how much this comic is a labor of love towards TTRPG's and those that play them, and it's been going for nearly 300 issues now. Even the actual stories of the campaigns they play are so much more interesting than anything I've seen on Twitch, such as Critical Role.

[Shadowferal]

I feel people invest too much into the combat capabilities of their characters, and not enough on the actual out of combat flavor. Like a sorcerer who only uses spells that cause damage. Great to have in a fight, but basically useless the rest of the time.

I suggest finding a DM who is willing to run a campaign which is very lite on combat. A campaign which is more about the role playing, mystery, and intrigue. Dungeons and Dragons is not explicitly a fantasy combat simulator, that is more Warhammer's forte. Classes and Subclasses have a lot of non-combat abilities that should not be overlooked. They are there for a reason, and the campaign should be built so that the OOC side of each class can be explored.

To go from the more 2 dimensional "hack/slash" to the fleshed out "storyteller" system. That can be a rewarding challenge.

[NineSpine]

My guy, the only nonsensical thing is to believe 5e would be the 2. The thing is, you want another system, not 5e

And like i said, its perfectly fine, you are just giving some weird examples that don't reflect how the game is played, like the "pet" thing.

When I described the pet example, your solution was to arbitrarily throttle the PC, regardless of what they did or how they rolled. You demonstrated the problem in your "solution" to the problem.

I already said I want another system rather than 5e. This is why I keep saying you aren't even attempting to listen. What I am taking issue with is two things:

1. You saying "Just force the player into a narrow lane, problem solved!" when I say that narrow lanes suck.
2. You insisting that 5e is some open ended system because of the volume of subclasses.

You want 5e to be everything all at once. You want to advocate for narrow lanes while saying narrow lanes don't exist. You want to say 5e is great because of narrow lanes and simultaneously great because of its open ended options. You are all over the place and contradictory, and avoiding the core point I am making: More subclasses does not create more options if the tradeoff is that you remove the ability to simply roleplay (remember that thing, roleplaying?) into options rather than needing to pick the ones you are ALLOWED TO from the book. More rules does not create more options. More limitations does not create more options.

If you build more walls in your house, it will give you more rooms but not more ROOM.

[Kathandira]

or just having a collaborative writing session.

But that is basically what story based TTRPGs are. They are collaborative storytelling games.

Due to power gaming, we have started moving away from D&D, and to other systems. We have some OG players, and we have some new players in our group. The new players really tend to treat character builds as if they are playing a video game. They invest everything in maximum damage and action economy. Then we have OG players who have well rounded characters that fit into the world and have flaws and backstories that tie into the way their character is built.

Since the power gamers basically sit out all the RP moments and are only engaged with the game when combat occurs, we moved to a more RP based system where they are encouraged to be more active in the RP portions. (Yes they were warned ahead of time, and they agreed to play, lol).

Atm we are playing Monster of the Week. Yeah, it does have combat, but you have to be creative with it. Not just pulling from the pages of a book, but using your imagination as to what your character exactly does, and if they can pull it off. It really encourages the Rule of Cool, and avoids rule lawyering.

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When I described the pet example, your solution was to arbitrarily throttle the PC, regardless of what they did or how they rolled. You demonstrated the problem in your "solution" to the problem.

I already said I want another system rather than 5e. This is why I keep saying you aren't even attempting to listen. What I am taking issue with is two things:

1. You saying "Just force the player into a narrow lane, problem solved!" when I say that narrow lanes suck.
2. You insisting that 5e is some open ended system because of the volume of subclasses.

You want 5e to be everything all at once. You want to advocate for narrow lanes while saying narrow lanes don't exist. You want to say 5e is great because of narrow lanes and simultaneously great because of its open ended options. You are all over the place and contradictory, and avoiding the core point I am making: More subclasses does not create more options if the tradeoff is that you remove the ability to simply roleplay (remember that thing, roleplaying?) into options rather than needing to pick the ones you are ALLOWED TO from the book. More rules does not create more options. More limitations does not create more options.

If you build more walls in your house, it will give you more rooms but not more ROOM.

If I am understanding this right, and I may not be due to the chaotic conversation that is being had, there are two schools of thought here. More subclasses to add more variety. Or full free reign over anything in the book to add more variety. Basically an Elder Scrolls type system where you choose whatever, whenever.

Multi classing does accomplish this, however the way 5e is set up, if you multiclass, in most cases you are weaker than someone who stays in their narrow lane of their class/subclass path.

But there is a reason for this. You want to see over powered PCs, give them free reign to pick any skill or spell from any class with no restriction other than player level. This is absolute madness for the DM to keep track of what their players are capable of.

DM: Ok 1st level rogue, you have an orc 10' in front of you. You are concealed in the darkness...I assume you will take a 5' step into combat and backstab?
Rogue: I am going to cast.....
DM: Wait....you are going to what? You are level 1?! You cannot be multiclassed, and you haven't hit your subclasses yet, you should not have any magical spells.
Rogue: Yeah, but I took a few cantrips from the Wizard class, so i'm casting chill touch.
[DM begins rewriting his campaign]

[NineSpine]

But that is basically what story based TTRPGs are. They are collaborative storytelling games.

Due to power gaming, we have started moving away from D&D, and to other systems. We have some OG players, and we have some new players in our group. The new players really tend to treat character builds as if they are playing a video game. They invest everything in maximum damage and action economy. Then we have OG players who have well rounded characters that fit into the world and have flaws and backstories that tie into the way their character is built.

Since the power gamers basically sit out all the RP moments and are only engaged with the game when combat occurs, we moved to a more RP based system where they are encouraged to be more active in the RP portions. (Yes they were warned ahead of time, and they agreed to play, lol).

Atm we are playing Monster of the Week. Yeah, it does have combat, but you have to be creative with it. Not just pulling from the pages of a book, but using your imagination as to what your character exactly does, and if they can pull it off. It really encourages the Rule of Cool, and avoids rule lawyering.

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If I am understanding this right, and I may not be due to the chaotic conversation that is being had, there are two schools of thought here. More subclasses to add more variety. Or full free reign over anything in the book to add more variety. Basically an Elder Scrolls type system where you choose whatever, whenever.

Multi classing does accomplish this, however the way 5e is set up, if you multiclass, in most cases you are weaker than someone who stays in their narrow lane of their class/subclass path.

But there is a reason for this. You want to see over powered PCs, give them free reign to pick any skill or spell from any class with no restriction other than player level. This is absolute madness for the DM to keep track of what their players are capable of.

DM: Ok 1st level rogue, you have an orc 10' in front of you. You are concealed in the darkness...I assume you will take a 5' step into combat and backstab?
Rogue: I am going to cast.....
DM: Wait....you are going to what? You are level 1?! You cannot be multiclassed, and you haven't hit your subclasses yet, you should not have any magical spells.
Rogue: Yeah, but I took a few cantrips from the Wizard class, so i'm casting chill touch.
[DM begins rewriting his campaign]

I'm gonna go back to the walls analogy I used earlier and expand it: More walls gives you more rooms, but not more room. However, you still need some walls to have a house.

Classes are a valuable mechanic that can help players direct themselves toward things and feel unique. This breaks down when taken too far, which I would argue 5e does. Not only is 13 classes already absurdly bloated, but the subclasses have made this even crazier. In my analogy, 5e is a house with so may walls that every room is 3x3.

There are much more elegant ways to throttle player power than heavily restricting them to very narrow classes. Casters in general are obviously throttled by how many spells they can cast, for example.

Where the inelegance of how 5e handles this becomes most apparent as PCs get to higher levels and you start to see the combat slow down more and more and more as each PC becomes a pile of completely idiosyncratic mechanics that pile on top of each other until we have individual turns taking five minutes, when they should take 30 seconds at most.

[Mace]

Don't feel too bad. The world at large but also this forum houses enough people whose opinions stretch credulity.

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They HAVE bitched about that.

I just wonder why these studios take them so seriously. They are fringe minority, usually insane from being isolated in their bubbles.

Yet major studios seem bent on changing everything everytime to suit.

Anyway. This D&D looks like a bunch of harmless fun. Lots of fun. I love the cast too. So hope their acting is good and it’s a lot of fun.

Nothing wrong with woke. Just the stupid lengths they are changing established IPs like Star Wars, WoT etc to fit, with awful writing and obvious blatant preachy messaging as if their ideology is gospel truth that everyone believes is correct.

Rantaside, if it’s good or entertaining, I know I’ll enjoy it

[Ghost of Cow]

I thought so, I have a hard time detecting sarcasm in pain text that omits "/s." Kudos to those who can, I sure never can. I also find it's easy to say some racist shit and then back peddle and go "what? No, get out of here, I was being sarcastic."

Well it's a dragon...

...so yeah, if you take a comment about "scale color" seriously, you might be searching just a BIT too hard for a chance to virtue signal.