BESW's Spoil-Lair

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BESW

02:40

I'm grading my ESL students, so my response time will be slow, but I'm tabbing in between stacks.

nitsua60

DDEX3-1 starts with a fivefold prophecy

the module's written like it's just a foreshadowing of the things you will see along your path

that works fine with the pickup nature of a Saturday AL table, but for my group I wanted a bit more agency

so I did some mind-mapping of the five encounters, developing interrelationships among the NPCs, and hooks for the PCs to have a reason to hit some of the sites

that way DDEX1 feels a bit sandbox-y and you can do more exploring, social interaction, make use of skill checks much more than if it were just "and today you run into the second thing the madman prophesied"

BESW

Interesting.

How does that better demonstrate what 5e's design is particularly good at doing?

nitsua60

well, you actually get to do the other things--as written, it's pretty much "walk down the road, stumble into (a), leave, walk down the road, stumble into (b), repeat three more times"

none of the interacting or exploring you could do woudl matter

BESW

What other things?

nitsua60

BESW

02:53

Be specific, if you can: what does 5e do well and how does this change better show the group those strengths?

nitsua60

sure--sorry, I'm concurrently running math-help (splitting attention)

BESW

Yarp. I'm trying to decide if this grade needs a curve.

nitsua60

keep in mind I've never played 4e, and maybe two sessions of 3.5

my impression is that 5e's being touted as a re-emphasis on roleplaying, interactions, quicker combat. is that a fair characterization?

BESW

Let's assume you're the 5e expert for this conversation.

nitsua60

okay, but I'm lacking the other half of the comparison, not knowing the last 2 editions at all...

one thing we might tout about 5e: it's a simpler ruleset, so more-amenable to fluidity and improvisation/adaptation

if DDEX3-1 is purely linear, those won't come into play much

restructure so it's your players acting as agents in an evolving world, and you (GM) make use of adaptability much more

gotta hit the commute home...

I'll be back on in half an hour orso

BESW

03:13

Thanks.

nitsua60

03:25

back

BESW

That was swift.

nitsua60

(It's a 1 mi. walk. Wife wasn't awake, so no 15-min catch-up that I was factoring in when I said half-hour)

I guess I'm stumbling across a vagueness in my own head as to what 5e's "about"

I've heard 4e described as a tactical miniatures game, then others say that's just a play-choice

if so, then 5e's distinguishing feature is that it isn't built to let you go hog-wild in any one direction

"back to balance" perhaps? Except you may already have been playing "balanced" D&D in any previous edition

BESW

4e is definitely focused on providing a balanced, coherent tactical combat engine. The lion's share of its mechanics are devoted to that.

nitsua60

would it be fair to say, though, if my group wanted a "well-rounded" exploration-interaction-combat mix at the table, there's nothing in 4e tht would have stopped it?

BESW

Well. There's a question being begged there. 4e provides minimal mechanics for out-of-combat activities, which is different from preventing out-of-combat activities.

nitsua60

03:30

SO, compared to something like 1e or 2e, would you say 4e in a "traditional" game would be handicapped in non-combat areas?

BESW

It means that when you leave combat, 4e's mechanics are more minimal and abstract, expecting more free-form play where the onus is on the players rather than the system to make it interesting.

I don't have experience with 1e and 2e.

nitsua60

so, between us we've partitioned the editions,,, and we're hoping to meaningfully compare =)

BESW

I can say that in 3.5, the mechanics for social and terrain action are complex enough to get in the way of free-form play, but not structured enough to provide interest and dynamic story on their own.

nitsua60

like worrying about ranks in "bluff" vs. "sense motive"? (Are thise things?)

BESW

Yeah.

And resolving social interactions with a single swingy pass/fail roll.

Or having spells that make some skills useless, or make otherwise interesting exploration scenes boring.

4e instead provided very generic rules and mechanics for such things, which each group gets to decide how to use.

(But in combat, 4e's very specific and clear about its rules, and they've been designed to create interest through that clarity.)

nitsua60

03:36

right. so it seems a little hard to sell 5e as: "pared-down spell list, feat list, skill list, maneuver list, action list, (prestige) class list, and gear list," even if it accomplishes a lot by way of "feel"

BESW

So playing 4e is kinda like playing two almost totally different systems: one high-crunch system for combat and one open-ended skill framework for everything else.

nitsua60

5e I'd describe as pretty fluid/open in both settings

BESW

While playing 3.5 is like having a dozen different systems vying with each other and overriding each other both in and out of combat, and your interest and effectiveness varies depending on the systems you've chosen to have access to and which part of the game they're designed for.

nitsua60

(definition of irony: as we say all these things about 5e=simple, 4e=tactical, I'm using needle-nosed pliers to manipulate my 2" toothpick-ladders into the right positions on my foam-board model of tomorrow night's (5e DDEX3-2) big set piece)

BESW

Oh my.

nitsua60

03:39

once per year I go crazy building sets for the minis

(last year's)

BESW

Cool.

nitsua60

(a PC was challenged to duel by a professional. The player came to me and said she wanted to do everything possible to remove the professional's advantages. So we removed gravity, medieval-style.)

this year's is the set-piece at the end of DDEX3-2, if you happen to look at it.

I'd definitely stay away from DDEX3-2 for a 5e intro, btw.

Good adventure, but it starts with a GM note about how it may feel railroad-y to players.

BESW

Heh.

2 hours later…

BESW

05:50

Note to self for next volume: Since Amaterasu's old HQ is now ground zero for A Nameless Colour Which Drives Men Mad, and we've merged with Brother James's Black Raven Cult (the one that's a hivemind connected by Vril energy channelled through the Crystal Skull)...

...we need a new joint HQ location.

It should be some ridiculous-yet-evocative place that was abandoned during the chaos and the Black Ravens just moved in and took it over.

Preferably an actual landmark.

Jame's BRAC will be known as the Black Raven Accord.

(Every schism of the Black Raven Cult appends a different "A" word to the name: Black Raven Ascendency, Black Raven Apocalypse, Black Raven Association, etc. We refer to them collectively as the BRAC.)

@Ahriman [wave]

Ahriman

[wave]

is it the MExican wave or another?

BESW

Ahriman

That I can handle

Was an interesting discussion about 5th & 4th edition

BESW

06:11

Yeah.

I haven't actually seen anything which indicates 5e has made any great strides over 3.5 in that regard, but I want to try it to find out what it's like in play instead of just armchairing it.

Okay, dashing out to the PO to mail this passport application. ttfn

Ahriman

Played one session with some friends in the Lost Mines of Psomething

l8ters

Was ok, but not enough to accurately judge the system

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