What I hope they do for 6e DnD

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Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

It removes the "short rest" vs "long rest" disconnect entirely, which is one of the big problems reported with 5e's rest system -- if the "day" isn't artificially constrained to a particular ratio of rests, it throws off the balance between classes. Long-rest classes are impacted by "days" with a lot of activity as they get stretched thin... short-rest classes are impacted by "days" that only give them one or no chances to reset their abilities.

So ditch the idea that abilities or spells are reset by "rests", just give them balanced "resource points" costs, and recharge everyone's "RPs" at the same rate regardless of class as they get in various amounts of rest.

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So, you just mean getting rid of the short vs. long rest dichtomy. That will only make it easier to balance the classes against each other, by making the more samey. That may be good, but I think it's kind of cool that some classes shine in some situations, and others in other.

What it does not solve though, is the standard 5e complaint about difference resting makes for dungeons vs. wilderness and urban areas etc. That's due to the fiction and what encounter frequency makes sense in those. Having the same recovery rate for everyone isn't changing the fact that "gritty" resting will be better suited for travelling and "heroic" resting better suited for dungeons. It's basically two different genres.

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Originally Posted by Pelle

To me, those seem mutually exclusive. If you don't go from zero-to-god, it probably won't be noticeable enough for what most people enjoy about leveling.

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They aren't and I cite Savage Worlds.

You get noticable upgrades every level but you start and end in what many who play D&D call the "sweet spot" in terms of power. You are heroes without being gods. (Barring things like using the Superpowers Companion or playing Savage Rifts).

D&D doesn't really have zero to hero anymore. You start off as a pretty decent hero at level one and become mythical by level 4. Would a 6e need as steep of a power curve as 5e? No, 5e's curve is less than 3e or 4e (sort-of). Will it have a steep power curve? Yes, your game is just less cool when you roll back the power curve (PF2e). 5e got away with it by being like 95% new and really old players.

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Originally Posted by Pelle

Yeah. I actually suspect few people play D&D specifically because of the zero to god progression. A lot of people really like leveling though, and want to feel very noticable improvements to their character's abilities regulary. That kind of necessitate this progression of genres in order achieve that. So it's more that people play D&D in spite of the genre progression, in order to get the "new stuff" experience.

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The lack of zero-to-god progression is what turned me off 5e, actually. If I wanted to play a zero the whole game, or a god the whole game, or even a zero-to-middling-good-adventurer, I wouldn't play D&D for that. There are better systems with fixed power levels. Meanwhile, I keep returning to 3.5/PF1e, precisely because it offers an experience you can't find anywhere else.

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Originally Posted by Anonymouswizard

It's quite clearly 'scripted' and on rails, but not to the point people claim. MM clearly has a scripted adventure plan which features a bunch of 'stations'/encounters which link to each other in various ways, but the group has a say in which trains they get on and it's closer to 'quantum ogreing' than a classic railroad. There's a gentlemen's agreement that the party won't try to sail to the other side of the world and will follow the plot hooks.

In short it's a fairly standard setup, made a little bit more extreme to ensure that the audience sees a good amount of entertaining stuff and a more definite structure of highs and lows.

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I disagree that it's scripted. I agree that every participant at the table is on board with the idea of producing watchable content and they have the professional skills to do so. I'll also say that I'm certain that they coordinated some of their backstories, to an unknown degree, and that Matt has woven those backstories into the game setting. But I don't think they've done anything that isn't available to every participant (DM and player) at every table. We can all create good backstories and motivations for adventuring. We can all weave those backstories into the game world to make it more personal and easy to buy into. We can all apply improv/cooperation principles to our game play. We can all be respectful of our fellow players.

I think your point about the gentleman's agreement is a huge point. The players helped create the world with the backstories. Ignoring all of those and haring off to someplace completely different would be... rude. It would ignore the DMs contributions to the game.

It's not like there's a simple binary dichotomy of "scripted" and "not scripted".

Something like CR could be "somewhat scripted", with the basic plot and concepts laid out as a skeleton, and the participants fleshing it out.

Barring additional evidence to the contrary, my impression is that it is more voluntary railroad than scripted -- the MM is running an adventure with a clear idea of where he wants it to go and how he wants things to turn out, and his players are all well more than fine with that.

I kinda hope the 6e monster manual(s) has more Create-A-Monster bits so people can try to recreate monsters from prior editions.

As is we’re going to inevitably get our staples- beholders, hydras, etc are always in the game.

But more guidance to DMs so if they want to resurrect the Wolf-In-Sheeps-Clothing from AD&D for 6e, that’d be extremely useful.

More tools, less finished products. We still need some monsters but if making monsters is easy enough it’s be good.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

We're coming at this from different angles. I think it's wrong to try to mimic the show because even if you succeed, it wouldn't be all that fun.

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100% agreed.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

Sure you can steal elements that you think might work in an actual campaign,

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I think it's a bit of a mistake to take elements, as anyone that also watches the show would instantly catch it, but I think doing referential stuff in games is generally a newbie DM mistake in general. I don't hate it if it is a wink and nod, but if you have to have seen Evil Dead: Army of Darkness to solve the riddle of the Necronomicon, maybe you are going a bit too far with your references.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

but it's a show and works as a show. They are all acting.

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I dunno how you come to this however. It's no more show than a given let's play of a video game is a tutorial.

Why do you insist on calling it acting? It seems to imply it is something it is not. Are you suggesting they make a fake 4-hour script that they are following live on camera on twitch every week? That the performances are pre-rehearsed? I'm not entirely sure why this is your choice of word.

I think you give them too much credit in thinking it's a play-acted show instead of just a bunch of people playing D&D for the internet. It doesn't even parse.

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Originally Posted by Mordaedil

I dunno how you come to this however. It's no more show than a given let's play of a video game is a tutorial.

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Fun fact, Let's Plays are fake too. Most of the time they dig deeply into the game beforehand, pretending to play it the first time on camera. This is done so that they can craft interesting situations and minimize dead time.

CR is a show. It's not something your table should strive for because it wouldn't be fun. Unless you also do it in front of a camera and enjoy acting for an audience.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

Fun fact, Let's Plays are fake too. Most of the time they dig deeply into the game beforehand, pretending to play it the first time on camera. This is done so that they can craft interesting situations and minimize dead time.

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Other than all the cases where people are either going in blind or emphatically not doing so and not pretending they are anyways. Both have an underlying game, both add a layer of performative improv, both pretty much present themselves this way and really stretch the definition of fake in doing so.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

Fun fact, Let's Plays are fake too. Most of the time they dig deeply into the game beforehand, pretending to play it the first time on camera. This is done so that they can craft interesting situations and minimize dead time.

CR is a show. It's not something your table should strive for because it wouldn't be fun. Unless you also do it in front of a camera and enjoy acting for an audience.

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Cynical to a fault. Also incredibly wrong.

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Originally Posted by Ignimortis

Thing is, I'm mostly thinking about differences that are "actual new abilities" instead of "more numbers\attacks per turn\hp". And OSR has consistently proved to be not my thing, since those games tend to be crunchy in all the wrong places and kinda hollow in places I actually like to be crunchy.

It's not about perfect parity. It's more about Fighters getting sword beams, super-jump powers, AoE attacks, fantastic inspiration or intimidation (you can turn a mob of scared peasants into a small army of valiant heroes without actually transforming them physically, just through being an impossibly inspiring leader). Something that isn't "I swing my sword one more time now". Barbarians can get ancestral spirits and some magic from them, Rangers can find portals to other planes in the world, Rogues can hide in plain sight and teleport through shadows, etc.

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QFT. And actually, I'd want it a tad more radically fantastic. To put it crudely, from the perspective of a wuxia fan, apart from one's usual rogues gallery, a high level 3.X Martial as of now looks pathetically incompetent in relevance to spellcasters of the same level. AKA, not worth their XP total.

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Originally Posted by Lucas Yew

QFT. And actually, I'd want it a tad more radically fantastic. To put it crudely, from the perspective of a wuxia fan, apart from one's usual rogues gallery, a high level 3.X Martial as of now looks pathetically incompetent in relevance to spellcasters of the same level. AKA, not worth their XP total.

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High level spellcasters are best mimicked in a supers game, at which point the martials can do cool things too.

So this problem is already solved, if you want to go from 0 to superhero, you got to play something like GURPS. If you want to play action hero to action Superhero, then Savage Worlds has you covered.

Is D&D every going to let high level Fighters and Wizards be equivalent outside for 4e? Never again. The balance point of 5e where Fighters are needed in optimal team comps is the best we are going to get from WotC. And this is for a very good reason, a lot of people want a simple class, but more importantly Human Champion Fighters are the most popular class because it is archetypical and a bunch of wuxia abilities doesn't fit the King Arthur, LotR vibe.

I'm struggling to find a way to say this that won't start the fight it seems to start half the time... :smalleek: Maybe this time we'll avoid the silly terminology digression, the worldbuilding digression, and just try to read each other's posts charitably. But, the discussion has reached that point where "what you want in 6e" includes making a pretty fundamental decision that people don't agree on, and that some flatly refuse to make.

Anyway.

You really can't have a game where magic is as powerful as it gets in D&D, where the "martial" characters are "not-magic" / "normal", and where the "magic" and "not-magic" characters are balanced at higher levels. Something has to give.

("Magic and "not-magic" here being used in a broad way, for the purposes of the statement things like wuxia and chopping down massive stone pillars with a sword and leaping over a 20' wall and punching out ancient giant dragons are all "magic" in the broadest sense, unless you change a lot of taken-for-granted assumptions that most of these settings appear to operate under. You can use "extranormal", "supernatural", or whatever term for fighters who can do things that are effectively "magic" in the sense that they're otherwise impossible.)

• You can lower the power of magic, have not-magic "martials", and have balance.
• You can keep magic really powerful, have magic "martials", and have balance.
• You can keep magic really powerful, have not-magic "martials", and forgo balance.

Pick one.

What sort of game do you want? One of the problems with D&D is that it's often tried to be the first two at the same time, maybe in the effort to be as broadly marketable as possible -- and ended up being the third anyway.


We don't even need to debate which it "should" be, that's a matter of taste. Just actually think about what you want out of D&D, and consider that there may be a fundamental disconnect with what others want. When things start going around in circles repeatedly, maybe it's because one of you wants wuxia-type fighters, and another wants Conan-type fighters, and another wants LOTR-type fighters.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

High level spellcasters are best mimicked in a supers game, at which point the martials can do cool things too.

So this problem is already solved, if you want to go from 0 to superhero, you got to play something like GURPS. If you want to play action hero to action Superhero, then Savage Worlds has you covered.

Is D&D every going to let high level Fighters and Wizards be equivalent outside for 4e? Never again. The balance point of 5e where Fighters are needed in optimal team comps is the best we are going to get from WotC. And this is for a very good reason, a lot of people want a simple class, but more importantly Human Champion Fighters are the most popular class because it is archetypical and a bunch of wuxia abilities doesn't fit the King Arthur, LotR vibe.

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The thing is, if D&D is just gonna stick to LotR/Conan levels, then there are tons of better games for that out there. Most games with somewhat fixed power levels don't even use character levels as a mechanic, and having 20 levels of competence as a core component of a system means that they have to be meaningful enough to exist. 5e could be compressed down to 10 levels easily.

That's why I think that 3.5 model, even though accidental, was actually the best development for level-based systems. It just needs better tier definition and class balancing between the tiers.

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Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

• You can lower the power of magic, have not-magic "martials", and have balance.
• You can keep magic really powerful, have magic "martials", and have balance.
• You can keep magic really powerful, have not-magic "martials", and forgo balance.

Pick one.

What sort of game do you want? One of the problems with D&D is that it's often tried to be the first two at the same time, maybe in the effort to be as broadly marketable as possible -- and ended up being the third anyway.

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Precisely that. D&D keeps doing the third while trying to do the first two, when what it actually should be (otherwise there is no real purpose to levels) is 1st at low levels and 2nd at high levels. What we tend to get is 1st at low levels and then 3rd at high levels because not-magic martials never become magical. Monks do, a little bit, but their "magic" at level 15 is still worse than regular magic was at level 3, which is also weird.

You can do JUST the first or JUST the second, but that basically invalidates the purpose of 20 levels. You can get by with 5 or 7 or 10 in those cases, if you really want to. But usually that means you can just drop D&D and go play Riddle of Steel or Exalted or any of those other RPGs with somewhat fixed power levels.

Random though on what I would want for 6e:

1) More support of having multiple abilities (abilities capped at 20 was already a great step in that direction). Currently, if you build a fighter, there is no way to use your high intelligence to be better at fighting. If you have a Str or Dex based character, there is little to no improvement to your combat capacity at being better at the other one. I don't know if there is a solution to this problem while still being D&D (since "using only one ability at a time" is kind of central to the d20 system), but I still hope they find a clever solution.

2) More spell customization. The "casting a spell at higher level" was one of the best idea of 5e, but I feel it is underused. E.G., the dominate monster, humanoid, and beast are still 3 different spells, while they could be a single one. Metamagic is cool, but sadly only for the Sorcerer. Etc...

3) Rules for skipping a fight. I'd love to have a way to say stuff like "Well, we're not playing this fight, since it's the same undeads than in the way in that just came back, so it would be redundant. Each of you take 10 abstract damages, so you either lose HP, either use spell slots and class abilities to compensate for this loss, using this conversion table", and having this already build in the game.

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Originally Posted by Ignimortis

The thing is, if D&D is just gonna stick to LotR/Conan levels, then there are tons of better games for that out there. Most games with somewhat fixed power levels don't even use character levels as a mechanic, and having 20 levels of competence as a core component of a system means that they have to be meaningful enough to exist. 5e could be compressed down to 10 levels easily.

That's why I think that 3.5 model, even though accidental, was actually the best development for level-based systems. It just needs better tier definition and class balancing between the tiers.



Precisely that. D&D keeps doing the third while trying to do the first two, when what it actually should be (otherwise there is no real purpose to levels) is 1st at low levels and 2nd at high levels. What we tend to get is 1st at low levels and then 3rd at high levels because not-magic martials never become magical. Monks do, a little bit, but their "magic" at level 15 is still worse than regular magic was at level 3, which is also weird.

You can do JUST the first or JUST the second, but that basically invalidates the purpose of 20 levels. You can get by with 5 or 7 or 10 in those cases, if you really want to. But usually that means you can just drop D&D and go play Riddle of Steel or Exalted or any of those other RPGs with somewhat fixed power levels.

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5e martials can be condensed to 10 levels, casters and their spells need the full 20.

5e is actually a 1-10 game where levels 11-20 are included for enthusiasts. You aren't actually meant to play those levels, they exist for you to aspire too them.

Could 6e fix that issue? Nope. For mundanes to actually be equivalent at higher levels, they need superpowers and someone playing 1-10 seeing that they would get superpowers at 11 is pulled out of their class fantasy even if they never reach 11.
The only thing 6e could do is make cooler magic weapons and armor that only the mundanes would use and put recommendations in the DMG to make sure X classes get these items eventually.

5e doesn't cater at all to people wanting to play wuxia style characters outside of the monk class.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

Could 6e fix that issue? Nope. For mundanes to actually be equivalent at higher levels, they need superpowers and someone playing 1-10 seeing that they would get superpowers at 11 is pulled out of their class fantasy even if they never reach 11.

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A solution would be to actually accept that the level 11-20 are "another step", similarly to the 4e paragon and epic (but in more developed), or similarly to 3.X prestige classes (but in more systematic).
Which mean you chose an "epic class" at level 11, which actually give you either high level magic, superpowers, or maybe even stuff like "legendary king/lord".

It seems like one of 5e's biggest faults is that it has a level cap of 20, even though the system isn't built for that many thanks to other aspects like bounded accuracy. I'm not even sure why the designers would choose to stretch everything out so far, since the level 20 cap was pretty much limited to 3.X before 5e also used it.

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Originally Posted by MoiMagnus

A solution would be to actually accept that the level 11-20 are "another step", similarly to the 4e paragon and epic (but in more developed), or similarly to 3.X prestige classes (but in more systematic).
Which mean you chose an "epic class" at level 11, which actually give you either high level magic, superpowers, or maybe even stuff like "legendary king/lord".

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Yeah, this. Maybe even make a class for each defined tier? So 1-5, 6-10, 11-16 (probably would be better to make it 11-15 though), and 17-20 (16-20 here). Something like Fighter into Knight or Warrior or Marksman, then those into Swordmaster or Sentinel or Sharpshooter, etc.

Come to think of it, having a base class with 20 levels is somewhat of a sacred cow for D&D. If WotC finally pull the trigger on it, it might advance the game quite a bit.

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Originally Posted by Ignimortis

Yeah, this. Maybe even make a class for each defined tier? So 1-5, 6-10, 11-16 (probably would be better to make it 11-15 though), and 17-20 (16-20 here). Something like Fighter into Knight or Warrior or Marksman, then those into Swordmaster or Sentinel or Sharpshooter, etc.

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Congrats, you are now playing Shadow of the Demon Lord.

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Originally Posted by Rhedyn

Congrats, you are now playing Shadow of the Demon Lord.

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Except without the weird horror focus and other strange design decisions. While some parts of SotDL were okay, the end product didn't impress me in any way.

Aside -- is it just me, or was/is there a spike in the popularity of "dark fantasy" games/settings?

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Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

Aside -- is it just me, or was/is there a spike in the popularity of "dark fantasy" games/settings?

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I hadn't noticed one. As we've seen with CoC and WoD (and arguably, Rogue Trader/40K rpgs) there's always been an audience for darker games/settings.

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Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

Aside -- is it just me, or was/is there a spike in the popularity of "dark fantasy" games/settings?

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Originally Posted by Brookshw

I hadn't noticed one. As we've seen with CoC and WoD (and arguably, Rogue Trader/40K rpgs) there's always been an audience for darker games/settings.

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Off the top of my head, I know of In the horror, grimdark, and dark fantasy genres:
Call of Cthullu
Lamentations of the Flame Princess
Rogue Trader/40K
Shadow of the Demon Lord
Symbaroum
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (and Zweihander)
WoD (just pretending this is all one thing for simplicities sake)

Of those, I think Zweihander is newest at 2017.

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Originally Posted by Max_Killjoy

Aside -- is it just me, or was/is there a spike in the popularity of "dark fantasy" games/settings?

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Yes, there was an upsurge. I would attribute that to GoT and Witcher becoming mainstream. Many DMs (that I elected not to play with) frothed at the mouth with excitement to run a game "like GoT/ASoIaF/Witcher" without understanding what made these things even somewhat good. Personally, I didn't like that, because at least people who run LotR-like games usually allow you to be a hero and save the world.

Given the game's current state, I can't picture what WotC's next move would be. Thus, my preference for a 6e is one that is brave enough to buck the trends of familiar "D&Disms." To wit:

1.) No Alignment. Its function was subtle at the beginning, but when it expanded it became needless boxes to hedge personalities in. Removing this would necessitate the loss of alignment-focused abilities (no love lost in my book).

2.) Smaller, but more customizable class pool. I'm of the opinion that Wizard/Sorceror/Warlock are largely redundant variations on a theme. Same goes for Fighter/Barbarian, Cleric/Druid, etc. I would prefer something slightly closer to 2e, with four base "archetypes."
The 'path' system of 5e can be fairly easily reworked--alongside Feats--to create largely similar ideas in a more compact and straightforward way. This would ideally go hand-in-hand with no multiclassing requirements, to encourage dipping into other class 'baskets' for appropriate tools.

3.) Reduced emphasis on combat. There are plenty of things characters--especially spellcasters--could do as useful in-game concepts (perhaps as class abilities/feats, etc.), but almost all of it currently centers on what is exclusively effective for fighting or circumventing a fight. What harm is there in trimming it down and expanding a little on things like Morale, parlaying, etc.?

4.) An axe should be taken to the d20 skill system. Especially with Bounded Accuracy as-is, it would simply be easier to treat Skills as something more archetypical as well (I would say 2e's "Nonweapon Proficiency," though I consider Barbarians of Lemuria and its Careers most apt). The system at it exists now promotes constant rolling for things that really don't warrant it, and blatantly prioritizes certain attributes/skills over another (Perception).

5.) On that note: no attributes whatsoever. Their function of helping crystallize a character has now turned into an easily-optimized engine, woven heavily into the skill and combat systems. I believe that attributes--and racial modifiers--stifle creativity by promoting a "right/wrong" way to play a class, and encourage races/characters to fall into stereotypes (like the Half-Orc Barbarian, Tiefling Warlock, etc.). Inversely, it also enables characters to exist whose only claim to fame is being interesting for being unexpected, rather than characterful through player effort (like, what, a Gnome Barbarian?). Essentially, I believe removing them would not adversely affect gameplay in any way because it's a non-discriminatory top-to-bottom system change, and would encourage roleplay that doesn't use numbers as a crutch.

6.) A wholesale change to the magic system. I think it's safe to say the Vancian slots weren't a perfect system to start with, and with every edition it's become more apparent that it's insufficient to a balanced game. It's not the sole contributor to the martial/magic divide, but it's obviously part of the furniture. Changing it would cause greater scrutiny on the balance of spells in general (a good move in any event).

Is there any hint that they are going to release a sixth edition any time soon?

I think it would be a risky gamble... many people have remained loyal to 3.5/Pathfinder, what if they further divide the fan base? If the launch a new edition, and only like a third of the D&D players transition to it, it would be a huge failure...

It's not as if WotC are even trying to sell many 5e books... or magazines... or novels... or video games... or miniatures... why don't they try to milk the current edition for a bit more of profit before moving on to something else?

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Originally Posted by Zakhara

Given the game's current state, I can't picture what WotC's next move would be. Thus, my preference for a 6e is one that is brave enough to buck the trends of familiar "D&Disms." To wit:

1.) No Alignment. Its function was subtle at the beginning, but when it expanded it became needless boxes to hedge personalities in. Removing this would necessitate the loss of alignment-focused abilities (no love lost in my book).

2.) Smaller, but more customizable class pool. I'm of the opinion that Wizard/Sorceror/Warlock are largely redundant variations on a theme. Same goes for Fighter/Barbarian, Cleric/Druid, etc. I would prefer something slightly closer to 2e, with four base "archetypes."
The 'path' system of 5e can be fairly easily reworked--alongside Feats--to create largely similar ideas in a more compact and straightforward way. This would ideally go hand-in-hand with no multiclassing requirements, to encourage dipping into other class 'baskets' for appropriate tools.

3.) Reduced emphasis on combat. There are plenty of things characters--especially spellcasters--could do as useful in-game concepts (perhaps as class abilities/feats, etc.), but almost all of it currently centers on what is exclusively effective for fighting or circumventing a fight. What harm is there in trimming it down and expanding a little on things like Morale, parlaying, etc.?

4.) An axe should be taken to the d20 skill system. Especially with Bounded Accuracy as-is, it would simply be easier to treat Skills as something more archetypical as well (I would say 2e's "Nonweapon Proficiency," though I consider Barbarians of Lemuria and its Careers most apt). The system at it exists now promotes constant rolling for things that really don't warrant it, and blatantly prioritizes certain attributes/skills over another (Perception).

5.) On that note: no attributes whatsoever. Their function of helping crystallize a character has now turned into an easily-optimized engine, woven heavily into the skill and combat systems. I believe that attributes--and racial modifiers--stifle creativity by promoting a "right/wrong" way to play a class, and encourage races/characters to fall into stereotypes (like the Half-Orc Barbarian, Tiefling Warlock, etc.). Inversely, it also enables characters to exist whose only claim to fame is being interesting for being unexpected, rather than characterful through player effort (like, what, a Gnome Barbarian?). Essentially, I believe removing them would not adversely affect gameplay in any way because it's a non-discriminatory top-to-bottom system change, and would encourage roleplay that doesn't use numbers as a crutch.

6.) A wholesale change to the magic system. I think it's safe to say the Vancian slots weren't a perfect system to start with, and with every edition it's become more apparent that it's insufficient to a balanced game. It's not the sole contributor to the martial/magic divide, but it's obviously part of the furniture. Changing it would cause greater scrutiny on the balance of spells in general (a good move in any event).

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Please note that at any moment you can play one of the dozen of rpgs that are not dnd and have more fun.
Why would you push dnd toward becoming more similar to other rpgs while you could pick an rpg you like that is not dnd?
There is many rpgs that does not enforce classes, flesh out better the out of combat part of their system,does not have vancian spellcasting, are balanced, does not have alignment and are not so heavily based on checks and gives tons more freedom than dnd.

I do think that any D&D 6e would downplay combat more.

Their audience wants to RP more and hours of combat get in the way. We could expect HP to go down a lot. An easy way to do that would be to remove the con mod from everyone's health.