[Sell Me] 5e. A game for a grognard?

[noob]

This is not doing is a Monty Haul Campaign. This is giving the Campaign destroying Deck of Many Things in the first session.

You can make a campaign be about 4 persons drawing 3 cards each from the deck of many things then having to fix all the problems they created.(if they do not all die)

[Willie the Duck]

You can make a campaign be about 4 persons drawing 3 cards each from the deck of many things then having to fix all the problems they created.(if they do not all die)

Well sure, if you are making the campaign about the deck of many things, than clearly it isn't going to destroy the existing campaign. I think the general point is that olskool inferred that 5e was a significant contributor in the game he was playing going off the rails, and then proceeded to explain that the DM had decided to utilize a plot event (finding a DoMT) which is designed to introduce maximum randomness into a campaign (and Envyus was pointing out that much more significant contributing factor). Exactly what small part the game being 5e (as opposed to another D&D edition) was supposed to play in this is just not clear (and massively dwarfed by this DM's apparent desire to play a mad circus, something you really have to turn your eyes and squint to say that one edition does differently than another).

[KorvinStarmast]

Watch for "bonus actions" requests that don't line up with the reality of a 6-SECOND COMBAT ROUND (no more 1 minute rounds in 5e).

5e isn't simulationist, so this makes no sense. But I agree that one needs to be attentive to when one does, or does not, have a bonus action. It is worth keeping track of.

If you are a new DM, I implore you, BE STINGY and cautious both with treasure/magic AND your Encounters. You can always ramp up the reward or the danger once you gain an understanding of both the system AND (MORE IMPORTANTLY) your group's dynamic. It's always easier to lighten up than tighten down!

This is decent advice for any beginning DM.

For the OP: it took a few reviews of the game's combat rules for me to understand the flow of combat. One thing that was different for me is that there was no roll for surprise. Surprise is mostly a DM call in this edition of the game.

Next it the "action economy" of what takes place in a round. (Six second round) Here are the five things:

---------------
Action(attack, cast a spell, dodge ..)
Move (you can always move)
Bonus Action (a game feature, a class feature or a spell usually gets you this. There isn't one available by default. So it's worth knowing who and what has a bonus action)
Reaction Also happens situationally, and most often in the early going it involves an opportunity attack.
Interact with an object (open door, draw weapon, kick over a barrel, etc)
----------

Had I understood this better during our first session I'd have had a better grasp of what to do in combat.

Also, coming from older editions, the word "Turn" is used differently.

Combat happens during a round. Each character and NPC has a Turn inside that round.

Example: three PC's versus two wolves.
The round lasts (notionally) 6 seconds. There are five turns in this round. Each PC has a turn, and each wolf has a turn.

This takes us to the reaction: it usually happens on someone else's turn. One of our PC's moves away from the wolf after attacking and missing, which movement offers the wolf an Opportunity Attack as a Reaction. This is the wolf making an attack even though it was the PC's turn.

[EggKookoo]

Also, coming from older editions, the word "Turn" is used differently.

Oh, right. Man, I completely forgot in AD&D a "turn" was something like 10 rounds?

This takes us to the reaction: it usually happens on someone else's turn. One of our PC's moves away from the wolf after attacking and missing, which movement offers the wolf an Opportunity Attack as a Reaction. This is the wolf making an attack even though it was the PC's turn.

The reaction concept was a major part of what sold me on 5e. I love reactions. When I create my own magic items, I try to give them features that leverage them.

[Jophiel]

Oh, right. Man, I completely forgot in AD&D a "turn" was something like 10 rounds?

Yeah, which would be a minute (10 rounds @ 6 sec) and is probably why even now a lot of spells last for one minute.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Yeah, which would be a minute (10 rounds @ 6 sec) and is probably why even now a lot of spells last for one minute.

Or one minute is a nice, round amount of time meaning basically "for one fight" since fights rarely go to 10 rounds but you rarely have less than 30 seconds between fights, and if you do they're really one fight in two chunks.

The durations are basically

* Now (instantaneous, single rounds)
* 1 fight (1 minute)
* a couple fights but not all day (1 hour)
* all day, but not 24 hours (8 hours)
* a long time (24+ hours)

[Willie the Duck]

Oh, right. Man, I completely forgot in AD&D a "turn" was something like 10 rounds?

Yeah, which would be a minute (10 rounds @ 6 sec) and is probably why even now a lot of spells last for one minute.

A turn in TSR-D&D was always 10 minutes, but how long a round was varied between editions (10 seconds, 1 minute, possibly something else). Regardless, it was always linguistically challenging because you also wanted to use the term as it is in 5e ('your turn,' 'their turn,' etc. in combat or similar). Not that we don't still have dungeon levels, character levels, class levels, spell levels (both spell and slot, now), and so on...

[Jophiel]

A turn in TSR-D&D was always 10 minutes

Haha, you're right. I laugh because I originally thought this, then thought "I should double check" and Googled it, the top result was a GitP thread titled AD&D - 10 rounds in 1 turn and so I thought "Hey, guess I was remembering wrong and a turn was one minute which makes sense"

There's a lesson there but I haven't figured it out yet

[EggKookoo]

Haha, you're right. I laugh because I originally thought this, then thought "I should double check" and Googled it, the top result was a GitP thread titled AD&D - 10 rounds in 1 turn and so I thought "Hey, guess I was remembering wrong and a turn was one minute which makes sense"

There's a lesson there but I haven't figured it out yet

I made the same mistake.

[Envyus]

...as long as you're prepared to ignore official WotC spokesman Jeremy Crawford's tweets telling them that the rule is actually supposed to be this totally opposite thing either (1) because of technicality XYZ in jargon of the rules text, or (2) because Jeremy Crawford has an opinion different than the rules text.

In other words, 5E's rules are simple in the same way all RPG rules are simple when you interpret them simply. They're quite a bit more complicated than OD&D's rules, and are about as complicated as AD&D's rules once you finish accounting for bonus actions and different kinds of feats and exception-based class abilities. AD&D's complexity shows up mostly in the form of certain tables that you need to consult for e.g. saving throws or thief skills; 5E's complexity shows up in the form of rule exceptions that you need to remember to apply in certain situations. But if you don't sweat mistakes too much, neither form of complexity will prevent you from having a good time with your friends this game session.

Crawford has also said you are free to ignore any of his rulings on Twitter.

Well sure, if you are making the campaign about the deck of many things, than clearly it isn't going to destroy the existing campaign. I think the general point is that olskool inferred that 5e was a significant contributor in the game he was playing going off the rails, and then proceeded to explain that the DM had decided to utilize a plot event (finding a DoMT) which is designed to introduce maximum randomness into a campaign (and Envyus was pointing out that much more significant contributing factor). Exactly what small part the game being 5e (as opposed to another D&D edition) was supposed to play in this is just not clear (and massively dwarfed by this DM's apparent desire to play a mad circus, something you really have to turn your eyes and squint to say that one edition does differently than another).

Also the Deck of Many Things is a campaign destroying risk in any edition of D&D.

[KorvinStarmast]

A turn in TSR-D&D was always 10 minutes, but how long a round was varied between editions (10 seconds, 1 minute, possibly something else). Regardless, it was always linguistically challenging because you also wanted to use the term as it is in 5e ('your turn,' 'their turn,' etc. in combat or similar). Not that we don't still have dungeon levels, character levels, class levels, spell levels (both spell and slot, now), and so on...

And then there are/were segments. *hair pulling commences*

We did the segment thing for a while, and it only worked when one of the players assisted the DM by keeping track of which segment it was and who was up in a given segment ... when a DM had to keep track of that by him/her self, arrrggghhh.

[MaxWilson]

Crawford has also said you are free to ignore any of his rulings on Twitter.

Sure, and that's my point: you can simplify any game. E.g. you can ignore the saving throw tables in AD&D and just make up numbers that sound pretty good, especially if the player rolls a high number which you're pretty sure would pass even if you did look it up). In AD&D or 5E, you can avoid assigning class levels to unimportant enemy wizards and just assign them HP and a few choice spells that they'll cast at first opportunity.

Once you account for the fact that DMs don't need to do useless work, every game gets pretty simple. But 5E starts at a relatively high level of complexity before you do that simplification, which is why WotC has an official "rules manager" with a Twitter account.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Sure, and that's my point: you can simplify any game. E.g. you can ignore the saving throw tables in AD&D and just make up numbers that sound pretty good, especially if the player rolls a high number which you're pretty sure would pass even if you did look it up). In AD&D or 5E, you can avoid assigning class levels to unimportant enemy wizards and just assign them HP and a few choice spells that they'll cast at first opportunity.

Once you account for the fact that DMs don't need to do useless work, every game gets pretty simple. But 5E starts at a relatively high level of complexity before you do that simplification, which is why WotC has an official "rules manager" with a Twitter account.

Honestly? I'm anti-complexity myself, and 5e isn't that complex. It's way easier to run than 4e, where I started. Because there are fewer interacting parts. And unless you mess with the core parts, changes are relatively limited. And few stacks of modifiers, especially conditional modifiers. The numbers are static and you don't have to look up a dozen different rules just to run a single monster. Spell-casters are the worst, but since they don't tend to live long and concentration's a thing, it doesn't end up being that bad. Cast a concentration spell on turn 1 and do simple stuff from there.

The problem people have with 5e is that they try to pull the rules out of the underlying philosophy. They skim through looking for numbers and miss the soul. They confuse mechanics with rules and ignore the descriptions. That, or they're loophole hunting. Which afflicts all systems to one degree or another.

[MaxWilson]

Honestly? I'm anti-complexity myself, and 5e isn't that complex. It's way easier to run than 4e, where I started. Because there are fewer interacting parts. And unless you mess with the core parts, changes are relatively limited. And few stacks of modifiers, especially conditional modifiers. The numbers are static and you don't have to look up a dozen different rules just to run a single monster. Spell-casters are the worst, but since they don't tend to live long and concentration's a thing, it doesn't end up being that bad. Cast a concentration spell on turn 1 and do simple stuff from there.

The problem people have with 5e is that they try to pull the rules out of the underlying philosophy. They skim through looking for numbers and miss the soul. They confuse mechanics with rules and ignore the descriptions. That, or they're loophole hunting. Which afflicts all systems to one degree or another.

Well, yeah. 4E is more complex and widget-y. But the OP isn't coming from 4E, he's coming from TSR-era D&D, so 4E isn't a useful point of comparison for him.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Well, yeah. 4E is more complex and widget-y. But the OP isn't coming from 4E, he's coming from TSR-era D&D, so 4E isn't a useful point of comparison for him.

I've only read the 2E PHB/DMG. And that was so complex (how many different, mutually-incompatible ways of resolving actions were there? 23? 999? (being hyperbolic there)) and so table-driven (and so poorly laid out and edited) that I gave up halfway through, even though I'd played Baldur's Gate and other Infinity Engine games so I know the "flow."

I'd say 5e is orders of magnitude less complex that TSR era D&D outside of maybe Basic.

[MaxWilson]

I've only read the 2E PHB/DMG. And that was so complex (how many different, mutually-incompatible ways of resolving actions were there? 23? 999? (being hyperbolic there)) and so table-driven (and so poorly laid out and edited) that I gave up halfway through, even though I'd played Baldur's Gate and other Infinity Engine games so I know the "flow."

I'd say 5e is orders of magnitude less complex that TSR era D&D outside of maybe Basic.

It's as easy to ignore an AD&D table as it is to ignore a 5E rule like "Create Thrall only imposes the charmed condition on your 'thrall', it doesn't do anything useful like make him obey you." (Arguably that one is more a lack of a 5E rule but whatever.)

In TSR-era AD&D, the focus was on the game fiction first and foremost, so adjudicating rules and exceptions is easy: you just think, "What would be a realistic outcome?" The tables you see are an outgrowth of that naturalism, because most things in real life are more complex than an ability check can represent, but you are free to ignore those tables or make up your own or just wing it. (5E generally just expects the DM to wing it for everything outside of combat, so it doesn't even make non-combat rules in the first place.)

5E expects DMs to come up with a realistic outcome, and then shoehorn that outcome into the ability check framework (compare d20 + mods against a fixed DC) so that class abilities like Reliable Talent and Lucky can apply. It empowers the players more, because they have more control than they would over an AD&D-style ad hoc ruling, but it is more complex.

[EggKookoo]

There's also a difference between being complicated because there are unique rules and systems for each different facet of the game (1e/2e) and being complicated because there are variations or overrides for a single core set of rules (3e+). Then there's complicated for DMs (2e/3e) and simple for DMs (1e/5e, not sure about 4e).

I think 3e brought a lot to the table by unifying rules and streamlining a lot of concepts. Love or hate the d20 system itself, at least it gave D&D a single, unified mechanic that it could hang most everything else off of. At the same time, I think it was a mistake to encourage so many minor +/- bonuses, and as a DM I find the concept that NPCs should be built around the same rules as PCs to be terribly misguided.

So "complex" can mean different things. As a programmer, I can write very complex code, but I try to approach a project with a code-design philosophy that uses (and reuses) simple concepts.

[EggKookoo]

5E expects DMs to come up with a realistic outcome, and then shoehorn that outcome into the ability check framework (compare d20 + mods against a fixed DC) so that class abilities like Reliable Talent and Lucky can apply. It empowers the players more, because they have more control than they would over an AD&D-style ad hoc ruling, but it is more complex.

I see 5e as acknowledging that the mechanics are ultimately just showing you the result of what happened, rather than being a driving force for what happens. That's why, for example, advantage doesn't stack. The actual probability of something succeeding is way too complicated to calculate with great precision, so we at the table just get the results to the nearest 5%.

[MaxWilson]

Love or hate the d20 system itself, at least it gave D&D a single, unified mechanic that it could hang most everything else off of.

But it doesn't--it just makes DMs ignore all mechanics that don't fit into that single unified mechanic.

Look at what happened to morale checks and Reaction rolls over the course of the past few editions. In AD&D, when you meet a monster, if they're not obviously hostile, you have a chance to parley with them and test their reactions. In AD&D, Charisma influences this to a minor degree but it's mostly up to luck and the DM's judgment. I didn't play 3E, but from what I understand, they converted it into a Persuasion roll and then discovered that was stupidly overpowered, and in 5E this has become an odd combination of "the DM decides if they're friendly/hostile/whatever" and "you can change hostiles into neutrals or friendlies with a successful Persuasion check, if the DM thinks that's plausible." What's really happened here is that because Reaction rolls don't fit well into the ability check framework (too easy to game), the mechanic has gone away almost entirely.

Other examples are numerous, but it should be obvious for example that the mechanic for the economic effects of opening a new trade route are not well-modeled with a d20 ability check. "How much will my barony's income increase if I clear the giants out of the Sondheim Mountain Pass so that merchants can go through it?" It doesn't make sense for things like Expertise and Enhance Ability to change these results, so either you wind up inventing your own mechanics anyway, just like you would have in AD&D, or do a bad job of it and the players eventually give up and stop doing stuff like that, and stick to killing monsters. That's not an improvement over AD&D. It's not even simpler, it's just more simplistic.

There are a number of other 3E-driven "simplifications" that have harmed the game over the years, and I'll cite cyclic initiative as probably the worst one, but the point is that too much emphasis on unified mechanics is sometimes harmful to play.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In TSR-era AD&D, the focus was on the game fiction first and foremost, so adjudicating rules and exceptions is easy: you just think, "What would be a realistic outcome?" The tables you see are an outgrowth of that naturalism, because most things in real life are more complex than an ability check can represent, but you are free to ignore those tables or make up your own or just wing it. (5E generally just expects the DM to wing it for everything outside of combat, so it doesn't even make non-combat rules in the first place.)

But in AD&D did an absolutely miserable job of actually telling you that, and an even worse job of actually being realistic. Its tables were arbitrary and reflected all sorts of horrifically wrong assumptions about reality. And didn't account for the fact that reality need not apply to a fictional world.

And simulationism and fiction-first are actually at odds. Because the rules don't give anything like the fiction. No playable set of rules can ever give you anything like reality. That's why nobody played AD&D straight--it was the most house-ruled thing ever. Because doing it straight just gave you garbage. And not even fun garbage in my opinion. You had to ignore things or the game just didn't work (or wasn't playable). 5e doesn't have that issue because it consciously separates the rules from the fiction. The rules are there merely for the game to play smoothly, not for the underlying fiction.

And 5e does have non-combat rules, they're just not hard-and-fast ones because it realizes that reality is way too complex to codify. They're more like guidelines. AD&D tried to give these rules (reaction rules among others) and fell down hard. 3e doubled down on that and ended up with diplomancy.

Not that 5e is perfect, but it's a substantial improvement on the earlier editions in every meaningful way from my point of view. I think of it as the "best parts" version of D&D. Take the parts that worked well from every edition and add some new "glue". Leave out the parts that were borken.

[MaxWilson]

But in AD&D did an absolutely miserable job of actually telling you that, and an even worse job of actually being realistic. Its tables were arbitrary and reflected all sorts of horrifically wrong assumptions about reality. And didn't account for the fact that reality need not apply to a fictional world.

And simulationism and fiction-first are actually at odds. Because the rules don't give anything like the fiction. No playable set of rules can ever give you anything like reality. That's why nobody played AD&D straight--it was the most house-ruled thing ever.

Seems like those DMs didn't have any trouble getting the message.

The lack of unified mechanics is one of the things that makes AD&D easy to house-rule. You can change the way invisibility works, for example you can import 5E's disadvantage mechanic for invisible foes instead of giving a -4 to-hit penalty, and nothing breaks because the system is loosely coupled. No 3E-style exploits emerge.

The downside of course is that because the system is so decoupled, players have less power to influence the narrative in AD&D. You don't have heavily mechanical class abilities like a 5E PC does (bonus action Hide and +17 to Stealth by level 3!) that give you confidence you're prepared for almost anything the game throws at you. You're more at the mercy of whatever happens in play and what the DM decides is realistic. It's a very different style of play, and the OP should be aware of the differences before believing people who tell him that 5E is "simple."

Because doing it straight just gave you garbage. And not even fun garbage in my opinion. You had to ignore things or the game just didn't work (or wasn't playable). 5e doesn't have that issue because it consciously separates the rules from the fiction. The rules are there merely for the game to play smoothly, not for the underlying fiction.

And 5e does have non-combat rules, they're just not hard-and-fast ones because it realizes that reality is way too complex to codify. They're more like guidelines. AD&D tried to give these rules (reaction rules among others) and fell down hard. 3e doubled down on that and ended up with diplomancy.

Not that 5e is perfect, but it's a substantial improvement on the earlier editions in every meaningful way from my point of view. I think of it as the "best parts" version of D&D. Take the parts that worked well from every edition and add some new "glue". Leave out the parts that were borken.

I thought you said you didn't even play 2E, you just read the book once? What's the source for your opinions about AD&D gameplay?

[EggKookoo]

But it doesn't--it just makes DMs ignore all mechanics that don't fit into that single unified mechanic.

Look at what happened to morale checks and Reaction rolls over the course of the past few editions. In AD&D, when you meet a monster, if they're not obviously hostile, you have a chance to parley with them and test their reactions. In AD&D, Charisma influences this to a minor degree but it's mostly up to luck and the DM's judgment. I didn't play 3E, but from what I understand, they converted it into a Persuasion roll and then discovered that was stupidly overpowered, and in 5E this has become an odd combination of "the DM decides if they're friendly/hostile/whatever" and "you can change hostiles into neutrals or friendlies with a successful Persuasion check, if the DM thinks that's plausible." What's really happened here is that because Reaction rolls don't fit well into the ability check framework (too easy to game), the mechanic has gone away almost entirely.

I'm not sold on that conclusion. It seems just as likely to me that attempting to model a complex roleplaying aspect with a single roll felt wrong to the players. Or there simply weren't enough players who bothered to parlay. Gotta get your phat lewt after all.

If it were that simple, D&D would have done away with hit points. That doesn't use anything like a d20 check. I've actually toyed with the idea of bypassing HP and going with a kind of Constitution "did I get badly injured?" check but I've come to realize having a nice simple linear degradation of health is intuitively comfortable for play. I didn't mean to imply that every last mechanic needed or should have been made into a d20 check, just that most of them were. Those that operate outside that mechanic often do so for a reason.

Other examples are numerous, but it should be obvious for example that the mechanic for the economic effects of opening a new trade route are not well-modeled with a d20 ability check. "How much will my barony's income increase if I clear the giants out of the Sondheim Mountain Pass so that merchants can go through it?" It doesn't make sense for things like Expertise and Enhance Ability to change these results, so either you wind up inventing your own mechanics anyway, just like you would have in AD&D, or do a bad job of it and the players eventually give up and stop doing stuff like that, and stick to killing monsters. That's not an improvement over AD&D. It's not even simpler, it's just more simplistic.

I would argue you shouldn't be trying to wrap something that complex into a single mechanic in the first place. Going further extreme for the sake of illustration, you certainly wouldn't want the game to consist of you creating your first level character and then immediately making a "level up" check to see if they jump to 2nd (and then so on). The economic effect of opening a new trade route isn't a mechanic -- it's playing the game. Ideally you'd run that without dice at all.

There are a number of other 3E-driven "simplifications" that have harmed the game over the years, and I'll cite cyclic initiative as probably the worst one, but the point is that too much emphasis on unified mechanics is sometimes harmful to play.

I was a "reroll init each round" purist for decades until I finally tried just rolling it once at the beginning of combat. I even had another old school 2e player in my group who expressed resistance to the idea. First fight we tried it, we were both immediate converts. Although I'm tempted to try popcorn my next campaign...

[MaxWilson]

I would argue you shouldn't be trying to wrap something that complex into a single mechanic in the first place. Going further extreme for the sake of illustration, you certainly wouldn't want the game to consist of you creating your first level character and then immediately making a "level up" check to see if they jump to 2nd (and then so on). The economic effect of opening a new trade route isn't a mechanic -- it's playing the game. Ideally you'd run that without dice at all.

If you want a game that has lots of action around economics and opening up trade routes (as a motivation for adventuring), you will need mechanics for what happens when players succeed in their action (opening up this particular trade route), so they can make an informed decisions about the risk/rewards involved. Meaningful play requires informed decisions, not just about the consequences of actions but also about the action space. See The Alexandrian's writings on game structures for an example, but in short, when the DM says "What do you do?" if you want the answer to be "We try to open a new trade route!" the players need to both know that "open a new trade route" is a valid action declaration (akin to "we go through the north door"), and what is likely to happen if they declare it (e.g. "the DM will roll a new dungeon on the Obstacles table and plop us down outside it, and if we neutralize the inhabitants of the dungeon we get to roll on the Economic Rewards table").

I've played games like this in 5E, and they work, but 5E is no help at all for running such campaigns because 5E only really has rules for combat. AD&D isn't much more help, but at least AD&D is used to having lots of ad hoc tables and non-unified mechanics, and it has better pacing and more options for resolving said challenges in a non-combat-oriented way (like negotiating with the dungeon's monstrous inhabitants to join your barony as your vassals instead of killing them).

[EggKookoo]

If you want a game that has lots of action around economics and opening up trade routes (as a motivation for adventuring), you will need mechanics for what happens when players succeed in their action (opening up this particular trade route), so they can make an informed decisions about the risk/rewards involved. Meaningful play requires informed decisions, not just about the consequences of actions but also about the action space. See The Alexandrian's writings on game structures for an example, but in short, when the DM says "What do you do?" if you want the answer to be "We try to open a new trade route!" the players need to both know that "open a new trade route" is a valid action declaration (akin to "we go through the north door"), and what is likely to happen if they declare it (e.g. "the DM will roll a new dungeon on the Obstacles table and plop us down outside it, and if we neutralize the inhabitants of the dungeon we get to roll on the Economic Rewards table").

I guess I'm baffled why any player would ever think "we open a trade route" wouldn't be a valid course of action (if a bit simplistic -- it's really a series of actions). The idea that I would have a player say "we decided to open a trade route" and then expect to roll on a table (or for me to) to determine the final result is just downright alien. As a DM, I'd say "ok, how do you plan to do that?" to which I'd expect the players to form some kind of plan. Maybe they plan to dig up some investors. Maybe they try to persuade the king. Whatever it is, we'd play it out from there.

I've played games like this in 5E, and they work, but 5E is no help at all for running such campaigns because 5E only really has rules for combat. AD&D isn't much more help, but at least AD&D is used to having lots of ad hoc tables and non-unified mechanics, and it has better pacing and more options for resolving said challenges in a non-combat-oriented way (like negotiating with the dungeon's monstrous inhabitants to join your barony as your vassals instead of killing them).

The 5e DMG has plenty of rules for worldbuilding and non-combat encounters. I bet you could even find something to help you work out an "open a trade route" adventure. What you won't find is a single "open a trade route" mechanic with the expectation that you just roll a die and POOF you have a trade route.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I guess I'm baffled why any player would ever think "we open a trade route" wouldn't be a valid course of action (if a bit simplistic -- it's really a series of actions). The idea that I would have a player say "we decided to open a trade route" and then expect to roll on a table (or for me to) to determine the final result is just downright alien. As a DM, I'd say "ok, how do you plan to do that?" to which I'd expect the players to form some kind of plan. Maybe they plan to dig up some investors. Maybe they try to persuade the king. Whatever it is, we'd play it out from there.

The 5e DMG has plenty of rules for worldbuilding and non-combat encounters. I bet you could even find something to help you work out an "open a trade route" adventure. What you won't find is a single "open a trade route" mechanic with the expectation that you just roll a die and POOF you have a trade route.

Right. Abstracting something as complex as a trade route (or an alliance, which several of my groups have done) behind a mechanic or a table is baffling and the absolute opposite of trying for realism or verisimilitude. That's an campaign hook, not a mechanical declaration to be resolved. That'd be like saying "I beat the final boss" and rolling on a table to see if you do. It's rather missing the whole point of the game.

[Knaight]

Sure, and that's my point: you can simplify any game. E.g. you can ignore the saving throw tables in AD&D and just make up numbers that sound pretty good, especially if the player rolls a high number which you're pretty sure would pass even if you did look it up). In AD&D or 5E, you can avoid assigning class levels to unimportant enemy wizards and just assign them HP and a few choice spells that they'll cast at first opportunity.

Once you account for the fact that DMs don't need to do useless work, every game gets pretty simple. But 5E starts at a relatively high level of complexity before you do that simplification, which is why WotC has an official "rules manager" with a Twitter account.

It's pretty far from every game. There's really no way around Phoenix Command being a total mess besides just not using it, there's more than a few that take serious effort to even understand, written by people who make Gygax look like a lucid writer. More than that some games strip down better than others. Take GURPS, which is intentionally very modular where you can just remove one module and it doesn't take anything else with it. Compare to 3e D&D where all the pieces are connected and if you pull one out you get to go edit the rest to accommodate.

5e is on the crunchy side, and the whole idea that it's rules light is hilarious (rules light games don't have 900+ pages of core rules books. 9, sure. 90, maybe, though that's either at the edge of rules light and doesn't use very dense text or is really setting heavy. 900? No.) 5e is pretty modular, and can be streamlined pretty easily.

[MaxWilson]

I guess I'm baffled why any player would ever think "we open a trade route" wouldn't be a valid course of action (if a bit simplistic -- it's really a series of actions). The idea that I would have a player say "we decided to open a trade route" and then expect to roll on a table (or for me to) to determine the final result is just downright alien. As a DM, I'd say "ok, how do you plan to do that?" to which I'd expect the players to form some kind of plan. Maybe they plan to dig up some investors. Maybe they try to persuade the king. Whatever it is, we'd play it out from there.

There's the disconnect--you don't know a game structure for trade routes, so you're treating "we open a trade route" as an invalid action declaration that has to be translated into a series of smaller action declarations instead of a valid action declaration which triggers known procedures. I know this is happening in your head because you say right here that you'd decline to let the players declare "we open a trade route," and you'd wind up asking them to rephrase their action at a different level of detail. This is like The Alexandrian's example of a player who tries to declare "we go to the inn" and the DM who only knowns dungeon crawling procedures and starts describing all of the streets in the town and asking "do you go north, south, east, or west?"

It's not that dungeon crawling procedures are wrong, and it's not that every campaign should use trade routes as game structures--you only do that if you want trade routes to be important in your campaign, and that's the whole point. The point is that game structures are the bridge between "what do the PCs do?" and "how do the players and the DM do it?" Play gravitates to areas of structure, so campaigns with a trade route game structure (and a default action of "open a new trade route") are going to have a certain sandboxy style, and campaigns where all of the game structure is about who gets to make an attack roll next in combat are going to have a completely different hack-and-slash style ("I hit it with my axe"). No one game structure is the right tool for every campaign, but the more game structures you know, the more kinds of games you are capable of running well.

It may take you a couple of rereads to really grok it, but I cannot recommend this series of blog posts highly enough. It should be required reading for non-hack-and-slash DMs: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress...ame-structures Posts 1-5 and #14 are especially good, and this follow-up post is useful too: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress...party-planning

The 5e DMG has plenty of rules for worldbuilding and non-combat encounters. I bet you could even find something to help you work out an "open a trade route" adventure. What you won't find is a single "open a trade route" mechanic with the expectation that you just roll a die and POOF you have a trade route.

I.e. what you won't find is game structures.

[MaxWilson]

It's pretty far from every game. There's really no way around Phoenix Command being a total mess besides just not using it, there's more than a few that take serious effort to even understand, written by people who make Gygax look like a lucid writer. More than that some games strip down better than others. Take GURPS, which is intentionally very modular where you can just remove one module and it doesn't take anything else with it. Compare to 3e D&D where all the pieces are connected and if you pull one out you get to go edit the rest to accommodate.

5e is on the crunchy side, and the whole idea that it's rules light is hilarious (rules light games don't have 900+ pages of core rules books. 9, sure. 90, maybe, though that's either at the edge of rules light and doesn't use very dense text or is really setting heavy. 900? No. However 5e is also pretty modular, and can be streamlined pretty easily.

I defer to your greater knowledge of games, Knaight. Thanks for the correction.

[PhoenixPhyre]

There is no way "I open a trade route" is a single, one-character action in any reasonable game. It's always going to be a long, drawn-out, multi-step action involving lots and lots of people over many occasions. And if you abstract it away to a single resolvable action...you're playing a very different game. Which does not resemble a single-character-focused, single-point-of-view system like D&D has ever been at all.

[noob]

There is no way "I open a trade route" is a single, one-character action in any reasonable game. It's always going to be a long, drawn-out, multi-step action involving lots and lots of people over many occasions. And if you abstract it away to a single resolvable action...you're playing a very different game. Which does not resemble a single-character-focused, single-point-of-view system like D&D has ever been at all.

Well once you start having a whole city under your control(because you are the employer of most businesses) and that you have to declare the opening of each shop and to create routes between production sites, storage, shops and markets and place each building on a map if you need to say at each time "I go meet planner guy A and tell him to go recruit a merchant and buy the housing at the spot I pointed at the map and then tell the merchant ....." it can feel very heavy especially if there is like 50 kinds of different logistic problems to manage and that you each time have to meet people and tell them stuff and so due to that have to cast spells to tell if they are lying and also have to ask them to confirm they understood what you meant and so on the game will drag on and on.

As the scale of the actions of the adventurers goes up it makes sense as long as it is not something that they could fail that the overall problem stays at a constant declaration complexity thus possibly making actions that would have been long to describe but with no or low chance of mistake into simple actions.(you can still probably roll a dice for possible complications such as delays or oppositions)