Dungeon Craft: Critical Role, Pokemon, and the Future of D&D

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TristramEvans

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So this video attracted some attention in one of the online groups I frequent, and I watched it, and I don't know what I think



To a certain extent, I think a lot of it is complaints I've heard for the last 20 years - "D&D used to be hardcore, now every character is a special snowflake", and there is a general air of "Boomerism" to the whole rant. And I'm not certain how he goes from optional rules from magical pets in a supplement to thinking 6th edition D&D is going to be all about superpowered furries (maybe he was just making a lame joke, repeatedly,).

Now, I don't really care about 5th edition D&D (or 6th edition for that matter). Having played it, I can say it's a system I'd never want to GM, but for whatever flaws it has (subjective or objective), at least its recognizeable as D&D, unlike 4th edition. But D&D is no longer solely in the hands of a corporation who get to define the be all and end all of the game. The OSR exists. Reprints and secondhand copies of previous editions exist. People can play the type of game that they want and aren't beholden to WoTC or Hasbro. In fact, my only strong negative feelings towards the game negin and end with people repeating the mistakes of the D20 era and treating it like a universal system to adapt completely inappropriate IPs (*cough* Hellboy *cough*).

But he makes one point I found interesting, when he theorizes that what D&D 5th is providing is not what players (in this case specifically calling out millenials) want. That by making characters OP, with no sense of struggle or capacity for failure, that they are robbing players of the experience that presumably classic D&D provided. going so far as to name drop the popularity of such games as Dark Souls and Kingdom Death to make his point. I couldn't say how universal this sentiment is. Dark Souls and Kingdom Death both have their hardcore fans (myself included in regards to the second one), but I don't think they have mass appeal. I think KD specifically would probably be a frustrating experience for your "average gamer". It almost fetishizes failure. But does modern D&D go to far in the other direction, so that the "easy win" conditions will likewise leave a large portion of the audience unsatisfied?

Anyways, just thoughts I'm turning over in my head.
 
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If they weren't having fun, I'd think we would know about it.


I think it depends if the theoretical "they" there have any basis for comparison, which is why the position of D&D as the gateway/flagship product for the hobby is often used as the basis for validating criticism.
 
The assumptions of bog-standard D&D have changed over all these years. It was inevitable.

The problems I have with D&D are the assumptions players bring to the table simply because content exists, they assume all that content exists in whatever setting they choose to sit down at the table and play in. I see very little contextualization of many of the elements now common to "D&D".

The number of Tieflings, and other previously non-standard species simply running around without any cultural context is odd to me in regular D&D. Contextualize it in Spelljammer, or Planescape? Hell yeah, no problem. Tieflings, Half-drow, Aaracockra, Genasi, Goliaths, Kenku, Yuan Ti's chilling in the village of Homlett (yes I'm being mildly hyperbolic - but I've seen PC groups at my local gaming store comprised of groups not too far from this) - ehhhhh not really.

Magic is everywhere, and to the degree that the GM's actually consider how all this magic would affect their "setting" (guess it doesn't matter if they're just running AP's) so it comes off as very different than the assumptions of 1e/2e and obviously Basic editions.

But hey, if people are having fun with it - enjoy. I'm less interested in the system than I am the elements of the game which I can easily filter.
 
The problems I have with D&D are the assumptions players bring to the table simply because content exists, they assume all that content exists in whatever setting they choose to sit down at the table and play in. I see very little contextualization of many of the elements now common to "D&D".

My problem as well. They are also less likely to accept a reduction in the kitchen sink options the game makes them feel entitled to because they have so many other things they could spend their time on instead. They don't even have to be confrontational about it, the game just doesn't happen. Life goes on, you're still friends, your finely crafted D&D campaign doesn't materialize.

"Oh, no aarakocra in your campaign world? Well I guess I'll pass then, good luck finding other players. I'll just go play that highly niche video game that fits my needs exactly. By the way, you still on for DotA2 this weekend?"
 
Somehow, when you tell that millenial hipster douchebag that he can't play his pet flying race because you're "following the fiction" that doesn't carry the same weight as when he uses that same explanation about his shitty PvP shenanigans. Go figure.
 
Somehow, when you tell that millenial hipster douchebag that he can't play his pet flying race because you're "following the fiction" that doesn't carry the same weight as when he uses that same explanation about his shitty PvP shenanigans. Go figure.

In my experience, PvP assholes and pet race douchebags were two very different groups of people.

But I hate gamers. It’s why I stick to my group pretty much exclusively.
 
I dunno, Call of Cthulhu is probably as popular as it ever has been and people seem to enjoy the helpless characters doomed to tragic fates. I think the extensive player options stuff is just the best thing to sell players who are exclusively in the player seat. GMs can buy all these settings and adventures and games and customize everything to their heart's content, but if you're are just a player the only thing you have to buy and spend time toying with between sessions is your character.
It's not for me, but I can't be bothered to get upset about how other people play their games.
 
My problem as well. They are also less likely to accept a reduction in the kitchen sink options the game makes them feel entitled to because they have so many other things they could spend their time on instead. They don't even have to be confrontational about it, the game just doesn't happen. Life goes on, you're still friends, your finely crafted D&D campaign doesn't materialize.
By expanding the amount of core options though, D&D's expanded the amount of character stories it can tell, and the amount of hooks it has for players; there are more things to say "yes, I will play D&D because it has this thing which excites me!" about.
 
There never was a decade where you could rely on what assumptions players had when they arrived at your table. All the ills we have to day were back in the day. Just expressed differently. So there wasn't feats and builds but there were magic items and loadouts. Maybe it because I live in a rural area all my life so every group or individual I ran into was eccentric. Perhaps in a way a large college town or a major city wasn't.

My approach to dealing with this basically involves
  • Be clear about the approach one takes.
  • Be friendly.
  • Be prepared to coach the players if needed.
  • Understand you are not going to win them all.
Doing this I was able to keep campaigns going for decades with system that were uncommonly used in my region like the Hero System and GURPS.

And yes I met players who had unmovable idea of how the system was supposed to be played, how a campaign was supposed to be run. How that opinion was expressed varied. Some came across as rules lawyers, others roleplayed how they saw fit to the point where is disrupted the group. And so on.

I don't care what the mainstream is at the moment. I will make note it just because I am interested in my hobby but how it changes doesn't change the issue I face. Unless the players are friend familiar with my campaign, I have to go through the same process every time. Get to know the player, see where they are coming from, understand what they are interested in. With game store and conventions session this process is obviously shallow but here experience as a referee along with involvement in various forms of organized gaming helps.

Part of my attitude is fueled by my interest in running sandbox campaign. If you are going to run a sandbox and have fun then you have to be flexible and for the most part disabuse yourself of any notion of how the campaign ought to go. Well I long learned not to assume how players ought to be in-game. Out of game is a different story I am more insistent on good sportsmanship and good manners. Also there some in-game lines as well. For example when it all said and done and fairly setup the situation is what it is, deal with it.
 
My problem as well. They are also less likely to accept a reduction in the kitchen sink options the game makes them feel entitled to because they have so many other things they could spend their time on instead. They don't even have to be confrontational about it, the game just doesn't happen. Life goes on, you're still friends, your finely crafted D&D campaign doesn't materialize.
My impulse is to agree with you, especially since D&D keeps shoehorning its races into the 'default' settings. Dragonborn and Tieflings and Turtlemen and stuff in Forgotten Realms and so on. It is harder to pitch a D&D that hits the default assumptions that a TSR-era player would expect to newer players without seeming like you're just arbitrarily restricting options out of grognardism.
On the other hand, I think it's always been a problem that players want to bring something stupid that doesn't fit the setting to the table. Isn't that the whole basis of Arduin? I started playing in the 2e era and there was plenty of splat with ridiculous material. Dragon Magazine has always presented silly options to players who wanted them.
So really it's a player problem. It's a shame your friend doesn't fit the game you want to run, but hoping WotC doesn't give them the options in the first place is a weird way to handle that.
I think DMs would benefit from making their campaigns even further from D&D defaults. It's probably easier to pitch a game that is very uniquely your setting, with X, Y, Z options, over WotC-world-minus-bird-people.
 
I’m always stunned at this whole “5e characters are invincible” take. I ran two campaigns and had a 75% death rate across the two parties (one was a TPK).
I'm the GM on the 5E game we are running (Lost Mines of Phandelver) and after 12 sessions, the party almost had a TPK twice so far. Grognards gonna grognard.
 
I'm the GM on the 5E game we are running (Lost Mines of Phandelver) and after 12 sessions, the party almost had a TPK twice so far. Grognards gonna grognard.
I ran Phandelver up to clearing out the Redbrands hideout. We had a character death in the first goblin cave and would've had a TPK on their first foray into the hideout if they hadn't run away, and had prepared their escape route. Characters are more powerful than in the OSR games I prefer, but I didn't see anything that would prevent me from tuning the challenge to the way I like it.
 
When we played 5th, we came close to a couple TPKs, but lucky enough to turn the tide with some good tactics and dice rolling. I think that when folks at WoTC went about designing 5e, they took note of what most people they asked found fun. Then they asked the people who were play testing it if they had fun, and kept going. Different people have different definitions of what makes a fun game, WoTC probably went with what most people they talked to thought delivered the most fun.

For most people, RPG's are a game that is played for fun- I hope that all people play them for fun. Some groups are going to enjoy playing games that are more wild and woolly, while other's want things that give them the feeling of realism. As for this edition or that edition being the real D&D- they all are real D&D. Dungeons and Dragons is going to be what it is for that edition, and that's ok. These are games, not tools for life lessons on fair vs unfair or diminishing other people for how they play. I think too often other bullshit people have on their minds gets brought into this hobby.
 
In terms of people finding the right RPG for them the fact D&D is so dominant in the market that newbies see it as synonymous with RPGs.

But I doubt that most newbies aren't enjoying 5e. I base this on the fact they aren't making nine minute videos whining about it.

I'm less and less tolerant of this whole argument. The same people who claim that younger players are "mollycoddled" and "lazy" are too mollycoddled and lazy to go and learn another RPG if D&D isn't for them.

"WAH WAH WAH I DON'T LIKE THE GAME AND IT SHOULD CATER TO ME WAH WAH WAH".

There's even less excuse for this with the rise of the OSR. If you want a game *exactly* like the D&D you used to play it's out there. If you want "D&D but Planet of the Apes" it's out there too. There's no excuse for just sitting back and expecting stuff on a plate.
 
My problem as well. They are also less likely to accept a reduction in the kitchen sink options the game makes them feel entitled to because they have so many other things they could spend their time on instead. They don't even have to be confrontational about it, the game just doesn't happen. Life goes on, you're still friends, your finely crafted D&D campaign doesn't materialize.

This must vary locally because it's the direct opposite of my experience.

Last group of newbies I had turning up asking for D&D did so because that's what they'd heard of. After a quick pitch they all signed up for my Dreadful Secrets of Candlewick Manor game instead. Understandably, they just hadn't known a game like that was even an option.
 
By expanding the amount of core options though, D&D's expanded the amount of character stories it can tell, and the amount of hooks it has for players; there are more things to say "yes, I will play D&D because it has this thing which excites me!" about.

Doesn't mean a reliable number of DMs will have the creative ability or desire to satisfy those hooks.

Then again, I have no data. I actually wonder what percentage of DMs is totally enthusiastic about "all Mos Eisley Cantina all the time" campaigns.

It's a shame your friend doesn't fit the game you want to run, but hoping WotC doesn't give them the options in the first place is a weird way to handle that.

Human history is all about giving humans things they were better off not having, then quietly making the best of it forevermore because "you can't put the genie back in the bottle."

I think DMs would benefit from making their campaigns even further from D&D defaults. It's probably easier to pitch a game that is very uniquely your setting, with X, Y, Z options, over WotC-world-minus-bird-people.

I'm going to make an argument based on a gut feeling rather than any logic or data, so forgive me: The more options WotC slides into the core and the more kitchen sink philosophy it tacitly encourages, the less unique the setting you try to create in contrast to all that can actually be.

Subtraction is a very valuable tool in creating true uniqueness. Less is often more.
 
I think the fear of TPK's, especially with GM's new to the role, or are not confident in their abilities, think of TPK's as failures of their own skill. And it might be true.

But understanding why such events happen objectively is a bit of its own skill. Players often make catastrophically bad tactical and strategic choices because they operate from some meta-assumption their GM would never let them die (so it becomes a feedback loop) or they overestimate their abilities and/or planning.

GM's learning to stick to their guns (which is a byproduct of experience, of course), tend to not worry much about TPK's and conversely they've earned the trust of their players so much so that when the TPK happens, they *generally* know why it happened.

TL/DR - Don't Fear the TPK.
 
"Oh, no aarakocra in your campaign world? Well I guess I'll pass then, good luck finding other players. I'll just go play that highly niche video game that fits my needs exactly. By the way, you still on for DotA2 this weekend?"
This is me. As an avid videogamer consumer, I'm constantly piting tabletop RPGs games and friends campaign pitches against videogames, making me much more selective with my gaming. What matters to me is having a quality time with the kind of genre or theme or stuff I want, no matter the medium, and lots of times this mean I'll pass that "tactical combat" pitch from a friend's for playing Rainbow Six Siege or ARMA3 online with other friends, for eg.

I don't think that's a bad thing though, only that the hobby has to adapt to compete with other media. But wasn't this always the case?
 
I think the fear of TPK's, especially with GM's new to the role, or are not confident in their abilities, think of TPK's as failures of their own skill. And it might be true.

But understanding why such events happen objectively is a bit of its own skill. Players often make catastrophically bad tactical and strategic choices because they operate from some meta-assumption their GM would never let them die (so it becomes a feedback loop) or they overestimate their abilities and/or planning.

GM's learning to stick to their guns (which is a byproduct of experience, of course), tend to not worry much about TPK's and conversely they've earned the trust of their players so much so that when the TPK happens, they *generally* know why it happened.

TL/DR - Don't Fear the TPK.

Not that you were talking to me (I hope, I’m hardly new at it), but our TPK was a big break from our norm.

I am rarely an “antagonistic” DM, but when they confronted Strahd in Curse of Strahd, I went in to straight up win. After all, I had spent the whole campaign warning them (via minions, NPCs, and so on) that Strahd was a vicious and cunning creature.

They had him pretty severely wounded and I had him turn invisible, which led the surviving members of the party to race down a corridor, assuming that’s where he had gone, and into a dead end...where he promptly fireballed them from behind. Three survived...but he promptly turned two into vampire servants and fed the third to his wolves.

My players were remarkably happy with the epilogue, even though they “lost”.
 
Not that you were talking to me (I hope, I’m hardly new at it), but our TPK was a big break from our norm.

I am rarely an “antagonistic” DM, but when they confronted Strahd in Curse of Strahd, I went in to straight up win. After all, I had spent the whole campaign warning them (via minions, NPCs, and so on) that Strahd was a vicious and cunning creature.

They had him pretty severely wounded and I had him turn invisible, which led the surviving members of the party to race down a corridor, assuming that’s where he had gone, and into a dead end...where he promptly fireballed them from behind. Three survived...but he promptly turned two into vampire servants and fed the third to his wolves.

My players were remarkably happy with the epilogue, even though they “lost”.

No not at you, just in general. I've noticed this trend online where people advocate to actively avoid TPK's or the implication that TPK's or even character death is somehow bad. I've gone huge stretches without TPK's or even character death, but I chalk that up to my players being "on to my dirty tricks" and are far more careful than when they first joined me. And that's great.

I've seen a lot of questions on Reddit and elsewhere where GM's bemoan and actually say they got anxiety from killing off a PC... and I think it's part of how the culture of D&D specifically has "evolved" and I think it's a bad phenomenon to the degree that it exists outside of my table, but impacts me when I get a new player and they're increasingly shocked at the elements and details in my games that they might categorize as "ruthless" (generally speaking for the fare I run) whereas I merely call it "running the world as it is."

Of course I adjust this to the setting as required.
 
I think TPKs are a natural outgrowth of respecting the dice and player choices. Even in a balanced encounter environment like 5E it's going to happen sometimes. I'm not saying I've never fudged a die roll, as I think we all have at one point or another, but that's not what I'm talking about. I would never trap a party in a losing encounter, giving them no chance to escape. However, if they choose to stay and fight, the dice will fall where they may. The game, for me and most of the people I play with, is more fun when there are real consequences involved, which should include character death in most cases.
 
I think TPKs are a natural outgrowth of respecting the dice and player choices. Even in a balanced encounter environment like 5E it's going to happen sometimes. I'm not saying I've never fudged a die roll, as I think we all have at one point or another, but that's not what I'm talking about. I would never trap a party in a losing encounter, giving them no chance to escape. However, if they choose to stay and fight, the dice will fall where they may. The game, for me and most of the people I play with, is more fun when there are real consequences involved, which should include character death in most cases.
Sure, but there are players who prefer the development of the character over verisimilitude. And there's no problem with that. I think that's something the recent edition of D&D may be tapping into with its higher survivability.

The availability of older, more lethal editions, makes it a win-win situation, as there's different flavors for different players. Right?
 
Sure, but there are players who prefer the development of the character over verisimilitude. And there's no problem with that. I think that's something the recent edition of D&D may be tapping into with its higher survivability.

The availability of older, more lethal editions, makes it a win-win situation, as there's different flavors for different players. Right?
The lethality level even in straight 5E is pretty adjustable. In either case that's one of those things that should be specifically addresses in session zero IMO.
 
I'm not convinced by the grog argument that D&D is especially lethal anyway, especially at higher levels. The HP of a 5th level character is already pretty solid.
Are you speaking generally or about 5E?
 
Are you speaking generally or about 5E?
I'm talking about earlier editions mostly. The ones that some people claim are much more deadly than 5e, which I'm not sure is the case. (Although I've only read 5e, not played it).
 
I'm talking about earlier editions mostly. The ones that some people claim are much more deadly than 5e, which I'm not sure is the case. (Although I've only read 5e, not played it).
I'd say that it's broadly true. HP totals are lower, healing is less available, and there are a lot more save or die effects baked into the rules. That's from a mechanics standpoint anyway, a lot comes down to how it gets implemented at the table
 
The whole mystique of "fantasy Vietnam" that some grognards get is honestly one of the weirdest things I've ever seen.

Like, could you imagine going back to the 70s/80s and telling bullies you were tough because your pretend elf character was fragile and could die.
 
And to clarify, if you like playing games where your character can die at any second... like good for you. Have fun with that. It's this desire to make it out to be something other than a personal preference that is weird as shit.
 
I'm not convinced by the grog argument that D&D is especially lethal anyway, especially at higher levels. The HP of a 5th level character is already pretty solid.

Which version of D&D? Basic and 1e/2e? TPK's and player death were a LOT more common than my post 2e years. It's an observation that I'd have to give more thought about. I certainly was much more aggressive about my games. But my gut tells me that I'm no less prone to kill a PC off now. I may have a player that says otherwise, but I don't feel particularly inclined to save any PC from bad decision-making as a foundational norm. You dance your way into a deadly situation, you better dance your ass back out before it's too late, heh.
 
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