Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

newyorker.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 246 posts

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#71

Post by gilbetron »

Dowwie wrote: post #25
gilbetron wrote: post #19

I'm shocked by the number of people popping out of the woodwork. I've been gaming consistently for the past 35 years, and while gaming was more popular overall in the early 80s and late 90s, I know more gamers right now personally than ever. I have a game group, of older people, on my fucking street!

I'm guessing.. Portland?

Close? Ann Arbor. Ok, so not close ... but close in spirit :)

Seriously, I could have 3+ groups of 6 players, playing weekly, without a problem. I know at least a dozen people at my work that play, and that are people I'd like to play with.

Crazy :)

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#72

Post by colanderman »

jorvi wrote: post #61
nevster wrote: post #30

I think the main thing is 5th edition - it's really good. I briefly tried 4th edition and it just didn't feel right - way too combat heavy and video-gamey. Then 5th edition came out and it was immediately obvious that it had that 1st edition feel but with all the bugs worked out. I play it with my kids and it's awesome.

Would you care to share some 'bugs'? I'm always pretty interested in those things, despite never having had a.. session(?) myself. I know of one where you used a Spiked Chain, made yourself a giant(?) so you got a big boost in combat stats, and because of how the chain works you'd almost always succeed in tripping someone, and when they got up got a free counter attack that again could trip them. Another one I do not…

I suspect GP is referring more to complexities in the gameplay, not loopholes (though I'm sure 5e has fewer of those, by nature of being less rules-heavy and more reliant on the GM's interpretation). For example, weird corner cases like grappling rules have been greatly simplified. So have skills, weapon selection, and combat rules in general.

As late as 3.5e and Pathfinder, you could easily spend 5 minutes figuring out how to resolve a single 6-second action according to the rules. Say I'm grappling someone (complex rules) and move them across rough terrain (5-foot step or not?) while threatened by an enemy combatant (attacks of opportunity) with while under a Bard buff (pluses to defense)… figuring out who attacks whom when and how can easily involve flipping to many different sections of the rule book. Whereas in 5e half those rules don't exist and the remainder are simplified.

My understanding (not from experience) is that previous editions had even more complex rules than 3.5e, and 4e simplified the rules in the "wrong direction" (away from role-playing).

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#73

Post by colanderman »

gerdesj wrote: post #51
squeaky-clean wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every 8 or so years they revamp the rules and release it as a new edition. Aside from few exceptions, they're mostly incompatible with each other and offer different rules for combat, skill usage and training, etc, and quality-of-life improvements. 3e (more specifically 3.5e) was extremely popular. There's now a ruleset called Pathfinder made by another company, Paizo, that continues the style of 3.5e and is mostly c…

Thanks for the run down. My comment was somewhat tongue in cheek. To be honest as a DM/GM I generally threw out the rules as soon as they got in the way of a good narrative. I'm quite tempted to give it a dabble again ...

> as a DM/GM I generally threw out the rules as soon as they got in the way of a good narrative.

5e seems to be designed with that in mind. Bonuses are largely replaced with the "advantage/disadvantage" system which gives the DM much more leeway in determining bonuses (beside simplifying the mechanism overall). Skills are greatly simplified and reduced in number, and partially replaced with "Backgrounds" which are 100% DM fiat.

Example from my first 5e session. "Use Rope" is gone, but my character has the "Sailor" background. So by DM fiat I was able to identify the condition of a rope. No dice involved.

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#74

Post by colanderman »

ctchocula wrote: post #52
squeaky-clean wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Every 8 or so years they revamp the rules and release it as a new edition. Aside from few exceptions, they're mostly incompatible with each other and offer different rules for combat, skill usage and training, etc, and quality-of-life improvements. 3e (more specifically 3.5e) was extremely popular. There's now a ruleset called Pathfinder made by another company, Paizo, that continues the style of 3.5e and is mostly c…

Nice analysis. I play a bit of Pathfinder from time to time. Do you think 5e copied Stealth from Pathfinder?

Probably, but the skill system in 5e is totally different from 3.5e/Pathfinder. To me, 5e feels like it took the ideas behind the simplifications in Pathfinder and ran with them.

As an example, Pathfinder simplified lots of different combat rules under the Combat Maneuver system (CMB/CMD). 5e simplified them even more, simply as contested skill checks selected by GM fiat.

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#75

Post by sago »

I'm not sure if it's resurrecting, or just improving it's image, either way it's welcome. Still, it is sad that it is so focused on one game: D&D. It's a decent game, particularly fifth edition, but I can't help finding it a bit... um, artless.

Which isn't a problem, sometimes that's fun. But when there are so many amazing and sophisticated RPGs, with game mechanics that expand the form and support interesting play, it is a shame that DnD still gets all the focus.

I'd love to see more love for 'Night Witches', 'Dogs in the Vineyard', 'My life with Master', 'The Beast', 'Hillfolk', 'The Clay that Woke' even 'Apocalypse World', or 'Fate'.

It's like programming languages, sure you can do anything in D&D (≈ Java, perhaps?), but other games have different strengths. Sometimes, being into non D&D RPGs can feel like people saying "there's more than one programming language?"

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#77

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

thefalcon wrote: post #36
11thEarlOfMar wrote: post #10

>half a dozen paid Dungeon Masters... Still trying to process that. Do I need to polish my resume? What type of experience is required? How many applications did he get? How old were the applicants?

Paid DMs can be a great experience for everyone, especially if all the people in your play group "just want to play."

Yeah. I won’t play DND because it’s too open ended. I simply don’t want to commit that much time to a campaign.

But there are board games like Mansions of Madness that use an iPad as DM. You can play as many or as little of the scenarios you want. Then DM later if you get into it.

There are also sandbox type board games. There is no DM but you get to decide what you want to do.

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#78

Post by jfoutz »

jorvi wrote: post #61
nevster wrote: post #30

I think the main thing is 5th edition - it's really good. I briefly tried 4th edition and it just didn't feel right - way too combat heavy and video-gamey. Then 5th edition came out and it was immediately obvious that it had that 1st edition feel but with all the bugs worked out. I play it with my kids and it's awesome.

Would you care to share some 'bugs'? I'm always pretty interested in those things, despite never having had a.. session(?) myself. I know of one where you used a Spiked Chain, made yourself a giant(?) so you got a big boost in combat stats, and because of how the chain works you'd almost always succeed in tripping someone, and when they got up got a free counter attack that again could trip them. Another one I do not…

Some classes were crazy powerful, and others weren’t. It was easy to get into a situation where one player would dominate the game. And not really on purpose. Now the classes are much more even. Everyone gets a chance to shine.

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#79

Post by PhasmaFelis »

gglitch wrote: post #63
dmoy wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having to use THAC0 ever again would be one thing they would gain. I'd make a silly wager that the net time saved by using 5e rules would outweigh the cost of learning them.

I don’t know editions subsequent to 2e, but I kind of liked THAC0. Tough to explain, but flexible. A useful abstraction.

3E's Base Attack Bonus was mechanically identical, but expressed in an easier-to-understand way. Briefly, they rearranged things so that higher numbers are always better--having +1 armor no longer means you subtract 1 from your Armor class.

Re: The Uncanny Resurrection of Dungeons and Dragons

#80

Post by mikepurvis »

sago wrote: post #75

I'm not sure if it's resurrecting, or just improving it's image, either way it's welcome. Still, it is sad that it is so focused on one game: D&D. It's a decent game, particularly fifth edition, but I can't help finding it a bit... um, artless. Which isn't a problem, sometimes that's fun. But when there are so many amazing and sophisticated RPGs, with game mechanics that expand the form and support interesting play,…

As a total noob to all of this, where would I go to find helpful commentary on how these different games compare to each other and what they offer?
Post reply on HN