D&D (2024) Do you plan to adopt D&D5.5One2024Redux?

[akr71]

I'm a firm MAYBE.

Really, I would rather my table adopted LevelUp which I've already spent $$ on.

 

[Swarmkeeper]

Presuming of course you can actually succeed. If that lock is just that difficult (to pull a completely random example out of the air) that your bonus will not let you succeed, then Take 20 simply tells the player that, nope, they can't do this.

Again, 5e has largely folded this into the game - DM's are supposed to just let players succeed in cases where there is no real time dependence and no real chance of failure. I just wish it was made a LOT more explicit because I run into a lot of DM's who insist "there must be a chance of failure" and force rolls.

Very much this.

I'd add that "time dependence" is perhaps one aspect of "meaningful consequence for failure" that the DMG sets as a prerequisite when calling for an ability check (pg 237). The "there must be a chance of failure" DMing crowd can often have a "nothing happens" failure state which, IMO, usually falls short of a "meaningful consequence".

I think the DMs who fall into "there must be a chance of failure" camp are solidly in the DMing spectrum dubbed "Rolling with It" (The Role of the Dice, DMG p236). It's a valid way to play according to the DMG.

Personally, "The Middle Path" works best for our table:

Many DMs find that using a combination of the two approaches works best. By balancing the use of dice against deciding on success, you can encourage your players to strike a balance between relying on their bonuses and abilities and paying attention to the game and immersing themselves in its world. Remember that dice don't run your game-you do. Dice are like rules. They're tools to help keep the action moving. At any time, you can decide that a player's action is automatically successful. You can also grant the player advantage on any ability check, reducing the chance of a bad die roll foiling the character's plans. By the same token, a bad plan or unfortunate circumstances can transform the easiest task into an impossibility, or at least impose disadvantage.

And, I suppose, there's the obligatory "No One Reads the DMG" aphorism that can be inserted here so as to preempt the inevitable response quip by someone (which I do actually find funny... but also a bit disheartening at the same time... let's all collectively hope for a better organized 2024 DMG to put a very real reason folks don't read it to rest).

 

[mamba]

What you describe here as the feature “always working” is the player saying their PC knows someone, but the player isn’t “always” saying that.

I am describing the feature working every time there is an attempt to use it, not the player constantly invoking it.

How on earth is ‘but he does not use it every single minute of the day’ a feasible defense…

If you mean ‘but the player does not do so at every opportunity’, does that imply that there are opportunities in which this is not appropriate that the player recognizes, or did they just chose not to but could have if they wanted to?

If it is the former then you agree that there are cases where it should not work, at which point the question becomes who decides what such cases are, but I am not sure you agree with that in the first place

 

[Oofta]

Seems like this conversation has been just two sides repeating basically the same thing for a while. But I thought I'd toss in my 2 copper on my thoughts in a consolidated fashion.

I don't use the background features as written. I've always tried to incorporate backstories into my game, tying where someone came from into the ongoing campaign when people make more than minimal attempts to come up with a personal history. A lot of people simply don't care and never have, and that's okay as well. The number of orphans that become adventurers seems to be shockingly high in my campaign world though.

But I'm talking about backstory here, not background. To me they're different things, even if in 5E background is a part of a PC's backstory. So I don't have a problem with background being a starting point, I think it can be useful. But most people? Most people do it to pick up some proficiencies. To be honest, that's what I do as well most of the time.

But background not being important to people is only part of the problem. Many background features, especially from the PHB, are simply too limited, boring, and rarely useful in my opinion. I don't remember the last time getting passage on a ship was a big deal in any edition. Occasionally there's some form of payment whether it's an amount of gold that's irrelevant at the point this comes up or it's joining the ship's crew in some capacity. Most of the time? It's just narrated that the group finds a ship and it takes X amount of time to get where we're going. Unless, of course, there's a storm and we're shipwrecked or we're attacked by pirates.

So most background features are of minimal use in the rare cases they even come up.

Next of course is how unlikely things may be. I'm not going to belabor the point, but the sailor feature clearly states that you are calling in a favor from someone you know. It is highly unlikely that someone would just happen to know someone on the other side of the world well enough to call in this kind of favor. Especially when it happens no matter what port you find yourself in.

This kind of thing obviously doesn't bother some people but it breaks my suspension of disbelief. Especially if it happens multiple times, perhaps with different characters with the criminal just happening to know a crooked trader, a noble being given audience to the local ruler when the people didn't even know the PC's country existed, etc..

Last, but not least, they're kind of boring. You can add RP if you want of course, but if you follow the letter of the rules all a sailor has to do is say they're getting passage and it just automatically happens. No risk, no effort. It just happens even if it would break the narrative description just given of the PCs knowing nothing about where they are or how they got there or any number of other scenarios. At times the features can be get out of jail free cards. I don't have any issues with people bypassing challenges more easily than I had expected, but I want at least some effort, ingenuity and/or risk.

So I don't use background features as written. Instead, as I explain in my session 0, if people care about their background I make them useful in multiple situations in different ways. You'll get minor benefits like advantage on checks, be granted info that will help overcome obstacles. Perhaps you will occasionally come across someone you know and is willing to help. I just think it's more interesting for the guy with a criminal background to know what typical grifts are, more easily spot a pickpocket or know the types of places and how to get in contact with local criminals.

So for example the folk hero commoner would not be recognized wherever they go. Just like I'm not recognized as growing up on a farm in the real world. On the other hand, I've been able to strike up conversations and share stories with people that are also from rural communities because we share a similar background. In the same way a folk hero, in addition to knowing some things about how the people live, will also have an easier time making connections. It may be automatic in some cases in others there will be an appropriate check, likely with advantage. But just like a noble can't just walk into any court in the multiverse and get an audience with the king without putting forth any effort, a folk hero has to explain what they're doing to gain the trust of the locals probably along with some social skill checks.

It's one thing to have magic and dragons. It's another to assume that one in a million chance just happens when needed because of a background feature when it's really a one in one chance guaranteed success.

Last, but not least, other than 2 instances where a player really tried to push background features to gain significant advantage, I can't remember the last time they came up. It's just not an important feature to the vast majority of people who I've played the game with.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

This very thread!

Yes, that part I get.

One of the positions is an absolute and you've been providing it cover. You keep lamenting that one side of the discussion is responding as if the other is talking about something happening under any and all conditions rather than looking for compromise or something but you have that backwards because it's a discussion where one side is literally saying that the background feature means that it needs to work under any conditions all of the time (or, an absolute as in the real while nonnegative number of 100%) while you keep criticizing posters already talking about something less than 100%.

Ah, you see... I don't think that 99.9% of the people defending the background features mean that they should work 100% of the time. They are arguing that it's not hard to make them work significantly more of the time than those that shut them down because they are "illogical" and "don't make sense". The general thrust of the argument is that they CAN make sense, and don't have to be illogical, if you simply come up with a story that satisfies.

@Faolyn, for example, has agreed that there are situations in which they wouldn't make sense. So have I. We've just also pointed out that in those situations we don't believe that most players would try to use them. Because the player would be involved in the fiction, and therefore be on board with the idea that trying to use them would be silly.

It's a "problem" that fixes itself. In a group that's working together.

This was made incredibly clear earlier when there was a literal example of that position posted noted and linked to while I was responding to you earlier .

Yeah, I didn't understand what you were saying then, either. I followed your link and it still didn't make any sense to me. There's two things that I think you're doing that makes this happen: 1) You think that I agree with everything people say if I don't argue with them; 2) You think that I can remember much of what's been said.

Neither of these are true. In the first instance, I only tend to pop up when there are specific things said that I object to - for example, that allowing people to use their background features in corner cases is allowing for the illogical to happen. I think it's easy enough to come up with good, logical stories to make them work in all cases where anyone would ever try. Do you need to do that? No, but you can. In the second, no, I don't know or remember most of the time what has been said earlier in the thread. I don't even remember what I've said earlier in the thread!

Of course people in disagreement with that position of an absolute guarantee aare going to talk about the position people are literally making rather than the less than 100% certainty of success they are saying should be the standard any sane RAW targets because that is the position that is being put forward in contrast. When you started noticing that said absolute might be a position that is less than reasonable and aimed a bit of criticism at it you still covered for it by throwing shade my way.

I didn't mean to throw any shade your way! Again, I'm sorry if it came out that way. I meant it, at worst, as a friendly elbow-to-the-ribs. You tend to champion DM-authority in most of your posts, and you often make it sound like without that championing, the game would degrade into wanton player-driven chaos.

I am absolutely on your side that a DM should have Authority. But I think in groups that are actually Playing Nice With Others they don't need to jealously guard that authority. It's a two-way-street of respect.

Speaking of which, I have nothing but respect for you and the other posters here. I wouldn't speak to you at all if I did not.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Even if they'd for sure get out of the ravine if they had all day I'd still make someone roll for the party as a guide to how long it took them and-or how many of them got hurt in the process.

Roll a 20, they scamper out within 15 minutes none the worse for wear and can spend the rest of the day doing whatever they like.

Roll a 1, they spend all day at it and finally crawl out long after nightfall, exhausted. Further, each of them now have to roll individually to see how much damage they took from scrapes and falls in the process, with anything over about 14 meaning none but a 1 meaning (in 5e) we might be looking at death saves.

I'm with you - I think rolling dice is fun, and I don't understand this "fear" around it that is spoken of a lot around here. I think FAILURE is fun - it's especially fun when it's a "fail-forward" type thing, but it can be fun as just failure, here-and-there, in particular when it allows someone else to step up, or new ideas to be introduced to the game.

 

[Faolyn]

This really depends on whether or not the real goal is to "tell a story together" rather than set PCs loose in an imaginary world and see what story emerges from their actions and reactions. In that scenario, you generally don't want to just succeed.

I would say both of those are telling a story together. The only difference is whether you set a potential endgame up first or not.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I would say both of those are telling a story together. The only difference is whether you set a potential endgame up first or not.

I would say that's a pretty big difference. I would also say that one is playing with the goal of telling a story together makes a difference too.

 

[Oofta]

I would say both of those are telling a story together. The only difference is whether you set a potential endgame up first or not.

Personally I think of multiple endgames. Then the group doesn't take a left turn at Albuquerque and the endgame changes. Sometimes multiple times. By and large though, I'm more focused on setting up interesting opponents, locales, allies and others that could be either friend or foe.

So I have an idea where things might go, but unlike most modules it's never set in stone and frequently ends up somewhere I never expected.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes, that part I get.

I'm not so sure. There seems to be an awful lot you are willing to shake a finger at while admitting that you don't understand or don't follow things

Ah, you see... I don't think that 99.9% of the people defending the background features mean that they should work 100% of the time. They are arguing that it's not hard to make them work significantly more of the time than those that shut them down because they are "illogical" and "don't make sense". The general thrust of the argument is that they CAN make sense, and don't have to be illogical, if you simply come up with a story that satisfies.

Wow... point one percent is enough to cast aside all doubt & give zealous benefit of the doubt? It's kinda noteworthy that you only extend that to only one side of the discussion while calling for the other to work together with players "significantly more". That however is the root of the problem and has literally been covered more than once in the thread because the background feature does not require the player to put any effort into making it work while using a RAW & plain reading that gives the expectation of both guaranteed success as well as the extent of that success. You can't just say "work together" directed to GMs alone while giving a pass to the fact that posters are pinning 100% of the responsibility for finding a way to make them work on the GM when a player says "I use my contact/book passage/position of privilege/etc". In your zeal to push back against hypothetical overbearing GM overstepping you are ignoring the fact that the imagined overstep is simply sometimes it doesn't make sense to have it work and the player needs to roll up their sleeves to do something through actual play.

@Faolyn, for example, has agreed that there are situations in which they wouldn't make sense. So have I. We've just also pointed out that in those situations we don't believe that most players would try to use them. Because the player would be involved in the fiction, and therefore be on board with the idea that trying to use them would be silly.

It's a "problem" that fixes itself. In a group that's working together.

Sure, but "a group" involves both sides of the GM screen and you as well as quite a few posters only seem concerned with the GM finding a solution even when it doesn't make sense

Yeah, I didn't understand what you were saying then, either. I followed your link and it still didn't make any sense to me. There's two things that I think you're doing that makes this happen: 1) You think that I agree with everything people say if I don't argue with them; 2) You think that I can remember much of what's been said.

You don't have to agree, but when you call for compromise & collaboration to find a middle ground between sometimes no and always yes but direct those calls exclusively towards one side of the discussion it absolutely provides support for always yes.

Neither of these are true. In the first instance, I only tend to pop up when there are specific things said that I object to - for example, that allowing people to use their background features in corner cases is allowing for the illogical to happen. I think it's easy enough to come up with good, logical stories to make them work in all cases where anyone would ever try. Do you need to do that? No, but you can. In the second, no, I don't know or remember most of the time what has been said earlier in the thread. I don't even remember what I've said earlier in the thread!

As do I. Coincidentally some of those things I object to are unreasonable extremes and the reply would necessarily need to be one discussing that unreasonable extreme.

I didn't mean to throw any shade your way! Again, I'm sorry if it came out that way. I meant it, at worst, as a friendly elbow-to-the-ribs. You tend to champion DM-authority in most of your posts, and you often make it sound like without that championing, the game would degrade into wanton player-driven chaos.

I am absolutely on your side that a DM should have Authority. But I think in groups that are actually Playing Nice With Others they don't need to jealously guard that authority. It's a two-way-street of respect.

"jealously guard that authority. It's a two-way street"... That street goes both ways as you note. In the case of many background features along with much of this discussion the trouble is that the RAW is written in a way that paves it as a one way street that some posters are defending to maintain it as such. It pretty severely undercuts the ability to actually use that DM-authority when people are quick to say off the cuff benefit of the doubt things like this and direct it at people who are pointing out the two way nature conflict with that one way defense ....

Unfortunately part of why it's so easy to justify leaping in to defend player agency even when something clearly unreasonable is being defended can be traced back to the way 2014 5e turned its back on rules structures & wording that gave the GM solid footing when they used that DM-Authority, you can see a good example of what once was in 3.5phb pg65 where taking 10/20 have multiple hurdles that must be overcome baked right in on top of some blockers the GM can point at while positioning those two on the same page as a rule that allows for wishy washy time to complete as well as "practically" impossible checks with examples of dc80 & dc90 that are a far cry from 5e's "fairly trivial nearly impossible". We don't yet know if 2024 will do a good or even better job in providing the GM with solid footing when they use that DM-authority.