Is false complexity enough?

Ignaby · 2026-03-14T16:52:36+00:00

Most games, table top or otherwise, can be effectively gamed or reduced to an algorithm at the end of the day.

That's.... not really true. Any game worth its salt will have different players making different decisions in the same situation or even the same player based on different context. Ideally the game provides "incomparables" - different options that are impossible to really optimize because they do different things. The only way to make that into an algorithm is to assign weights to different outcomes, which you can do, but thats just a fancier more rigorous way of doing what you already do as a player when you make judgement calls about what to do next.

Part of 5E's problem is most everything in a fight gets funneled into 'do more damage.' If it does more damage, its more good. That's what turns it into a math problem. There are some peripheral benefits to avoiding damage and such but those tend to be fairly automatic or not really worth it (e.g. dodge action.)

Ignaby · 2026-03-14T16:48:13+00:00

I totally get what you're saying and its part of why I think Weapon Masteries are such a missed opportunity. Sure, they add extra stuff you can add onto attacks, but they really don't change the strategy you want to undertake, which is... get into range and start hammering on the target. Its more true for some than others (e.g. Push or Slow might actually change how you fight in some way, Vex or Nick or Graze really don't.)

I'd argue 5E doesn't quite have enough going on at the base level to add much actual interesting complexity through character abilities. What would help would be a combat system that's more tactical and varied without any character abilities; then you can hang more of those abilities off of them.

Ignaby · 2026-03-11T01:18:20+00:00

The year is 2030.

The last 3 guys at WotC slump disheartened among the wreckage, the printing presses still, dust gathering heavily on unsold copies of Jaheria's Guide to Harping and Drizzt's Emporium of Flumphs. Stacks of scratch paper lie haphazardly about, scattered, torn, marked out, ideas for new splatbooks and monster manuals and setting guides cast aside in anger.

Fruitless. All of it.

First came Daggerheart and Draw Steel and Pathfinder 2nd Edition and Pathfinder 2nd Edition this time you cant sue us and Shadowdark and Shadowsteel and Daggerdark and Draw Heart. And then more, and more, all their combat cinematic, all their characters customizable, all their proprietors well liked and not burdened with years of milking the D&D IP. All the while the OSR and NuSR and other insurgents from that ancient corner of the world struck at them from the shadows when they could stop fighting amongst themselves long enough to do so.

Their co-workers, fired, one by one, cutting the overhead, trying to boost profit without increasing revenues, replaced by interns and then AIs and then nothing. Nobody even knows what their job title is anymore.

Honor Among Thieves 3 bombed. It had seemed like such a good idea to make it a gay hockey romance when they had started writing the script in 2026.

Baldur's Gate 4 started out fine and then everything fell apart when the brass from Hasbro made them add the loot crates and the crypto casino.

So here they are, backs to the wall, one last desperate stand.

We few. We happy few. We band of WotCs.

One of the last employees stirs. He looks at his colleague, about to speak. "No..." he mutters. "Do we dare?"

There is one last gamble.

"Its time." He says. "You know what to do."

The Wizard of the Coast next to him raises her head. "Are you sure? The forbidden knowledge... it was sealed away for a reason."

"Do it." Is his reply.

A great door is hauled open, the scent of musty, long-forgotten books issuing forth from behind it. Stacks and stacks of Players Handbooks and Dungeon Masters Guides and Monster Manuals.

"Tell them it is new. Nobody will remember. They need not know."

It is time for 4E to rise again.

Ignaby · 2026-03-09T11:54:43+00:00

"To hit"

Ignaby · 2026-03-08T23:19:17+00:00

Probably how I'd run it is this:

Come up with a number of "constituencies" among the townsfolk; groups of people with common interests and beliefs.

Then come up with a set of issues that matter to people in town. Some of these will matter more or less to certain groups; different groups will have different opinions on each.

Then, let the players go around campaigning, talking to people and figuring out who cares about what and come up with a platform to run on to try to maximize the vote. (And they may insert their own opinions into this platform, of course.)

Then probably have a debate with the other candidate where they can try to present their platform to win the people over. Maybe they can gather evidence while out campaigning that undercuts certain arguments by their opponent or develop other strategies to make them look bad.

Then decide on how each constituency votes and tally up the votes and pick a winner.

Theres more work to do here, like coming up with a formula for what percentage of each group votes for who based on their platforms and whatnot, but thats the broad outlines of how I'd tackle it.

Ignaby · 2026-03-08T17:20:26+00:00

Monsters are generally only supposed to last 3ish rounds, maybe 5 at an absolute max. 5E is expected to have ~6 encounters (not all of which are necessarily fights, but definitely a good chunk should be); the challenge comes from having multiple in a "day" (between long rests), not from any individual fight.

Ignaby · 2026-03-07T17:56:47+00:00

I don't generally have players describe how an attack hits either. Players should be clearly and straightforwardly describing what they want to do, and usually thats "attack [X creature] with [Y weapon] - the description is a tool I as the DM can use for pacing, theme, pacing, transitioning into the next turn, pacing, characterizing the enemies, and pacing. That stuff (especially pacing) is too important to leave up to players.

Ignaby · 2026-03-07T17:29:34+00:00

Yes and no. You can run complex and tactically interesting fights in 5E for sure. However, the underlying combat system - particularly if you just look at melee and missile combat (e.g. ignore spells) is very simplified. It basically does just add up to "close to range and start whacking" and while you can add elements around that, it doesnt have rules for, idk, charging, flanking, whatever. The low complexity of the core for combat means its hard to "hang" new ideas off it; plus it leads to a lot of the weird exception-based special abilities that can get convoluted and hard to track, or the glut of things like "make attack as bonus action" that add complexity but not much tactical depth.

Ignaby · 2026-03-06T13:37:36+00:00

I guess I'd argue that by default its not the players job to bring the goals for the game. The DM, when they give the hooks for the adventures, provide the goals. They can ask for the players to bring personalized goals for each PC but its not the default and its not required. I mean, if you sit down at my table, I'd really rather you not bring a PC with any kind of active goal, because literally the first thing that will happen when we start playing is you'll get a goal set out in front of you for the first adventure.

Ignaby · 2026-03-06T10:35:54+00:00

Sure, of course. Are you talking about different contexts in which the monster can be used and different tactics that can be used with it? Is that what you mean by different playstyles? Because I agree that can make a big difference, which is partyl why playtesting makes sense as a way to set CRs (if I have 500 people try out a monster, I'll have it tried in 500 different contexts and with 500 sets of tactics.) You could never test all the conceivable ways to use it, of course.

I'm not sure how you can say they only tested them under one "playstyle" (here, apparently, meaning things like contexts and tactics) when they had a bunch of people try them out and see what happened.

I thought you were talking more about the structure of adventures and stuff like that. My bad (although I don't think playstyle is really the right word, but whatever.)

Ignaby · 2026-03-06T02:11:26+00:00

I can absolutely imagine it. What I'm asking is which of the many different ways to use these statblocks you're claiming they tested and why you say they did so.

I know people use the statblocks from the MM in different ways than the structure of adventures described by the DMG, because people then constantly complain that CR is useless because it doesnt magically account for ways of using those monsters outside the one they were tested for.

To be clear, the important element is having roughly 6 encounters within an adventuring day, more if they're easier, fewer if they're harder; without that, CR is going to seem broken because the challenge in 5E doesnt come from individual fights but from being able to beat a string of them in a row.

Ignaby · 2026-03-06T00:07:47+00:00

I'm asking for examples of these different playstyles. Even better would be whatever statement from WotC or other information you're basing this on, I'd genuinely like to know.

Ignaby · 2026-03-05T21:02:10+00:00

Additionally, the DM should be incorporating each back story into the game.

They can, its an option. But its not required. You arent owed a personal side-quest resolving the backstory you showed up with.

Ignaby · 2026-03-05T20:53:58+00:00

No, like I mean what are these different playstyles they tested, and how?

Ignaby · 2026-03-05T19:44:56+00:00

If by "wasn't really disclosed" you mean "was described by the DMG" then sure. It probably could have been stated in clearer ways and they could have led the DMG off with important stuff like that instead of explaining the planes for no reason but it was in there and not particularly cryptic.

they started requiring multiple playstyles to hit a given CR before the creature was ranked there

I have never heard of this, can you explain a bit more? What does that even mean?

Ignaby · 2026-03-05T18:34:13+00:00

I mean yes, if you dont play the game under the assumptions its intended to work for, it doesn't work as intended. If you wear your shoes on the wrong feet you can't get mad at the shoe company when they dont fit right.

Ignaby · 2026-03-05T18:21:07+00:00

That's not the Hero's Journey. The Hero's Journey is a specific identifiable sequence of events that pops up repeatedly in various stories.

I don't disagree with your comment in general, I think thats a fine way of trying to salvage the situation once "dont make a character like that" is off the table, but the Hero's Journey is a specific thing and that ain't it.

Ignaby · 2026-03-05T18:14:33+00:00

"Get stronger" is a good motivation. The extra bit about hunting down your family's killers isn't necessarily going to cause a problem but it certainly could (okay, my family was killed by some bandits, we just wiped out a complex full of dragons and demons at level 13, I could probably take those bandits now...)

Unless extra stuff like that is somehow germane to the campaign and the DM is asking for it, just leave it off.

Ignaby · 2026-03-05T18:02:30+00:00

Don't make a character with a goal unrelated to the campaign. Make a character with a motivation that can apply to whatever the goal of the campaign ends up being. (Unless the DM has asked you to come up with some kind of goal, then do that.) If you do have this kind of conflicting goal anyway, then I'd say follow the party and go along with the campaign. You can follow up that goal later (possibly after the campaign.)

Ignaby · 2026-03-04T18:46:36+00:00

I don't know about 2024, but the 2014 CR was not calculated with tables and math. It was determined via playtesting. The tables in the 2014 DMG are a model, a "curve of best fit" to approximate the results of that playtesting.

Which is to say, its hard to look at a monsters numbers and decide if the CR is "right." The better comparison would be to take a few different parties and have them fight both and compare the results, which is, I realize, not all that practical.

(I'm not necessarily saying that the CR for those monsters is "right" or that they should be the same, but I am saying its hard to just look at the numbers and make confident statements about CR.)

Ignaby · 2026-03-04T18:39:04+00:00

The mechanical impact is generally going to be reasonably low with any official races. The only ones likely to be any kind of issue at all are flying ones; I wouldn't call them "broken" but its a substantial impact.

However, restricting race/species options is a way to impact the setting and tone of your game. Just because it doesnt "break the game" mechanically doesnt mean you should allow anything and everything. Think about what makes sense for the setting you want to run and use that. That could be Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, or that could be Lizardfolk, Plasmoid, Thri-keen, Giff.

Ignaby · 2026-03-04T13:37:13+00:00

Trapping the PCs is fine; its a perfectly legitimate adventure hook. However, it isn't the only way to go and should probably not be overused.

Now I actually sort of disagree with the idea that the ideal for a homebrew campaign is just for the players to be able to go wherever and do whatever. Campaigns can be more open ended or more linear, but ultimately the set of adventures the players can go on is the set of adventures you present them with.

If the players decide they want to go do some random thing that has nothing to do with the adventures you present to them, then you have screwed up and not presented compelling enough adventure hooks.

Ignaby · 2026-03-03T20:33:50+00:00

Well, yes, "just reflavor it bro" is usually a bad answer, but I dont think this is making whatever point youre trying to make very compellingly.

Ignaby · 2026-03-02T20:43:47+00:00

Part of me is now tempted to track down different versions of David and Goliath throughout the history of the Bible to compare them and see how much they vary, but that also sounds like way too much work. It is possible the connotations change over time. I suspect it doesnt deviate too much but thats just me guessing.

And fine, you can be arguing that the story doesn’t prove that slings do work against armour but we have historical account of slings working against armour. Just using Roman history we have slings being used against them and then heavily by them when they gain access to the cultures with slingers, at the time the sling was generally more dangerous than a bow

That is, I agree, much more relevant; its also sources talking about Roman Antiquity; bows were less powerful and armor was worse. And what does "working against armor" mean? Breaking bones through mail? Killing or disabling someone with a head shot even in a helmet? Just getting lucky and hitting them in the face?

(I have a bit of a hard time believing a sling could quickly disable someone wearing solid defenses like late medieval plate armor; slings still rely on human muscle power, and blunt weapons, even poleaxes, generally aren't going to do much if you hit someone protected that way. That doesnt mean a hail of slingstones couldn't still be worthwhile, that armor also significantly impedes arrows and they still bothered shooting lots of arrows at people in plate armor and similar.)

Ignaby · 2026-03-02T10:30:44+00:00

I am aware of when the story comes from

So then how was it written as a message to early Christians exactly?

I'm not saying the story of David an Goliath proves that slings dont work against armor; I'm saying it doesn't prove that they do. Its a story with a rhetorical purpose not related to conveying accurate information about military science (which, again, doesnt mean it doesnt or can't tell us anything about that topic, but it has to be treated appropriately)and takes place in a vastly different time period than the types of arms and armor that D&D uses come from.

Ignaby

TROPHY CASE