I mentioned elsewhere that my family picked up the 5th Edition D&D Starter Set over the holidays, partly because we wanted to diversify into something more fantasy-oriented without me having to go through the effort of creating a whole meta-universe inside of Mighty Protectors to do so (again!) and partly just to take advantage of the vast body of published free and/or inexpensive materials available for D&D. I suspect we’ll fall into a pattern where we alternate between D&D sessions using pre-made adventures for now, and MP sessions that are far more roll-your-own and require more prep time on my part.
We haven’t started the D&D campaign yet, but I’ve spent some time reading through the Starter books and researching the existing 5th Edition class options, and I’ve decided to share some of my thoughts so far for whatever they’re worth. (Also, there’s an errant post that’s messing up the layout of my whole site whenever it appears on a page, so I’m anxious to add new posts to get it to scroll off the Home page…).
I’d hoped to dredge up some of my old 80s-era Advanced D&D books to compare against, but I haven’t been able to find them, so most of this commentary will be based on my increasingly vague memories of rules that were ingrained in my mind a few decades ago. There will also inevitably be some comparisons to MP simply because that’s the extent of my RPG experience so far in the current century, but this is in no way intended to be a game-vs-game post.
One of the features I look for is a set of rules that are just complex enough to adequately cover most situations, but not so complex that constant references to the manual interrupt the flow of gameplay. One of the reasons I decided to go with Mighty Protectors was watching some of the sessions recorded by MP co-creator Jeff Dee and seeing what appeared to be a good balance between pacing and flexibility of the system.
The D&D I played in the 80s definitely leaned into the more complex side of things, with rules governing a vast array of dice rolls and bonuses/penalties for a wide variety of situations, down to needing to know that, for example, certain types of weapons are more or less effective against certain types of armor – with corresponding tables to either memorize, look up, or ignore on a regular basis.
Fifth edition D&D has done away with much of this complexity – possibly at the cost of some degree of “realism”, if that term can be used in the context of spell-casting elves battling infernal demonic foes.
Character sheets now detail a relatively short list of bonuses and penalties related to the character’s basic stats, class abilities, and any secondary proficiencies they may have based on race, upbringing, etc. These are designed to govern the vast majority of situations that might occur during a gaming session.
Environment-related adjustments are now encompassed through the concept of “advantage” and “disadvantage”. In essence, advantage means you roll two dice instead of one and pick the higher result to determine the outcome of an action, while disadvantage, as you might guess, means you take the lower roll. So in an example situation where in older versions the DM might have to say something like, “You get +2 to hit him because he hasn’t seen you yet, +2 because he’s a little bit drunk, and -1 because the specific type of armor he’s wearing is good at blocking the slashing damage from your dagger” – potentially having to reference the manual for one or more of these values – now the GM only has to decide that circumstances point to an increased likelihood of success and say, “You have advantage”.
In terms of the character creation process, it will be familiar to anyone who has rolled up a D&D character in the past. The starter set is limited to the basic fighter/wizard/cleric/rogue archetypes that feel limiting, but once you step up to the Players’ Handbook (and, if desired, some of the other supplements), there’s quite a lot more flexibility revealed. Additional classes like the Sorceror, Warlock, and Barbarian are available, and every class has what amounts to sub-classes that can be chosen at early levels. As a result, you can choose combinations that lead to, for example, a spell-casting archer, a ranger whose domain is another plane of reality, or a melee-capable warlock.
MP, by contrast, has done away with archetypes (and, in fact, the entire concept of “level” as a source of abilities and stat bonuses). Instead, characters choose a base set of powers – with a variety of ways to adjust the specifics of those powers – that fit into a character concept. (Alternatively, they roll a random set of powers and build a character concept around those). Experience is allocated directly into abilities rather than characters advancing through some pre-selected archetypal progression. As a result, MP characters have perhaps the ultimate in flexibility, but they can end up being very complex to build, especially if centered around an ability such as “Arsenal”. D&D, on the other hand, lets you look at your character sheet and say, “I now have 3000 experience points, which means I’m level 3 and get an extra attack.”
It’s the age-old trade-off of simplicity vs versatility. But in my opinion, complexity in “offline” processes such as character building is acceptable so long as it enriches the “online” process – the interactions at the gaming table.
(And yes, it’s certainly possible to make up your own rules and variants in any system, but I’m considering here only the factory settings, so to speak.)
As I mentioned above, these are all just initial thoughts, and they’ll probably congeal more once I actually get to the point of playing the game. I’ll share them here along the way as I post character summaries and notes from our campaign as it gets going.
On a side note, I’ve been reading through the level 1-5 adventure included in the Starter Set. It’s the first adventure module I’ve seen in quite some time. Written and published by folks with a lot more gaming experience than mine, it’s impressed on me the need to do better in my MP campaigns in terms of richer NPC interactions and empowering the players to steer the story, rather than trying to push them toward a given goal. This, of course, will require more preparation and/or improvisation on my part and could end up derailing some of my long-term story ideas, but it seems like a worthwhile goal nonetheless.
Trade-offs. Always trade-offs.