This week D&D returns to magazine shelves with Dungeons & Dragons Adventurer, new iconic D&D characters are possibly teased, and we return to our discussion social encounter game mechanics to decide how much crunch is the right amount.
Aberration on Gamefound: https://ghostfiregaming.com/GGYT_GHAB_2023_10_107
Email your questions to [email protected]
Ben: @TheBenByrne
James: @jamesjhaeck
Shawn: @shawnmerwin
Adam: @RetroArchetype
Editor: @ZsDante
Topics:
00:00 – Intro
03:49 – New D&D Iconic Characters
12:20 – DriveThruRPG Update
18:45 – D&D Adventurer magazine
28:16 – Aberration last 48hrs
30:06 – Social encounter crunch?
42:57 – Casting spells in front of NPC’s
54:50 – New D&D celebrity liveplay
source
Somatic and verbal components are the best way to put limits on casters whenever anyone complains about the martials vs. casters divide.
Simple ordinary handcuffs/shackles prevent you from casting spells with somatic components.
A silence spell, noxious gas, or any sort of gaging object in the mouth blocks verbal components.
Any npc who is either educated or has seen a spellcaster before can spot the casting of a spell. Especially royalty, guards, or the Deans of a Magic Academy.
If you want to conceal your spell casting, then you either need to have proficiency in slight of hand and roll high, very high in the case of educated or caster npcs, or you need the sorcerer's subtle spell metamagic. You aren't going to be able to get away with casting silvery barbs on the King or the Academy Headmaster.
Edit: also grappling. If you are grappled you can't do anything that requires somatic components. Don't close into melee with an obviously super strong enemy with your 8 str hexblade. If you don't have high enough dex to escape the grapple, or a verbal only close area damage cantrip like sword burst, you are going to get grabbed, put in an arm lock, and shoved face down into the dirt.
D&D Adventurer delivery address restricted to UK & Ireland…
I would absolutely get my son a year subscription to this and then donate them to the school library when he was through with them. There are absolutely kids in the middle school D&D club that would eat these up.
As a DM, I agree that spellcasting is obvious and audible and require both hands. I do so to make Warcaster Feat and Subtle Metamagic important. If you let spellcasters cast spells “stealthily” it makes those abilities pointless.
Aleena Halaran
Oh wow, that was my terrible internet comment that got brought up! I deeply appreciate that, ya'll – even if I don't agree with all the points. (As always, Shawn Merwin is my nemesis.)
I've used this as a specific DMing style question:
The wizard PC is speaking to some guards and wants to cast Charm Person on the captain. Assuming the captain fails her saving throw, how would you play that out:
A) The captain tells the other guards that these aren't the droids they're looking for and moves on.
B) The captain is charmed but the other guards notice the spellcasting (or get some sort of opposed roll to figure out what's going on).
C) The instant the wizard starts waving their arms around and chanting words of power, the guards all go for their weapons and we roll initiative.
Most D&D actual play streams seem to go with A as the most generous interpretation. r/dndnext advocates for C, which strikes me as overly punitive.
8:37 Shawn presents an example by "Dailing"
I feel like the perception that DriveThruRPG was somehow a homebrew focused site that is now shifting to be more corporate sounds to me like someone who came to DTRPG through DM's Guild or Storyteller's Vault and isn't aware that these were later additions to the sites focus.
I'm not a fan of most 5e stuff, but that magazine sounds great, even before factoring in the amazing editor. Gotta send cash to a Brit friend.
Edit: the fact that it's 2 pounds is unbelievable
chanting along with the rest of the audience: BALL OF TOADS. BALL OF TOADS. BALL OF TOADS.
seriously, we need this spell now.
I think the mistake most social systems make is forcing players to use specific mechanical tools to communicate. That's almost self-evidently annoying, as is just saying "conversations are combat!", then using the same rules you use to fight to have a conversation. These are unlike things; they should not be mechanically modeled the same way.
BUT
That is not to say it's impossible to design around this, merely that pitfalls abound. Instead, I think a narrative trigger system like PbtA uses (otherwise known as "When You World") works best. You don't tell players "you can only say x thing in y way if you use z skill", you say "just have a normal conversation, and When You [convince someone your cause is just | turn their blade and find a peaceable solution | incite a riot), then you get some benefit. You incentivize players to /achieve/ something, /then/ you build out mechanics to help them reach that goal.
Combat works because combat was (fairly organically) designed this way: your original goal in D&D was to get treasure out of dungeons. Monsters got in the way of that, and consequently some players would attack them, others would find a way around them, and others still would try to convince them to leave them alone. The focus on combat arose because monsters /defaultly/ attacked players (and necessarily so): a monster would attack you, you took damage, and in the original pre-0th edition game, /you just died/ because player characters effectively only had one hit point.
This was, of course, annoying, so Arneson (and I'm sure others were involved) teased out the concept of hit points for player characters, and suddenly there were /goals/ around combat. Your goal was to keep your hitpoints high and reduce monster hitpoints to 0. Only /then/ did we start seeing class features and combat mechanics, because players wanted more leverage and insurance when getting into combat.
The same conditions obtain for social interaction: you have to set the /goal/ first, then build mechanics around it. Its much more difficult with social roleplaying because there could be any of a variety of different goals in a given conversation; there isn't one outcome you want when you speak to someone. But there are a /knowable number/ of broad categories of things you might want, and within the scope of a tabletop game, that set is even further reduced: you want Information, or you want Control.
If a game built mechanics around /that/, I don't think people would have nearly as many issues as they normally do with social systems.
If, because social and combat encounters are different, you don't want the same mechanics, why are Persuasion, Deception, Intimidation, and Performance checks acceptable in 5e? Rolling at least three of those is necessarily going to happen inside a social encounter, yet I don't see nearly the same rancor directed at them that I do at social mechanics in other games. Maybe it's a matter of degree? I'm really not sure.
46:32 Ben you're already supernaturally charming
casting Friends as a changeling is secretly OP for starting gang wars
Does no one have the decency to define "iconic" in context for Ben? I.e., as an exemplar of a class rather than just, like, a notably important person? If you dont help him, he'll never learn!
Related: The whole point of a class is to place restraints on a character's abilities, role, and/or identity within the game. All class-based RPGs work that way to one extent or another. Stuff like a cleric undergoing a crisis of faith is orthagonal to that.
While visiting England a month ago, I spotted issue 1 of that new D&D magazine. For just £1.99 (USD 2.47) one gets the first instalment in a kind of rulebook/scenario magazine, where the rules and world of D&D are introduced 24 pages per issue. The first bait – er, package – included an intro to the combat rules, the basics of player classes and races (or "species", as they are called now), a short senario, four pregenerated characters and some other stuff, plus a set of dice in a metal box. I grabbed it out of curiosity – I mean, a full set of quality dice for £1.99! Yoink!
When I returned home, I checked out the offer to subscribe, just to see how much getting D&D drip-fed would cost. The sum total of those 80 issues and accompanying binders would be £752.16 (USD 932). On top of that, the whole collection will be finished over a year from now, in January 2025. OK, one gets some unique content and "free" gifts, but if you instead buy the DM's Guide, Player Handbook, Monster Manual, the Starter and Essential sets, the DM screen, the guide to the Sword Coast and the new campaign Phandelver and Below, it will set you back some £275 (USD 350), or slightly more than a third of the cost for the full collection – and you'll be able to start playing straight away.
But hey, I got some nice dice and four pregens that I added to my Essentials set.
does anyone remember WARDUKE? Zarak the assasin, or Strongheart the Paladin form the toyline lol
if you are allowed to hide your spellcasting, the fundamental problem is that you undermining a feature for another class. no point in using SUBTLE spell, everyone gets i for free.. BIG PROBLEM
I quite enjoy skill challenges. I use them for chase scenes, escapes and from time to time social interaction.
i love the idea of Dms rolling the players dice WHEN and only WHEN they shouldnt know the results.. ie perception checks, stealth checks, Insight checks, becuz knowing the roll influences how the player will behave.
The longer I've played D&D or other systems the more X-ray vision ive developed
I think i used to look as the flavour text as part of the mechanics, but now the first thing that I see are the core mechanics and my core instrinct is 'How do I make a character that uses these same mechanics in a way that is wildly different to what the book tells you'
OK fudge-stuffed Reese's cups sound ducking AMAZING!!
Dr Strange casting vs Samantha from Bewitched casting
Great episode this week as always! I'm always happy to see the Witcher watch resurface in full form. <3 <3
No dael!? Unwatchable….. Nah seriously great job as always
On Social Encounter Crunch, the thing is…… DnD 5e has some crunchy rules for social interactions. Attitude levels, checks with DC's for if you make "demands, requests or suggestions" etc….. it's just…… people ignore those rules lol.
Cough which people forget you can do in other games like Pathfinder and probably MCDM's upcoming game. People seem to forget how people ignore all these rules in 5e but expect you to use them all in other ttrpgs.
I think the reason that crunchy social mechanics are not received well in D&D is that D&D is not about social interaction. It's about combat. A crunchy negotiation system would be very relevant and welcome for a game where you played, say, a hostage negotiator, or a wedding planner, and unless your D&D game becomes about that… it's always going to feel like unnecessary weight.
Everyone forgot about the movie? I see it brought up all the time in various social media.
That said, I don’t see WotC capitalizing on how good it was. Oh well.
Great vid!
Less intensive? D&D is about as intense as reading a phonebook from the 90's
the reason technical roleplay doesnt feel good because its unnatural adn break the flow of a normal conversation . but to be honest I think there is a place for technical roleplay in certain situation . like duel of wits in burning wheel is only made when two immovable point views collide . and I would like to see something like that sometimes in dnd like when talking to a king or a villain / spy to try to over maneuver them in a negotiation …. like come on trying to make a deal with a devil or a hag should be extremely technical like that. and most players arent that socially empowered …. we are nerds rolling funny shaped stones around XD
but I want insight and deception to be viable in combat I like that pathfinder have options for them but I dont want them to be crunched like that basically like few examples in the player handbook on how to use such skills in combat would be extremely handy
Serve all types of players: Social encounters for actors. Combat and skill checks for wargamers. Puzzles & mysteries for explorers. Thrills, chills, & laughs for spectators.
Wait. Ben, is it called the "Negotiation System"? I thought it was called the "[Dry Heave] Negotiation System" based on what you kept calling it last week.
Woah woah woah. Spellcasting foci eliminate the need for MATERIAL components. You've still gotta provide verbal and somatic components even with a focus.
Why the useless transitions? "Speaking of selling things" (meaningless transition) "We've got a tirade to go on for the next 5-10 minutes!" What's the point of the of the transition?
Bargle and Aleena from the OG red box story. I was 11 and Aleena’s fate is forever associated with one of my first, impactful losses in life.