This thread is quickly degenerating into But that's not how you play D&D and if you want to play this or that type of game you should probably go play something else from the very people who most insist there is no one right way to play and who most complain about what they have perceived as gatekeeping. It's poetically ironic.
What is happening right now to those complaining about art in the 2024 PHB because much of it isn't depicting combat and some of it is depicting more domestic scenes? Those people are being told D&D is about more than just fighting dragons. That characters do lead lives outside of the dungeon. That some players even like to run whole games that revolve more around what most might consider just downtime activities. I have known female gamers over the years who ran more romantic fantasy themed campaigns. This might not be my cup of tea but I ain't about to tell them D&D ain't the game for them. Because I am not a jerk.
But the names provided those supplements were the names of those pioneers' respective settings. And the fact is both ran and played extensive campaigns more about emergent storytelling in fictional settings of their own creation than mere fighting.
Judges Guild were providing setting resources during the lifecycles of OD&D and AD&D before TSR would publish one.
Do you honestly believe because we did not see a published campaign setting from TSR for a while none of us played that way? We all just fought one thing after another? We all just ran through published modules? We never came up with our own things? As if DIY/homebrew has never been at the heart of the hobby? I played D&D extensively between '83 and around about '96 or '97 and I don't think I ever ran a single published adventure. I would harvest ideas from fantasy fiction and create worlds of my own inspired by these. And typically run these as sandboxes.
I started with the Mentzer red box. Friends of mine and I played in things like Howard's Hyborian Age before there was ever published content for the game set in it because we loved Conan comics. Even with the comparatively minimal rules of Basic D&D we crafted stories more than just went from one fight to another.
Some in this thread could really use reading Jon Peterson's Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-Playing Games and The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity. Watching Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead of telling themselves because those who pioneered D&D played a wargame before they did their intentions for D&D was that it be primarily about combat.
As I said before Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game as we know it by doing two things:
(1) adding a referee to adjudicate those things combat rules did not cover;
(2) doing this to create a game that was more about emergent storytelling in fictional worlds than just simulating combat.
Both Arneson and Gygax sought to create a game that went well beyond combat. Both ran and played games that went well beyond combat. Games in which worlds evolved. In which characters played very active roles in those worlds beyond just fighting in them for gold and glory.
That doesn't mean your game must emulate how they played and how many others did play or prefer to play still.
You can play how you want. But stop rewriting history.
I'd love to see more martial base classes along with a sorcerer divine class. Frankly I've been playing 5e since the playtest off and on and I don't find any of the classes interesting anymore. Subclasses don't really help much either cus its still "A ranger but with..." I've just been there done that too much. I think 2e with the options and 3e held my interest longer because you had kits/prestige classes along with a longer skill list so I could flavor the ranger up in a lot more ways to make it a little different than my last ranger. Right now your pretty much limited to a few subclasses and spells to change it up.
I got to wondering: Do we really need so many melee classes? Melee classes include fighters, barbarians, rangers, paladins, rogues, warlocks, bards, druids, clerics .. and wizards. Actually, the only class in the entire game that doesn't really have any viable melee option is the sorcerer.
Maybe the real question is 'do we need so many classes?'
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
Some in this thread could really use reading Jon Peterson's Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-Playing Games and The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity. Watching Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead of telling themselves because those who pioneered D&D played a wargame before they did their intentions for D&D was that it be primarily about combat.
As I said before Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game as we know it by doing two things:
(1) adding a referee to adjudicate those things combat rules did not cover;
(2) doing this to create a game that was more about emergent storytelling in fictional worlds than just simulating combat.
Both Arneson and Gygax sought to create a game that went well beyond combat. Both ran and played games that went well beyond combat. Games in which worlds evolved. In which characters played very active roles in those worlds beyond just fighting in them for gold and glory.
That doesn't mean your game must emulate how they played and how many others did play or prefer to play still.
You can play how you want. But stop rewriting history.
I don't want to put words into the mouth of the person you are arguing with, but all they've said (as far as I can tell) is that the sourcebook rules were combat heavy since the beginning, and due to that, the main rules support in the game has always been combat.
I don't think they've once suggested that's the "correct" or "best" way to play; simply that if tables were running role-play heavy campaigns with little combat in the early days, it was in spite of the official released materials, not because of it.
Some in this thread could really use reading Jon Peterson's Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-Playing Games and The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity. Watching Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead of telling themselves because those who pioneered D&D played a wargame before they did their intentions for D&D was that it be primarily about combat.
As I said before Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game as we know it by doing two things:
(1) adding a referee to adjudicate those things combat rules did not cover;
(2) doing this to create a game that was more about emergent storytelling in fictional worlds than just simulating combat.
Both Arneson and Gygax sought to create a game that went well beyond combat. Both ran and played games that went well beyond combat. Games in which worlds evolved. In which characters played very active roles in those worlds beyond just fighting in them for gold and glory.
That doesn't mean your game must emulate how they played and how many others did play or prefer to play still.
You can play how you want. But stop rewriting history.
I don't want to put words into the mouth of the person you are arguing with, but all they've said (as far as I can tell) is that the sourcebook rules were combat heavy since the beginning, and due to that, the main rules support in the game has always been combat.
I don't think they've once suggested that's the "correct" or "best" way to play; simply that if tables were running role-play heavy campaigns with little combat in the early days, it was in spite of the official released materials, not because of it.
They have been arguing for almost a day about how "the most significant part of the game"—their words— is moments of combat. They have said D&D is not really about telling a story. When historically the game was developed as one in which emergent storytelling would take place in fictional worlds. They have said —contrary to what you are now saying—D&D is probably not the right game for those who want more of a focus on things other than combat. They have suggested the "Dungeons" in Dungeons & Dragons is there because it started as a game about "assaulting a dungeon." Which is laughable. Because even Gygax and Arneson both played in and ran extensive campaigns that were more about the worlds in which they took place and how those worlds evolved due to how the characters in them interacted with them than they were just fighting dragons. So no. Their point has not simply been that there is a greater focus on combat in the rulebooks. And to that point I mentioned how Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game by introducing a referee to adjudicate for those things not determined by the combat rules. So the game could be about so much more. About the stories we could tell at our tables. In which combat might take place. They have not replied to this particular point. The very beginnings of the game of D&D began with asking why just fight when we can do so much more? It began with Arneson and others seeking to roleplay the roles of commanding officers in a wargame. To make them do and say things. To make them be someone. To weave their stories. It began with wondering why stage historical battles when stories could be told in fictional worlds like those they read about. To make anything possible. To allow players to choose to do practically anything when interacting with those fictional worlds. Anything. But we are supposed to believe because the rules for running a game are so focused on combat that combat is "the most significant part of the game"? They have tirelessly disregarded the very definition of a roleplaying game and how Gygax and Arneson themselves approached the game of D&D to assert D&D is really a combat-oriented game. It's worth noting that many of the even simplest of earlier modules would have more things to do in them than they would mere encounters. Rooms with puzzles and traps say. And this isn't to go into the interactions between fully fledged NPCs who were not just bags of HP in those that were more vast in scale and range.
The rulebooks gave more space to combat because players were required to roleplay just about everything else.
Amazing that this should be the case in what is known as a roleplaying game.
If the rules focus on those used to resolve combat it is because none are required for most everything else.
Few are those roleplaying games with complex rules for social interactions. Because there is no need to gamify what can be roleplayed.
Again the very development of these games as we know them began because Arneson took a wargame and figured that he could take games beyond just combat by imbuing those figures on the table with personalities and histories and placing them in fictional worlds like those in the fiction that inspired him and his peers. To add to this formula a referee who could adjudicate those roleplayed elements.
Earlier editions of D&D did not even have skills other than those thieves were capable of. Players would say what they wanted to do. Describe this. And the referee would determine the outcome or call for a roll. Just because ample space in the rulebooks wasn't dedicated to how to manage skills doesn't mean people didn't try to do anything but fight. The entire premise that so much has gone into those rules used to resolve combat and this somehow means it's "the most significant part of the game" is to completely miss the point of what makes a roleplaying game a roleplaying game.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with combat-light or combat-free D&D. However, I don't think that's playing to the system's strengths. There are other games that do combatless or narrative/exploration/intrigue/social-heavy far better.
Imagine if you will a bunch of male grognards telling a group of female players who want to play a game of D&D with minimal violence that is more focused on other things in a setting say inspired by the more YA novels of Andre Norton (a major influence on Gygax by the way) or the romantic fantasy of Mercedes Lackey and of others like her to maybe go play something else because without the violence D&D just ain't D&D ...
That would be a little thing we call gatekeeping.
Are you saying someone who had experienced trauma and who did not handle violence very well but who wished to try D&D should be told Yeah maybe it's not the game for you because violence is just so integral to the game? Seriously?
I have known parents over the years to use D&D to run games for their kids inspired by media they like.
Today there may very well be other games that may be more conducive to what these people are looking for. But if someone wants to do this with D&D who are you to tell them otherwise? It's not as if expansive campaigns haven't taken place using D&D over the years and these more about managing guilds and kingdoms and the like than they were fighting. So how do you figure it's just not cut out for this sort of stuff?
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's rules are similar in that most concern combat. Its most well received published campaign for almost forty years has remained one of intrigue and not just let's now fight the thing in the next room. Here is what someone said about the first book in this six-volume campaign series:
"Politics, history or religion, everything is covered! It is more focused on role playing than on combat."
Emphasis mine.
And as has already been pointed out few are those games whose rules extensively cover social interaction because there is no need to gamify what can just be roleplayed.
When your insistence on D&D being a combat-oriented game leads you down the path of telling people they are playing it wrong or playing the wrong game or they ought to go play something else you have become what you claim to be resisting for the sake of argument. A gatekeeper.
This thread has been fascinating for me. For years, I've been seeing a constant litany of complaints about 5e from DMs of older editions (which is to say, pre-3e) because it drives character attachment too much. We shouldn't be so invested in the characters and it should be about raiding dungeons and seeing how far your build gets before it gets itself killed. And when they die? Well, no worries! If Romulo Ironheart gets killed, just put a II next to his name, his son mysteriously steps up, and keep playing. When he dies, just add another tally mark.
Their chief complaint about 5e is the plot armour characters get, which is the mechanics chasing the desire of players to invest in their character and their story...which means they need to survive - at least for a while. Honestly, I'm not sure a week has gone by without someone complaining about 5e because it's abandoned the core precepts of D&D over this.
It's literally the first time I've ever seen anyone not only claim that the early editions were about the story (rather than the players trying to survive the DM's fights), but also that it's the other way around - 5e is all about fights and that early D&D was about story. It's been really interesting seeing this very different point of view.
I got to wondering: Do we really need so many melee classes? Melee classes include fighters, barbarians, rangers, paladins, rogues, warlocks, bards, druids, clerics .. and wizards. Actually, the only class in the entire game that doesn't really have any viable melee option is the sorcerer.
Maybe the real question is 'do we need so many classes?'
I think you're really stretching the idea of "melee" classes here. Wizards have one subclass that works as a melee (to my memory and view, maybe I've missed others). All the other Casters you mention really aren't melee unless you specifically build for it, and are like calling Barbarians Casters because they have a Subclass that can cast spells. Fighter and Barbarian kind of have a fuzzy boundary - Barbarians get Rage, Fighters hit more often. Ranger and Paladin have more daylight between them but are still close. Wizards/Sorcerers and Clerics/Bards are other pairings that are a bit close.
I don't think they need to cut classes, and they could even add more, but I would like it if for 6e they worked in making the classes more genuinely distinct. Out of the Casters, only the Warlock feels distinct and like they actually have a different source of power from the others - despite there being at least three different "Sources of Power" for Casters in the game.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
WRT to failure rates in magic, it is not the concept that is flawed, but a question of implementation. Let;s work with the Shadowdark version. You cast a spell. Say it is a 1st level spell. If I remember correctly, the "DC" was 10 plus the spell level, so in this case, 11. A d20 is rolled against that number, and the PC's Int bonus was tacked on. Assuming a +3 to Int, that would mean a 65% chance of a 1st level spell working properly. I can't remember if the caster level was also added to that d20 roll, but it would make sense to. So, going with 5e stats, we could have a 4th level caster, with an 18 Int (+4), and now that DC 11 is going to succeed 90% of the time. Now, that almost trivializes the risk. But some modification to that mechanic would create a situation where casters could, and should, fail occasionally.
Yeah I get that, but that is on top of the already built-in failure rates (saving throws, missing to hit rolls). Its a bit like adding a % miss chance to attacks on top the already existing to hit roll. Its sort of like a double penalty in many cases when it comes to magic in 5e.
Easy fix: get rid of having casters having to make attack rolls or their targets having to make saves. You roll to cast and it works or it doesn't.
That is how ShadowDark handles spellcasting. The caster does not additionally have to make an attack roll and targets do not additionally have to make saves.
This streamlines spellcasting.
One of the beautiful things about 5E is the simplicity of its core mechanic. You want to do something. You are given a target number. You roll a d20. Add or subtract any modifiers. Meet or beat that target number. Done.
Were all spells handled as simply as requesting the caster make a roll it would be simpler. Expecting particularly new players to remember which spells require an attack roll and which ones require saves be made when wizards these days have more spells than necessary unnecessarily complicates things. I have been playing and running D&D for 41 years. And I laugh when people talk about all the unnecessary rules in AD&D. Because I had no trouble then remembering everything to be remembered about one of my players' characters without consulting the rules. Fewer spells that would be in a character's arsenal. Now there is constant page-turning to be reminded how any one spell might work in that regard. Even other DMs I know and with whom I have played have found this to be the case. Constant page-turning at their tables. Or constantly having to look up this or that spell online.
You yourself admit a spell already has a chance of failure. If an attack roll or save is needed. Why not eliminate that and just replace it with something simpler?
Its a good point but there is a difference. Much of the magic infrastructure of 5e D&D is built around the idea of compared power levels. The power level of the caster vs. the power level of the target. So as a "not real, but you get the point example" a 1st level Wizard casting a Charm Person stands no chance of charming an ancient dragon, because the dragon has a very high save, but a 20th level Wizard can probobly do it, because the difficulty of the save the dragon has to make will be really high.
This depth of the mechanic is meaningful and while Shadowdarks version is "simpler" it inherently lacks this mechanical depth. Which is fine for a simple game about dungeon crawling and dungeon survival, its not fine in a story focused fantasy RPG like D&D. The complexity of the mechanics is not a flaw of 5e as you see, its a feature, its designed very intentionally to be complex and that is not a failure of design, it is quite literarly designed that way on purpose to get the exact outcome that it has.
A lot of times old school gamers want to have this conversation about how "old school games are better designed because their simpler". This is a very strange position to hold as modern D&D is more complex, very intentionally to service an audiance that demands that complexity. If the game was simplified as you describe, there would be fewer people playing it.
In other words, 5e's complexity is WHY people play 5e, to suggest it would be better if it was simpler is a gross misunderstanding of this audience. If anything, a huge part of the audience (the second largest part of the D&D community) doesn't play 5e and they play Pathfinder 2e instead very specifically and exclusively because 5e is not complex enough and lacks the depth that Pathinder 2e offers.
The reality is that the OSR community, the old school gamers that want simpler games is so small and so insignificant that they literarly don't matter enough to giants like D&D to even bother listening to their feedback as potential 5e players. Like Wizards doesn't even bother creating optional rules for a simpler form of the game even though they could very easy add a simple chapter like that in the DMG, like for example how to adjust 5e to be simpler and more effective as a dungeon crawl survival game. I mean Shadowdarks core rules fit on a napkin, it would not take much to include the entire thing in the DMG. The reason they don't is that they have an entire beach of sand (customers) and the OSR is like 1 grain of sand. So irrelevant that they simply don't matter at all.
And I'm saying this as a OSR enthusiast, but that is the reality of the situation, the OSR is a laughably small community. If we all gathered in one place we would be lucky if their was 30,000 of us. That isn't even worth coming into work for Wizards of the Coast.
Its a good point but there is a difference. Much of the magic infrastructure of 5e D&D is built around the idea of compared power levels. The power level of the caster vs. the power level of the target. So as a "not real, but you get the point example" a 1st level Wizard casting a Charm Person stands no chance of charming an ancient dragon, because the dragon has a very high save, but a 20th level Wizard can probobly do it, because the difficulty of the save the dragon has to make will be really high.
This depth of the mechanic is meaningful and while Shadowdarks version is "simpler" it inherently lacks this mechanical depth. Which is fine for a simple game about dungeon crawling and dungeon survival, its not fine in a story focused fantasy RPG like D&D. The complexity of the mechanics is not a flaw of 5e as you see, its a feature, its designed very intentionally to be complex and that is not a failure of design, it is quite literarly designed that way on purpose to get the exact outcome that it has.
A lot of times old school gamers want to have this conversation about how "old school games are better designed because their simpler". This is a very strange position to hold as modern D&D is more complex, very intentionally to service an audiance that demands that complexity. If the game was simplified as you describe, there would be fewer people playing it.
In other words, 5e's complexity is WHY people play 5e, to suggest it would be better if it was simpler is a gross misunderstanding of this audience. If anything, a huge part of the audience (the second largest part of the D&D community) doesn't play 5e and they play Pathfinder 2e instead very specifically and exclusively because 5e is not complex enough and lacks the depth that Pathinder 2e offers.
The reality is that the OSR community, the old school gamers that want simpler games is so small and so insignificant that they literarly don't matter enough to giants like D&D to even bother listening to their feedback as potential 5e players. Like Wizards doesn't even bother creating optional rules for a simpler form of the game even though they could very easy add a simple chapter like that in the DMG, like for example how to adjust 5e to be simpler and more effective as a dungeon crawl survival game. I mean Shadowdarks core rules fit on a napkin, it would not take much to include the entire thing in the DMG. The reason they don't is that they have an entire beach of sand (customers) and the OSR is like 1 grain of sand. So irrelevant that they simply don't matter at all.
And I'm saying this as a OSR enthusiast, but that is the reality of the situation, the OSR is a laughably small community. If we all gathered in one place we would be lucky if their was 30,000 of us. That isn't even worth coming into work for Wizards of the Coast.
I get what you're saying. But it's not as if combat couldn't be afforded a greater level of mechanical depth taking more into consideration "compared power levels" with it not being all about a target's DEX and/or worn armor but additionally its overall prowess and experience perhaps reflected in its proficiency bonus or something else and not just that of whoever is taking a swing when it comes to how likely or unlikely it is they are going to hit that target.
Should it be just as easy for a starting 1st-level character to hit an unarmored but seasoned 15th-level warrior with a DEX of 15 and an active AC of 12 than it is for them to hit a 0-level shopkeep blessed with the same DEX but who has never seen a day of combat in its life?
I am not advocating for this level of simulationist play. Just to be clear.
I do think there is an underappreciated beauty to simpler design. Remember D&D before D&D introduced skills? A player wasn't looking at his or her character sheet to see what the character could do. The player was dreaming up ways to do what they wanted the character to do. Described this. And the DM arbitrated. The larger audience for what D&D has become may not want this. And that's fine. But I do believe more rules has perhaps unintentionally meant more self-imposed constraints and struggle to understand why anyone would want that in a game that basically allows us to escape the very real constraints of our world for a few hours once a week.
I have always liked thieves. As a class. But there is a good article out there about how when thieves first became a class—remembering that originally it was just three of what are now considered to be the core four—was when a lot of player agency was lost and with it much creativity. Because they gave this new class access to skills everyclass had previously had access to. If more abstractly.
It's funny you say ShadowDark is the crawler while 5E is the "story focused fantasy RPG" provided a few people in this thread have been arguing for the past twenty four hours about how 5E is basically just a slash 'em up.
Regarding ShadowDark being nothing more than a dungeon crawler this is what I had to say about that the last time you made that claim:
The majority of tables in the book are for generating urban locations and encounters in them. I use it for what is other than just excursions into what lies below the streets and beyond the walls ultimately an urban crawl.
What rules would you say are "required" to run it for anything other than dungeon crawling? Because to me it is really just 5th. Edition only broken down to core classes and removing rules bloat and making use of some of the innovations we have seen in the OSR to make it look and feel more like B/X and games that emulate B/X. B/X and BECMI were certainly more than mere dungeon crawlers. These were and remain used for domain level play.
Baron de Ropp mentions in response to people saying it is just a dungeon crawler that he started running a campaign using the system as soon as the pdf was made available before the books shipped and that it was still going at the time of recording. Critics want to say it can't do anything else. Many of them have probably never even looked inside the thing. They only need to hear or read someone say it and they suspect that assessment is the truth.
I think you're really stretching the idea of "melee" classes here.
And I think you're missing the point. It's a spectrum, it's fluid. There are few options for fighters, rogues and barbarians to cast spells - but they all have them. And in a perfectly similar fashion, there are few options for full casters to go melee - but they all have them. Except sorcerers. Precisely as I stated.
It makes no difference to me how many classes there are. You could have a class called Arcane, and have wizard, sorcerer, warlock and so on be options for that class. For all I care, there could be four classes (fighter, priest, wizard, rogue) and the same number of options as we have with the current rules.
But anyways: I don't think there's too many casters. Essentially, only barbarians can't cast spells (although magic can sort of happen around them), and only sorcerers can't fight in melee, and everyone else is some variation of gishyness. Or ... you know, has the option to be so. There are just as few pure casters, as pure melee.
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Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
The fact that just about every class has a casting option, or a melee option, just means players have more flexibility in creating the character they want. It doesn't mean your fighter has to cast spells
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Regarding ShadowDark being nothing more than a dungeon crawler this is what I had to say about that the last time you made that claim:
The majority of tables in the book are for generating urban locations and encounters in them. I use it for what is other than just excursions into what lies below the streets and beyond the walls ultimately an urban crawl.
What rules would you say are "required" to run it for anything other than dungeon crawling? Because to me it is really just 5th. Edition only broken down to core classes and removing rules bloat and making use of some of the innovations we have seen in the OSR to make it look and feel more like B/X and games that emulate B/X. B/X and BECMI were certainly more than mere dungeon crawlers. These were and remain used for domain level play.
Baron de Ropp mentions in response to people saying it is just a dungeon crawler that he started running a campaign using the system as soon as the pdf was made available before the books shipped and that it was still going at the time of recording. Critics want to say it can't do anything else. Many of them have probably never even looked inside the thing. They only need to hear or read someone say it and they suspect that assessment is the truth.
Though we are here to talk about D&D 5th edition not Shadowdark, I think this is a good question and I think the answer syncs up nicely with the topic.
In short, the answer to this question is simple, rules are designed to enforce a genre and specific playstyle, that is how game design works. What you are suggesting is that in the absence of rules, it supports all genres and all playstyles. This is simply not true, it can be, YOU can make it that, but that is through the application of a playstyle, one not written or codified, not explained or elaborated on describing how to do it, it is YOUR invention, YOUR playstyle. Its something you add to the game, its not what the game was designed for.
THE playstyle of any game, be it Shadowdark or 5th edition D&D and everything in between is defined by the rules written for the game, that becomes the genre and the playstyle, its what the game supports. The absence of rules does not create support for anything. Again YOU can invent your own way to make that absence BE something, but that is not game design, that is personal playstyle.
Shadowdark supports Dungeon Crawling, there are no other rules, architecture or instructions anywhere in the book that suggest otherwise. Can it be more? Of course, YOU, I or ANYONE can do whatever they want with it, we can turn it into a game about running a tavern and play "theatre" for hours never leaving for an adventure, never fighting a monster, just talking to patrons, serving drinks, and cooking dinners for our patrons and that is what the game can be about. The game however has nothing in the rules that would support that playstyle, we, would simply invent that. We could, not even bother making mechanical characters using the Shadowdark rules, ignore every word in that book and still create that "theatre" experience. But.. is that the purpose of Shadowdark? I think not.
Now I will say, you can design a game that does what I call "anti-support", a game that with the rules actually makes it difficult, even impossible with heavily altering the rules or ignoring them to create a certain genre. For example 5e is a game in which a dungeon crawl survival game is basically impossible. There are way too many rules and mechanics in the game that quite literally circumvent and make it impossible to create that experience at the table, you have to literally redesign the game and that is EXACTLY how and why Shadowdark was created. The designer took the 5th edition rules, altered them to create a very specific genre, a very specific playstyle within the fantasy adventure spectrum, aka.. a Dungeon Crawling Survival Game.
Matt Colville explains this better than I can but.. yeah, game design is a real thing. It does beg the question, what is 5th edition D&D's playstyle? That's a really tough question and I think Colville says it best, its a game about nothing and I think that is as good an answer as any.
Regarding ShadowDark being nothing more than a dungeon crawler this is what I had to say about that the last time you made that claim:
The majority of tables in the book are for generating urban locations and encounters in them. I use it for what is other than just excursions into what lies below the streets and beyond the walls ultimately an urban crawl.
What rules would you say are "required" to run it for anything other than dungeon crawling? Because to me it is really just 5th. Edition only broken down to core classes and removing rules bloat and making use of some of the innovations we have seen in the OSR to make it look and feel more like B/X and games that emulate B/X. B/X and BECMI were certainly more than mere dungeon crawlers. These were and remain used for domain level play.
Baron de Ropp mentions in response to people saying it is just a dungeon crawler that he started running a campaign using the system as soon as the pdf was made available before the books shipped and that it was still going at the time of recording. Critics want to say it can't do anything else. Many of them have probably never even looked inside the thing. They only need to hear or read someone say it and they suspect that assessment is the truth.
Though we are here to talk about D&D 5th edition not Shadowdark, I think this is a good question and I think the answer syncs up nicely with the topic.
In short, the answer to this question is simple, rules are designed to enforce a genre and specific playstyle, that is how game design works. What you are suggesting is that in the absence of rules, it supports all genres and all playstyles. This is simply not true, it can be, YOU can make it that, but that is through the application of a playstyle, one not written or codified, not explained or elaborated on describing how to do it, it is YOUR invention, YOUR playstyle. Its something you add to the game, its not what the game was designed for.
THE playstyle of any game, be it Shadowdark or 5th edition D&D and everything in between is defined by the rules written for the game, that becomes the genre and the playstyle, its what the game supports. The absence of rules does not create support for anything. Again YOU can invent your own way to make that absence BE something, but that is not game design, that is personal playstyle.
Shadowdark supports Dungeon Crawling, there are no other rules, architecture or instructions anywhere in the book that suggest otherwise. Can it be more? Of course, YOU, I or ANYONE can do whatever they want with it, we can turn it into a game about running a tavern and play "theatre" for hours never leaving for an adventure, never fighting a monster, just talking to patrons, serving drinks, and cooking dinners for our patrons and that is what the game can be about. The game however has nothing in the rules that would support that playstyle, we, would simply invent that. We could, not even bother making mechanical characters using the Shadowdark rules, ignore every word in that book and still create that "theatre" experience. But.. is that the purpose of Shadowdark? I think not.
Now I will say, you can design a game that does what I call "anti-support", a game that with the rules actually makes it difficult, even impossible with heavily altering the rules or ignoring them to create a certain genre. For example 5e is a game in which a dungeon crawl survival game is basically impossible. There are way too many rules and mechanics in the game that quite literally circumvent and make it impossible to create that experience at the table, you have to literally redesign the game and that is EXACTLY how and why Shadowdark was created. The designer took the 5th edition rules, altered them to create a very specific genre, a very specific playstyle within the fantasy adventure spectrum, aka.. a Dungeon Crawling Survival Game.
Matt Colville explains this better than I can but.. yeah, game design is a real thing. It does beg the question, what is 5th edition D&D's playstyle? That's a really tough question and I think Colville says it best, its a game about nothing and I think that is as good an answer as any.
(1) I did not say the absence of rules means a game supports all genres and playstyles.
(2) I asked you quite specifically what rules are missing from ShadowDark that mean it is just a game for dungeon crawling:
What rules would you say are "required" to run it for anything other than dungeon crawling?
Can you not answer this question?
Instead of just saying its rules only support one thing explain exactly why that is? You say its rules support this and only this. How so? What is missing?
The theme of the game implies that this is its author's intention. But as far as rules go they are as conducive as those in just about any early edition of D&D to different genres or playstyles. How is ShadowDark any more of a dungeon crawler than Basic D&D? Can you answer this question?
You keep making this about "rules." But what it really seems to be about for you is theme.
What you are saying about ShadowDark would be like saying a pirate-themed iteration of D&D does not support any other genre or playstyle beyond D&D with pirates because it does not say so in the book when the mechanics might be identical to those in D&D but for the addition of some seafaring rules and rules for resolving combat at sea.
If ShadowDark seems as if it is only for dungeon crawling it is because of what is little more than fluff and how torchlight is handled and some tables specific to "attacking the light." And because the same predictable charge gets leveled against just about any rules-light OSR game by people who have never even bothered to crack them open.
The actual mechanics of the game be they for combat or skills or spells or whatnot make no such assumptions. They are as conducive as Basic D&D to running practically anything medieval fantasy.
(1) I did not say the absence of rules means a game supports all genres and playstyles.
(2) I asked you quite specifically what rules are missing from ShadowDark that mean it is just a game for dungeon crawling:
What rules would you say are "required" to run it for anything other than dungeon crawling?
Can you not answer this question?
Or for that matter why are the rules that are present only for dungeon crawling? You say its rules support this and only this. How so? What is missing? The theme of the game implies that this is its author's intention. But as far as rules go they are as conducive as those in just about any early edition of D&D to different genres or playstyles. How is ShadowDark any more of a dungeon crawler than Basic D&D? Can you answer this question?
Fair enough, I was trying to answer it in an abstract way but I think I can answer this with specifics.
You mentioned B/X and I think that is a great basis for example and to answer the specific question.
Basic 1st edition rules included rules sufficient enough to run very basic adventures. Beyond the rules for character creation which included Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User and Thief, each with mechanics geared towards "dungeon crawling" It included rules for encounters and combat and show play example focused on a dungeon crawl. It it also included rules for retainers and had complete list of equipment.
Arguably the same rules coverage that Shadowdark had. So ask yourself this. Why Expert rules? What was the point of adding more rules? Can you not have a wilderness adventure using the Basic rules? Why do you need an Expert ruleset that covers rules for horses, Titles, Obstacles to Movement, Special Wilderness Travel, Food, Rest, and mercenaries? Why did they include rules for designing a wilderness and create specific rules for wilderness adventures?
Basic didn't have any of these rules from the Expert set, is that mean Wilderness Adventures were assumed and supported with Basic and if so, why the need for Expert set rules for wilderness adventures?
The game continued to be expanded to include the companion and master sets which add rules for Dominion control, mass combat, hex crawl rules... Was Dominion, Mass combat or hex crawl not supported in the Basic set by the absence of rules?
Shadowdark doesn't have an expert, companion or master set that describes how to execute these other elements of the game. How does hex crawling work in Shadowdark, how do you build a keep, how do you raise an army etc etc.. These mechanics that appear in other games are the designer's way of saying "hey you can do this in our game" and by that design they are saying "this is what our game is about".
Everything in Shadowdark describes how you execute an adventure in the dungeon, there are no other rules to suggest that anything else happens in the game, that the game is about anything else. So yeah, by the reading of that book, what you can derive from it is that the game is about Dungeon Crawling and by the absence of any other rules, its not about anything else.
5e for example is not about raising armies and having mass combat, it does not support that style of play. BUT... You can get the Strongholds and Followers 3rd party supplement and with that supplement, now you can... now you have support for that style of play.
Since everyone is discussing Shadowdark in the post, I went and looked it up for myself because I've never heard of it before reading this thread. It looks like the creators are basically just making Basic D&D within the framework of heavily stripped-down 5e. Looking at the books, I can see why people are saying that the RPG looks like it is catering to just being a dungeon crawl game. Even the website refers to the players as crawlers and this is the first paragraph mentioned on the website "In Shadowdark RPG, you and your group of crawlers use magic, steel, and wits to delve into mysterious ruins, lost cities, and monster-infested depths. Wondrous treasures and long-forgotten secrets await you! But don't let your last torch burn out, or you could be swallowed by the Shadowdark..."
Not saying you can't use the rules to have a strictly roleplay, non-combat game with this system. But how they are advertising on their kickstarter website is that they are billing this as a Basic D&D, old school dungeon crawl game that is intentionally meant to be hard due to taking away the safety nets, such as eliminating darkvision and rolling 3d6 only straight down for abilities.
None of the discussion for the last bit has anything to do with the thread - the thread is about why there are different types of caster class, not about its fundamental efficacy at different pillars of the game.
To segue this topic back on course, 5e is designed to be rules heavy in some aspects of the game and rules light in others. Combat is rules heavy - most every action is clearly defined so there is no ambiguity of what occurs, keeping combat moving and ensuring there is little room for interpretation of deviation. Social interactions are rules light - while rules exist, the game explicitly wants players and DMs to make social decisions based on their character’s/NPC’s personality or mood.
Whether you like that or not is a subject for a completely different thread - but that is clearly what there designers were going for.
Now, back to the thread. Character creation is rules heavy by necessity, but is also a topic Wizards would prefer be rules light. What does that mean?
To ensure everyone is starting on the same page and there is no ambiguity about what your character can do, it has to be rules heavy - clearly defined rules ensure every single character functions in the same game and utilize the same exact system.
However, character creation is also the very thing 5e wants players to be flexible on - they want players to be able to conceptualize who or what their character is and play whatever they imagine. This is the fundamental justification for why parts of the game are rules light - not wanting strict rules to override player agency.
So, how do they square the necessity of something rules heavy with something that, in other aspects of the game, would be rules light? Options. Providing enough options to ensure players can find in the rules heavy system something that meshes with the visions in their head.
That is why we have three different types of class (casters, martials, and half-casters to spread the divide between the two). It is why we have classes within the same category with different power sources. For martials, you have the disciplined martial training of a Fighter, the primal strength of a Barbarian, the mental training of a Monk. For casters you have internal power of sorcerers, external power of Warlocks, the studious power of Wizards, etc.
And now we get to OP’s original question - why can’t different categories just be subclasses?
The rules heavy way Wizards has decided to go has been to define classes in terms of their power source, and subclasses in terms of the nature of that source. Under that system, a Barbarian is not just an angry Fighter - they draw their strength from the primal aspect of themselves, not from weapons training. A Sorcerer cannot be a subclass of Wizard, since Wizards definitionally studied for their powers, while Sorcerers did not. The entire system is set up so players can think about their character not just in terms of mechanics, but to find a power source which meshes with their character concept.
Now, is this good for the game? I certainly think so - I play with both experienced and new players on a regular basis. For experienced players, they can pretty much always find something that meshes with what they want to play and fits the character they came up with with the sole exception of a true psionic - something the game is lacking). For new players, asking “where did my power comes from?” helps ease them into roleplaying and to come up with their character, either at the game’s start or as they explore the game and realize what sets their character apart from others.
Different folks might see this differently. Some might see it as too constraining, others might see it as too complex and open. But, for me? It works. And, considering Wizards collects a whole lot of data on players and, based on that data, decided to double down on 5e instead of making a true new edition? Guessing the data shows this system works for the overwhelming majority of players.
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Neither book actually included setting information.
Blackmoor
Greyhawk
This thread is quickly degenerating into But that's not how you play D&D and if you want to play this or that type of game you should probably go play something else from the very people who most insist there is no one right way to play and who most complain about what they have perceived as gatekeeping. It's poetically ironic.
What is happening right now to those complaining about art in the 2024 PHB because much of it isn't depicting combat and some of it is depicting more domestic scenes? Those people are being told D&D is about more than just fighting dragons. That characters do lead lives outside of the dungeon. That some players even like to run whole games that revolve more around what most might consider just downtime activities. I have known female gamers over the years who ran more romantic fantasy themed campaigns. This might not be my cup of tea but I ain't about to tell them D&D ain't the game for them. Because I am not a jerk.
I stand corrected.
But the names provided those supplements were the names of those pioneers' respective settings. And the fact is both ran and played extensive campaigns more about emergent storytelling in fictional settings of their own creation than mere fighting.
Judges Guild were providing setting resources during the lifecycles of OD&D and AD&D before TSR would publish one.
Do you honestly believe because we did not see a published campaign setting from TSR for a while none of us played that way? We all just fought one thing after another? We all just ran through published modules? We never came up with our own things? As if DIY/homebrew has never been at the heart of the hobby? I played D&D extensively between '83 and around about '96 or '97 and I don't think I ever ran a single published adventure. I would harvest ideas from fantasy fiction and create worlds of my own inspired by these. And typically run these as sandboxes.
I started with the Mentzer red box. Friends of mine and I played in things like Howard's Hyborian Age before there was ever published content for the game set in it because we loved Conan comics. Even with the comparatively minimal rules of Basic D&D we crafted stories more than just went from one fight to another.
Some in this thread could really use reading Jon Peterson's Playing at the World: A History of Simulating Wars, People, and Fantastic Adventures from Chess to Role-Playing Games and The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity. Watching Secrets of Blackmoor: The True History of Dungeons & Dragons. Instead of telling themselves because those who pioneered D&D played a wargame before they did their intentions for D&D was that it be primarily about combat.
As I said before Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game as we know it by doing two things:
(1) adding a referee to adjudicate those things combat rules did not cover;
(2) doing this to create a game that was more about emergent storytelling in fictional worlds than just simulating combat.
Both Arneson and Gygax sought to create a game that went well beyond combat. Both ran and played games that went well beyond combat. Games in which worlds evolved. In which characters played very active roles in those worlds beyond just fighting in them for gold and glory.
That doesn't mean your game must emulate how they played and how many others did play or prefer to play still.
You can play how you want. But stop rewriting history.
I'd love to see more martial base classes along with a sorcerer divine class. Frankly I've been playing 5e since the playtest off and on and I don't find any of the classes interesting anymore. Subclasses don't really help much either cus its still "A ranger but with..." I've just been there done that too much. I think 2e with the options and 3e held my interest longer because you had kits/prestige classes along with a longer skill list so I could flavor the ranger up in a lot more ways to make it a little different than my last ranger. Right now your pretty much limited to a few subclasses and spells to change it up.
As far as "sorcerer divine class", I believe that's called the Divine Soul Sorcerer.
I got to wondering: Do we really need so many melee classes? Melee classes include fighters, barbarians, rangers, paladins, rogues, warlocks, bards, druids, clerics .. and wizards. Actually, the only class in the entire game that doesn't really have any viable melee option is the sorcerer.
Maybe the real question is 'do we need so many classes?'
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
I don't want to put words into the mouth of the person you are arguing with, but all they've said (as far as I can tell) is that the sourcebook rules were combat heavy since the beginning, and due to that, the main rules support in the game has always been combat.
I don't think they've once suggested that's the "correct" or "best" way to play; simply that if tables were running role-play heavy campaigns with little combat in the early days, it was in spite of the official released materials, not because of it.
They have been arguing for almost a day about how "the most significant part of the game"—their words— is moments of combat. They have said D&D is not really about telling a story. When historically the game was developed as one in which emergent storytelling would take place in fictional worlds. They have said —contrary to what you are now saying—D&D is probably not the right game for those who want more of a focus on things other than combat. They have suggested the "Dungeons" in Dungeons & Dragons is there because it started as a game about "assaulting a dungeon." Which is laughable. Because even Gygax and Arneson both played in and ran extensive campaigns that were more about the worlds in which they took place and how those worlds evolved due to how the characters in them interacted with them than they were just fighting dragons. So no. Their point has not simply been that there is a greater focus on combat in the rulebooks. And to that point I mentioned how Arneson conceived of the idea of a roleplaying game by introducing a referee to adjudicate for those things not determined by the combat rules. So the game could be about so much more. About the stories we could tell at our tables. In which combat might take place. They have not replied to this particular point. The very beginnings of the game of D&D began with asking why just fight when we can do so much more? It began with Arneson and others seeking to roleplay the roles of commanding officers in a wargame. To make them do and say things. To make them be someone. To weave their stories. It began with wondering why stage historical battles when stories could be told in fictional worlds like those they read about. To make anything possible. To allow players to choose to do practically anything when interacting with those fictional worlds. Anything. But we are supposed to believe because the rules for running a game are so focused on combat that combat is "the most significant part of the game"? They have tirelessly disregarded the very definition of a roleplaying game and how Gygax and Arneson themselves approached the game of D&D to assert D&D is really a combat-oriented game. It's worth noting that many of the even simplest of earlier modules would have more things to do in them than they would mere encounters. Rooms with puzzles and traps say. And this isn't to go into the interactions between fully fledged NPCs who were not just bags of HP in those that were more vast in scale and range.
The rulebooks gave more space to combat because players were required to roleplay just about everything else.
Amazing that this should be the case in what is known as a roleplaying game.
If the rules focus on those used to resolve combat it is because none are required for most everything else.
Few are those roleplaying games with complex rules for social interactions. Because there is no need to gamify what can be roleplayed.
Again the very development of these games as we know them began because Arneson took a wargame and figured that he could take games beyond just combat by imbuing those figures on the table with personalities and histories and placing them in fictional worlds like those in the fiction that inspired him and his peers. To add to this formula a referee who could adjudicate those roleplayed elements.
Earlier editions of D&D did not even have skills other than those thieves were capable of. Players would say what they wanted to do. Describe this. And the referee would determine the outcome or call for a roll. Just because ample space in the rulebooks wasn't dedicated to how to manage skills doesn't mean people didn't try to do anything but fight. The entire premise that so much has gone into those rules used to resolve combat and this somehow means it's "the most significant part of the game" is to completely miss the point of what makes a roleplaying game a roleplaying game.
Imagine if you will a bunch of male grognards telling a group of female players who want to play a game of D&D with minimal violence that is more focused on other things in a setting say inspired by the more YA novels of Andre Norton (a major influence on Gygax by the way) or the romantic fantasy of Mercedes Lackey and of others like her to maybe go play something else because without the violence D&D just ain't D&D ...
That would be a little thing we call gatekeeping.
Are you saying someone who had experienced trauma and who did not handle violence very well but who wished to try D&D should be told Yeah maybe it's not the game for you because violence is just so integral to the game? Seriously?
I have known parents over the years to use D&D to run games for their kids inspired by media they like.
Today there may very well be other games that may be more conducive to what these people are looking for. But if someone wants to do this with D&D who are you to tell them otherwise? It's not as if expansive campaigns haven't taken place using D&D over the years and these more about managing guilds and kingdoms and the like than they were fighting. So how do you figure it's just not cut out for this sort of stuff?
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay's rules are similar in that most concern combat. Its most well received published campaign for almost forty years has remained one of intrigue and not just let's now fight the thing in the next room. Here is what someone said about the first book in this six-volume campaign series:
"Politics, history or religion, everything is covered! It is more focused on role playing than on combat."
Emphasis mine.
And as has already been pointed out few are those games whose rules extensively cover social interaction because there is no need to gamify what can just be roleplayed.
When your insistence on D&D being a combat-oriented game leads you down the path of telling people they are playing it wrong or playing the wrong game or they ought to go play something else you have become what you claim to be resisting for the sake of argument. A gatekeeper.
This thread has been fascinating for me. For years, I've been seeing a constant litany of complaints about 5e from DMs of older editions (which is to say, pre-3e) because it drives character attachment too much. We shouldn't be so invested in the characters and it should be about raiding dungeons and seeing how far your build gets before it gets itself killed. And when they die? Well, no worries! If Romulo Ironheart gets killed, just put a II next to his name, his son mysteriously steps up, and keep playing. When he dies, just add another tally mark.
Their chief complaint about 5e is the plot armour characters get, which is the mechanics chasing the desire of players to invest in their character and their story...which means they need to survive - at least for a while. Honestly, I'm not sure a week has gone by without someone complaining about 5e because it's abandoned the core precepts of D&D over this.
It's literally the first time I've ever seen anyone not only claim that the early editions were about the story (rather than the players trying to survive the DM's fights), but also that it's the other way around - 5e is all about fights and that early D&D was about story. It's been really interesting seeing this very different point of view.
Anyways.
I think you're really stretching the idea of "melee" classes here. Wizards have one subclass that works as a melee (to my memory and view, maybe I've missed others). All the other Casters you mention really aren't melee unless you specifically build for it, and are like calling Barbarians Casters because they have a Subclass that can cast spells. Fighter and Barbarian kind of have a fuzzy boundary - Barbarians get Rage, Fighters hit more often. Ranger and Paladin have more daylight between them but are still close. Wizards/Sorcerers and Clerics/Bards are other pairings that are a bit close.
I don't think they need to cut classes, and they could even add more, but I would like it if for 6e they worked in making the classes more genuinely distinct. Out of the Casters, only the Warlock feels distinct and like they actually have a different source of power from the others - despite there being at least three different "Sources of Power" for Casters in the game.
If you're not willing or able to to discuss in good faith, then don't be surprised if I don't respond, there are better things in life for me to do than humour you. This signature is that response.
Its a good point but there is a difference. Much of the magic infrastructure of 5e D&D is built around the idea of compared power levels. The power level of the caster vs. the power level of the target. So as a "not real, but you get the point example" a 1st level Wizard casting a Charm Person stands no chance of charming an ancient dragon, because the dragon has a very high save, but a 20th level Wizard can probobly do it, because the difficulty of the save the dragon has to make will be really high.
This depth of the mechanic is meaningful and while Shadowdarks version is "simpler" it inherently lacks this mechanical depth. Which is fine for a simple game about dungeon crawling and dungeon survival, its not fine in a story focused fantasy RPG like D&D. The complexity of the mechanics is not a flaw of 5e as you see, its a feature, its designed very intentionally to be complex and that is not a failure of design, it is quite literarly designed that way on purpose to get the exact outcome that it has.
A lot of times old school gamers want to have this conversation about how "old school games are better designed because their simpler". This is a very strange position to hold as modern D&D is more complex, very intentionally to service an audiance that demands that complexity. If the game was simplified as you describe, there would be fewer people playing it.
In other words, 5e's complexity is WHY people play 5e, to suggest it would be better if it was simpler is a gross misunderstanding of this audience. If anything, a huge part of the audience (the second largest part of the D&D community) doesn't play 5e and they play Pathfinder 2e instead very specifically and exclusively because 5e is not complex enough and lacks the depth that Pathinder 2e offers.
The reality is that the OSR community, the old school gamers that want simpler games is so small and so insignificant that they literarly don't matter enough to giants like D&D to even bother listening to their feedback as potential 5e players. Like Wizards doesn't even bother creating optional rules for a simpler form of the game even though they could very easy add a simple chapter like that in the DMG, like for example how to adjust 5e to be simpler and more effective as a dungeon crawl survival game. I mean Shadowdarks core rules fit on a napkin, it would not take much to include the entire thing in the DMG. The reason they don't is that they have an entire beach of sand (customers) and the OSR is like 1 grain of sand. So irrelevant that they simply don't matter at all.
And I'm saying this as a OSR enthusiast, but that is the reality of the situation, the OSR is a laughably small community. If we all gathered in one place we would be lucky if their was 30,000 of us. That isn't even worth coming into work for Wizards of the Coast.
I get what you're saying. But it's not as if combat couldn't be afforded a greater level of mechanical depth taking more into consideration "compared power levels" with it not being all about a target's DEX and/or worn armor but additionally its overall prowess and experience perhaps reflected in its proficiency bonus or something else and not just that of whoever is taking a swing when it comes to how likely or unlikely it is they are going to hit that target.
Should it be just as easy for a starting 1st-level character to hit an unarmored but seasoned 15th-level warrior with a DEX of 15 and an active AC of 12 than it is for them to hit a 0-level shopkeep blessed with the same DEX but who has never seen a day of combat in its life?
I am not advocating for this level of simulationist play. Just to be clear.
I do think there is an underappreciated beauty to simpler design. Remember D&D before D&D introduced skills? A player wasn't looking at his or her character sheet to see what the character could do. The player was dreaming up ways to do what they wanted the character to do. Described this. And the DM arbitrated. The larger audience for what D&D has become may not want this. And that's fine. But I do believe more rules has perhaps unintentionally meant more self-imposed constraints and struggle to understand why anyone would want that in a game that basically allows us to escape the very real constraints of our world for a few hours once a week.
I have always liked thieves. As a class. But there is a good article out there about how when thieves first became a class—remembering that originally it was just three of what are now considered to be the core four—was when a lot of player agency was lost and with it much creativity. Because they gave this new class access to skills every class had previously had access to. If more abstractly.
It's funny you say ShadowDark is the crawler while 5E is the "story focused fantasy RPG" provided a few people in this thread have been arguing for the past twenty four hours about how 5E is basically just a slash 'em up.
Regarding ShadowDark being nothing more than a dungeon crawler this is what I had to say about that the last time you made that claim:
The majority of tables in the book are for generating urban locations and encounters in them. I use it for what is other than just excursions into what lies below the streets and beyond the walls ultimately an urban crawl.
What rules would you say are "required" to run it for anything other than dungeon crawling? Because to me it is really just 5th. Edition only broken down to core classes and removing rules bloat and making use of some of the innovations we have seen in the OSR to make it look and feel more like B/X and games that emulate B/X. B/X and BECMI were certainly more than mere dungeon crawlers. These were and remain used for domain level play.
Baron de Ropp mentions in response to people saying it is just a dungeon crawler that he started running a campaign using the system as soon as the pdf was made available before the books shipped and that it was still going at the time of recording. Critics want to say it can't do anything else. Many of them have probably never even looked inside the thing. They only need to hear or read someone say it and they suspect that assessment is the truth.
And I think you're missing the point. It's a spectrum, it's fluid. There are few options for fighters, rogues and barbarians to cast spells - but they all have them. And in a perfectly similar fashion, there are few options for full casters to go melee - but they all have them. Except sorcerers. Precisely as I stated.
It makes no difference to me how many classes there are. You could have a class called Arcane, and have wizard, sorcerer, warlock and so on be options for that class. For all I care, there could be four classes (fighter, priest, wizard, rogue) and the same number of options as we have with the current rules.
But anyways: I don't think there's too many casters. Essentially, only barbarians can't cast spells (although magic can sort of happen around them), and only sorcerers can't fight in melee, and everyone else is some variation of gishyness. Or ... you know, has the option to be so. There are just as few pure casters, as pure melee.
Blanket disclaimer: I only ever state opinion. But I can sound terribly dogmatic - so if you feel I'm trying to tell you what to think, I'm really not, I swear. I'm telling you what I think, that's all.
This
The fact that just about every class has a casting option, or a melee option, just means players have more flexibility in creating the character they want. It doesn't mean your fighter has to cast spells
Active characters:
Carric Aquissar, elven wannabe artist in his deconstructionist period (Archfey warlock)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Mardan Ferres, elven private investigator obsessed with that one unsolved murder (Assassin rogue)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Though we are here to talk about D&D 5th edition not Shadowdark, I think this is a good question and I think the answer syncs up nicely with the topic.
In short, the answer to this question is simple, rules are designed to enforce a genre and specific playstyle, that is how game design works. What you are suggesting is that in the absence of rules, it supports all genres and all playstyles. This is simply not true, it can be, YOU can make it that, but that is through the application of a playstyle, one not written or codified, not explained or elaborated on describing how to do it, it is YOUR invention, YOUR playstyle. Its something you add to the game, its not what the game was designed for.
THE playstyle of any game, be it Shadowdark or 5th edition D&D and everything in between is defined by the rules written for the game, that becomes the genre and the playstyle, its what the game supports. The absence of rules does not create support for anything. Again YOU can invent your own way to make that absence BE something, but that is not game design, that is personal playstyle.
Shadowdark supports Dungeon Crawling, there are no other rules, architecture or instructions anywhere in the book that suggest otherwise. Can it be more? Of course, YOU, I or ANYONE can do whatever they want with it, we can turn it into a game about running a tavern and play "theatre" for hours never leaving for an adventure, never fighting a monster, just talking to patrons, serving drinks, and cooking dinners for our patrons and that is what the game can be about. The game however has nothing in the rules that would support that playstyle, we, would simply invent that. We could, not even bother making mechanical characters using the Shadowdark rules, ignore every word in that book and still create that "theatre" experience. But.. is that the purpose of Shadowdark? I think not.
Now I will say, you can design a game that does what I call "anti-support", a game that with the rules actually makes it difficult, even impossible with heavily altering the rules or ignoring them to create a certain genre. For example 5e is a game in which a dungeon crawl survival game is basically impossible. There are way too many rules and mechanics in the game that quite literally circumvent and make it impossible to create that experience at the table, you have to literally redesign the game and that is EXACTLY how and why Shadowdark was created. The designer took the 5th edition rules, altered them to create a very specific genre, a very specific playstyle within the fantasy adventure spectrum, aka.. a Dungeon Crawling Survival Game.
Matt Colville explains this better than I can but.. yeah, game design is a real thing. It does beg the question, what is 5th edition D&D's playstyle? That's a really tough question and I think Colville says it best, its a game about nothing and I think that is as good an answer as any.
(1) I did not say the absence of rules means a game supports all genres and playstyles.
(2) I asked you quite specifically what rules are missing from ShadowDark that mean it is just a game for dungeon crawling:
What rules would you say are "required" to run it for anything other than dungeon crawling?
Can you not answer this question?
Instead of just saying its rules only support one thing explain exactly why that is? You say its rules support this and only this. How so? What is missing?
The theme of the game implies that this is its author's intention. But as far as rules go they are as conducive as those in just about any early edition of D&D to different genres or playstyles. How is ShadowDark any more of a dungeon crawler than Basic D&D? Can you answer this question?
You keep making this about "rules." But what it really seems to be about for you is theme.
What you are saying about ShadowDark would be like saying a pirate-themed iteration of D&D does not support any other genre or playstyle beyond D&D with pirates because it does not say so in the book when the mechanics might be identical to those in D&D but for the addition of some seafaring rules and rules for resolving combat at sea.
If ShadowDark seems as if it is only for dungeon crawling it is because of what is little more than fluff and how torchlight is handled and some tables specific to "attacking the light." And because the same predictable charge gets leveled against just about any rules-light OSR game by people who have never even bothered to crack them open.
The actual mechanics of the game be they for combat or skills or spells or whatnot make no such assumptions. They are as conducive as Basic D&D to running practically anything medieval fantasy.
Fair enough, I was trying to answer it in an abstract way but I think I can answer this with specifics.
You mentioned B/X and I think that is a great basis for example and to answer the specific question.
Basic 1st edition rules included rules sufficient enough to run very basic adventures. Beyond the rules for character creation which included Cleric, Fighter, Magic-User and Thief, each with mechanics geared towards "dungeon crawling" It included rules for encounters and combat and show play example focused on a dungeon crawl. It it also included rules for retainers and had complete list of equipment.
Arguably the same rules coverage that Shadowdark had. So ask yourself this. Why Expert rules? What was the point of adding more rules? Can you not have a wilderness adventure using the Basic rules? Why do you need an Expert ruleset that covers rules for horses, Titles, Obstacles to Movement, Special Wilderness Travel, Food, Rest, and mercenaries? Why did they include rules for designing a wilderness and create specific rules for wilderness adventures?
Basic didn't have any of these rules from the Expert set, is that mean Wilderness Adventures were assumed and supported with Basic and if so, why the need for Expert set rules for wilderness adventures?
The game continued to be expanded to include the companion and master sets which add rules for Dominion control, mass combat, hex crawl rules... Was Dominion, Mass combat or hex crawl not supported in the Basic set by the absence of rules?
Shadowdark doesn't have an expert, companion or master set that describes how to execute these other elements of the game. How does hex crawling work in Shadowdark, how do you build a keep, how do you raise an army etc etc.. These mechanics that appear in other games are the designer's way of saying "hey you can do this in our game" and by that design they are saying "this is what our game is about".
Everything in Shadowdark describes how you execute an adventure in the dungeon, there are no other rules to suggest that anything else happens in the game, that the game is about anything else. So yeah, by the reading of that book, what you can derive from it is that the game is about Dungeon Crawling and by the absence of any other rules, its not about anything else.
5e for example is not about raising armies and having mass combat, it does not support that style of play. BUT... You can get the Strongholds and Followers 3rd party supplement and with that supplement, now you can... now you have support for that style of play.
Does that answer the question?
Since everyone is discussing Shadowdark in the post, I went and looked it up for myself because I've never heard of it before reading this thread. It looks like the creators are basically just making Basic D&D within the framework of heavily stripped-down 5e. Looking at the books, I can see why people are saying that the RPG looks like it is catering to just being a dungeon crawl game. Even the website refers to the players as crawlers and this is the first paragraph mentioned on the website "In Shadowdark RPG, you and your group of crawlers use magic, steel, and wits to delve into mysterious ruins, lost cities, and monster-infested depths. Wondrous treasures and long-forgotten secrets await you! But don't let your last torch burn out, or you could be swallowed by the Shadowdark..."
Not saying you can't use the rules to have a strictly roleplay, non-combat game with this system. But how they are advertising on their kickstarter website is that they are billing this as a Basic D&D, old school dungeon crawl game that is intentionally meant to be hard due to taking away the safety nets, such as eliminating darkvision and rolling 3d6 only straight down for abilities.
None of the discussion for the last bit has anything to do with the thread - the thread is about why there are different types of caster class, not about its fundamental efficacy at different pillars of the game.
To segue this topic back on course, 5e is designed to be rules heavy in some aspects of the game and rules light in others. Combat is rules heavy - most every action is clearly defined so there is no ambiguity of what occurs, keeping combat moving and ensuring there is little room for interpretation of deviation. Social interactions are rules light - while rules exist, the game explicitly wants players and DMs to make social decisions based on their character’s/NPC’s personality or mood.
Whether you like that or not is a subject for a completely different thread - but that is clearly what there designers were going for.
Now, back to the thread. Character creation is rules heavy by necessity, but is also a topic Wizards would prefer be rules light. What does that mean?
To ensure everyone is starting on the same page and there is no ambiguity about what your character can do, it has to be rules heavy - clearly defined rules ensure every single character functions in the same game and utilize the same exact system.
However, character creation is also the very thing 5e wants players to be flexible on - they want players to be able to conceptualize who or what their character is and play whatever they imagine. This is the fundamental justification for why parts of the game are rules light - not wanting strict rules to override player agency.
So, how do they square the necessity of something rules heavy with something that, in other aspects of the game, would be rules light? Options. Providing enough options to ensure players can find in the rules heavy system something that meshes with the visions in their head.
That is why we have three different types of class (casters, martials, and half-casters to spread the divide between the two). It is why we have classes within the same category with different power sources. For martials, you have the disciplined martial training of a Fighter, the primal strength of a Barbarian, the mental training of a Monk. For casters you have internal power of sorcerers, external power of Warlocks, the studious power of Wizards, etc.
And now we get to OP’s original question - why can’t different categories just be subclasses?
The rules heavy way Wizards has decided to go has been to define classes in terms of their power source, and subclasses in terms of the nature of that source. Under that system, a Barbarian is not just an angry Fighter - they draw their strength from the primal aspect of themselves, not from weapons training. A Sorcerer cannot be a subclass of Wizard, since Wizards definitionally studied for their powers, while Sorcerers did not. The entire system is set up so players can think about their character not just in terms of mechanics, but to find a power source which meshes with their character concept.
Now, is this good for the game? I certainly think so - I play with both experienced and new players on a regular basis. For experienced players, they can pretty much always find something that meshes with what they want to play and fits the character they came up with with the sole exception of a true psionic - something the game is lacking). For new players, asking “where did my power comes from?” helps ease them into roleplaying and to come up with their character, either at the game’s start or as they explore the game and realize what sets their character apart from others.
Different folks might see this differently. Some might see it as too constraining, others might see it as too complex and open. But, for me? It works. And, considering Wizards collects a whole lot of data on players and, based on that data, decided to double down on 5e instead of making a true new edition? Guessing the data shows this system works for the overwhelming majority of players.