Orc Babies

I’ve seen a lot of discussion about Mearls’ 5E articles and the rules-side of the game, but there’s been hardly any conversation about James Wyatt’s “Wandering Monsters” column. There should be, because it’s terrible. In the column, Wyatt discusses monsters, and their role in the D&D game and world. The results are often uninspired, or they come completely out of the blue.

Apparently, the goal is to create monster concepts that can include both the AD&D/3E version of a monster, and the 4E version. Sounds good, but the result is often a wishy-washy, watered down monster. I’m no fan of the changes 4E made to some of the monsters, but at least there were concepts behind them (even if they were weak concepts).  For example, the much-lamented Devil Succubus was a dumb idea, but at least it was a Devil. In 5E, the Succubus will be nothing. They’re watering down the concept even more. Furthermore, Wyatt’s articles make for dry reading, and that doesn’t bode well for the 5E Monster Manual.

Last week’s article, “You Got Science In My Fantasy” touches upon a topic I’ve been meaning to write about:

Orc Babies

Let’s get one thing straight: no orc is a “non-combatant”. The idea that encountering orc babies is an interesting “moral dilemma” or “philosophical discussion” is an often repeated adventurer legend that’s not true. It's up there with "Bree-yark means I surrender" and "Succubi are great kissers".

Orc babies are vicious, nasty little critters: balls of fur with razor-sharp teeth, an unrelenting hunger for fresh meat, and the ability to jump from the floor straight on a man’s face.

Orc Baby (2d8): AL C; MV 15; AC 10; HD 1d4 hp; #AT 1; Dmg 1d4 (bite); M 10; XP 6.

Jaws of Steel: An orc baby attacks the unarmored parts of their opponents (bare arms, face). If its bite attack succeeds, it stays attached to its opponent and does 1d4 damage automatically each round. To detach an orc baby the opponent must make a Str check.

5E: Stop. Just…stop.

Discourse and Dragons linked to this fantastic post on UAD&D. It's long, but worth it.

5E: Killing Monsters and Taking their Stuff

I’ve seen this description of the game about a million times: D&D is about killing monsters and taking their stuff. I disagree strongly, and I think it hurts the game.
It was the slogan for the Munchkin card game, a parody of D&D. Somehow people thought it was an accurate description of Dungeons & Dragons itself, and started to use it as a slogan for D&D. I think that’s wrong: using the slogan for a parody to describe D&D turns the game into a parody of itself. That is what 4E is (except it isn’t funny).

In the TSR versions of the game, you don’t have to kill the monsters: You can try to talk to them; charm them; sneak past them; lure them into a trap; lock them in a prisoner cell; trick them into killing other monsters for you; or in some cases, play the monsters themselves. There are many different solutions to an encounter. Making a choice between these solutions or thinking up completely different ones, that’s the game.

The 5E Playtest rules at least acknowledge that players might want to take a different approach to encounters besides fighting. But why should they? The characters have too many hit points and too much free healing, so fighting still seems the safest option. Other approaches can be taken, but are often depended on the DM and success is not guaranteed. At least when you fight the monsters, you know you’re going to win.

As long as fights in the game are rigged in favor of the PCs, combat will be the default option in dealing with monsters. Combat shouldn’t be the best option; it should be one of many. By making combat just as dangerous as other options, the game will encourage players to consider other approaches to overcoming challenges. This is good for the game: the adventuring day will be longer than 15 minutes, characters will be allowed to shine at different moments, combats will be shorter and less boring, listen and spot checks will have a purpose again, and so on.

On WotC reprints and 5E

No posts on the Weird Opera world this week, because I'm very busy with stocking Castle Verge. I'll post the completed castle levels here when I'm done.

So instead, I decided to do a post on 5E. Grognardia has a post on "D&D Next" here, in which James writes:

Here's the thing, though. I still don't understand the purpose behind "D&D Next" or whatever the heck it's going to be called. I think, at this stage, WotC (and D&D itself) would be better served by keeping several versions in print or at least available via print-on-demand, with some portion of each version's support materials also available.

I agree with him 100%. I think WotC's goal of uniting all D&D players is a good one, and necessary for the D&D brand to survive. I don't think trying to rally existing players around a new edition of the game is the way to go, however. In the comments on Grognardia I wrote:

I think the D&D audience isn't really split up that much as people say. It's split up, but basically, there's only 3 groups: Old School, 3.x, and 4E. You could argue the "old school" is split up in 0E, B/X, BECMI, etc, but I think all TSR versions of the games are compatible enough.

If WotC reprint 3.5, they have product for all three groups. I think it's a smart move on their part; they provide the rules that can be used to play 3rd party products, and it shows they're serious about supporting all versions of the game. Hopefully, Wizards will follow up by offering their backcatalog in pdf or print-on-demand. If they leave the DDI available for the 4E people, they will have their bases covered.

I think the success of 5E will largely be depended on ease of use with other editions. If 5E products are easily converted to Pathfinder or Labyrinth Lord, and vice versa, so players can use everything that's published, that would (re)gain them a lot of customers. However, ruleswise, I don't see how that's possible. Especially 4E is mechanically too different from the rest.

To be clear, with "easiliy converted" I mean conversion on the fly. In my experience, because TSR editions of the game don't care about balance that much, 3E-adventures are relatively easy to convert to older editions, because you can convert most monsters by name (that is, if there's 4 orcs in the room, that's still 4 orcs in the conversion). New monsters require some more work, but not that much.