Quote from: JeffB on September 24, 2020, 10:02:29 AM

It really doesn't bring much new to the design table, unless you've only ever played D&D before.

Best of 2 or worst of 2 wasn't a new thing- but 5E sure made it popular. During the playtest, It clicked in my head and I used it as a replacement mechanic in C&C-  Base DC always 15+ challenge level. PCs with a prime roll with advantage, otherwise, straight roll.

Many of its "unique" things were borrowed from 4E and names and mechanics changed slightly (Hit Dice vs Healing Surges, Short and Long rests vs Encounter & Daily Powers), etc.

Inspiration- again , new to D&D but the concept has been around for long before

Backgrounds- same

I think the best I can muster about 5E mechanics vs previous editions (4E back to OD&D)  is that it's probably the only version I could sit down and play without house-ruling/changing a bunch of stuff. It's "non offensive"  store brand plain vanilla ice-cream from a mechanical standpoint. As always, with every edition  I limit races/classes as appropriate to the types of games/campaigns I run.

IME you have to go outside D&D proper to find the innovative/clever mechanics in D&D type games-13th Age, a handful of OSR products, etc. The backlash to 4E killed any creativity or innovation in D&D mechanics for the foreseeable future. D&D players on the whole are weird about change: they want the same things as before, just in a new package with a minor update (and then complain when they get just that).  This is why I pretty much play only OD&D when it comes to D&D proper. I'm sick of the SOS edition after edition, book after book since 1977. I  go elsewhere for that creative/new fix.

True, but this pretty much applies to D&D as a whole. IMO, D&D's success is largely owed to two things and two things alone: Name Recognition and people's unwillingness to branch out and learn new systems. Which creates a feedback loop that allows network externalities to keep the game afloat even if the system is abject garbage.

But as far as I can tell, pretty much every single innovation in D&D's history has been taken from other systems, cuz other games did it first, and D&D loves its useless sacred cows. Skills/Proficiencies, Roll +Modifier, unified mechanics, etc., even bounded accuracy pretty much existed before 5e. D&D is basically the blackhole of RPGs. Even the system itself was pretty much stolen from someone else who was then left out of the loop—that's how much innovation D&D brings.

Still, I suppose that this type of discussions are still useful if you want to work within the "D&D" framework to figure out what works and what doesn't to cook up your ideal version of a D&D-like game. Who knows, if your game is good enough they might even steal a half-baked version of it for the next edition of D&D and call it their own.

Specifically from an Old School perspective (possibly a little broader than OSR, but O5R will do), my opinion is that there are some solid nuggets in 5E where the direction of the idea can be lifted but not the implementation.  Advantage/Disadvantage is probably the exception, which is why it is the first thing suggested.  Anyway, others:

1. Bounded Accuracy - controlling attack/AC modifiers, fine. Implementation of the scaling hit points, lacking.  Specifically, they scale too much, too fast. This isn't just a function of estar's point about 20 levels, either.  Someone went pure math and let the raw numbers gets out of control. 

2. A class "path" selected between levels 1 and 3, for customization, thus limiting the total number of classes.  Falls short in that the classes could be more streamlined (almost to an OSR degree) and let the paths do the heavier lifting.  Leads in 5E to a lot of dinky path abilities, detracting from the good side of feats being much reduced in effect.]

3. The room to have more old school saving throws is there.  5E just didn't do it.  Specifically, the 5E math assumes that the save target and the save modifier are scaling by level.  This is a 3E-ism that 5E could have kicked to the curb and/or left as an optional rule geared off of spell level instead of the caster's stats.  What would survive translation to OSR (I think) is a mechanic about as simple as the BEMCI saves, but without the chart.

4. Exhaustion. Go back and read Rules Compendium.  Almost everything that Exhaustion does in 5E is in those rules, often using almost identical key words in the text.  5E just has better organization and simplifies the mechanics.

On the scaling hit points, I'm playing with a design idea right now that is certainly not OSR in most respects, but is trying to get a more OSR-type solution for that.
I'm also looking at saving throws as discussed above, but I'm not far enough along to say much more about it yet.

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 11:54:34 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

The limitation to only three states -- advantage, single die roll, and disadvantage -- along with the way different states cancel each other out.

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:37:14 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 11:54:34 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

The limitation to only three states -- advantage, single die roll, and disadvantage -- along with the way different states cancel each other out.

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

You also get stupid interactions like:

   
• Shoot a longbow at a target at long range: Attack with Disadvantage.
• Shoot a longbow at a target at long range in heavy fog: Attack without Disadvantage.

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:37:14 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 11:54:34 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

The limitation to only three states -- advantage, single die roll, and disadvantage -- along with the way different states cancel each other out.

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

This is pretty much the sort reason I don't like Advantage/Disadvantage and don't get the fawning love for it. I much prefer the old 2/4 point increments for attack and ability rolls. It was far more granular and realistic, and allowed more nuance when dealing with variable advantages and complications. I'd usually use +/-4 by default, then reduce to +/-2 if the advantage or complication was minimal or increased by +/-4 if it was more significant. And if multiple factors are at play, I'd just add them all together without problem, so ALL factors have an impact on the roll (as it should be).

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 06:05:45 PM
I do like Advantage/Disadvantage so I'm intrigued by some discussions around the "O5R", aka OSR blended with 5e.

What other 5e concepts are worth stealing?
What else from 5e works awesome at the table?

And has anyone improved upon the ADV/DISADV mechanics?

I don't play 5e, but if I did, I'd improve on Advantage/Disadvantage by tossing it right the hell out.

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 06:05:45 PM
And has anyone improved upon the ADV/DISADV mechanics?

I strongly prefer Shadow of the Demon Lord's boons & banes to 5e's Adv/Disadv rule.

D&D 5E still has a lot of rules, for playing make believe and using your imagination.  If you embrace a Rule set, you are accepting its rules; either in whole, or in part.


In some ways, I find D&D 5E to be the best presentation of D&D.


Example: Wild Magic Sorcerers, make Sorcerers interesting.

Quote from: VisionStorm on September 24, 2020, 08:51:45 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 24, 2020, 04:37:14 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on September 23, 2020, 11:54:34 PM

Quote from: Bren on September 23, 2020, 08:21:55 PMSomewhat off-topic: while I like the advantage/disadvantage mechanic in the abstract, I've grown to really hate the implementation of advantage/disadvantage in 5E.

What goes wrong in the implementation that you hate?

The limitation to only three states -- advantage, single die roll, and disadvantage -- along with the way different states cancel each other out.

   
• Attack an opponent who can't see you - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent when your ally is distracting them - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is restrained - you gain advantage on your attack roll.
• Attack an opponent who is prone - you gain advantage on your attack roll.

But if you attack a restrained, prone, opponent who can't see you and is being distracted by your ally - you only gain advantage. There is no additional advantage to the additional benefits. Seems like there should be.

And if you have three or four things giving you advantage, but one thing giving you disadvantage the one disadvantage cancels out all of the other advantages. That seems peculiar, at best.
And before anyone replies -- and I know someone will -- of course I know that there are a number of ways to house rule things to change this. And if I had any interest in DMing 5E I would change things.

This is pretty much the sort reason I don't like Advantage/Disadvantage and don't get the fawning love for it. I much prefer the old 2/4 point increments for attack and ability rolls. It was far more granular and realistic, and allowed more nuance when dealing with variable advantages and complications. I'd usually use +/-4 by default, then reduce to +/-2 if the advantage or complication was minimal or increased by +/-4 if it was more significant. And if multiple factors are at play, I'd just add them all together without problem, so ALL factors have an impact on the roll (as it should be).

I disagree that it's more realistic, per se. Stacking a bunch of +2/4s makes your roll range go from say, 6-25 to 12-31, whereas advantage keeps you in in the same 6-25 but with the median around 20 instead of 15.5. Any DC higher than 25, i.e. things humans can less realistically do, are still impossible. Another part of advantage that I think makes it more natural is that it's not a linear bonus. It helps you the most for DCs around your non-adv/disadv median. If you need to roll a nat 10 to succeed, it's about the same as a +5 bonus. If you need to roll a nat 20, it's about a +1 bonus.


I can understand why the probabilities of advantage is less intuitive, and thus feel less realistic, though, which is certainly an important part of how one thinks about and designs a game system. Statistics aren't the same as how the game feels to play.

That being said, I like the idea of having cumulative adv/disadv combined with trading dice for a flat bonus. Then you can choose between beating a high DC, or more confidence against a low DC, or anything in between.

To understand advantage/disadvantage allow me to relate a story from playtesting my own system.


Like many skeptical of 5e, I built my system using static bonuses. But because a core tenant of my design process was to question everything, about two years into the process I decided to run a test using an advantage/disadvantage type system.


I told myself it would be to see if it was a decent enough mechanic for my optional rules section (where I'd placed a number of elements designed to let my system play more or less like various editions of D&D).


So there came a point in the session where one of the PCs was in a do-or-die situation (essentially a roll away from several PC deaths) and they rolled a 3 when they needed a 12 or better. So it wasn't even an interesting failure like a natural 1 (even if there's no mechanical effect to it, I habitually describing failures via natural 1s as rather comedic levels of bad luck interfering).


Then someone remembered the player had "advantage" on the check so the player rolled again and didn't just succeed, they rolled a natural 20. Critical success!


No reasonable amount of static bonuses would have changed that outcome (they'd have needed to scrounge up +9 in conditional modifiers), but the reroll took it from ignominious death to a player describing just how they pulled off their amazing feat (as I habitually allow players who roll natural 20's to do).


No static bonus could EVER compete with the endorphin rush of that. It was all the players were talking about afterwards. One of the players described it as a "saving throw vs. failure" and I found that description of it especially apt.


It was then that I realized that the advantage/disadvantage mechanic was going to need to be the core mechanic and the static bonuses the optional rule. The whole point of "question everything" was to find the best practices/most enjoyable mechanics for the system I was writing and advantage had blown static modifiers out of the water.


I ran several further tests, including ones with, frankly, ridiculous static conditional modifiers (one used +6 just so, on average, it would be a bigger boost than best case advantage) but the fix was in.


Rolling again just felt better (it was very intuitive to new players), was easier to apply after the fact (you didn't have to remember your actual roll, just that you had failed and got to roll again) and was also easier math (compare dice + add mod vs. add roll + base mod + each conditional mod).


The only thing it really needed was some stackability... one advantage with two disadvantages meant disadvantage. Double disadvantage meant disadvantage and half-effect even on a success. Double advantage meant advantage and a critical success if you succeeded.


The extra two degrees satisfied most of those who wanted more granularity, but kept the simplicity of roll twice (or reroll if you forgot and it might affect the outcome).


And that is the story of how I went from hating advantage and insisting on static modifiers to rebuilding my game to make an advantage/disadvantage style mechanic the primary source of conditional modifiers (vs. innate modifiers such as a PC/monster's skill even with very specific actions which remain static).

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 25, 2020, 08:34:11 AM
Then someone remembered the player had "advantage" on the check so the player rolled again and didn't just succeed, they rolled a natural 20. Critical success!


No reasonable amount of static bonuses would have changed that outcome (they'd have needed to scrounge up +9 in conditional modifiers), but the reroll took it from ignominious death to a player describing just how they pulled off their amazing feat (as I habitually allow players who roll natural 20's to do).


No static bonus could EVER compete with the endorphin rush of that. It was all the players were talking about afterwards. One of the players described it as a "saving throw vs. failure" and I found that description of it especially apt.

Yeah, I rarely hear people discuss how adv/disad increases the chances of rolling a crit or fumble. And having a re-roll can swing the result all the way from one to the other. While still keeping the numbers manageable.


I like re-roll mechanics for the reason you outlined.

Technically, what used to be called the "circumstance" bonus didn't go away in 5E.  You are just supposed to use it infrequently and replace most uses of it with advantage or disadvantage.  There's nothing to stop the GM using 5E RAW from treating "overwhelming" advantage/disadvantage with the occasional bonus, and it's just a short house rule from there to "GM rules that your vast advantage still stands despite the one disadvantage". 

But I think the underlying discontent with it is not the stacking so much as the range of things that give it. Being blind or hanging from one hand on a dangling rope while trying to fight is a lot bigger disadvantage than some of the more prosaic examples.  If I wanted to make it more systematic instead of just using rulings, it would be something like:

Overwhelming Advantage - advantage, +2 circumstance.
Overwhelming Advantage, with lesser disadvantage - advantage.

Then parallel Overwhelming Disadvantage options.  A +2 or -2 on top of advantage/disadvantage is pretty nasty when you look at the math, at least in most cases.  It's strictly a GM decision whether or not you get "Overwhelming" but guidelines would look at the number and severity of the sources of it, and would assume you need at least two to qualify in most cases (maybe not being blind).  That lets in a little of the "Player goes fishing for every possible modifier" issue, but still caps it at "Overwhelming" is as far as you can go. 

You could lower the circumstance to +1/-1 and apply it for every source, but that's too fiddly for me, and doesn't really solve the issue of particularly strong advantages or disadvantages.

Quote from: areallifetrex on September 25, 2020, 06:08:58 AMI disagree that it's more realistic, per se. Stacking a bunch of +2/4s makes your roll range go from say, 6-25 to 12-31, whereas advantage keeps you in in the same 6-25 but with the median around 20 instead of 15.5. Any DC higher than 25, i.e. things humans can less realistically do, are still impossible. Another part of advantage that I think makes it more natural is that it's not a linear bonus. It helps you the most for DCs around your non-adv/disadv median. If you need to roll a nat 10 to succeed, it's about the same as a +5 bonus. If you need to roll a nat 20, it's about a +1 bonus.

I disagree with your disagreement. What humans can realistically accomplish can be as much a factor of ability as of circumstance, beyond the inherent difficulty of the task itself. Hitting someone in the eye can generally be thought of as being an intrinsically difficult task--even more difficult than hitting someone in the head. Hitting someone in the eye with an arrow from 200 yards away in a rainy night is a nigh impossible task unlikely to succeed outside of a pure freak occurrence even in the hands of an expert marksman. But tie someone to a chair and hold their head still then let someone walk up to them a poke them in the eye with an arrow and that nigh impossible task suddenly becomes a likely possibility, even if the one doing the poking doesn't even know how to fight.

There is such as thing as circumstance improving the odds of accomplishing things you would otherwise find impossible. Even if stacking a bunch of situational modifiers could arguably get out of hand you could always address that particular issue by simply establishing a cap on how high situational modifiers can get, perhaps at around +12 or so. But circumstantial factors can definitely be significant enough to tip situations to your favor, even to the point of allowing you to accomplish (and likely succeed at) otherwise impossible tasks.

Quote from: areallifetrex on September 25, 2020, 06:08:58 AMThat being said, I like the idea of having cumulative adv/disadv combined with trading dice for a flat bonus. Then you can choose between beating a high DC, or more confidence against a low DC, or anything in between.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 25, 2020, 10:56:24 AM
Technically, what used to be called the "circumstance" bonus didn't go away in 5E.  You are just supposed to use it infrequently and replace most uses of it with advantage or disadvantage.  There's nothing to stop the GM using 5E RAW from treating "overwhelming" advantage/disadvantage with the occasional bonus, and it's just a short house rule from there to "GM rules that your vast advantage still stands despite the one disadvantage". 

But I think the underlying discontent with it is not the stacking so much as the range of things that give it. Being blind or hanging from one hand on a dangling rope while trying to fight is a lot bigger disadvantage than some of the more prosaic examples.  If I wanted to make it more systematic instead of just using rulings, it would be something like:

Overwhelming Advantage - advantage, +2 circumstance.
Overwhelming Advantage, with lesser disadvantage - advantage.

Then parallel Overwhelming Disadvantage options.  A +2 or -2 on top of advantage/disadvantage is pretty nasty when you look at the math, at least in most cases.  It's strictly a GM decision whether or not you get "Overwhelming" but guidelines would look at the number and severity of the sources of it, and would assume you need at least two to qualify in most cases (maybe not being blind).  That lets in a little of the "Player goes fishing for every possible modifier" issue, but still caps it at "Overwhelming" is as far as you can go. 

You could lower the circumstance to +1/-1 and apply it for every source, but that's too fiddly for me, and doesn't really solve the issue of particularly strong advantages or disadvantages.

This type of approach would probably be a more viable alternative to address the perceived psychological benefits of using advantage/disadvantage mentioned by Chris, while still allowing a degree of granularity when it comes to stacking multiple situational factors (both, positive and negative) that could affect a roll.

 

Quote from: areallifetrex on September 25, 2020, 06:08:58 AMI disagree that it's more realistic, per se.

I don't know what you think you are disagreeing with. If are you actually claiming that multiple, extreme advantages having exactly the same probability as a single, ordinary advantage is realistic than we have a fundamental disagreement about what is realistic and how the game universe ought to work and what it should try to simulate.

QuoteI can understand why the probabilities of advantage is less intuitive, and thus feel less realistic,

I don't think anyone claimed that the probability was less intuitive. That may be true, but I certainly don't have any difficulty with assessing the respective probabilities. Where I have a problem is with the result of the probabilities for advantage and disadvantage in 5E for the sorts of examples I and others have provided.

QuoteThat being said, I like the idea of having cumulative adv/disadv combined with trading dice for a flat bonus. Then you can choose between beating a high DC, or more confidence against a low DC, or anything in between.

While that sounds good in theory, in practice selecting between two different options like that is the sort of tradeoff that significantly increases decision time (and even creates decision paralysis) for many if not most players. So for me the handling time increase wouldn't really be the flexibility.

Quote from: Chris24601 on September 25, 2020, 08:34:11 AMSo there came a point in the session where one of the PCs was in a do-or-die situation (essentially a roll away from several PC deaths) and they rolled a 3 when they needed a 12 or better. So it wasn't even an interesting failure like a natural 1 (even if there's no mechanical effect to it, I habitually describing failures via natural 1s as rather comedic levels of bad luck interfering).


Then someone remembered the player had "advantage" on the check so the player rolled again and didn't just succeed, they rolled a natural 20. Critical success!

While turning a 3 into a 20 would be fun, it was equally probable that the player could have rolled two 11s resulting in two unsatisfying near miss failures resulting in PC outcome of "die" instead of "do."

QuoteAnd that is the story of how I went from hating advantage and insisting on static modifiers to rebuilding my game to make an advantage/disadvantage style mechanic the primary source of conditional modifiers

I've never hated the advantage/disadvantage mechanic. I think it is a fairly clever and elegant way of providing a bonus that (usually) takes less time than determining and adding up multiple static modifiers. I just think the implementation in 5E is too simplistic making it inferior to that of other games (such as Barbarians of Lemuria). I first encountered the mechanic in Honor+Intrigue and the implementation there is able to handle multiple adds and disadds. Going from that to the more simplistic, less flexible, and less realistic implementation in 5E undoubtedly caused me to be more dissatisfied, sooner with 5E than if I'd only ever experienced 5E's overly simplistic implementation.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell on September 25, 2020, 10:56:24 AMBut I think the underlying discontent with it is not the stacking so much as the range of things that give it. Being blind or hanging from one hand on a dangling rope while trying to fight is a lot bigger disadvantage than some of the more prosaic examples.

The range (lack of granularity) where an ordinary disadvantage (attacking in poor light) and an overwhelming disadvantage (attacking while blinded) provide the exact same mechanical effect is one problem. But so is the peculiar math where any number of advantages is canceled by one disadvantage (and 1 advantage cancels any number of disadvantages). It's almost as if the designers thought that occasionally having to count past 1 would be a problem for the players or the DM.


A rather simple house rule that fixes the latter problem is to just use the ordinary rules for arithmetic.
  (i) Each (distinct, non overlapping) advantage adds one bonus die.

(ii) Each (distinct, non-overlapping) disadvantage adds one penalty die.

(ii) One bonus die cancels one penalty die (and vice versa).


To expand the range, one could represent an overwhelming advantage or disadvantage by adding or subtracting a static modifier to the bonus or penalty die. Alternatively we could handle the difference between an ordinary and an overwhelming advantage or disadvantage by giving the overwhelming advantage or disadvantage two bonus or penalty dice. We then use rules (i), (ii), and (iii) above to manage varied numbers and types of advantage and disadvantage.

Quote from: Bren on September 25, 2020, 04:45:58 PMWhile turning a 3 into a 20 would be fun, it was equally probable that the player could have rolled two 11s resulting in two unsatisfying near miss failures resulting in PC outcome of "die" instead of "do."

Oh, that happened a lot too in the test (not in that particular scenario, but plenty of flank attacks failed despite the odds; the system was built around a 55-65% hit rate vs. an "average" foe).


The thing is, we humans are wired to remember the outliers not the expected results so those faded into the background... which is basically where static modifers sit all the time because they NEVER act outside of expectation (being static and all).


As I mentioned, I also ran tests using static modifiers and even with the bigger bonuses (+6... statistically better than advantage) when someone remembered to apply them there wasn't the rush... there was no chance of failure in it... just "oh, I hit after all" or "nope, I still miss."


It's really the fact that the second chance (the "save vs. failure") is an unknown that builds the endorphin rush when it pays off. That's where the magic happens in the advantage/disadvantage system.


And from a purely modeling point of view, I find that advantage/disadvantage better models the chaos of combat a bit better than static modifiers. Sometimes you're in position to make a flank attack and some other factor you just couldn't model in D&D level of detail ends up making that advantage not matter at all (i.e. the second roll is no better than the first).


And that is another associated point worth mentioning; how you roll matters. The players who always rolled one d20 at time (either by habit or because they forgot about it) had stronger reactions to the mechanic than those who rolled both at once.


So, ironically, the mechanic produces the most engagement within those who are least engaged with the mechanics.

QuoteI've never hated the advantage/disadvantage mechanic.

I never said you did. But I HATED it and all things 5e with a bloody passion at that point. 4E getting thrown under the bus was the whole reason I started writing my own system in the first place. I ran my playtests with a bias towards NOT wanting advantage to be worth putting in even as an optional rule.


Yet, with all that against it in my head going in, the player engagement with it was so positive and enthusiastic that I HAD to drop my hate for it (and admit 5e did at least one thing right... grumble grumble) and even made it the core rather than the optional mechanic.