Re: [boing boing] D&D's latest module, "Vecna: Eve of Ruin," and the trouble with high-level adventures

Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On Mon, 3 Jun 2024 12:29:55 +0200, Kyonshi <gmkeros@gmail.com> wrote:
 

Source:
https://boingboing.net/2024/06/03/dds-latest-module-vecna-eve-of-ruin-and-the-trouble-with-high-level-adventures.html
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D&D's latest module, "Vecna: Eve of Ruin," and the trouble with
high-level adventures
Gareth Branwyn 3:00 am Mon Jun 3, 2024
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That's not to say you can't have fun high-level D&D games, but it
often feels like a struggle; you're fighting against a system that
just isn't designed to scale up that high. Other systems are better
suited to those sorts of power levels (Exalted, for instance) but D&D?
It's meant for low-level play.

let's put it like this: D&D in *dungeon crawling* mode doesn't scale
up that well. *Hex crawl* mode does scale better I feel, and the
*domain game* is literally made for high level play.

To my mind *domain game* play, is much more free form than the more
basic modes of play. It should generally be ruled by common sense and
be driven by political scheming of experienced players. Little place
for D&D's basic combat rules here.

However, *that's* very hard to put in a module I guess, which could
be the reason why a lot of high level modules so far are really
bloated mid level modules.

As to combat focusedness of D&D: yes it's chassis is a war game.
And war gamey battles can take a lot of time. Why, when the game was
conceived, playing out battles was the whole point of the game.

I'd say long battles are a slog when they're boring battles. Which
often happens when you're just rolling down hit points. Tactically
interesting battles can be a lot of fun *if the group is so inclined*.

I've seen large scale battles at my table that took up a whole sessions
time, with everyone super enganged for those 4 hours.

The problem I think is: when you're wary of lengthy battles, you tend
to want to hold them short, which leads to skimping over the more
involved (and tactically interesting) rules and options, thus
leading to meaningless, boring combat. A self-fulfilling prophecy
maybe?

Let me point out again, I don't mean to say you're playing the game
wrong, when your combats are boring. If you and your group don't
like combat, maybe it's better to just roll percentiles to see who
won and cut the whole thing short. That's fine too. But if you do
like a tactical game on your table, don't skimp it, pull all the
options and make it interesting!

Coming back to the module (at last) ... Vecna trying to destroy
the multiverse?! Damn it, I'm intrigued!

Cheers,

lkh