The Two Missing Pillars of D&D Game Design

Tinker Gnomes and a nuke, this sounds like the best solution for many of the plots now cannon around the realm of the lance. If there is anything you need hit me up.

Great video. The problem with some of it is if you're playing any of the wotc games those games seldom get past 5th level.

For making characters invested in the world and the campaign, nothing solves that problem quite like using the Riddle of Steel family's method of character advancement. Games like Sword and Scoundrel, Song of Swords, or Blade of the Iron Throne all tie character progression to the goals of said characters. If slaying the dragon or rescuing the King's idiot son doesn't feed into something the PCs want, it doesn't give them XP. This creates a wonderful situation where players begin asking not only "What does my character believe or want?" but also "Why are we risking our lives for this? What's in it for us?". They stop treating the world like a sushi conveyor belt of monsters and loot to pick and choose from, but instead like a place that their PCs inhabit and have desires within. I highly recommend this method of XP, as it shifts the entire campaign more towards something like is being talked about here.

Statues in a square as a reward is also a reference for BG2: they're given after a mission in Trademeet. I won't tell more, go play the game and find it out yourselves.

Life also finds a way...

Hello Mr. Welch, great video and topic. I'm glad you brought up the Maca from 2e. Been on my own crusade to bring those weapons back to life. It's taken me about a year (off and on) to be able to convert those numbers into 5e weapons.

Maca.
15 gp, 4 lb, 1d4 bludgeoning + 1d4 slashing.
Shaped like elongated paddles of hard wood, wide and flat blades with razor sharp shards of obsidian lodged into their edges. They functioned as both: bludgeoning and slashing weapons.

That has been my thinking all along just introduced something a little different once in awhile. I got the joke about the +5 verses puppies, Mystara translation +5 verses Kobolds. Funny you showed a nuke going off at the end, I am going to use Blackmoor as my campaign setting. I knew Gnomes were Evil all along 😉.

Thanks Mr. Welch you have a wonderful day!

A long gone friend of mine was very good at both of these. He's how I grew up playing. Every campaign he ran was in the same world and so in addition to things we did affecting the present, things changed by the time or latest party and characters were rolling around. Still miss having him around.

Can also attest from my friend's games, don't give gnomes nuclear weapons. Or let them build reality altering magic items.

Cheers

Perhaps one day, I will absorb enough to become at least a decent gm. Sadly, I don't think that will happen as I don't get to play as much with few friends. Life is life, though. Videos games are now my go-to. One day, I hope to say I'm a grognard.

Mr.goat is really good at what you just described I recommend his shadow run campaign,s on mikes channel there very good I like to pimp stuff I like that why I typed this .I very much enjoyed watching you on DM wally stream I hope you feel better soon and thank you for all the entertainment you have given me over the last two years

Very well chosen clips. I am especially fond of the knighting of Arthur. "In the name of God, St. Michael, and St. George, I give you the right to bear arms and the power to mete justice."

Spatula City! Buy 9 spatulas and get the tenth for one penny.

lol. We were just talking about this and have been discussing it almost everytime we have meetings. Great topic and video.

Great topic, I would love to hear more!

The Gnomish Immortal of Artillery disagrees with the ending song, but agrees with everything else. Also, we may want an alignment check on that guy...

i wanted to leave my mark on the tavern in the middle of nothing by planting magic beans on its roof and suggesting the owner a new name for it. though the dm did not pick up on that.

IDK why, but I now have an intense and immense desire for Mr. Welch to use that voice at the end for his PC in that group BECMI RPG he's doing.

I like what you are saying, but its like spaghetti. Put your words up for reading, or give us some animated view of what you are saying to reinforce. Its like a shotgun of words but it does not hit anything downrange.

Fair points the question is how to teach the people on both sides of the DM screen?

"No adventure survives contact with Player Characters."
Murphy would approve of this rule.

It's good to see you up and running. I heard of your car crash from Tex. I hope you recover fully and make sure you say any pain, oddity, or possible injury to insurance. It helps down the line where you might end up with a life long ouchee. I know it can be depressing but you have loved ones all around you.

99% of players today do not actually roleplay at all... Most players attend as human die-roller and do the "I follow the party" responses and do the Mother-may-I Q&A. If people learn how to actually roleplay they will find a more fulfilling game.

Perhaps all the more reason to encourage people away from Nu D&D. The designers will never get these ignored parts of the five pillars. Fortunately, there are plenty of choices out there.

Gotta make one little disagreement right quick. Deliberately making a character bad at combat is objectively bad. Deliberately making a character bad at a thing you intend for them to be doing is bad character creation. There's not a single reason on earth to ever make your character complete and total dead weight in combat. Even if you're playing a roleplay focused non-caster, like a charisma rogue or something, there's no reason to completely dump every single combat stat and just deliberately be dead weight.

Damn you Mr. Welch! Now I have to go watch Excalibur. . . again.

I thought one of the two pillars would have been mystara

I saw a rap battle video awhile back between one person representing D&D and the other representing the indie scene. One of the indie person’s lines was “You’ve got three pillars, but two of them are toothpicks.”

Excellent video which more people should see. Love that you mention quests to find magic items rather than using the short dopamine hits of random tables luckily getting you something.

out of curiosity i measured. Parimaribo, Surinam is about as far away from Houston, Texas as Anchorage, Alaska is.

I have a quick tip for those that think the travel pillar doesn't exist - read the rules in the Adventuring cbapter, and implement them. Just read

Guns are not out of the scope for DND games. The origin of THE WAND OF MAGIC MISSLES was a six shooter for the earliest version of DND.

5e is dead WoTC killed it, in an effort to please everyone, to be all inclusive...the game now feels bland and stale. WoTC repeatedly rolls out more and more silly overpowered player options. DMing this system feels like babysitting a bunch of children on a power trip, the power creep is real. Ive been DMing 5e for almost 10 years
..and yeah its just gotten bad....solution try new systems. Dont get stuck in the tabletop version of world of warcraft....theres lots of other games out there. Inact the third pillar of ttrpg's by "exploring" new games.

Thank you for your time man, hope you are doing well.

The exploration "pillar" is broken without the dungeon/exploration turn tracking system.
Without procedures for keeping track of time, it tends to get handwaved. Which makes exploration feel hollow and meaningless.

The problem with giving the party with strategic weapons is that they generally have a very narrow use case. Sure you could nuke the army besieging the city, but chances are you are gonna destroy the city too. Your enemies learn this and won't present you with any free chances to wipe them out in one blow because they arnt stupid. Chances are the party will use them when they shouldn't and do far more damage than the threat they were hoping to stop.

Thank you for the visual of Disney princesses gathered around the table, in the middle of this. It's a good prompt for trying to figure what each player wants and how it fits into these three pillars.

I’m using the Dagger +1, +5 vs Puppies.

Really enjoyed this video, amazing writing and insight

Bohemian Earspoon is basically a human-sized boar spear. That name is a direct translation of the German one, so ya know, German humor.

As for the Macuahuitl, it's basically an oar with razor blades embedded on the edges, except the razors are volcanic glass. Basically it's how you make a sword when you don't have access to iron because you live on a volcano. The Maori and Hawaiians did similar things with shark teeth handaxes for exactly the same reason.

For a game so obsessed with combat, d&ds combat sure isn't very interesting or balanced.

What you say about world building reminds me of Knights of the Dinner Table. B.A. is actually great about incorporating his players' actions into his world building. An ill advised decision to send an npc henchman to retrieve what turned out to be an artifact led to the rise of King Gilead, the aforementioned henchman. The decision to store a bunch of men along with a hefty list of supplies in a bag of holding resulted in the Barringer Rebellion. There was also the PC who became the minor God Knu Kyle Ra, the Doomsday Pack, a long legacy of adventurers referring to themselves as the Untouchable Trio. BA made it all part of his world's history.

spatula city... classic

Mr. Welch! Love your stuff... Just one thing, it's pronounced m-ah k-ah wee till

Time After Time appreciation.

Yeah... this applies to the Dungeon Master, not the system.

The advice about gnomes at the end is very important.

Combat allows for mechanical role playing the other two does not. Too many does not to do book keeping so exploration is out. I have not found a system to make social interaction more that roll play game play.

As for the story telling pillars that I do not have much to say.

Fantastic video, Mr. Welch ❤