How about they deliver a progression system that isn’t bullshit and a raid you don’t need to grind to do?

They did that Cody. A large and vocal portion of the community didn’t like it.

I'm sorry, what? Everyone loved Taken King.

Because yeah, rolling that 20 then giving an amazing one liner to save the day is really fun.

The rules and far more tightly regulated combat and leveling up greatly enhances things for me. I look forward to combat far more because I have a character I’ve been building for years to enhance and compliment the strengths and weaknesses of the group. I have spells I’ve selected for the particular in game day. I have different weapons that works differently depending on what I’m fighting. I have used my different skills to save myself and my party in various times of crisis that I most certainly remember. And all of this is not to say we don’t have any story. We have loads and loads and loads of story and chanaracter development and inter party conflict and diplomacy with friends and foes alike. But for me, the best of the best moments have been when the story and the number-y rules have worked together to generate instances of awesome. For instance:

- The time where our Barbarian dove into a river where he should have drowned but rolled well so he didn’t. He waded out surprising the surrounding towns people both because he was naked and because he had retrieved the lost silver club that he then preceded to use to finish off the werewolf who had been dogging our party for the past two days. My character helped, because I was the only other one who could damage the werewolf thanks to its thick, damage resisting to hide.

- Or the time that my character, a heavy armor sword and shield Paladin went off on his own and got surrounded by Kobolds. Instead of fighting through the group one by one, I relied on my superior armor to wade forward while deflecting 4+ attacks of opportunity per round until I gloriously and heroically reached the Kobold leader and killed him with one swipe of my sword. The others panicked and were soon cut down or ran away. I loved that scene because I used my character’s armor, and quick healing and ability to choose a target to do extra damage and take less damage from.

My GURPS game, by contrast, is very free form. Our story is pretty good, but mechanically speaking, I find it very lacking. We don’t use distance really at all so anyone can attack from anywhere. Most of our players attack no matter the combat situation because there are basically no rules so we basically cannot lose. There are no skills or feats or really much distinction between even our fighter and our doctor in terms of combat. Without “the boring parts” we barely have gameplay and we might as well just declare that we win whenever there is combat.

I think there are certainly cases where going strictly by the rules isn’t a good thing. Leveling up where it makes sense seems far better to me than counting XP, especially in games where the entire story and world are made up by us instead of being pre-made and pre-playtested. But yeah... what you find boring isn’t what I find boring. And I’d go as far as saying I would not like to play in your D&D group because of the way your players seems to treat the rules and mechanical bits.

It’s not that D&D group is wrong. But, there’s more than one way to play that people enjoy... And, that, of course, applies to Destiny as well.

You mentioned other varieties that are less mechanically heavy. What would you recommend? I have no interest in sticking rigidly to the rules.

To go as light as possible but still some mechanical resolution system, I would suggest Fudge or Fate (alternately presented as FUDGE and FATE) as a jumping point. They are based around fudge dice (d6 with two +,-, and _ faces each) and tend to be statistically like. Fate is fully skill focused. They’re mechanical systems and are not settings, so you can overlay whatever fantasy setting you want.

More recently Fantasy Flight Games has put out Genesys (I am slowly building a Destiny setting/conversion out of it [emphasis on slowly]) which takes their Star Wars system (Edge of the Empire, Age of Rebellion, and Force and Destiny) and leaves their narrative dice system in place. Drawback is proprietary dice, but usually a group can get by with one or two sets. Highly modular, additional suppliments are being released/developed. The core book has suggestions for 5 or something generic settings/tones.

Free League (Fria Ligan) has a pretty interesting way of doing rules and are pretty fluid. I am a fan of Tales from the Loop. But have heard positive hings about the different mechanical decisions in Mutant: Year Zero and Coriolis. Worth looking into, though it might require leg work if you are looking for a traditional fantasy experience.

Hmm. Is it completable though? 30s couldn't really beat Crota. The world first had to level someone to 31, then sub him in to do the sword. I guess I want to know if we can actually complete the raid at 350? If so, then maybe it's not so bad.

I would guess probably not all the way to completion, but you'll surely level up trying to beat it, especially if you take a while (as in, multiple days) to figure it all out.

I think there's zero chance we'd do it all in one go.

Must you actually beat the boss the first week you try it? For me the answer is no. I'd like to figure out how to beat the boss. That's the fun of a blind raid.

Yeah exactly.

You can figure out how to beat him without beating him. For the most part, once you see progress changing on the health bar, it doesn't matter if you can't get it all the way down. You've figured it out.

Hmm. Is it completable though? 30s couldn't really beat Crota. The world first had to level someone to 31, then sub him in to do the sword. I guess I want to know if we can actually complete the raid at 350? If so, then maybe it's not so bad.

I would guess probably not all the way to completion, but you'll surely level up trying to beat it, especially if you take a while (as in, multiple days) to figure it all out.

I think there's zero chance we'd do it all in one go.

Must you actually beat the boss the first week you try it? For me the answer is no. I'd like to figure out how to beat the boss. That's the fun of a blind raid.

Yeah exactly.

Hmm. Is it completable though? 30s couldn't really beat Crota. The world first had to level someone to 31, then sub him in to do the sword. I guess I want to know if we can actually complete the raid at 350? If so, then maybe it's not so bad.

I would guess probably not all the way to completion, but you'll surely level up trying to beat it, especially if you take a while (as in, multiple days) to figure it all out.

I think there's zero chance we'd do it all in one go.

Must you actually beat the boss the first week you try it? For me the answer is no. I'd like to figure out how to beat the boss. That's the fun of a blind raid.

Hmm. Is it completable though? 30s couldn't really beat Crota. The world first had to level someone to 31, then sub him in to do the sword. I guess I want to know if we can actually complete the raid at 350? If so, then maybe it's not so bad.

I would guess probably not all the way to completion, but you'll surely level up trying to beat it, especially if you take a while (as in, multiple days) to figure it all out.

I think there's zero chance we'd do it all in one go.

Hmm. Is it completable though? 30s couldn't really beat Crota. The world first had to level someone to 31, then sub him in to do the sword. I guess I want to know if we can actually complete the raid at 350? If so, then maybe it's not so bad.

I would guess probably not all the way to completion, but you'll surely level up trying to beat it, especially if you take a while (as in, multiple days) to figure it all out.

I’m not ragging on group storytelling. I worldbuild as a hobby. But I just consider it disingenuous to describe DnD as something it isn’t to bring down something that is of similar mold.

I disagree that that's not what D&D was / is about. The stats were always incidental, not the main focus. Storytelling was always the goal. You just needed a framework because it had to mediate player participation over many sessions (thus leveling mechanics to simulate character improvement and mastery). At least in my opinion.

You mentioned other varieties that are less mechanically heavy. What would you recommend? I have no interest in sticking rigidly to the rules.

level of de-gamification that has been conducted to accommodate tonal nature of the campaign

Mechanically, even for social interactions (in some pen and paper games explicitly referred to as social combat) DnD is pretty well structured as a game. And I have been in games where the most memorable events were theough roleplay. I have also been in games where a single roll in a combat was the most memorable event.

No, you aren’t bound by game code. But what you describe is both the best and worst aspect of DnD, not being bound by the game at all. Thankfully there are newer mechanisms to support quality roleplay instead of having to rely on individual DM fiat. An established group gets used to the way their folk interact. But if you do any Adventurer’s League or pikc-up games or have multiple groups you learn a lot more about the structural focus.

I’m not ragging on group storytelling. I worldbuild as a hobby. But I just consider it disingenuous to describe DnD as something it isn’t to bring down something that is of similar mold.

The supposition that it is all in the storytelling is gutting DnD down to a 2-page PDF. Which is a fair way to play the game, but see my initial caveats that are required to separate DnD from what it is and what the rules emphasize it to be. Obviously, if no one is doing more than rolling dice at stat blocks your combat is going to hold no interest. But that’s a failure of the DM, not the mechanisms of the game detracting from the experience of combat.

I have the player's handbook obviously. There's a ton of stuff to learn and a ton of 'rules'. But those are just there to mediate the things that you can't role play. If I fire an arrow, it's just more streamlined to make a roll to see if I hit than to have the player actually fire an arrow at a target on the wall.

I play D&D precisely because our group minimizes that boring mechanical stuff. The very first time we ever played, we did a pre-made scenario called "Lost Mines of Phandelver" (We rotate DMs and each create our own now). Afterward, the DM told us that he basically had to improvise everything since we did nothing expected. We basically made a disguise and walked right into the first 'dungeon', and talked our way to the 'boss', then pushed him into a fire when he wasn't looking killing him. I don't think we entered a single round of combat.

None of the most memorable things we've done involve mechanical combat and dice rolls. It's the stories, the plans, and the misteps (SO many misteps!) that we laugh about. Actually I take it back. There was a memorable botch in a constitution roll during a drunken hookup between a party member and an Aristocrats's daughter.

Maybe that's not real D&D, but at least we can do that. Because we can make our own rules: we aren't bound by game code.

Not at all, Cody. You're intelligent enough to understand what I mean; and now you're just being disingenuous. But paint me as the obstinate one all you want. I've only been offering you alternatives to your own frustration.

You're being condescending, period. You're hardly calling for inclusion, you're draping yourself in that defensively. This whole time you've been arguing for your specific druthers; there's not an ounce of what you've argued that hasn't been selfishly motivated.

"Literally all I'm advocating are a good variety of varying light levels on all activities."

And still you choose to ignore any arguments to the contrary that illustrate why this isn't happening.

~M

The supposition that it is all in the storytelling is gutting DnD down to a 2-page PDF. Which is a fair way to play the game, but see my initial caveats that are required to separate DnD from what it is and what the rules emphasize it to be. Obviously, if no one is doing more than rolling dice at stat blocks your combat is going to hold no interest. But that’s a failure of the DM, not the mechanisms of the game detracting from the experience of combat.

And this business about INSISTING that you have a full compliment of blind raiders well after the release date is flat out BOGUS. You're asking and expecting something Bungie has no control over. The only way to ensure that is a blood pact with others that want the same thing.

Bungie has complete control over this in how they set up the progression to the raid.

I am not the only one who finds the progression system a step back here. Just look around other communities.

This is such a useful comment in this context.

In my experience I’ve pretty much always been underleveled for Raiding relative to the folk I have raided with. But thankfully Raiding in Destiny has a much higher weight to player skill and dexterity than other games with similar end game content.

If they changed it then that's great.

Previous raids had a light level, but the monsters at the end were always 2 (or 20 after TTK) levels higher. So if you went in at the level requirement, it was hard at the end. With a system like that, going in 20 levels under the requirement would mean 'immune' would come up for the final enemies. If 370 is the level of all the enemies, then that's not so bad.

DnD is mechanically focused entirely like modern investment and loot games. The only difference is that you don’t get a DM to supercede the game in Destiny.

I disagree completely.

I've said before gear and stats in D&D are just there to abstract the things you can't role play. They are incidental. D&D is based around the storytelling of the adventure. All the fun important decisions involve that. The 'mechanical' combat is the most boring part. I don't recall chasing any gear or wanting to level up ever in D&D. The things you find on the way aid in the storytelling. At least the way we play. In fact when I play, whoever is the DM never gives out exp. They just level up the players when they think it would be good.