When I first read 5th edition Dungeons and Dragons I didn’t pay much attention to new Advantage/Disadvantage mechanic, I thought it was interesting but really didn’t consider its implications to the game. After having played about 100 hours of 5th edition D&D I have discovered that not only is this a foundation mechanic for the system, but when used to its full effect creates one of the best role-playing experiences I have ever had D&D or otherwise. How does such a small, seemingly simple mechanic make such a huge difference? Well, its all about application and understanding its purpose as a narrative tool.

To really understand why the advantage system is such a piece of genius in D&D you have to understand the core problem with all editions of Dungeons and Dragons, one that each edition has tried and failed to fix. That problem is that as long as D&D has been around, the line between the story of the game (the narrative) and combat has always been very thick. It’s a massive gap really. The moment combat starts there is a subtle but noticeable shift from seeing the game as a role-playing game and seeing it as a tactical combat game.

Each edition has handled this differently. In AD&D, combat was very fast and swingy. One way or the other it would end in a short few rounds so in essence AD&D didn’t do anything about it other than just keep combat fast so the temporary lull in the narrative is, well very temporary. It worked well enough but combat wasn’t particularly narrative, in particular if you brought out miniatures.

3rd edition tried to make combat more simulationist and as such, the mechanic defined a lot of the narrative for us as players were able to perform a large amount of actions during their turn covered by a very detailed rule system. Combat was extended a great deal in 3rd edition, but it depicted the action in greater detail. Still it wasn’t narrative, it was mechanical and it was easy to lose yourself in the nuances of the rules rather than maintain the nuances of the story.

4e very aware of this effect if you consider how it was designed, tried to simplify the rules, but elaborate a great deal on depicting the action. It worked wonders, the tactical game really told us a story. The drawback of this system though was that your actions where narrow, defined by what was on your character sheet and combat was extended even more, taking so long in fact that it could swallow up entire sessions. One of the longest standing criticisms of 4e is “not enough role-playing”, but that isn’t a stab at the combat systems depiction of the action, but rather the fact that it took so long you never got to the role-playing part of the game.

It’s clear that since Gygax’s original vision, the designers of the game have been aware of this problem on some level. How do you maintain the narrative element of the game and still have an interesting, tactical combat system that D&D deserves? Their answer is the Advantage and Disadvantage system. In an amazingly simple way they have not only merged mechanics and narrative flawlessly, but created the motivation for players and DM’s alike to be more descriptive and involve themselves deeper in the narration of the story.

Now I can’t be certain if it was the designer’s intention to make the advantage system the solution to this issue, but whether intentional or not they have done it. The thing is that when we are not in combat, we are doing collaborative storytelling, acting and speaking on the behalf of our characters, describing their actions and rolling the dice to see how our intended actions fared. So why is this approach not used in combat? In a sense that’s what 5e asked and the 5e combat system in particular the advantage system answered with.

See D&D has a tactical element, it always had, but no edition in the past has ever really tried to infuse the same narrative approach we have to the rest of the game into combat, into this tactical element. Another words, combat was always about working out the math, rather than working out what happens narratively (as is the case at every other moment when playing the game.).

The advantage system represents a non-mathematical way to maintain a tactical element in the game and encourage players to think about combat in a narrative way. Players describe their actions and can gain advantages and disadvantages based on what it is they actually attempt in combat. Do you rush a guy and grab for his weapon? Do you try to use your sword to reflect the sun into the eyes of the archer in the tree? Do you slide under the Ogres feet and attempt to cut him where the sun don’t shine? It’s difficult to come up with mathematical formula for those things. You can guess or you could create a complex series of rules that attempt to account for every conceivable situation but really, for a DM the “pick a value that represents this action” game is a burden. The advantage and disadvantage system however makes this easy by allowing you to simply respond with a positive or negative effect on any given action when considering its impact and like a roll at any time, create a narrative resolution which notably is backed by a rather traditional D&D combat mechanic (HP, AC, To Hit etc..).

EXAMPLE: Player: “Ok I position my sword to reflect the sun, shining the sun into the eyes of the archer in the tree”. DM: Make an deception roll, if you succeed the archer gets a disadvantage on his next attack roll, if you fail, you are unfocused and the next attack against you gains an advantage”. Done. No math, no fuss, great narrative, the players are imbued with endless possibilities for tactical action limited only by their imagination and the game doesn’t skip a beat.. next player!

What’s great is that you can utilize other parts of the system to help ensure the actions are driven by character abilities. Skill check, attribute checks, saving throws etc. In this case I chose a deception check but it could have as well been a dexterity check, an intelligence check. The idea being, that you and the player can work together to come to a conclusion about what makes the most sense.

The advantage system is so much more than just a narrative level to pull on however. Its built into the system, so gaining advantages and disadvantages creates opportunities to use different abilities and make decisions about your actions. For example in the above example if the character failed, he might decide that he is going to use the dodge action this turn since he is at a disadvantage, or if he succeeds in gaining the advantage he might decide to climb the tree and assault the archer knowing he has a good chance of being missed as he makes his ascend and a better chance of hitting him.

These opportunities for interesting narratives unfold very naturally, once players get into the mind set of using them, the game becomes about them and in turn becomes about narrative play. Yet the tactical element, the core rules of combat are maintained.

It’s a wonderful system but it does take practice and naturally like any mechanic it can be abused, maturity and understanding of its purpose and the larger purpose of the game as a whole as always is required for it to work well. None the less, it’s a wonderful system when you get it working and it really breathes new life into dungeons and dragons.

Yet another wonderful element of Dungeons and Dragons 5th edition!