It wasn't. We railed against the MC then too. Especially over how the traditional monsters were split over several volumes.
D&D 5E 15 Petty Reasons I Won't Buy 5e
It wasn't. We railed against the MC then too. Especially over how the traditional monsters were split over several volumes.
Hussar
Legend
Really? Funny how experiences differ. No one I knew or gamed with at the time cared. We knew the next batch of monsters was forthcoming in a few months or so, so, who cares? I mean, the last edition that I played was staggered YEARS apart. Waiting a couple of months for some monsters? Not a big deal.
Much bigger were things like no half orcs and no monks. But, again, that's just my experience.
Oh, we railed against the lack of half-orcs. Monks were seen as a weird add-on in 1e (not even with the other classes after all) so we expected it might come back in a supplement. In any case, we carried forward the 1e version with minimal change.
The new bard did get a generally favourable review as did specialty priests (at least until the DMs had to do all the up-front work or parcel it out).
Changes to Magic-Users (both making them easier to play and substantially increasing costs of the spell books) and demi-human level limits had a serious split in opinion. Some loved individual changes and hated others and vice versa.
Tequila Sunrise
Adventurer
Erm, you're using AD&D as an ideal of game design? Clearly, you're not of our symmetrical tribe!
Even 3e is rife with irregularities, many but not all of them the result of treating 1st level as "Already [semi]competent." See: the Weapon Focus/Spec feat tree. All except WF come online at regular even levels. And speaking of WF, why is it not fighter-only?! And why does this feat tree suddenly truncate at 12th level? There're eight more fighter levels! And the Focus/Spec tree is just the tip of the iceberg!
Saying "Well it all works out in play" misses the point with us, because good gameplay is not mutually exclusive with elegant class progressions.
BookTenTiger
He / Him
I can't believe we all have to buy yet another bookshelf!!! WotC, what are you thinking?
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
What, exactly, qualifies as being a "petty" reason, anyway? That seems to imply that there's some duty to buy 5(.5)e, and that you must therefore justify choosing not to--with some justifications thus being spiteful and mean-spirited.
I don't think it's either of those things, for example, to say that I would not buy 5.X because I think it has numerous bits of terrible mechanical design, that it actively fights against several of the explicit purposes for which it was made, that it outright flaunts or ignores the way actual humans behave and thus sets the stage for totally unnecessary problems by depending on assumptions of human (or player) behavior that are incorrect, and overall treats mechanics as an afterthought despite these being what actually constitutes playing the game.
Nor, for example, my belief that it merges the worst parts of design-by-committee (things that fail to meet an arbitrary and punitive popularity threshold are destroyed forever, never to be given a second chance; things that are popular are not necessarily things that are well-made) AND design by unregulated auteur (e.g. certain pet projects that lingered long after they should have been abandoned if the former standard were the only one; traditional elements preserved even though they're often literally less than useless). I don't consider that petty, any more than I would consider it "petty" to refuse to buy a car that I thought was badly engineered and designed with popularity and avant-garde style first rather than sound engineering, efficiency, and comfort first.
I don't think it's either of those things, for example, to say that I would not buy 5.X because I think it has numerous bits of terrible mechanical design, that it actively fights against several of the explicit purposes for which it was made, that it outright flaunts or ignores the way actual humans behave and thus sets the stage for totally unnecessary problems by depending on assumptions of human (or player) behavior that are incorrect, and overall treats mechanics as an afterthought despite these being what actually constitutes playing the game.
Nor, for example, my belief that it merges the worst parts of design-by-committee (things that fail to meet an arbitrary and punitive popularity threshold are destroyed forever, never to be given a second chance; things that are popular are not necessarily things that are well-made) AND design by unregulated auteur (e.g. certain pet projects that lingered long after they should have been abandoned if the former standard were the only one; traditional elements preserved even though they're often literally less than useless). I don't consider that petty, any more than I would consider it "petty" to refuse to buy a car that I thought was badly engineered and designed with popularity and avant-garde style first rather than sound engineering, efficiency, and comfort first.
payn
He'll flip ya...Flip ya for real...
Pretty sure the OP is still out, lol.
