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Forget about the treasure and pricing system of 5E!
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<blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 7261606" data-attributes="member: 6802765"><p>I strongly disagree with this idea. To me, D&D is a toolset I can use to help run the game at my table. Like any tool, I expect new versions of the tool to be useful for the same set of tasks as the prior versions. In the case of D&D, that means each version should be useful (ideally, increasingly useful) for telling the sames kinds of stories, in the same kinds of campaigns, in the same game worlds. (If the developer wants to create a new type of tool useful for a related but different set of tasks, I expect the developer to sell that tool as a new product, and not as a new version of an existing product.) I fully expect every user of a new version of a tool to use their own personal standards for judging the value of the upgrade, and, because personal preferences differ, I expect not everyone will agree on whether each upgrade is still useful for the same set of tasks.</p><p></p><p>D&D 5e faced the problem that previous upgrades did not emphasize this continuity of purpose to the satisfaction of a large portion of the userbase, creating a split in expectations for future upgrades. I personally think that the designers did an excellent job navigating this self-inflicted minefield, and that, overall, the current edition is the best yet at being useful for running the games I run at my table.</p><p></p><p>That being said, I wish there was more official content that supported portraying campaign settings with more economic depth and verisimilitude, for DMs like me who value such elements in our games. Yes, I can homebrew my own material, but this suffers from several drawbacks:</p><p></p><ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><em>Homebrew requires greater player buy-in</em>. It's easier to expect the players to read a section of the rulebook than it is to expect them to read (and keep track of) a printed handout.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><em>Homebrew needs to be used judiciously.</em> As a corollary to #1, it becomes harder and harder to expect players to master the homebrew rules as the volume of homebrew increases. For games near the (table-dependent) maximum, every homebrew rule you add to increase the depth of the economic rules is less homebrew one can add to customize other aspects of the game.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><em>Homebrew isn't playtested.</em> Official content is presumably playtested (just as any tool can be expected to be tested prior to release), and thus comes with an extra expectation that it functions well for its intended purpose. This means that the design tradeoffs in official content are thus more likely to be assumed to be well-informed, which makes such tradeoffs more presumptively acceptable.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><em>Homebrew is held to a higher standard of customization.</em> As a corollary to #3, no one expects official content to exactly match an individual table's idiosyncrasies, because it is undetstood to need to appeal to a diverse audience. By contrast, homebrew is, by definition, table-specific, and can be endlessly tweaked. Rather than trying to adapt to the tradeoffs in an official rule, the focus with homebrew is to adapt the homebrew itself. This sense of impermanence of the model being used can damage verisimilitude--it's harder to get engrossed in a setting if that setting is constantly changing. Conversely, if one does not adapt the homebrew as problems emerge, dissatisfaction with the homebrew can increase beyond the dissatisfaction of a comparably problematic official rule, because the people who could fix the official rule aren't sitting at the table with you.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"><em>Homebrew requires greater consensus.</em> As a corollary to #4, it's easier to get everyone to agree to follow the rules set by an unavailable and neutral third party than it is to get everyone to agree to the minutae of rules written by the table, particularly when the drawbacks of those (unplaytested) rules start showing up in play.</li> </ol><p>I love homebrew and use a lot of it in my games. I also play fast and loose with the official rules. But I'd rather spend my time (and DM capital) developing elements specific to my game world rather than the robust price lists and basic economic guidelines that would help make gold more fun for me and my players.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Xetheral, post: 7261606, member: 6802765"] I strongly disagree with this idea. To me, D&D is a toolset I can use to help run the game at my table. Like any tool, I expect new versions of the tool to be useful for the same set of tasks as the prior versions. In the case of D&D, that means each version should be useful (ideally, increasingly useful) for telling the sames kinds of stories, in the same kinds of campaigns, in the same game worlds. (If the developer wants to create a new type of tool useful for a related but different set of tasks, I expect the developer to sell that tool as a new product, and not as a new version of an existing product.) I fully expect every user of a new version of a tool to use their own personal standards for judging the value of the upgrade, and, because personal preferences differ, I expect not everyone will agree on whether each upgrade is still useful for the same set of tasks. D&D 5e faced the problem that previous upgrades did not emphasize this continuity of purpose to the satisfaction of a large portion of the userbase, creating a split in expectations for future upgrades. I personally think that the designers did an excellent job navigating this self-inflicted minefield, and that, overall, the current edition is the best yet at being useful for running the games I run at my table. That being said, I wish there was more official content that supported portraying campaign settings with more economic depth and verisimilitude, for DMs like me who value such elements in our games. Yes, I can homebrew my own material, but this suffers from several drawbacks: [list=1][*][I]Homebrew requires greater player buy-in[/I]. It's easier to expect the players to read a section of the rulebook than it is to expect them to read (and keep track of) a printed handout.[*][i]Homebrew needs to be used judiciously.[/i] As a corollary to #1, it becomes harder and harder to expect players to master the homebrew rules as the volume of homebrew increases. For games near the (table-dependent) maximum, every homebrew rule you add to increase the depth of the economic rules is less homebrew one can add to customize other aspects of the game.[*][I]Homebrew isn't playtested.[/I] Official content is presumably playtested (just as any tool can be expected to be tested prior to release), and thus comes with an extra expectation that it functions well for its intended purpose. This means that the design tradeoffs in official content are thus more likely to be assumed to be well-informed, which makes such tradeoffs more presumptively acceptable. [*][i]Homebrew is held to a higher standard of customization.[/i] As a corollary to #3, no one expects official content to exactly match an individual table's idiosyncrasies, because it is undetstood to need to appeal to a diverse audience. By contrast, homebrew is, by definition, table-specific, and can be endlessly tweaked. Rather than trying to adapt to the tradeoffs in an official rule, the focus with homebrew is to adapt the homebrew itself. This sense of impermanence of the model being used can damage verisimilitude--it's harder to get engrossed in a setting if that setting is constantly changing. Conversely, if one does not adapt the homebrew as problems emerge, dissatisfaction with the homebrew can increase beyond the dissatisfaction of a comparably problematic official rule, because the people who could fix the official rule aren't sitting at the table with you.[*][i]Homebrew requires greater consensus.[/i] As a corollary to #4, it's easier to get everyone to agree to follow the rules set by an unavailable and neutral third party than it is to get everyone to agree to the minutae of rules written by the table, particularly when the drawbacks of those (unplaytested) rules start showing up in play.[/list] I love homebrew and use a lot of it in my games. I also play fast and loose with the official rules. But I'd rather spend my time (and DM capital) developing elements specific to my game world rather than the robust price lists and basic economic guidelines that would help make gold more fun for me and my players. [/QUOTE]
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