D&D 5E Justin Alexander's review of Shattered Obelisk is pretty scathing

[FitzTheRuke]

Yeah, the pins have always seemed really silly to me, especially for the harpers, who are ostensibly supposed to be spies… I also never know what to make of the Zhentarim, as their behavior seems openly villainous to me, yet for some reason they’re just… allowed to operate unobstructed? Also, players can join them? Like, it’s one thing to have a designated morally-gray playable faction, but the Zhents just seem straight-up evil to me.

The Zhents were evil in many previous stories, but the 5e "Faction" version is supposed to be more gray. They're supposed to be more like the average money-grubbing rogue character, with a little Mafia (protect the "family")-type stuff going on.

In fact, ALL of the factions are supposed to be gray. Individuals involved in them could be evil (in ALL of them). It's true that MORE of the Zhents (and probably the Lord's Alliance) are likely to be skew neutral or evil than, say, Harpers (who generally fight for freedom from Tyranny, but they could go all the way to Terrorism at their worst, as could the Emerald Enclave as eco-terrorists). And Order of the Gauntlet could go all the way to tyranny or religious persecution. They all could be evil, depending on the acts of their members.

They're whatever the story calls for, or the DM wants. I kinda like them now, and I never did before.

 

[ECMO3]

The review is quite justified. I think people conflate 5E being a big success with the idea that 5E has great adventures. It doesn't, most of the WoTC efforts are terrible and muddled things.

I think adventures have gotten worse over time. I think their first attempts, including LMOP, were pretty darn good. Then everything after ROFM is pretty bad.

 

[Micah Sweet]

To a degree you are right. I think your concept is valid however.

Those same words were thrown around with MotM, because, well the hyper engaged do have the content already, just the way it goes.

It's a solid complaint.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The only one of those things which has the slightest relation to his skill as a designer is Advantage/Disadvantage. Which, you may have noticed, is both massively over-used and rather a frustrating ceiling in a variety of ways, such that it is no longer the absolute darling of the community.

So...yeah. Not exactly a great showing, here.


Unless you happen to be one of the people who finds it extremely exclusive of your interests, of course. Y'know, the people whose preferences got openly mocked with edition-war rhetoric in an actual, professional podcast. Or openly mocked in an actual, published post about the playtest.

The vehicle may be any color you want, as long as the color you want is black.

Does his dislike of 4e make his opinions on other issues invalid?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Being the senior manager of R&D and a lead designer of the most successful RPG ever made has no relation to his skill as a designer?


Not sure what you're talking about? Would be cool if you hyperlinked the podcast. Curious what he said to upset those dozens of gamers.

Anyway, not saying he made a game that everyone loves; that's impossible.

I'm saying he took "our" D&D and made it everyone else's D&D too. Specifically, the same people who would have made fun of us now want to play with us. And at the same time, managed to entice the OSR grogs back as well. That's quite the remarkable feat!

How did he entice the OSR folk? I mean, we have the OSR.

 

[edosan]

I think adventures have gotten worse over time. I think their first attempts, including LMOP, were pretty darn good. Then everything after ROFM is pretty bad.

I’d go back further but maybe that’s just me. I’ve far preferred the anthology books over the adventure path style books.

I think Alexander’s review brought up some good points - the books have significant errors and aren't formatted to be terribly usable at the table. Not only that, there are a lot of what I’d consider rookie mistakes - plot gated behind skill rolls, NPCs with ridiculous motivations, a lack of player agency in favor of Cool Story.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Don't. Not every release is meant to be for every potential D&D customer.

An awful lot of them lately seem to be meant for different people than 5e used to be meant for from WotC.

 

[Micah Sweet]

that does not seem to mesh with the D&D movie

The D&D movie has remarkably little to do with D&D, and a lot more to do with entertaining but formulaic Hollywood blockbusters.

 

[pukunui]

An awful lot of them lately seem to be meant for different people than 5e used to be meant for from WotC.

That’s because they weren’t expecting 5e to bring in so many new people at the beginning. Its popularity dragged it into the cultural spotlight, warts and all.

 

[Jahydin]

I see what you’re saying here and agree that 5E has been a runaway success because of a number of factors. But (controversy ahead!) I strongly believe that the 5E ruleset is, at best, a mid-sized factor in the explosion of popularity for D&D over the past decade. I truly believe the biggest factors were environmental: Critical Role and other streams, major marketing tie-ins like Stranger Things, the steady improvement of VTTs, and then the pandemic. 5E just happened to be simplistic enough not to immediately scare off newcomers with its complexity.

Well put, especially the bolded line. Can see how all that would play into 5E's success.

Purely subjective, it was really neat to to see our gf/wives go from "have fun!" with Pathfinder to "can we play?" with 5E.

I’d also strongly dispute the point that 5E “enticed the OSR grogs back”. Maybe for like a minute in 2014? Certainly not since then.

Haha, I knew someone would take issue with that line. Fact is though, I'd be willing to bet almost all of us went out and bought a set of books. Considering how popular Pathfinder was, how established the OSR was, and how disliked 4E was, that's still impressive! And it's not like we didn't know what we were getting; the playtest was everywhere.

Note: I find it funny that no matter how angerly I see a YouTuber ranting about how bad the game is, I can always spot a good size 5E collection behind them on the shelf.

I'd be surprised if the same will be true with OneD&D!