Revised Ranger update

[SkidAce]

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/grognard
https://www.definitions.net/definition/grognard
http://www.yourdictionary.com/grognard
https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=grognard

Fair enough... /thumbs up!

Guess I've been around so long all I thought applied was the grumpy complaining Napoleon Sgts part....

 

[BookBarbarian]

Coming late in to the conversation on this one.

I've always found it wonky that Primeval Awareness gave more useful information if the Ranger was not in their favored terrain.

That was pretty much my beef with the class, but I'm probably forgetting something. I would love to see an alternate version of that feature. I don't need to revise the whole class for that.

Still reading Crawford tweet my initial response was "Then why did we waste 2 UA articles on this!" It's like they stirred up the hornets nest and now are trying to get all the hornets back inside.

 

[Jester David]

I'm not saying that twitch isn't big. But you have yet to show any convincing argument that players today care more about story. Watching a livestream, or ease of access to that information, doesn't prove it unless you can show that watching a D&D session in person is LESS about story, and good luck with that. Bringing up crosstalk in no way means that gamers cared more about the mechanics of the game than story.
...
So yes, streaming has helped grow the game, but there is no evidence that because of streaming, new gamers care more about story than older gamers did. You're just guessing.

I'm making an educated guess.

Gamers emulate their inspiration. Wargamers had a very competitive version of D&D where it was the players vs the DM and tournament style gameplay. Just like gamers inspired by a novel might try and tell a firm story with the PCs as protagonists or the gamer inspired by a videogame will use that as a basis.

How else are gamers inspired by streaming going to approach the game? That's their basis for comparison. That's what they think D&D is.
(Especially with a key WotC talking point being "we're all about the story in D&D".)


After all, is there a surge of interest in optimisation boards and guides?
Is reddit.com/r/dnd/ or /dndnext/ full of builds and mechanics? Is the Facebook group filled with post after post of power gaming and encounter design?

The very fact that the "worst" class in the game (i.e. the one this thread is about) is not the least played class (or even the fourth least played class) speaks volumes.

 

[ad_hoc]

Ok, but didn't the revised Ranger come out in 2016? It's been about 1.5 years...and the attitude towards the class has shifted that much? Did they come out and say how it now ranks in player satisfaction and power ranking?

I dunno, seems weird.

5e is now the most popular RPG ever and it is currently selling better than it did at launch.

Those sales are not coming from old hobby gamers...

(I also think that XGtE did a great job of giving the Ranger some good stuff. I love the Monster Hunter subclass and Zephyr's Strike is fantastic too)

 

[Inchoroi]

Having had a player try both the PHB ranger and the revised ranger, they both work as long as you aren't trying to be a Beastmaster. If you try to be a beastmaster, it sucks. Your pet dies constantly, and then you're out the entire schtick of the character.

For my purposes, I've actually considered adding regular Beastmaster into base Ranger class, and calling it a day. However, no one but one player likes the idea of having a pet, so I've had no need to thus far.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I'm making an educated guess.

Gamers emulate their inspiration. Wargamers had a very competitive version of D&D where it was the players vs the DM and tournament style gameplay. Just like gamers inspired by a novel might try and tell a firm story with the PCs as protagonists or the gamer inspired by a videogame will use that as a basis.

How else are gamers inspired by streaming going to approach the game? That's their basis for comparison. That's what they think D&D is.
(Especially with a key WotC talking point being "we're all about the story in D&D".)


After all, is there a surge of interest in optimisation boards and guides?
Is reddit.com/r/dnd/ or /dndnext/ full of builds and mechanics? Is the Facebook group filled with post after post of power gaming and encounter design?

The very fact that the "worst" class in the game (i.e. the one this thread is about) is not the least played class (or even the fourth least played class) speaks volumes.

Ah, I see. It appears that you're assuming that people who played D&D in the 80s were wargamers. That's not true. Only the original group in the mid 70s. I'm not a wargamer, and I started in 1981. No one I played with were wargamers either. D&D couldn't have grown exponentially if it only had wargamers playing in the 80s. D&D had it's greatest increase in popularity ratio wise in the 80s, and only few of those were due to wargaming. Most of us wanted to recreate our own adventures and stories we read about for years, or saw in TV or the movies.

So again, I don't see any evidence that modern gamers care more about stories than we did back in the day. Streaming isn't it. Your assumption about wargamers is not accurate. And in fact, I'll say the evidence may go the other way, because the mechanics of the best selling edition (basic) didn't lend to crunch at all. Rather due to the lack of mechanics, larger parts were narrative. How many discussions over the year by grognards said they preferred how you would narrate how you opened the door, or picked the lock, or explored the dungeon rather than just make a roll for it? Or narrated how you would jump to the chandelier and swing over your opponent instead of needing a hard coded power/maneuver in order to do it? Also, Rolemaster is rules heavy, and has been around forever, but has only ever had a fraction of the players. If gamers cared more about mechanics in the early 80s than the actual stories, you'd think more would have played rolemaster. So no. In fact, all evidence seems to point that the huge growth of D&D in the 80s was because the non-wargamers joined, and liked to have the storytelling aspect as a huge factor. Narration over rules. Rulings over rules.

In fact, your whole line if reasoning seems off because 5e went back to how old school D&D was played (rulings and narration over rules). So it seems odd that you'd argue that players today care more about a feature that 5e intentionally replicated from older games because it was such a prominent feature of those said old school games.

 

[Jester David]

Ah, I see. It appears that you're assuming that people who played D&D in the 80s were wargamers. That's not true. Only the original group in the mid 70s. I'm not a wargamer, and I started in 1981. No one I played with were wargamers either. D&D couldn't have grown exponentially if it only had wargamers playing in the 80s. D&D had it's greatest increase in popularity ratio wise in the 80s, and only few of those were due to wargaming. Most of us wanted to recreate our own adventures and stories we read about for years, or saw in TV or the movies.

So again, I don't see any evidence that modern gamers care more about stories than we did back in the day. Streaming isn't it. Your assumption about wargamers is not accurate. And in fact, I'll say the evidence may go the other way, because the mechanics of the best selling edition (basic) didn't lend to crunch at all. Rather due to the lack of mechanics, larger parts were narrative. How many discussions over the year by grognards said they preferred how you would narrate how you opened the door, or picked the lock, or explored the dungeon rather than just make a roll for it? Or narrated how you would jump to the chandelier and swing over your opponent instead of needing a hard coded power/maneuver in order to do it? Also, Rolemaster is rules heavy, and has been around forever, but has only ever had a fraction of the players. If gamers cared more about mechanics in the early 80s than the actual stories, you'd think more would have played rolemaster. So no. In fact, all evidence seems to point that the huge growth of D&D in the 80s was because the non-wargamers joined, and liked to have the storytelling aspect as a huge factor. Narration over rules. Rulings over rules.

In fact, your whole line if reasoning seems off because 5e went back to how old school D&D was played (rulings and narration over rules). So it seems odd that you'd argue that players today care more about a feature that 5e intentionally replicated from older games because it was such a prominent feature of those said old school games.

Not attempting to malign 1e/BECMI gamers. I certainly agree that this edition and its tone and focus on narration are pretty "old school" and very much a return to how things were done. Especially for the various Basic D&D players.

My point isn't that the modern gamers inspired by Streaming care more about stories than they did back in the '80s. More that they care more about stories and less about balance. Effectively, they care more about stories than they did in the 2000s.
Really, I'm crappy on my generation of gamers that got their start with late 2e and 3e...

 

[Parmandur]

I don't know that we can say that newer folks are necessarily less crunch focused...but WotC publishing strategy suggests that their numbers point that way.

However, anybody who has used a flip phone is now an old fart, let alone played 3E/4E. Considering the prime demographic, per WotC, is high school and College folks, a fairly high percentage of 5E players weren't alive when 3E was released.

 

[BookBarbarian]

I don't know that we can say that newer folks are necessarily less crunch focused...but WotC publishing strategy suggests that their numbers point that way.

However, anybody who has used a flip phone is now an old fart, let alone played 3E/4E. Considering the prime demographic, per WotC, is high school and College folks, a fairly high percentage of 5E players weren't alive when 3E was released.

I think players new to any system, and especially those new to RPGs at all, are vulnerable to rule overload.

After a while some espouse complexity and some others always eschew it.

As a design paradigm I think it's far easier to target the less complex as the lowest common denominator and let those you what complexity ramp it up as needed.

Someone that wan't things simple is far less likely to want to put the time into making things simpler, while someone who craves complexity might be more than likely to build it themselves when such complexity is not available out of the box.

 

[ad_hoc]

I think players new to any system, and especially those new to RPGs at all, are vulnerable to rule overload.

After a while some espouse complexity and some others always eschew it.

As a design paradigm I think it's far easier to target the less complex as the lowest common denominator and let those you what complexity ramp it up as needed.

Someone that wan't things simple is far less likely to want to put the time into making things simpler, while someone who craves complexity might be more than likely to build it themselves when such complexity is not available out of the box.

I think it is important to note the difference between simplicity/complexity and elegance/clunkiness.