D&D 5E Wanting more content doesn't always equate to wanting tons of splat options so please stop.

[Corwin]

It's generally not balanced or very good.

What metrics did you use to come to those conclusions?

 

[Corwin]

No more than the open license in 3e was encouragement to use third party material. The only difference is that now WotC gets a piece of the monetary pie.

Are you actually saying the 3e open license created by WotC was somehow *not* them encouraging D&D players the use of 3PP? Why did they go to all the trouble? I look forward to your insight on their hidden agenda.

 

[pkt77242]

A good 90% of the third party stuff I looked at during 3e was over powered, stupidly broken, or just plains stupid. As I've said before, my time is limited. I'm not going to waste it trying to sift through the dross looking for the occasional diamond.

History has proven what I said to be true. Even if it's not as rigorously tested, that just means that WotC is better without as much testing that the 3rd party stuff is. There are definitely some overpowered and/or broken things in WotC splat books, but not nearly as much and not nearly as 90% of the third party stuff I looked at during 3e, and I looked at a lot of it. I had much more time back then.

Now I know the problem, you are stuck in 2005. Why do you keep bringing up 3E?

Maybe it is time to join us in 2016 and look at the work being done by the large 3P publishers. Go and check out Kobold Press, Green Ronin, Frog God Games, Sasquatch, etc.

Judging any industry on your opinion of them from 10 years ago is a mistake.

 

[Corwin]

Is that not the whole point of putting the power back in the DMs hands? So that the players can not force the Dm to use material that they do not want to use by having everything classified as "core"?

Did you accidentally quote me? If intentional, I apologize for not seeing the relevance to my question.

Also, are you implying that D&D, at *any* point, permitted the players to force the DM to use material they didn't want to use? If so, I'd like evidence to support that as well, while we are at it.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Not to add to the dogpile already, but it is a very true statement to assume WoTC is always better quality than 3PP material. If "3e proved that statement in spades", then 1e proved the opposite. Some of the best material was 3PP created stuff, and some of the worse (Forest Oracle anyone?) was official. It also assumes that once someone gets hired onto WoTC, they suddenly become great game designers, which is false anyway. Also, 3e has some of the WORST art I've ever seen in an RPG, so assuming "official" product is better doesn't make sense anyway.

So yeah, the only true statement is that WoTC and 3PP can create some really great stuff, and both can create some eggs. In all cases, look at what you're buying and come to a decision and do some research before buying.

 

[Mecheon]

Let me just fix this

All I know is that I looked through a ton of 3e... stuff and while a lot of it was interesting, it was also overpowered and/or broken about 90% of the time. As a result, I bought very little of it.

I mean, let's not beat around the bush here? 3E was basically a jenga tower being played on top of an active earthquake level of balance.

3rd parties and WotC both produce good stuff, but let's not for a moment pretend that 'Overpowered and broken' wasn't built into 3E from the get go. There's a reason they made the Book of Nine Swords once they hit 3.5E, they realised what had happened and tried to fix it

 

[Sacrosanct]

OH! And anyone who thinks "official" content is more balanced has never picked up 2e's Player's Options books (or even 1e's UA for that matter)

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[MoonSong]

To be blunt, I do not accept your attempts to tell me how to make my points. And if you think Helkboyrine is not playable, that's on you. I've played in games of various settings, using numerous systems, where it would work just fine. So again, your dismissal is a bit shocking coming from someone who, in the same breath, is complaining about being dismissed.

But all I said is it was a cool monster, a character that felt comfortable at being non-humanish -good if that is you thing, but I just don't dig these-, I didn't have the context to understand what you were trying to say. Nothing is more ambiguous than a picture without a context. I didn't know what you were trying to say. Without that context all I could think of was "Why are you comparing my desired kind of character that I want to look as normal as possible with a character that is an obvious mutant of sorts?"

So you were exaggerating for effect. That's interesting since you just chastised me for doing the same by your measure.

I'm really confused here, were you doing an example in good faith? what effect exactly were you trying to say by exaggerating? -The language barrier is not a poblem for me, but the pragmatic barrier and the lack of tone are not working too well for me now-

I cannot recall an edition of D&D that magic fit that description. Spells in 5e have always been a codified thing. If you like a more creatively open, free-form magic system, there are some great RPGs out there. I don't think D&D is one of them.

But the creativity came with mixing and matching, to get spells together to do stuff on the fly with ingenuity rather than a cold calculation.

Honestly, the first thing that came to my mind after reading that was, "And this person is choosing to get all hung up on the mechanical minutia of the system?" Anyone who thinks and talks like that *should* be able to make 5e do what they want, not the other way around. But that's just my impression. Am I wrong?

Well it is nice of you. Just one thing, I don't care as much at mechanical minutia, but mechanics in D&D matter, I cannot really play a frail weak and vulnerable cute enchantress if she has 20 Str, 20 Con 22 AC, tons of hit points, tons of blowing stuff spells, no actual meaningful charms and she also looks like a dead body or a reptilian dragon, or if she is perpetually surrounded in sparks. No amount of roleplaying will turn a fireball into a familiar, a flying disk or any of the other effects sorcerers cannot do anymore. And well, symbols to me matter, a lot. A book is a symbol too hard to ignore, more so with the heavy emphasis on schools and all that.

 

[hawkeyefan]

To slightly defend Maxperson, he's not completely right, but he's also rational.

Let's view this from a slightly different angle. WoTC is the "official" maker of D&D. Therefore, it is their brand. As such, their is an implied quality with their goods for the consumer. That doesn't mean that they are naturally better. But, breaking the thought process apart, WoTC has an incentive to make sure that their branded products are better (protect the brand), the consumer understands this, and the consumer is relying on that. It's a safe default. Theoretically, if WoTC puts out too many cruddy products, then the brand value gets diluted, which is not in their interest, and people will no longer purchase their products.

You can see this back in the TSR days. Yes, TSR put out some cruddy products (Forest Oracle!). But they also put out a large number of decent products. As the amount of cruddy products > good products, the value of the TSR brand name diminished.

For third party products, the majority of the value is in the D&D compatibility. So there will be 3PP that do an amazing job (perhaps building up their own independent brand) and some that just publish crud, trading on that compatibility. There is less assurance, and, perhaps, more research required on the part of the consumer. You don't have that implicit guarantee. Of course, a lot of the 3PP is amazing and excellent, but some is an utter disaster.

There are people that feel comfort in the official brand- not just in D&D, but in many areas of life. It's a rational, if not always deserved, response.

I don't think he's wrong in viewing the WotC material as generally acceptable by default. My group tends to do that, too. I understand tha mindset entirely, and I do think that there is a level of validity to that. However, it's the dismissal of 3rd party material and fan created content that's i think is wrong, and the way those items are compared to the official ones. He is saying that he does not judge material based on its merit, but instead on its brand.