pming
Legend
Hiya!
TLDR; ...someone may have said something like this (probably in a nicer way);
UA needs less "Ok, children, ok! Here, have six metric tonnes of candy! Geez!" (re: yet MORE stuff for players specifically)...and more "Ok, ok, ok! Man, for such a small number of you compared to the other children you sure do make a lot of noise! Here's some stuff to keep you quiet..." (re: some stuff for DM's).
Yes, I'm taking a rather condescending tone. Personally I'm of the belief that player AND DM stuff should come out at a MUCH slower pace...as in a new class or half-dozen archtypes every few YEARS...at *most*. I'd rather see WotC use their tiny team to write adventures. They need to put out a new Dragon and/or Dungeon mag. I'd prefer dead-tree version, but digital would do as long as it's in an easy to print, non-printer raping format (no full-colour BG's, boarders, etc...or the ability to turn them off, including art, and swap out the colour maps for old-school b/w ones).
In our last campaign, it was based around the coast. We found the lack of info, rules, suggestions for underwater and sea-going stuff...seriously lacking. I worked around that. Then the PC's moved inland and started a new chapter. It was mostly above ground (wilderness). The stuff for that in the DMG wasn't horrible...but it was still lacking a bit. When the moved to underground adventuring, things got...very sketchy. The actual non-encounter 'rules' and stuff were, agian...seriously lacking (air quality, how much space is minimum for a human in scale mail to squeez through, how hard is it to find potable water, temperature effects on people [there was a major part in the campaign where the PC's were in underground water and lakes that were very cold], how far does sound travel in various sized caves/caverns/tunnels, etc).
Basically, I think UA needs to switch off every other month from player-stuff focus to DM-stuff focus. We have stopped playing 5th edition...and a LARGE part of it is because I got too burnt out trying to come up with base line guidelines for all these things. I was using rules from other game systems (1e, Dark Dungeons, Rolemaster, Masterbook System, 2e, etc). Trying to convert those rules into 5e-style ones just got to be too much.
Remember the Dungeoneers Survival Guide, Wilderness Survival Guide, Manual of the Planes, and all the 'blue book' DM supplements for 2e (Campaign/Catacomb Guide, Monster Mythology, etc) and the Battle System rules? That. That's the stuff that is SEVERELY lacking for 5e. Stuff that will help a DM run an actual long-term (as in years long) campaign. Not a new dozen classes/subclasses, or another bunch of Feats; those are all incidental and character-specific and do absolutely nothing to foster long-term play (and this, long term investment in 5e).
That's my 2¢ anyway.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
TLDR; ...someone may have said something like this (probably in a nicer way);
UA needs less "Ok, children, ok! Here, have six metric tonnes of candy! Geez!" (re: yet MORE stuff for players specifically)...and more "Ok, ok, ok! Man, for such a small number of you compared to the other children you sure do make a lot of noise! Here's some stuff to keep you quiet..." (re: some stuff for DM's).
Yes, I'm taking a rather condescending tone. Personally I'm of the belief that player AND DM stuff should come out at a MUCH slower pace...as in a new class or half-dozen archtypes every few YEARS...at *most*. I'd rather see WotC use their tiny team to write adventures. They need to put out a new Dragon and/or Dungeon mag. I'd prefer dead-tree version, but digital would do as long as it's in an easy to print, non-printer raping format (no full-colour BG's, boarders, etc...or the ability to turn them off, including art, and swap out the colour maps for old-school b/w ones).
In our last campaign, it was based around the coast. We found the lack of info, rules, suggestions for underwater and sea-going stuff...seriously lacking. I worked around that. Then the PC's moved inland and started a new chapter. It was mostly above ground (wilderness). The stuff for that in the DMG wasn't horrible...but it was still lacking a bit. When the moved to underground adventuring, things got...very sketchy. The actual non-encounter 'rules' and stuff were, agian...seriously lacking (air quality, how much space is minimum for a human in scale mail to squeez through, how hard is it to find potable water, temperature effects on people [there was a major part in the campaign where the PC's were in underground water and lakes that were very cold], how far does sound travel in various sized caves/caverns/tunnels, etc).
Basically, I think UA needs to switch off every other month from player-stuff focus to DM-stuff focus. We have stopped playing 5th edition...and a LARGE part of it is because I got too burnt out trying to come up with base line guidelines for all these things. I was using rules from other game systems (1e, Dark Dungeons, Rolemaster, Masterbook System, 2e, etc). Trying to convert those rules into 5e-style ones just got to be too much.
Remember the Dungeoneers Survival Guide, Wilderness Survival Guide, Manual of the Planes, and all the 'blue book' DM supplements for 2e (Campaign/Catacomb Guide, Monster Mythology, etc) and the Battle System rules? That. That's the stuff that is SEVERELY lacking for 5e. Stuff that will help a DM run an actual long-term (as in years long) campaign. Not a new dozen classes/subclasses, or another bunch of Feats; those are all incidental and character-specific and do absolutely nothing to foster long-term play (and this, long term investment in 5e).
That's my 2¢ anyway.
^_^
Paul L. Ming
