D&D 5E Some things I don't care for in the D&D culture

Hey guys, I haven't posted in years because I've been away from D&D. I've done some private writing about D&D to understand why I don't like it anymore, and I'm curious what peoples' thoughts on these cultural elements I've identified are. If I'm alone or if there are actually some subcultures that I might find I agree with (and actually start playing D&D again, since 5E rules look playable to me).

Before I go into them though I want to ask if you think I should pose them all for discussion in one thread (this one). Or make a separate thread for each since they can be pretty big topics on their own. They are:

Rules "balance" and rules lawyering
The importance for rules to "realistically" portray what "could happen" in a given situation
The concept of speccing and character builds in D&D

Those are the things that have been keeping me away from modern editions of D&D and I want to see what thoughts different folks in the community have about them. Thanks.

Crap, didn't mean for this to go specifically into the 5E sub-forum. If anyone can move it to general I guess it's more appropriate there. Although getting the perspective from 5E players specifically would also be enlightening

Those are things I like about D&D.

I like D&D for a rollplaying game, not a roleplaying game.

I'm not into the whole escapism aspect to live in someone else's world. The rules are very important to me, since I like the game from a rules/mechanics standpoint. They form the basis of the social contract of agreement upon what game we are playing, and I am very fussy about that. I want to play the game printed in the book, not your version of the game.

Also as a player fiddling with mechanics and builds then testing them in game, is kind all you have to do outside of game time. Well I suppose you could write fiction as well, but that bores me.

annnd there's an excellent example of all the stuff the OP doesn't like.

Not to worry, Big J Money, you are not alone. Those elements are unwelcomed by many and, thankfully, diminished/diminishing in importance with/in 5e.

Haha, that's ok. I'm open to others' opinions and experiences and I want to know ALL THE THINGS.

I should point out that I didn't necessarily say that I'm into escapism, just imagination. And yeah, I can agree with DaveDash that writing fiction bores me too

I'll start with the first one since I'm not getting much with such an open ended OP.

Rules "balance" and rules lawyering.

What I don't like about this kind of play is that an RPG doesn't need it to be fun. It's a distraction to me. In Basic D&D there weren't enough rules to be rules lawyers (which became more prevalent with editions 1 - 4). And balance wasn't a concern because there weren't enough different class abilities to notice.

So I'm curious if anyone else does or doesn't like playing or running in campaigns that make an effort to "keep the game balanced", and the level of rules discussion they're willing to tolerate during a gaming session.

Big J Money said:

:Rules "balance" and rules lawyering
The importance for rules to "realistically" portray what "could happen" in a given situation
The concept of speccing and character builds in D&D

Click to expand...

I would categorize those as player behaviors, rather than subcultures, but birds of a feather do often flock together so...

I also wouldn't say that they're unique to D&D. I've met quite a number of such players playing other systems (mostly WW FWIW).

That said, as a generalization, I've found that often the types of players who exhibit these behaviors tend to reject 5e and prefer other systems. "Rulings not rules" tends to be disliked by rules lawyers. The fact that 5e leans more towards simplicity than realism (adv/dis vs many different modifiers) tends to be disliked by simulationists. And there are much better systems out there for those who like deep and complex character builds. Of course, as I've said, this is a broad generalization. YMMV.

Big J Money said:

Haha, that's ok. I'm open to others' opinions and experiences and I want to know ALL THE THINGS.

I should point out that I didn't necessarily say that I'm into escapism, just imagination. And yeah, I can agree with DaveDash that writing fiction bores me too

I'll start with the first one since I'm not getting much with such an open ended OP.

Rules "balance" and rules lawyering.

What I don't like about this kind of play is that an RPG doesn't need it to be fun. It's a distraction to me. In Basic D&D there weren't enough rules to be rules lawyers (which became more prevalent with editions 1 - 4). And balance wasn't a concern because there weren't enough different class abilities to notice.

So I'm curious if anyone else does or doesn't like playing or running in campaigns that make an effort to "keep the game balanced", and the level of rules discussion they're willing to tolerate during a gaming session.

Click to expand...

For the record I don't think absolute balance is fun. Flavour is important too, and flavour is achieved through differences.

However players should feel like they can all contribute to each pillar of the game on a more or less even footing, depending on what they enjoy the most. That is achieved through a semblance of balance.

What you also need to understand is that D&D competes with MMOs and such for time. That's where I need to draw players from, and ensure my D&D sessions are more fun than their MMOs, otherwise they will just play those instead.
To many MMO players, balance, mechanics, and builds are very important. Take those things away and you're basically left with a glorified fantasy version of story time.

Big J Money said:

Haha, that's ok. I'm open to others' opinions and experiences and I want to know ALL THE THINGS.

I should point out that I didn't necessarily say that I'm into escapism, just imagination. And yeah, I can agree with DaveDash that writing fiction bores me too

I'll start with the first one since I'm not getting much with such an open ended OP.

Rules "balance" and rules lawyering.

What I don't like about this kind of play is that an RPG doesn't need it to be fun. It's a distraction to me. In Basic D&D there weren't enough rules to be rules lawyers (which became more prevalent with editions 1 - 4). And balance wasn't a concern because there weren't enough different class abilities to notice.

So I'm curious if anyone else does or doesn't like playing or running in campaigns that make an effort to "keep the game balanced", and the level of rules discussion they're willing to tolerate during a gaming session.

Click to expand...

First off, what do you mean by "balance". Often there's an issue that people mean very different things by balance. My definition goes like this:


Rules lawyering in Basic/Expert gave way to a lot of DM manipulation. "Can I do X" was dependent on how well you could convince your DM that X was an option. It could be fantastic, in the hands of a DM whose POV was similar to your own, or it could be horrid as in the case where there DM was on a totally different track than you. It could very easily lead to game screeching halts as the DM and the player(s) negotiations broke down.

OTOH, heavy mechanical systems have their own problems too. The more rules you have, the more chance there is for options to become "king". See the current discussion about Great Weapon Fighting for a 5e example of this. How much those problems intrude into a given table depends a lot on that particular table, but, it's still a issue.

Now, on the issue of rules lawyering, that exists regardless of system. In a rules light system, like Basic D&D, rules lawyering isn't so much manipulating the rules, as manipulating the DM. The rules lawyer tries to couch arguments in terms of "realism" or whatever in order to try to force the DM to rule in his favour. In a rules heavy system, the rules lawyer couches arguments in terms of various interpretations of the rules in order to get his way. In either case, it's done in bad faith in order to gain an advantage in the game.

Hussar, by balance we mean the same thing: balance of mechanical options for the players.

In roleplaying, I don't want a set of rules/mechanics to dictate this for me. I want the discussion that's been happening around the table to determine what makes sense to the group.

To avoid what you call DM manipulation, I believe that although the DM is responsible to come up with some ideas to bring to the table, that he's ultimately not "in charge". This where I differ somewhat from more traditional cultures that caused these kinds of "DM is god" social issues that I agree can get ugly.

My play style of "Can I do X?" is always "yes, you can do X!" the player might simply have to go on some kind of quest or roll the dice and let the dice tell them if they were successful or not. The options are infinite, thus there is no comparison of abstracted options, bonuses, etc. between classes, abilities, etc.

What you say about heavy mechanical system problems is what I prefer to avoid, yes.

I disagree with your description of DM manipulation being a form of "old-school rules-lawyering", but that's just meaningless semantics on my part, really. It's a problem of another kind. The way I frame this, however, is that when a player wants to do something they aren't trying to convince the DM, they're trying to convince the table. Is your action so wild that it breaks everyone's shared immersion of what makes sense in this adventure? As a DM I'll always say yes a player can attempt whatever they want. It's up to the group to say "that sounds silly, it doesn't really match this game we've been playing". And of course the DM is one voice included in that.

If it's a matter of simulation plausibility (would the glass vial shatter when dropped from this height?) this is where general rules help, I think. The table agrees on a rough likelihood, and the DM rolls it.

Now if there is a tie, then the DM can be the tie-breaking vote, sure. Or you could house rule that people take turns being the tie breaking vote if you want total fairness. Or bid on it or something

Big J Money said:

Hey guys, I haven't posted in years because I've been away from D&D. I've done some private writing about D&D to understand why I don't like it anymore, and I'm curious what peoples' thoughts on these cultural elements I've identified are. If I'm alone or if there are actually some subcultures that I might find I agree with (and actually start playing D&D again, since 5E rules look playable to me).

Before I go into them though I want to ask if you think I should pose them all for discussion in one thread (this one). Or make a separate thread for each since they can be pretty big topics on their own. They are:

Rules "balance" and rules lawyering
The importance for rules to "realistically" portray what "could happen" in a given situation
The concept of speccing and character builds in D&D

Those are the things that have been keeping me away from modern editions of D&D and I want to see what thoughts different folks in the community have about them. Thanks.

Click to expand...

If you put a few certain munchkin bastards on ignore, you'll find that most of the posters around here are not terribly focused upon builds nor rules lawyering. I've not had issues with either while running Adventurer's league games in two different states. (Neither balance issues nor rules lawyers being picayune. Mind you, we've had a few really heated rules discussions outside of game, but they have been about things not yet implemented.)

90% of the culture issue you're seeing is internet trolls. The other 10% are the rules-lawyering crowd that's part of the whole gaming industry, and has been in every rules-driven game discussion board since the first few discussion BBS's went up in the 80's. (Yes, I have been part of the BBS scene since about 1985. And several boards in my area date back to about 1982... one went online with a 150 baud acoustic coupled modem.)