D&D 2E Is 5e Basically Becoming Pathfinder 2e?

pming · Oct 18, 2017

Hiya!

Mistwell said:
No. At least, not so far, where I am. There seems to be a high demand for 5e DMs. Of any kind of game.

Now in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada with a total population of 23,000 (where you are from) I can imagine it might be more difficult to find players...of any kind. I live in a suburb of a suburb of Los Angeles, and my small suburb that you've likely never heard of (Van Nuys, a suburb of the San Fernando Valley, a suburb of Los Angeles) has five times the total population of your entire city, which itself is the capital and largest city of your entire province. If 0.05% of the entire population of your city plays D&D, you'd have 12 total players (rounding up) and LA would have over 5085. There is a pretty impressive difference in scale between us concerning how many players might be available for a game.

Me...born in Crescent City. Moved to...*surprise*...Van Nuys California at about 9mo and raised there until 9 years. So, uh, yeah... "I've heard of it..." (iirc, my address was, iirc, on a cul-de-sac called Bonanza Street...second or third house down on the left; looked at the street just now on GoogleMaps...looks VERY LITTLE like how it was back in the 70's...go figure).

Yeah...population is small (total population of the ENTIRE YUKON TERRITORY is just over 35k), but we have a lot of wilderness. I believe the total square KM of the Yukon is about 482k square Kilometers (California is only 411k square Kilometers), and our population density is about 0.1/sq km (Cali = 92.6/sq km). In other words, every man, woman, and child in the Yukon could have about 10 square kilometers to themselves.

RPG'ers are actually fairly 'common', actually. However, they tend to be in close nit groups who rarely venture out into the wild. Also, because it's still small'ish in numbers, people/groups tend to get a "reputation"; basically, styles of play. Me and my group enjoy generally "unforgiving" campaigns (think Olde Skool), and there aren't many other folks who enjoy it. Those that do...well, they have their own groups. So finding others who are willing to "give old skool a try" tend to be...rare.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

pming · Oct 18, 2017

Hiya!

TheCosmicKid said:
Waitwaitwait. Stop right there.

You say you're telling these potential new players that you are not going to let them play the way they want. You. You are the one telling them this. They want to play a certain way, and you, Mr. Paul L. Ming, are telling them that they cannot play that way at your table.

And you are blaming WotC for... what, exactly?

Bottom line...well, yes. Kinda-sorta.

HOWEVER, I don't see it as being "my fault" entirely simply because if you go back to the day the PHB was released, I, and anyone else, could have showed up at virtually ANYONE'S game and know what to expect. Anything above and beyond what the PHB had was "extra" or "unique". However, the more and more choices that show up, the more and more they become ingrained in the collective as "normal 5e game stuff". When a person shows up to a game and suddenly is presented with none of the "additional" stuff (re: SA, books, UA, etc)...they tend to think "Oh, this game is going to suck. If I can't make a genasai Deep Walker Ranger with Feats, then what's the point?". Because 5e is training them to do the same stuff that 3.x did; If you have an idea for a character...go get it from someone else. IMNSHO, 5e should be training people to do what 5e's base premise was in the first place: If it's not there...make it up!

That was what I was getting at. That more "official choices" doesn't, in my mind, increase the base premise of 5e's "create what you want for your own game and go for it". It does the opposite. It decreases that premise because players and DM's are now expected to be using "the same rules" for, say, an "underground ranger archtype"...even though they are COMPLETELY OPTIONAL! A DM may have created his/her own, specific to his/her world...but players who are familiar with the Deep Walker Ranger (or whatever it was called) are going to be confused, annoyed or even outright upset. Their "expectations of play" have been changed. All because there was an optional archtype that was written up by WotC and now 'everyone' who hears 'underground ranger' will assume this is what is used. The DM isn't "giving them a new archtype to play"...the DM is now "taking away the fun choices".

Hope that clears it up a bit.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Morrus · Oct 18, 2017

dropbear8mybaby said:
That's OK, because I wouldn't accept someone like you as a player when you can't be bothered to even attempt to understand the thing that you're judging before judging it. DDB isn't a program. You've basically just told me that you're an inconsiderate time-waster. Thanks for the heads up.

Where'd the eyeroll emoji go?

Dont post in this thread again, please.

Aldarc · Oct 18, 2017

Hussar said:
Look, I used to build groups using VTT's. It took me AGES to figure this out because I'm not the quickest bunny in the forest. At first I was like PM Ming and just say, "Hey, come and play D&D (3e at the time) at this time" and the groups were, frankly absolute . They were terrible. And, as time went on, my ad's for "Player Wanted" became more and more specific and less and less polite. To the point of it basically reading, "Look, here is EXACTLY the kind of game I'm running. Here are EXACTLY the requirements. If you do not match these, don't even bother."

And it worked perfectly. My current group has been together for almost ten years now. Longest group I've ever gamed with. Been fantastic. So, yeah, when advertising a new game, you have to be VERY specific. After all, you're going to spend dozens, if not hundreds of hours with a stranger. You NEED to find out if you're compatible at the table before you start.

I'm glad that you had a group together that long, but all of this sounds absolutely so foreign to me. I have never been involved in gaming groups that required ads, interviews, or red tape procedures. All my groups have involved friends, mutual friends, and reputable friends. My current group, for example, is just me, my fiance, her best friend/roommate, and another couple who are our friends. Before that, my group was composed of grad student buddies. Our gaming rules typically boil down to "friendship and basic human deceny required."

Li Shenron said:
Something that worries me is the knowledge that gamers who want more and more materials aren't necessarily those who actually play the game more regularly. Some of them are probably people who play so much, that they feel they are running out of options, and want something new to try out. But IMHO the majority are people who don't play the game at all, and need to compensate that with talking endlessly about it, which requires new material to analyze and criticize all the time, more than is needed by those who are actually busy playing the game.

I tend to agree, though I also pine for character options that I once had in the game (e.g. artificer, psion, warlord, races, dragonmarks, etc.).

Fanaelialae · Oct 18, 2017

pming said:
IMNSHO, 5e should be training people to do what 5e's base premise was in the first place: If it's not there...make it up!

If you allow players to create and use homebrew content, then why not allow other content on a case-by-case (possibly tweaked to fit better in your campaign)?

I think that 5e does encourage homebrewing (there's a significant portion of the DMG devoted to it, plus DMs Guild). But not everyone has the time or energy to homebrew whole sale. If I see the Deep Ranger and think that's the concept I want to play then why not allow it (with any tweaks you might feel are needed)? Doesn't make much sense for me to reinvent the wheel, IMO.

Mistwell · Oct 18, 2017

pming said:
Hiya!

Me...born in Crescent City. Moved to...*surprise*...Van Nuys California at about 9mo and raised there until 9 years. So, uh, yeah... "I've heard of it..." (iirc, my address was, iirc, on a cul-de-sac called Bonanza Street...second or third house down on the left; looked at the street just now on GoogleMaps...looks VERY LITTLE like how it was back in the 70's...go figure).

Ah, that area is now called Panorama City. It's definitely changed over there. I live at Cameron Woods, which hasn't changed much since it was built in 1947. It's over close to what was once a drive-in theater on Sepulveda.

Yeah...population is small (total population of the ENTIRE YUKON TERRITORY is just over 35k), but we have a lot of wilderness. I believe the total square KM of the Yukon is about 482k square Kilometers (California is only 411k square Kilometers), and our population density is about 0.1/sq km (Cali = 92.6/sq km). In other words, every man, woman, and child in the Yukon could have about 10 square kilometers to themselves.

RPG'ers are actually fairly 'common', actually. However, they tend to be in close nit groups who rarely venture out into the wild. Also, because it's still small'ish in numbers, people/groups tend to get a "reputation"; basically, styles of play. Me and my group enjoy generally "unforgiving" campaigns (think Olde Skool), and there aren't many other folks who enjoy it. Those that do...well, they have their own groups. So finding others who are willing to "give old skool a try" tend to be...rare.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I can see that being a complication. I take it your old group is not happy with the direction of 5e at the moment then? Or did they split up a while back?

Parmandur · Oct 18, 2017

Jester David said:
We're about to get the first expansion of classes in two years, with the 27 new subclasses. Each of which takes up roughly a page to a page and a half. So <32 pages.

Paizo puts out 32 pages of content for players every month with their Player Companions product line. But not all of those books are new rules content, just most. Plus there is also the monthly adventure paths and bi-monthly Campaign Setting books.
So it's fair to say that in a two month window, Paizo released more rules than D&D has seen in the last two years.

Well, Volo's Guide had ~17 pages of PC material in it, and SCAG slightly more I believe. All three involved some level of reprinting former material (Elemental Evil material, SCAG material). So, 1 month of PF > 1 year of 5E material.

Jester David · Oct 18, 2017

Parmandur said:
Well, Volo's Guide had ~17 pages of PC material in it, and SCAG slightly more I believe. All three involved some level of reprinting former material (Elemental Evil material, SCAG material). So, 1 month of PF > 1 year of 5E material.

Yup. Pretty much.

Counting the pages with new rules, SCAG had around 11 with classes.
So that's potentially 60-odd pages of PC content total. Maybe a few more including backgrounds. Probably equivalent to three Player Companions.
So those three books and a monster focused Campaign Setting book and a second generic rules Setting book, and Paizo would have put out a comparable amount of rules content in one quarter as 5e has its entire lifetime.

Jester David · Oct 18, 2017

pming said:
HOWEVER, I don't see it as being "my fault" entirely simply because if you go back to the day the PHB was released, I, and anyone else, could have showed up at virtually ANYONE'S game and know what to expect. Anything above and beyond what the PHB had was "extra" or "unique". However, the more and more choices that show up, the more and more they become ingrained in the collective as "normal 5e game stuff". When a person shows up to a game and suddenly is presented with none of the "additional" stuff (re: SA, books, UA, etc)...they tend to think "Oh, this game is going to suck. If I can't make a genasai Deep Walker Ranger with Feats, then what's the point?". Because 5e is training them to do the same stuff that 3.x did; If you have an idea for a character...go get it from someone else.

Sorry, that's some rose coloured glasses BS.
Back when you started there was absolutely times when gamers showed up at people's games and expected to play a gnoll fighter using the barbarian kit and the proficiency optional rules. Or showed up at a 1e game and asked to play a half-ogre cavalier using the Oriental Adventures proficiency system.
And were either told "no" and got upset, or "yes" and stayed and played.

Heck... I bet at least once, a player showed up at their game with a rogue from the first expansion to OD&D back in 1974, I bet a DM was surprised and had to approve this new content.

This has *ALWAYS* been a thing. When you started you probably just rolled with people showing up and playing odd stuff.

If you want to know why people aren't playing with you, the answer is probably more internal than external. I suggest you email a few and ask for feedback on why they decided not to join your game "so you can learn" and see how many say it was because you banned options and how many say it was your attitude (and crapping on 3.X for something that has been in the game since its beginning).

Greg K · Oct 18, 2017

Mistwell said:
It's over close to what was once a drive-in theater on Sepulveda.

I remember going to that theater. I had to go down to that neighborhood yesterday. It, and everything along the boulevard to what was once the community Sepulveda (now named North Hills) was practically unrecognizable.