No. Next dumb question?
D&D 2E Is 5e Basically Becoming Pathfinder 2e?
UA are playtest articles and are not official. I dont allow them in my games. I allow feats and multiclassing, but so far nobody has mced yet. Then again my players dont really go for the meta, but for fun for them. Im very lackluster for the most part on the upcoming book but ill let it be used if a player gets it. I dont see anything game breaking so far.
TheCosmicKid
Hero
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?
Existing.
I prefer that players discuss concepts with me as a DM, not bring me their planned 20 level build. If the have a concept that i think fits the setting and there are rules in place that fit then I roll with it. If not, then i either create rules to fit the concepts I like or disallow the ones I don't think fit the setting.
So, in the end, I believe that the more options s there are the better it is.
So, in the end, I believe that the more options s there are the better it is.
pukunui
Legend
I told my players that I wanted to try playing 5e *without* feats just to see what it was like, but they were all, "Nah. Not gonna happen." Instead, I just banned the ones I didn't like, which they were fine with. There's definitely a bit of a give or take between DM and players. You can't just say "It's my way or the highway" and expect to have any players.
There is a massive, titanic gulf in the difference between even early 3.5/P.F. and what we have now, both in terms of player options and rules minutia themselves. Seriously, I think you can rattle off the effects of every condition in 5e in less space than the grapple description of those systems. Sage advice is usually just rules clarifications, I can't honestly think of new material they've released there, and UA stuff is explicitly test material. Frankly, I'd consider you to be definitely in a very small minority, since the general opinion across the hobby seems to be a desire for faster material release.
First off, guides will be here until the end of time, save on the most open-ended and free-form RPG systems. It's a side effect of our increased access and larger community reach as a result of the internet, but even if they released 2e again completely unchanged you'd still have people putting out guides recommending certain builds, spells, or similar options. As for the homebrew thing, you can thank wizards and the DM's guild for the downturn in that material showing its face, I suspect.
Art is largely subjective but I'm just not feeling you here. Some of the older editions of D&D had some amazing artwork (when I was little I saw the red dragon on one of the old starter boxes and was entranced), but there's a pretty huge amount of it that was very low quality for a variety of reasons. Especially when you have a limited amount of space to work with, like on a class description page, you're not going to get a full-page full-color spread of a group delving into a foreboding dungeon, it's simply not practical.
You've already answered your own question, the players are definitely there (and I can attest that both of my current groups have had to turn away members), they're just not willing to dumb down an already simple game. Well, perhaps that's unfair, you could just as easily characterize it as not wanting to play in a significantly house-ruled version of the game that prevents them from playing how they would enjoy playing. Some people run human only games because that's the setting they enjoy, and it might be well made and well run, but that's not what I'm looking for in D&D so I would naturally pass such a campaign without a second thought.
There's also the counterpoint that in the days of yore, getting a game at all was reasonably tough, and so players were more willing to compromise simply to play at all. With the colossal resurgence/mainstream popularity, you no longer command that kind of supply/demand advantage. Simply put, people know that if they don't want to compromise they don't have to, there are other games readily available.
I don't think that claim was ever made by WOTC or even early adopters or advocates of the system. What was said is that you could run a campaign without those things and the game wouldn't fall apart, as it sort of did in earlier editions due to assumed power disparities. It would be impossible and illogical for Wizards to say that they were designing a system where all of their fans would be happy with each and every table. If you do find a group of people who want to play the way you do, then the game won't come apart at the seams. That's all that was promised and for they most part they delivered.
This was what I was afraid of. And probably why I won't be DM'ing a 5e campaign anytime in the next decade.
Is anyone else out there in the same boat that we are? If you don't use the "so-called OPTIONAL" stuff mentioned, your chance of finding a game or players is virtually zilch?
^_^
Paul L. Ming (a now, more-or-less, "ex-5e DM" at this point).
I'd try trawling various gaming forums and VTT services and try and find a group, perhaps lead with what your campaign does different/better than simply a list of all the restrictions. Ultimately though I would say that yours is definitely a tough sell, especially because even with the inclusion of those options the game isn't nearly as imbalanced as many other competitors/prior incarnations, which (from my point of view) makes your position hard to justify. Potential players may be feeling that you're being needlessly controlling or punitive, in regards to the one thing players usually have control over.
The Crimson Binome
Hero
Fourth edition was marketed as a standardized experience, so players could jump between tables without having to learn new rules. Every book that they put out was considered a core book, and you were supposed to allow everything in every game. That was their selling point.
Fifth edition was marketed as a return to variations by table. "Rulings, not rules" meant that the DM was empowered to run the game however they wanted to. None of the classes or races in the book were assumed. Any combination of materials, whether published or homebrewed, was considered equally valid. If you wanted to play without feats, or without multiclassing, or with only certain feats and class combinations available, then that was entirely encouraged. That was the selling point.
If anyone suggests that there's a "correct" combination of options to use, then that's a problem in the community. That idea needs to be rejected as loudly as possible if the game is going to survive in its intended form, without just becoming another Pathfinder.
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Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Only true if all the 'majority' cares about is mechanics.
If things like characterization, story, and immersion are pushed forward then - given reasonable levels of creativity on both sides of the screen - the mechanical 'content' almost need never change at all.
What he's saying sounds more like "we play 5e D&D in a stripped-down, old-school way". Nothing at all wrong with that, and it's something 5e has been designed to accommodate.
Though I do agree with whoever it was who suggested this ought probably to be noted in his players-wanted advertising.
[MENTION=45197]pming[/MENTION] - another option for you might be to drop the puck on a 1e or even 0e campaign and advertise for recruits for that...see how much interest there is in old-school play. If this gets a decent response you can then try graduating that group to the stripped-down 5e you're trying to run.
Though I can't speak to pming's specific and quite isolated community, I'd disagree with this assertion in a more general sense. I think the pool of players is still growing.
The pool of DMs, on the other hand...
Lanefan
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