D&D 5E My New Players Have Quit 5th Edition

[keterys]

It honestly depends a bit on what cautious really means here.

It's one thing to be cautious about a sleeping ogre, for example. It's another thing if we're talking about, say, a single hobgoblin with a couple goblins.

And yet, those handful of goblin types can kill a PC before their initiative comes up.

 

[Imaro]

It honestly depends a bit on what cautious really means here.

It's one thing to be cautious about a sleeping ogre, for example. It's another thing if we're talking about, say, a single hobgoblin with a couple goblins.

And yet, those handful of goblin types can kill a PC before their initiative comes up.

Well I don't think anyone would argue that Star Wars isn't heroic space-fantasy... but early Luke gets beat down in the dessert by sand people mooks before he can act. He also spends a large chunk of the 1st movie running, hiding, sneaking about and being cautious...

 

[keterys]

Well I don't think anyone would argue that Star Wars isn't heroic space-fantasy... but early Luke gets beat down in the dessert by sand people mooks before he can act. He also spends a large chunk of the 1st movie running, hiding, sneaking about and being cautious...

Yep. He's knocked unconscious, but doesn't die.
He's alone.
He's outnumbered.
He's surprised.

Now, reverse _all_ of those points and you'd get what I'm talking about

It's also very different to be sneaking about on a space station where you're rescuing someone and are outnumbered by several orders of magnitude, as opposed to say being a group of 5 seeing 3 goblins on a road. Note that when they did actually face an appropriate encounter they beat them up and took their stuff in normal order.

 

[Tony Vargas]

This sounds like the zero to hero play style (which oddly enough has been D&D's default play style for the vast majority of it's editions).

Yes. I was going to forbear from mentioning that, but, sure while it's odd-to-inexplicable for an introductory product of a modular game, it is, indeed, exactly what you'd expect from a retro-clone only making noises about modularity.

 

[ExploderWizard]

It honestly depends a bit on what cautious really means here.

It's one thing to be cautious about a sleeping ogre, for example. It's another thing if we're talking about, say, a single hobgoblin with a couple goblins.

And yet, those handful of goblin types can kill a PC before their initiative comes up.

It helps sometimes to put our gamer brains away and think like people. As gamers we internalize stats and assume odds almost before we know we are doing it. An actual (sane) person when confronted with hostility that could lead to a life or death combat will approach the situation with caution. The gamer knows that these are most likely scrub monsters easily dispatched. The person sees a hostile creature with weaponry that looks like it could hurt really BAD.

This is more natural for newbies until they become jaded gamers themselves. These days though its harder to find true newbies who aren't familiar with fantasy videogame culture and come to the table without preconceptions of some kind.

 

[billd91]

This sounds like the zero to hero play style (which oddly enough has been D&D's default play style for the vast majority of it's editions).

I'm not even sure it counts as a play style as much as it is a trope. However, play style has become such a broad term...

 

[Rod Staffwand]

I'm not getting this at all.

Surely the degree of difficulty in a campaign is based more on DM and play style decisions than it is on system mechanics. A DM desiring a looser, swashbuckling style with more wiggle-room in the numbers can always use fewer or less-potent monsters--even at level 1. A DM can also determine if monsters are in position to ambush the PCs or not, as well as terrain and other conditions that factor into the overall difficulty of the encounter.

5E Level 1 play doesn't have to be equivalent to suicide missions or fantasy Vietnam if you don't want it to be. You can play either or any way you like, RAW.

 

[Wolfskin]

5E Level 1 play doesn't have to be equivalent to suicide missions or fantasy Vietnam if you don't want it to be. You can play either or any way you like, RAW.

This.

I've run Part 1 of the Starter Set with the 5 pregens and not a single one of them died (the Rogue was dropped once by goblin arrows* when he gave away his position, though, but was promptly healed by the Cleric). In the Cragmaw Hideout dungeon the Rogue and another high-Perception character (the Noble Fighter, IIRC) scouted for threats in advance, so nobody was ever surprised except for one encounter.

I think the different experiences with LMoP have a lot to do with the interpretation of the hiding, lighting and cover rules by the DM. For instance, I know a DM who murdered the entire party in the first encounter because he ruled that the first four goblins had advantage for almost every roll for being hidden, the PCs had disadvantage every time they attacked them because they were obscured by bushes and on top of that the goblins had cover from the trees.

*pun not intended, but welcome.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm not getting this at all.

Surely the degree of difficulty in a campaign is based more on DM and play style decisions than it is on system mechanics. A DM desiring a looser, swashbuckling style with more wiggle-room in the numbers can always use fewer or less-potent monsters--even at level 1.

There's really not a lot of wiggle room. If you have PCs with as few as 6hps, they can be instantly killed by a monster doing a mere 1d6+1 damage - either on a crit, or when hit for max damage while at 1hp. You'd have to find or make up some /very/ week monsters, indeed, to be confident of not accidentally ganking some 1st level PC if you're intent on playing 'RAW' (though, really, why should you be, in a game that proclaims 'Rulings not Rules?').

It'd be easier and more sensible to either start at level 3, which is perfectly appropriate, as it's the first level a tier, or get a DM screen and fudge the occasional damage roll (and keep on top of how many hps PCs have - fudging after the fact can be a little too obvious).

 

[Blackwarder]

Doesn't sound like 1st level? It's totally true that those of us "in the know" can consider that level a dead level, not useful for either people starting the game _or_ people experienced at it, but... that's such a weird design decision.

Doesn't sound like heroic fantasy, or necessarily the default setting for a group of entirely newbies?

Two points/questions:

1. Who are those mysterious people "in the know"? And what make them "know" in the first place?

2. That was damn Heroic from our POV, not only did we cleared a goblin lair single handily (as a group but still) but we also saved a knight and we are on the scent of the missing dwarf.

Warder