D&D 5E Reasons Why My Interest in 5e is Waning

[Shasarak]

I agree with you completely from a player and usability issue, but I was trying to respond to the OP regarding the desire for an OGL type license. Regardless of what people think is or is not D&D, the OGL license is a business construct. We saw when 4e came out that the GSL was far more restrictive than the OGL, which to me points out that someone in power at WotC or Hasbro thought that the OGL was too permissive. Then after the 4e GSL, Pathfinder was released and surpassed 4e in sales, which I'm sure was not looked on favorably by the bean counters; after all Pathfinder was legally using rules that WotC spent a lot of time and money developing and WotC wasn't getting a cut of it, making the OGL look like a bad financial move for WotC. I think this chain of events makes it unlikely that we will see anything resembling the OGL come out for 5e. I still hold out hope that there will be some form 3PP license, and hopefully it will find a middleground between the very permissive OGL and the very restrictive GSL, but there is a distinct possibility that there will either end up being no license, or that the license or the process to become a licensee will be so restrictive that no 3PPs will be willing to use it.

An OGL only works for a business when they either actually stay with their OGL product or can produce another product that is an improvement on the previous one.

 

[Lwaxy]

The lack of PDFs is the main issue for me. I need certain books in physical form, but I also want all or almost all in PDF as I can't carry my books around anymore except maybe the basics for a specific session - and even if I still could I don't want to, I'm already carrying maps, miniatures etc. And then there is the issue of physical space. Our RPG shelves are full and overflowing, and we can't go and get every small region book etc in physical form. I was away for a bit recently, and quite happy to have a lot of my RPG things as PDF.

There is also the "low magic" issue in the game. While I get that it is desirable for some, it isn't for me or my groups, so there is some adapting to do and I am seriously quicker to incorporate what I like in 5e into my D&D3.5-PF-Houserules.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

There is also the "low magic" issue in the game. While I get that it is desirable for some, it isn't for me or my groups, so there is some adapting to do and I am seriously quicker to incorporate what I like in 5e into my D&D3.5-PF-Houserules.

What do you mean? 5e is not low-magic at all. There are only three classes in the entire game that don't cast spells (and you can even pick magic-flavored subclasses for them)

 

[Uchawi]

5E is hard to present as low magic, since spell casting is not tied down to common mechanics, like spell/skill equivalency, spell/hit dice/surge equivalency, or spell/ritual equivalency as it applies to all classes. Magic is too unique with certain things that is hard to replicate in a low magic world.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

What do you mean? 5e is not low-magic at all. There are only three classes in the entire game that don't cast spells (and you can even pick magic-flavored subclasses for them)

I'm guessing due to the attunment limits and lowering the bonuses of items and such. I love that, makes a PC less a pile of magic items with a name attached I think.

 

[Staffan]

That is not true - there never was an 'unspoken rule'.

If you know your 3e history you will be able to find that Pathfinder was not the first 3e varient to go head to head with the WotC version.

Oh? AFAIK, it was the first one to actually try to replace D&D. You had full-fledged d20 games before that, but they were generally more along the lines of "offer a different game with a familiar system" rather than direct competition - things like Stargate, Conan, and so on. The closest I can think of to direct competition was Arcana Unearthed/Evolved, which was more of an "alternate universe" D&D. But even that was no more than a sideline for Monte Cook - he kept producing regular d20 stuff, and went back to focusing on that as well instead of expanding on the Arcana stuff.

 

[Lwaxy]

What do you mean? 5e is not low-magic at all. There are only three classes in the entire game that don't cast spells (and you can even pick magic-flavored subclasses for them)

The way some spells got nerfed means no one in my group wants to play magic users anymore. The fact that there are not supposed to be any more magic shops leads to known high magic worlds no longer being usable, at least not if you value consistency.

I'd still try and get a group together for a self made world though if there were PDFs.

 

[The Mirrorball Man]

The way some spells got nerfed means no one in my group wants to play magic users anymore.

That's not low-magic, though, is it? That's just a question of power levels.

The fact that there are not supposed to be any more magic shops leads to known high magic worlds no longer being usable, at least not if you value consistency.

So would you say that until 5e, magic shops were one of the defining features of the worlds you are referring to?

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Coming to this thread late, but I have to say, [MENTION=51747]dmccoy1693[/MENTION] pretty much summed up perfectly my main issues with 5E as a DM. It's easy for people to airily say "You don't need X!" (and there's a lot of that in this thread, but that's entirely irrelevant, because I don't "need" anything, I don't "need" 5E at all. However, I do want things, like we all do, and my wants are clearly not unreasonable.

5) Lack of digital tools - This is a huge deal to me, because the digital tools in 4E, limited though they were, saved me a great deal of time and effort, and most importantly, actually made the players closer to their characters, because for the first time in forever, they felt qualified to level up their characters without help, without having to think "Do I need to check book X?", or the like. It was really nice to waste zero minutes of our limited time on level-ups and so on, because it could all be done between sessions.

What is making this particularly bad for 5E is that we can't even use third-party tools, because they're getting C&D'd and so on. So whereas games like PF (and many others) have acceptable 3PP tools (not as good as WotC's 4E tools, of course), 5E has nothing, and the only attempt has been a dismal failure.

So that's huge for me.

4) Lack of PDFs - I'm just not carrying 3+ big old hardbacks around. If it was certain that PDFs would appear later, then I would be a lot more comfortable with this, but there's absolutely no clarity from WotC. On the contrary, they seemed to be gung-ho for PDFs before 5E's actual release, but have now gone completely silent on them.

3) Not much to look forward to - Another big barrier. There's no real sign of what's happening in the longer-term with 5E, and what we have seen, is, frankly, a little dull. I don't need a splatbook every month or whatever, but I want more than this, and so do my players.

I'm still rolling my eyes at the guy who said "Oh I have a good group of players so I don't need splatbooks!". That's just nonsensical. I have a good group of players - I don't need splatbooks, but I don't need 5E, either, or indeed any edition of D&D. But y'know what? We LIKE splatbooks, and a game that doesn't add player-oriented content isn't likely to be popular with us in the long term unless it's considerably looser and easier to add to than 5E (like Dungeon World).

2) Waiting - Really a function of 3, I think, because we have nothing to look forward to, particularly, and no clear idea where things are going, it's hard to be patient. I happily wait 2-3 years on Kickstarters because they keep me apprised of what's going on, what their plans are, etc. - We've had far less "future of D&D" info from WotC than the average Kickstarter (or indeed most RPG companies).

1) No OGL - Not just no OGL, but big talk about how we'd hear about an OGL-type thing (one way or another), and then DEAD SILENCE.

If it comes down to one issue, it's lack of communication from WotC. If they clearly stated their intentions on all these issues, then they'd be far smaller issues, but WotC has a terrible track record when it comes to silence - it often means they are going to do something really stupid and/or are just going to totally ignore an issue and hope it goes away.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

So would you say that until 5e, magic shops were one of the defining features of the worlds you are referring to?

They're a defining feature of Eberron and the FR, historically, and those are the only two worlds with any official support in 5E, so that's kind of thing.

I mean, don't make me go get FRA or the big Waterdeep box and play find the magic shops, because there are TONS of them, I can tell you, and the FR definitely doesn't fit with "magic items are virtually never sold". How big of an issue is it? I don't honestly think it's gigantic, but it is pretty strange that WotC went hell-for-leather with this "magic items aren't sold" deal (even removing the prices that they've had since 1E), when they were working with those two worlds, and kind of using FR as the "default" setting.

Low magic though? Yeah not really. Just a strange decision.