D&D 5E Why does 5E SUCK?

[FormerlyHemlock]

EDIT: My larger point being "awesome" or "amazing" fiction is very subjective and unless the mechanics are doing something totally opposed to the genre of play (Allowing Cthulhu to be killed with a .22)... I'm not sure how a ruleset would force a DM to create non-awesome or non-amazing fiction around them.

As opposed to a speedboat?

 

[Bluenose]

I don't see how creating amazing fiction around mechanics is a component of the particular game (especially a game where the fiction is called out as being mutable)... Any good DM can do this with nearly any game

So again... "amazing" is totally subjective...So maybe it's not that a particular game's mechanics don't produce amazing stories but that the mechanics produce the type of amazing stories that don't necessarily line up with your particular definition of amazing.. Is that a failing of the game, or a failing of your particular expectations?

As an example, I had a hard time producing amazing stories with 4e simply because of the length of combat and it only got worse as my group went up in level. We were not particularly enthralled with the type of gonzo, over the top action that seemed like it should have played out fast and exciting but came to a grinding crawl whenever combat started. IMO, 13th Age did the type of amazing I wanted from 4e in a much better way... but I don't blame the mechanics of 4e for that since, by the accounts of other posters... many saw the length of combat as a positive... It was simply that my view of amazing didn't line up with the 4e mechanics...

That makes very little sense to me. You can't write interesting fiction because the events it's talking about take a long time to happen? People write fictional accounts of much longer periods than that all the time. Besides, at this point you're arguing that mechanics don't affect the ability for a good GM to create amazing fiction and that the mechanics of 4e stopped you from doing it.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think you missed Saelorn's point. He said that a given fictional element should have only one mechanical representation. That doesn't mean that it couldn't have had other representations, only that it doesn't. In short, there's an objective game-world reality there and not a Schrodinger's Ogre which re-stats itself depending on who is looking at it. That is absolutely how GURPS and Shadowrun work. A Shadowrun Force-7 air spirit is a Force-7 air spirit. The DM could have created a Force-7 spirit of Man instead and made it play largely the same role, but he didn't.

From the way you respond it sounds as if you're discussing ambiguity from the DM's perspective: "which mechanical representation of my concept should I choose?" That's not what Saelorn is talking about.

Well, you did peg what I was talking about: the DM has choices in how to model something based on it's role in the story, challenge he wants to present to the PCs, in-world consistency, or whatever else he values. Saelorn, it seemed to me, wanted to take those choices away.

If all he's saying is he wants DM's to stick to such a choice once made, that's a lot less objectionable - but it's a DM technique or campaign-presentation concern rather than a system one.

A wizard PC is fundamentally the same entity as a wizard NPC. There is nothing within the game world to distinguish them.

They're two different people: they're distinguished, right there. 'Wizard' might be a game construct or an in-game label. Wizard, as a PC class, is a game construc: it has a lot of choices that can make one PC seem very different from the next PC (or the could take the same number of wizard levels, prep all the same spells, and seem virtually identical). Or, wizard could be an in-game description: In 5e, for instance the Court Wizard of a kingdom could be a 7th level wizard (Diviner), but he could also be a 9th level dragon sorcerer, a rogue with the charlatan background, a bard with the Sage background, an NPC with a spell list chosen by the DM, or even a rakshasa; in 3.5, that same court 'wizard' might have been PC-class wizard, or an NPC class Adept, or a monster with spell-like abilities able to disguise itself convincingly.

That's actually one of the nice thing about 'lame' old class names like fighter or magic-user - they're too generic to be used meaningfully in the in-game fiction, so they don't create that confusion.

Unless you're playing in some weird world, where the PCs literally are different - something like Exalted, perhaps - but that's nothing to do with D&D. In D&D, a wizard is a wizard.

The PC /are/ different, because the DM isn't controlling them. They're different because it's a game. You shouldn't ask a game to completely deny it's nature, as a game. It's up to the DM to take a game like D&D (any ed), and use (and mod) it to create the experience he wants. If that means using the exact same mechanics to represent a PC and an NPC wizard, he can do that - he can also use very different mechanics, or use a different design, but 'call back' some of the PC mechanics.

I did like 4E monster design from a conceptual standpoint. 5E has ported that concept from 4E. I like open-ended monster design that makes monsters unique. Allows you to design even orc tribes as having distinct differences. It also allows PCs to be very unique given monsters aren't built like PCs.

Exactly. 5e's use of a monster stat block (whether you like to think of it as a 4e-style or 1e-style or Pathfinder-style block) and giving the DM some fairly simple tools the DM create monsters and NPCs who are distinct from eachother and from PCs, is one of the many things 5e got 'right.'

In D&D imagination and rules debates are often one and the same. Explain to me how you can simply imagine that you kill some creature? Does the player explain some strategy and then say at the end, "I killed it."

I've certainly seen that happen. Not as an improvised action in combat, but as some elaborate plan, where the players spend hours coming up with it and selling the DM on it, leading to a resolution of "OK, that worked." It's an example of the kind of style that got labeled 'CaW' in the edition war.

5e works for that style. It's worth the player's while to make an end-run around the published system and get straight to a DM ruling - if they can be reasonably certain that ruling will be in their favor.

I thought it was a poor response. They didn't sufficiently analyze their game play issues. If they had they could have concluded, as we quickly did, that you were not supposed to stand around hacking at squads of monsters all day. Instead you're supposed to be say fighting the monsters on a runaway wagon while trying to dump the cargo before it goes off a cliff. In that paradigm the way the monsters work is actually quite beneficial.

There's really nothing you're "supposed" to do. There are things that work better or are more enjoyable than others. There are monsters that are fun to toe-to-toe, and monsters that are boring in that mode. There are monsters & scenarios that have the potential to be entertaining, dynamic combats, if the system is up to it or the DM can pull it off.

In short, I think 5E would work the same way that your 4E anecdote worked: by DM fiat and handwaving and the Rule of Cool.

It's always an option, even a game like 4e, but 5e brings that DM contribution front-and-center.

In 5E, unlike AD&D, you're not stuck with a cleric in every party. Prior to two weeks ago I believe no one at my table had ever cast a healing spell. Short rests, long rests, Vampiric Touch, disposable minions, and running away covered all the bases prior to that.

Even in AD&D there were alternatives - other classes that could heal, DM-placed healing items, even the completely impractical alternative of resting for weeks. The real question is how well do the alternatives take the place of the Cleric.

In 5e, any caster with Cure Wounds or Healing Word on his list can do enough in-combat healing to get by, even if he might not heal /as much/ as the Cleric, he can get an ally back into the fight when he's dropped in combat. Getting a sack of healing potions can also do the trick, at low level, though it'd be a poor, inefficient nth choice, even then.
Other alternatives - HD, overnight healing, Inspiring Leader, healers kits, etc - can get the party through the day, but can't get a PC back into the fight when he's dropped. So while there's no absolute need for a Cleric, having one is probably pretty close to ideal. Failing that, an alternate caster with the right spell list would be better than depending on healing potions. Remaining alternatives would leave the party at a distinct disadvantage.

 

[Imaro]

That makes very little sense to me. You can't write interesting fiction because the events it's talking about take a long time to happen? People write fictional accounts of much longer periods than that all the time. Besides, at this point you're arguing that mechanics don't affect the ability for a good GM to create amazing fiction and that the mechanics of 4e stopped you from doing it.

No it was an example that the mechanics enabling or not enabling a DM to create interesting (first it was awesome, then amazing... now interesting) fiction is a subjective thing... which you seem to be agreeing with since you don't feel long, booring combats that tend to cause a drop in attention would have any effect on continuously coming up with interesting fiction to describe it... I disagree.

EDIT: I'm not saying the mechanics don't affect a DM but proclaiming that a rule set objectivey inspires interesting fiction vs. another is silly. It may do that for you, but the same mechanics could have a different effect on another DM.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Because I liked D&D, and this was D&D, and I felt that I could force the round peg into the square hole if I tried hard enough.

For those of us who weren't used to such a massive revision to the rules, we could have benefited more from them screaming loudly that this version was a radical departure from everything that came before it, and that my kind was no longer welcome here.

Well.... First of all 4e DID try to accommodate everyone WRT NPCs. DMG1 has a perfectly usable system for constructing an NPC using a 'PC-like' mechanism. Its a bit of a simplified process, but the resulting NPC should have the scaling and attributes of a PC, just with somewhat less powers and instead of explicitly using feats they just get a +1/level progression, etc.

Beyond that, nothing stops you from building a full up 4e PC and using it as an NPC. Its not the ideal way to make opponents, but it should work if you insist, and certainly for an allied NPC the only issue is who has to run this more complex character.

In truth WotC did advertise 4e as a departure from existing D&D. They didn't say "you're not welcome here", but everyone was fairly told that it wouldn't be AD&D revisited. In fact I think to some extent many people who were happy with 3e DID actually complain that they weren't welcome. I recall many screaming fits about the 'gnomish monster' for instance.

 

[Imaro]

In truth WotC did advertise 4e as a departure from existing D&D. They didn't say "you're not welcome here", but everyone was fairly told that it wouldn't be AD&D revisited. In fact I think to some extent many people who were happy with 3e DID actually complain that they weren't welcome. I recall many screaming fits about the 'gnomish monster' for instance.

Ze game... remains ze same... Doesn't sound like advertising as a departure. YMMV of course.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

A wizard PC is fundamentally the same entity as a wizard NPC. There is nothing within the game world to distinguish them. It would be like trying to reconcile one brand of pasta maker with another brand of pasta maker; the differences are based entirely on things that exist within reality.

Unless you're playing in some weird world, where the PCs literally are different - something like Exalted, perhaps - but that's nothing to do with D&D. In D&D, a wizard is a wizard.

I don't know that I agree with this. D&D has always stated flat out that PCs are special. In AD&D 1e, and again in 3e, there were rules which suggested that there were 'PC-like NPCs', but it was never established that they had to be identical to PCs in every way. In fact there were at various times in all of these games monster-like stat blocks published for various NPCs that were described as being 'wizards' or 'evil high priests' or whatnot.

Beyond that there's NO REQUIREMENT or logic for the idea that 2 mechanical representations cannot be used for the same narrative concept at different times when appropriate. Even if in my 4e game I decided that the PC Wizard of the Spiral Tower is just one of many and that the others have quite comparable abilities, that doesn't make a monster stat block inappropriate for those NPCs. I don't need to know or care what these NPCs can cast for rituals, or give them a full suite of powers they won't want to use, and that are probably only trivially different from each other. The monster stat block provides all the rules necessary to running this NPC. I could care less if he used the Implement Proficiency feat or the Swordmage MC feat in order to be able to wield his sword as an implement, or if he's got the WotST PP, or something else. It is just unimportant noise. The guy is a combat foe, he's going to die hard in about 30 minutes, tops. He'll be lucky to cast 2 spells before that happens.

Now, if I have this guy as an important recurring NPC then maybe I want to make up a list of the rituals he knows, a bunch of items he's made, his henchmen, or whatever so that I can decide what sorts of things he does in response to the PCs actions on a wider stage. Why do I need to use the PC rules for this? They won't tell me anything much anyway. Any character could have found/bought any arbitrary number of rituals or items. Its largely irrelevant if he does or doesn't know certain specific powers either. If I decide he might change up his power selection, then I just change it!

The whole notion of 'objective reality has to be codified by only one specific mechanic' is daft. No game designer should be or really is restricted to that. All games abstract certain things, I don't know any reason to focus on certain types of abstractions and not others.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

I'm not speaking to purposefully being silly but to some of the possibilities that struck us as more goofy then serious... case in point a halfling pushing and/or knocking giants prone, some may think this is awesome and yes I'm sure appropriate fiction could be attached to it (over and over and over again) so that it wasn't necessarily a comical action... but I'm trying to think of any fantasy movie, novel, etc. where a hobbit/halfling regularly knocks giants (or large creatures in general) around... and I can't. For us it registered on the silly side of fantasy, something that would be in Discworld as opposed to LotR or Conan...

EDIT: My larger point being "awesome" or "amazing" fiction is very subjective and unless the mechanics are doing something totally opposed to the genre of play (Allowing Cthulhu to be killed with a .22)... I'm not sure how a ruleset would force a DM to create non-awesome or non-amazing fiction around them.

Yeah, I don't think we disagree on the fundamental point, but I don't consider it a bonus that a rule set makes it impossible to do the fantastical. I guess what I'm saying is for instance 5e seems to encourage higher DCs, and certainly seems to encourage the DM to use high DCs even in a low level context. That and your more limited recovery ability and certain other things means you will not really get the same level of craziness. Crazy 'giant tipping' scenes just don't exist in 5e, the rules say "nope, that can't happen"

 

[The_Gneech]

Crazy 'giant tipping' scenes just don't exist in 5e, the rules say "nope, that can't happen"

Er? This isn't my experience at all. My players have pulled off some pretty epic stuff, conning goblin kings and wiping out thieves guilds all by 2nd level. The only reason they haven't tipped any giants yet is because they haven't come upon any.

-The Gneech

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

In 5E, unlike AD&D, you're not stuck with a cleric in every party. Prior to two weeks ago I believe no one at my table had ever cast a healing spell. Short rests, long rests, Vampiric Touch, disposable minions, and running away covered all the bases prior to that.

That's like saying "We found that 4e played fine when everyone played a Leader". Sure, you can play that way. Your party is dysfunctional WRT the expected capabilities for a group of its level. Without a cleric in 5e you have drastically reduced survivability, and you could use any and all of the methods you list, but adding a cleric to that is still a quantum leap in resiliency.