D&D 3E/3.5 Thoughts of a 3E/4E powergamer on starting to play 5E

[EzekielRaiden]

@hawkeyefan @Cap'n Kobold

You guys have been good sports, so I hate to cut out on the discussion now, but...to be honest this is dredging up memories of the playtest period I'd rather forget--and getting me a little worked up as a result. I think it's probably for the best if I take my exit from the conversation. If I remember (which is, unfortunately, rather unlikely) I will PM you guys later to try to answer your fair questions.

Though, about the "where is it in the books," I'll be honest: some of it *isn't* really in the books, so much as the stuff said *about* and *around* the books. Which means it wasn't fair of me to say the books themselves are the problem--some of the time. The opening page of the Races chapter is pretty bad though, as is (for example) spending a quarter of the page-space in the Dragonborn entry to talk about how all the "exotic" races are totally cool to be marginalized in those few "worlds of D&D" where they appear (except Gnomes, because of course Gnomes are everyone but @lowkey13's friends ). But surely we can say that something of this stuff--the "culture" 5e's developed so fantastically quickly--is supported, legitimized, by the books themselves.

As for my own interests, since I can at least lay those on the table:
[sblock]I'm a pretty serious fan of Dragonborn. I think they're one of the most fantastic additions to the D&D milieu of the new millennium. It gave me a proud warrior race that wasn't stupid, or ugly/brutish, or naturally malevolent. The effort put into articulating the culture of Arkhosia--as little as it was--painted a beautiful picture in my mind. Seeing how shafted they were both mechanically¹ and narratively,² well...it's hard not to feel marginalized. Especially when I, a lone non-designer throwing a few minutes of free time at it, saw *several* alternatives I considered distinctly superior, even for the specific milieu 5e was going for. For example, expressing that every world is different, that there are no hard-and-fast rules about what is or isn't fantasy like the absence of Dwarves and Halflings from TES and Warcraft, and that the options in the PHB are meant as a palette with which a DM will paint a world--and explicit advice on how to make different "flavors" of fantasy through picking and choosing class and race options, without ghettoizing any of them or setting any above the rest.

I'm also a huge fan of giving "martial" characters Distinctly Nice Things. I've never actually played a Warlord (in part because I've had tragically few opportunities to play 4e, as I only play online), but hearing the devs SAY they'll include them, up to and including martial healing abilities even as late as August 2013...only to have those options completely disappear, replaced with a pale facsimile and total silence from the devs³ definitely made me feel like one of my key interests had been ignored. Even if I never personally play a martial character who has mechanical and strategic depth that isn't completely outclassed by any possible spellcasting class, the knock-on results of including such options in the game contributes substantially to stuff I really care about, like pushing everyone to actually employ teamwork while ALSO having their own meaningful, personal contribution. Such characters--mechanically deeper than at least SOME forms of casters--don't exist in 5e, even though the devs explicitly talked about that several times during the playtest. As I said before, these things are tacit, not explicit, because they're about what isn't included, and the way it isn't included, rather than what actually is there.

Believe it or not, originally I was a 4e hater. All my friends played 3.5e, and repeatedly bitched about how terribad 4e was and that it was purely a cash grab--so I followed along, not knowing any better. Thankfully, I wasn't active on any tabletop forums at the time. As I got exposed to 4e content, though, I found myself surprised at its quality; as I read the designers' statements about the flaws of 3.x that they tried to correct, I found myself nodding along. I fell in love with 4e slowly, but I did indeed fall in love, and seeing the stuff I loved ignored, forgotten, or marginalized definitely made me feel like WotC didn't want me as a customer anymore, didn't think I belonged in the D&D that allegedly took "the best parts of every edition."

1: Compare the features list of Dragonborn to, say, Elves or Dwarves; I know few who can call that 'balanced,' particularly when you factor in subrace benefits. It doesn't help that a Dragonborn can be, in effect, summarized completely by color (since that gives the only non-stat racial/subracial features).
2: Outside of metropolitan areas, the book explicitly says dragonborn should expect racist (speciesist? specist?) or even violent reactions (emphasis in original): "But the small towns and villages that dot the countryside are different. The common folk aren't accustomed to seeing members of these races, and act accordingly. Dragonborn. It's easy to assume that a dragonborn is a monster, especially if his or her scales betray a chromatic heritage. Unless the dragonborn starts breathing fire and causing destruction, people are likely to respond with caution rather than outright fear." Which implies outright fear IS a perfectly reasonable reaction, and that "the common people" never includes a single exotic race. Incidentally, it also says, categorically, that there are no "worlds of D&D" in which Dragonborn or the other "exotics" are ever more numerous than any of the "common" races. It's strident crap like that that drives me up the wall; it's exactly the opposite of inclusive.
3: They don't even include Warlord on their surveys of "what classes would you like to see?" questions, for instance; haven't since pretty much exactly the time they stopped talking about the Warlord and the Tactical Combat Module.[/sblock]

 

[EzekielRaiden]

What if what the DM wants to see is player choices mattering?

Given I told the other two, above, that I'm backing out, the same applies here; I just saw this post after I finished the first bit, so I figure you deserve a response too before I leave.

If the DM wants to see player choices mattering, then I would argue they should do absolutely everything in their power to avoid interfering with the causal chain between player choice and consequences, between player information-gathering and the actual information of the world, and between the lessons they have rightfully learned and the structure of the resolution system. Because then, it is the player choices that actually do determine what happens, what information is acquired, and what lessons are learned. Rather than player choices providing a suggestion for how the DM should push the world forward.

The relationship between choice & consequence is just DM-mediated. Know your DM and you can leverage that knowledge at least as effectively as leveraging system knowledge.

My point is that it doesn't need to be--and that it has sounded like people are arguing that the DM should be free to meddle in the consequences of every choice the players make, but simply choose not to do so, except when they do. Which is either uselessly tautological, or silly; of course you never allow yourself to use a power except when you do. Or you never allow yourself to use it at all, in which case what's the point of telling you that you have it?

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

You guys have been good sports, so I hate to cut out on the discussion now, but...to be honest this is dredging up memories of the playtest period I'd rather forget--and getting me a little worked up as a result. I think it's probably for the best if I take my exit from the conversation. If I remember (which is, unfortunately, rather unlikely) I will PM you guys later to try to answer your fair questions.

Though, about the "where is it in the books," I'll be honest: some of it *isn't* really in the books, so much as the stuff said *about* and *around* the books. Which means it wasn't fair of me to say the books themselves are the problem--some of the time.

That's fair enough: we come on these boards for fun and information, so no point in engaging in something that you're finding unpleasant.

Something that you might want to bear in mind is that cliques can form on forums as well as in real life, and that threads like the "What would you ban from your campaign" can become echo chambers with people of similar predilections reinforcing each others prejudices. (A lot of which seem to be "Not stuff that was in 4th edition." or similar). They are not generally a representative sample.

You may be reading a bit too much into some parts of the books and a small section of these boards, and believing that they represent the intended 5e ethos as a whole: - particularly if you started out with a bit of a chip already on your shoulder regarding things like the Dragonborn or Warlord.

I don't know whether other D&D boards show similar issues: it might be worth checking some of those out.
There is definitely stuff in your last post that I think bears discussion if you want to come back to it after a while.

 

[thecasualoblivion]

That's fair enough: we come on these boards for fun and information, so no point in engaging in something that you're finding unpleasant.

Something that you might want to bear in mind is that cliques can form on forums as well as in real life, and that threads like the "What would you ban from your campaign" can become echo chambers with people of similar predilections reinforcing each others prejudices. (A lot of which seem to be "Not stuff that was in 4th edition." or similar). They are not generally a representative sample.

You may be reading a bit too much into some parts of the books and a small section of these boards, and believing that they represent the intended 5e ethos as a whole: - particularly if you started out with a bit of a chip already on your shoulder regarding things like the Dragonborn or Warlord.

I don't know whether other D&D boards show similar issues: it might be worth checking some of those out.
There is definitely stuff in your last post that I think bears discussion if you want to come back to it after a while.

The books don't exist in a vacuum, remember the two year playtest that preceded them. The books exist in that larger context.

 

[pemerton]

Fighters have always been a low-complexity class.

The fighter in my 4e game is the most complex character, in terms of mechanical intricacy: alternating between two weapons (halberd and maul), using a variety of close bursts with various sorts of forced movement and control effects, plus a range of feats to add other riders depending on marking, weapon, degree of movement etc.

The simplest character is the archer-ranger/cleric.

I don't know how typical our table is, though just looking through the rules it seems to me that 4e fighters are inherently more complex than rangers.

Sometimes I wonder if the all the talk about 5e not being a big tent, or only supporting one style of play, or of not delivering on promises, or not giving players narrative control, not tactical enough, or whatever...is this really all just resentment that a certain class (begins with 'W'; has its own sub-forum) isn't in the game?

Maybe?

After you conjectured that I was posting as devil's advocate, I posted a reply. I think that I've given a pretty clear and extensive account of how I like to approach the game, with links to actual play examples.

If you want to ignore all that and impute some irrational resentment about a lack of warlords, of course that's your prerogative, but I don't really see why you would want to.

 

[dave2008]

Ultimately it's more a matter of community zietgiest than what the book 'says.' 3.5 said 'Rule 0!' but the community was dismissive of house rules. With 5e, they're back. 5e does push the agenda, but it's the community that's come through and restored that aspect of running D&D.

Emphasis mine. I am interested in the term "house rule." I typically see it used as a term for DM's rule that players must accept or leave. However, in my own experience, most house rules are developed with the group and everyone participates. Generally I, as the DM, come up with the idea but I then run it by my players and we discuss it. We decided as a group to use, modify, or drop the house rule. In my mind, that is how house rules should generally be constructed.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Ovinomancer]

Emphasis mine. I am interested in the term "house rule." I typically see it used as a term for DM's rule that players must accept or leave. However, in my own experience, most house rules are developed with the group and everyone participates. Generally I, as the DM, come up with the idea but I then run it by my players and we discuss it. We decided as a group to use, modify, or drop the house rule. In my mind, that is how house rules should generally be constructed.

They're both. Frex, in my campaign, I have a handful of house rules that are tied to the campaign world and the tone I wanted to set. Languages, for one -- I added regional languages and created 'difficult' languages that take one slot for limited ability to speak and write (simple concepts, etc., like one year of high school language classes), and two slots for full ability, and give some backgrounds access to one difficult language for one slot. I also set all races to the same general life-span -- elves live for 100 years on average, not many 100s. These help set the tone I wanted to run, and had no player input except the buy-in during session 0.

As the campaign moves on, though, I've had the occasion to make a ruling on something during the game. For the interests of time during play, I rule and the play moves on, but it gets noted as something to revisit after the session. I'll discuss with the players (especially the impacted ones) and get feedback before implementing a house rule. I try my best to make rulings as permissive as possible during play, even if it gets decided later to go with something more restrictive. Although, I do retain the final authority on house rules. As has been said, though, a DM that rules too much may find themselves without players, so I try to keep a light touch.


EDIT: aaaaand ninja'd by lowkey, who says it better.

 

[hawkeyefan]

@hawkeyefan @Cap'n Kobold

You guys have been good sports, so I hate to cut out on the discussion now, but...to be honest this is dredging up memories of the playtest period I'd rather forget--and getting me a little worked up as a result. I think it's probably for the best if I take my exit from the conversation. If I remember (which is, unfortunately, rather unlikely) I will PM you guys later to try to answer your fair questions.

Though, about the "where is it in the books," I'll be honest: some of it *isn't* really in the books, so much as the stuff said *about* and *around* the books. Which means it wasn't fair of me to say the books themselves are the problem--some of the time. The opening page of the Races chapter is pretty bad though, as is (for example) spending a quarter of the page-space in the Dragonborn entry to talk about how all the "exotic" races are totally cool to be marginalized in those few "worlds of D&D" where they appear (except Gnomes, because of course Gnomes are everyone but @lowkey13's friends ). But surely we can say that something of this stuff--the "culture" 5e's developed so fantastically quickly--is supported, legitimized, by the books themselves.

As for my own interests, since I can at least lay those on the table:

Fair enough, I hope that I didn't come across wrong. I don't think there's anything "wrong" with the things you enjoy. I realize there are some folks who won't accept certain races or classes...and I am sure it can be frustrating dealing with those folks. If you run into them in actual play, that would be a challenge for sure. Here on these boards...I would say to try not to let it get to you so much. There's no convincing certain folks once they've made up their mind. Better to recognize them for what they are, and avoid being dragged into such pointless "discussions".

I can only echo what [MENTION=6802951]Cap'n Kobold[/MENTION] said that if you want to rejoin the discussion, please do.

 

[Neonchameleon]

And, yes, a game - like D&D - that absolutely requires a DM - can safely assume/require a good enough one, if only in the sense that bad play experiences are the DM's fault.

No. A game - like D&D - that depends on a DM should try to teach that DM to be a good one. One poor or overworked DM might be that DM's problem. But the system itself can do things to encourage the DM to be a good one (and oD&D and BECMI did - and 4e both tried and did although the presentation mangled it).

One DM is a problem of the DM. Many DMs are frequently the result of a bad system.

The fighter in my 4e game is the most complex character, in terms of mechanical intricacy: alternating between two weapons (halberd and maul), using a variety of close bursts with various sorts of forced movement and control effects, plus a range of feats to add other riders depending on marking, weapon, degree of movement etc.

The simplest character is the archer-ranger/cleric.

I don't know how typical our table is, though just looking through the rules it seems to me that 4e fighters are inherently more complex than rangers.

At my main table the most complex character is almost invariably whatever myself or Player A are running. (There's approximately a 90% chance that one of the two of us is the GM). Player B almost always wants a simple-ish fighter type. Player C has two drivers in a D&D like game. The first is that they want to play a spellcaster and command arcane forces (almost always as an evoker/blast mage). The second is that they want this to be as simple as possible. And in D&D the best I've seen him do with a character was a 4e elementalist sorceror. (Which is why I've created an Elemental Pact Warlock for 5e that gets to blow stuff up and burninate stuff - not something I'll ever play but perfect for one of my players.