D&D 5E Is 5e's Success Actually Bad for Other Games?

Yes. That’s a bad thing though…

I don’t see it as much anymore.
I think a huge part of the appeal of the Vancian magic system for players is having such a long list of available options, perusing them to choose the best for the circumstance and thinking up clever ways to take advantage of them.

The much more limited range of abilities and utility of casters in 4th Edition or 13th Age is something I've seen players turned off by. Some players want to spend more time interacting with the rules and options, not less.
 

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I honestly don't really see a lot of difference between 4e and 5e in terms of the intrusions of mechanical aspects into characters. Even since 3rd edition if I have to make a D&D character I often feel like I'm perusing the available options and then trying to ram a square peg into a round hole to get a character with the mechanics that somewhat approximates what I want to do.

Like say I want to make a character that was raised by a school of necromancers but then decided it wasn't for him and left to become a warrior. What's the best way to represent this mechanically? Take a level of Wizard, take the Magic Initiate feat? The Ritual Caster Feat? Aim for the Eldritch Knight subclass? All have trade-offs and all bring a certain level of awkwardness (eg the Eldritch Knight gives some magic but it's the wrong type of magic - not necromancy). 5e isn't really worse at this than previous editions but it's not better either.

In regards to looking at character sheets during play, I still remember the long detour I took through 3 different sections of the Players Handbook and the useless index to try and work out what the fog cloud spell my character could cast actually did. Ie. what does 'Heavily obscured' actually mean? (It certainly is not natural language). I feel like if players are spending less time looking at their character sheets in 5e it's because they haven't got what they need written on their character sheets (there's too much to write) and are therefore looking through the books or using google instead.

Or they're playing a Champion.
Take the Sage Background, roleplay the necromantic angle.

While playing a Champion is great, actually, I have had less overhead with playing Wizards & Sorcerers in 5E than a Warlord in 4E.
 

Take the Sage Background, roleplay the necromantic angle.
That's not a solution that's another option with it's own tradeoffs. The most obvious being not having any magic at all to represent years of magical training. If it was Old School Essentials then I would do that, but WOTC D&D games have complex mechanical character defining options.

While playing a Champion is great, actually, I have had less overhead with playing Wizards & Sorcerers in 5E than a Warlord in 4E.
Depends what you mean by overhead? I thought we were talking about time spent looking at character sheets. 4E has a lot more stuff to track and keep track of, but playing a Wizard in 4E would mean I would spend a lot less time looking at my character sheet than I would spend looking in my book, or google, or at spell cards in 5e. The powers are shorter, they're less ambiguous, they can be read almost at a glance; the effect is clear.

And there's an order of magnitude more time spent discussing spell effects with the GM and what they can achieve than in 5e. (Which is not necessarily to the benefit of 4e, as a lot of the stuff discussed involves the limits of more creative spells such as illusions).

Basically, I find it hard to believe that players spend more time interacting with the world and less time looking things up in a game where almost every single character has a long list of spells. If we were talking about Barbarians of Lemuria, I would grant the distinction.
 
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That's not a solution that's another option with it's own tradeoffs. The most obvious being not having any magic at all to represent years of magical training. If it was Old School Essentials then I would do that, but WOTC D&D games have complex mechanical character defining options.


Depends what you mean by overhead? I thought we were talking about time spent looking at character sheets. 4E has a lot more stuff to track and keep track of, but playing a Wizard in 4E would mean I would spend a lot less time looking at my character sheet than I would spending looking in my book, or google, or at spell cards in 5e. The powers are shorter, they're less ambiguous, they can be read almost at a glance; the effect is clear.

And there's an order of magnitude more time spent discussing spell effects with the GM and what they can achieve than in 5e. (Which is not necessarily to the benefit of 4e, as a lot of the stuff discussed involves the limits of more creative spells such as illusions).

Basically, I find it hard to believe that players spend more time interacting with the world and less time looking things up in a game where almost every single character has a long list of spells. If we were talking about Barbarians of Lemuria, I would grant the distinction.
That's what the Arcana Proficiency does.

What can I say, I've been able to memorize what my 5E characters can do, and my players characters when on the other side of the screen, probsbly because I enjoy reading the books. 4E in my experience was one awkward analysis paralysis incident most every turn, for every player. It was exhausting.
 


What can I say, I've been able to memorize what my 5E characters can do, and my players characters when on the other side of the screen, probsbly because I enjoy reading the books. 4E in my experience was one awkward analysis paralysis incident most every turn, for every player. It was exhausting.
And I'm not arguing with that part. 5e is undoubtedly simpler overall.
 



This is going to sound snarky, but its honestly what I feel:

When you don't have many choices with any mechanical weight, its remarkably easy to play a character. Pick a target and roll a die.
I mean, not to be overly snarky myself, but it seems you felt this was a burn, when it gets at what makes 5E an amazing experience.

Player: "Can I do [X]?"
DM: "You can certainly try. Roll a d20 and add [Y]"
 


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