D&D 5E The Mainstreaming of D&D

[jmartkdr2]

As the dedicated thread I have for exploring this as it applies to my gaming style establishes, I run about 1 to 3 encounters an in-game day (when any at all make sense, of course) and the PCs are consistently challenged (though we had four encounters within an in-game three hour time frame last session).

In my experience, the minimum to challenge players is 1 / long rest / tier pf play - that is, by level 5 or so you need two (hard to deadly) per day to have challenge be a thing. 6-8 is for medium encounters. Hard encounters can half that easily, and an interesting deadly encounter can go further.

Assuming, of course, that you want to challenge in the first place. Plenty of people really don't.

 

[Undrave]

Personally, what I'm more worried about isn't more people playing our game... it's how the big wigs decide to orient the game. I'd like to call it the 'Evergreenification' of a brand.

You saw it in Transformers. Between the end of G1 and the 2007 movie, we had a bevy of new characters constantly introduced, experiments like Beast Wars or Beast Machines or the Unicron Trilogy... then, when the first Michael Bay movie was a hit, we entered a dark period where every store was just inundated with Bumblebee toys and nowadays, every year seems to bring about a new model of Optimus Prime, Megatron and Starscream (luckily they scaled down the Hive of Bumblebees but seem to have replaced him with Sideswipe?) toys. They've been adhering to G1 designs religiously. There's no new characters anymore, just a series of rehashing of old ones.

Just a lot of appeal to nostalgia.

Same thing with Pokémon after Generation 5 failed to meet expectations and nostalgic fans threw a TANTRUM at not being able to use the same Pokémon for the billionth times, Generation 6 was full of nostalgia with handing you Gen 1 starters and Santalune Forest being the same damn map as Viridian Forest and then Gen 8 has a champion who uses a damn CHARIZARD as his ace...

And with Power Rangers, Hasbro is milking the heck out of MMPR nostalgia and then skipping straight to the Dino theme with Dino Fury.

And as soon as some piece of promotional material gets posted to social media, the conversation is ALWAYS flooded by people who have not engaged with that media property in the last 25 years and expect it to have just waited for them without changing...

TL: DR I'm not affraid of people playing the game, I'm affraid of WotC stagnating in nostalgia and becoming scared of innovating.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

Grinding is the right word. Anytime I've been in a 6-8 encounter adventuring day, either as player or dm, it was tedious and took multiple sessions. It was not exciting. Obviously ymmv. But if that's the dmg-approved "base game," it's not a very interesting one.

I don't have 6-8 encounters in a day, but I do generally use entirely "hard" or "deadly" encounters. I encourage players to buy potions and scrolls to supplement their characters' inherent abilities as well as include some terrain features they can take advantage of (for example, if the sorcerer is out of spells I might have something he can use fire bolt to blow up or set on fire, effectively giving his cantrip an extra effect).

 

[Reynard]

Never needed one, except for 4E. 3.x ran fine with TotM.

While it did, I think it had enough player facing elements (feats mostly) that relied on the grid to be worthwhile that many players thought it needed the grid.

 

[Parmandur]

Grinding is the right word. Anytime I've been in a 6-8 encounter adventuring day, either as player or dm, it was tedious and took multiple sessions. It was not exciting. Obviously ymmv. But if that's the dmg-approved "base game," it's not a very interesting one.

Is the swinginess of deadlier encounters (and higher level play) intentional?

Yes, the swinginess is intentional: there is a baseline for consistent results, and deviations from the mean will have more divergent results.

For doing so many small encounters, it runs best if done TotM and handled quickly so as to move on. The point is to force resource expenditure, until the characters are at the end of their ropes.

 

[Yora]

D&D comes in lots of shapes and sizes, though. If the mainstream shape is leaving you cold and sad, pick a different one. Grab something a little weird and a little transgressive off of DriveThruRPG (or wherever), and make it happen.

I actually find myself occasionally wanting to throw some edginess in my campaigns, but making it something I actually believe in.
It's getting hard these days, with the maindtream of intelligent and educated young people having adopted such good morals.

 

[Parmandur]

Personally, what I'm more worried about isn't more people playing our game... it's how the big wigs decide to orient the game. I'd like to call it the 'Evergreenification' of a brand.

You saw it in Transformers. Between the end of G1 and the 2007 movie, we had a bevy of new characters constantly introduced, experiments like Beast Wars or Beast Machines or the Unicron Trilogy... then, when the first Michael Bay movie was a hit, we entered a dark period where every store was just inundated with Bumblebee toys and nowadays, every year seems to bring about a new model of Optimus Prime, Megatron and Starscream (luckily they scaled down the Hive of Bumblebees but seem to have replaced him with Sideswipe?) toys. They've been adhering to G1 designs religiously. There's no new characters anymore, just a series of rehashing of old ones.

Just a lot of appeal to nostalgia.

Same thing with Pokémon after Generation 5 failed to meet expectations and nostalgic fans threw a TANTRUM at not being able to use the same Pokémon for the billionth times, Generation 6 was full of nostalgia with handing you Gen 1 starters and Santalune Forest being the same damn map as Viridian Forest and then Gen 8 has a champion who uses a damn CHARIZARD as his ace...

And with Power Rangers, Hasbro is milking the heck out of MMPR nostalgia and then skipping straight to the Dino theme with Dino Fury.

And as soon as some piece of promotional material gets posted to social media, the conversation is ALWAYS flooded by people who have not engaged with that media property in the last 25 years and expect it to have just waited for them without changing...

TL: DR I'm not affraid of people playing the game, I'm affraid of WotC stagnating in nostalgia and becoming scared of innovating.

Neither book we know about coming later this year is nostalgia, they cover new themes.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Van Richten's Guide to Ravenlodt just came out.

Ravenloft first came out in 1983, though. They're still rehashing the old.

 

[Parmandur]

While it did, I think it had enough player facing elements (feats mostly) that relied on the grid to be worthwhile that many players thought it needed the grid.

Yeah, and there was a whole clique of people who liked playing that way, which led to 4E (nothing wrong with that). Made our 3.x playstyle impossible in 4E, unfortunately.

 

[Reynard]

Ravenloft first came out in 1983, though. They're still rehashing the old.

But different enough to enrage the Ravenards(TM).