D&D 5E Is D&D combat fun?

[Lyxen]

D&D is a product that has the luxury of having a brand that's bigger than the medium or market it's in.

And what you are failing to recognise is that they had to really conquer this brand from the ground up after the commercial disaster that was 4e. It might be true that, today, 5e is living well on its brand recognition, but it would not have gotten where it is not if it had not been an excellent game well suited to a player base the size of which no-one could ever have suspected 7 years ago.

There is no product out there that grows that powerfully without being an excellent product, well suited to its consumer base.

You might not be part of the main target because your tastes are different, and that's absolutely fine. But not only is the product flexible enough that you can adapt it to your need and enjoy it (at least I hope, if you are debating here), but it clearly shows that there are millions of people who enjoy it as well using this flexibility, for its own intrinsic qualities in addition to its brand.

It's been 7 years since 5E released. It's been 4 or 5 years since most of the new TTRPG players around me starting playing it. And just now do I start seeing some dissatisfaction with what the game is and some interest in other games. People start to see the cracks and want to try something else. And as players, they're much better equipped now, after years of experience, to explain why they're going dissatisfied with it. The game's own value and quality has not changed, but like any product, with time you start to see its flaws.

Maybe, but maybe it's just simple lassitude and want to see something else ? Maybe it's lack of attention span, which is common these days, lots of people want instant satisfaction, or maybe it's just that they were dragged into it and were not really into it that much. Who knows, there are millions of players out there, and I don't think that the view of the people around you has any significance statistically compared to the size of the player base.

As far as I know, the PH sales are still going strong, for example, which means that new players are joining in, and I have personally initiated at least 10 new players in the last 2 years, despite the Covid.

It's a game with infinite flexibility, that I have been playing in one form or another for 40+ years, and I still find new plots and new characters to play after all that time. And again, if some areas are not fine for you, you can change them instantly, god knows that there are tons of suggestions out there as to how to do this...

 

[ad_hoc]

It's a good game. But some parts are very elegant, very neatly designed and others are a mess.

Is it though? You're begging the question.

However, that has says nothing about how much of the game's success is affected by brand recognition. D&D is a product that has the luxury of having a brand that's bigger than the medium or market it's in. When I go to the grocery store, I don't buy tissues, I play kleenex. "Hey, can you pass me the kleenex?". No matter the brand, when my friend ask me for a beer, I tell him "Yeah, there's some on the second shelf of the frigidaire." Very few products reach this type of brand recognition. It's huge.

I have two friends that work in gamestores. And nobody has ever come in saying "Hey, I heard about tabletop roleplaying games. I'd like to get into that, what do you recommend?". People come in saying "I want to play Dungeons & Dragons". Because the brand of D&D is bigger than the reputation of the hobby or market it's in, it becomes very likely that it will be the product that because will enter the hobby with. Then it's a fantastic product, it's popular, there's ton of people playing and they see no reason to check elsewhere.

It's been 7 years since 5E released. It's been 4 or 5 years since most of the new TTRPG players around me starting playing it. And just now do I start seeing some dissatisfaction with what the game is and some interest in other games. People start to see the cracks and want to try something else. And as players, they're much better equipped now, after years of experience, to explain why they're going dissatisfied with it. The game's own value and quality has not changed, but like any product, with time you start to see its flaws.

In my opinion, it cannot be overstated how huge the game's brand recognition.

You're again making assumptions here. You're assuming people are looking for an RPG to play and then play D&D b/c it's the brand they know.

Without 5e they're not looking for a game to play at all.

In 4e days D&D was still the brand. But it didn't matter. People didn't come into stores to look for games. We know this. Or in 3e days for that matter. It was a niche hobby game. Now it's mainstream.

 

[Shardstone]

So what are your points, @ad_hoc and @Lyxen? That game is perfect because its so big so we shouldn't ever bother critiquing it?

 

[John R Davis]

82% have said yes / mostly so this answers the question!
Enjoy your 5th ed combats!

 

[Shardstone]

82% have said yes / mostly so this answers the question!
Enjoy your 5th ed combats!

Great that this is a forum where we're allowed to discuss our opinions!

Seriously, what's up with so many people trying to shut down this conversation? From my read of this thread, the people critiquing 5E aren't even being hostile, aggressive, or hyperbolic; most of them are being pretty even and fair. And yet there's straight up like 5 people who have posted that this thread should be over, combats are fun, if you don't like it then get out. That's disgusting. I don't know what's going on all of a sudden, but I find it so perturbing that people who are being respectful about their 5E criticisms are being told to passively aggressively get over it or get out.

 

[ad_hoc]

So what are your points, @ad_hoc and @Lyxen? That game is perfect because its so big so we shouldn't ever bother critiquing it?

The point is that the game isn't 'broken' or a 'mess'.

People can have their tastes. Their likes and dislikes.

That doesn't mean that people are just too naïve to know what's actually good for them.

 

[clearstream]

So what are your points, @ad_hoc and @Lyxen? That game is perfect because its so big so we shouldn't ever bother critiquing it?

I understood roughly the opposite. Some posters seem to say that the game quality is suspect (or perhaps they mean, can't be assessed) because it is so popular.

 

[Oofta]

So what are your points, @ad_hoc and @Lyxen? That game is perfect because its so big so we shouldn't ever bother critiquing it?

Why is it that when people disagree and like some aspect of the game that others don't that the accusations of thinking the game is perfect start to fly? Or that just disagreeing with an opinion means they think yours is invalid?

 

[ad_hoc]

Great that this is a forum where we're allowed to discuss our opinions!

Seriously, what's up with so many people trying to shut down this conversation? From my read of this thread, the people critiquing 5E aren't even being hostile, aggressive, or hyperbolic; most of them are being pretty even and fair. And yet there's straight up like 5 people who have posted that this thread should be over, combats are fun, if you don't like it then get out. That's disgusting. I don't know what's going on all of a sudden, but I find it so perturbing that people who are being respectful about their 5E criticisms are being told to passively aggressively get over it or get out.

• The more casual the player, the less likely they are to care about design (and vice versa). 5E is built for more casual players. It's much simpler than AD&D, but It does still have a lot of complexity. As with AD&D, though, players both casual & serious will blithely ignore the bits they don't understand, have the DM handle the complex bits, or house-rule them. My high-school group did all three of those.

A good group can mask any or all of these issues, but they have to be masked or worked around by some kind of active effort, in my perhaps-limited play experience with 5E.

And then there is this bit where they are invoking 'people' not liking it. So responding by saying that no, actually, people by and large do like it is a reasonable thing to do. The poster doesn't like it which is a far cry from people not liking it in general.

5E definitely has design problems; any design has problems. 5E definitely has design decisions, at many levels, that people do not like in spite of liking the game overall. Some are changeable with house rules. Some are so intertwined with other subsystems or elements that chaging them with house rules would be a huge amount of work (but not impossible).

The point is that the game works. It isn't a mess. Most people like it. Labelling them as 'casuals' doesn't make their experiences or opinions less valid.

Does 5e make for a good tactical strategy combat game? No, but then I would argue that no TTRPG does. For people who want this experience and to not be 'casuals' (whatever that means, the only people playing it professionally would probably be labelled as 'casuals' here) I submit that a competitive dedicated strategy game is a better experience for you.

Round pegs and square holes.

tl;dr - stop disparaging people for having a different opinion than you. You don't have special insight that has allowed you to discover that no in fact the game actually does suck and it is everyone else who is wrong.

 

[pogre]

For me and my table - We LOVE combat. It is the reason we play D&D. We set up battlefields, use miniatures, use templates, use custom scenery, and have a grand time.

For us - a lot of the D&D rules space is devoted to combat. That's almost always been true. If we want to deep dive into other roleplaying aspects we play different games. Again, that's us, it is not a criticism at all of folks who emphasize different things at their table and use D&D mostly for social interactions.

I have come to understand that these days we are increasingly the minority. I would like to think the vast majority of people who play D&D at my table have a great time, but our style does not fit everyone. Critical Role is an amazing show that has done overwhelmingly positive things for gaming. I appreciate their skill and dedication. However, myself and most of my players would be absolutely bored out of our minds at most of those sessions. The Critical Role folks would probably have fun at my table in a one shot, but my campaign style would be deeply unsatisfactory for them I suspect. The fan base of CR suggests we are a minority in this regard.

Occasionally, I will hear DMs brag they have run the last two sessions of their campaigns without a single combat. Recently, my son heard someone make a similar brag - his response summed it up for all of us - "That sounds like torture." I reminded him everyone is looking for different things in their games.

If the D&D game goes away from what I consider it's combat-centric rules base - I probably would stick with an older edition to scratch that itch.

We play a fair amount of Traveller, Call of Cthulhu, and WFRP - and particularly in the first couple of games mentioned the same players avoid combat at almost all costs. So we are not just a hack and slash table.

I have rambled, but I chose the mostly yes option because occasionally, if the enemy is just down to a minion or two in an encounter I will announce they fall dead over the next round as the PCs overwhelm them.