Level Up (A5E) How does 5.5e/6e impact Level Up?

[Timespike]

I don't think I'd be that harsh about it. I remember the first time I played 5e, I was really happy with it. It kept some core elements from 3e that I liked and streamlined a lot of the pointlessly-harsh or clunky stuff out of the way. And proficiency/bounded accuracy is wonderful as a player, GM, and designer, IMHO.

It's just that several years on, while I still appreciate not dealing with (for example) level drain or magic items being part of the assumed math for my character, I would really like a bit more depth. So I was thrilled to get the chance to work on Level Up, and I'm also thrilled that all the development is done and I can have the digital finished product in my hands in just a month's time.

 

[Stalker0]

It's just that several years on, while I still appreciate not dealing with (for example) level drain or magic items being part of the assumed math for my character, I would really like a bit more depth.

This is where I am at. I respect 5e attempted to reduce a lot of the bloat of 3e (or pathfinder 1e, again my god the mountains of garbage feats!). But after this long....I am really ready for some crunch.

But all of that said, really the parts that have pulled me into level up are not the "5.5e" stuff. Yes classes have some interesting things, updating monsters are cool. But that is not the stuff that put me over the edge.

Its the stuff WOTC hasn't even really touched. Journey rules, strongholds, followers, pushing fatigue concepts in new areas. Its not the areas that LU has improved, its the areas they have created from nigh scratch that I think is where its biggest draw lies.

 

[Timespike]

This is where I am at. I respect 5e attempted to reduce a lot of the bloat of 3e (or pathfinder 1e, again my god the mountains of garbage feats!). But after this long....I am really ready for some crunch.

But all of that said, really the parts that have pulled me into level up are not the "5.5e" stuff. Yes classes have some interesting things, updating monsters are cool. But that is not the stuff that put me over the edge.

Its the stuff WOTC hasn't even really touched. Journey rules, strongholds, followers, pushing fatigue concepts in new areas. Its not the areas that LU has improved, its the areas they have created from nigh scratch that I think is where its biggest draw lies.

Yeah, I was straight-up amazed with what got created during the design process. Combat maneuvers were a really big one for me; I like playing front-line characters, but I tend to gravitate towards ones with some spellcasting in O5e because it gives you more interesting stuff to do. Now I could play a fighter, rogue, adept, or ranger, have zero spells, and still have interesting choices to make during a fight.

Another one that's been really exciting for me is the various social pillar abilities. I remember when I got a look at the first version of the new Fighter class and saw Steely Mien in there, I knew we had something special going. I cannot wait to see how folks react to the full, finished product. And I really can't wait to start running and playing games with it.

 

[VanguardHero]

I don't think I'd be that harsh about it.

I wanna note that like. Light narrative games are great. Jank games can be really fun. 5e being a badly designed system by the most well known TTRPG brand in the world is, in a vacuum, disappointing but whatever. My vitriol comes from the horrifying regressive culture of WotC, their treatment of LGBTQ employees as diversity hires, blatant rainbow capitalism, and that they would rather PRETEND to fire the guy who brought on, enabled, and protected a serial sexual abuser to design 5e rather than actually fire him. That company as the monolith of the industry is why I hate 5e so deeply, the design problems are just salt in the wound. It's not just like, "Play a real game" gatekeeping or Edition Wars or anything like that.

Which is also why I am so, so thankful to have a perfect compromise between "I only want to play 5e" and "I refuse to play 5e" in Level Up

 

[doctorhook]

I wanna note that like. Light narrative games are great. Jank games can be really fun. 5e being a badly designed system by the most well known TTRPG brand in the world is, in a vacuum, disappointing but whatever. My vitriol comes from the horrifying regressive culture of WotC, their treatment of LGBTQ employees as diversity hires, blatant rainbow capitalism, and that they would rather PRETEND to fire the guy who brought on, enabled, and protected a serial sexual abuser to design 5e rather than actually fire him. That company as the monolith of the industry is why I hate 5e so deeply, the design problems are just salt in the wound. It's not just like, "Play a real game" gatekeeping or Edition Wars or anything like that.

I agree with what you're saying here, but also I think I'm out of the loop. What happened?? (Name a name and I can Google it myself, to prevent threadcrapping.)

 

[Timespike]

I wanna note that like. Light narrative games are great. Jank games can be really fun. 5e being a badly designed system by the most well known TTRPG brand in the world is, in a vacuum, disappointing but whatever. My vitriol comes from the horrifying regressive culture of WotC, their treatment of LGBTQ employees as diversity hires, blatant rainbow capitalism, and that they would rather PRETEND to fire the guy who brought on, enabled, and protected a serial sexual abuser to design 5e rather than actually fire him. That company as the monolith of the industry is why I hate 5e so deeply, the design problems are just salt in the wound. It's not just like, "Play a real game" gatekeeping or Edition Wars or anything like that.

Which is also why I am so, so thankful to have a perfect compromise between "I only want to play 5e" and "I refuse to play 5e" in Level Up

Oh, don't get me wrong. I like EN Publishing a whole lot more than WotC, especially after having worked on Level Up for over a year.

But I also think the underlying math of 5e is pretty solid. I'm just going to be really happy to have it decoupled from WotC culture and also the weird licensing mess that is created by having both the OGL and DM's Guild.

 

[Steampunkette]

@doctorhook

Zak Smith (Also known as Zak S. or Zak Sabbath) was accused of sexual assault and rape, as well as general harassment of peers back in 2019. Mike Mearls defended and supported him. He even compiled a -list- of all the people who had made allegations against Zak Smith and handed that list -to- Zak. Which Zak spread around a bit and used to retaliate against the women he was accused of harming to intimidate and defame them.

It's ugly, but the info is still out there if you'd like to dig deeper. It's why Mearls is no longer working on D&D for WotC. But they didn't fire him, just moved him to another division.

 

[Timespike]

Yeah, it went through the RPG community like a buzzsaw. Lots of ugly stuff came out.

 

[VanguardHero]

It's why Mearls is no longer working on D&D for WotC. But they didn't fire him, just moved him to another division.

My understanding of events was that he worked as 'liason' with WotC for Baldur's Gate 3, which allowed WotC to say without technically lying "Mike Mearls is not on the D&D team and hasn't been for some time" only for him to return to the D&D team full time once that assignment, and PR statement, was over. So I think he is still on D&D but I could be wrong.

But I also think the underlying math of 5e is pretty solid.

I'm really curious to see how it plays out with different people using it. I find so much broken about 5e it's hard to isolate variables. But like, I'm just a player so I'm not going to pretend to understand it better than you lmao and a lot of my issues with it are handled by Level Up in other ways. Character depth removes the 5e aspect of the non-caster character sheet feeling superfluous with small modifiers making it feel like the only thing that matters is the raw roll, for example.

 

[Steampunkette]

My understanding of events was that he worked as 'liason' with WotC for Baldur's Gate 3, which allowed WotC to say without technically lying "Mike Mearls is not on the D&D team and hasn't been for some time" only for him to return to the D&D team full time once that assignment, and PR statement, was over. So I think he is still on D&D but I could be wrong.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikemearls/

Director of M:tG Game Design. It also says he's still the Franchise director for D&D, but I think he just "forgot" to close out that job title.