WotC WotC needs an Elon Musk

[Chaosmancer]

All of which are trends worthy of opposing at every opportunity.

Why?

Ditto.

Again, why?

The rules have morphed based on how players (in general whose main interest, remember, lies in making things easier on their characters) have through endless advocacy forced them to morph; mostly because the designers haven't had the spine to push back and keep the game challenging at the design level.

Largely false. Like, tremendously false.

See, we have such a warped perspective on this site it isn't even funny. For example, I was recently running for some teenagers. Helped them make their own characters and everything. One of the players was playing an Artificer, they wanted a lightning sword and I have a 3rd party artificer called the Thundermonger that could provide that. At level 1 they were declaring themselves OP, unbeatable, completely broken and the most powerful person in the party... because they could wear armor, use weapons, cast a damage spell, and cast a healing spell.

And this wasn't just this one player, I had to reassure a few of the other players that this character, who was just a level 1 Air Genasi Artificer, that he wasn't actually OP.

The thing is, that the game IS challenging. These players really struggled, and I've played hell trying to get them to just understand their characters. And this isn't a one-off thing. What the game isn't is challenging for experts. And frankly... it shouldn't be challenging for experts out of the box. Some modularity to make it more difficult would be fine, but it isn't in the game's baseline design of class vs monster that the challenges lay.

The challenges lay in what the DM weaves out of those story elements. And frankly, I think more DMs should take their monsters and do three things if their players are finding it too easy

1) Stop using the Average HP, and use a higher HP value from the range (helps when dealing with Alpha striking players)

2) Stop using the baseline equipment. Nothing says that your gnoll raiders need to still be wearing hide, they could have half-plate and that makes a BIG difference. Same with the weapons, instead of a spear, give them a Glaive.

3) Use Feats, species and class features. Sure, Common Bandits aren't terribly threatening. Bandits that all have the ability to blast you with Hellish Rebuke and have the mobile feat are a WAY different story.

The thing is, I find it trivially easy to adjust the difficulty of the game UP. But it is far far harder to tone it down. If the baseline gnoll was sitting at 17 AC, 40 hp, had polearm master, and a glaive, then it would be a greater challenge, but new players who still think that having a d6 weapon makes you a bad-ass are going to get wrecked so fast and so thoroughly, it won't be fun for them. And, if you are about to say "but the DM can adjust down", yeah, they can... only if they are experienced enough. Many DMs don't get mentored by other, better DMs. Many of them pick this stuff up on their own.

The Game is challenging on a design level, for people new to the game or with only a few years of expeirence. Those of us sitting at a decade or more of experience are not the common player or the common DM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Why?



Again, why?



Largely false. Like, tremendously false.

See, we have such a warped perspective on this site it isn't even funny. For example, I was recently running for some teenagers. Helped them make their own characters and everything. One of the players was playing an Artificer, they wanted a lightning sword and I have a 3rd party artificer called the Thundermonger that could provide that. At level 1 they were declaring themselves OP, unbeatable, completely broken and the most powerful person in the party... because they could wear armor, use weapons, cast a damage spell, and cast a healing spell.

And this wasn't just this one player, I had to reassure a few of the other players that this character, who was just a level 1 Air Genasi Artificer, that he wasn't actually OP.

The thing is, that the game IS challenging. These players really struggled, and I've played hell trying to get them to just understand their characters. And this isn't a one-off thing. What the game isn't is challenging for experts. And frankly... it shouldn't be challenging for experts out of the box. Some modularity to make it more difficult would be fine, but it isn't in the game's baseline design of class vs monster that the challenges lay.

The challenges lay in what the DM weaves out of those story elements. And frankly, I think more DMs should take their monsters and do three things if their players are finding it too easy

1) Stop using the Average HP, and use a higher HP value from the range (helps when dealing with Alpha striking players)

2) Stop using the baseline equipment. Nothing says that your gnoll raiders need to still be wearing hide, they could have half-plate and that makes a BIG difference. Same with the weapons, instead of a spear, give them a Glaive.

3) Use Feats, species and class features. Sure, Common Bandits aren't terribly threatening. Bandits that all have the ability to blast you with Hellish Rebuke and have the mobile feat are a WAY different story.

The thing is, I find it trivially easy to adjust the difficulty of the game UP. But it is far far harder to tone it down. If the baseline gnoll was sitting at 17 AC, 40 hp, had polearm master, and a glaive, then it would be a greater challenge, but new players who still think that having a d6 weapon makes you a bad-ass are going to get wrecked so fast and so thoroughly, it won't be fun for them. And, if you are about to say "but the DM can adjust down", yeah, they can... only if they are experienced enough. Many DMs don't get mentored by other, better DMs. Many of them pick this stuff up on their own.

The Game is challenging on a design level, for people new to the game or with only a few years of expeirence. Those of us sitting at a decade or more of experience are not the common player or the common DM.

We are, however, the common spender of money.

 

[Oofta]

No it wasn't. It was many statements in many articles over several months, at least some of which were pretty unequivocal.

It was an early design goal, one that turned out to be unachievable and likely unwanted because of the extra complexity. Still tired of hearing about it a decade later.

 

[Oofta]

I don't want to get dragged into a fight about the last playtest, but show me any statement from a game designer say, "I promise Fifth Edition Dungeons and Dragons will be modular".

I can't find the original interview where Monte Cook firsts brings up "modularity", but here is a quote from a January 2012 interview with Mike Mearls.

There seems to be some confusion within the press and public about exactly how the new edition of the game will interact with previous editions. Do you see the next edition of D&D as entirely standalone, even though it draws inspiration from previous editions? Or is it more of a modular system, in which players can pull in elements they like directly from earlier editions?

The next iteration of D&D is a game on its own. However, what we’ll do is look at the best parts of prior editions and create either new rules or adapt existing rules to incorporate those things into the game. That’s also a big part of the open playtest, ensuring that the fans of each edition are getting what they see as the most important elements of their editions of choice.

That doesn't exactly look like a promise of total modularity to me.

I did a search a while back and the only reference I could find was the interview you mention. I think a lot of people got excited about something that never should have been said and ran with it.

To expand on my other comment I also think the game does have decent modularity. You can really change the feel of the game by implementing some of the optional rules or 3PP like Morrus's Level Up. You can do things like space fantasy with Esper Genesis that uses the core rules as a basis. You can't "play any version of the game simultaneously" or other silliness that some people expected, I don't know how that would even be feasible.

People read an awful lot into statements made about early design goals that were made at the very inception of the project. In addition, for some people the fact that the system can handle the 3PP modularity isn't enough, if WOTC doesn't publish it then it may as well not exist.

 

[Bohandas]

No they aren't, that's the point. They can feel realistic to people who have never been in a fight to the death (which hopefully includes most of us), and to be fair how they feel is more important than actual realism anyway. But in an actual life or death struggle, your brain is very good at ignoring injuries that would impede you, so they tend to take you out of the fight entirely or do nothing - exactly what hp model.

The sole exception in general seems to be injuries which incapacitate a particular limb, denying you the use of that limb for the rest of the fight while not necessarily taking you right out of it. But scaling generalised penalties - not realistic in the slightest.

I believe the penalties in question are in fact meant to represent broken limbs, dislocated joints, torn or cut ligaments, concussions, having the wind knocked out of you, etc.

That kind of stuff, not just blood loss and lacerations and stuff

 

[Micah Sweet]

It was an early design goal, one that turned out to be unachievable and likely unwanted because of the extra complexity. Still tired of hearing about it a decade later.

An awful lot of people here still talk about it, so I doubt it's unwanted, unless you're talking about the designers.

 

[Chaosmancer]

We are, however, the common spender of money.

Are you? I found the Core Books and Spelljammer sitting in the Wal-Mart book section alongside coloring books, bibles, and manga. Is that where you are buying them from? Yet there are clearly selling well enough in Wal-Mart to have them bother to stock them.

Sure, you buy the books, but so do many many many other people.

 

[Lanefan]

Why?

Again, why?

In both cases, because if those I-never-want-to-lose players ultimately get their way this game is as dead as a dodo.

Largely false. Like, tremendously false.

See, we have such a warped perspective on this site it isn't even funny. For example, I was recently running for some teenagers. Helped them make their own characters and everything. One of the players was playing an Artificer, they wanted a lightning sword and I have a 3rd party artificer called the Thundermonger that could provide that. At level 1 they were declaring themselves OP, unbeatable, completely broken and the most powerful person in the party... because they could wear armor, use weapons, cast a damage spell, and cast a healing spell.

And this wasn't just this one player, I had to reassure a few of the other players that this character, who was just a level 1 Air Genasi Artificer, that he wasn't actually OP.

The thing is, that the game IS challenging. These players really struggled, and I've played hell trying to get them to just understand their characters. And this isn't a one-off thing. What the game isn't is challenging for experts. And frankly... it shouldn't be challenging for experts out of the box.

Where I posit, yes it should - it should be challenging for everyone regardless of experience*. And if some of that experience comes via the school of hard knocks, I've no issue with that.

* - hell, if chess can manage it, why can't D&D?

Some modularity to make it more difficult would be fine, but it isn't in the game's baseline design of class vs monster that the challenges lay.

OK, design mistake right there. If the game's to be built around combat (which, three-pillar ideals or not, it still is) then combat ought to provide the primary challenge...or, put another way, the easiest access to loss conditions.

The challenges lay in what the DM weaves out of those story elements. And frankly, I think more DMs should take their monsters and do three things if their players are finding it too easy

1) Stop using the Average HP, and use a higher HP value from the range (helps when dealing with Alpha striking players)

2) Stop using the baseline equipment. Nothing says that your gnoll raiders need to still be wearing hide, they could have half-plate and that makes a BIG difference. Same with the weapons, instead of a spear, give them a Glaive.

3) Use Feats, species and class features. Sure, Common Bandits aren't terribly threatening. Bandits that all have the ability to blast you with Hellish Rebuke and have the mobile feat are a WAY different story.

All good ideas.

My point is the DM shouldn't have to do this as a homebrew, it should be baked in as a variable. Example, in the monster write-up it should say: "Gnolls are always armed with at least one dagger plus another weapon: 40% carry 1d6 spears, 20% carry a longsword, 20% a glaive, 15% a morning star, and 5% an exotic weapon of your choice."

The thing is, I find it trivially easy to adjust the difficulty of the game UP. But it is far far harder to tone it down.

For me it's the other way, at least when it comes to player pushback: it's stupendously easier to tone it down than it is to ramp it up.

I'm considering some rules tweaks in the near future, with roughly a net no-gain/loss in overall character power; and I already know which ones will be met with gleeful acceptance and which will garner the complaints.

The Game is challenging on a design level, for people new to the game or with only a few years of expeirence. Those of us sitting at a decade or more of experience are not the common player or the common DM.

Indeed, but we all got that experience somehow and I'm willing to bet most of it came from editions far more challening than this one.

 

[Oofta]

An awful lot of people here still talk about it, so I doubt it's unwanted, unless you're talking about the designers.

The handful of people that still ask about this is a tiny fraction of the people that play the game.

I'd like the flying car we were supposed to have by now according to Back to the Future. But I'm realistic enough to accept that it's not happening and I'm not going to complain about it for the millionth time.

People blew things way out of proportion with ideas of a style of game that was never practical. D&D is not GURPS.

At a certain point complaining about something that didn't happen whether it was "promised" or not is ... boring. I get it. People got their hopes up. But it didn't happen, it was never going to happen.

 

[codo]

People read an awful lot into statements made about early design goals that were made at the very inception of the project. In addition, for some people the fact that the system can handle the 3PP modularity isn't enough, if WOTC doesn't publish it then it may as well not exist.

I always think of Monte Cook and his "promise" of modularity, when I see people criticize the developers for "corporate speak", or for not specifically laying out all their plans for the OGL and 3PPs, before they have even finished writing the rules.

For a brief moment 5E had a developer who didn't speak in "corporate speak", who spoke plainly and passionately about him goals and plans for his vision of the game. He spoke off the cuff, without carefully choosing his words, and he spoke about what he saw as the ideal game of D&D. Fully modular, you can swap out any part with a wide range of different options. You can also play any style of character you want, from a 1st edition fighter, to a 3rd edition wizard, to a 4th edition fighter. You can also play all of the different types of characters at the same table, and they will all be balanced. He promised the world. Who doesn't want the world?

Unfortunately it is a lot easier to promise the world than to deliver it is to deliver it. Sometimes no matter how cool something sounds at first blush, it just doesn't end up being possible because of certain constraints like time, money, page space, complexity, etc. Even if something wasn't actually possible from the start, people are still going to blame you and accuse you breaking your promises if you fail to deliver. Is it any wonder that the developers tend to be a bit cautious and rehearsed when speaking publicly about the future of the game.

To somehow bring things back on topic, it kind of sounds a bit like a certain famous billionaire, with his self-driving cars by the end of the year(a claim make yearly, for the last decade), or his highspeed, vacuum tube Hyperloop(which ended up as a low speed tesla running down a tunnel dug by a second-hand Chinese sewer tunnel borer).

So no, I don't think that D&D needs a "visionary leader" to lead us boldly into the future.

(Proof reading this I realized, that while trying to be clever and tie things back to Elon, I was meaner to Monte Cook than he deserves. I might not like some of his games and his game design theory, but he is certainly no Elon. He is certainly passionate about D&D and I have not heard anything bad about him personally. I just don't think a large corporation like WotC is a good fit for him. He seems much happier running his own company.)