D&D (2024) Asians Represent: "Has WotC Fixed the D&D Monk?"

[MGibster]

that is a self imposed restriction however. If you wanted to play in fantasy-Asia, I am sure you could find better 5e compatible options than what WotC gives you (or will give you, they will not have specialized East / West books anytime soon, probably ever…)

I think maybe we're coming at this from two different directions. I'm not pushing for WotC to produce another version of D&D. But if they were going to publish Kara-Tur, I don't think I'd be interested in playing it if the Fighter was exactly the same as it would be if I were playing on the Sword Coast. I wouldn't be interested in the same Sorcerer or Ranger either. I'd be looking for a different gaming experience than one I could just get from vanilla D&D.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

No no no... that can't be right. All of Canada is just one thing. I'm pretty sure.

Yeah. It is one big thing. Just sitting there. Above you. Watching...

 

[overgeeked]

I disagree with the last sentence.

What is "bad design." Really? Design is not for products meant to be used in an ivory tower, so that the designer and a few people can marvel at it while everyone else has no desire to use it.

To decide that something is bad design (or "bad") because people like it is to succumb to the usual issue of snobbery- popular music can't be good because "too many people" (or worse ... "the wrong kind of people") like it.

No, none of that. I read popular fiction, watch popular movies and TV series, I play popular games, and I love some popular stuff. It's not ivory tower snobbery.

Making products that are widely appealing to large numbers of people is a design problem that is difficult to solve. To say that products that lots of people like (and therefore BUY) is bad design ... is kind of an odd thing to say. And by odd, I mean wrong. Design - whether in games, or in other fields, doesn't have a single goal. That's why we have all sorts of different products in all sorts of different areas. A design that is widely appealing ... that's actually really really hard to do. For any product.

One example: power creep. Making newer stuff more powerful than older stuff. Why do that? Because it sells books. It's bad design because it makes the game unbalanced, players stop using the older stuff, and pushes players to newer stuff...but it sells books. Good design would be to meticulously balance the game, bad design would be to progressively unbalance the game to sell new books with busted PC options. Have a look at the PC options in Xanathar's compared to the base options in the PHB. Then compare the options in Tasha's to Xanathar's. Neon-sign glaringly obvious power creep. It's a common tactic and has been going on in the RPG industry for...ever really. The first supplement for OD&D introduced paladins, thieves, and STR giving fighters to-hit and damage bonuses. Splat churn. Power creep. Etc. It's one example. There's more.

There's another great example: D&D 4E. It was a wonderfully balanced game, meticulously designed (after a few early hiccups), but it didn't sell well enough to meet expectations. It sold better than every other RPG on the market (with the possible exception of Pathfinder for a few months...maybe), but it was scrapped because it didn't sell enough for WotC. Great design + bad sales = scrapped game. Sales matter more than design. WotC is in the sales business. Good game design is secondary.

It's also common in MMOs. WoW does this constantly. They intentionally bust classes and specs each expansion, introduce new races and sometimes new classes that are busted all in the hopes of players spending more money. As the expansion progresses, they tweak the new stuff (i.e. generally nerf it into the ground), while also busting other races, classes, and specs, pushing players to other options and spending more money. It's just how WoW works.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It'd be something different if they engaged with popular culture in a manner not accustomed to an grumpy toddler being sent on a playdate with the person they like least in their preschool.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

One example: power creep. Making newer stuff more powerful than older stuff. Why do that? Because it sells books. It's bad design because it makes the game unbalanced, players stop using the older stuff, and pushes players to newer stuff...but it sells books. Good design would be to meticulously balance the game, bad design would be to progressively unbalance the game to sell new books with busted PC options. Have a look at the PC options in Xanathar's compared to the base options in the PHB. Then compare the options in Tasha's to Xanathar's. Neon-sign glaringly obvious power creep. It's a common tactic and has been going on in the RPG industry for...ever really. The first supplement for OD&D introduced paladins, thieves, and STR giving fighters to-hit and damage bonuses. Splat churn. Power creep. Etc. It's one example. There's more.

There's another great example: D&D 4E. It was a wonderfully balanced game, meticulously designed (after a few early hiccups), but it didn't sell well enough to meet expectations. It sold better than every other RPG on the market (with the possible exception of Pathfinder for a few months...maybe), but it was scrapped because it didn't sell enough for WotC. Great design + bad sales = scrapped game. Sales matter more than design. WotC is in the sales business. Good game design is secondary.

I mean ... we are getting close to the point of 5e being the longest-lived D&D edition ... ever. It is by far the longest lived of the WoTC editions.

And there is far less power creep than there was in the two prior D&D editions that had the same legs - 1e and 2e.

Saying that there has been a little power creep over the course of a decade is not exactly a damning indictment on the design. If anything, the relative lack of power creep in 5e is somewhat surprising.

And I will reiterate the point I made above- you seem to think that "great design" is something that is measurable and separate. But it's not. What is the purpose of the design? Just saying that 4e had "great design," - well, it had great design for some people, and it wasn't so great for other people. The very things that it was well-designed for (the mathematical balance, for example) were the same things that made it a poor choice for people that enjoy kitbashing.

5e is a well-designed product for what it is intended to do. Lots of people like it. That's not evidence of poor design.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Just a sad, sad way to design a game.

And yet people still get bent out of shape about it and how it's designed... rather than just moving on from it to what they would consider a better game.

Mainly I suspect it's because most of them can't find any game that is actually more of what they actually want and 5E is the best of the worst options so they're stuck with it... or they can't find other players who actually give a shite about nearly all these same things they hate about 5E in order to put a table together of some other game they prefer.

But at that point, beggars can't be choosers. You gotta just play the game you're dealt.

 

[Alzrius]

I am not sure they have a design philosophy outside of ‘we want it to be popular’, the playtest suggests that this is all there is to it

I agree, though I'm fairly cynical in that regard, which is why I find it easy to believe that the entire reason for One D&D's existence was to pressure Fandom to sell D&D Beyond to WotC.

 

[Ulorian - Agent of Chaos]

And yet people still get bent out of shape about it and how it's designed... rather than just moving on from it to what they would consider a better game.

Mainly I suspect it's because most of them can't find any game that is actually more of what they actually want and 5E is the best of the worst options so they're stuck with it... or they can't find other players who actually give a shite about nearly all these same things they hate about 5E in order to put a table together of some other game they prefer.

But at that point, beggars can't be choosers. You gotta just play the game you're dealt.

That feels a bit mean-spirited. But it also feels true. Why else would you complain about it?

Maybe in the hope that at least some of the changes you like will get into the next edition if you're vocal enough about it? I can get behind that. I can't help but feel that those thoughts might be better received if they weren't couched in such hyperbolic negativity though.

 

[Micah Sweet]

And yet people still get bent out of shape about it and how it's designed... rather than just moving on from it to what they would consider a better game.

Mainly I suspect it's because most of them can't find any game that is actually more of what they actually want and 5E is the best of the worst options so they're stuck with it... or they can't find other players who actually give a shite about nearly all these same things they hate about 5E in order to put a table together of some other game they prefer.

But at that point, beggars can't be choosers. You gotta just play the game you're dealt.

You have to pick your battles. I make 5e as close to what I want as my players will accept, because they won't accept the OSR game I really want to run.

 

[Clint_L]

I think we’re largely quibbling over word choice here. Certainly armor carried some cost to mobility, but mainly that was due to movements being more taxing (and that was mostly due to more heat build-up), rather than the armor being what I would describe as “restrictive.” Most armor doesn’t limit your range of motion all that much (some, but not much), it just takes greater exertion to make those movements while armored.

I'm saying that I don't think it is compatible with the monk class.