D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

[Warpiglet-7]

This thread is interesting and…hilarious!

So is there a true issue that we all agree on?

43 pages of nope!

 

[mamba]

So is there a true issue that we all agree on?

43 pages of nope!

did you expect anything else… that is why the playtest is so stagnant

 

[Micah Sweet]

I just don't agree and tons of fantasy doesn't agree. Huge amounts of heroic fantasy and myth and legend doesn't give any particular reason that heroic (Greek sense) characters are heroic. If they like have weird-ass special powers, like Achilles being literally immune to damage, sure. But if they're just exceptionally fast, strong, brave, intelligent, quick-healing (but not regenerating), lucky, wise etc. it's just very often just put down to them being who they are.

There's this big problem with RPGs which is that a lot of players, especially older ones, actually want some sort of science-y "sim" where everything is elaborately explained, rather than a more myth/legend-oriented game. But what Gygax actually designed was something more myth/legend-oriented, not a science-y sim.


So much of it doesn't.

Look at Lord of the Rings - Legolas, Aragorn and Gimli run for literally days on end to catch up with the hobbits who'd been taken. Obviously physically impossible. Why can they do it? It's not explained. It's never explained. Tolkien doesn't take us aside and explain the biological reasons why, because he's not thinking about that and doesn't care about that. They're heroic characters from a myth he's creating

Why? Because Tolkien very consciously and intentionally wrote myths and legends, not facts, not science or some sort of rationalized and well-explained saga - and remember he repeated called LotR a myth - this isn't my projection, it's his own words and clear intention.

And he's the founder of the entire modern genre.


Because you want science-fantasy or ultra-grounded fantasy to be the only things allowable for D&D, you want A Princess of Mars or maybe at most The Name of the Wind or A Game of Thrones, and a lot of people want fantasy - which includes elements of myth and legend, elements of mystery and the unknowable and the truly supernatural, not merely "super-measurable and well-defined magic powers that might as well be science", they want Lord of the Rings, Earthsea, the Greek myths, the Arthurian legends, Conan the Barbarian, Tigana, The Last Unicorn, The Princess Bride, Circe, The Dark Tower and so on - stuff where people with no identifiable magic powers do things which are impossible or near to it, where magic isn't just science, where people sometimes go beyond what anyone thought they could do.

That's why people are resistant. You're basically saying "Screw Tolkien, it's only Game of Thrones for me!", whether you're thinking that way or not, that's what you're de facto advocating.

(Part of the problem here, if we're real, is Vance's baleful influence. I like a lot of elements of Vance's work (not the misogyny!), but it's essentially closer to science-fantasy than heroic or epic fantasy, and he likes to give things rational reasons, even if they're sort of dashed off, and unfortunately because it provided an easy model for the early game to ape re: magic, it gave early D&D a slightly confused and science-y vibe - and some people in early D&D days clearly wanted to be running something more science-y. But none of that is true today - just look at the big podcasts like Critical Role - even when modern or steampunk trappings are involved, they're not treated in a science-y way. The guns don't work in a science-y way. They're as mystical and metaphysical as everything else. Even D&D's spells, once quasi-science-y have regained an element of mysticism for the people playing in and watching those games. The same is true of most D&D podcasts, I note, especially ones with people in their 20s and early 30s, I note.)

Critical Role, or any D&D podcast I've seen, are far, far more about telling an entertaining story with the trappings of being a game than they are actually showing a game being played. They are not representative of actual game play.

 

[Clint_L]

It got hijacked a while back by folks with very specific issues and so became the opposite of what the OP intended.

 

[Minigiant]

Right, looks like this thread is done since it's devolved into a "fighters should be buffed" thread.

I believe the consensus on the true issues for 5e are: the index.

It's less "fighter should be buffed" and more "5e doesn't tell you what a fighter or anything else in the game is supposed to be outside of a strict hack & slash dungeon crawl".

The older editions at least provided a game for the stuff outside of the dungeon and designed the game bits to interact with them. They might have been very stiff and inflexible. But they existed. And a DM who has these rules and are explained them is better positioned to adjust them.

 

[Micah Sweet]

This is just proving my point.

Instead of focusing on what the game is about - heroes - you're turning your head away from the subject of the game and hunting around in the corners trying to find something different. And you're absolutely trying to make it into a simulation in the process.

The game is not about heroes. They are protagonists whose lives we are following at best. And as much of a simulation as is reasonable for play is what I play D&D for, and what I want from it.

 

[Minigiant]

It got hijacked a while back by folks with very specific issues and so became the opposite of what the OP intended.

We stated the issue.
People are not arguing the validity of the issue just everything around it.

It is like if we explained why the DMG index and variants were bad.

It was rushed.
And the designers and many vet DMs didn't need it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

because that is totally what would do it for a T-Rex or Diplodocus

I'm not sure what you mean here. It reads sarcastic, but I could be wrong. You got that my post was a joke, right?

 

[SteveC]

This thread is interesting and…hilarious!

So is there a true issue that we all agree on?

43 pages of nope!

Exactly. I was wondering what we were going to get discussed and I did not have "physical capabilities of real world people as compared to characters in the game." I don't think that's an issue many people have thought about too much. The designers did think about it in 3X, but since then? I don't think it has been a concern.

But yes, I do think there are plenty of issues that have been brought up that rise to the level of "true issues," but we just took a hard turn into ... "D&D 5 isn't a simulation." At least I think that's the underlying issue people are having at the moment.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

We stated the issue.
People are not arguing the validity of the issue just everything around it.

It is like if we explained why the DMG index and variants were bad.

It was rushed.
And the designers and many vet DMs didn't need it.

That's because everyone actually agrees that the Index was bad. Everyone wants to argue about something! Otherwise, we'd just be posting over and over "Yup. Index sucks." "Yup. That's right. It sucks." "No! I think the index blows!" "That's the same thing!" "No, the distinction is very important!"

Oops. I started an argument with myself while I was posting multiple agreements!