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

[W'rkncacnter]

You can deny it all you like, but, it's right there on page 19 of the 5e Player's Handbook.

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[EzekielRaiden]

Can go all of these ways really. There is nothing that says the Bard always gets it wrong The point is more that the Fighter can be engaged despite the low CHA

Alright, but if we grant that, doesn't that mean we just have to treat the Good Idea, Bad Idea thing as a wash? Just seems like the whole argument boils down to "whoever has a good idea has an advantage," but good ideas come and go. The underlying mechanics remain. Just because they can't completely overwhelm someone choosing a faulty approach doesn't mean there's no bias. It's just a bias that isn't absolutely determinative.

not much, apart from nerfing casters into the ground Take away / move up all their auto-succeed skills and focus on damage and general adventuring stuff

Believe it or not, I don't want to nerf casters really. I think skills should be powerful and diverse, containing multitudes, and that spells should be a little bit more limited and much more focused. Those do not entail nerfing casters into the ground, but they do pretty much require that casters lose some amount of power and flexibility that they possess, even in 5e.

"Because we don't know what colour the car is, we cannot assume it is a car" is more like what you seem to have been saying here.

When we're told something is a Human I think we get to assume it's just like us until-unless told otherwise.

And I couldn't disagree more. We can expect that they will have similarities, no one is doubting that. Visually, at the very least! But insisting that everything must be precisely the same unless and until we are explicitly told otherwise is wildly unwarranted. Further, as stated, this assumption that what people THINK are IRL human limits absolutely must apply to fictional humans leads to both design and adjudication that is heavily biased against specific archetypes and toward other archetypes.

It's fundamentally unfair and unfounded, rewarding one archetype and punishing another, but because it has truthiness, it survives. Because that's what "verisimilitude" and "realism" often stand for. Truthiness. Intuitively feeling like truth, regardless of what is actually true.

Where are you even getting that from? He's not telling you how to run your game. He's saying how he runs his.

Nope. This is talking about what the game itself should be designed for. That martial characters should not be allowed to do certain things, because martials doing those things lacks "verisimilitude" (but similarity to what truth, exactly?) or "realism" (but we are talking about chokeslamming dragons, none of this is like reality anyway.) Hence: truthiness.

Realism =/= reflecting reality. It just simulates it to an extent. It's a spectrum and mirroring real life isn't required at all. So that longsword having an edge and being made out of steel, doing slashing damage? That's realism! It doesn't matter that the game doesn't simulate wear and tear or breaking like real longswords did.

Per Dictionary.com:

realism, noun

1. interest in or concern for the actual or real, as distinguished from the abstract, speculative, etc.
2. the tendency to view or represent things as they really are.
3. Fine Arts.
   • treatment of forms, colors, space, etc., in such a manner as to emphasize their correspondence to actuality or to ordinary visual experience.: Compare idealism (def. 4), naturalism (def. 2).
   • (usually initial capital letter) a style of painting and sculpture developed about the mid-19th century in which figures and scenes are depicted as they are experienced or might be experienced in everyday life.
4. Literature.
   • a manner of treating subject matter that presents a careful description of everyday life, usually of the lower and middle classes.
   • a theory of writing in which the ordinary, familiar, or mundane aspects of life are represented in a straightforward or matter-of-fact manner that is presumed to reflect life as it actually is.: Compare naturalism (def. 1b).

"Realism" does, in fact, mean "correspondence to actuality or to ordinary...experience" or depicting things "as they are experienced or might be experienced in everyday life." Every definition listed here except the first points to this idea. I left out the fifth because it's the technical term from philosophy, which goes in a completely unrelated direction (talking about the independent existence of things, separate from observation by individuals.)

 

[Minigiant]

I think fundamentally WOTC didn't use their surveys to provide the content that 5e fans would want. That's why there is this "real life human" conversation.

For example by Xanatar's, there should have been a fighter subclass that uses all the common origin tropes for a hero.

1. Magic. You know magic: Eldritch Knight, Psi Knight, Echo Knight, Rune Knight
2. Accident. Some event or series of events infused you with power. Werewolf Warrior, vampire Warrior, Shadow Soldier. Chaos Warrior
3. Technology. You know how to craft magical gear. Arcane Archer. War Machine. Gunsmith
4. Mutant. You are not normal for your race. Demigod. Paragon. Noble Bloodline
5. Natural. You trained hard and have access to secret techniques which border impossibility or divert to another realm of skill. Warlord. Warblade, Swordmaster. Lord.

In the old days with the fast schedule, WOTC would have been forced to eventually provide these.

5e's slow schedule forced many ideas that require heavy playtesting to go into the Houserules sphere without the feedback and high recognition.

5e's book schedule is a bit too slow Especially with WOTC's light content in their releases.​

 

[M_Natas]

And making the ranger count arrows is one of the worst punishments in the game.

It is actually not. It creates verisimilitude.
It is one of the little things that make the game world seem more real.

 

[M_Natas]

The problem with encumbrance is that it’s just adding up numbers until you can’t add up anymore. It’s too mechanical. When you’re packing in real life do you weight everything and try to get an accurate carrying capacity for yourself? Unless you’re afraid of getting a surcharge at the airport I don’t think the precise weight matters. You try to jam everything in your bags then try to lift them and then decide if it’s too much. Encumbrance should feel more instinctive. I'm not sure what they can do but listing the exact weight is not it.

Water, food and torches are way too easy to obviate at level 1. I think people like they idea of worrying about food, water, etc, but they don't actually like to track it manually? Like... ticking down your ration on your character sheet isn't interesting, the rest interesting stuff is deciding what you do when you get close to 0. It's only interesting when you're running out.

Unless weapons start shattering after 2 fights like in Breath of the Wild, those are just peanuts in term of expenses.

If you have an Idea on how to improve encumbrance, be my guest. Buy removing it kills a big part of exploration.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

You'd think, right? But then you pick up an Immortal module and look at the pre-gens, and other than their insane level number they really ain't got all that much going for them. I was truly taken aback the first time I read an Immortal module and saw how wimpy the pre-gens were, but since then have come to appreciate that even with those crazy level numbers the characters are still at least a little bit grounded; and I like that.

I have to admit I'm going on recollection, and that's not how I recall it, but I could be wrong.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Those elements of mystery, the unknowable, and the truly supernatural still need a grounded background to stand against; if only to call themselves out as being such.

They absolutely don't lol, that's just a matter of taste. And it's not the current taste.

I'm not sure I consider that to be progress.

Who said it was progress? It's merely change.

But your preferences also do not represent "progress", merely previous change and taste. That doesn't make them invalid! And I'm truthful I'd say mine line in-between yours and the more modern - I do appreciate a good explanation, I just don't require it and I'm willing to accept implied ones.

All I'm attempting to do is clear up what D&D is doing here - their lack of explanation and so on is not a mistake that needs to be fixed, it's just a fairly common general aesthetic approach to fantasy. Not all of those are gonna thrill everyone - I mean, the current pinky-purple, everyone dresses like a combo of the 1700s and Star Trek, everyone is pretty, no-one is dirty or bloody or a mess, weapons and armour look more like a video game than a history book (ironically this unfashionable in videogames now - Path of Exile 2 for example is going for an incredibly fantasy-historic look, which is very compelling) visual design aesthetic of D&D (and a certain subset of modern fantasy, including Critical Role) is not one I favour, personally. Not did I enjoy 3E's "dungeonpunk" very much. But such things must be borne, and will pass.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Also, I'd like to disagree with your perception of Tolkien. The Sillarillion is certainly mythic in tone, but the actual events in the Lord of the Rings (the books), on the ground, rhetoric aside, are remarkably grounded.

Well, I've read a lot of Tolkien's own commentary on his work, and all I can say is "That's not how he saw them", even if it seems that way to you. But he was a very strange character.

 

[M_Natas]

Again I say: Why would we settle for a D&D that works "fine" when you "play by RAW", or "Houserule it until it works"? I don't understand why anyone would actively argue for mediocrity.

Because it is always a compromise. You can't make it perfect for everybody. And the thread was originally for true issues. A lot of issues, like Gold, Exploration and stuff are only issues because people don't play RAW.
The delete rules and the complain that the game is not working.

Is there room for improvement? Probably. But would be for example using a Slot-System instead I incumberance make ressource-management really easier?

Like if you play with DnD Beyond or Roll20, there is no excuse to.not use encumbrance, because it calculates that for you automatically.
And even in Paper it is not hard to do. Doing it actually improves the game.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Because it is always a compromise. You can't make it perfect for everybody. And the thread was originally for true issues. A lot of issues, like Gold, Exploration and stuff are only issues because people don't play RAW.
The delete rules and the complain that the game is not working.

I'm pretty sure the gold issue is something folks have complained about for quite a while. One of the very, very few criticisms that were acceptable back in the early days of 5e--mostly because it's kind of a humblebrag, if we're being honest. "Look at all this money that I have nothing I can do with..."

Is there room for improvement? Probably. But would be for example using a Slot-System instead I incumberance make ressource-management really easier?

Is that really a thing people are even asking for? But overall yes, if you can only hold (say) your Strength score in total items, and some items are extra heavy and "cost" two(/three/etc.) "slots," then yes, that would be a simpler, faster system, and thus "easier" by some definitions.

Would it lead to better, more interesting gameplay? That's by far the more important question--and extremely difficult to answer without serious testing. Like most non-obvious questions regarding game design and balance.

Like if you play with DnD Beyond or Roll20, there is no excuse to.not use encumbrance, because it calculates that for you automatically.
And even in Paper it is not hard to do. Doing it actually improves the game.

I'm really not that sure that it does. What is the key benefit that it provides? Because I find that most inventory management systems work, at a very high level, in the same way: avoid letting the bad thing happen. That tends to result in uninteresting, even frustrating gameplay.

It is, in general, better to have a system which rewards good play, rather than one which exclusively punishes bad play, no rewards for playing well. I have yet to see an "encumbrance" or other inventory-management system which rewards effective play in any way. That's a pretty serious drag on it as an interesting and useful component of a game's design.