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

[Lanefan]

They should definitely say how much you can dig with a shovel in what period of time, because how many people even know that?

I did bloody archaeology, and I've dug god knows how much, and I couldn't tell you how much you can dig how fast. But it seems like it might matter if you want to do "man vs nature" stuff, doesn't it? You seem to be acting like half your players are farmers, and maybe half YOUR players are farmers, but most people's aren't, not in 2023. I daresay an awful lot of players did have rural experiences back in Wisconsin in the 1970s though. But even then we had whole book on wilderness survival, didn't we?

Wilderness Survival Guide, 1986 - you're telling me that they made this book even though everyone already knows this stuff?

Saying what a D&D tent looks like and actually does is a reasonable request, because we're obviously not dealing with the same kind of tents you can buy at a shop now, and even then, a significant proportion of the population, and the poorer and less-white part, has never used a tent.

This isn't my first rodeo with people making assumptions, note. I've been on the wrong end of them before - I've made assumptions about something that was barely described in an RPG, assumptions that turned out to be very wrong, because I was going on my personal experience.

So maybe 5e needs an updated Wilderness Survival Guide, to cover this sort of thing?

 

[Neonchameleon]

This. If your fun as a DM consists solely in serving player needs, then fine. But there are those who don't feel that way, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I've yet to meet the DM whose fun "consists solely in serving player needs". Just that part of the fun is making sure everyone has fun and in a 1v5 (or whatever) situation where the 5 have got fed up enough to complain they win.

 

[Micah Sweet]

A couple of points to add:
For some players, it's not just about not worrying about how much they're carrying for a "more heroic mode" but also to allow them to have a Dex-melee build and dump their Strength stat without a suffering a trade-off. That may sound cynical, but we've encountered plenty of discussion on these boards about players who dump Strength now.

And as for the issue of annoying one set of players who don't want to deal with it vs one set who does - that's why individual tables need a Session 0 to hash the issue out for the group if some players feel strongly about it. It may indicate a general play style incompatibility.

Honestly, I believe that if you dump Strength as an adventurer you should accept any logical penalties without serious complaint.

 

[Oofta]

No. I consider this part to be a tangent to the discussion. (Equipment / Encumbrance)

Lack of clarity and instruction in the DMG, rest mechanics, and a weak exploration or Man vs. Nature conflict support to be true issues.

But having to know details of how a tent works is just an example of the never-ending rabbit hole you can go down. It's unnecessary for 99% of the players and if you need it there's likely some blog page dedicated to it that you could find. There are some things that D&D will just never excel at (okay, lots of things) and there are some things that just do not have enough demand to justify an official product. That's what 3PP is for and why it's important for WOTC to continue supporting them.

 

[Lanefan]

The perfect system.

For a player who can't be arsed to think/plan ahead and-or can't handle their character finding itself caught short by an oversight in preparation, perhaps.

I have no use for such players.

Oh, and while I can't speak to the rest of your (quite good) list in a different post, I've had weather rules for decades.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

But having to know details of how a tent works is just an example of the never-ending rabbit hole you can go down. It's unnecessary for 99% of the players and if you need it there's likely some blog page dedicated to it that you could find. There are some things that D&D will just never excel at (okay, lots of things) and there are some things that just do not have enough demand to justify an official product. That's what 3PP is for and why it's important for WOTC to continue supporting them.

I guess my issue is that D&D presents itself as a game that features wilderness survival, has some of the trappings of that, in the form of equipment and spells that are about wilderness survival, and a lot of adventures, including official ones, seem to feature wilderness survival (often with special rules for that adventure), but D&D doesn't really have any rules for it in 5E.

It's just kind of weird. I honestly think they could spare some space in the PHB to cover it a little.

 

[Micah Sweet]

TSR pushed out a bunch of questionable value. Things that if people really want to understand they can either get the PDF or do a quick lookup.

I had Aurora's catalog and thought it was cool. Unless it disappeared like some of my books seem to have done over the years it's still gathering dust on a bookshelf somewhere. Did I use it? Nah. I could literally count the number of times I used it on one hand and still likely have fingers left over to do a Scout's Honor. If you really want that kind of thing, it's still available over on dmsguild.

That's fine, as long as your simply advancing the opinion that  you don't care about stuff like that, and not that others shouldn't.

 

[Vaalingrade]

For a player who can't be arsed to think/plan ahead and-or can't handle their character finding itself caught short by an oversight in preparation, perhaps.

Thinking and planning aren't what you're losing with this system. Bookkeeping and a weird guessing game with the Dm are what is lost. And not being able to handle something is not the same as not liking it.

I have no use for such players.

Send them here. We can have fun.

Oh, and while I can't speak to the rest of your (quite good) list in a different post, I've had weather rules for decades.

Yes, but this is a thread about what 5e's issues are.

 

[Lanefan]

So it's acceptable for your character to know to pick a lock, fast-talk a king, climb a slippery vertical surface with no handholds, backflip over multiple armed orcs, roll out of a fireball or a thousand other things you could never, ever do or even really understand how to do, but it's completely and totally unacceptable that your character could remember to bring something that you, the player did not?

Correct; because all of those examples of fancy things my character might do (pick a lock, etc.) come with a built-in chance of failure.

Character (and player) memory isn't perfect either.

 

[Lanefan]

Now you've sent me on an investigative quest to uncover current and historical opinions on this. I was unaware of any prevailing opinion to the contrary. I mean 1st edition has a quirky charm, and not just from simply being the origin of it all, but at the time my local gaming scene really found 2nd edition a great improvement. I mean, you could play a Bard from level 1!

That might be a by-community thing. Here 2e was largely seen as little more than a cave-in to the Satanic-panic crowd and, as such, a rather significant watering-down of the game.

As with all editions, though, it still had some good ideas.