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

[M_Natas]

I understand that some people want equipment lists to matter for the game, but I also would suggest that it's fairly clear that they don't matter to most tables of 5e D&D.

But that is a chicken-egg problem. Of course good equipment descriptions and lists don't matter at most tables because they don't exist. People don't use mundane equipment because it doesn't have rules.
And if a player wants to do something without magic with mundane items, DMs have to handwave it and no body is really satisfied with.
Like in the spelljammer campaign I'm running all players want to upgrade their Android Hopper (a small Raft with whom they can travel inside the dense asteroid field, but can't spelljam). Like expanding it, putting another cabin one the underside and stuff. And questions came up if they can do it themselves with their tools and wood carving set skills and stuff. They even draw blueprints of what they wanna build.
And I had to handwaive that, because there are no rules for that. I had prepared some rules for Upgrading a Ship, but that was an easier system with magic items that gave benefits, similar to the attunement system for magic items with player characters.
There where questions like "here is this Barn, can I remove the support pillars to use as a ship mast?" They don't have fabricate yet to do such things by magic.

And in the campaign before, some players wanted to upgrade the mundane ship with magical legs and turn it into a walking tank.

And that was just some if the more extreme situations where there were no rules to support my decision (except for, Roll a d20 and than I decide and hope you roll low ...).

I mean, I don't expect D&D or any game that is not a ship building simulator to have such rules, but having some more guidance on what you can do with the mundane items would help me a lot in such situations.

 

[Oofta]

Isn't this WotC telling people how to play the game - as in, in this game light and darkness matter more than digging and burying?

But obviously in a pirate-themed game, digging and burying probably matter more than the radius of torch or lantern light. (Which people can work out anyway via common sense.)

I thought 5e was intended not to tell people how to play the game.

D&D gives you a starting point, it is not and never has been 100% comprehensive. No game is.

 

[M_Natas]

D&D gives you a starting point, it is not and never has been 100% comprehensive. No game is.

But like with 5e Spelljammer that is not even a starting point.
It is easier to run a 5e Spelljammer campaign by buying the 2e book on the dmsguild. You have to tweak some rules but at least you don't have to create a whole lot of stuff from scratch.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The hell of it is, they could have gone super simple..x equipment gives advantage on y skill checks for z type of activity

They already do this for the crowbar. There are still ways that'd likely be unsatisfactory, but it'd at least be consistent with a lot of the 5e design ethos.

I feel the perceived need to be consistent with 5e's design ethos has stymied game design, in WotC and third party alike. Who said their ethos needs to be followed anyway? It's hardly Platonic design.

 

[nevin]

But like with 5e Spelljammer that is not even a starting point.
It is easier to run a 5e Spelljammer campaign by buying the 2e book on the dmsguild. You have to tweak some rules but at least you don't have to create a whole lot of stuff from scratch.

That's been the subject of several other threads. How badly 5e books compare to past edition in volume of information and options for DM's and players. There's not a single 5e book that compares in detail, options or amount of data to past editions. (I don't know 4e ). You really don't get much for your money in my opinion from WOTC these days.

 

[Micah Sweet]

D&D gives you a starting point, it is not and never has been 100% comprehensive. No game is.

It used to be a heck of a lot more comprehensive than it is now.

Seriously, wanting more of something is NOT the same as wanting everything. Why do so many counter arguments assume this?

 

[Oofta]

So now we have to have a chart for what kind of material your drinking containers are made of (why stop at beer steins), detailed charts on how much you can dig presumably including adjustments for soil type, details on how easy or difficult it is to get through all types of vegetation, a temperature chart for tents which includes different types of tents, detailed descriptions for all sorts of tools and miscellaneous devices. After all, how can we possibly live if we don't know how much extra weight you can cart around if you don't have rules for wheelbarrows?

I'm reminded of the 3.x climbing charts with some of this. They had a chart that gave the DC for climbing based on the type of wall. Problem is, it was still completely up to the DM what the wall was made of and how rough it was. It gave the semblance of simulation, giving DMs and players a sense of it not being DM fiat but it was all an illusion.

I remember discussions about the Wilderness Survival Guide from 2E and how useless we thought it was. Yes, you had detailed rules about things like tents, but the rules were not particularly realistic, nor were they helpful. Yes, it had (bad) rules on how strong a wind the tent could stand up against, but again it was all just an illusion because the DM had to decide how strong the wind was blowing.

If you want more equipment it always came from supplements mostly made by TSR that never really paid much attention to whether or not the supplements were profitable. The difference now is that WOTC has outsourced all those supplements and they are published on the Dmsguild. If you want more detail, it's still out there, I've purchased a few myself. This is not a "true issue". It's a problem with people not accepting that the business model has changed and that the supplements are still out there, they're just not published by WOTC.

P.S. Has there ever been a guideline for shovels?

 

[Gammadoodler]

I feel the perceived need to be consistent with 5e's design ethos has stymied game design, in WotC and third party alike. Who said their ethos needs to be followed anyway? It's hardly Platonic design.

I didn't say it was perfect.

Just that they had a chance to use an approach they'd already leveraged all over the place, and chose to do nothing instead.

But for the sake of clarity, I think following that approach would have yielded at least adequate results for most equipment for most people.

 

[Micah Sweet]

So now we have to have a chart for what kind of material your drinking containers are made of (why stop at beer steins), detailed charts on how much you can dig presumably including adjustments for soil type, details on how easy or difficult it is to get through all types of vegetation, a temperature chart for tents which includes different types of tents, detailed descriptions for all sorts of tools and miscellaneous devices. After all, how can we possibly live if we don't know how much extra weight you can cart around if you don't have rules for wheelbarrows?

I'm reminded of the 3.x climbing charts with some of this. They had a chart that gave the DC for climbing based on the type of wall. Problem is, it was still completely up to the DM what the wall was made of and how rough it was. It gave the semblance of simulation, giving DMs and players a sense of it not being DM fiat but it was all an illusion.

I remember discussions about the Wilderness Survival Guide from 2E and how useless we thought it was. Yes, you had detailed rules about things like tents, but the rules were not particularly realistic, nor were they helpful. Yes, it had (bad) rules on how strong a wind the tent could stand up against, but again it was all just an illusion because the DM had to decide how strong the wind was blowing.

If you want more equipment it always came from supplements mostly made by TSR that never really paid much attention to whether or not the supplements were profitable. The difference now is that WOTC has outsourced all those supplements and they are published on the Dmsguild. If you want more detail, it's still out there, I've purchased a few myself. This is not a "true issue". It's a problem with people not accepting that the business model has changed and that the supplements are still out there, they're just not published by WOTC.

P.S. Has there ever been a guideline for shovels?

Drive-thru has a bunch of this stuff too. You only need to use the Guild if your product has WotC IP.

 

[Oofta]

Drive-thru has a bunch of this stuff too. You only need to use the Guild if your product has WotC IP.

Good point, I tend to forget about them even though I've gotten some stuff there as well.