D&D General The Crab Bucket Fallacy

[Oofta]

Not solely of course, but 5e did arrive in a good period to go more mainstream.

Stranger Things, Community, Game of Thrones, super hero movies and comics considered cooler and more mainstream, some celebrities saying they play and the word getting out through social media, streaming, etc.

I'm not going to try to estimate how much that effected success or not but think it had some effect.

Many, many things have contributed to 5E's success. Just like many, many things contributed to 4E being replaced. I don't think anybody has much of a clue of what factors figured into either one.

All I know is that while Stranger Things may have lead to an increase in web searches, but if you look at sales history 5E was already on an upward trend that didn't change much. All the things that people credit 5E's success with (other than the actual rules of the game of course which saw double digit growth before Stranger Things or CR) started years ago and don't explain the continued growth.

 

[Minigiant]

A game would have to offer literally no choices, or, on the other extreme, be perfectly balanced, to avoid incentivizing powergaming.

Optimization is inevitable. A game that tried very hard to stay balanced might minimize the rewards for system mastery, such that obsessive systems masters and casuals could play at the same table with minimal issues. I've never seen a game like that, but theoretically

Optimization is inevitable.

But like you said, a game could strive to have optimizers and casuals play at the same table. 5e didn't strive for this.

On the other extreme, a game that set out to build in rewards for system mastery, intentionally, could so overshoot the mark that optimization becomes the life's blood if it's community

There are games like this.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Optimization is inevitable.
But like you said, a game could strive to have optimizers and casuals play at the same table. 5e didn't strive for this.

Obviously not, but some games have tried, and have fallen short, IMHO/X.

There are games like this.

I'm sure we could compile a list of games that have taken the redundant step of intentionally building in additional rewards for system mastery...

....I want to say 5e is not such a game, but as I try to express why it isn't (well, it doesn't present a lot of choices?) I'm not so sure....

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Salami!

There will always be powergamers.

Powergaming only becomes the default when the default incentives it.

If everything in 5e had 13 AC, DC 10, and a few dozen HP, people would not feel like they need high stats.

But 5e quickly becomes full of HP sponges and the ad-hoc DC for moderate tasks is a coin flipping DC 15.

Again, this does not match anything I have seen directly at the table or anywhere else.

It isn’t the default. It’s just the optimizers that we’re always gonna do that anyway.

 

[James Gasik]

You realize that in order for the new DMG to include the advice you want it to have, the people who write it would have to actually possess those insights, right? Do you really trust the WotC team to be capable of providing this? If so, where's your evidence? The Tweets of Chris Perkins?

Do I anticipate such a thing will happen? No, but hey, I'd be happy to be wrong.

 

[James Gasik]

Given how badly they bungled the math in the game with

• Expertise
• how easy it is to get +5 modifiers on your primary stat
• magic items breaking the BA
• the encounter building system
• their two initial OP feats which they changed for 5.5e; and their
• paladin smite ability

It is tough to argue against this point.

Don't forget Guidance and Bless. "So we got rid of the fiddly small numbers, everything is advantage or disadvantage, aren't we clever! Hm, what shall we have Bless do? Grant advantage? Too good! We need a fiddly small number...plus 1d4! Brilliant!" -WotC, presumably.

 

[Minigiant]

Again, this does not match anything I have seen directly at the table or anywhere else.

It isn’t the default. It’s just the optimizers that we’re always gonna do that anyway.

This is what Ive seen.

Players fail at stuff they imagined their PC should be good at and either ask the DM for buffs or transition to an optimized build.

Replacements PCs with warlock dips. (That's one Dre for being a killer DM)

Maybe it's a me thing. Or Dre and his PC killing ways.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

A game would have to offer literally no choices, or, on the other extreme, be perfectly balanced, to avoid incentivizing powergaming.

Optimization is inevitable. A game that tried very hard to stay balanced might minimize the rewards for system mastery, such that obsessive systems masters and casuals could play at the same table with minimal issues. I've never seen a game like that, but theoretically.

On the other extreme, a game that set out to build in rewards for system mastery, intentionally, could so overshoot the mark that optimization becomes the life's blood if it's community.

4e was very well balanced, and it was even moreso an optimizers dream. Only during 4e did I see people regularly tell others they “had low system mastery” or claim themselves to have “high system mastery” on a very regular basis. Like, every day.

And yet, you could play a full lawn mower ranger next to a Fey Pact Warlock and only the number crunching powergamer will even know there is a difference.

5e isn’t as well balanced, but it’s power scale is tighter than anything else wotc ever made other than 4e, not even SWSE*.

Point being, 5e doesn’t incentivize powergaming all that much, and the default is no more optimization than in any other edition.

Only if there was no challenge, because improvement didnt matter. AKA: DC checks at 5.

I honestly cannot fathom how a person in the year of our lord 2023, would think that 'people would not feel they need high stats'.

Gamers optimize. Especially younger ones.

Many do, sure. Many do not. Wotc has said before that their data tells them that most players don’t. Which matches everything else in th world. The casuals don’t optimize, and there are more casuals than mega-fans.

 

[Tony Vargas]

....I want to say 5e is not such a game, but as I try to express why it isn't (well, it doesn't present a lot of choices?) I'm not so sure....

5e isn’t as well balanced, but it’s power scale is tighter than anything else wotc ever made other than 4e

I mean, the dice modifiers are tightly restricted by BA, that's the only tight bit. Hit points/damage kinda bloat.
Mage Hand to Wish is still quite a lot of power scaling.

So, no, that didn't help.

Again, I want to say it's just less material than other editions, and, while that does make it less appealing to optimizers, that doesn't quite cover it either.

Things that might look like "oh, hey, that's for the powergamers," like SS/CBE, are like, yeah, but you're optimizing the low end towards the middle.

But no, I can't quite defend it logically, but my feeling is definitely that 5e didn't intentionally build in rewards for system mastery like Ivory Tower Roleplaying implied 3e did...

 

[Vaalingrade]

I remember when 'powergaming' was doing infinity +1 damage, doing a handstand and throwing the planet, getting unlimited stats, and making a thousand attacks on Orcus.

Now it's 'having one high stat in the one that gives them basic competence in the thing your characters does'.

What a world.