D&D 5E Advanced D&D or "what to minimally fix in 5E?"

[W'rkncacnter]

I'm a huge 5E fan and write professionally for 5E in many different ways. Miss me with all that "Oh why am I so prosecuted for my choices?" No one is prosecuting you.

Using popularity as a measurement of quality is ignoring the other factors that influence popularity. For sure, if 5E was a bad game, it wouldn't be as popular as it is. That does not mean it wouldn't be popular, and it cannot recursively to say that it is popular. Instead, you have to do your best as a human being to go over the rules and the game and come up with your own opinions based off actual logical processes.

You are clearly very intelligent. I do not mean this sarcastically. You, I'm sure, can come up with better reasons for something being good as opposed to "It's popular." In America, anti-LGBT opinions were POPULAR for a long time. Doesn't mean they were good. Likewise, thac0 was popular for a long time. Not good either. No matter how you cut it, there are countless PRODUCTS and GAMES out there that are POPULAR, and that popularity can never be used as a defining metric of quality.

It indeed is tiring having to argue with people that because 5E is popular doesn't mean it's the best thing of all time. I love 5E, but I sure don't like how people online have to get so dramatic over other people not liking 5E.

tl;dr: the bandwagon fallacy is a FALLACY for a reason

 

[DinoInDisguise]

I'm a huge 5E fan and write professionally for 5E in many different ways. Miss me with all that "Oh why am I so prosecuted for my choices?" No one is prosecuting you.

Using popularity as a measurement of quality is ignoring the other factors that influence popularity. For sure, if 5E was a bad game, it wouldn't be as popular as it is. That does not mean it wouldn't be popular, and it cannot recursively to say that it is popular. Instead, you have to do your best as a human being to go over the rules and the game and come up with your own opinions based off actual logical processes.

You are clearly very intelligent. I do not mean this sarcastically. You, I'm sure, can come up with better reasons for something being good as opposed to "It's popular." In America, anti-LGBT opinions were POPULAR for a long time. Doesn't mean they were good. Likewise, thac0 was popular for a long time. Not good either. No matter how you cut it, there are countless PRODUCTS and GAMES out there that are POPULAR, and that popularity can never be used as a defining metric of quality.

It indeed is tiring having to argue with people that because 5E is popular doesn't mean it's the best thing of all time. I love 5E, but I sure don't like how people online have to get so dramatic over other people not liking 5E.

For full disclosure I've played 6 different system, 5e being one of them, in the last 12 months. I think the hobby has a lot to offer a lot of people. OSR variants like Mork, and Shadowdark are great. Dolmenwood looks amazing as well. Pathfinder 2e has so many options, and has a super elegant design with incredibly balanced math. Call of Cthulhu is a ton of fun and super stressful. 13th age has really a neat take on combat.

My issue is only the lengths people go to bash on a system. 5e is continually prosecuted for being "bad." Such as statements like "5e is only popular because it's players don't try other systems." Statements that are constructed and contrary to the evidence we see.

This happens a lot. And it happens while people propose sweeping changes to the system. It happens while, in this very thread, people get called out for not wanting to change the system.

My issue is not me feeling prosecuted for my choice. I play such a breadth of systems with a bunch of great people. My issue is the logical leaps people will go through to explain 5e's popularity because it "cant be because the system is good."

Occam's razor is an idea that, if you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one. I propose that 5e being good is a far easier explaination than the ignorance of it's player base.

 

[Corinnguard]

"5e is only popular because it's players don't try other systems."

I like to think it is just the opposite for me. Being invited by a friend to play 5e with him and his friends is what led me to back Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition. There probably are quite a number of 5e players who have gone out to check out other systems because of 5e's popularity. 5e is a gateway RPG to 5e adjacent RPGs.

 

[Shardstone]

For full disclosure I've played 6 different system, 5e being one of them, in the last 12 months. I think the hobby has a lot to offer a lot of people. OSR variants like Mork, and Shadowdark are great. Dolmenwood looks amazing as well. Pathfinder 2e has so many options, and has a super elegant design with incredibly balanced math. Call of Cthulhu is a ton of fun and super stressful. 13th age has really a neat take on combat.

My issue is only the lengths people go to bash on a system. 5e is continually prosecuted for being "bad." Such as statements like "5e is only popular because it's players don't try other systems." Statements that are constructed and contrary to the evidence we see.

This happens a lot. And it happens while people propose sweeping changes to the system. It happens while, in this very thread, people get called out for not wanting to change the system.

My issue is not me feeling prosecuted for my choice. I play such a breadth of systems with a bunch of great people. My issue is the logical leaps people will go through to explain 5e's popularity because it "cant be because the system is good."

Occam's razor is an idea that, if you have two competing ideas to explain the same phenomenon, you should prefer the simpler one. I propose that 5e being good is a far easier explaination than the ignorance of it's player base.

An even better explanation is that the game is popular because of the huge amount of advertisement money it has access to as compared to its competition. The scale that these games operate on is not the same, and this is reflected in the publishers themselves. No one has even close to Hasbro money, and with MtG buoying WotC until our modern era, D&D has always been able to get commercials, placement in stores across the country (specifically big stores like Target), product placement in movies and TV shows, and so on. The amount of advertising is insane.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Only if you are dealing with brand loyalty.

Fair. Not an issue for me and mine.

 

[Micah Sweet]

When you say "no validity" and "possible" that is misleading I think.

Those are not the terms I would use. I would reframe this and what I would say is I believe 5E is as popular as it is because fans in general like the rules and prefer the rules to other systems.

In that respect it is "possible" that this is not true and most/many fans have just never played other systems and might prefer them. But I do not think that is the case and I do not think 5E is popular only or primarily because fans have not used other systems.

You can't have a preference unless you have something to compare that preference to. There are a huge number of new players who have only played 5e. That doesn't mean 5e is bad, but it does mean 5e can't really be their preference, because one point of data isn't conclusive.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

An even better explanation is that the game is popular because of the huge amount of advertisement money it has access to as compared to its competition. The scale that these games operate on is not the same, and this is reflected in the publishers themselves. No one has even close to Hasbro money, and with MtG buoying WotC until our modern era, D&D has always been able to get commercials, placement in stores across the country (specifically big stores like Target), product placement in movies and TV shows, and so on. The amount of advertising is insane.

The issue here is that 5e also retains players. Which means advertising isn't the sole cause of the popularity. There has to be something else. This retention is really hard to explain if 5e is a bad game.

This is my issue. There's 1000 reasons to excuse why it's popular. You can just look at the feedback to my argument for some examples. It amounts to "You mean you don't think it's ignorance?" Or let's blame the bandwagon fallacy. or brand loyalty. Or any other of a slew of ideas throughout the forums here. The only one it can't be is that the game is good.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in the wrong class. I have my qualms with 5e, as I do with every system, but I have fun with it. And everyone I've played with has as well. But then again, maybe I'm in the minority in that I like the systems I play.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

It is the nature of internet discussions to highlight differences and to magnify small differences.
If one makes a post that someone agrees with, it may garner a like but rarely a comment. However, anyone with the slightest nit to pick will post to voice their opinion.

This is true, even if all the commentators actually like the thing discussed.

 

[Corinnguard]

An even better explanation is that the game is popular because of the huge amount of advertisement money it has access to as compared to its competition. The scale that these games operate on is not the same, and this is reflected in the publishers themselves. No one has even close to Hasbro money, and with MtG buoying WotC until our modern era, D&D has always been able to get commercials, placement in stores across the country (specifically big stores like Target), product placement in movies and TV shows, and so on. The amount of advertising is insane.

As a result, a lot of the smaller RPG companies have had to use word-of-mouth and crowdfunding in order to promote their products.

 

[Shardstone]

The issue here is that 5e also retains players. Which means advertising isn't the sole cause of the popularity. There has to be something else. This retention is really hard to explain if 5e is a bad game.

This is my issue. There's 1000 reasons to excuse why it's popular. You can just look at the feedback to my argument for some examples. It amounts to "You mean you don't think it's ignorance?" Or let's blame the bandwagon fallacy. or brand loyalty. Or any other of a slew of ideas throughout the forums here. The only one it can't be is that the game is good.

Sometimes I feel like I'm in the wrong class. I have my qualms with 5e, as I do with every system, but I have fun with it. And everyone I've played with has as well. But then again, maybe I'm in the minority in that I like the systems I play.

It is so obvioisly true that it takes more to be popular than to be good. It is weird now you insist on oversimplifying it.