D&D General 5.5 and making the game easier for players and harder for DMs

[mamba]

It’s always as easy or hard to get to that point as the DM wants it to be. CR and XP budgets are suggestions, if you want to hit the PCs harder you can always use more and/or stronger enemies.

sure, but the problem is that there are no good guidelines for it, you are basically experimenting and maybe it works, maybe it doesn't (granted, by then you probably have enough experience that you mostly get the result you want). I'd rather have that in the rules than everyone having to figure out on their own

 

[overgeeked]

One of the positives though when playing with improvisors is that I've seen them tend to be more accepting of rules changes that someone makes, because the concept of 'Yes, And' is so ingrained in them. So if something's different than expected? They just can easily roll with it and follow along.

It's not limited to actual improvisers. Most old-school players have a similar "cool, let's play" attitude and just get on with playing the game.

Whereas gamers seem to want parameters established so they can tactically work out how best to operate and succeed within those barriers that are up.

Yeah. And that's the overwhelmingly vast majority of modern players in my experience.

 

[Minigiant]

But is it one of each, or two of one?

One of each.

Two cheese two pepperoni two veggie
Thin crust
Hand tossed

 

[mamba]

I can't think of a quicker way to lose players than to have them show and say "I've changed 50% of the game you came and expected to play."

it usually doesn't happen in one step, it's a gradual change that the group goes along with and anyone joining obviously has to be ok with as well

 

[tetrasodium]

Of course. The D&D designers are creating D&D games that they want to play. But they also individually have their own bits and pieces they prefer, and thus compromise within WotC comes about when designing rules as well. Not a single designer at WotC is getting the game they 100% want. That's why people like Monte Cook wrote and released his Arcana Unearthed book so soon after finishing the writing on 3E and leaving the company, and @mearls is right now writing up all kinds of 5E material that he wants to see. Not to mention that Chris Perkins has gone all-in when he was on the teams working on 3E, 4E and 5E, because that was his job. He might find any one of those three editions to be more his speed, but when it comes down to working on each of those editions, he joins the giant compromise team that tries to work together to create a D&D on the whole that will work fairly-to-pretty well for more people.

But it should not be a surprise that there are people who don't fall within that circle of what this compromise edition of Dungeons & Dragons. There's no way it would ever be able to encircle everyone. But what kills me is all the people who KNOW they don't fall within the circle, specifically STATE they don't fall within the circle... and yet REFUSE TO LEAVE the outskirts of the circle wishing hope-against-hope to get themselves back in. And then spend all this time bemoaning that they are outside the circle and sling barbs and insults at everyone inside who made the circle because their work did not include them. That's just sad.

Your post is at odds with itself. "games the designers [at wotc] want to play" is not a range covered by a circle it's an isolated point. We have multiple examples of PC abilities falling squarely into the category of the earlier cited & very narrow point of "things that make the game 'more fun' for one player take away the fun from everyone else" except all of them seem to be zeroed in on the same point with total disregard for both the workload they cause for the GM as well as the unfun results for every other player at the table.

That would be fine if wotc were making a computer game where you have one player & a computer or multiple players and a computer that can juggle all of them playing simultaneously in parallel. It might even be ok if they were making a game where the book cover had one of these logos

Rather than a game like d&d where 3-5 players is generally considered ideal.

 

[mamba]

TBH, I've already noted an increase in monster lethality. I mainly run pre-published adventures, and ran Light of Xaryxis twice, noticing there are some new monsters with the capability for 1-hit KOs and just a lot of the newer monsters were punching way better than their CR equivalents in the MM, so I'm reasonably confident the new MM will see more ways to challenge a party.

well, I hope this is true for the 2024 MM then

 

[Charlaquin]

sure, but the problem is that there are no good guidelines for it, you are basically experimenting and maybe it works, maybe it doesn't (granted, by then you probably have enough experience that you mostly get the result you want). I'd rather have that in the rules than everyone having to figure out on their own

Ok, so now we’re at “the advice for running deadly and higher difficulty encounters is severely lacking,” which is a critique I agree much more with than “bonus action potions make the DM’s job harder to do because PCs are too hard to kill.”

 

[mamba]

Ok, so now we’re at “the advice for running deadly and higher difficulty encounters is severely lacking,” which is a critique I agree much more with than “bonus action potions make the DM’s job harder to do because PCs are too hard to kill.”

many pages back I said I have no issue with the bonus action potions, to me it never was about that. I do not even think this is the main topic for anyone here, it's the aggregate of all the changes that make it easier for the characters

 

[CapnZapp]

I’m trying to, but I’m constantly told there is no challenge without PC death.

Are you really? Trying, that is.

Look, if you don't want to see the difference between the risk of PC death and actual PC death, just say so and this discussion is over.

The complaints about D&D isn't "my player characters aren't dying".
The complaints about D&D is "I need to work unreasonably hard to create even the threat of death".

In OSR, you never feel untouchable in the way D&D can make you feel. Maybe try it before you dismiss it, hmm?

 

[bloodtide]

First time I had 2 5E players try OSR their comments where basically “it feels like what I do matters”.

I get this a lot too. Even in my heavily houseruled 5E game. Players often express an amazing awe that they can do something in a round and have it matter.

Play other versions of D&D. Old Eds and OSR stuff. It’s still D&D just not with the current Ed label.

I get the feeling we are right at another point in history. I think Hasbro and WotC have just made too many mistakes and gone too far. In the last year or so I have had many players finally ready to give up on D&D, and ask me "hey what about those other games you mentioned".

Yes, it’s the referee’s job to make things challenging. That’s what I’m saying. Trouble is, that tends to result in the players getting mad, yelling, and ragequitting. Because they don’t want challenge, they want to steamroll win everything all the time.

I find this true with about half of all players. The half that just want a simple, easy, steamroll combat fun fest where they win. They don't often say that so plainly, but it is what they want. After all it is easy to see that as soon as they get the slightest bump, hardship or problem and they 'suddenly' don't feel like playing anymore.

You see this type of person in most games. They are having fun on top of the world...as long as they are winning. As soon as they get a point or two behind, they suddenly are not having fun and don't want to play the game anymore.