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

[DEFCON 1]

5e is ordering pepperoni pizza pies and cheese pizza pies for the party.

Those 2 may not be everyone's favorite but most people would love to have a slice of one or the other or both.

5.5e replacing 2 pies with veggie.

Heh... overstatement.

 

[DEFCON 1]

I was in that circle for over 30 years before it finally moved beyond me. That's most of my life, and TTRPGs have always been my most time-intensive hobby. I feel justified in being irritated about it.

I mean, you do you... but I see that as nothing but a senseless waste of time, emotion and energy.

 

[Oofta]

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.”

Fortunately they've at least acknowledged it. Time will tell how well they do, in the meantime there are plenty of options.

 

[DEFCON 1]

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

I'm not sure I'm total grokking your point, but that's on me. Just to try and clear it up... in your second sentence "games the designers [at wotc] want to play" is not a range covered by a circle it's an isolated point.", are you saying that the 5E game (whether it be 5E14 or 5E24) only gives a single focused point of itself, and doesn't cover a wider range of D&D for people? If that's the case, then yeah I can see where you are coming from, because the rules are written as just one set game. The game is the game and is only the game, so it's one thing and one thing only. I can see the metaphor in that.

But the circle to my mind would be the range of players who are fine using that one point of game-- either as-is, or taking it and making something else out of it that they are happy with. You might have 3-6 players all fine with blowing out that singular point of the D&D rules to encompass enough versions of D&D that each of them are content. Basically, all of them compromising away from their ideal D&D game so that they can play together.

Now if this was not your point and I'm still not getting it (quite possible)... feel free to clear it up for me if you'd care to.

 

[Charlaquin]

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

I mean, pick your poison on what the cause of the game being “too easy for the characters.” My actual point is, I agree with the sentiment that the books could do a better job at advising DMs on how to build and run high-lethality encounters. I disagree with the sentiment that the game being easier for the players makes it harder for the DM. It’s not a zero-sum game.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I was not comparing it to status effects. The reason WotC changed this is still the wait time, not the complexity

No. But the thread was about that, right?
WotC makes many status effects so DMs have it harder and need digital help or so. Or whatever. Hard to follow these threads nowadays.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I mean, pick your poison on what the cause of the game being “too easy for the characters.” My actual point is, I agree with the sentiment that the books could do a better job at advising DMs on how to build and run high-lethality encounters. I disagree with the sentiment that the game being easier for the players makes it harder for the DM. It’s not a zero-sum game.

And maybe we are lucky, and the new DM has good advice.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I mean, pick your poison on what the cause of the game being “too easy for the characters.” My actual point is, I agree with the sentiment that the books could do a better job at advising DMs on how to build and run high-lethality encounters. I disagree with the sentiment that the game being easier for the players makes it harder for the DM. It’s not a zero-sum game.

I edited the original post, but the DM stuff I was referring to is an increase in bookkeeping (due to all the new powers and status effects they cause etc) for the DM that even WotC gleefully acknowledges.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

I edited the original post, but the DM stuff I was referring to is an increase in bookkeeping (due to all the new powers and status effects they cause etc) for the DM that even WotC gleefully acknowledges.

Only if you have martials that don't use spells. Otherwise status effects have always been there.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Only if you have martials that don't use spells. Otherwise status effects have always been there.

Like I said even WotC mentions the increase. Plus as Sly points out a higher level fighter can get 8 attacks around and knocking enemies prone. Add in all the other stuff like new special Rogue abilties and new Warlock abilties etc. It's just MORE.