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

[Quickleaf]

First off, I disdain the idea of infantizing people as having zero impulse control. Lots of people every day understand the concept of restraint and control. When I buy a tub of ice cream I don't eat the whole thing in one frenzy of chocolate fudgy goodness. I know how to portion control. I don't need a wise leader telling me "That's enough" and only hand me a single scoop. Lots of people know how to budget their paycheck, drive the speed limit, and bite their tongue in public. Adults do it all the time. Yes, some people DO have problems with self-restraint, control or addiction. These are considered disorders to be treated professionally. But the vast majority of people can, when addressed in a rational manner, understand the reasons for limitation and restraint.

As an experiment, I once ran a one-shot game years ago in 3.5 where the ability score generation method was "give yourself what you think your character would have; I trust you." No dice, no points. Pure honor system. Did anyone give themselves all 18's? They could have, but no one did. They opted for a high score in their primary, a decently high in a secondary, and a smattering of medium or so in everything else. Later, I looked at the ability scores players gave themselves and reverse engineered Point Buy cost. The average was 38 points, slightly higher than normal point buy. Nobody took advantage of the 'I win" button. Everyone created characters you could have rolled if your dice were great but not exceptional.

Why? By your hypothesis, the players should have given themselves all maxed scores barring a strong rule to create limited (PB) or randomized (dice) scores. Did they yield to some sort of unwritten social pressure? (Not wanting to appear too greedy or munchkin)? Did they do that because they felt bad about "cheating" and opted to tone down their choices? Or maybe, they felt they wanted to be good at their primary function but have some weakness or areas not well defined. Maybe they felt their character should not be super smart, strong, or charismatic.

Then again, it was a sample size of six players I already knew and played with. Maybe 100 players would have yielded far higher ability scores, even the proverbial all 18s.

So I don't accept your hypothesis that players if given a chance will act like toddlers only interested in their own pleasure. Most players and not pure id. Some people will, but some people will cheat at dice rolls, lie to the DM, and engage all manner of bad sportmanship. That's just life.

Thank you for listening. I do want to point out 2 things in the tenor of our conversation:

First, though you're saying I'm disdainful, I've hopefully clarified my perspective and reiterated that I neither view players nor your position with disdain. Yet, you've gone on to emphasize that you view my position with disdain.

Second, you led with an ad hominem attack "I'd leave your table as a matter of principle." You'll notice that at no point have I resorted to saying anything of that kind toward you.

I think it's great you did that experiment with your group. That's something I've offered to do for players and they weren't interested. I think you have a terrific N of 1.

It's fine for us to disagree, but I think it's much more important for the health of our community here on ENWorld that we can do so civilly and sportsmanlike.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Do you think those things are still going to be assumed optional in 5.5? If not, they need to seriously up their adventure game.

The same solutions will work whether or not WoTC "ups their adventure game".

 

[Charlaquin]

If one of the referee's goals is to challenge the PCs in any meaningful way, then yes, making things easier for the PCs (by giving them heaps of powers) makes it harder for the referee (to challenge the PCs). In that sense, it very much is a zero-sum game. If the referee doesn't care about challenge, then giving the PCs more and more power is irrelevant.

Except it’s easy to challenge stronger PCs. Just use stronger and/or more monsters. Or use different sorts of challenges. Or both.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Not everyone plays with all the optional rules, not everyone plays with optimizers, and not everyone plays enough 5e to see every possible combination. I've never seen an eladrin nor a wildfire druid at the table. Probably the most common experience is people picking up 1 book--the PHB--and playing with those rules, so the level of complexity in the base game matters.

But there-in lies my point. The claim is that WoTC is making things harder for "Dungeon Masters" writ large. But for those of us who have been using the full rule set of the game... there isn't any NEW complexity. It is just a little more common. Now instead of an Eladrin Wildfire Druid, it can be an dwarf Feylock. There is no practical difference in both of them having multiple "teleportation with save" abilities. It now can just be a different class/race combo doing the same thing.

And, while sure, this is new for you who has never run something not in the PHB... do you think all of those Dungeon Masters who had those additional materials have just been suffering in agonizing silence at the true horrors of the complexity of what they have been dealing with? Or do you think that we have pretty found it to not be a big deal to deal with?

Well correct, because my response to the increase in complexity in 5e over the years has been to stop running 5e. I (begrudgingly) play in 5e games because other people in my group like it, but if I run something it's going to be something more rules lite. In other words, wotc made the game hard enough for a subset of DMs that some people simply refuse to run it anymore. I'll buy that some people of course like the increase in complexity, but its inarguable that it is and increase in complexity and that does turn some people off the game entirely.

So, wait... you are complaining about an increase to DM work load, but you don't even DM? I mean, sure, have fun running other games, I run other games sometimes too. But it seems really weird to speak out against the theoritcal increased workload for DnD 5e DMs when you aren't one of them and haven't been for years.

As a counter-point to your preference as someone who doesn't run 5e and only plays it begrudgingly, I've been running and playing in 5e continuously since it was released, and I'm ecstatic about these rules both as a player and as a DM. I think many of them are good for the health of the game as a whole.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Minus that it’s less complex than the last several D&D editions with that stuff.

Yeah, I will say, I've been running 5e continously for ten years now. But I needed assistance to make a character for Pathfinder 1e, and I am not confident in my ability to run 3.5 in anything close to a coherent manner.

Which makes it really odd that all these people who I assume were able to play and run 3.5 are suddenly calling this version of DnD too complex to run easily.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Say I'm the player. And you're the game designer. To design a game that hits that sweet spot, you cannot consistently encourage my perfectly natural toddler-like "Reward Now" button. In the short term? Oh man, I'm loooooving you. But in the long term? It's ultimately going to backfire.

OK, I've explained my bit. Judge me as you will.

Why do you think the designers have done this? Because Weapon Mastery allows martials to give status effects just like cantrips did for spellcasters? Because incredibly common houserules like bonus action potions and 1st level feats were made core rules?

Despite your assertions that the game is going to be so easy that no player will ever be challenged again... I have yet to find a single player I have run a game for, even a playtest game, where they felt that they were not challenged. No one I'm aware of reported on their playtesting and concluded "the game was far too easy and all the players were bored". In fact, the only people I've ever seen complain about how easy the game is... are the same people who have been making the same complaints since the game came out a decade ago. THe people who complain the game is so easy that they never bothered to buy it, play it, and are still using their modified 2e rules.

You know who else has never claimed the game is too easy? Any DnD youtube creator I have ever seen make content. Oh, plenty of them have complaints about the system, some even started making their own versions, but not a single one of them ever claimed that any of these rules made things too easy and that players would get bored with how easy everything is.

So, yeah... I don't believe your claim, and I don't believe the designers have simply abandoned all conception of challenge like you seem to think.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Okay, so while we're accusing those evil, shifty players fo 'not wanting a challenge' and 'wanting to steamroll everything', allow me to play college professor and make a request:

Define Your Terms

What are we saying when we say 'challenge' because there's actual challenge where there is a skill involved that is learned as part of play, and there is 'artificial difficulty' and 'risk mechanics'. They are not the same thing.

As much as I absolutely hate Dark Souls and what it has done to the adventure game genre, it is a game with challenge. You have to master timing and positioning and read opponents' patterns. You WILL die as punishment until you learn, then there will be something new to kill you until you stop dying.

HOWEVER.

Dark Souls also doesn't irrevocably destroy your character and make them start over at level 1 as part of this learning process. It assumes you learned up to this point and lets you proceed with the relevant lesson.

Let's look at arguably the most famous game at the moment: Minecraft. Minecraft has both a challenge option and a risk mechanics option. As a challenge, you can choose Hard Mode where enemies have more HP, deal more damage and will knock down basic doors. Things are harder, but again, you don't get busted down to zero as punishment. You just have to do a corpse run and continue.

None of these sound like 'challenging' D&D as were being presented at the moment does it? Well...

Then Minecraft has Hardcore mode and it is not about being challenging, it is about imposing a risk to make it more thrilling to people who like risk. Nothing actually changes in hardcore mode. You can even play it in peaceful mode, IIRC.

HOWEVER

If you die in hardcore, you lose everything. Potentially years of progress down the drain with no reward but bragging rights that you were super brave to play a game that punishes you for failure.

Sound familiar?

What about if I add that Minecraft also has inifnite dragons to unfairness you to dearth with. For example, the Creeper. This mob is utterly silent until 2-3 seconds before it explodes next to you, capable of killing characters if they aren't fully armored.

Oh, and that warning can come as they leap 30 meters down onto your head while you're minding your business. There is an element of 'play with care, manage your hearts', but you can die through no fault of your own with utterly no control.

And that's fine for the people who like to play that way. Hell, Youtubers make bank on the implicit risk of 'I played 100 days in an increasingly deadly and or frustratingly hard world' type videos because the implication is one of losing a week's or two's worth of work if they fail.

However it's not for everyone. People like 100 days Hardcore, but people also like the chill shenanigans of Hermitcraft, of the social and PVP aspects of 100 players in a setting content as well. The game is designed to slide up and down the scales of difficulty and risk without the community devolving into insulting people who don't like the high risk settings.

But back to the topic: the gripes compiled here have nothing to do will challenge.

Taking healing back to 5.0e for example doesn't make the game more difficult; it just brings back the problem of healing not being worth using unless an ally is downed. This isn't adding challenge, this is removing tactical depth and options.

But of course there's the other 'solutions' to 'pop-up healing'; mostly punishments and death spirals. Which again isn't challenge if you're just setting characters up to die more often due to no fault of their own.

Same goes for potions being bonus actions. Take that away and there's no boost in challenge. Potions go back to pre-buffs and raising downed allies. Less tactics, less actual challenge.

 

[Malmuria]

As a counter-point to your preference as someone who doesn't run 5e and only plays it begrudgingly, I've been running and playing in 5e continuously since it was released, and I'm ecstatic about these rules both as a player and as a DM. I think many of them are good for the health of the game as a whole.

My point is the reason I don't DM 5e anymore is because it has become too bloated and slow for my style of running the game. You like the increased complexity for your playstyle, so it makes sense that you are excited for the new edition, but the game is certainly driving off those of us who prefer a more rules lite approach. In other words, if I was going to DM a 5e game, I would stick to the 2014 core rules only, and not buy the new edition, because comparing the two, the 2024 version seems like it would be harder to DM.

 

[Chaosmancer]

My point is the reason I don't DM 5e anymore is because it has become too bloated and slow for my style of running the game. You like the increased complexity for your playstyle, so it makes sense that you are excited for the new edition, but the game is certainly driving off those of us who prefer a more rules lite approach. In other words, if I was going to DM a 5e game, I would stick to the 2014 core rules only, and not buy the new edition, because comparing the two, the 2024 version seems like it would be harder to DM.

Okay, so do that. That does not in any way convince me that the game is being made harder for DMs or that I should stop being excited about the mechanics being introduced because someone who stopped running 5e games four years ago doesn't like the new mechanics, which are mostly old mechanics.

I mean, seriously, you want to convince me that the 2024 rules make it harder to DM, because it is including the rules from Tasha's that many of us who are currently DMing use, and that we should be upset, because people who stopped running the game due to Tasha's won't want to run the game. And the big boogieman mechanic that is going to drive us all to being overburdened... is martials having access to cantrip level effects. Oh, and people misunderstanding the reveals of how Feylocks will work.

I don't know how you are running the game that makes 5e, a system with very few resolution mechanics, too bloated and slow for you, but it seems to not be a big deal since you jumped ship four years ago, and DnD 5e is still going strong.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

First off, I disdain the idea of infantizing people as having zero impulse control. Lots of people every day understand the concept of restraint and control. When I buy a tub of ice cream I don't eat the whole thing in one frenzy of chocolate fudgy goodness. I know how to portion control. I don't need a wise leader telling me "That's enough" and only hand me a single scoop. Lots of people know how to budget their paycheck, drive the speed limit, and bite their tongue in public. Adults do it all the time. Yes, some people DO have problems with self-restraint, control or addiction. These are considered disorders to be treated professionally. But the vast majority of people can, when addressed in a rational manner, understand the reasons for limitation and restraint.

And then you look at western population and notice that a big percentage is overweight. So much about impulse control.

And in some countries a tax on sugar is introduced and oh wonder, overweight percentage is immediately reduced.