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

[Oofta]

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.

In our very first 5E game, we look at point buy and decided the ability scores didn't give enough power for the type of game the DM wanted. So we decided to use the old point buy from 3.5 with the heroic 32 point buy where you can have up to an 18 before racial mods at level 1. So I built a PC with nothing below a 10.

After the campaign was over we agreed to never do that again. The PCs felt too much like Mary/Marty Stus with no flaws to play off of. It's a myth with no backing that the majority of people just want overpowered PCs. Those people certainly exist, but it's a small percentage of the general population and I suspect even for many of those it would quickly get boring.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

And if the game reduced complexity for your playstyle, it would drive off those of us who prefer a crunchier rules approach.

Oh, but remember, their playstyle is somehow magically still compatible with yours, so only providing support for their style actually means giving support to both!

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

No. The only group I've seen any correlation with it is those who want to engage in play acting and have been sold a pack of lies∆ with stormwind fallacies leaving them believing that it will elevate their play acting as something beyond reproach. JC was clear "tell your story" and they intend to do so thanks to the ghostwriter behind the gm screen.and supporting case of sidekicks at the table

I see. Do you have any ideas why your experience with your players is so different from most of the rest of us? Are there any common factors in the games where you had players who acted like that that might explain why they're acting so unusually?
Were they taken aside and asked to tone down their antisocial behaviour? What was the response?

Unfortunately wotc seems to have designed 5e exclusively for the needs of that group and the result is the severing of natural selection through pc death that would save the other players from needing to be victims of the social contract left unwillingly supporting or accepting bad npc they would never associate or go adventuring long with. That remains the case until someone dons the mantle of bad guy and channels comic book guy to force natural selection/evolution of the PC or boots the hoodwinked player.

Unless the player is kicked from the game when their character dies, a problem player is going to be a problem player no matter what character they are playing. That has been the case across all editions.
DM becoming antagonistic towards that player's character isn't going to solve anything, since the issue is rooted in the player's behaviour, not the game.

The bit about the players being forced into "unwillingly supporting or accepting bad npc they would never associate or go adventuring long with." seems odd though? Are you talking DMPCs?

∆that one is a particularly good example because two years later the same person put out a mea culpa videos refuting it

That isn't what I got out of them. - The first video seems to be telling people that they are not required to optimise to enjoy D&D, and should not feel forced into doing so by optimisers.
The second was talking about how the first may have come across as unnecessarily antagonistic towards optimisers, because most of them are not going to spoil a game or push another player into changing their character. Optimising when not done to excess is fine and perfectly valid.

 

[DEFCON 1]

No. The only group I've seen any correlation with it is those who want to engage in play acting and have been sold a pack of lies∆ with stormwind fallacies leaving them believing that it will elevate their play acting as something beyond reproach. JC was clear "tell your story" and they intend to do so thanks to the ghostwriter behind the gm screen.and supporting case of sidekicks at the table

Unfortunately wotc seems to have designed 5e exclusively for the needs of that group and the result is the severing of natural selection through pc death that would save the other players from needing to be victims of the social contract left unwillingly supporting or accepting bad npc they would never associate or go adventuring long with. That remains the case until someone dons the mantle of bad guy and channels comic book guy to force natural selection/evolution of the PC or boots the hoodwinked player.

∆that one is a particularly good example because two years later the same person put out a mea culpa videos refuting it

I for one welcome our new play acting overlords, and wish to subscribe to their newsletter.

Better that than treating D&D as nothing more than the fairly poor board game that the combat mechanics tend to be, LOL!

 

[Umbran]

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

Mod Note:
As I recall, this thread is about gaming, not about weight.

I would recommend you get back on topic now.

 

[CapnZapp]

In our very first 5E game, we look at point buy and decided the ability scores didn't give enough power for the type of game the DM wanted. So we decided to use the old point buy from 3.5 with the heroic 32 point buy where you can have up to an 18 before racial mods at level 1. So I built a PC with nothing below a 10.

After the campaign was over we agreed to never do that again. The PCs felt too much like Mary/Marty Stus with no flaws to play off of. It's a myth with no backing that the majority of people just want overpowered PCs. Those people certainly exist, but it's a small percentage of the general population and I suspect even for many of those it would quickly get boring.

5th edition definitely doesn't work well with scores above point buy. So your experiences are spot on.

My friend was in another game, and when a Barbarian rolled excellent scores he later asked the DM to voluntarily reduce his scores. A Barbarian with 16s and 18s in all three of Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity becomes quite literally too good. He felt he outshone his fellow party members to such a degree it reduced the game fun.

 

[Oofta]

5th edition definitely doesn't work well with scores above point buy. So your experiences are spot on.

My friend was in another game, and when a Barbarian rolled excellent scores he later asked the DM to voluntarily reduce his scores. A Barbarian with 16s and 18s in all three of Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity becomes quite literally too good. He felt he outshone his fellow party members to such a degree it reduced the game fun.

It's one of the reasons I always want to use point buy. I don't want super high scores, I think in some ways that would be less enjoyable for me than below average scores.

 

[Remathilis]

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.

Because the government controlling what people can or should do is never abused or harmful.

Not moving this into the realm of politics, but let's just say you can't legislate morality, ethics, or restraint.

And dropped per mod note

 

[James Gasik]

5th edition definitely doesn't work well with scores above point buy. So your experiences are spot on.

My friend was in another game, and when a Barbarian rolled excellent scores he later asked the DM to voluntarily reduce his scores. A Barbarian with 16s and 18s in all three of Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity becomes quite literally too good. He felt he outshone his fellow party members to such a degree it reduced the game fun.

In my current game I let everyone roll for ability scores, and in the last game I played in, we were allowed to roll as well. I haven't seen any problem in either game- we still fail rolls and characters go down (one even died twice in the last game, while our Ranger in the last game spent as much time dying as acting, lol). An extra +1 here and there doesn't really seem to be making a large impact.

I don't know why our play experiences are so different, though I will admit, our last game (Scarlet Citadel by Kobold Press) has some pretty rough fights. As for my own game, I've avoided many deadly fights, but I almost lost a character to a medium encounter!

 

[tetrasodium]

I see. Do you have any ideas why your experience with your players is so different from most of the rest of us? Are there any common factors in the games where you had players who acted like that that might explain why they're acting so unusually?
Were they taken aside and asked to tone down their antisocial behaviour? What was the response?

Unless the player is kicked from the game when their character dies, a problem player is going to be a problem player no matter what character they are playing. That has been the case across all editions.
DM becoming antagonistic towards that player's character isn't going to solve anything, since the issue is rooted in the player's behaviour, not the game.

The bit about the players being forced into "unwillingly supporting or accepting bad npc they would never associate or go adventuring long with." seems odd though? Are you talking DMPCs?


That isn't what I got out of them. - The first video seems to be telling people that they are not required to optimise to enjoy D&D, and should not feel forced into doing so by optimisers.
The second was talking about how the first may have come across as unnecessarily antagonistic towards optimisers, because most of them are not going to spoil a game or push another player into changing their character. Optimising when not done to excess is fine and perfectly valid.

I wouldn't say that " @Cap'n Kobold " counts as "the rest of us". This particular point seems to be a matter of "it's a vanishingly small group of players getting massively outsized focus from wotc that impacts every other group" against "butbutbut it's bigger than you think... silent majority" and if I'm generous in including posters who could fall under "the rest of us" + @Cap'n Kobold I'm pretty sure it would barely add up to an even set of teams with the list you put together in 406.

As to the rest of your efforts to dig & pin blame on the GM or anyone but that vanishingly small slice of players who bought into stormwind elevated play acting I don't believe you've made a case for it as anything but that and do not find it reasonable for wotc to pin responsibility for the consequences of 5e's removal of risk as a driving factor in PC natural selection & evolution (PC death & adaptation).

So... I'll leave your claims here with your own words about it

Citation needed. You're going to need to provide some pretty extraordinary evidence to back up the claim there.