D&D (2024) You're not planning on getting 2024 D&D? Why is that?

[payn]

You may think that but I also know you don't speak for me.


And this feels more like you are talking past what I said so that you can give 5e a congratulatory pat on the back for winning in some imaginary contest while trying to lecture me. Knock that crap off, payn. This is not about who wins or indie games vs. D&D, and I don't know why so many 5e fans try to turn this sort of thing into some sort of competition. I was writing nothing of the sort.

I don't discount that 5e is an overwhelming success. We can talk about why 5e was a success. We can talk about why 5e works for so many people. We can talk about what it does right and well. We can talk about why 5e is the greatest TTRPG that we should bow down to worship and adore. However, that is not what this thread is about.

I am here to give my personal reasons why I don't plan on getting D&D 2024 and why it personally doesn't work for me. I don't fault others for getting D&D 2024, and I have been quite intentional in framing my language here in terms of what I how personally think and feel so as to not speak for others.

I didn't say that I am looking for D&D to be an "independent radical progressive RPG." I said that I prefer when games have strong, independent opinions about how they should be played, and I feel that 5e D&D is an edition "that is terrified of having an opinion about anything, including how it should be played." @EzekielRaiden may have been the first to make this observation. If not, at the very least, he put a finger on the sentiment that I had been feeling.

To be clear, part of the reason why I was using this language has to do with language that I was using earlier when I said that 5e and I had grown apart. I was using the language of a friendship or relationship in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. People can grow apart as friends and romantic companions. Likewise, just as I value strong, independent people who have opinions of their own in my friendships and romantic partners, I have come to value games where the authorial voice comes through and the author has an opinion about how the game should be played. That is my own personal preference, because I personally have an easier time with learning and playing those games.

I think that games can be new player friendly while still having a strong independent opinions on how they should be played. Likewise, I think that games can be new player friendly and casual games without being milquetoast. These are not the sort mutually exclusive ideas that you are framing them to be here.

B/X D&D has a voice about how it should be played. Likewise, Fabula Ultima is a game with a strong authorial voice. It also did a much better job of onboarding and convincing my TTRPG newbie partner that TTRPGs can be fun, as they were reluctant to give TTRPGs another shot after they bounced hard off of "new player friendly" 5e D&D. My partner told me that they appreciated how Fabula Ultima provides clear guidance and instruction. Some of the helpful passages they mentioned were the ones where Emanuela's authorial voice came shining through the text.

D&D 5e has a DM shortage problem, and I personally think that part of the problem entails the fact that the game feels afraid to have an opinion about how to run the game.

Apologies, I was using your opinions to pontificate on a general perspective I have.

 

[mamba]

I think the days of D&D being an independent radical progressive RPG are over. It is now the game of casual and beginning players.

the what now? Not aware that it ever was that… apart from a few short years in the mid-70s

 

[mamba]

Yeah, it's hard to parse how much of the current 5e playerbase isn't going to jump on board 5.5e since on EnWorld people who aren't currently playing 5e in the first place are over-represented compared to the overall hobby.

unless you think those distort the polls / number of posts this should not matter, since you are interested in the opinion of 5e players only anyway

 

[grimmgoose]

I'm not buying it because I'm the GM, and WOTC has done zero (0) marketing towards me. Out of all the systems I'm familiar with, 5E is by far the most onerous to run. So why would I buy into a system that seemingly doesn't care about me?

The only thing we saw in the playtest was the Bastion system, and if that was the best WOTC has on the DM side, I'm confident that the new DMG will be a nothing-burger. Just full of "advice".

 

[Meech17]

It's probably for the best that I don't have tons of disposable income, because I probably would have already pre-ordered books that would just collect dust.

Back when they first started throwing around idea for a new version I was pretty excited. Once it became clear that it wasn't going to actually be a new edition, and instead more a revision I pretty much lost all interest.. Once they started showing off art and the alternate covers I was once again super excited.

Now that the excitement and fervor has died down I'm back to feeling so-so on the new books. Realistically there's no reason for me to switch. My table is inhabited by mostly new players who are just now starting to grok the rules. Throwing them a curveball would be problematic at this point.

Once we finish this campaign, and look to start a new one, if I'm still DMing, I'll lobby for switching to a different game. Probably something Sci-Fi, or Cyberpunk-esque. If we end up sticking to medieval fantasy, I'll probably look to see where Draw Steel or DC20 is at. If neither of those convince me I'd probably spring for either Level Up or Tales of the Valiant. I've been supplementing my current 5e game with monster books from both and I love them so much. I haven't cracked the official Monster Manual since I bought them.

The crux of it is that I like 5e... I'm largely happy with 5e.. But I'm interested in seeing what else is out there.. And there's other stuff that's much more interesting than 5.5e

 

[Blue]

My Other: Classes are still wildly unbalanced against each other in a common 1-3 encounter long adventuring day in all tiers of play beyond the first.

Seriously, this has been my largest issue for years. The game isn't designed how most people run.

(I hope by this point that's obvious, but I saved something I've written before if you want details. Otherwise feel free to skip)

Spoiler

That 6-8 encounters per day is real, and frankly it's one of the biggest mis-calibrations by the design team. The classes are balanced if you have that number of encounters, but very few tables actually run that many encounters per day.

There are two very different aspects that need to be met by number of encounters per day.

One of them is challenge. And yes, you can have fewer, deadlier encounters and reach your goals for this. This isn't really debated, and it's the primary - or only - aspect that most DMs think about.

The other one is balance between the at-will classes like rogue or the EB-focused warlock vs. the long-rest recovery classes like full casters plus hybrids like the barbarian or the paladin.

If you took your average full caster and took away all slots, they would be less effective on average than at-will classes like the rogue. Simply, an At-will > cantrip. (This doesn't include EB boosted with invocations.)

On the other hand, if you gave casters unlimited of their highest level slots, they would do more than at-will characters. A fireball with multiple opponents, etc. Slots of the highest few levels > at-will.

No one debates that.

Putting them together, we get, in generic terms for the average character:

Slots of the highest few levels > at-will > cantrip

So in order to balance these, we need some number of spells cast using highest level slots plus some cantrips or low-impact spells (like 1st level offensive spells in T2+). Some above and some below will average out to the same as an at-will.

Let's examine that. If you run a few encounters and run the party's casters all the way out of spells - you are STILL not balancing the classes unless you also are forcing them to have a good number of rounds casting cantrips - it needs that "less than at-will effectiveness" to balance out.

An easy way to work this out is average effectiveness per action, over the course of the adventuring day.

Ah, so if you have fewer encounters, as long as the last as long as more encounters we're good, right?

Well, no. It's moving in the right direction, but durations are a thing. If an encounter is 3-4 rounds and you can a spell lasting 1 minute, you only get 3-4 rounds of effect from it at most. But if the combat lasts 9 rounds, then you are getting 2-3 times the effect from the same slot and the same action. It's more powerful. So you need to offset it with even MORE rounds of lower than at-will efficiency than if you were just doing more encounters.

A easy way to see this is the barbarian. Say you've got 3 rages per day. Assuming the encounters total to the same deadliness, is there any case where you are worse off if you can rage for every encounter instead of half of them? That's one of the things that decreasing the number of encounters does - allows duration effects to be even more powerful.

To sum up:
1. Can balance danger and challenge in fewer encounters by having tougher encounters.
2. Need to have more total rounds fighting in fewer encounters that all of the more encounters in order to maintain balance between classes.

And that second one does not often get met. Fewer encounters per day is usually fewer total rounds then if we did all of the encounters per day, and that definitely is mathematically biased in terms of the long-rest-recovery classes like casters as well as a big boost for hybrids like the barbarian and the paladin.

 

[Blue]

Oh, I forgot my second "Other".

Everyone I play with who cares about system is done with 5e as a base, so I wouldn't have anyone to play it with.

 

[SteveC]

Everyone I play with who cares about system is done with 5e as a base, so I wouldn't have anyone to play it with.

I think this is the really important part. None of my groups are really excited about it, so we would update after current campaigns are over at the earliest. And we've been trying out other games that people seem more excited about.

 

[Aldarc]

Oh, I forgot my second "Other".

Everyone I play with who cares about system is done with 5e as a base, so I wouldn't have anyone to play it with.

I think this is the really important part. None of my groups are really excited about it, so we would update after current campaigns are over at the earliest. And we've been trying out other games that people seem more excited about.

There are a number of D&D 5e content creators out there but some of even the more prominent ones don't seem like they actually play it anymore. Instead, it seems like they are covering 5e D&D for views, which is fair from a paycheck perspective, but it can feel like their heart isn't really in their 5e-oriented videos. It's like they are just going through the motions with their videos.

 

[Stoutstien]

It is ironic that they didn't go for a new edition whole cloth was to avoid splitting the money....i mean fan base but its not different to catch the 'new is better crowd' nor is it close enough for those who are generally happy with 5e.

They could have made a new edition and continue to crank out half hearted 5e stuff and made bank for years.