D&D General D&D 2024 does not deserve to succeed

[Doc_Klueless]

And your opinion is pretty naughty word so...

I can't figure out if you're insulting me or sarcastically agreeing with me. Either way... it's super funny.

 

[mamba]

The portion characterised by decline (I stopped playing D&D for a start).

because it did so great under TSR, wonder why they went under…

D&D was always characterized by decline, everything sold best in the first year, and then it went downhill fast. The only exceptions are 1e and 5e, and 5e has defied that trend much longer than 1e did and is the first edition to sell more over its lifetime than its predecessor…

The thing is, this is not zero sum. At least for some players, adding this stuff to the game actively makes it WORSE.

adding guidelines makes the game worse?

 

[mamba]

If so many people were bored there would be a drop off of sales, just like every other version of D&D as seen for decades.

sales are driven by new players, the PHB sold around 10x as many copies as the best selling adventure

 

[KYRON45]

Mathamagicians are the new subclass we deserve, but not the one we need right now.

Math is the enemy of fun...yet ironically the foundation of everything.

 

[Minigiant]

I never said the game can't use improvement. But things like weapon mastery look like they're going to have pretty minimal impact. Admittedly I've only played one session so far. D&D has almost always been (with the exception of 4E) a game that people tweak and adjust to suit their needs.

1) 4e was the easiest edition IMHO to tweak combat to how you liked.

2) Weapon masteries impact is debatable but it's purpose was clear. Spice up combat.

3) D&D stubbornly sticks to offering only simple or complex options to different styles of play rather than offering both options and let groups choose.

 

[Micah Sweet]

No matter how tight the maths are, they can't compensate for the variations in the people who play the game.
The reason that 5e CR seems to low-ball the encounter difficulties is because it is there as a tool for beginner DMs running encounters for new players with unoptimised characters and tactics.
There is a world of difference between that party and a group of experienced players playing optimised characters with a fair amount of magic items (or even worse, got to pick them).
Social contract suggests that such a group should tone it down if the DM is new, but otherwise it is assumed that DMs will improve just as their players do and will be able to compensate.

The maths in 4e was pretty much as tight as it can get, and even then there was variation in how well a party could handle encounters based on character design and tactics.

Admittedly, the DMG never says that CR guidelines were designed as an aid to new players, and have limited utility otherwise. It doesn't say the game structure assumes unoptimized PCs controlled by novice players and run by a novice DM.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Instead of trying to find the perfect balance in combat encounter between too easy and too hard, the rules should be geared towards the player characters surviving even if they lose. Let them flee or be taken prisoner instead of having a TPK, then it doesn't matter so much if the DM misjudges how hard a particular fight is going to be.

The DM and players can make this work of course, but the current D&D rules makes a TPK the most likely outcome once things start going very wrong for the PCs.

How would you gear the game in that direction without forcing the narrative?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Hacked into a loose storytelling game. D&D hasn’t been a wargame since 1974.

It might not exactly be a wargame, but it is most definitely not a "loose storytelling game". There are plenty of games that are if you want that, however.

 

[Micah Sweet]

My claim is that 5e is popular because it is less focused on combat, not despite.

The rules are still pretty heavy on the combat applications. I wouldn't say its less focused on it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

The current rules work. Characters are more likely to be downed than killed outright, and non-lethal combat is as much an option for NPCs as it is for players. The DM just has to rule that the PCs are KOed, dragged off and imprisoned somewhere. Just as happens in the genre D&D emulates.

What genre is that? Superhero fantasy?