D&D General [rant]The conservatism of D&D fans is exhausting.

[MichaelSomething]

It's easy to just dismiss criticism of something new as just disliking "change" when you're not negatively affected by said changes.

If you played a character in Adventurer's League who had abilities you made frequent use of scrapped simply because someone who doesn't like the class and didn't have to play it demanded those features be removed, then you'd obviously have a reasonable criticism against change.

If the new edition meant to celebrate D&D destroys your character to please a tiny subset of players who answered a survey, then you'd be right to be displeased with change.

At the end of the day, we'll see whether an edition built to please a group of survey-respondents will perform compared to the edition that happened to spark an explosion of popularity by winning the interest of people outside the previous niche.

Wasn't all of 5E built with surveys??

 

[Bohandas]

Note: I DO NOT MEAN POLITICAL CONSERVATISM. This is not a thread about politics.

Maybe change it to "intransigence" or "obstinacy"?

 

[Hussar]

Please don’t assume my level of reaction. I just jumped a discussion with someone who refused to take my experience and knowledge seriously. But like I stated, it really doesn’t matter. These discussions have no bearing on real life.

You do realize that swings both ways right? After all, you never asked me what my experience or level of knowledge is. You just presumed that you know more than me. And then, when presented with actual facts, you doubled down and refused to accept any information that didn't fit with your experience and then pretended that I was the one being unreasonable.

Frankly, that mirrors almost perfectly how discussions about gaming goes. Someone presumes that their experience is the only possible one, that anyone who didn't have the same experiences is either stupid or lying, and that the conclusion that the person has come to is the only possible right conclusion. Typically this is followed with a complete refusal to actually examine those experiences and try to find any sort of root cause.

Perfect example is the claim that older versions of D&D were this endless grind fest of dead PC's. I've been repeatedly, and quite vocally, told that I could not possibly have been playing right unless I had this string of dead PC's during play. Or, another good example is the pace of character advancement in earlier D&D. You'll hear people absolutely insist that character advancement in AD&D as glacially slow compared to later D&D. But, then, when we start looking at the xp awards in published adventures, and suddenly, characters are bumping levels pretty quickly. 3-5 sessions seems to be the norm - with about a year of play to get to name level or so. This is backed up by actual text in the 1e DMG where Gygax actually straight up says that this was the expected pace of advancement.

But, apparently, all of that doesn't matter. You'll hear how AD&D players apparently took months of play to gain a single level, all the while dying like flies and losing their equipment constantly.

Then, when we start actually drilling down into why these things happened in games, it often turns out that the poster had a shopping list of house rules that gave these results.

So, yeah, this is exactly what the OP's rant is getting at. Posters who have absolutely decided that their conclusions are the only possible truth out there and a flat refusal to even discuss the possibility of different experiences.

 

[Kromanjon]

You do realize that swings both ways right? After all, you never asked me what my experience or level of knowledge is. You just presumed that you know more than me. And then, when presented with actual facts, you doubled down and refused to accept any information that didn't fit with your experience and then pretended that I was the one being unreasonable.

Frankly, that mirrors almost perfectly how discussions about gaming goes. Someone presumes that their experience is the only possible one, that anyone who didn't have the same experiences is either stupid or lying, and that the conclusion that the person has come to is the only possible right conclusion. Typically this is followed with a complete refusal to actually examine those experiences and try to find any sort of root cause.

Perfect example is the claim that older versions of D&D were this endless grind fest of dead PC's. I've been repeatedly, and quite vocally, told that I could not possibly have been playing right unless I had this string of dead PC's during play. Or, another good example is the pace of character advancement in earlier D&D. You'll hear people absolutely insist that character advancement in AD&D as glacially slow compared to later D&D. But, then, when we start looking at the xp awards in published adventures, and suddenly, characters are bumping levels pretty quickly. 3-5 sessions seems to be the norm - with about a year of play to get to name level or so. This is backed up by actual text in the 1e DMG where Gygax actually straight up says that this was the expected pace of advancement.

But, apparently, all of that doesn't matter. You'll hear how AD&D players apparently took months of play to gain a single level, all the while dying like flies and losing their equipment constantly.

Then, when we start actually drilling down into why these things happened in games, it often turns out that the poster had a shopping list of house rules that gave these results.

So, yeah, this is exactly what the OP's rant is getting at. Posters who have absolutely decided that their conclusions are the only possible truth out there and a flat refusal to even discuss the possibility of different experiences.

I just didn’t want the discussion becoming some “do not”, “do to” situation. You keep pointing fingers while excluding yourself from blame. You claimed that I ignored facts while ignoring the facts i provided as well. A part from this, our discussion was a severe derail of the OP which I never intended but which I am to blame for in continuing a pointless argument.

I apologize for not considering that you were an expert in refrigerators but you never offered that information even after I stated my work in the field. Now I know better and defer to your expertise.

You also reacted strongly to my thought exercise which I do not understand but which I also apologize for. I never meant to imply that there was anything wrong with the game you like or the style you like.

The humorous part about this is that we’ve been discussing fridges for like two days here and the mods really should have stopped that. Talk about thread crapping. I should report myself.

 

[Hussar]

The humorous part about this is that we’ve been discussing fridges for like two days here and the mods really should have stopped that. Talk about thread crapping. I should report myself.

Ok, now that made me giggle.

 

[MothMayI]

Is there anything preventing you from porting that character into a home game? Maybe some other folks from your Adventurer’s League location that feel the same way.

And this sort of statement really highlights the fact that a huge part of distaste towards 2024 5e comes from how a large part of its fans have a "who cares" attitude to how the changes negatively affect other players and their characters.

 

[Hussar]

And this sort of statement really highlights the fact that a huge part of distaste towards 2024 5e comes from how a large part of its fans have a "who cares" attitude to how the changes negatively affect other players and their characters.

Perhaps it might be more helpful if you were more specific. What changes to organized play impacted you and how?

 

[Gus L]

I mean "conservatism" as in resistance to change. You see it all the time [...]

I think it goes well beyond aesthetics within game books - and often has a political aspect - the endless thread here about the Demon Type 5 looking less "cheesesnake" is an example ... but that's not the part that irks me.

What I find frustrating is the way there's a conservatism about rules, and the way that newer editions seem to have to have these "ghost rules" in them - ideas that mattered to older editions and a different play style but persist, making things more complex in the present for no benefit. As an example... Did you know 5E has encumbrance, torch burn time and surprise rules? They don't come up in the majority of games, and the mechanics are silly (Torches last 60 minutes, a 5E turn is 1 minute) - putting aside that most 5E PC's can see in the dark or 5e location design favors smaller lairs and encounters over large dungeons (for reasons related to rest and combat mechanics - but I digress) - that's 60 exploration turns to burn down a single torch... you don't need to track that.

The 5E torch rule is a hold over from earlier D&D editions which focused more on dungeon crawling and used "10 minute turns" - so 6 "moves" before your torch burned down. Much more worth tracking. 5E as played in most cases doesn't need this kind of rule, and if it did it would need to be adapted to the actual style of play (or at least the length of exploration turns...) but the rule exists because it's inherited and it just floats around the rulebook making spooky noises.

Now if WotC were to remove this rule or similar vestiges of editions past ... I suspect a number of fans would freak out. The problem is that this means new editions of D&D can never really be streamlined or intentional about creating a play style - it's always obscured by a haze of ghost rules to keep old players happy.

 

[NN]

isnt the problem behind that is that D&D is trying to be all things to all players ?

 

[James Gasik]

You do realize that swings both ways right? After all, you never asked me what my experience or level of knowledge is. You just presumed that you know more than me. And then, when presented with actual facts, you doubled down and refused to accept any information that didn't fit with your experience and then pretended that I was the one being unreasonable.

Frankly, that mirrors almost perfectly how discussions about gaming goes. Someone presumes that their experience is the only possible one, that anyone who didn't have the same experiences is either stupid or lying, and that the conclusion that the person has come to is the only possible right conclusion. Typically this is followed with a complete refusal to actually examine those experiences and try to find any sort of root cause.

Perfect example is the claim that older versions of D&D were this endless grind fest of dead PC's. I've been repeatedly, and quite vocally, told that I could not possibly have been playing right unless I had this string of dead PC's during play. Or, another good example is the pace of character advancement in earlier D&D. You'll hear people absolutely insist that character advancement in AD&D as glacially slow compared to later D&D. But, then, when we start looking at the xp awards in published adventures, and suddenly, characters are bumping levels pretty quickly. 3-5 sessions seems to be the norm - with about a year of play to get to name level or so. This is backed up by actual text in the 1e DMG where Gygax actually straight up says that this was the expected pace of advancement.

But, apparently, all of that doesn't matter. You'll hear how AD&D players apparently took months of play to gain a single level, all the while dying like flies and losing their equipment constantly.

Then, when we start actually drilling down into why these things happened in games, it often turns out that the poster had a shopping list of house rules that gave these results.

So, yeah, this is exactly what the OP's rant is getting at. Posters who have absolutely decided that their conclusions are the only possible truth out there and a flat refusal to even discuss the possibility of different experiences.

Not to discount your experiences at all, but I've heard many of these claims come from fans of older versions of D&D (some of whom will claim these are advantages!). Having played older versions of D&D myself, rapid character turnover and glacial progression were events that could happen (I experienced them plenty of times), though you are correct, this wasn't always the case. It really came down to how a DM wanted to run their game, which can be edition-agnostic.