D&D General How much do you care about rule change specifics?

[Yaarel]

So character creation is now yet another onus on the DM?
Hard pass!

Players bear the burden of creating a character suitable for the game agreed to in a session 0, full stop!

The "creation" of a background is trivially simple.

Pick two skills and a feat. Also the two ability score improvements.

The rest is narrative, and the DM and players can establish the background story to whatever extent is relevant for the setting.

 

[kayakingpoodle]

The "creation" of a background is trivially simple.

Pick two skills and a feat. Also the two ability score improvements.

The rest is narrative, and the DM and players can establish the background story to whatever extent is relevant for the setting.

Fair, but is this any better than 5e, or just turning boiled potato cubes into mashed potatoes?

 

[Yaarel]

Fair, but is this any better than 5e, or just turning boiled potato cubes into mashed potatoes?

"Better". Yes, it is better to more clearly connect the background options with what is actually going on in the setting. At the same time, the weirdly inflexible way they presented this can still benefit from improvement.

For myself as DM, I tell the players to use the generic backgrounds in the Players Handbook. If they want something different, put it together and run it by me. I will figure out where in the world, it or something like it can make sense.

I have some backgrounds that I created for 2014 (that include knowing certain spells but requiring a class with spell slots to cast them). But I havent updated these for 2024 yet.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Are you expecting people to complain about methodology that doesn't affect them in a negative way?

Yes.

I expect people to be consistent, and not hypocritical. If faulty survey design is a problem, it should be a problem whether it agrees with your position or disagrees. "Rules for thee but not for me" has never been an acceptable standard.

 

[Scribe]

I expect people to be consistent, and not hypocritical.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Right. There is also conspirital thinking that all the people like you are being ignored when the truth is hardly anyone actually wants what you want in some of these cases.

I allege nothing conspiratorial. I have taken umbrage with D&D's survey design for nearly two decades because those surveys suck. Even when those surveys reported things I agree with (such as "5.0 Berserker has negative customer satisfaction"), I am opposed to badly-constructed, biased, poorly-interpreted statistics. Doesn't matter what their conclusion is. It's not quite "fruit of a poisoned tree" but it's in the ballpark.

 

[payn]

I allege nothing conspiratorial. I have taken umbrage with D&D's survey design for nearly two decades because those surveys suck. Even when those surveys reported things I agree with (such as "5.0 Berserker has negative customer satisfaction"), I am opposed to badly-constructed, biased, poorly-interpreted statistics. Doesn't matter what their conclusion is. It's not quite "fruit of a poisoned tree" but it's in the ballpark.

Sorry, I meant general you.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Laugh all you want. I will call it out when I see hypocrisy--and if I do or say something hypocritical, I endeavor to apologize and make up for that error, because that is both morally and intellectually the correct thing to do.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Sorry, I meant general you.

No worries. My reply still stands, but yes, it is unfortunately easy to go from a valid complaint ("Survey design is bad and thus not evidence") to an invalid conclusion ("...and therefore what I think is definitely right").

 

[kayakingpoodle]

"Better". Yes, it is better to more clearly connect the background options with what is actually going on in the setting. At the same time, the weirdly inflexible way they presented this can still benefit from improvement.

For myself as DM, I tell the players to use the generic backgrounds in the Players Handbook. If they want something different, put it together and run it by me. I will figure out where in the world, it or something like it can make sense.

I have some backgrounds that I created for 2014 (that include knowing certain spells but requiring a class with spell slots to cast them). But I havent updated these for 2024 yet.

How is that better than or different than what we were doing with the 5e rules?
My point being 5.5e is not much more than a few house rules codified and the majority of the problems shifted to other places in the rules.

IE, what good are the new rules outside of organized play like AL, or open table games?

My groups(after much discussion and reading the books thanks to content sharing) just don't see value in the new rules. Yes it is anecdotal, but that doesn't make it any less real.