D&D 5E (2024) No 5.5 AP Yet?

[Zardnaar]

That aligns with my experience too. There's a definite age gap between the average gm age and average player age among the regulars who show up to run/play AL at the flgs where I ran AL for years.

Here theyre generally older or under 20 with there friends.
Not many in the 25-39 range.

 

[TheSword]

My 5 year old nephew uses his magnaclips to make his own games. No one told him he could or couldn’t.

Intelligent, creative people - that I’ve always found most gamers to be - don’t really need permission to do anything. Neither do they need leading by the nose.

I’ve seen new players borrowing stuff from three different systems because they liked it and were enthusiastic.

Let’s cut out the whole experienced DM, new DM stuff. Start from the assumption that people aren’t idiots and you don’t necessarily know better - you’ve just had longer to embed your viewpoint.

 

[tetrasodium]

Here theyre generally older or under 20 with there friends.
Not many in the 25-39 range.

Florida in general has a somewhat older skew in its population compared to a lot of other states Here in my corner of south Florida id guess that the ages skew a couple decades higher id peg the gap somewhere between 30something and 40 something. We have a couple regular younger boomer/older genx GM's and almost nobody in my age group (xenial) before dropping to the half or so if us regular gms who are 20somethings and the tweens

 

[Zardnaar]

Florida in general has a somewhat older skew in its population compared to a lot of other states Here in my corner of south Florida id guess that the ages skew a couple decades higher id peg the gap somewhere between 30something and 40 something. We have a couple regular younger boomer/older genx GM's and almost nobody in my age group (xenial) before dropping to the half or so if us regular gms who are 20somethings and the tweens

Im young Gen X. Not many in my age group. I find more veterans older and young 30s on down.

University city. I could probably advertise tomorrow and get 5-7 in a week or two student age.

I took on dad+kid combo as finding a group for 40 year old and 13 year old son was apparently hard. He volunteered to DM for teen group derp.

Recruiting a veteran players functionally impossible think I'll stop taking 50+ men.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Not many in the 25-39 range.

People in that age range are generally very busy with RL stuff like careers and family. I didn't have much time for gaming when I was that age, and certainly not GMing.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

The only fault I have with what you're saying here is that the designers have specifically stated that they mean to design them that way.

"Modular" design also leads to structural flaws, especially when it comes to sandboxy content. CoS is a good example of "what chapter is that location in, and why?", the climactic dungeon being in chapter 4 if I remember correctly. And then you get repetition, and clashes of style, since WotC seem to divide up chapters between different writers. It's why so many of them are railroady A leads to B leads to C etc. It's hard to be both modular and non-linear. I guess Dragonheist tried it.

 

[Zardnaar]

People in that age range are generally very busy with RL stuff like careers and family. I didn't have much time for gaming when I was that age, and certainly not GMing.

That to. My preferred age for recruiting.

 

[tetrasodium]

"Modular" design also leads to structural flaws, especially when it comes to sandboxy content. CoS is a good example of "what chapter is that location in, and why?", the climactic dungeon being in chapter 4 if I remember correctly. And then you get repetition, and clashes of style, since WotC seem to divide up chapters between different writers. It's why so many of them are railroady A leads to B leads to C etc. It's hard to be both modular and non-linear. I guess Dragonheist tried it.

Those structural problems are often the result of choices made to cater content to readers. Taking your CoS example, there is an NPC who shows up in a few places (sort of a paladin/monster Hunter type∆) the first time you see him there is not even a hint for the gm about his purpose or what he's doing... To find that information you need to go through quite a few adventures and find it mentioned offhand wayyyyyy later in the book. To a reader that's a good reveal & all but it's totally useless and actively problematic for the gm trying to run it.

∆maybe the winery and later with a traveling cart/wagon iirc.

 

[TheSword]

Those structural problems are often the result of choices made to cater content to readers. Taking your CoS example, there is an NPC who shows up in a few places (sort of a paladin/monster Hunter type∆) the first time you see him there is not even a hint for the gm about his purpose or what he's doing... To find that information you need to go through quite a few adventures and find it mentioned offhand wayyyyyy later in the book. To a reader that's a good reveal & all but it's totally useless and actively problematic for the gm trying to run it.

∆maybe the winery and later with a traveling cart/wagon iirc.

If you’re talking about RvR, his introduction in the Blue Water Inn explains who he is, what his plan is, and how he interacts with the PCs. His NPC write up in the appendix then elaborates on his back story and gives some supplemental information. Definitely worth re-reading those sections. He doesn’t move around - unless it makes sense for the DM to do so - his tower is being used by a completely different NPC.

Writers are damned if they do, dammed if they don’t. If they separate info into an appendix as WotC (and most 3pp) books do they get accused of releasing info piecemeal. If they put all the info into the section where the character is likely to be first found they get accused of making DMs search through the book to find important information.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Splitting information about specific NPCs and their role in the story, and where they might be encountered is an issue with many WotC adventures. It's a big problem in Vecna. That information should all be together in one place.