D&D 5E (2014) 15 Petty Reasons I Won't Buy 5e

[Majoru Oakheart]

I feel like I'm trapped in some sort of time-loop here. You're saying you don't want to hear PCs whining about gold/level, but they never whined about it to you because you gave them the right gold/level.

Man what...

I didn't want to hear them complain. That's why I used the recommendations in the book. We had some conversations where even the hint that someone might have given out the wrong amount of gold of the suggestion that someone starts a campaign with low gold was met with loud arguments about how "Those guidelines were there for a reason, that choosing not to use them means you are choosing to kill us off when we fight a monster that has too high AC that we can't hit without bonuses. You sure you want to do that to us? Because we might as well end the campaign now, it's going to end in a TPK anyways."

Followed by whoever suggested it saying "You make a good point, we'll use the normal wealth guidelines."

 

[billd91]

Same here!

I'll never understand how some gamers can be so derisive about guidelines that can be ignored at worst, and really helpful to those of us lacking a fine sense of what kind of opposition who can handle.

*shrug*

Part of the issue is those guidelines, as well-intended as they have been, also bring unintended consequences that affect the game. If the GM deviates from them on the low or difficult side and the players know of them, that breeds dissatisfaction. Both players and GMs may see them as rules to be followed rather than guidelines to be either followed or not depending on the campaign. They breed expectations on how an encounter must play out rather than how the encounter is likely to play out (or even may play out depending on how loose the guideline is and how true to the inherent assumptions in the guidelines the game group plays).

A lot of these unintended and negative consequences depend on how players and GMs approach the guidelines. A lot of game groups will have no problem putting them in proper context - but you can expect the internet will be rife with people complaining about how they're playing out in their own campaigns. That's the way people are - complainers are more likely to air their grievances than people who aren't having a problem. And soon, that becomes the bulk of WotC's feedback, and guess what they start responding to?

I think this is why certain types of guidelines have gotten a bad rap over the years. The guidelines in the 1e DMG may have been fairly vague, they may have not been that explicitly helpful, but they also didn't set a lot of strongly held expectation or assumptions either. The much more detailed guidelines in 3e, from my experience observing years of internet interactions and messageboards, set many more detailed expectations and generated many more complaints - of failure of the guidelines, of failure of GMs to live up to them, of failure of the game system. In the end, I'm not sure the game was well-served by going into that level of detail.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I didn't want to hear them complain. That's why I used the recommendations in the book. We had some conversations where even the hint that someone might have given out the wrong amount of gold of the suggestion that someone starts a campaign with low gold was met with loud arguments about how "Those guidelines were there for a reason, that choosing not to use them means you are choosing to kill us off when we fight a monster that has too high AC that we can't hit without bonuses. You sure you want to do that to us? Because we might as well end the campaign now, it's going to end in a TPK anyways."

Followed by whoever suggested it saying "You make a good point, we'll use the normal wealth guidelines."

As someone who played a fighter in a low-wealth a 3.0 game alongside a druid, I have to say that's the right call. My character was a sidekick. The druid's summons brought more to the table than I did.

It also didn't help that I rolled nothing but 1s and 2s for HP for the entire game. Maybe there was a 3 in there, but I don't think so.

Never again!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Part of the issue is those guidelines, as well-intended as they have been, also bring unintended consequences that affect the game. If the GM deviates from them on the low or difficult side and the players know of them, that breeds dissatisfaction. Both players and GMs may see them as rules to be followed rather than guidelines to be either followed or not depending on the campaign. They breed expectations on how an encounter must play out rather than how the encounter is likely to play out (or even may play out depending on how loose the guideline is and how true to the inherent assumptions in the guidelines the game group plays).

*shrug*

Well, I guess I'd rather help ill-equipped DMs than save gamers who can't be bothered to read the part that says "this book contains guidelines" from themselves.

I think this is why certain types of guidelines have gotten a bad rap over the years. The guidelines in the 1e DMG may have been fairly vague, they may have not been that explicitly helpful, but they also didn't set a lot of strongly held expectation or assumptions either. The much more detailed guidelines in 3e, from my experience observing years of internet interactions and messageboards, set many more detailed expectations and generated many more complaints - of failure of the guidelines, of failure of GMs to live up to them, of failure of the game system. In the end, I'm not sure the game was well-served by going into that level of detail.

Maybe. Or maybe if 1e were the current D&D edition, the 'net would have produced as many, if not more complaints about its unhelpfully vague guidelines.

Personally I see 3e's guidelines as not-quite-there in terms of quality, and not a great example of what a well-executed set of guidelines can provide. CR is better than the XP=HD system that came before, but prone to being misleading due to being a number tacked onto a monster after its stat block had been written. WBL is better than the "Give your players enough loot to want more, but don't go all crazy Monty Haul!" vagary that came before, but not all that helpful because it doesn't point out the specific items which the game assumes -- namely the Big Six. Nor does it mention how combat dynamics fundamentally change when PCs don't have those specific items -- namely how the lack of AC boosters turns combat into "Hit hard and hit fast!"

Different strokes, and all that.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Personally I see 3e's guidelines as not-quite-there in terms of quality, and not a great example of what a well-executed set of guidelines can provide.

I think that's true. With respect to places like ENW is that people conflate the two, or simply don't understand how the rules work when they're divorced from the guidelines.

At the table, this isn't a problem, because the DM's voice is the rule and the stuff in the books is all guidelines. But discussing it in this detached manner seems to work differently.

 

[evileeyore]

I'll never understand how some gamers can be so derisive about guidelines that can be ignored at worst, and really helpful to those of us lacking a fine sense of what kind of opposition who can handle.

Sure. I'm not spitting on the notion of a guide, if such a guide helps Ruin Explorer, so much the better. (I'll ignore the guide, but I live dangerously like that)

What's digging at me that I see as unnecessary is the need to count every grain of sand in the guidelines to make sure that the one grain that might not fit right is fixed.

Case in point: 3e was designed around the characters getting magic items at a certain rate. Someone made the case the guidelines didn't help him when he wanted to run a magic free game and then include monsters which explicitly require magic to help defeat.

He was digging for sand that wasn't in the box. That's what I'm not understanding; the need for the guidelines to cover everything conceivable.

"Thats what DMs are for!" says my bad case of grognarditis.

 

[Remathilis]

Personally, it wasn't the "wealth by level" that bothered me, it was the fact that a lot of that wealth went to boring, number-raising items like cloaks of resistance, amulets of natural armor, stat boosters and +X weapons and armor. Any item that wasn't raising a stat or had an immediate use (handy haversacks or skill boosts) got recycled into gp.

 

[Emerikol]

I think I'm not buying it. I have my own petty reasons and they are probably not even close to the OPs.

1. Second Wind is in for good.
2. I bet that means Survivor and Ace in the Hole are too.
3. I'd really prefer straight vancian wizards.
4. I'd prefer other types of arcane casters to be really different from wizards.
5. I hate HD and I hate overnight healing.
6. I hate inspirational hit points.
7. I think they are either really stupid or evil. Take your pick.

 

[Mistwell]

We need more actual petty reasons in this thread. Here are 10 of them:

1) I am not going to buy 5e because I hate art, and I heard many pages will have art on them. Art is just wasted space that could be filled with crunchy text, and it means I am paying much more per page than I should be paying if it were not filled with that useless empty space with art in it.

2) I am not going to buy 5e because I have another edition of D&D that is my favorite and it doesn't duplicate that edition exactly.

3) I am not going to buy 5e because there is one rule I don't like. I like 99.99% of the edition, but that one single rule, which will not come up that often anyway, is enough to get me to not buy the edition.

4) I am not going to buy 5e because it has an optional mechanic I don't like in it. Now, it's optional, so I know I don't even have to include it in my games - but the thought I would be supporting a game that includes players somewhere out there using that mechanic which I hate is enough to push me over the edge to not buy the game.

5) I am not going to buy 5e because, though it looks like a game I would love, I hate the company making it because I didn't like a prior edition of theirs.

6) I am not going to buy 5e because, though it looks like a game I would love, I don't like someone else who likes it, and I don't want to associate with a game that includes a player like that.

7) I am not going to buy 5e because, though it looks like a game I would love, they are not releasing it under the electronic tools that exist for a prior version of the game, and I really wanted access to two different versions of D&D for the price of one, at no extra charge for the new edition.

8) I am not going to buy 5e because I am loyal to another version of the game or another company with an OGL version of the game, even though I probably would like 5e better. Because my loyalty to a company or prior version is more important than increasing my enjoyment of my hobby.

9) I am not going to buy 5e, even though I think it looks like a game I would love, because I think the price is too high. I can easily afford it, and I know I can buy it at discount for a price that is roughly in line with other discounted games I've bought, and I have no decent local store anyway to be loyal to, but I am not going to buy this game I think I'd really like because of the principal of the thing. Even though probably nobody will ever notice my principal, or really understand what principal is at stake.

10) I am not going to buy 5e because, even though it looks like a game I would love, I don't like one of the authors of the game. Because he once said something I really don't like, and I took it personal.

 

[Nagol]

I don't think some of those are petty.

I fall into #1 somewhat. I don't *hate* art, but I am apathetic to it. I prefer a rulebook to have rules and maybe a couple of small pieces of art to rest one's eyes. The original DMG had an appropriate amount of art though I'd probably cut one of the full-page pieces if I had been in charge. Finding a rulebook with a lot of art (I'm looking at you Everway!) generally has me putting it back on the shelf.

#2 I see as entirely reasonable reason to not buy something. "I have something I love; I'm not buying something that fills the same niche that is close but not the same" seems to be a rational response.

#10 has been getting CEOs fired (see Mozilla) for personal speech from before they were CEO because of consumer backlash.

We need more actual petty reasons in this thread. Here are 10 of them:

1) I am not going to buy 5e because I hate art, and I heard many pages will have art on them. Art is just wasted space that could be filled with crunchy text, and it means I am paying much more per page than I should be paying if it were not filled with that useless empty space with art in it.

2) I am not going to buy 5e because I have another edition of D&D that is my favorite and it doesn't duplicate that edition exactly.

3) I am not going to buy 5e because there is one rule I don't like. I like 99.99% of the edition, but that one single rule, which will not come up that often anyway, is enough to get me to not buy the edition.

4) I am not going to buy 5e because it has an optional mechanic I don't like in it. Now, it's optional, so I know I don't even have to include it in my games - but the thought I would be supporting a game that includes players somewhere out there using that mechanic which I hate is enough to push me over the edge to not buy the game.

5) I am not going to buy 5e because, though it looks like a game I would love, I hate the company making it because I didn't like a prior edition of theirs.

6) I am not going to buy 5e because, though it looks like a game I would love, I don't like someone else who likes it, and I don't want to associate with a game that includes a player like that.

7) I am not going to buy 5e because, though it looks like a game I would love, they are not releasing it under the electronic tools that exist for a prior version of the game, and I really wanted access to two different versions of D&D for the price of one, at no extra charge for the new edition.

8) I am not going to buy 5e because I am loyal to another version of the game or another company with an OGL version of the game, even though I probably would like 5e better. Because my loyalty to a company or prior version is more important than increasing my enjoyment of my hobby.

9) I am not going to buy 5e, even though I think it looks like a game I would love, because I think the price is too high. I can easily afford it, and I know I can buy it at discount for a price that is roughly in line with other discounted games I've bought, and I have no decent local store anyway to be loyal to, but I am not going to buy this game I think I'd really like because of the principal of the thing. Even though probably nobody will ever notice my principal, or really understand what principal is at stake.

10) I am not going to buy 5e because, even though it looks like a game I would love, I don't like one of the authors of the game. Because he once said something I really don't like, and I took it personal.