Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Cergorach" data-source="post: 9775040" data-attributes="member: 725">Honestly, I think you're premise of "It's a mechanical issue we can fix!" is a flawed one. It's a people issue, not a mechanical issue, and the 3e/5e design is a choice in the same vein as 0e/1e/2e. I also thought that 4e was mechanically superior to 3e/3.5e and even Pathfinder, but mechanical superiority does not necessarily make for a fun game. I found zero inspiration in 4e initial release, and while we had an intention to play (even bought everyone 4e PHBs in the group), it never materialized because of it. But some of my group did play it, and one of them disliked it because they played in a group that was optimizing the 4e builds in the same way they optimized builds in 3e/5e. It's what we've been calling min-maxing for the last 35+ years... And your new 5e spinoff isn't going to fix that.There are other games that by design work differently, they have always use powers that either can use other resource pools (like health (mental or physical) like Shadowrun, or you can use your powers always and have certain limited pools that give you bonuses (blood) in Vampire. But you generally have a health stat that also functions as a cap on what you can do. If you do things that cost you your health, then your (adventuring) day quickly comes to an end and you will need time to recover. But those games aren't D&D. We can play such games and those 'fix' most of the mechanics you find flawed in D&D, but we generally don't, because we want to play D&D.These pnp RPG games tend to be resource management games, but the alpha striking players aren't actually doing any resource management. As a DM/GM, you need to give them consequences for that. And that's extremely difficult, I've been pushing as a player for that in our group for almost two years and it generally doesn't happen, with about half the party (depending on who's a player and who's a DM) expending resources like crazy. I've recently started DMing and have added other resources into the equation. While they can die, they will start back at the inn they started at, resetting the entire timeline (they keep their experience, but not their treasure). I've added a sanity score to their characters, certain things deplete that stat permanently (their first death, the first time their brains are being eaten by an intellect devourer, etc.). And what I notice is that they are willing to take more risks, it also doesn't help that they entered Undermountain as a party of 3 1st level characters (was designed for 4+ 5th level characters). Some of the players are now in a mindset to start experimenting, and some are getting there. What they can do, how they manage resources, no fear exactly of death, only that they have to start the dungeon all over again (I have some other mechnics in place to not make that an absolute pain)...Last session we got at the point where they were essentially ready to do another long rest after about 40min of adventuring, but we found out that the rules actually prevent another long rest in such a short time frame. They could have gone back and waited, but because they are not exactly sure yet what's going on (their characters have lost their memory), and the consequences of dying aren't dire, they continued on. They suprisingly succeeded a couple of extremely difficult encounters and have been working together very well, very well coordinated in combat, and when certain resources are gone, they're starting to figure out what their characters can do and can't do with most of their powers depleted. Which is progress imho. But, most importantly, they are having fun!Redesigning a 5e spinoff might 'fix' some mechanical issues, but it won't fix min-maxing and power gaming in general. You're just moving the goalpost and people will find that goal just as quickly when they get used too the 'new' system variant. But what you're describing isn't really D&D anymore, different classes, different settings, etc. It's just another game, of which there are already many. The content for that 5e spinoff is also no longer compatible with generic 5e, as you've designed it for a different gameloop.</blockquote>

Verification