D&D 5E Advanced 5th edition Dungeons & Dragons!

[Tony Vargas]

9 times out of 10, you'll get a theorycrafter or homebrewer jumping on that thread quick as nothing else. You'll even be given options, advice, and discussion on how you could go about it.

A lot of it contradictory and fiercely-argued, of course. But at least you're not likely, these days, to be told D&D is wrongbadfun and you should be playing PF (or a prior official edition or whatever). OK, you might be told what you want is wrongbadfun, and go play something else.

Your points about looking things up only work for experienced DMs.

Yes.

You know this edition has tons of new DMs, right?

I honestly haven't seen a ton of new-to-D&D players - 'last played AD&D,' 'played some PF, does that count,' sure - a genuinely brand-new player is something I find memorable (especially if they come back the next week).

...let alone a ton* of new DMs...

...but, an experienced player taking up DMing is fine, too, so it's not that hard to get the needed experience. Heck, it's arguably better to get familiar with the game by gaming with an experienced DM running a great game than by reading the books.

And even experienced groups aren't always ok with the DM just making it up during play, so no, that doesn't work. And there is no reason to not make the rules easier to find.

Sure there is: readability. WWGS made the same decision (only more so), make the books easier/more-entertaining to read through at a sitting, rather than better reference material.

And clarified rules don't mean that the player with a 35 roll knows he is hidden no matter what.

That was, of course, purely hypothetical, with the hypothesis obviously being rules that clearly said "if you roll a 35+ you are hidden, no matter what."
The point being not a specific number, but a high number, and not a specific unambigous rule, but just the lack of wiggle room one would imply.

Of course, you can over-rule the most unambiguous rule ever - it's just the more of those rules there are in the game, and the less you rule on them, the more likely the players will balk at rulings, especially those that don't seem to go their way atm.

Unclear rules don't empower the DM.

They condition players to expect and respect frequent DM rulings.

Meanwhile, DMs who would rather not design the game they are trying to play have to kludge something together and hope it doesn't bite them in the ass later. Really empowering. /s

True, if you try to fix up the game with formal house rules, rather than just bulling your way through.

My point, though, was that there are different RP carrot systems, so it's not accurate to say that if you don't like Inspiration it's because you don't like RP carrot systems.

OK, point taken. Actually, I was (one) thinking, as a DM, of how much I disliked running such system and (two) completely forgetting the fun I had with a player-mediated RP-carrot mechanic in another system, some 15 years ago...
So, yeah, OK, I suppose we'll let you get away with making a ligitimate, constructive criticism of this one sub-system of 5e, this one time.
But don't make a habit of it. ;P











* that'd be about 8, on average, I'd estimate - maybe 10 for a metric ton - but I'm probably just projecting

 

[doctorbadwolf]

[MENTION=996]Tony Vargas[/MENTION] I'm just going to say, I disagree on 90% of that, in ways that aren't really reconcilable, and leave it at that.

One thing I will be specific about, though, is that since I, the players I run games with, and the guys at my local game shops, have encountered hundreds of new players who have never played dnd before, most of whom haven't played any RPG before, and have seen dozens of new DMs, I'm not really swayed by the fact that you haven't seen the same.
I think this is a case where, if two parties have opposite anecdotal evidence, and one points toward "x isn't a thing" while the other points toward "x is a thing", "x is a thing" is more likely, but without some broad data, we can't be sure either way.

Regardless, you aren't going to convince me that it isn't a good idea to write the game so that new players and DMs can figure it out easily.

 

[Tony Vargas]

One thing I will be specific about, though, is that since I, the players I run games with, and the guys at my local game shops, have encountered hundreds of new players who have never played dnd before, most of whom haven't played any RPG before, and have seen dozens of new DMs, ...

Wow, that must be nice. At our height, the FLGS here has maybe 40-60 players a week. Not new players, mind, just total players (and we're supposedly the premier WPN spot in the south bay), though that fills the place up. If you guys are doing hundreds, obviously, that's a much larger sample size.

Regardless, you aren't going to convince me that it isn't a good idea to write the game so that new players and DMs can figure it out easily.

Well, clearly, if you're getting & retaining hundreds of new players & DMs, the writing of the game can't be that hard for them to figure out.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Wow, that must be nice. At our height, the FLGS here has maybe 40-60 players a week. Not new players, mind, just total players (and we're supposedly the premier WPN spot in the south bay), though that fills the place up. If you guys are doing hundreds, obviously, that's a much larger sample size.

Well, clearly, if you're getting & retaining hundreds of new players & DMs, the writing of the game can't be that hard for them to figure out.

The shop doesn't get hundreds. Like I said, between myself, my friends, and the guys at the shop, we have collectively met that many. That includes people at cons, people who join our games via social media LFG stuff, (especially facebook), and friends we've introduced to the game.

I don't like 5e as much as 4e, but I can't deny that it has brought in huge numbers of noobs. So many youngling noobs!

I mean, a lot of it is also people like Colbert, Vin Diesel, and Joe Mangenello talking about DnD, and people looking into it as a result. It isn't just 5e, as such.

But yes, we do get a lot of players in our most popular DnD game shop, and there are a few I don't regularly visit that I can't speak on, but have seen 2-3 groups playing some kind of roleplaying game when I have gone there. Usually I only go to the one for comics, and the other for video games, because our main FLGS doesn't do video games, and has a tiny selection of comics. The shop has also gone from primarily making money from Magic and the like, to a really strong DnD presence, in the last five years or so.

A lot of DnD's rise started during the last year of 4e, but people like to ignore that.

 

[Tony Vargas]

The shop doesn't get hundreds. Like I said, between myself, my friends, and the guys at the shop, we have collectively met that many. That includes people at cons, people who join our games via social media LFG stuff, (especially facebook), and friends we've introduced to the game.

Oh. Like, over what period?

The shop has also gone from primarily making money from Magic and the like, to a really strong DnD presence, in the last five years or so.

A lot of DnD's rise started during the last year of 4e, but people like to ignore that.

I think I might corroborate that, depending on what you mean by 'last year.'
Encounters seemed to have a big draw, the crowd when I started in the second season was startlingly young after years of mostly just seeing the home gaming group and convention-goers, and they transitioned very quickly into DMing. The FLGS, then, was a comic book shop that had a few gaming tables. Over the years, they squeezed in as many tables as they could - we'd have a table outside weather permitting, which, in this area, is almost always - and it got to the point that half the shop's income was from games. So the owner spun off a new game shop and Encounters went there. Then AL took over the reins from Encounters, fairly smoothly.

I suppose boardgames must really account for much of the revenue, though - they certainly account for the vast majority of the shelf space.

But, Weds, wall-to-wall D&D.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

It's a bonus to the roll after the fact, once you have that option: it's pretty good.

Inspiration is not retroactive advantage. It's just regular advantage. One of many reasons why it is meh, and tends to get ignored.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I thought it was +1d6? How could I have gotten that mixed up with 'Inspiration?'

 

[Nebulous]

Saying you don't want to homebrew because it's hard is not a defensible position.

But do you want to know what can be done? Making a post in one of the communities about what you want to put in your game and that you are unsure how to approach it. 9 times out of 10, you'll get a theorycrafter or homebrewer jumping on that thread quick as nothing else. You'll even be given options, advice, and discussion on how you could go about it.

You don't need a new edition for that. You just need to use the resources that are available to us all. It's a great community and we love doing what we do. Ask, receive, thank, add it to your game.

Guys, this is for fun, don't take it too seriously. I'm not asking for a new edition. It's just for fun.

 

[happyhermit]

...
A lot of DnD's rise started during the last year of 4e, but people like to ignore that.

I never like to ignore any facts, but everything I recall having seen contradicts that idea. By the end of 4e we were completely out of D&D and the local stores stopped carrying the books entirely. The playtest made some minor waves in the local stores (not for us), but when 5e was released everything changed. Not only are the local game stores carrying the books in prime locations and making money on them, but so are regular book stores.

As to new players, I have seen TONS of completely new-to-ttrpg players come into the game in the last couple years. There are obviously many reasons including new media like Tabletop's Titangrave, Fiasco, and other RPGs but even relatively savvy (for new to the hobby people) are choosing D&D, even if it wasn't what they were first exposed to. On several occasions I have heard from people working with or at Wotc say that demographics have shifted much younger but I have yet to see anything resembling data.

 

[Nebulous]

The point here would be that you can start the game as epic characters, or become epic at a later point in your career, generally as a group/campaign decision. Like if 4e had let you give your players epic destinies at level 1, but otherwise left the player options alone.

Rules for player past level 20, that don't assume that post 20 is "epic", along with updated stats for powerful enemies that put them at a higher level. With 5e's bounded accuracy, pre-20 characters can still fight Ancient Dragons, they will just be more challenged by them, and require more planning, and perhaps even allies, to win.

I never played the Immortal Set for D&D, but yes, I would love to see D&D rules that somehow...somehow...cast you into the roles of Greek gods commanding mortals while still retaining the D&D feel. That would be...effing Epic. And totally an expansion thing, not in the core!