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Message: <blockquote data-quote="James Gasik" data-source="post: 8761730" data-attributes="member: 6877472">This argument has been raging ever since 3rd edition, I would be highly surprised if it came to a close now.  There are just too many factors involved that can affect one's play experience, including, but not limited to:*Style of game.*Strict adherence to number of encounters (I've never faced 6 encounters in any 5e game to date, as everyone seems to prefer fewer, larger encounters- this is notably the default for Adventurer's League play).*Preferences of players and GM.*Rigid adherence to fiddly rules that make spellcasters annoying to play (see Grod's Law: "You cannot and should not balance bad mechanics by making them annoying to use").*Optimization level of players.*Experience of players.Some examples:I once played for a short time at a table in 2e where the DM somehow misinterpreted the target area of Magic Missile (1 or more creatures in a 10' cube) as this humble spell having an area of effect, which of course was friendly fire, and nothing could get him to admit he was wrong.  You didn't want to play a Wizard or Bard in his campaign.Another time, I joined a Forgotten Realms game where all material was available. Everyone was a melee character, and all the fights took place in tiny rooms and corridors.  The DM didn't even draw maps, monsters and warriors ran up to one another and exchanged blows until they were dead.  If you did try to play a backliner, no matter how many warriors were in the room, a monster would always be able to come get you, and everyone would have a great laugh at watching a foolish Thief or Mage fall down in one hit, and were secure in their knowledge that Warriors were the greatest classes.(They were not pleased with my Mulhorandi priest of Anhur, which let me have the same hit points as a Warrior and make multiple attacks per turn, lol).On the other hand, when I first sat down at a 5e table with a Wizard, the party's other Wizard thought the greatest spell ever was Fireball, and cast exclusively damage dealing spells.  When I started laying down crowd control, they laughed at me for casting "useless spells".  Halfway through the session, they were out of spell slots and crying for a long rest, while I was bogging down enemies and just tossing out rays of frost up until the very end, with the DM groaning every time his enemies failed to reach a target.I've seen pretty much both ends of the spectrum, games where if you don't have magic, you're wasting your time, and games where doing anything other than swinging a big sword is pointless.Since likely no two campaigns are the same, you're never going to get a consensus, nor are you going to convince people who play one way that scenarios they don't see exist- often a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the way they run and play D&D will reinforce their preferred experience to some degree.Most of these debates always seem to devolve to "if you play D&D the way I do, this never happens", implying (or even outright saying) the other side is "doing it wrong".</blockquote>

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