D&D General Balanced vs. Imbalanced vs. Today's D&D

[overgeeked]

Perfectly balanced, but also unpredictable and swingy.

DIY and house rules all day every day.

 

[Reynard]

Perfectly balanced, but also unpredictable and swingy.

Everyone has 50 hit points no matter what.
All attacks do d100 damage. DONE!

 

[Maxperson]

My vote: The version of D&D that we have today. I don't have any qualms with 5E D&D; it strikes just the right balance of rigidity and flexibility, predictability and randomness, order and chaos.

My Day 1 prediction: I'm in the minority.

I actually want something in-between what we have now with 5e and 3e which was much more imbalanced. I feel like WotC overcorrected for 3e with 4e and 5e.

 

[Lanefan]

Everyone has 50 hit points no matter what.
All attacks do d100 damage. DONE!

"Done" being the operative word there, making one thing about it very predictable indeed: you'll need the character roll-up guide again sooner rather than later.

 

[CleverNickName]

Current version with home brew allowed. I’m not sure why the “no home brew” stipulation was added. I don’t like it because that stipulation takes our discussion from reality to hypothetical land, where it will become pointless.

The "no home brew" stipulation was eliminated to provide focus. If homebrewing is allowed, there would only ever be "middle of the road but not 5E" votes. We already know that is what most people want, no need to poll it. ;-)

 

[Reynard]

"Done" being the operative word there, making one thing about it very predictable indeed: you'll need the character roll-up guide again sooner rather than later.

There's an interesting point: swingy and unpredictable aren't necessarily tied to one another. As my joke examples shows, swiginess can produce predictable outcomes on average.

 

[Pedantic]

I reject the whole premise of this question. I don't think those are opposite polls, I don't think 5e is triangulating any sort of middle ground, I don't think the things you've grouped together are intrinsically linked, and I think it's impossible to answer without clearer definitions. Are we discussing balance between classes? Balance for some subset of adventure/encounter design? What are the design goals we're trying to achieve?

This is nonsense and will produce nonsense.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

I don't see how you get there.

'as a world-renowned athlete, I'm going to climb up this hill'
GM1: alright, you do so, I'd only make you roll if there was something weird going on
GM2: make an Athletics check or you fall at some point
GM3: actually it's unclimbable

'I'm a caster, so I'll cast Fly to fly up this hill'
GM1: okay
GM2: uh, okay
GM3: yes, magic, magic can do anything, of course!

One of these knows the outcome before they even state what they're doing, the other doesn't even know what kind of a world they live in.

 

[CleverNickName]

I reject the whole premise of this question. I don't think those are opposite polls, I don't think 5e is triangulating any sort of middle ground, I don't think the things you've grouped together are intrinsically linked, and I think it's impossible to answer without clearer definitions. Are we discussing balance between classes? Balance for some subset of adventure/encounter design? What are the design goals we're trying to achieve?

This is nonsense and will produce nonsense.

I had included an "opt-out" option, but I guess it should have been more aggressively-worded.

 

[Reynard]

'as a world-renowned athlete, I'm going to climb up this hill'
GM1: alright, you do so, I'd only make you roll if there was something weird going on
GM2: make an Athletics check or you fall at some point
GM3: actually it's unclimbable

'I'm a caster, so I'll cast Fly to fly up this hill'
GM1: okay
GM2: uh, okay
GM3: yes, magic, magic can do anything, of course!

That is not swingy, and it is only "unpredictability" if the GM is rolling randomly to determine the sate of the hill.

Spells in D&D are the absolute definition of predictability.