D&D General D&D 2024 does not deserve to succeed

[Cap'n Kobold]

So what you're saying, game design is basically on the DM because the team couldn't be bothered to figure out a workable solution? In which case, why are we even playing this game? Why don't I just pull anything out of the Monster Manual and say "well, there's your fight?" Why don't I just tell my players their characters get no treasure because "it's rare and there are no guidelines?"
That might've worked in 1977. Doesn't work today. Players want better than that. DMs want better than that.
Do you know how many of my 5e campaigns have ended in TPKs? Practically all of them. The others end because it gets boring because there's no challenge. Two extremes. Because there is no guidance.

No matter how tight the maths are, they can't compensate for the variations in the people who play the game.
The reason that 5e CR seems to low-ball the encounter difficulties is because it is there as a tool for beginner DMs running encounters for new players with unoptimised characters and tactics.
There is a world of difference between that party and a group of experienced players playing optimised characters with a fair amount of magic items (or even worse, got to pick them).
Social contract suggests that such a group should tone it down if the DM is new, but otherwise it is assumed that DMs will improve just as their players do and will be able to compensate.

The maths in 4e was pretty much as tight as it can get, and even then there was variation in how well a party could handle encounters based on character design and tactics.

 

[Neonchameleon]

It’s not “their job”. This kind of regimented combat “balance” was part of 4e, not part of D&D. D&D was always the “down to the DM” game. There are other games if you want mechanistic combat.

If you don't want mechanistic combat then you shouldn't be playing D&D - a game that has it's roots in a hacked tabletop wargame and has dozens of pages of rules in the PHB alone for mechanistic combat. (The fireball spell? Pure rules for mechanistic combat. Hold Person? Almost pure mechanistic combat).

D&D (yes, including 5e) is a pretty rules heavy game where it is probable the majority of the rules are entirely around mechanistic combat - and the rules for doing anything else other than casting spells are little more than a rules-light game like Fudge or Risus and don't even begin to approach much lighter systems such as e.g. Fate Condensed, Apocalypse World, or Blades in the Dark.

And the idea that D&D, with three core rulebooks of over 300 pages each, is a "down to the DM" game is laughable. 5e is more "down to the DM" than 3.X admittedly - but 3.x was trying to make the DM run a full blown physics SIM.

Mechanistic combat is where D&D 5e concentrates its rules, time, and effort in a game with a 900 odd page core (of which the overwhelming majority of the rules in the MM are about things to fight). If you don't want to play a game of mechanistic combat then you shouldn't touch any WotC edition of D&D with a ten foot bargepole. (AD&D 1e and B/X/BECMI/RC could at least legitimately claim to be about dungeon exploration - but that's been vestigial in mainline D&D since 2e)

The problem here is that in a game of mechanistic combat D&D 5e simply hasn't bothered to put in the work to make the combat good and engaging - with balance being part of this. But the idea that just because it doesn't do it well doesn't mean that it doesn't devote most of its mechanical time to it is IMO laughable.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Bring it back? It never went anywhere. You can still buy the books, you can still play it.

A big problem with 4e in 2024 is that character creation in 4e is a minor horror without the character builder (which you can't get legally). A big part of why I think my retroclone is an improvement.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No matter how tight the maths are, they can't compensate for the variations in the people who play the game.

You also can never eliminate friction. This is not an excuse for leaving out ball bearings, oil, and grease.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

a game that has it's roots in a hacked tabletop wargame

Hacked into a loose storytelling game. D&D hasn’t been a wargame since 1974.

 

[Zardnaar]

Yes? like what even is this question, 4E was the easiest edition to DM for because the encounter math and monster design held up so well. How is it not empowering for the DM to have guidelines on monsters?

Haven't played B/X recently?

Or a clone of it with ascending ACs?
That's about the easiest to play D&D ever followed by something like Castles and Crusades.

And yeah I've played most of the D&Ds somewhat recently.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Hacked into a loose storytelling game. D&D hasn’t been a wargame since 1974.

Which doesn't prevent a lot of D&D's rules in any edition being all about the combat.

And 5e possibly has the worst combat of any edition.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Which doesn't prevent a lot of D&D's rules in any edition being all about the combat.

But nothing about challenge rating, x encounters per day, expected magic items, etc until 3rd edition.

And 5e possibly has the worst combat of any edition.

And is the most popular version. The influx of players didn’t come for the fighting.

 

[Zardnaar]

All editions of D&D are combat heavy.

It's not hard to do non combat as such with a bit of experience.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

Instead of trying to find the perfect balance in combat encounter between too easy and too hard, the rules should be geared towards the player characters surviving even if they lose. Let them flee or be taken prisoner instead of having a TPK, then it doesn't matter so much if the DM misjudges how hard a particular fight is going to be.

The DM and players can make this work of course, but the current D&D rules makes a TPK the most likely outcome once things start going very wrong for the PCs.