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

[Neonchameleon]

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

Instead before 2e you had loot tables, XP for GP, and roughly 80% of your XP coming from GP. And monsters were rated by hit die with the wandering monsters callibrated by dungeon level. These do the same basic job as long as you are playing a game about dungeon crawling where the number of encounters you face is a matter of how much you dare test your luck.

Most of this wasn't a change made by 3.X. This was 2e making a huge change in the game by taking it out of the dungeon and deprecating the XP for GP rules and it coasting on momentum while 3.X had to throw in a collection of patches to fix things, doing slightly clunky for a broad range of environments what pre-2e had done seemingly organically for tightly restricted environments.

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

Which doesn't some how make it not exist or make it not the focus of D&D's rules. Your claim appears to be (and it's one I don't disagree with) that D&D succeeds despite rather than aided by the majority of the focus of its rules.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Your claim appears to be (and it's one I don't disagree with) that D&D succeeds despite rather than aided by the majority of the focus of its rules.

My claim is that 5e is popular because it is less focused on combat, not despite.

 

[Neonchameleon]

All editions of D&D are combat heavy.

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

This doesn't mean good rules don't help DMs. I find e.g. Apocalypse World's success-with-consequences, Blades I'm the Dark's clocks and even effectively used skill challenges (the explanations were bad) useful tools

 

[Neonchameleon]

My claim is that 5e is popular because it is less focused on combat, not despite.

And mine is that it's still overwhelmingly focussed on combat.

For that matter I could easily argue that it's proportionally the most combat focussed D&D of the 21st Century.

Compared to 3.X I would say that it is mechanically actually more combat focussed. The combat is lighter - but it's also flushed the non-combat modifiers and the oodles of feats so the non-combat mechanics in 5e are paper thin. (This doesn't mean I think 3.X was better out of combat; I don't think the 3.X rules helped but they were there and had significant focus. I think 4e halving the number of skills and dumping skill points in favour of trained and untrained (and 5e keeping both) was a good move but both reduced the out of combat focus)

Compared to 4e I could also argue that 5e is mechanically again proportionally about as combat heavy. 5e again lacks the modifiers of 4e in combat and out but has a broadly similar - and lacks out of combat structures like skill challenges and the more interesting 4e versions of rituals. Also a lot of the non-4e spells aren't for engaging with out of combat abilities so much as bypassing them. I am not kidding when I say that I find that 4e's out of combat experience is easily the best of any D&D.

To me 5e has advantages of accessibility (it's easily the least arcane and easiest to pick up D&D; oddly I consider 4e the least accessible), the sharp edges being filed off making it the compromise edition, Critical Role, and COVID having come at the right time.

 

[Minigiant]

5e was popular because combat for unoptimized play was easy, accessible, and "tangible".

It was easy to figure out what you could do and it mostly worked as it worked in real life.

Combat lightness or heaviness didn't matter.

You did an action and moved. Some people got more action options. And the actions had the same oomph like in real life.

That's easy for new players.

The issue with 5e was veterans. Once you learned the game or got higher level, it stopped working as you'd expect it to and got boring if your DM didn't stop you from squeezing out more from it

 

[mamba]

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.

they have been providing guidelines anyway, what I do with them is up to me, and yes, I absolutely see it as their job to provide such guidance

 

[mamba]

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

so half of its lifetime, the most recent half at that…

 

[mamba]

My claim is that 5e is popular because it is less focused on combat, not despite.

it barely has any rules for anything other than combat, so the claim that it is less focused on combat is a bit odd

 

[Horwath]

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.

there are rules for fleeing, it's called Dash and Disengage.

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.

what rules would be for getting captured?
It can be described in specific campaigns what certain groups will do with PCs if PCs lose the fight and not flee.

As for general rule for taking prisoners one is enough;
you either offer your unconditional surrender or we continue attacking.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

so half of its lifetime, the most recent half at that…

The portion characterised by decline (I stopped playing D&D for a start).

The thing is, this is not zero sum. At least for some players, adding this stuff to the game actively makes it WORSE.