Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
The
VOIDRUNNER'S CODEX
is coming! Explore new worlds, fight oppressive empires, fend off fearsome aliens, and wield deadly psionics with this comprehensive boxed set expansion for 5E and A5E!
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
D&D 6th edition - What do you want to see?
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="anahata" data-source="post: 7792363" data-attributes="member: 7015521"><p>How would I know what intimidate should do in combat? I don't get into fights. I have no experience or basis on which to decide. I also have no experience or basis on which to decide how magic works. That's why the rules exist: to provide a framework for things we humans in the real world have no experience of.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>How? On what basis? What do I choose? How do I justify the choice? I play an RPG instead of doing freeform makebelieve so that there's structure. Taking away the structure means it's no longer a game. I <em>don't want to be</em> a game designer but 5e makes me one.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is the crux of my issue. I play 3.x every week and love it. When I compare the 3.x games I'm in to the 5e game I'm trying to run, the 5e game feels like a collapsing scaffold of toothpicks compared to the impregnable stone fortress of 3.x. It's not even that the foundation is bad; <em>there is no foundation</em>. I want consistency, I want predictability, and 5e doesn't offer it. As I said above, 5e makes the DM into a game designer and I desperately don't want to be one, because I'm bad at it and I know it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>What does all of that mean in game terms? How does it work? The ideas are great, but it doesn't tell me how to adjudicate actions.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is wrong. Here's the Intimidate skill description for 3.5 for in-combat use:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is a mechanical, <em>quantifiable</em>, description of what the skill does and how to use it. Meanwhile, here's the entire text of the skill description for 5e:</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>There's no description of what kind of action it is, if it even is an action, what the effects are, how long they last, nothing. That specific use of the skill in 3.5 has more words than the entire description in fifth. This is the kind of detail that I want. "use your intuition" / "use your judgement" / "make a ruling" aren't helpful when there's no guidance on developing that intuition or judgement or any suggestions on what the ruling should be. I had to make a ruling on the spot when my player did this and, because there's no suggestions on what to do, how to handle the situation, I gave him something so powerful it broke encounters. 3.5 provides specific, <em>balanced</em> (mostly) rules for the things my players want to do. 5e leaves me to make things up without providing any of the support needed to understand how to do so.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm not sure what you were going to say after "That", but yes, I absolutely do prefer 3.5, for reasons that should be clear from the rest of the post. 5e is like tossing your infant into the ocean and telling them to swim. 3.5 pairs you with an Olympic swimming coach.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="anahata, post: 7792363, member: 7015521"] How would I know what intimidate should do in combat? I don't get into fights. I have no experience or basis on which to decide. I also have no experience or basis on which to decide how magic works. That's why the rules exist: to provide a framework for things we humans in the real world have no experience of. How? On what basis? What do I choose? How do I justify the choice? I play an RPG instead of doing freeform makebelieve so that there's structure. Taking away the structure means it's no longer a game. I [I]don't want to be[/I] a game designer but 5e makes me one. This is the crux of my issue. I play 3.x every week and love it. When I compare the 3.x games I'm in to the 5e game I'm trying to run, the 5e game feels like a collapsing scaffold of toothpicks compared to the impregnable stone fortress of 3.x. It's not even that the foundation is bad; [I]there is no foundation[/I]. I want consistency, I want predictability, and 5e doesn't offer it. As I said above, 5e makes the DM into a game designer and I desperately don't want to be one, because I'm bad at it and I know it. What does all of that mean in game terms? How does it work? The ideas are great, but it doesn't tell me how to adjudicate actions. This is wrong. Here's the Intimidate skill description for 3.5 for in-combat use: This is a mechanical, [I]quantifiable[/I], description of what the skill does and how to use it. Meanwhile, here's the entire text of the skill description for 5e: There's no description of what kind of action it is, if it even is an action, what the effects are, how long they last, nothing. That specific use of the skill in 3.5 has more words than the entire description in fifth. This is the kind of detail that I want. "use your intuition" / "use your judgement" / "make a ruling" aren't helpful when there's no guidance on developing that intuition or judgement or any suggestions on what the ruling should be. I had to make a ruling on the spot when my player did this and, because there's no suggestions on what to do, how to handle the situation, I gave him something so powerful it broke encounters. 3.5 provides specific, [I]balanced[/I] (mostly) rules for the things my players want to do. 5e leaves me to make things up without providing any of the support needed to understand how to do so. I'm not sure what you were going to say after "That", but yes, I absolutely do prefer 3.5, for reasons that should be clear from the rest of the post. 5e is like tossing your infant into the ocean and telling them to swim. 3.5 pairs you with an Olympic swimming coach. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
D&D 6th edition - What do you want to see?
Top