D&D 5E D&D is Getting Unweildy

[TerraDave]

There was another thread on how well the Molday Basic set sold.

That was such a great entry to the game. I do remember going to a newly opened game store and being overwhelmed by the D&D stuff. I got a the AD&D DMs screen, and was overwhelmed by that. Then at some point I was ready, and started using it.

 

[ReshiIRE]

I don't know. My daughter seems to have a frightening lack of life skills, despite living on her own at school for years, and I see a similar lack in a lot of young people at stores and that I overhear other places. It's scary.

I am not sure I see the relevance of life skills to playing a game or learning a game, nor as a mid 20s person do I see a lack of life skils in my friends or collegues, or the younger folk. People grow at different rates; I am sure she'll be fine.

The young are always criticised and treated very harshly, and invariably they tend to come out alright, as long as the society being made by their elders is alright.

 

[Maxperson]

I am not sure I see the relevance of life skills to playing a game or learning a game, nor as a mid 20s person do I see a lack of life skils in my friends or collegues, or the younger folk. People grow at different rates; I am sure she'll be fine.

A large part is a lack of critical thinking. They get taught how to do something at the store, but something slightly outside of what they were taught happens and instead of just making an easy adjustment, they are lost until they get the manager to come explain what to do.

That doesn't bode well for understanding complex games or being able to combine two such games.

The young are always criticised and treated very harshly, and invariably they tend to come out alright, as long as the society being made by their elders is alright.

I don't treat them harshly. Mainly I just worry about my daughter, because she had trouble paying her rent when she misplaced her checkbook and we had to tell her to go get a cashier's check at the bank. That one wasn't tough.

 

[Stormonu]

I have friends...... you mean I have to talk to my fellow nerds as we are being shoved into our wall lockers.

 

[TwoSix]

I don't treat them harshly. Mainly I just worry about my daughter, because she had trouble paying her rent when she misplaced her checkbook and we had to tell her to go get a cashier's check at the bank. That one wasn't tough.

To be fair, I had no idea what a cashier's check was until I actually needed one for my house closing, and I was about 25.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

Just saying, there's no guarantee even that everything in the PHB is playable at any given table. They specifically mention Drow, but it's 100% fair to have a campaign setting where Dragonborn, Tieflings, or even Humans just don't exist, or wouldn't be appropriate for a player character for whatever reason. If you don't want to deal with stuff from Tasha's, or Xanathar's, or anything else, then don't. As long as you let your players know upfront that not all published content is available for use, and set proper expectations, there's nothing at all wrong with that. After they already chose it, the conversation gets a bit more awkward in terms of asking to retcon or whatever, but it's still very doable.

Personally in my homebrew campaign I gave out a "campaign primer" with an overview of general setting info which everyone in the general populace would know, as well as some homebrew character options. Everything in there and the PHB is automatically approved for use. Everything not in there, whether it's subclasses, feats, alternate ability increases, or whatever else, is probably fine. But I ask that it get ran by me first, because I may not have read it and want to be familiar with it if it's in use, to prevent in-the-moment gotchas or misunderstandings on either side. This also lets me identify if someone is cherry picking things and getting to a power level out of line of that of the other characters. If they choose something with combo potential which puts them way out of line with the power level of everyone else, I can use the opportunity to veto it and explain why, have a good faith discussion about wanting to ensure everyone at the table has a chance at the spotlight.

Just my 2 cents, I know plenty of folks feel that all options should be available to all players all the time, and the DM should just balance around it and deal with it if they're any good. But that's not the only plausible position to hold, and if you want to keep things simple for yourself, I suspect in most cases your friends would prefer that over you not having fun and the campaign falling apart.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

If this feels "unwieldy" to you, you are likely never going to be happy with any edition of D&D for terribly long.

 

[Giant Octopodes]

If this feels "unwieldy" to you, you are likely never going to be happy with any edition of D&D for terribly long.

I could not possibly disagree more. I knew someone who all through 3/3.5 ran campaigns strictly off of the PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual. He ran them very effectively, and had fun campaigns.

In the general sense, I do not accept arguments in the vein of 'if you think something is imperfect, it's probably not for you and you shouldn't try to enjoy it, much less improve it'. Trying to improve the things you like and make them even better, for yourself and maybe for others, is something which can only serve as a positive. If someone disagrees, they can just not use whatever solution you found to make it right for you.

In the particular sense, I reject the idea that additive, optional content being released for a game can make it worse. You can Always just ignore it and play things as they were before the optional content was added. 5e is the same as it was before Tasha's came out, if you choose not to use it. You can just take the things you like from that optional content, leave the rest, or leave it all entirely, so ultimately whatever form of play you choose to engage in after that content comes out should only ever be as good as it was, or even better. If it's worse, then that's on you, and you just need to make better choices about what you do and don't allow.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I could not possibly disagree more. I knew someone who all through 3/3.5 ran campaigns strictly off of the PHB, DMG, and Monster Manual. He ran them very effectively, and had fun campaigns.

In the general sense, I do not accept arguments in the vein of 'if you think something is imperfect, it's probably not for you and you shouldn't try to enjoy it, much less improve it'. Trying to improve the things you like and make them even better, for yourself and maybe for others, is something which can only serve as a positive. If someone disagrees, they can just not use whatever solution you found to make it right for you.

In the particular sense, I reject the idea that additive, optional content being released for a game can make it worse. You can Always just ignore it and play things as they were before the optional content was added. 5e is the same as it was before Tasha's came out, if you choose not to use it. You can just take the things you like from that optional content, leave the rest, or leave it all entirely, so ultimately whatever form of play you choose to engage in after that content comes out should only ever be as good as it was, or even better. If it's worse, then that's on you, and you just need to make better choices about what you do and don't allow.

I did not say "imperfect." I said "unwieldy."

The OP's whole point is that, now, 5e has too many books. Too much content. Too many new or different rules. And as a result, it cannot be run easily anymore.

The OP is the one your argument is targeting. I agree with you: I also think it is more than a little silly to argue that 5e's additive, optional content in any way makes it meaningfully harder to run.

Hence I am responding to someone who said, "5e has too much content now. It can't be run effectively anymore," and saying, "Man, if the paltry amount of optional content 5e has is too much for you, you are never going to get along with any edition D&D for more than a few years." Because yeah, 5e has maybe eight books of optional content. In over eight years of publication. (SCAG, Xanathar's, Tasha's, and Fizban's being the big ones, with RftLW, EGtW, GGR, and Strixhaven being the much smaller but still somewhat impactful additions.) If eight books of optional content is enough to be "unwieldy" then I don't really think D&D, as it is created by WotC, is the kind of product that appeals to the OP's interests.

 

[reelo]

I know plenty of folks feel that all options should be available to all players all the time, and the DM should just balance around it and deal with it if they're any good.

Those people are wrong. You don't just empty the whole spicerack into every meal you cook.