D&D General D&D without Resource Management

[Vaalingrade]

5E 2024 is an update, its not a cancelling and restructure.

Tell that to what they tried to do to the Warlock.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Accepting the rules as they are because people right now enjoy them is the business specifically of a certain subset of consumers. That isn't the attitude that a game designer or creative should have. This doesn't mean that designers/creatives DON'T have this attitude -- many do -- but it's an attitude of needless limitation. There is no benefit in accepting the rules as they are. There is a lot of potential benefit in discussing the nature of the rules, their interaction, and how they could potentially be better or maybe need to be replaced. Things sound alarmist because different people discussing the topic have differing thresholds for what they consider severe. To me, the 5E DMG has good ideas, but could easily be improved in a number of low-effort ways that don't require a rewrite. But since we are getting a rewrite, it's normal to expect that it improves drastically, because why rewrite something if its the same mid-level of quality?

At the root of this is this very strange idea on this forum that it's wrong to want things to be better. That if you want the rules to improve, that's a you problem, and you should maybe go play another game. What a terrible attitude to hold. I enjoy D&D. I want D&D to be a better game. I want D&D to keep doing new things. Because of that, I want WotC to experiment with new takes on old ideas, and also to suggest new ideas in their books that they haven't before.

If your only metric is that people are fine with it now, then you don't have any real metric. You have a conservative opinion on design and art that only benefits you. Because YOU'RE ok with it now, you don't want it to change. But you already have your books. Stop trying to shout down attempts at innovation.

To be fair, making changes to any existing product is a risk, more so the more successful it is. Where's WotC's financial incentive to make the game more to your liking? There's a good chance they'd lose customers if they do.

I'm in the same boat, so I feel you.

 

[Shardstone]

To be fair, making changes to any existing product is a risk, more so the more successful it is. Where's WotC's financial incentive to make the game more to your liking? There's a good chance they'd lose customers if they do.

I'm in the same boat, so I feel you.

Yeah I get it, I just wish more ambitious people were at the top of WotC right now. Or me hehehehehe

 

[Micah Sweet]

Yeah I get it, I just wish more ambitious people were at the top of WotC right now. Or me hehehehehe

I'd be interested in seeing what you did with it, and what your version of D&D would do to the industry. The only thing about WotC that concerns me personally is how much power they have over the community (and the setting IP they own and won't let anyone use).

 

[mamba]

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Change can be good change can be bad. Just because you want it better doesn't mean it will be better when you change it

that is why they are not changing it willy-nilly without any feedback.

I’d rather have them try to improve it than say ‘it is selling, so we are not changing anything’

 

[MichaelSomething]

Yeah I get it, I just wish more ambitious people were at the top of WotC right now. Or me hehehehehe

They are quite ambitious. It's what they're ambitious about that is the issue.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I know you are tired of hearing that, but you keep making an argument that it needs improvement in spite of it.

I mean, we still have people bringing up the same complaints that have been there for twenty years of 3e/3.5e/PF1e. Caster/martial disparity issues. CR is garbage. Crap DMG advice. Dearth of support and growing balance issues at high level. Magic items are a problem. The way DMs run skills is a problem, even though the books don't actually advocate that specific thing (they don't advocate against it either, though.)

Crawford explicitly said that part of the reason they started up the "One D&D" playtest was that players' actual choices for resting habits were out of sync with their design assumptions, which caused classes like Fighter and Warlock to fall behind. The designers themselves have literally said that the rules need some improvement to actually match how people use them.

So yeah. I'm sick and tired of being told an argument, that the designers admit is at least partly true, is completely irrelevant and stupid and should be dismissed with aggressive prejudice.

This is what im talking about. It's exaggerated and very alarmist. What is worse is the air of pretention that folks get it finally, but are not going to take it seriously.

It is not exaggerating in the slightest. I was outright mocked for saying there were any problems with the DMG as little as two years ago. Now? People defensively announce in advance "yes I know the DMG is terrible, get over it, we have bigger fish to fry" or some variation thereof.

My two cents, if you want to get away from these tiresome circular arguments, stop trying to drag everyone into them. You are a smart individual and I really appreciate your perspectives. Making the case that a legion is behind you, or that folks ought to be behind you, but cant understand it, is just going to result in an incendiary interaction. You dont need numbers of people/customers to support your ideas, they are good enough on their own.

I will never stop doing it so long as (a) the designers themselves admit many of the problems I highlighted, and (b) the people I argue with keep soinf EXACTLY the same thing, arguing that thr silent majority is totally with them and that every part of 5e is utterly necessary for its success.

It has nothing to do with that they "can't understand it." I have no idea where you got that from. My argument with the spaghetti sauce is simply that, very often, people only know what they've seen/done. If you have never tried any form of carrot, you cannot know if you would actually like carrots or not. If you have been told that a mild, light-roast coffee is "weak" and "near water" you will be socially primed to seek (as almost everyone does) a "dark, rich, hearty roast," even though studies have consistently shown that most consumers do not like "dark, rich, hearty roast' coffee.

Neither of these is a fault of the person. They are simply states of affairs that commonly happen regarding tastes; as Dr. Moskowitz put it, "The mind knows not what the tongue wants." Millions of people never knew they truly, deeply wanted extra chunky spaghetti sauce, and the company that capitalized on that hole in the market made millions, maybe even billions by now (it's been like 40 years at this point.) The only way to develop a comprehensive idea of what you like is to try a comprehensive set of things. TTRPG players are notorious for picking one single game, usually the current edition of D&D, and sticking with it no matter what, sometimes for decades.

These are reasons why someone might work with or even seek out things that aren't actually aligned with their taste. That doesn't mean any given thing IS a problem; that's what testing is for. But with the clear, demonstrable continuation of things like caster/martial disparity, the 5MWD, CR problems, etc., things that are fixable issues and which actual designers admit are problems not just with 5e but other systems too e.g. PF1e, these arguments are quite reasonable explanations for how something can be extremelu popular and also falling short of its design goals in ways that actually do cause problems.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

5E 2024 is an update, its not a cancelling and restructure.

.... that's...

I don't even know how to respond to that. Designers openly admitting the game has flaws that need correction is somehow not trying to improve the game...

I just...what? How does this make any sense?

 

[Shardstone]

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Change can be good change can be bad. Just because you want it better doesn't mean it will be better when you change it. It's very sad that you have reduced everyone who disagree's with you as simply an enemy of change and not people with thier own varied reasons.

And honestly if innovation can't make it through an internet forum it was doomed anyway. Real innovations that are going to be popular usually aren't hard to sell.

To the bolded part, I didn't say that, stop making my post seem more dramatic then what it was. What I was waxing poetic about was that I believe any designer or artist should continuously work to polish their skills as they create the things they want to see. I wish that WotC was more daring in their designs, not only because they can afford to be, but because I would learn more about design myself from them doing so.

As for your second paragraph, I don't know what you're talking about. Innovations in game design usually don't happen on forums, and them not making it off of forums doesn't mean anything, as a forum is not by itself an objective crucible or measure of quality, and there's a litany of factors that an otherwise great innovation might not make it to an actual project, let alone widespread adoption.

And to everyone saying that change isn't always better, I do not care. If the change isn't good, then we can try something else. This "What if..." argument will never sway my opinion. Talking about hypotheticals wherein the changes are absolute dog water are useless and don't do anything to advance or stimulate the discussion.

 

[jgsugden]

...Sometimes I can build and maintain this degree of in-game stress on the PCs, but it gets repetitious (for both sides of the screen) after a while.

I disagree. Think about real life for a minute. There are countless cliches about how we never have enough time. If you're creating an immersive environment for your game the time pressures arise naturally. I don't really have to try to create the pressures - they just occur naturally - and I'm not the only one creating them, by the way. Players do, too.

For example, I had a player decide her PC wanted to get into local politics. This caught me off guard, but I improvised and we were running with the concept. That created pressures for her to be there for debates, to find ways to win approval near the election, to find evidence that the opposition might be up to no good - all in time for the elections ... and all while still trying to deal with the threats to the party. I didn't have any idea we'dgo that direction, but it unfolded naturally and puhed the game forward.