DarkCrisis
Let her cook.
Took me awhile to agree but 5E is not medieval fantasy like old d&d. It’s high magic steampunk at this point.
I find it easier to use a system that does what I want and then trying to force 5E to do it.
D&D (2024) DMs what do you think of the new PHB?
- Thread starter DarkCrisis
- Start date
Took me awhile to agree but 5E is not medieval fantasy like old d&d. It’s high magic steampunk at this point.
I find it easier to use a system that does what I want and then trying to force 5E to do it.
EzekielRaiden
Follower of the Way
Which, I mean, that's pretty much the failure state for the design path 5e's designers chose to take for it.
As folks said all too often during the "D&D Next" playtest, 5e was designed to be "everyone's second-favorite system." That is, almost any long-time D&D player who plays 5e probably has at least one other version of D&D they like better, or at least that they really liked certain parts of that aren't there/aren't well-articulated in 5e. The design choice, not really a "gamble" per se but a non-trivial risk nonetheless, was to make an edition that was good enough for the vast majority of players.
The converse side of that particular risk is making something that can't justify its existence to anyone, because it doesn't have anything it actually does particularly well in and of itself--and beating it into shape is just too much work.
Over time, I find that as 5e's honeymoon has waned--that is, official 5e, as I'm sure our perennial Level Up booster will be on my butt about that--a number of folks have slowly drifted from "it's good enough and widely played" to "it...isn't quite good enough, is it?" Certainly not enough to ruin 5e financially or anything like that. But as someone who is critical of 5e, I've very clearly noticed a culture-of-play change.
The first four-ish years of 5e, it was nearly impossible to criticize it in any way at all without having folks jump down your throat (other than to complain about something being OP...but nobody cares about balance...but I digress), and we had a near-constant firehose of pure gush threads mooning over how A-MA-ZING 5e was. And then that mostly went away, and there was a period of positive neutrality for a couple years. Then, the criticisms started coming in, slow at first, then more frequently. Some of them were not at all worth the time required to read them (the endless pearl-clutching about "Disneyfication"), but some were much better--e.g. people finally started recognizing that the DMG is actually pretty bad, rather than being one of the best ever made (and yes, that is something someone told me on this very forum, several years ago).
Now? I don't think the "constant gushing" phase will come back with 5.5e. The honeymoon is over, and it isn't coming back. Folks like you can see that 5e is not only not very good for the things that excite them, it's actually pretty overtly bad, and hard to change to fix that. Others, like the ultra-ultra "simulationist" players, or folks like me who find 5e's design painfully sloppy and self-sabotaging, have been aware of this for quite some time now. The question, of course, is whether 6e, when it eventually arrives, will try to woo us (all three) back, or write us off as lost for good. I can't say I'm optimistic .
Micah Sweet
Level Up & OSR Enthusiast
At least, official D&D is high magic steampunk. I wouldn't say 5e in general has come to that.
I think that my using the 2024 rules is off in the undetermined future, so I've only given my copy a cursory once-over.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
High magic absolutely, but steampunk? There’s nothing either steam-powered or punk about it.
CreamCloud0
Hero
Eh, even if it’s not linguistically accurate I think I know what they mean, leaning more into that faux-victorian level of society, and the steam in steampunk getting substituted for magic aesthetics, and a couple of breastplates and great-swords thrown in for good measure
Last edited:
The Soloist
Hero
I went and looked at it at the local store. The organization is much better than 5e. They explain the character creation and three pillars very well. The Rules Glossary will be very handy. The graphic design and illustrations are top-notch. Overall my impression was positive.
Warpiglet-7
Lord of the depths
So far not thrilled with some reported changes but no substitute for having one in hand for perusal!
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I’d be more inclined to call it magi-punk, but to me Eberron is magi-punk. Setting-neutral 5e is just… fantasy kitchen sink. It lacks the degree of edge necessary to qualify as any sort of punk-punk in my view.
OB1
Jedi Master
I've been playing since the 80s, and 5e is my favorite system, largely because I see it as the true successor to 2e, which is the version I learned to play with and my 2nd favorite. For me, 5e recaptured the feel of 2e while making it much easier to pick up and play. I've played far more D&D over the last 10 years than I had in the previous 25 and a lot of that is thanks to 5e not requiring system mastery to have a good time with it, which is important for most of my players who don't spend a lot of time thinking about D&D outside of the 12 hours or so a month that we play.
The '24 refresh, for me, wasn't 'neccessary' in that I could have kept playing 14 for another 3 decades, but I do appreciate WotC updating the game to make it even easier to onboard new players (I have 2 brand new players using the new PHB for their characters) and thus keep growing the hobby. I have 2 players in my group that have been with me for a decade, and we fill out the group with 2-3 other players who come in for a couple of years before dropping out to be replaced with new players.
