D&D (2024) Do players really want balance?

[Distracted DM]

Couple of things. First, there is no perfect game. Even if it did exist, it would vary from one person to the next. Second, there was minimal correlation of sales increase with either Stranger Things or Critical Role (there was a chart somewhere on this forum that showed estimated growth, the upward trend didn't change much). Remember, it took CR a while to gain many followers. In addition, Matt switched over from PF to D&D 5E because he thought it played and presented better so it's kind of a chicken and the egg thing there.

Obviously there are many, many influences on D&D's success. We can't underestimate the impact of the acceptance of gaming (video or TTRPG) and the resurgence of fantasy along with many people feeling disconnected and wanting a more face-to-face connection. Then there was COVID ... on and on. But virtually any game could have taken advantage of a lot of this, they didn't. There are a lot of D&D streams that are popular and relatively few streams that are as popular that use other systems. Is that caused by the approach of other systems? Is the approach a big part of the appeal?

We just don't really know and never will. All I know is that I, and the people I play with, have fun and I have no problem attracting players if I need to. That's all that really matters to me.

• I didn't say anything about a "perfect game?"
• Good call on CR switching from PF to 5e. Yup!
• I'm accounting for CR's upward popularity curve... I don't understand your saying that there's minimal correlation between ST and CR. I'd be interested to see this graph you're citing!
• "Virtually any game could have taken advantage of this, but they didn't." Actually... they did? A lot of TTRPGs were born from the events you mentioned, the indie TTRPG scene has exploded. But DnD is huge and has name recognition, and grows from its popularity. People from outside of TTRPGs have heard of DnD, but chances are they haven't heard of Pathfinder. "The big hamburger boom happened, why didn't Mom and Pop burger shop take advantage of it like McDonalds did?" They probably saw some success, but to suggest that they have the same sort of opportunities as McDonalds suggests ignorance..
• "We don't know and never will," I know that's probably true but then what's the point of saying both this, and all your other justifications to support your assertions?
• "I and the people I play with have fun and have no problem attracting players if we need to. That's all that matters to me." Clearly more matters to you, you've been arguing on some of its behalf here. It's great that you're having fun, and you have the privilege of having no trouble attracting players for the game system you prefer

 

[mikeburke]

do you have an extra 2-3 copies of the 2E PHB lying around?? I don't

I know this isn’t the point of the discussion, and probably rhetorical, but you can get good quality reprints of the 2e PHB/DMG/MM from drivethru (alas the crummier art from the black cover editions).

I’d hate for a 2e game to be blocked somewhere in the universe due to the lack of this knowledge, is all.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They did that already in 2012 or so with their premium OD&D, 1e, 2e, and 3.5 reprints of core books.

Yes. And they were awesome. I bought all the 1e ones!

 

[pemerton]

Well, I was responding to your comparisons between the methods. You listed distinct methods used by OD&D/1e, 2e/3e, and 4e. You then said that 5e has "the issue" (problems with encounter-building guidelines in a game with "adventuring-day" resources) because it does...none of those three methods.

Well, the classic D&D method has been extinct in mainstream play for about 40 years now.

4e doesn't have the issue.

So that leaves either the 2nd ed AD&D approach - which is to have rules and procedures that in a formal sense are pretty hard to get right (in terms of encounter balance) and that the GM is expected to work around via fudging; or else the 5e approach, which is to use guidelines that are sufficiently "down-tuned" that even a non-technical group of players who have already spent a fair bit of their resources for the "day" will be likely to succeed at the typical combat encounter.

Personally I think the 5e approach is superior to the 2nd ed approach, although neither actually appeals to me.

It provides guidelines that are lenient to the point of being not very useful

I think they are useful - they mean that a GM who follows them is not likely to accidentally TPK their group. And for non-technical, non-wargame-y players - which I think is a lot of the current player base - the "lenience"/"down-tuning" won't adversely affect the play experience.

One of my theses about 5e, for quite some time now, has been that its designers effectively tried to abdicate many actual design decisions in the first place. Not all, of course, as that would be impossible. But certainly a lot of them. That was why the 5.0 DMG was so full of advice that boiled down to, "You can do X, or you can not do X. You're the DM, you decide!" without even a gesture at explaining how, or why, or when--or giving worse-than-useless "advice" about it.

I think 5e is a pretty tightly-designed game.

On the PC build side its maths draws heavily on 4e D&D, with many correlative departures from tradition (eg fighters get their 2nd attack at the same time magic-users get 3rd level spells, ie 5th level - although tradition for a second attack is 7th level in AD&D (fighters go from 1/1 to 3/2) and 6th level in 3E; and fireball etc do a fixed number of dice of damage rather than a level-scaling amount) yet the player-facing aspects of PC build are close enough to tradition that it causes little outrage.

On the action resolution side, it has a stat/skill system that is deployable in something like the 2nd ed AD&D way (ie more-or-less as a descriptor system that the GM establishes some fiction around, calling for rolls if they like), in something like the 3E way (ie using "objective" DCs for task-oriented resolution) and that is not wildly different from 4e in the actual skill list itself. And its combat system is a cleaned-up version of 3E and 4e.

And on the GM side, it supports the mainstream approach of low-stakes, frequently free-form exploration leading from combat encounter to combat encounter - there is nothing too toothy to get in the way of that, like a skill challenge framework or other out-of-combat conflict resolution - and (as we're discussing in this thread) the combat encounter guidelines mean that accidentally TPKing a group is pretty unlikely, even though resource management is largely on the traditional per-day model.

Now none of the above is very appealing to me, but that's not because of bad design. It's because of deliberate design away from my preferred approaches to D&D and to RPGing more generally.

 

[pemerton]

when you're immersed in the character POV, you're not making this decision from the author stance; your character is afraid, if that is what you, as the character, feel.

If you actually look at standard advice to D&D players - including on these forums - you will see that it does not tell players to make decisions about whether or not their PC flees by immersing in character and working out what the character would feel and do. They recommend making those decisions on a rational and tactical basis - eg keeping track of hp loss and so on - and then making rational decisions to withdraw. Often those recommendations are accompanied by reference or allusion to earlier versions of the game (OD&D, B/X, Gygax's AD&D) that had explicit rules for escape and evasion.

That is author stance - indeed, often pawn stance - all the way!

 

[Zardnaar]

Well, the classic D&D method has been extinct in mainstream play for about 40 years now.

4e doesn't have the issue.

So that leaves either the 2nd ed AD&D approach - which is to have rules and procedures that in a formal sense are pretty hard to get right (in terms of encounter balance) and that the GM is expected to work around via fudging; or else the 5e approach, which is to use guidelines that are sufficiently "down-tuned" that even a non-technical group of players who have already spent a fair bit of their resources for the "day" will be likely to succeed at the typical combat encounter.

Personally I think the 5e approach is superior to the 2nd ed approach, although neither actually appeals to me.

I think they are useful - they mean that a GM who follows them is not likely to accidentally TPK their group. And for non-technical, non-wargame-y players - which I think is a lot of the current player base - the "lenience"/"down-tuning" won't adversely affect the play experience.

I think 5e is a pretty tightly-designed game.

On the PC build side its maths draws heavily on 4e D&D, with many correlative departures from tradition (eg fighters get their 2nd attack at the same time magic-users get 3rd level spells, ie 5th level - although tradition for a second attack is 7th level in AD&D (fighters go from 1/1 to 3/2) and 6th level in 3E; and fireball etc do a fixed number of dice of damage rather than a level-scaling amount) yet the player-facing aspects of PC build are close enough to tradition that it causes little outrage.

On the action resolution side, it has a stat/skill system that is deployable in something like the 2nd ed AD&D way (ie more-or-less as a descriptor system that the GM establishes some fiction around, calling for rolls if they like), in something like the 3E way (ie using "objective" DCs for task-oriented resolution) and that is not wildly different from 4e in the actual skill list itself. And its combat system is a cleaned-up version of 3E and 4e.

And on the GM side, it supports the mainstream approach of low-stakes, frequently free-form exploration leading from combat encounter to combat encounter - there is nothing too toothy to get in the way of that, like a skill challenge framework or other out-of-combat conflict resolution - and (as we're discussing in this thread) the combat encounter guidelines mean that accidentally TPKing a group is pretty unlikely, even though resource management is largely on the traditional per-day model.

Now none of the above is very appealing to me, but that's not because of bad design. It's because of deliberate design away from my preferred approaches to D&D and to RPGing more generally.

3E was the one that messed up with +11/+6/+1.

A 2E fighter could have 5/2 attacks dual wielding level 1 weapon specialist.

Best fighters in terms of killing stuff was 2E (optional rules tbf eg fighters handbook) and ACKs.

Not counting cheese eg dart specialist or sneak attack with charging lances.

 

[pemerton]

A 2E fighter could have 5/2 attacks dual wielding level 1 weapon specialist.

Best fighters in terms of killing stuff was 2E (optional rules tbf eg fighters handbook) and ACKs.

Not counting cheese eg dart specialist or sneak attack with charging lances.

I count AD&D dual wielding as "cheese", in the sense that it's a poorly-thought through rule that should be describing a relatively marginal fighting style difference, but that actually hugely changes the effectiveness of a melee-oriented character.

 

[DinoInDisguise]

I think the combination of those three latter factors has serious impact on people who are not actively put off by what D&D 5e brings to them, so while its not possible to directly assess how much of a factor they are, I don't think one can be dismissive of them while arguing in good faith.

I don't think it's reasonable to assume that the theories you state, even if assumed true, would account for anything more than a small fraction of the community. Given that at certain critical mass groups stop vetoing. That in an perpetually online world, with Pathfinder books on Walmart shelves, ignorance isn't all that compelling. That games for other systems fill up far slower on Reddit's r/lfg sub, to the point where people have complained elsewhere online.

When we bring up things like these, we seem to be arguing that 5e would be slightly less popular. That the gorilla would be slightly smaller, maybe 600 lbs instead of 800 lbs. These reasons you state aren't going to account for the majority of 5e players even in their "best case."

I don't mean to dismiss anything. Just pointing out that we are nibbling at the edges with these theories, instead of actually explaining the popularity. In all likelihood, 5e's popularity is because a lot of people have fun playing the game. We know this, because they actively seek out chances to play it.

Why so many seem to care what system others play is beyond me. But here we are, discussing why others very much, or couldn't possibly, like 5e.

I mean, for a decade now 5E has ruled the market because that is the only mass-marketed RPG out there. For some, it is the best as well, for others it is acceptable, and for others still they don't care for it at all. FWIW, I am in the second group.

I think this is 100% true. Not everyone will, or should, like 5e. WotC made it for broad appeal. It should surprise no one that the sole TTRPG designed with broad appeal in mind - has the most broad appeal. But yet we bicker about why 5e has broad appeal.

I think it's because we are mostly old grognards who like to bicker. But maybe I'm projecting with that statement.

 

[pemerton]

Perhaps they should honest about this then, and admit to said public that these are marketing tools deployed to maximize the profit potential of their product, and not actually aimed at making the best game creatively.

I've never studied marketing, but based on my amateur observations I think one of the first rules of marketing is that you don't talk openly to the audience about how you are marketing to them!

I also find it very hard to believe that anyone mistakes WotC's marketing-oriented "polls" for attempts at scientific data collection.

it looks like they killed the version game that gave them all the IP they're profiting from and are walking around in its clothes and calling themselves by the same name. I know that's very dramatic, and I really don't hate D&D, but it really bugs me on a deep level that they keep changing the game I grew up on and loved in a very formative way while maintaining the stance that it's the same game.

This is why I can't respect WotC's publishing stance, no matter how financial sense it makes (and I admit that if course it makes sense from that perspective). They mostly just care about profit, and there's no profit motive for them to do what you're suggesting, so they don't.

I find this very strange, for at least two reasons.

(1) WotC is not an impartial curator of cultural artefacts. It's a commercial publisher.

(2) Your preferred sort of D&D did exactly what you criticise WotC for doing to the earlier, classic version of the game.

 

[pemerton]

Not everyone will, or should, like 5e. WotC made it for broad appeal. It should surprise no one that the sole TTRPG designed with broad appeal in mind - has the most broad appeal.

My "like" was particularly for this observation.

WotC have clearly worked hard to consolidate the position of D&D as the RPG with the highest level of broad appeal. Of course there are network effects - that is part of the appeal - but WotC seem to be doing well at maintaining and building those networks. And they are publishing stuff that many people seem to want to buy.