D&D General Explain 5(.5)e to me

[GothmogIV]

I get that. Lots of choices.

 

[Charlaquin]

That's interesting. I used that analogy because--in my observation--you just press a button (or some combination of buttons) in a modern video game and you get an effect of some kind for your character. With some of the class bonus actions I've seen--rage, second wind, for example--there is no narrative component. You simply say "I am raging" and get an effect. Those kinds of powers didn't exist in older versions of the game.

Those kinds of powers did exist in older versions of the game. They just didn’t exist for Fighters, and might or might not have existed for Thieves, depending on how your DM handled their %chance abilities. What you’re noticing is that it’s no longer just spells that allow you to achieve a desired effect simply by declaring that you activate the power. And, in my understanding magic users are generally the most popular classes in older editions. Turns out, most people like being able to just declare they’re using a power and get a predictable result. Modern D&D just lets every character do that, and that’s part of what people like about it.

I'm not dismissing those 5e features, but they are a component of the rules that I have found to be a bit unimaginative.

What you might be missing is that the existence of these “push-button” powers doesn’t prevent you from coming up with and narrating creative, fiction-first actions. It does remove the need to do so in most situations, but the option is always there for those who want to take it.

It’s also notable that most of these sorts of powers are primarily combat related. You can say “I rage” and get some extra damage on your attacks and damage resistance and stuff, but you usually can’t just say “I charm the guard” and have him do whatever you want (unless you’re a spellcaster and you cast Charm Person, of course). You still generally interact with the game by describing your character’s actions and the DM either narrating the result or asking for some kind of die roll. There’s a centralized mechanic for those dice rolls now instead of a different mechanics for specific situations, but that mechanic is still, in theory, used to resolve the actions you narrate in a fiction-first way, rather than as a way to skip that narration. I say “in theory” because a lot of groups do use it to skip narration. But, that’s part of the nature of the game, different groups will apply the rules in different ways. Point is, if you want that more imaginative, fiction-first gameplay in 5e, the power to make it happen is in your own hands.

 

[plecostomus]

I was going to try and respond to specific parts of the OP, but I kind of have the reverse situation. I don't know what playing old D&D is like, aside from one time we played Tomb of Horrors as a dream sequence using the DCC system.

So instead, I'll just tell you about my last session as a player in a 5E game. My entire group went crazy for this session and got super stoked at the ending. You tell me if it sounds appealing. Or what it's missing, I guess. I will tell you upfront...this session had zero combat. We just got back from a marathon of fights in the Outer Planes.

Here's the session (2.5 hours):

1. Our Level 11 party lands our magic boat at a party member's home city, which is occupied by a bunch of Pelor clerics. The clerics are itching to burn the city down to rid it of demonic influence.
2. The party chooses to negotiate with the clerics. My character is undead, and the clerics have understandably been hostile to him in the past. I suggest he just stays on our boat and investigates some other phenomena in the area. The party wants him at the negotiations though, so we sneak into the city to obtain a disguise for him.
3. A cleric stands guard at the gate to the city. My character attempts to sneak past and trips on a cobble and falls over in his plate armor directly in front of the cleric. The fighter covers for him by using a rune to paralyze(?) the cleric and we run off into the city while the cleric is busy being a statue.
4. To get a disguise, my character needs a fresh corpse. Initially the party thinks they can just sneak my character into a crypt with some other corpses that are being carried in, but they find out there's a cleric purifying each corpse on its way. We finally abandon the disguise plan and collect some information about the status of the city instead.
5. We return to the gate to leave, and the cleric we got past the first time is now accompanied by 10 other clerics, who are investigating our previous security breach.
6. This time, the fighter pulls down her hood and reveals she is an aasimar. The clerics are all impressed. The fighter demands the clerics bring their leader to the gate for negotiations in 2 hours and they agree. Meanwhile, our wizard uses Dimension Door to get my character back outside.
7. With 2 hours to kill, my character suggests we investigate the giant solar weapon the clerics have stationed outside the city. This is what they will use to burn it down if negotiations fail.
8. The party member who grew up here says she knows a cave that can get us close to the weapon. From there, her and the fighter investigate the weapon, while my character distracts the guards by revealing his undead nature to them and then running away. The wizard sneaks back out through the cave and recovers our ship, which she uses to pick up my character at the end of a nearby cliff. My character casts Blade Barrier both to keep the clerics from pursuing him onto the cliff, and to flag the wizard down.
9. Of the 2 party members who go to investigate the weapon, 1 tries to figure out how it works. The fighter however just starts hacking at the ritual circle surrounding the weapon. At one point the DM had the fighter roll a 1d100 and then said "OK...you guys don't both explode as [fighter] is breaking the ritual circle." Instead, a big crystal fell out of the weapon. The 2 of them ran back to regroup at the ship.
10. The party discusses whether or not we should steal the crystal, which is clearly needed to power the weapon. We also try to decide how quiet we should be about it. We think about what the consequences could be for stealing the crystal with complete stealth- someone points out the clerics may then think someone from the city stole it. My character recommends a public theft, and maybe we can use the crystal as leverage for the negotiations too!
11. So we steal the crystal publicly. This isn't difficult. We abandon stealth, fly up in our (magic) ship, and yoink the crystal out of the destroyed ritual circle.
12. The cleric Inquisitor, who had been on his way to the negotiations, sees us prancing around in our ship with his crystal and uses Divine Intervention to summon a effigy of Pelor. He declares that the betrayers and the corrupt will be burnt, which we assume means us, but we notice the effigy is actually smiling at the city.
13. The fighter is already talking about using what we know about Pelor and these clerics to turn the effigy on its creator instead...but we'll have to try that next session.

Pretty much everything that happened here was character-driven, from the initial point of the mission being to rescue a party member's hometown, and then leveraging elements of our backgrounds to get past problems (or cause them), or making choices that then resulted in NPC reactions and consequences. The reason the clerics are there in the first place is because we asked them for help with a demon in the city. At the time, we didn't know that they were hardliners whose leader is called an Inquisitor.*

*Actually my character knew, but he is also a hardliner cleric and he was okay with it. He was sort of hoping the Pelor clerics would torch the place while we were elsewhere. That didn't happen, so now he's firmly back on the side of "oh yeah let's stop these guys".

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I was going to try and respond to specific parts of the OP, but I kind of have the reverse situation. I don't know what playing old D&D is like, aside from one time we played Tomb of Horrors as a dream sequence using the DCC system.

We've got a bunch of threads on this question, with a ton of great info.

 

[Chaltab]

That's interesting. I used that analogy because--in my observation--you just press a button (or some combination of buttons) in a modern video game and you get an effect of some kind for your character. With some of the class bonus actions I've seen--rage, second wind, for example--there is no narrative component. You simply say "I am raging" and get an effect. Those kinds of powers didn't exist in older versions of the game.

What does that even mean? That's how spells work too, unless you actually require players to say magic words and provide material components to cast a spell.

 

[Older Beholder]

That's interesting. I used that analogy because--in my observation--you just press a button (or some combination of buttons) in a modern video game and you get an effect of some kind for your character. With some of the class bonus actions I've seen--rage, second wind, for example--there is no narrative component. You simply say "I am raging" and get an effect. Those kinds of powers didn't exist in older versions of the game.

I'm not dismissing those 5e features, but they are a component of the rules that I have found to be a bit unimaginative.

I’m currently playing a Druid/Barbarian (path of the beast).
My character tries to control his temper for the most part, only going into a rage after being hit, or if he’s actually made mad through roleplay. At lower levels I liked the idea that he was trying to wildshape, but hasn’t quite figured it out and ended up a raging half-beast instead.

Personally I find having mechanics that reflect the roleplay to be one of the more fun aspects of 5E.
Druid/Barbarian is such a strong multi-class option to begin with that you can choose more fun thematic things without having to worry about being 100% optimised.

If anything I find more options only gives my imagination more to work with.

 

[Clint_L]

To be fair, if I was lucky enough to still be playing with all my buddies from back in the day, and still having a good time, I wouldn’t feel much incentive to swap editions. I swapped because I largely fell out of the game and then came back for 5e because my kid wanted to play. And now I run the club at school, including the beginner campaigns, so that makes me want to stay with what’s most current.

I think 5e is a great game, but I also think 1e is a great game. So I would say that if it ain’t broke…

 

[GothmogIV]

What does that even mean? That's how spells work too, unless you actually require players to say magic words and provide material components to cast a spell.

I had not thought of that! Next time...

 

[DJ Shepard]

I’ll approach your question a bit differently than others. I started playing D&D about three years ago. The starter box intrigued me at the store for several years, especially during that time in and after COVID lockdowns when nothing new was coming to shelves due to supply chain issues. 5e 2014 is all there was as far as I was concerned at that point. There’s also people pulled in by Baldurs Gate 3, for whom this is the version of the game on the store and the internet they can readily find, buy, and play.

A generation of younger players and people that generally don’t hang out on these forums happily plays this game, and many are almost totally unaware of previous editions other than some other sections of the D&D Wikipedia page, let alone the vast catalog of retro clones, OSR games, and other TTRPGs. I enjoy branching out and earlier versions of the game intrigue me, but I know I will rarely find a curated group of players in my social circle that have the interest and time to learn them. So 5e is the game we play. It feels familiar, safe, like the first game you played probably does. And people will probably be playing 5e this same way in several decades, just like the version you found and fell in love with. It’ll be the one we have fond memories of and some people will teach their kids or grandkids with their old, cracked, faded copies of the Players Handbook. And they’ll likely wonder why other people enjoy in whatever a 6e or 7e looks like if they occur, as Morris pointed out.

It’s awesome that you have tried 5e, but if it’s not to your taste, that makes sense. We should play what gives us joy, because creation and connection with the people we are playing with is what I think makes this hobby unique and valuable. I hope I get to find folks like you in my time to experience the joy of previous editions with, but that’s not everyone either. Thanks for asking an earnest question!

 

[AlViking]

One of the reasons I like D&D is that we can make the game our own. Even back in the day when other people were using 10 ft poles to check for traps and doing everything they could to avoid combat or if it couldn't be avoided making sure you were prepared as possible? We never did that, we just ran around kicking in doors and kicking ass. Looking back I'm still not quite sure how any of our characters survived all that, but we had fun doing it.

I think the current version does a decent job of giving our groups that kind of flexibility again. Want to spend 6 months to a year playing to get to level 2? Been there, done that. I actually started the group at level 0 and we had a lot of fun getting there. I get that on paper PCs seem to be far more powerful, advance far too quickly. But power is always relative to the opposition you face and how quickly you advance is up to the group.

So some of the complaints about the game just kind of fall flat to me (and some people just seem to like to complain). No this is not old school D&D but it's also not a completely different game. It is still a game that's fairly easy to modify to suit what you want out of the game, it just may take a while to get there to figure out how to do it. Or at least it works for me and my group.