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

[TiQuinn]

Another big difference between 1e and 5e, that might be a feature or flaw depending on taste, is that in 1e power-ups came from magic items to a much greater extent than in 5e, both in terms of how many items you got and in terms of their relative power.

This is why I still love the earlier editions. This exact reason. It’s why I think they fit side-by-side with 5e beautifully. Different additions with different design, goals, and different advantages. If I ever played second edition again, there would be a lot more magic items for PCs.

 

[GothmogIV]

I wonder too if breaking out of WotC's orbit isn't a way to approach thinking about 5e. As I said...somewhere in this long (and very helpful!) conversation, I love Dungeons&Dragons as an concept, but the current stewards are not to my liking; nor are the materials they are publishing. But Kobold Press has lots of cool stuff, as do others (Level Up, for example). So that might be a way to re-enter, should I go in that direction at some point.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

That's all very well said, thank you. I am realizing it's a mindset issue, not a quality issue. If I do run 5e again, I have to think about what its ethos is vs. the ethos of older editions: high fantasy, high powered gaming vs. hack and slash survival. I realize I'm generalizing there, but hopefully you take my meaning.

Certainly.

I would say that the ethos (good word!) of early-edition D&D tended toward:

• Logistics-focused play -- your items and equipment kind of are your "features" (in modern terms), use 'em wisely
• Characters are more like your game piece, they let you access play, direct character RP is often optional
• "Metagame" usually isn't as much of an issue (e.g. player knowledge carries over between characters)
• All/almost all story is retroactive: you reflect on the events you've lived through, no expectation of satisfying conclusions
• Personal player ability (clever, persuasive, etc.) trumps all, even if that may leave shy, unsure, or unobservant folks behind
• Easy-come, easy-go, death is everpresent, you'll lose LOTS of characters before you get one that survives to durable level
• Most players will have several characters, both to make death sting less and to make pick-up groups easier to do

Contemporary D&D play tends toward the following:

• Challenge-focused play -- you're building toward something, or working to overcome something, etc.
• Characters are a persona you take on, or a story you're exploring, direct character RP is almost always essential
• "Metagame" is often an issue, though different people see different things as acceptable vs unacceptable levels of metagaming
• Story is rarely (if ever) retroactive; mostly, it's either pre-plotted by GM, or a mix of improv and planning from GM and/or player(s)
• Personal player ability matters, but game stats also matter, in part to level the playing field between different players
• Death varies, but is often a distant threat, or it is impermanent (you'll get better), revocable (someone will raise you), or "earned"
• Most players will play exactly one character, and losing that one character permanently is a very big cost

Obviously, there's LOTS more you can say about both, but these are major salient ways the two differ.

So, it can help to ask, what kind of experience is being offered? Is it an experience I can enjoy, even if it's not the experience I prefer? I've had to ask more or less the same questions, and have decided that, with a good group (like my current one!), I can enjoy 5e, even if it is not my favorite system.

Logistics-focused play is difficult in 5e, not impossible but you'll definitely be fighting the system, especially if you want "logistics" specifically in the form of survival. Having a gritty, survival-focused game is extremely difficult because of how pervasive magic is, and how easily magic solves most such concerns. Similarly, combats tend to be somewhat longer in 5e than in old-school games, meaning that "nickel and dime"-type combats that slowly drain your resources can be rather a slog, and not particularly enjoyable in and of themselves. As a result, bigger, more in-depth, combats tend to be more common, simply because they're more enjoyable to do in this kind of system, whereas old-school D&D often bogged down or got at least a little bit repetitive if you had combats at that scale (not to mention the whole "really really likely to die" thing).

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Characters were too powerful too quickly, the action economy is... let's say busy (readied action, action, bonus action, reaction), and the character options just an endless parade of race, subrace, class, subclass, with an inexhaustible list of mechanical stuff PCs could do just by rolling a die (vs. role playing, or having to think about what they wanted to do). It all felt like a video game to us.

I get this. The thing with skills n such is, when you get used to them they stop being 'buttons' and become roleplaying aides.

But if youre used to not having such things, it can be stifling.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I wonder too if breaking out of WotC's orbit isn't a way to approach thinking about 5e. As I said...somewhere in this long (and very helpful!) conversation, I love Dungeons&Dragons as an concept, but the current stewards are not to my liking; nor are the materials they are publishing. But Kobold Press has lots of cool stuff, as do others (Level Up, for example). So that might be a way to re-enter, should I go in that direction at some point.

Yeah, there are so many flavors out there of D&D, whether one is using the 5E engine or another derivative, that finding a perfect fit is very doable for nearly everyone.

Mine turned out to be alternating games, so I could have the system that felt best for each adventure type, rather than trying to get one system to handle all campaigns. Others -- probably a majority of folks -- end up finding one engine to rule them all for their gaming.

 

[Stormonu]

I wonder too if breaking out of WotC's orbit isn't a way to approach thinking about 5e. As I said...somewhere in this long (and very helpful!) conversation, I love Dungeons&Dragons as an concept, but the current stewards are not to my liking; nor are the materials they are publishing. But Kobold Press has lots of cool stuff, as do others (Level Up, for example). So that might be a way to re-enter, should I go in that direction at some point.

If you like DCC, check out the 5E products that Goodman produces. Especially their Original Adventures Reincarnated line.
Also Frog God Games would be a good place to look if you are seeking 5E material that emulates older edition fare.
Kobold Press was founded by one of TSR's old guard, and it does have a good bit of excellent material.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

This is not a troll post. I am asking legitimately out of curiosity, and maybe a bit of wistfulness: why is 5e (and the newest iteration, 2024...5.5e) fun?
Background: the other day I looked on D&D Beyond and saw their new(ish) map feature. Since I play online with my friends pretty much exclusively, I was impressed to see how workable the VTT is. The map. The tokens. The turn order. The encounter builder. It's all just done for the GM and players. So freaking cool.
But: my crew and I, a bunch of grogs in our 50s, played 5e a few times and didn't find it to our liking. Characters were too powerful too quickly, the action economy is... let's say busy (readied action, action, bonus action, reaction), and the character options just an endless parade of race, subrace, class, subclass, with an inexhaustible list of mechanical stuff PCs could do just by rolling a die (vs. role playing, or having to think about what they wanted to do). It all felt like a video game to us.
But, people love it. Just love it. So my question is...why? What is it about this particular rule set and edition that makes it so fun? Is it because this is the only edition many people have played, and don't know any of the old ways? Or is it because so many people play video games, and 5e is sort of analogous?

My first RPG experience I made when I was around 18 or 19, and my first game was Shadowrun 3E. Shadowrun is as setting mixing cyberpunk and fantasy. It has no classes or levels, you just equipped gear - perhaps cyberware and learned different skills. In that edition, every character had 10 "boxes" of wounds and stun, damage was split into basically the difficulty to resist the damage and its lethality. Attacks dealt damage ranging from light to deadly, and good attack rolls could increase that damage, while thetarget would attempt to resist the damage and reduce the lethality again, armor reducing the difficulty to resist while constitution helped you lower it. It all made a lot of sense and lead to immersive results, I thought, you knew exactly what 3 or 6 boxes of damage meant on each character, you even had injury penalities because obviously getting shot several times is going to hurt and hamper your fighting ability! To cast spells (if your character had magical abilities at all), you needed to make skill checks, and you needed to resist drain. Same thing to summon spirits.

Then, a friend of mine found a new gaming group for us to play with. They played many games including Shadowrun, but around the time, a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons came out, it was the 3rd. They wanted to try it out, and so we did. I had never played D&D, obviously, and never seen it before, and I was a bit ... shocked. It was blatantly videogamey, it had classes, levels, and hit points that increased with level. Someone could take 6 damage and it could mean a mere scratch or fall over dying, but even if you just had 1 hit points, you were fighting with no penalties. Totally unimmersive and implausible.
The magic system was also entirely prospesterous, spellcasters didn't need to make skill checks to see if they could cast a spell, it was as easy as pressing a button on a keyboard or gamepad! They also didn't cause any drain, instead, spellcasters would "forget" the spell and couldn't cast them again until they rested for the next morning and memorized it again. Entirely ridicilous that this would be a new game released in the year 2000, when Shadowrun was clearly so far more advanced and immersive and actually attempted to simulate a believable world!

Obviously, I went a long way from there, and grew to like (and then hate again) D&D 3E and D&D, and my thoughts on this have become more... complex, so to speak. But it is fun, and I think it's not an accident that people not immediately in love with any edition of D&D make video game comparisions - even though we also know the truth is probably that those video games simarilities exist because those video games were inspired by D&D originally...

 

[GothmogIV]

Yeah, there are so many flavors out there of D&D, whether one is using the 5E engine or another derivative, that finding a perfect fit is very doable for nearly everyone.

Mine turned out to be alternating games, so I could have the system that felt best for each adventure type, rather than trying to get one system to handle all campaigns. Others -- probably a majority of folks -- end up finding one engine to rule them all for their gaming.

I think that's a good point, oh wise one. We played a DCC Hyboria game set in Conan's world, and the system was perfect: I skinned the Lankhmar rules and it worked out great! Weird and trippy and bloody. I ran some of The Old Margreve (Kobold Press) using Dragonbane, and that worked out well, too: felt very old-school fantasy. So matching the system to the vibe is a huge thing. 5e is a heroic high-fantasy engine, while Castles&Crusades is a grittier game. And on and on.

 

[AlViking]

My first RPG experience I made when I was around 18 or 19, and my first game was Shadowrun 3E. Shadowrun is as setting mixing cyberpunk and fantasy. It has no classes or levels, you just equipped gear - perhaps cyberware and learned different skills. In that edition, every character had 10 "boxes" of wounds and stun, damage was split into basically the difficulty to resist the damage and its lethality. Attacks dealt damage ranging from light to deadly, and good attack rolls could increase that damage, while thetarget would attempt to resist the damage and reduce the lethality again, armor reducing the difficulty to resist while constitution helped you lower it. It all made a lot of sense and lead to immersive results, I thought, you knew exactly what 3 or 6 boxes of damage meant on each character, you even had injury penalities because obviously getting shot several times is going to hurt and hamper your fighting ability! To cast spells (if your character had magical abilities at all), you needed to make skill checks, and you needed to resist drain. Same thing to summon spirits.

Then, a friend of mine found a new gaming group for us to play with. They played many games including Shadowrun, but around the time, a new edition of Dungeons & Dragons came out, it was the 3rd. They wanted to try it out, and so we did. I had never played D&D, obviously, and never seen it before, and I was a bit ... shocked. It was blatantly videogamey, it had classes, levels, and hit points that increased with level. Someone could take 6 damage and it could mean a mere scratch or fall over dying, but even if you just had 1 hit points, you were fighting with no penalties. Totally unimmersive and implausible.
The magic system was also entirely prospesterous, spellcasters didn't need to make skill checks to see if they could cast a spell, it was as easy as pressing a button on a keyboard or gamepad! They also didn't cause any drain, instead, spellcasters would "forget" the spell and couldn't cast them again until they rested for the next morning and memorized it again. Entirely ridicilous that this would be a new game released in the year 2000, when Shadowrun was clearly so far more advanced and immersive and actually attempted to simulate a believable world!

Obviously, I went a long way from there, and grew to like (and then hate again) D&D 3E and D&D, and my thoughts on this have become more... complex, so to speak. But it is fun, and I think it's not an accident that people not immediately in love with any edition of D&D make video game comparisions - even though we also know the truth is probably that those video games simarilities exist because those video games were inspired by D&D originally...

Where, exactly, do you think those videogames got their ideas for classes, levels and hit points from?

 

[Blue]

Been playing since Moldvay Red Box Basic. Excepting a bobble at 4e, which I did learn to enjoy, I've embraced each new edition and loved it.

5e embraces a different subgenre than early D&D. The rules strongly push for heroic fantasy. A bunch of the things you pointed out as differences are the ruleset supporting the tropes and genre expectations.

There's an assumption that D&D is one game. It's not. Each edition is different, and just like there's nothing saying that someone who likes D&D will like the feel of something like Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, there's also nothing that says that "if you like early D&D, you will like modern D&D".

Yes, there are sacred cows, and in 5e they tried to bring back some of the feel of earlier editions that was lost in the great experiment that was 4e. (And this is where it holds true for me: I'm very glad that they were willing to try something radically different in 4e, even that that particular implementation wasn't for me.)

So, what do I like about 5e? First, I do like the subgenre. Second, the rules are streamlined. I spend less of a session trying to find/implement rules than I have in most other editions, which means more time for roleplay and all the other goodies. Second-and-a-half, it means I can run or play in games that make meaningful progress even on weeknights, because my time available to game has changed. Third, I like the availability of tools for prep and for play -- yes, this is definitely an indirect factor of popularity, but that doesn't make it less true.

It's not without flaws, and frankly my favorite D&D-like game isn't actually in a D&D-brand, but rather 13th Age, a d20 based off the 3.x OGL by the lead designers of 3ed and 4e as the game they wanted to play vs. that WotC wanted them to make, plus improvements by seeing their D&D editions played on such a large scale. It came out a bit before 5e, and embraces both "don't just look to my character sheet" as well as streamlined play. The 2nd edition is due momentarily -- I've had the final PDFs from Kickstarter for months (and you can get them now from backerkit), with the physical release expected Real Soon Now(tm).