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

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

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

Keep reading my post, then you'll know what I believe. The answer might surprise you!

 

[AlViking]

Keep reading my post, then you'll know what I believe. The answer might surprise you!

You said it felt like a video game because of classes, levels, hit points. As far as Vancian casting, that has more to do with Vance's work and the idea that wizards were basically artillery, a hold-over from the wargames D&D grew out of. I'm not saying you're wrong, I'm saying you put the cart before the horse. If felt like a video game to you because many video games take many of their ideas from D&D. D&D has, of course gone full circle and borrowed some ideas from video games as well.

Whether Shadowrun was more "advanced" than D&D is subject to opinion, I would say they just took a different approach. Much like some games have talent trees, others rely on gear for advancement, others remain committed to the idea of class levels being a big part of how characters grow. Meanwhile, as much as it is derided, hit points of some sort (sometimes split between regenerative armor and physical damage) are pretty ubiquitous to video* games that are combat oriented. Meanwhile I don't remember an FPS that didn't have some kind of healing potion by another name.

It was just an observation of the ongoing evolution of games of all sorts, not a criticism.

*EDIT - added clarification.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

It was just an observation of the ongoing evolution of games of all sorts, not a criticism.

*EDIT - added clarification.

Yeah, but it was an observation that I also made in the post you quoted, so I suspected that you might not have completed reading it.

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...

 

[GrimCo]

It wasn't until many years later the cracks in the system began to show up.

Tasha's was pivotal point. But core 5e (PHB, DMG, MM) has nice blend of TSR era simplicity and WotC era class options. Specially with feats and MC being optional rules, not standard. Playing PHB only style 5e can be very simple and streamlined experience. 5,5 on the other hand is again going to more complex and codified system (not 3.5 level, but close).

 

[Autumnal]

The “probably” part goes away if you check the names of TSR (and other) early RPG creators and the names of early computer gam designers. They’re…not exactly the same, but close. It’s not at all exaggerating to say that a bunch of the folks who left the tabletop biz continued to write RPGs as they had, just in a new medium, adapting as they had to do its constraints.

 

[mamba]

It seems like--and perhaps I am reading into what people have written--character longevity and development is much more of a focus now, vs. the fungibility of characters in the original/older game, i.e. "if I die, I'll just roll up a new guy". So that's a new way to look at things for me.

that depends on how you played back then, we already did not like / tried to avoid character death in the early 80s when we started playing, and not just on the player side.

I think the high lethality dungeon crawls were more a short period in the 70s and the game gradually drifted away from that much faster than the rules did

 

[mamba]

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

depending on how wide the net you want to cast is, you could also look at adjacent games like 13th Age (probably not for you…), Shadow of the Weird Wizard / Demon Lord, Vagabond, or Shadowdark (ordered from least to most OSR-ish). They might work better for you than the 5e variants