D&D 5E How Can D&D Next Win You Over?

[Tequila Sunrise]

Hey! Don't tell me that Expedition to the Barrier Peaks and Spelljammer weren't D&D. You'll have to go a lot further than that to go out of genre

Weren't there tommy guns in the 1e DMG? Or maybe that was a Dragon issue that had WWII German soldiers meeting a fantasy party?

I stand corrected. Clearly, applying "That's not D&D" to just about anything is an iffy proposition even in extreme cases.

 

[Ahnehnois]

And thats why I don't give much to the "its not D&D" complain, at least when it is about the mechanic.
Any improvement of the game mechanics can only come from outside D&D as otherwise we would already have it.

Then by the same token, any worsening of the rules can only come from outside.

Thus, the underlying philosophy in the "not D&D" perspective is that one should not fix things that are not broken, making improvements only in measured ways.

 

[Derren]

Then by the same token, any worsening of the rules can only come from outside.

No, it can also come from removing existing rules which imo is the main failure of 4E.

But yes, "new things" can also be bad. But when the edition you currently have is not good enough there is simply no alternative.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The thing is, the person that started this digression didn't propose any mechanics to discuss- we were given a rhetorical firebomb to play with instead.

I'm all for cross-pollenization of ideas, but that was- as quoted- a call for something completely divorced from what has gone before. Ergo, the entirely valid "not D&D" critique.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

Stay on track.

Today I read the monster design L&L article. And indirectly we are tols a lot about the next playtest iteration of the PC side of things.

I can say, I am more than pleased. Sounds like a gret game. Eager to continuing the playtest!

 

[Obryn]

Weren't there tommy guns in the 1e DMG? Or maybe that was a Dragon issue that had WWII German soldiers meeting a fantasy party?

It had conversion rules for Gamma World and Boot Hill, at least! Dragon 100 had an adventure where the PCs traveled to 1980's London. Tommy guns were in there, IIRC.

But yeah, as neonchamelon said, S3. End of story. Remember that D&D was created in a day where Fantasy and Sci-Fi were pretty much the same thing, and science fantasy was more the norm than the exception. When Vance is one of your major influences...

-O

 

[Abraxas]

There are other, more accurate and less inflammatory ways of stating "I don't want that in my D&D experience" or "I don't like that because it's not what I'm used to" than "That's not D&D!" Even a factual "that would be a radical departure from the way the game has worked in the past" or "that could dilute the game's identity in a marketing sense" would say the same thing as "That wouldn't be D&D anymore."

I don't doubt people would also take offense to those statements - I choose not to be offended, especially when it is clear no offense was meant. YMMVAOD

The gaming experience I associate with classic D&D is one of frustration and disappointment punctuated with occasional moments of wonder - the latter possible only because I was relatively young, and the former tolerable only only because I was very enthusiastic and hadn't yet experienced anything better. I'm a different person with different experiences, now, and those early experiences can't be duplicated. I can enjoy a pang of nostalgia when they're alluded to, but that's not enough, for me, to base a campaign on, nor a good enough reason to buy a new edition. It might be worth playing a 1e AD&D game at a convention, for instance.

We obviously have different experiences.

With modern D&D, OTOH, the amount of boredom and frustration you have to wade through to get to the good bits has steadily lessened, and the moments of awesome (not so much wonder anymore) have become more frequent. If 5e can continue that trend, great. If it brings back boredom and frustration by wallowing in nostalgia, no thanks.

I, on the other hand, have found that the frustration and boredom has steadily increased as things have become more formulaic. Once again YMMVAOD.

This threadjack has gone on too long already, and it is apparent that we have wildly different tastes in what makes a good game of D&D. As always play what you like and good gaming.

 

[Tony Vargas]

We obviously have different experiences.

That's the crux of it, and part of why throwing out anecdotes like they prove something isn't all that helpful. As for the whole "it's not D&D thing," I suppose a further problem with it is that it throws down a gauntlet: it asserts that whatever "it" is, you have no business even talking about it on a D&D forum.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

As for the whole "it's not D&D thing," I suppose a further problem with it is that it throws down a gauntlet

To put the "not D&D" thing back into the context in which it was raised in this thread, it was not a gauntlet thrown, it was a gauntlet picked up.

It was said in response to a paragraph with no definite mechanics to discuss, just a demand for a "brand new game" completely divorced from its roots. That's not S3. That's not tommy guns in the DMG. That is a request for something the game is not now nor has ever been.

 

[Abraxas]

That's the crux of it, and part of why throwing out anecdotes like they prove something isn't all that helpful.

Even less helpful is treating gaming anecdotes as if they were universal truths.

As for the whole "it's not D&D thing," I suppose a further problem with it is that it throws down a gauntlet: it asserts that whatever "it" is, you have no business even talking about it on a D&D forum.

We also disagree on this - In most cases where I have seen it is used, no gauntlet is thrown - all someone is saying is that whatever "it" is doesn't jive with what that person wants out of "D&D" - you are still perfectly welcome to discuss "it" and even suggest how "it" might enhance the "D&D" experience. It appears to me that the reactions to this and a few other common statements on these forums are from people looking for ways to be offended - I could be wrong, but if we try to sanitize the forums of all such statements (if everyone could decide on which ones are trouble) there wouldn't be much discussion going on.

Anywho, I've been giving the topic of this thread a lot of thought as of late and will post later today what I think I would need out of this up coming edition to really get me gung ho for it.