D&D 2E Is 5e Basically Becoming Pathfinder 2e?

[pming]

Hiya!

(a) The two biggest things you are disallowing -- multiclassing and feats -- are in the PHB and have been since the day it was released.

(b) You keep referring to Sage Advice as if it were a source of new player options. It is not. This makes you look like you're complaining about stuff from a position of ignorance, which is never a good place to be.

Sage Advice supposedly "clarifies and classifies rules problems". Thing is...for me and other DM's who take the whole "rulings...not rules" thing as one of the, if not THE key feature of 5e...when a player comes to a game and expects some particular 'rule' to work the way SA 'clarified' it to work, and I don't subscribe to that ruling, we get back to the whole "annoyed player because DM doesn't know what he's doing" thing. That said, I do get your point about it being "advice" more than "rules/additions".

(c) If you have your own version of underground ranger archetype, don't lead off your pitch with "You can't play Deep Stalkers!" That's just bad marketing. Sell the player on why your version is better. (It shouldn't be hard; the Deep Stalker is kind of "meh".) And if the player disagrees that your version is better, would it kill you to let them play the Deep Stalker as a substitute? After all, you've already made it quite clear that there's a place for underground rangers in your world. Do the exact mechanics matter so much? It's not as if the characters in-universe are going to realize, "Oh, hey, I learned Underdark Scout at 3rd level but you learned something else! What gives?"

I've got my own version of the ranger class. Not just a subclass -- the whole thing. I think mine is better than WotC's. And my players happen to agree. But if one of them wanted to play the WotC ranger, I'd let them play the WotC ranger. Because... why wouldn't I?

I totally get where you're coming from. Another poster upstream also gave some helpful advice. I'll have to think carefully about my "pitch" to new potential players. I think I'm going to have to update a bunch of our Obsidian Portal campaigns with more in-game account of what happened and whatnot (all manner of game systems, btw), and then point folks there to read and see if they think it's a cool way to play.

Good advice. Thanks!

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[pming]

Hiya!

[MENTION=45197]pming[/MENTION] - another option for you might be to drop the puck on a 1e or even 0e campaign and advertise for recruits for that...see how much interest there is in old-school play. If this gets a decent response you can then try graduating that group to the stripped-down 5e you're trying to run.

Though I can't speak to pming's specific and quite isolated community, I'd disagree with this assertion in a more general sense. I think the pool of players is still growing.

The pool of DMs, on the other hand...

Lanefan

Oh if only! I'd LOVE to get another 1e/Hackmaster game going using my homebrew campaign setting of "Eisla". However, that's not very likely at all. At least not for a 'starter game' with new players. I found (direct experience) that dumping a "new-era" 3.x player into a more old school game was...disastrous. She played for one session. They decided she didn't like it because "she couldn't do anything". It was with Dark Dungeons (a Rules Cyclopedia OSR). Really..."she couldn't do anything, so she didn't like the system". This was one person. Another player of mine tried to run a game with some "new-era 3.x/PF" players. Same results. "We can't do anything!" There is a DEFINITE disconnect between player and play-styles based on what game system you learn with. Learning with rules-light or "rulings, not rules" old-skool type games tends to, in my experience, lead to gamers with a wide range of game system experience...while going the other way tends to lead, again in my experience, to gamers who feel that if there isn't a rule for it, you can't do it...and if the DM rules you can, it will be "broken" or "incorrect" because they are "just the DM".

YMMV, of course, but in my experience, this is true most of the time. Most, not all...just most.

I do like the idea of a different game. Maybe if I give a choice? Maybe if I say something like "Experienced DM and two players looking for 2 or 3 more to do some weekly RPG'ing. System, genre and setting is up for grabs. We can discuss choices, pick something, and get rolling!". Hell, even just writing that puts my mind in a more...hmmm... "accepting" frame of mind? Kind of thinking of it as a challenge to my DM'ing skill to pull off a game, assuming 5e, where we use things I don't like...and try and interpret/use them in ways that I *do* like (or at least accept).

Thanks Lan-e-fan-of-various-games-so-figured-I'd-put-in-my-2¢, gives me something to think about.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[pming]

Hiya!

Wow what a wild coincidence, that's where I saw Star Wars for the first time too! I recall my brother fell asleep curled up on the back window ledge of the car and I woke him for the bar scene.

Who knows? Maybe we were in the car right next to you? ...small world...

I am so sorry to hear about your wife.

Thanks. I miss her every day. Great chick, and a helluva role-player! I wrote "Gonna miss you Chickypoo...you were the best wife I ever had!" on her casket. Meant every word of it (PS: She's the only wife I ever had). LOL! (we "pimped her coffin", as it was her last "ride", with quotes, thoughts, doodles using multi-coloured Sharpies, and big stickers of flames, skulls, barbed wire and such...all with Weird Al playing in the background; she would'a wanted it that way... ).

You have two players, so that meets a minimum at least. And if you get a third, that's plenty enough to run a game (I happen to be writing this while playing online, and only three players showed up for tonights game - I am not playing distracted though as the DM is on a 5 min break).

A-yup. Personally I like 3 or 5 players. With an even number you can get into the dreaded "half goes this way, half goes the other" or where half want to do X and half want to do Y, so they debate it for half an hour. With an odd number, there's usually one side that wins out far earlier than half an hour.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[obidavekenobi]

After having played D&D in all its iterations since 1979 I knew 5E would experience the bloat, but, as others have pointed-out, it's not as overstuffed with supps as other RPGs in the past or present. For that I and my group are thankful.

One solution my game group came up with was this: I DM a lower-rules-intensive version for a number of sessions, then I give up the chair for the other DM in our group, who likes more crunch. It seems to be a good balance for everyone; good compromise.

Best of luck to you in continuing your 5E game. Sure would hate to see a fellow gamer have to hang up his dice. 5E, I think, has been a nice transition back to D&D's roots.

 

[Lanefan]

As for my group ... One just moved down to Vancouver island to try and start a life there for some crazy reason.

That 'crazy reason' couldn't possibly have anything to do with Yukon winters vs. Pacific Coast winters, could it?

Any idea where on the Island they've wound up?

And the last was my wife, Cheryl, who died a few months ago (May 23rd) due to MS complications.

Ouch. Condolences from here.

Lanefan

 

[dave2008]

Hiya!



Trying to catch up! I did post two (three?) replies, but I think they got over-run by more posts/pages. Right now I've got all that pesky life stuff going on...and my B-Day is Friday, so...yeah. Time is somewhat limited to read the pages and pages and reply...probably be a really rambling post. I'll post something later on tonight after the little one gets to sleep.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Don't sweat it, it was an inappropriate post on my part, and happy B-day!

 

[Fanaelialae]

Hiya!



Creating, tweaking or even using stuff from these aforementioned resources isn't the problem. The problem is the "expected stuff" now simply because of them. A lot of players expect to be able to use Feats, MC'ing, and stuff from the back's of various AP's. Because of this, it makes it significantly more difficult (for me, anyway) to find decent players who want to play 5e the way I/we like. That was why I was asking if I'm alone in this, or if there are others out there who are also feeling that they pretty much MUST capitulate to players wanting to use X, Y and Z options simply because "Well, that's what most want". Most...fine, may be true...probably is...but that's making it a PITA for me to find players that *don't* want or don't mind not using them.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

Have you explained that although you don't allow some content, you're happy to homebrew options?

Back in 3e, I had a DM who threw out all the established races and classes ( I think feats were still permitted). He was running an undead campaign and created a thematic racial class for each type of undead (there were about a dozen I think). My group loves options, but we loved that campaign]!

I'm currently playing in a dark sun esque campaign where all magic has a spell failure chance (for reasons of campaign background). No one took issue with it, we just avoided primary caster classes.

What I'm trying to say is that it might be helpful to stress what you DO offer (homebrew flexibility) rather than just what you don't. Not offering X, Y, and Z isn't typically a big selling point. But saying that you are willing to create custom material could be.

Also, very sorry about your wife. That's rough man.

 

[Aldarc]

Well, it's mostly a real life issue for me. I've moved a rather lot in my 20's and 30's including several countries before finally landing in a small town in Japan where there is a decided lack of anyone to game with. So, virtual tabletop was the way to go. But, even before that, I was playing in FLGS groups and my university's Gaming Club. So, it really wasn't that huge of a shift for me.

I haven't gamed with friends since high school.

Congratulations on finding a good group then in Japan. I do consider myself fortunate. I was living in the California Bay Area for my grad program until several years ago until my academic adviser landed a job in Austria and then invited me to transfer with. I found an apartment two weeks after moving to Vienna with a couple who tabletop games. On the day that I moved in, my then-flatmates and their friends started a game of Pathfinder. Less than a month after moving to Vienna, I met my future fiance and her friends, who also turned out to be gamers. So I have been floating from one group of gamers to another fairly seemlessly for the past few years.

 

[Xetheral]

Well it’s more that exacting people who will only play one specific game, and only when that game is configured in one specific way, are not people I’ve ever had the pleasure of encountering. Generally people enjoy gaming in many forms.

For me, it depends on context. If I'm joining or starting a game with friends because we're looking to spend time together and have fun, the parameters of the game are almost incidental. As a player I'll happily play whatever system the groups wants, with whatever options and restrictions. (As a DM I'm slightly more selective, since I want to be confident that my style of DMing can work well with the selected options.) The main draw is the social aspect, and the game itself is secondary.

By contrast, if I'm considering joining a game with people I've never (or only recently) met, the main draw is the game itself. It's thus more important to me to make sure it's a game whose parameters and style I'm going to find enjoyable during the time it takes to build friendships with the other players.

And yes, putting player based options in things like Volo's to boost sales is EXACTLY the plan. And a good one as well. Because if you're only going to release 1 or 2 non-adventure books a year, then you better sell as many of them as possible.

It's not a strategy that is succeeding in getting me to buy the extra books. I buy a supplement when the collective appeal of the new options is worth more to me than the price of the supplement. By parceling out the options across several books, they've ensured that none of them thus far have had a favorable value ratio. (Haven't yet considered XgtE.)

Even though I'm almost always DMing, what I want from a supplement is appealing character options to add to my game (both for the PCs and NPCs). I run a homebrew setting, so details of published campaign settings and rare monsters have little value to me. The former aren't pertinent, and, unlike common or iconic monsters, published stats for the latter don't help establish the baseline of my game world--I can simply homebrew stats for monsters rare enough to be a one-off.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Hiya!



Oh if only! I'd LOVE to get another 1e/Hackmaster game going using my homebrew campaign setting of "Eisla". However, that's not very likely at all. At least not for a 'starter game' with new players. I found (direct experience) that dumping a "new-era" 3.x player into a more old school game was...disastrous. She played for one session. They decided she didn't like it because "she couldn't do anything". It was with Dark Dungeons (a Rules Cyclopedia OSR). Really..."she couldn't do anything, so she didn't like the system". This was one person. Another player of mine tried to run a game with some "new-era 3.x/PF" players. Same results. "We can't do anything!" There is a DEFINITE disconnect between player and play-styles based on what game system you learn with. Learning with rules-light or "rulings, not rules" old-skool type games tends to, in my experience, lead to gamers with a wide range of game system experience...while going the other way tends to lead, again in my experience, to gamers who feel that if there isn't a rule for it, you can't do it...and if the DM rules you can, it will be "broken" or "incorrect" because they are "just the DM".

^_^

Paul L. Ming

I've had the exact same problem with my table. Like it or not, my players started playing tabletop with 3.5/4e and were exposed to fantasy thru single player videogames ala Skyrim and Marvel movies. They dont like the idea of ''zero to hero'' adventures: they want ''hero to super-hero'' and hate to wait 15 levels to reach the cool abilities. At first I hated it and found it very stressing: I liked 5e because I started gaming at a younger age and prefer low-power/magic adventuring but my players had a really hard time accepting that, yes, at low level goblins and kobolds are deadly. This is mostly a question of expectations. That's why I'm moving the table back to 4e for our next campaign with PHB 1-2-3 only: its a good compromise. My players will have their high-powered adventurers with tons of magic items, but I get to keep the control on material bloat. Other option I had was to use my Adventure in Middle-Earth instead of the PHB 5e in my non-LotR games (maybe add a refluffed warlock to have a spellcasting class) to keep a low-power setting while giving access to feats and magic items: they have options, but those options wont let them butcher everything I throw at them.