D&D 5E (2024) Is 5E better because of Crawford and Perkins leaving?

[Reynard]

Or maybe it's because those are small fry in the world of TTRPGs compared to 5e, and elements of "fandom" culture make it cool to junk on something when it reaches popularity with the "wrong" people.

It isn't that. it is that people think, for soem reason, that they are supposed to like D&D because it is D&D, and when they don't, they don't know who to process that. When you are talking about good games that are lesser known or played, no one feels compelled to liek them. if you don't, you don't, and you just move on. but twith D&D, we feel like we have to explain why we do or don't like it, and then defend that against those with differeing opinions.

TTRPGs, as a industry and hobby, would be better off without D&D for this reason alone.

 

[Chaltab]

This claim is often repeated, but I do not believe it and have seen no evidence it is true.

What the hell are you talking about tho? Some of the most miserable game experiences of my life have come from broken d20 builds making combat basically a one-man show. Like you don't need to experience it to understand how soul draining it is to play a game of Gary Stu and his retainers... surely someone who regularly plays TTRPGs has enough imagination to understand why that would suck.

 

[Seramus]

Like how Snarf despises bards with every fiber of their whole being.

The secret is that Snarf IS a bard!

 

[I'm A Banana]

Maybe because both of those games adhere to a design philosophy, instead of to a marketing philosophy?

Because of it's massive size, D&D is in a bit of a unique situation. It is best served by being "good enough" for a broad swath of people, especially those new to RPGs in general, rather than laser-focused on a single play experience. It always is going to have to serve many masters -- it is BETTER when it does, because of the diversity of the audience and the game's status as the standard-bearer for the hobby. A D&D with a more focused design (like 4e tried to have) is worse at being the standard-bearer, worse at appealing to a broad audience, and those things make it worse at being "D&D."

This means that D&D is probably always going to be in a situation where it's going to be a little unfulfilling. Storytellers will be annoyed at the combat grind, strategists will be irked that the combat is designed to move fast rather than reward a tactical depth, grognards will be annoyed at the lack of dungeoneering, etc., etc., etc. A broad game is going to be designed to serve most of these folks "well enough," within certain weightings. A more specific game is always going to be able to do any of these things with more fidelity to a coherent design philosophy than D&D will. Those games don't need to somehow unite three to five different play goals under a single system.

Balance is not important at all. I don't think it improves the play experience one bit. I realize that may be unpopular, but it is based on extensive play and there is no compelling evidence or proof to the contrary.

I have a slightly more nuanced take: Balance is subjective. For instance:

What the hell are you talking about tho? Some of the most miserable game experiences of my life have come from broken d20 builds making combat basically a one-man show. Like you don't need to experience it to understand how soul draining it is to play a game of Gary Stu and his retainers... surely someone who regularly plays TTRPGs has enough imagination to understand why that would suck.

This is objectively a lousy game experience. But at a table that didn't care much about combat? Or that had players who were good at spotlight-sharing? Or at a table where challenge dungeons were the norm and being a combat god wouldn't protect you against failing your save vs. that deadly trap? Or a table where PC's had very defined "roles" and the combat god was useful in their niche but where being a good face or a good trap-finder or a good scout was just as important? A different context changes that lousy game experience into just a forgettable one, or even a "fine" one.

Like, the game was originally designed with one class (the Fighter) doing the fighting and the rest worry more about other elements of the dungeon. Combat balance wasn't always a part of this thing, and it still isn't for a lot of people.

Combat balance in terms of not letting one character dominate is probably important for a lot of tables today, so it's something the game should probably take into account, but it's also debatable. And every design decision has a cost.

 

[bedir than]

I do not. I simply want what is best for D&D. And we all know the quality of the players is the biggest factor in how well a D&D game does. And what produces quality players better then Gygaxian Naturalism??

Being open to new ideas, new stories and expanding the way we learn from an excellent community that wants to play games with us is a better way to find and grow quality players.

 

[ECMO3]

What the hell are you talking about tho? Some of the most miserable game experiences of my life have come from broken d20 builds making combat basically a one-man show.

Like I said I have not experienced that.

Like you don't need to experience it to understand how soul draining it is to play a game of Gary Stu and his retainers..

I don't believe it is soul draining or even bad. I guess for some very small percentage of people it my be, but they have not been at my table and I don't think attempts to "balance" the game will make it better even for those people.

. surely someone who regularly plays TTRPGs has enough imagination to understand why that would suck.

Just because I can imagine a hypothetical doesn't make it true. I think it doesn't suck to have a highly unbalanced game with one powerful PC and still have fun because in fact I have experienced that many, many times.

I played one game where the table's Half-Orc Fighter/Assassin had I think 27 hps at 10th level, due to repeated bad rolls, starting with Character creation and then repeatedly on level up. It got to be a running joke that he could not roll higher than a 2 for hit points. All the other players at the table were much more powerful and one of them (that player's sister) in fact went the other way with a very high statted Drow Cleric/Wizard that had twice as many hit points in addition to being a stronger class and being better at everything. That PC (Gorhov) is one of the most memorable and favorite characters that player ever played.

So yeah I can "imagine" how it could conceptually make a game bad, but I have not experienced it. Are you sure your issues actually had to do with imbalance and not something else like one or more selfish players being jealous of another player that rolled good and made powerful choices?

IME problems that cause a lack of fun at the table are almost always player personality problems.

 

[Amphytrion]

I think that the answer is split, at least on my case. The following is exclusively from a DM perspective.

I am a big fan of Chris Perkins and most of the material he worked on directly fo 5e. All of the most iconic and most inspiring 5e modules are his (Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Anhilation, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, etc.), and you can tell, because he had an eye for setting, drama and humor that is not well matched by his successors. After his last major adventure, Wild Beyond the Witchlight, none of the WotC modules have successfully emulated Perkins's writing style. In fact, all post-Perkins modules have major problems to differing degrees, and sometimes are just wrongheaded (Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, Phandelver and Below). That being said, Perkins had already stepped away from adventure writing for a few years, so I'm not sure his departure impacts that front too much.

What Chris Perkins's departure really does impact is the institutional knowledge of WotC: he was lorekeeper, experienced adventure writer, storyteller, D&D guru, and elder statesman all at once, and I think WotC is poorer for not having one of these roles (let alone all).

As for Jeremy Crawford, I think that, in general, his impulses are completely contrary to my whole DMing philosophy. Most major reestructurings that took place in the game from 2020 onwards (when he took over for Mike Mearls) have been for the worse. This includes a swath of new changes in the 2024 edition that generally seem to me completely misguided (e.g. hiding is now a set DC, instead of a contested check; same with influencing). I also think Crawford was actively averse to offering storytelling support for DMs (or unsure of how to do so), and we have gotten a very player-focused slew of releases instead. Adventures, settings, DM tools, all worsened during his tenure (compare Vecna to Strahd, or Planescape to Wildemount/Eberron). There are exceptions, but they're mostly James Wyatt's books (who is wonderful on his own and has been carefully iterating on DM toolboxes for decades).

I have nothing personally against Jeremy Crawford: in fact, in interviews, he seems like a lovely man. But purely from a DM-perspective, I think his 5-year stewardship (~2020-2025) of the game was overall much worse than the previous 5-years (~2014-2020). I am glad that there is new blood at the helm now (and glad James Wyatt stuck around to help them).

 

[TiQuinn]

I think that the answer is split, at least on my case. The following is exclusively from a DM perspective.

I am a big fan of Chris Perkins and most of the material he worked on directly fo 5e. All of the most iconic and most inspiring 5e modules are his (Curse of Strahd, Tomb of Anhilation, Waterdeep: Dragon Heist, etc.), and you can tell, because he had an eye for setting, drama and humor that is not well matched by his successors. After his last major adventure, Wild Beyond the Witchlight, none of the WotC modules have successfully emulated Perkins's writing style. In fact, all post-Perkins modules have major problems to differing degrees, and sometimes are just wrongheaded (Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen, Phandelver and Below). That being said, Perkins had already stepped away from adventure writing for a few years, so I'm not sure his departure impacts that front too much.

What Chris Perkins's departure really does impact is the institutional knowledge of WotC: he was lorekeeper, experienced adventure writer, storyteller, D&D guru, and elder statesman all at once, and I think WotC is poorer for not having one of these roles (let alone all).

As for Jeremy Crawford, I think that, in general, his impulses are completely contrary to my whole DMing philosophy. Most major reestructurings that took place in the game from 2020 onwards (when he took over for Mike Mearls) have been for the worse. This includes a swath of new changes in the 2024 edition that generally seem to me completely misguided (e.g. hiding is now a set DC, instead of a contested check; same with influencing). I also think Crawford was actively averse to offering storytelling support for DMs (or unsure of how to do so), and we have gotten a very player-focused slew of releases instead. Adventures, settings, DM tools, all worsened during his tenure (compare Vecna to Strahd, or Planescape to Wildemount/Eberron). There are exceptions, but they're mostly James Wyatt's books (who is wonderful on his own and has been carefully iterating on DM toolboxes for decades).

I have nothing personally against Jeremy Crawford: in fact, in interviews, he seems like a lovely man. But purely from a DM-perspective, I think his 5-year stewardship (~2020-2025) of the game was overall much worse than the previous 5-years (~2014-2020). I am glad that there is new blood at the helm now (and glad James Wyatt stuck around to help them).

I think that’s a great assessment. I appreciate the work that both Perkins and Crawford did overall, though Crawford drove me crazy with his Sage Advice “rulings” that I felt were unnecessary at times. I’ll also say that having Wyatt, and new blood like Justice Arman and Makenzie De Armas is a good thing, ultimately. They still have some very talented writers who’ve done quality work.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

You know, in all the discussion of whether or not the unpredictable movement feature actually functioned as intended, I kinda forgot to consider if it would even be any good. Move up to your speed (now half your speed) as a Reaction when you roll initiative…? Maybe this is just me, but my experience has always been that, if you’re using a battle map, the DM generally gives the players the opportunity to position themselves on the map at the beginning of combat anyway. What good does being able to move before anyone has had the opportunity to act even do in that scenario?

It can depend on the group and be very situational, I think - even on a VTT the DM might allow you to position first .But sometimes there might be logical limits where you'd be - like you oppened the door and the cultists behind it start screaming "Roll Initiative", you might be far away from the door, but you're not going to be inside already, and maybe there is a reason to be.

 

[AlViking]

Because of it's massive size, D&D is in a bit of a unique situation. It is best served by being "good enough" for a broad swath of people, especially those new to RPGs in general, rather than laser-focused on a single play experience. It always is going to have to serve many masters -- it is BETTER when it does, because of the diversity of the audience and the game's status as the standard-bearer for the hobby. A D&D with a more focused design (like 4e tried to have) is worse at being the standard-bearer, worse at appealing to a broad audience, and those things make it worse at being "D&D."

This means that D&D is probably always going to be in a situation where it's going to be a little unfulfilling. Storytellers will be annoyed at the combat grind, strategists will be irked that the combat is designed to move fast rather than reward a tactical depth, grognards will be annoyed at the lack of dungeoneering, etc., etc., etc. A broad game is going to be designed to serve most of these folks "well enough," within certain weightings. A more specific game is always going to be able to do any of these things with more fidelity to a coherent design philosophy than D&D will. Those games don't need to somehow unite three to five different play goals under a single system.



I have a slightly more nuanced take: Balance is subjective. For instance:

This is objectively a lousy game experience. But at a table that didn't care much about combat? Or that had players who were good at spotlight-sharing? Or at a table where challenge dungeons were the norm and being a combat god wouldn't protect you against failing your save vs. that deadly trap? Or a table where PC's had very defined "roles" and the combat god was useful in their niche but where being a good face or a good trap-finder or a good scout was just as important? A different context changes that lousy game experience into just a forgettable one, or even a "fine" one.

Like, the game was originally designed with one class (the Fighter) doing the fighting and the rest worry more about other elements of the dungeon. Combat balance wasn't always a part of this thing, and it still isn't for a lot of people.

Combat balance in terms of not letting one character dominate is probably important for a lot of tables today, so it's something the game should probably take into account, but it's also debatable. And every design decision has a cost.

I would just add that any game of significant complexity will have compromises, things that will be a bit unfulfilling for some of the people playing the game. If you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one. The one advantage that a lot of the games that sell fewer copies is that for many of them people pick them up, play for a bit and then move on to something else. There's no expectation of people using the same ruleset for years on end because there's no expectation of people playing a narrowly focused games for years on end. Yet that's what I, and my players, have been doing for years.

Flexibility and lack of a specific focus can be a double edged sword for some, for others it's the reason they stick with D&D.