D&D 5E Is 5e's Success Actually Bad for Other Games?

[Malmuria]

It never lays out what is it designed to do and never tells you that if you want something else, you've picked a wrong game, unlike pretty much every other game in the market.

I wonder if there are ways in which the popularity of dnd 5e is bad for itself creatively. Because of the brand investment, both in "dungeons and dragons" as having a specific feel or particular elements, and 5e being a popular aesthetic, it probably limits what writers can do. There seems to be this constant anxiety about not changing too much and getting feedback on each new game or lore element. I guess this is good for business but they are definitely not making things with the same level or creativity found in osr/indie games or even in 3rd party products for 5e.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I wonder if there are ways in which the popularity of dnd 5e is bad for itself creatively. Because of the brand investment, both in "dungeons and dragons" as having a specific feel or particular elements, and 5e being a popular aesthetic, it probably limits what writers can do. There seems to be this constant anxiety about not changing too much and getting feedback on each new game or lore element. I guess this is good for business but they are definitely not making things with the same level or creativity found in osr/indie games or even in 3rd party products for 5e.

Yeah, from what's been said here or there, there's kind of an attitude that a lot of the creative stuff from earlier editions was partially a product of grid filling design or a need to have a massive amount of stuff to sell books-- like a million different types of dragon or whatever. The 5e designers and the 5e community (no idea about exactly where its originated) have a very 'everything needs to justify its presence' approach both mechanically (because why not just reskin this existing thing, or make it a small mechanical part of something else in terms of classes) and lore-wise because its sort of 'dumb and niche.' Its a very self-conscious aesthetic movement bent on purification and the idea that earlier editions were bloated by a lot of unnecessary chaff like... psionics.

 

[loverdrive]

@loverdrive that idea of DND as a narrow bespoke experience that lies to its audience about being broad is more of a you thing than a universal truth thing, the game certainly tells you that its for swords and magic fantasy, if there's anything within that particular category that you think it can't do, you will (and certainly have, whatever you chose to do with the information) have found that people have done it quite successfully. I know from reading your other posts that you just sort of dismiss that as them not understanding what a truly successful experience would be like, but short of some sort sort of credentialism / appeal to authority where playing a bunch of games is an intrinsically more valuable experience than learning how to make one game do lots of things, that would be hotly contested by people who have as much or more experience than you do, you aren't likely to make it very far

I guess I've screwed up at explaining what I mean.

I did horror and murder mysteries and many other things that I think it can't do too.

I just feel like there's a very important difference between "D&D did horror" and "I did horror".

For example, if I'm running Dread it does all the horror and I'm participating in a horror game that runs itself. If I'm running D&D and want to achieve horror — I have to do it myself.

If I wanted to achieve a game where characters beat the naughty word out of monsters, solve riddles, get caught in traps and rise from mortal men to godlike figures, D&D just does that — it just happens with zero effort on my part. If I wanted to achieve something else, though, I'd have to work.

I mean, the only thing one needs to run a game is a brain and a sexy ass to pull ideas out of — but having a mechanical support is better than not having it.

 

[MGibster]

There are no D&D traps in gaming stores. The shelves of gaming stores are filled with other RPGs that do other things. There are even (you will be happy) Apocalypse Worlds and Fate books on the shelves at my local store. Also Amazon, is a thing, for those who don't think this is still the early 90s.

I need to bring an old school AD&D 1st edition Thief with me to find/remove traps every time I go to the game store.

 

[dragoner]

I guess I've screwed up at explaining what I mean.

I understood! I think what they are objecting to is the idea that a company would suggest to use a competitors product. Here it is winner take all.

 

[billd91]

It can be really easy to feel stuck in the D&D culture and ecosystem. I spent a number of years in the hobby wanting something different than I was getting, not knowing how to get it, trying desperately to make D&D into a game it just is not.

If you have never been in that place. Never experienced that frustration or social pressure to conform to the dominant play culture. Never been called selfish for explaining what you are looking for in gaming. If you have never experienced that creative anxiety it is damn near impossible to understand how difficult that can be.

I was often led to believe that what I wanted was selfish, too much to expect, or that it was my fault that I struggled to get it from D&D.

I am not looking for converts. I would just like a measure of acknowledgement for the craft of other games, the technique involved, and the unique strengths they bring to the table. I try to do the same for 5e. Not always as well as I should, but I'm putting in real effort.

I can see where you're coming from to a certain degree. When everyone talks about or all the stores carry the 800 lb gorilla, it's hard to know there's an alternative or where to get it. Believe me, as an Apple user from the old Apple II days and then through the ups and downs of the Macintosh market, I know what it's like to not be able to find products that aren't created for the 800 lb gorilla (Microsoft operating systems). In the years before Apple stores and the internet, finding Mac software on shelves was hard - you generally went through mail order catalogs. And if you didn't get on their mailing list, good luck even knowing they were out there. So, yeah, I get that kind of challenge.

Fortunately, the environment really is different now. It's so much easier to learn about and find other games with some basic internet searches compared to previous decades even with D&D being as big as it is in the marketplace. So players interested in an alternative can find them easier - though finding like-minded players may still be as hard.

 

[The-Magic-Sword]

I guess I've screwed up at explaining what I mean.

I did horror and murder mysteries and many other things that I think it can't do too.

I just feel like there's a very important difference between "D&D did horror" and "I did horror".

For example, if I'm running Dread it does all the horror and I'm participating in a horror game that runs itself. If I'm running D&D and want to achieve horror — I have to do it myself.

If I wanted to achieve a game where characters beat the naughty word out of monsters, solve riddles, get caught in traps and rise from mortal men to godlike figures, D&D just does that — it just happens with zero effort on my part. If I wanted to achieve something else, though, I'd have to work.

I mean, the only thing one needs to run a game is a brain and a sexy ass to pull ideas out of — but having a mechanical support is better than not having it.

I don't think 5e does anything particularly well myself (I jumped ship for PF2e, and think it does what I'm talking about better due to a more comprehensive toolset), so I'm contextualizing this as a categorical argument about systems like it, rather than just it.

For me the key is that there's a cultural difference in what a TTRPG should be, is it the game, or is it the game engine?

DND's point of view is that its a game engine, a toolkit for creating your games-- it facilitates your horror game because it gives you stats to simulate the protagonists, it gives you monsters and the stats to simulate them, and its combat system for confronting the monster, and its skill system so that people can do things in that situation besides fight. But ultimately you're the person who is designing the horror scenario-- unless you run a published adventure, in which case they do that lifting.

Spoiler: Death House Spoilers

So like, Death House right? thats absolutely a horror game, you go through a creepy house uncovering backstory, suits of armor suddenly animate and attack you, there's a creepy scene with the crib, and the ghosts, and the cult beneath the house. That's a game, and it was built with, and played through using the DND engine, and it works well, but if the adventure 'game' you want to run doesn't exist, the system itself is the toolkit for creating it, which isn't that hard.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Only in the sense that organized play offers you additional benefits of playing that game over others that don't do so. That doesn't make it unattractive to fish in other ponds, just more attractive to fish in the same pond.

I don't think that's a particularly meaningful distinction.

 

[Thomas Shey]

How so? Why would organized play discourage getting together with your friends to play Kids on Bikes? IME they encourage going to the shop to play TTRPGs, which ends up meaning the local shop has groups playing various games on a weekly basis.

Well, for starters, because you may not be playing with friends in the first place; there's a lot of opportunity with organized play to end up playing with people you otherwise don't interact with. In addition, it provides a framework for GMs who are not particularly creative or strongly motivated to get games together without significant work on their part.

 

[Thomas Shey]

It can be really easy to feel stuck in the D&D culture and ecosystem. I spent a number of years in the hobby wanting something different than I was getting, not knowing how to get it, trying desperately to make D&D into a game it just is not.

If you have never been in that place. Never experienced that frustration or social pressure to conform to the dominant play culture. Never been called selfish for explaining what you are looking for in gaming. If you have never experienced that creative anxiety it is damn near impossible to understand how difficult that can be.

I was often led to believe that what I wanted was selfish, too much to expect, or that it was my fault that I struggled to get it from D&D.

I am not looking for converts. I would just like a measure of acknowledgement for the craft of other games, the technique involved, and the unique strengths they bring to the table. I try to do the same for 5e. Not always as well as I should, but I'm putting in real effort.

One of the fortunate things of when I got into the hobby was that though D&D was already the big dog, it was not so overwhelmingly so that it had formed much of this sort of structure. You might run into people who'd prefer it to things like Traveler or RuneQuest, but you weren't thought to be some kind of freak outlier because you felt the opposite.