I think the people getting angry at the people getting angry at the new spellcasting blocks (that's a confusing chain of anger) don't realise one thing: People might be operating with different play goals in mind.
For my part, there is no anger. I just don't get why they are angry, and find the offered explanations confusing at best and contradictory at worst.
Is the new spellcasting system easier to run? Yes. Would counterspell getting nerfed actually make things more interesting for both players and the DM? Admittedly, yes.
But saying that these points mean the complaints have no validity because of the benefits overlooks the fact that these are all concerns about D&D as a game. A lot of people play D&D as a simulation, where whatever the rules provide about the monster, item or class feature aims to represent the thing as it would exist in a fantasy world. And for simulationist people, having spells-but-not-spells is especially grating.
Whether or not playing 5e as a heavy, focused simulation game is actually supported by its design (a whole separate topic) seems pretty irrelevant
to the DM. That is, the argument you're making here is from the perspective of a player. Players don't look at monster statblocks, or at least they very rarely do, and that's unequivocally by design. DMs look at statblocks. DMs do objectively un-simulationist things (like illusionism, "quantum ogres," fudging, etc.) in order to run the game. DMs play a critical part in inventing and developing the world, whether as its sole author or as a facilitator for player contributions or anywhere in-between. By definition, the DM cannot choose to totally disengage from the brute mechanical aspects of the game, that's literally part of their function in simulationist D&D design.
So...why are the people who
have to look beneath the skin of the simulation complaining that they have to do so?
So when you're saying the evoker would KILL the party of it used all its 15 spell slots, you're completely missing the point. It's not supposed to use all of those slots or have all its spells be useful in the same encounter. What the simulationists want is having stat blocks that accurately represent what the evoker can do,
Then this is a key sticking point. I disagree. What does the statblock fail to say that the evoker can do? Does the statblock have to specify whether a creature is capable of whistling for you to be able to decide whether the creature does, in fact, whistle to get someone's attention?
so they can take a look at their spell list when something unexpected comes up ("so the party locked the wizard in the dungeon... Luckily I know that this evoker would know knock, so it can escape!").
I'm deeply confused. Why couldn't the evoker do that as written? You're already willing to adapt things (metaphorically speaking) "off-script." Why do you
need the book to tell you that you're
allowed as DM to do this? Why can't you just decide that this evoker can do that because she used to sneak into locked areas to alter her work so it would get better grades, but that evoker can't because he was a bit of a rake and chose to focus his electives on charms and illusions instead (even if he never actually got the attention of the wizball quarterback...)
This is why I brought up, way up thread, that people complained
so bitterly about how
limiting and
stifling the rules of 4e were. Why do you need the
book to give you permission to do this?
Having a stat block that focuses solely on what the monster can do in its 1 encounter lifespan really can't achieve this. Incidentally, I think 4e's stat blocks were disliked for a similar reason, even though 4e monsters are much more interesting to run.
It's a classic simulationism vs gamism and conflict, and acting like the simulationists have no point and are just grognards who can't accept change is a bit silly and counterproductive.
It's not at all that I think they have no point. It's that the points they have either seem to be simply incorrect (the statblock allegedly failing to describe what the creature can do), or correct but irrelevant (simulationist play requires DMs who know the nuts and bolts behind the simulation, and the sim-focused players, generally speaking,
don't look at statblocks), or contradictory with the openly-described expectations of 5e design (e.g. you don't need rules ever, rules are just suggestions, etc.)
Just because you found simulationism to be impossible, it doesn't mean that it is. I'm a DM with mostly simulationist tendencies, and I've been running 5e since 2015 in that style and I never felt particularly hindered by the game not pretending to be a physics engine. On the contrary, you'll find that there's a brand of simulationism like in the OSR that doesn't want GURPS-like rule for every situation. They just want the design philosophy to generally agree to the conceit that the game engine follows the fantasy world, but they can still be rules light. Hell, the lich stat block DND Reborn posted above hardly looks like a physics engine simulation of the lich.
To be honest: I have no idea what a "rules-light simulation" means. Like, I literally don't see how those two terms can interact, at all, period. To be a simulation,
the game must tell you what happens as clearly and completely as possible. To be rules-light,
the game must do relatively few things and leave most information to decision-makers (frequently, though not exclusively, the coordinating player, aka the DM for D&D). Where is the intersection?
And if this seeming conflict is just that, a seeming and nothing more, if you're able to do what you want with light rules and explain the rest yourself,
why do you need the book to tell you these things? If you're comfortable inventing everything else about the world--and dealing with the bizarre eccentricities like hit points and attack rolls and tridents that are objectively inferior to spears in all possible ways and yet classified as a superior weapon type etc., etc.--then why on Earth do you need extra rules that tell you specifically which spells
this specific evoker can cast? You're already comfortable making a million decisions purely based on what you think is reasonable. Why aren't spells on that list? Why are they this intensely necessary, "No, if the monster doesn't say it, I
literally cannot decide otherwise!"?
As for the appeal to popularity, that wasn't my intention. I am, however, joining a thread started by someone who presumably thinks like me, with several other people who have also expressed their disdain for the new stay blocks just within this thread. Why can't you accept that people who dislike the edition's new direction aren't individual outliers but a specific demographic with specific play aims? What's wrong with taking that into account in our discussion?
Because it's a weasel-word debate tactic. You are advancing a point. As part of doing so, you appeal to an unstated, non-participating community that you allege exists. This is, very specifically, an effort to strengthen that point; if it were not intended to strengthen your point, you wouldn't say it. But neither you nor I have any idea what the demographics involved are. We have, at absolute best,
incredibly biased personal experiences of the D&D community. Hence, you are trying to lay claim to a strong argument ("a sizable and important section of the relevant population agrees with me, thus our desire is the most important concern and should be met, even despite other relevant concerns") when in reality that argument is quite weak ("anecdotally, I have observed several people desiring this, therefore there must be a lot of us, therefore our desire is the most important concern and should be met, even despite other relevant concerns.")
Calling someone out for an appeal to popularity, as with any informal fallacy, doesn't make your conclusion wrong. But we don't have to agree with a conclusion drawn from that informal fallacy.
From this and other threads I think we can agree that there no longer are spell lists, but meager abilities.
I certainly don't.
