D&D 5E No One Plays High Level?

[Micah Sweet]

Some of the books or content WOTC published were not niche?

You are saying domains couldn't fit in anywhere in 10 years?

I'm kind of in-between here. WotC could do it, but I don't really care if they do. Like you said, bad track record. 3pp are much well-suited to the job, because they actually care.

 

[Minigiant]

Is there a significant demand for domains? If WOTC wants to put out new material they're going to have UA articles and surveys, likely multiple rounds for something like that. Does the cost justify the possible return? Take into consideration the negatives of product bloat as well, something they are rightfully cautious of given the experience with the past 2 editions.

If I understand you, to want a systematic approach with the bad guys leveling based on encounters. That to me is incredibly niche, most people just use NPCs and monsters that are level appropriate and don't care about enemy ship captains leveling up. As far as stopping teleportation, if that's an issue just say that for purposes of inner sanctum a boat is a location and you're good to go.

Well they are doing bastions which is baby first domains.

I'm kind of in-between here. WotC could do it, but I don't really care if they do. Like you said, bad track record. 3pp are much well-suited to the job, because they actually care.

Yeah but 3PPs due to having to make higher margin money , make super crunchy stuff, designed to be compatible to multiple systems, and/or stuff tied into their other work.

MCMD's Strongholds and followers is I heard really crunchy and barely 5e.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well they are doing bastions which is baby first domains.


Yeah but 3PPs due to having to make higher margin money , make super crunchy stuff, designed to be compatible to multiple systems, and/or stuff tied into their other work.

MCMD's Strongholds and followers is I heard really crunchy and barely 5e.

I don't see any of that as a downside, but YMMV.

 

[Maxperson]

Just because your Pinto didn’t explode doesn’t mean they weren’t broken.

At the very least an exploding Pinto would give you a dead horse to beat. That's important around here.

As a serious answer, I've run both high and low level 5e games and they aren't broken at all. You just have to change the flavor of the game to match the tier you are in. If you try to run a high level game the same way that you run a low level one, you will have appropriate issues. The "broken" part of the game is that the DMG doesn't teach DMs how to run a high level game.

 

[Maxperson]

"I don't have a problem, therefore there isn't a problem" is an unfortunately extremely common wrong argument. Hasty generalization is a serious problem all over the place; this is just a really common one in TTRPG discussions.

Conversely, "I have a problem, therefore the game has a general problem" is also an unfortunately extremely wrong common argument, and for the same reasons. A whole lot of people feel that their personal issues and dislikes = a game problem.

 

[Maxperson]

Both "I don't have a problem, therefore there isn't a problem" and "I have a problem, therefore there is a problem" are bad arguments.

The only good arguments to me are "what are the most common playstyles and do they have problems.".

The tricky part many do want to admit is that Some valid styles of D&D 5e can be played as is played at high levels and Other valid styles are not playable and can't be played.

Usually because unfortunately many D&D fans are selfish and only truly care about their preferred playstyle.

In my opinion there a few ways of determining if the game has a problem.

Objective issues. For examples look at 4e's math. The math was off and that lead to a patch that involved a feat tax to correct PC bonuses. Both the original bad math and a feat tax to fix it were objective problems. As is CR in, well, every edition that has it. CR doesn't work and never has. There are too many variables between monster abilities, PC abilities, and player abilities for a CR number to be accurate except by coincidence.

Another way to see if the game itself has problems is to look at what it is trying to accomplish. If the game is trying to accomplish gothic horror, but all you can really do with it is Scary Movie, the game is having problems.

If someone comes here(or any other place) saying, "I have a problem with X, therefore X is a problem," they have already failed to prove the problem exists as a whole and needs to be fixed. They need to come here and leave themself out of it, showing just how the game objectively fails or fails to achieve its goal(s). Or they can say, "I have a problem with X, because it fails to achieve goal Y and here's why I'm saying that."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Conversely, "I have a problem, therefore the game has a general problem" is also an unfortunately extremely wrong common argument, and for the same reasons. A whole lot of people feel that their personal issues and dislikes = a game problem.

Except this isn't an argument people make. I already said that. Several times.

Folks always explicitly recognize that some groups, whether by intent or by circumstance, won't necessarily have the problem they have. Thus you are inserting something into this argument that the actual real people aren't saying, and almost never say.

Further, look around! It's not one person projecting an issue literally only affecting them. It's hundreds, thousands of people all having similar issues, pointing to specific design elements, and asking for the same overall approaches to fix them.

The two arguments are. Not. The. Same. They never have been. One is literally impossible to prove. No amount of context or additional information, short of literally perfectly comprehensive accounting, could change that. The other is perfectly valid on its face, albeit weak in isolation, and becomes dramatically stronger with the context that these are decades-old problems that many actual designers have explicitly recognized.

This whataboutism is just a dodge to pretend that there's a "both sides" argument here. There isn't, and there never has been.

 

[Maxperson]

Except this isn't an argument people make. I already said that. Several times.

I see it here all the time. People come here claiming a problem and show nothing more than they have a personal issue with it. They prove no objective problem, and they prove no disconnect between what the game is trying to accomplish and what it does. They simply don't like how high level for example works, so they claim that it must be broken.

Folks always explicitly recognize that some groups, whether by intent or by circumstance, won't necessarily have the problem they have. Thus you are inserting something into this argument that the actual real people aren't saying, and almost never say.

That recognition isn't enough to show that they are talking about a real problem, though. Folks are going to not have an issue with stuff that is actually broken, and stuff that isn't broken and the person just has a personal issue with.

Further, look around! It's not one person projecting an issue literally only affecting them. It's hundreds, thousands of people all having similar issues, pointing to specific design elements, and asking for the same overall approaches to fix them.

This also isn't enough. You can have tens of thousands having a "problem" with something that isn't a problem, because the game is accomplishing what it set out to and for tens of millions of other people. You need more than multiple people having the same issue before the issue becomes a general problem for the game itself and not just with those people.

The two arguments are. Not. The. Same. They never have been. One is literally impossible to prove. No amount of context or additional information, short of literally perfectly comprehensive accounting, could change that. The other is perfectly valid on its face, albeit weak in isolation, and becomes dramatically stronger with the context that these are decades-old problems that many actual designers have explicitly recognized.

This whataboutism is just a dodge to pretend that there's a "both sides" argument here. There isn't, and there never has been.

This is not what I said, though. Not only do I not require a perfect accounting, I gave examples of a couple ways to identify game problems. It's not what aboutism. It's "Thisisthesameargumentism." You(general you) don't get a pass just because you are using the same bad argument from a different direction.

 

[Oofta]

Except this isn't an argument people make. I already said that. Several times.

Folks always explicitly recognize that some groups, whether by intent or by circumstance, won't necessarily have the problem they have. Thus you are inserting something into this argument that the actual real people aren't saying, and almost never say.

Further, look around! It's not one person projecting an issue literally only affecting them. It's hundreds, thousands of people all having similar issues, pointing to specific design elements, and asking for the same overall approaches to fix them.

The two arguments are. Not. The. Same. They never have been. One is literally impossible to prove. No amount of context or additional information, short of literally perfectly comprehensive accounting, could change that. The other is perfectly valid on its face, albeit weak in isolation, and becomes dramatically stronger with the context that these are decades-old problems that many actual designers have explicitly recognized.

This whataboutism is just a dodge to pretend that there's a "both sides" argument here. There isn't, and there never has been.

We have no idea how many people want to play high level, how many people attempt to play high level, how many people find too many issues with high level to make it worth their while. We know some people make it work, some do not or do not try.

But when I've asked why it doesn't work it's because of things like no support for NPC leveling based on how many pirate raids they've done or that high level PCs don't have mythic powers that let a high level martial character chop a mountain in two. That there is no domain management system or support for faction and standing. But those are not issues with the game as designed, they are issues with specific game elements that have not been implemented.

Actual issues with gameplay, not a list of nice-to-haves to support a niche desires? Missing in action.

 

[Micah Sweet]

In my opinion there a few ways of determining if the game has a problem.

Objective issues. For examples look at 4e's math. The math was off and that lead to a patch that involved a feat tax to correct PC bonuses. Both the original bad math and a feat tax to fix it were objective problems. As is CR in, well, every edition that has it. CR doesn't work and never has. There are too many variables between monster abilities, PC abilities, and player abilities for a CR number to be accurate except by coincidence.

Another way to see if the game itself has problems is to look at what it is trying to accomplish. If the game is trying to accomplish gothic horror, but all you can really do with it is Scary Movie, the game is having problems.

If someone comes here(or any other place) saying, "I have a problem with X, therefore X is a problem," they have already failed to prove the problem exists as a whole and needs to be fixed. They need to come here and leave themself out of it, showing just how the game objectively fails or fails to achieve its goal(s). Or they can say, "I have a problem with X, because it fails to achieve goal Y and here's why I'm saying that."

The problem, of course, is that modern WotC D&D doesn't tell you what it's trying to achieve.