D&D 5E "People complain, but don't actually read the DMG!" Which sections specifically?

[Filthy Lucre]

If what you are looking for is a rather complex combat, I would agree. But it's not the intent of 5e, which has been designed to be simple, easy, and more than anything extremely quick. And honestly no one at our tables hasa any regrets about spending full evenings just for one fight, and it not being even completely over by the end of the evening.



The problem for me is that you just want technical benefits from the actions, and expect these to come from the rules. However, at our table, no-one would even think about knocking someone down just to potentially get technical benefits (because it's silly, you have very sharp weapons and spells that are much more efficient in most cases), they would do it because it makes sense in the world, and when they do, they get story-empowered advantage to whatever they are doing if it's appropriate (and it very often is).

After that, to each his own, it really depends where the fun at your table is in terms of combat. If you want to combo technical effects, I agree that 5e is certainly not the best system for that, however, if you want lightning quick story orientated combat, it's much much better, in particular because you will not be stopped by a player telling you "but you can't do that, the rules say on page 293 that...".

Our expectation for combat is on the lines of 'Tactics Ogre' or other highly discrete/technical games, if you're familiar. My players want to play a game that has defined rules and to play against an opponent in combat where they broadly understand what actions have what consiquences/effects. The more 'fiat' that is introduced into the combat, the cheaper it feels to them and me.

Analogously, As Robert Frost put it, writting "free verse" is like playing tennis without a net - no challenge.

 

[Lyxen]

Our expectation for combat is on the lines of 'Tactics Ogre' or other highly discrete/technical games, if you're familiar. My players want to play a game that has defined rules and to play against an opponent in combat where they broadly understand what actions have what consiquences/effects. The more 'fiat' that is introduced into the combat, the cheaper it feels to them and me.

And that is fine if it is what you expect from the game, and I absolutely understand you looking at other rulesets than 5e, because it's not what it's been designed for at all. I expect it can be made to work that way, but it requires a lot of work and a lot of house rules, and including a lot of options.

Just one thing about "fiat", however, remember that it's not DM's fiat, it's any player's fiat including the DM, because if a player sees the situation and thinks of something cool, it will happen.

 

[Filthy Lucre]

And that is fine if it is what you expect from the game, and I absolutely understand you looking at other rulesets than 5e, because it's not what it's been designed for at all. I expect it can be made to work that way, but it requires a lot of work and a lot of house rules, and including a lot of options.

Just one thing about "fiat", however, remember that it's not DM's fiat, it's any player's fiat including the DM, because if a player sees the situation and thinks of something cool, it will happen.

I understand - it's just not how my player's work. Once a thing works a certain way once, it has to work that way always and forever. If the PCs find an efficient way to improvise something, they'll do it at literally every opportunity and then it just becomes a game of collaborative story telling.

In other words, if the players can improvise and do anything to achieve the effect they want, then there are in practice no rules at all governing what they can't do. Some people like that, I don't. Which is why I don't really play or DM 5e anymore.

 

[Lyxen]

I understand - it's just not how my player's work. Once a thing works a certain way once, it has to work that way always and forever. If the PCs find an efficient way to improvise something, they'll do it at literally every opportunity and then it just becomes a game of collaborative story telling.

And again it's fine to incorporate things like this. In general, though, 5e works on a different type of principle, which is that instead of making a rule out of it, the ruling is just local, since the circumstances in which it happened where very specific (and might actually never happen again). So everyone understands that something that worked once because of specific conditions might just not work again, or might work differently the next time. Also, we have very few fights, it's really not the focus of our games, so really, the conditions have a very very small likelihood to happen again, especially with you combine it with the very short fights that 5e has been designed for.

 

[Voadam]

I'm sorry, but are you really comparing the AD&D1 DMG and that from 5e ? Honestly...

Absolutely.

I reference the 5e DMG and the 1e DMG a lot. The 1e DMG I have on PDF with bookmarks which makes it much easier to get to sections I am trying to find than flipping through either in hardcopy. I remember in the 80s having read the 1e DMG enough to sort of remember where some things were when flipping around but it was often not quick or easy.

The 5e one is not the easiest to find stuff either. I can find specific magic items fairly easily because it is an alphabetically organized subsection of the book that covers a bunch of pages, but most other topics take a bunch to find where you are and where you want to go from there when flipping around.

I found the 4e rulebooks' superior and clean layout made finding stuff easier.

 

[Mannahnin]

Absolutely.

I reference the 5e DMG and the 1e DMG a lot. The 1e DMG I have on PDF with bookmarks which makes it much easier to get to sections I am trying to find than flipping through either in hardcopy. I remember in the 80s having read the 1e DMG enough to sort of remember where some things were when flipping around but it was often not quick or easy.

The 5e one is not the easiest to find stuff either. I can find specific magic items fairly easily because it is an alphabetically organized subsection of the book that covers a bunch of pages, but most other topics take a bunch to find where you are and where you want to go from there when flipping around.

I found the 4e rulebooks' superior and clean layout made finding stuff easier.

Yup. Same on all counts.

 

[Parmandur]

Can you name any cost-free pones other than flanking?

Hiding in combat, for ranged characters.

To be clear, I'm not saying it doesn't do what you say it does, just that the designers almost certainly knew that.

 

[Parmandur]

No, reading the whole structurally byzantine and wonky thing will not necessarily prevent misunderstandings.

Bad structure can bury important parts, put a focus on not essential parts, and obscure that different parts can be contradictory or do not work well together. The DMG is long. Reading all of a long convoluted thing is usually not sufficient on its own to prevent misunderstandings.

The 1e DMG is similar, even having read the whole thing cover to cover it is tough to get a handle on complex things with lots of moving parts and different design considerations going on at the same time.

Laws can be similarly byzantine and wonky and difficult to get a precise handle on.

Reading the whole thing and soft memorizing it is just how I approach these sorts of books, it really does help.

 

[Parmandur]

That's kind of the point, though. Everything on that first list generally has a cost (usually a spell, though sometimes an action with an opposed roll, like for prone) to impose it. The flanking optional rule in 5E is functionally "free" in most circumstances.

My main experience with the rule is watching Ceitical Role, and it is not "free" in practice.

 

[Faolyn]

What do you think of the actual rules though? The example I chose had to do with awarding non combat xp. Do you find the advice there helpful? What might we want out of that area in the 2024 dmg?

Personally, I think the rules are good but should be expanded upon--same with all the non-combat rules.