D&D 5E People don't read the 5E DMG for a reason

[Zaukrie]

Magic items should be in their own book! I will die on this hill, most likely alone....

I hate waste of too many short books that could be one, but I'd like the DMG in a slipcase in four or five shorter books, each dedicated to part of being a DM.

 

[Stormonu]

Magic items should be in their own book! I will die on this hill, most likely alone....

I hate waste of too many short books that could be one, but I'd like the DMG in a slipcase in four or five shorter books, each dedicated to part of being a DM.

I would not be against us getting a separate book for spells, and one for magic items. But if that is done, I would still like an abbreviated section of spells and items in the PHB/DMG (say, covering up to 5th-8th level).

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's honestly really interesting to me how the discourse on this has changed over the past 4-5 years.

I was straight-up told, on this very forum, IIRC in the same year as this thread originally started, that:
(1) the DMG was perfectly fine, and perhaps even among the best DMGs ever written;
(2) the DMG has absolutely no need whatsoever to be a guide, which could instead be handled by Reddit/YouTube/social media in general;
(3) to alter the existing 5e DMG so that it would in fact guide new DMs would seriously damage the book.

I find the near-180 turnaround of the general response really quite fascinating.

If it makes you feel any better, I still believe those things more or less (at least the second two: I far prefer the 1e DMG to 5e's). Learning how to DM is better served by other sources. That doesn't mean the current DMG couldn't be better at the job it does do, however.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Oh, believe me, some people certainly did.

Consider, for example, when Mearls himself openly admitted he was disappointed with the Fighter because it failed to support Fighter flavor, and people came out of the woodwork to say that Mearls was outright wrong and the existing Fighter was great.

Aaaaand now we're seeing that satisfaction scores with things weren't as good as the boosters would like them to be, which is a major component of why we're getting 5.5e in the first place. Fighter (and in particular some of its subclasses) was a key component thereof.

I have never heard anyone say that a major reason for 5.5 is a dissatisfaction with 5e. That's very interesting.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

I think its pretty clear that the main goal of 5.5 is "revitalize sales" and the chance to fix some problems and improve low-satisfaction elements is just a nice bonus.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I have never heard anyone say that a major reason for 5.5 is a dissatisfaction with 5e. That's very interesting.

They...they literally told us that. We literally have slides from an actual presentation, which were shown here on ENWorld, showing how specific classes (Ranger was one of them, I don't remember the other two) and specific subclasses (Champion, Berserker, and something else) were doing extremely poorly before the "One D&D" playtest. As in, some of them (Champ and Berserker, IIRC) actually had below 50% satisfaction rate. Another example, from much earlier, was Crawford himself, on video, explicitly saying that the designers had come to realize that players don't play 5e the way it was intended to be played. They take far too few short rests per long rest, and indeed long rest much too often relative to the encounter rate, which significantly privileges long-rest classes like Wizard, Druid, and Paladin, and severely shortchanges short-rest or non-rest-based classes like Warlock, Fighter, and Rogue. The ongoing dissatisfaction with the Ranger, and very specifically the Beastmaster, has been a thorn in WotC's side for literally the entire run of 5.0; that's why they've attempted, IIRC, three different reworks, up to and including the Drakewarden which is a better Beastmaster than the Beastmaster ever thought of being.

Dissatisfaction with some of the options as they exist in 5e is, in fact, one of the biggest reasons. Or, rather, correcting the problem of dissatisfaction with specific options. Because they are sticking to their IMO foolish decision to never, ever make large-scale errata. Tasha's came the closest, with its "optional features," but as far as I can tell that was merely the prelude to the 5.5e playtest.

And this is part of the problem with saying "well, people play it, so they must like it." Champion is one of the most played Fighter subclasses. It also had sub-50% satisfaction. For some reason, people play things that they find dissatisfying. It's almost like popularity isn't actually a useful proxy for whether people like the design of that thing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

They...they literally told us that. We literally have slides from an actual presentation, which were shown here on ENWorld, showing how specific classes (Ranger was one of them, I don't remember the other two) and specific subclasses (Champion, Berserker, and something else) were doing extremely poorly before the "One D&D" playtest. As in, some of them (Champ and Berserker, IIRC) actually had below 50% satisfaction rate. Another example, from much earlier, was Crawford himself, on video, explicitly saying that the designers had come to realize that players don't play 5e the way it was intended to be played. They take far too few short rests per long rest, and indeed long rest much too often relative to the encounter rate, which significantly privileges long-rest classes like Wizard, Druid, and Paladin, and severely shortchanges short-rest or non-rest-based classes like Warlock, Fighter, and Rogue. The ongoing dissatisfaction with the Ranger, and very specifically the Beastmaster, has been a thorn in WotC's side for literally the entire run of 5.0; that's why they've attempted, IIRC, three different reworks, up to and including the Drakewarden which is a better Beastmaster than the Beastmaster ever thought of being.

Dissatisfaction with some of the options as they exist in 5e is, in fact, one of the biggest reasons. Or, rather, correcting the problem of dissatisfaction with specific options. Because they are sticking to their IMO foolish decision to never, ever make large-scale errata. Tasha's came the closest, with its "optional features," but as far as I can tell that was merely the prelude to the 5.5e playtest.

And this is part of the problem with saying "well, people play it, so they must like it." Champion is one of the most played Fighter subclasses. It also had sub-50% satisfaction. For some reason, people play things that they find dissatisfying. It's almost like popularity isn't actually a useful proxy for whether people like the design of that thing.

Ok, I thought you were talking about general dissatisfaction, not dissatisfaction with specific options (you were vague on that point). I still think that "fixing" those concerns (if they are actually fixing them) is a bonus, and the real reason for 5.5 is to increase sales by re-issuing the core books with a shiny new coat of polish, using the anniversary as an excuse.

Are they actually addressing the rest issue? Or the assumed combats per day issue? Because those things are IMO WotC 5e's biggest mechanical problems.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Ok, I thought you were talking about general dissatisfaction, not dissatisfaction with specific options (you were vague on that point). I still think that "fixing" those concerns (if they are actually fixing them) is a bonus, and the real reason for 5.5 is to increase sales by re-issuing the core books with a shiny new coat of polish, using the anniversary as an excuse.

Are they actually addressing the rest issue? Or the assumed combats per day issue? Because those things are IMO WotC 5e's biggest mechanical problems.

It's the reason they tried (and thankfully failed) to change the Warlock into using the same spellcasting model as everyone else. They instead threw in the half-hearted "you can restore some of your spells, once a day" feature, which is better than nothing but really doesn't solve the problem. For other classes, they're integrating the "PB/long rest" model that had been going since a bit before Tasha's--some things will still be short-rest based, but it's pretty clear that they now see "per short rest" as "twice, maybe three times a day" rather than "present in most if not all combats."

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Are they actually addressing the rest issue? Or the assumed combats per day issue? Because those things are IMO WotC 5e's biggest mechanical problems.

I don't know if they really can at this point. They've been Band-Aid fixing it for a while now by changing Short Rest features into PB-Per-Long Rest features instead so more classes can nova harder, but that still doesn't solve the problem.

Ultimately 5e at its core is an Attrition game and its playerbase doesn't want to play an attrition game, and I don't think that can be solved while remaining compatible with 5e.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I don't know if they really can at this point. They've been Band-Aid fixing it for a while now by changing Short Rest features into PB-Per-Long Rest features instead so more classes can nova harder, but that still doesn't solve the problem.

Ultimately 5e at its core is an Attrition game and its playerbase doesn't want to play an attrition game, and I don't think that can be solved while remaining compatible with 5e.

I've long been of the opinion that WotC should just publish a different game (not called Dungeons & Dragons) that does what they think all the new players they care about want. Sidesteps the, "existing fans don't like what we did with the game" issue. Attach a new setting to it that complies with today's social desires and you're golden.

Or just contract with Darrington Press and distribute Daggerheart.