D&D 5E Reasons Why My Interest in 5e is Waning

[Mallus]

Why bother even using 5E then if you're going to use a previous edition's adventures? Even if you didn't have to redo all the encounters from scratch and redo all the treasure, redo all the traps, redo all the DCs, basically remake absolutely everything in the adventure besides the maps, character backgrounds and descriptions, why even bother with 5E at all?

Let me take a stab at this, since I'm likely going to pillage my now-tattered collection of old AD&D modules to help flesh out my homebrewed 5e adventures.

Why use 5e?

5e plays differently from 1e, for starters. New mechanics, new ways of the doing the old familiar-though-beloved things, ie killing things, taking stuff. Think of it as variations on a theme. The theme being "killing things, taking stuff", of course.

I'm planning on doing the absolute minimum of encounter re-balancing. I'm going to straight substitute 5e monsters for their 1e versions, with the exception of mob encounters, where I'll just 1/2 or 1/4 them or something. That might work. If all else fails, there's always fleeing.

1e traps are simple to convert. A lot of them are player-solved puzzles, ie there *is no* DC, just figure the damn thing out. For the ones that do require DCs, I'll pick numbers that sounds nice.

5e is less treasure-dependent so I'll just cut a lot, or substitute consumables in lieu of permanent items. And just make up my own items of questionable utility on the spot.

As for "only using the maps"... I hate drawing maps. Just having some nice --if tattered-- maps drawn by professionals is a big plus.

 

[Grimstaff]

Why bother even using 5E then if you're going to use a previous edition's adventures? Even if you didn't have to redo all the encounters from scratch and redo all the treasure, redo all the traps, redo all the DCs, basically remake absolutely everything in the adventure besides the maps, character backgrounds and descriptions, why even bother with 5E at all?

Your use of the phrase "redo all the" over and over shows me you've never actually run a non-5e adventure with 5e. If you had, you'd be using the words "easy", "simple", and "on the fly" over and over instead.

 

[Kramodlog]

While I agree with most of your points OP, I find this thread highly disingenuous.

How so?

 

[BryonD]

I just think its kind of silly to get worked up over supplements for a game that just came out unless you think its incomplete. This would make more sense to me to discuss in a year or two. I know we are in the age of wanting instant and full information for the next year out but just a bit too soon to get too concerned. Obviously others mileage varies.

I strongly agree that there is no reason to be worked up over lack of new books at this time.
But for me, I do see some parts as incomplete (Sorcerer, the range of feats, etc) and there is no tone suggesting that this content is forthcoming anytime soon at all.
So, again, I'm not turning my back on the game. It is a great fundamental game. But there are other choices with more richness of material.

Also, ever since I was a kid I've always enjoyed buying and reading game materials. I want more stuff to buy and read. And if I'm just buying PF stuff over the next 8 months, then 8 months from now I'm going to be more inclined to play PF. Which is not a problem for me. I also love PF. I'm not putting one game up as a means of putting another down. I'm just observing the balance between the two.

I've never understood the "too much stuff" position. Don't use it. It doesn't hurt you to not buy material that does exist any more than it does to not buy material that doesn't exist. So why should people who want it be denied? (WotC can make whatever business choices they want, different conversation there)

I have a ton of 3E books. I have way way more than I ever could or will use. Some of them I regret buying. Many, many of them I've enjoyed reading, got my money's worth out of, and they have minimal or zero presence in my games. A small portion are key parts of my gaming experience. The number of broken combinations in my books are countless. My group of players is cool and we don't take two books that did not have each other in mix and mix them in ways that have unintended consequences. And if one book alone is broken (plenty of those out there) we don't use the book.

Bottom line, it isn't about "need", it is about the vast range of options and using the best one.
5E has work to do if it wants to be the "best" one 18 months from now. It has the foundation to easily make that happen. But it has work to do.

 

[Grimstaff]

I can't really sympathize with OPs concerns, my group is having fun with 5e, no further materials needed. Digital tools / PDFs are cute and all, but we play at a table with books and dice. The release schedule is not an issue, we're busy enough as it is playing our first campaign all the way to lvl 20. So even if WotC released 5 splat books next month, we'd probably ignore them for the rest of 2015 anyway. I'm not sure why anyone would be "waiting" for more product instead of playing D&D?

OGL would be cool, because there's some 3pps out there I like, but I don't see the hurry.

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

I strongly agree that there is no reason to be worked up over lack of new books at this time.
But for me, I do see some parts as incomplete (Sorcerer, the range of feats, etc) and there is no tone suggesting that this content is forthcoming anytime soon at all.
So, again, I'm not turning my back on the game. It is a great fundamental game. But there are other choices with more richness of material.

Also, ever since I was a kid I've always enjoyed buying and reading game materials. I want more stuff to buy and read. And if I'm just buying PF stuff over the next 8 months, then 8 months from now I'm going to be more inclined to play PF. Which is not a problem for me. I also love PF. I'm not putting one game up as a means of putting another down. I'm just observing the balance between the two.

I've never understood the "too much stuff" position. Don't use it. It doesn't hurt you to not buy material that does exist any more than it does to not buy material that doesn't exist. So why should people who want it be denied? (WotC can make whatever business choices they want, different conversation there)

I have a ton of 3E books. I have way way more than I ever could or will use. Some of them I regret buying. Many, many of them I've enjoyed reading, got my money's worth out of, and they have minimal or zero presence in my games. A small portion are key parts of my gaming experience. The number of broken combinations in my books are countless. My group of players is cool and we don't take two books that did not have each other in mix and mix them in ways that have unintended consequences. And if one book alone is broken (plenty of those out there) we don't use the book.

Bottom line, it isn't about "need", it is about the vast range of options and using the best one.
5E has work to do if it wants to be the "best" one 18 months from now. It has the foundation to easily make that happen. But it has work to do.

That's cool. I'm not an RPG book reader so unless I get use its wasted money. Personally I'd be fine without any new books of feats, scaling those back was a key part of why I'm digging 5e.

 

[dmccoy1693]

What non-5e adventures have you tried to run with 5e that have you this opinion? Or are you guessing that's how it might be?

I said several times in this thread (including the post you quoted) that I am a campaign setting guy, not an adventures guy. I want campaign setting material designed with the system in mind.

 

[Evenglare]

I agree with OP, but am not surprized to see many WOTC supporters come to the thair aid. These are real concerns of people who have looked forward to 5e. It may be be a concern for you but MANY 5e supporters are loosing interest because we have nothing to be interested IN. For the love of god wizards PLEASE tell us what you are planning! PLEASE! I want to give you my money but if you don't tell me what you are doing it's going to be invested elsewhere. Sadly.

 

[Jester David]

5) Digital Tools
I can't fault WotC for this.
They had a plan, they had a licensee, and that fell through. If things had gone according to plan we would have had digital tools months ago. Then they had to start again from scratch.
Some of this might be choice of partner. Had they gone with LoneWolf we might have seen things already. But it sounds like they want app/PDF replacement and tools all in one.

4) PDFs
This one is problematic.
I have PDFs. Legal PDFs. Thank you Canadian Copyright Act and your provision on format shifting. Official PDFs would make things harder on me.
I'd still buy them though.
This is one of those things where I blame WotC rather than the D&D team. This is likely the management being paranoid of piracy and vetoing PDFs.

3) Nothing to look forward to
This is tricky… I agree with the D&D team on not wanting to announce things until they're ready. The recent… unhappiness… over the cancellation of the Adventurer's Handbook highlights that. But a side effect is long periods where you have nothing to look forward to. There was this two month dead period of nothing between the DMG and the announcement of Princes of the Apocalypse.
I don't really want a return of the endless product cycle of 3e/4e, where the hype on the next big thing began a month before the current product dropped or current storyline ended. So there was no time to hype the climax. A small window of of breathing time would be nice.
I'm really not looking forward to April, when there's the wall of silence for three months until they're ready to announce the GenCon product.
Smaller products would be nice… if only bigger articles on the website.

2) The Waiting
Meh. First world problems. I was anxious and tired of waiting early in 2014 when I was ready for 5e to come out. Now I'm nice and chill having seen the game and knowing I have what I need. I don't *need* anything else to enjoy 5e. Any new product is pure bonus.

1) OGL
Okay, this I agree with. The absence of an OGL is pure B.S.
And the absence of a Community Use Policy or formal fan policy on creating fan content, updating content, etc is distilled weapons-grade B.S.
Not to mention this would alleviate problems #3 and #2. And they said they'd get details of the OGL out by the end of 2014, so they're already a couple months late.

Again, I imagine the issue is WotC vs the D&D team.

 

[transtemporal]

For me, those are irritants but they aren't dealbreakers. WotC to my mind have presented enough for me to get on with my own game, I.e. minimum viable product set. The system works and is fun, the other stuff is peripheral.

I would be more annoyed/perplexed if they delayed the core books so they could release a bunch of software, adventures, settings and other crap at the same time, that I may not need or care about.