D&D 5E The Mainstreaming of D&D

[Parmandur]

I have not. What new things does it bring that DnD hasn't done before?

There isn't much that D&D hasn't done before, but it does bring a new spin on things.

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

It's a weird trend that many complaints I see could be solved by following DMG rules and guidelines.

It's because it's not fun for a significant number of people. Running 6-8 (boring and easy) encounters is a MMO grind for the sake of a grind. Cut out the middleman and just give casters less resources. Stop wasting everyone's time on trash encounters that have no real risk and serve no purpose other than to let non-casters have a chance to "shine" doing scutwork.

The rules can be balanced around eating broken glass every time you roll a 1. That doesn't make them well designed.

 

[Malmuria]

Certainly if each of those encounters is taking 30+ minutes and you have to break the adventuring day up over 2+ sessions, that would be quite a slog. These sorts of encounters should take 10 minutes, tops (and that was the benchmark they shot for in the playtest). Maybe with one climactic set pice that takes closer to 20 or 30.

When we played Death House I think it took 2 (or maybe 2.5) sessions. There were interesting things about it, but not the

Spoiler

grindy animated armor and ghoul combats

. I think when people criticize the encounter design in 5e it's more an indication that the 6-8 encounters style of play is not something they want. What they do want is an interesting question--probably for combat to feel cinematic with high narrative stakes.

I haven't played any of the later modules, but do these modules stick to 6-8 encounter adventuring days?

 

[Parmandur]

It's because it's not fun for a significant number of people. Running 6-8 (boring and easy) encounters is a MMO grind for the sake of a grind. Cut out the middleman and just give casters less resources. Stop wasting everyone's time on trash encounters that have no real risk and serve no purpose other than to let non-casters have a chance to "shine" doing scutwork.

The rules can be balanced around eating broken glass every time you roll a 1. That doesn't make them well designed.

How "significant" a number of people are you talking about? Do you have some marketing research numbers on playstyle preferences you would like to share?

Sure, it's not to everyone's taste, but the game works fine if you don't push things and want a more relaxed experience, or a swingier experience. The fights are their own reward, for those that find that sort of gameplay fun, which WotC found reason to believe represented a "significant" number of people.

 

[D1Tremere]

To be fair, I was asked a question and gave a somewhat flippant answer that while true wasn't especially nuanced. While you are right in saying there is a broad cross section of different flavors in 5E, I think if you look you can fairly easily see the trend I am talking about. It's what I mentally refer to as the MCu Effect: sure, there are lots of different Marvel movies and heroes with different aesthetics, but overall they are very similar in tone and in a specific way meant to produce a broad appeal. D&D is in similar state, I think.

And before anyone pulls out the pitchforks: I don't mean that in a pejorative way. I like the MCU. But it is intentionally samey and consistent and built for mainstream tastes, and D&D is like that too. And as I noted in my OP, this isn't the first time. The transition to 2E occurred at a similar height of popularity and attempt to breach the mainstream.

I'm not saying you are wrong, to be fair, I am just suggesting that it is your perspective. I don't personally see them as samey or very similar in tone. It just depends on where you draw your lines, and how nuanced you get. One of the things I love about the MCU movies, for example, is that each character has their story told in a somewhat different idiom. Spiderman is a lighthearted young adventure story, Dr. Strange is a personal introspection piece with a more serious tone. For every anima inspired tiefling smiling and enjoying a drink in Dragon Heist there is a tortured and bitter one trying to escape from Avernus.

 

[Parmandur]

When we played Death House I think it took 2 (or maybe 2.5) sessions. There were interesting things about it, but not the

Spoiler

grindy animated armor and ghoul combats

. I think when people criticize the encounter design in 5e it's more an indication that the 6-8 encounters style of play is not something they want. What they do want is an interesting question--probably for combat to feel cinematic with high narrative stakes.

I haven't played any of the later modules, but do these modules stick to 6-8 encounter adventuring days?

No, they really don't move away from it.

Death House was a one-shot when my brother-in-law ran it. Very fast and breezy, too. Almost got a TPK from an animated broom, which was hilarious.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

I dunno, try asking people whether your average goblin has orange or green skin and you'll get different answers. People still picture things very differently in their heads. I've been gaming with my twin brother for decades, and every time I ask him to describe what he thinks something or someone looks like, I'm always surprised at what he says, whether it was back in 1e or now in 5e. Even with some of the exact same touchstones and life experiences, we still paint different pictures with our minds eyes.

It's easy to remember the heights of older editions' art, like the Four Horsemen, Fabian, Brom, Otus, Trampier, and not the really bad stuff.

While I won't argue that the current art direction has a certain same-ness, that I don't necessarily think of it as fondly, as say, a Parkinson or Darlene piece, it also raises the base level higher, so you get fewer truly execrable works (okay, so there is that PHB halfling illustration).

It's not even the cutseyness per se for me. I saw a Runehammer video the other day where he described it as "too realized," as in too determinative of what you see in your mind's eye. I also don't like the homogeneity of all the books, inclusive of the art style and (terrible, imo) layout/formatting, and the way that everyone on dms guild copies their formatting. I came up with late basic and then 2e, and loved how each setting got a very unique style, driven by particular artists.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

First and foremost: I am glad D&D is having a renaissance, and I am glad lots of new people are coming into the hobby. I am glad there is a robust 3rd part of semi-pro support ecosystem out there. I am glad there are YouTube channels, streamers and tik-toks aplenty on the subject of running and playing the game. I am glad celebrities are "coming out" as fans.

All that said, if I am honest, I liked it better when D&D was a nerdy little hobby that felt a little weird and a little transgressive. I'm not lamenting exclusion -- it is great that everyone gets to discover D&D -- nor am I missing the unfriendly stereotypes of old school sword and sorcery -- although you can take Frazetta from my cold dead hands. It's more like as I see what is emerging for D&D in this new mainstream environment, I am... bored. Uninspired. It feels like TMNT on saturday mornings compared to its origins. It feels a lot like teh 2E transition, in fact, with everything glossy and clean and, well, safe.

Anyway, just thinking with my fingers, really. Like I said, it is good that D&D is popular and mainstream for any number of reasons. But the shape it is taking in the mainstream leaves me cold, a little sad even.

I feel the need to link this:

It's Popular, Now It Sucks! - TV Tropes

The hipster's mantra. There's only one thing worse than people not watching your favorite show: people actually watching your favorite show. You'd think that your favorite artist making it big by reaching Stage 5 of the Fandom Life Cycle would be …

tvtropes.org

See the section in the article that discusses the variant of this trope (It's popular, so it sucks).

I am newer to the hobby than almost all of you that are active posters on these forums. I haven't even been in the hobby for 5 years yet, but I'm getting there. Critical Role has existed longer than I have been playing the game (although it did not get me into the hobby, my younger cousin did). I got into D&D because my hometown has a business called Lynchpin that's main purpose was to teach teens that needed practice developing social skills how to behave in public, and they used D&D as one of their main forms to do this. My ADHD cousin was introduced to D&D through Lynchpin, and he introduced me to it. I would very likely would not have gotten into D&D 5e (which is my favorite hobby and I don't see myself ever stopping playing/DMing D&D) if it were not for the popularity of the hobby. I never lived in the 70's/80's, but I'm guessing that my assumption that something like this would never have happened when D&D was a niche hobby is accurate. I owe my involvement in this hobby to its popularity and it becoming more mainstream and socially acceptable, and for that I will be forever grateful.

It makes me sad that others are sad about the hobby becoming more popular and mainstream. For me, that is and can only be an overwhelmingly positive thing. The more people get into the hobby, the more players and DMs there will be to go around. The more popular it is, the more advice on playing/DMing there will be on Youtube and other places on the internet (Matthew Colville's Running the Game series is how I learned to play the game and become a good DM). The more mainstream the hobby is, it's more likely for us to get actually good and enjoyable D&D movies and TV-shows for both kids and adults (seriously, Chris Pine and Benedict Cumberbatch are going to be in the D&D movie. If you had told me that when I started playing D&D, I wouldn't have believed you). The more people that are playing the game, the more people there are buying the products, thus giving more money to WotC for them to make more D&D products in the future. The more people are in the hobby, and the more educated they are on having a good experience in the game, there will be more unique and inspiring ideas added to the hobby. The way of progress for the game and community as a whole is almost entirely dependent on it becoming more popular and more mainstream.

Will there be some cute races and art in the books? Sure. That makes kids more likely to get into the game, and kids are the future of both the world and the hobby. Will all D&D be "cutesied"? Absolutely not. We literally just had Icewind Dale: Rime of the Frostmaiden and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft come out. Before that, we had Descent into Avernus and Ghosts of Saltmarsh. Sure, we're getting a Harry Potter-esque world through Strixhaven and cute Owl/Bunny-folk, and we've gotten Gnome Mind Flayers and Hollyphants, but we've also gotten a horror setting, a horror adventure, and an adventure where you literally go into the depths of hell and ride on vehicles fueled by souls. That just shows the diversity of playstyles that D&D can include. That's a strength. That means D&D will reach more people, and there will be more to go around for everyone. To me, it seems a bit like saying "Get off my lawn!!! No Squid-Gnomes or Angelic-Elephants allowed in MY FANTASY GAME!", which is a bit selfish/self-centered. It isn't the old days anymore, it's the new days, and D&D is trying to make it into the mainstream. Letting people play what/how they like and have that be officially supported by the rules is good for all of us, even if it makes a few of the older players upset that D&D is changing.

So, I'm sorry for those of you that are tied down by nostalgia for the old-days when D&D was niche, dorky, and a reason that people got bullied/ridiculed. I'm glad I didn't experience those days, and I'm glad that they're long gone. I'm glad that D&D is becoming more and more popular, because that makes it easier for me to talk about it with other people without me automatically being thrown out of multiple social bubbles (I'm autistic, I don't need any more help alienating people that I meet).

I guess the best way to summarize this would be, "Sorry, not sorry". I'm sorry that it's making some of you upset, but I'm also not sorry that D&D is changing and becoming more inclusive of new playstyles and more open to new players. It's a good thing, and it sucks that it has to alienate (or seem to alienate) some older players in order to grow as a hobby.

Sorry, but I'm really not sorry (and I'm also sorry for that!).

 

[Malmuria]

No, they really don't move away from it.

then why does it bother so many people?

Death House was a one-shot when my brother-in-law ran it. Very fast and breezy, too.

I guess we're just bad at dnd, or playing it wrong.

 

[Undrave]

In the backlash to 4e there was a heavy push to bring the game back to its roots, and the adventures that 5e were playtested with (Keep on the Borderlands, Isle of Dread, and an original adventure set in Blingdenstone) reflected this.

Didn't every damn edition market itself with a line like "Getting back to the Dungeon!" maybe it's time to admit we DON'T actually want to get back to the Dungeon? It's dusty, it smells weirds and it's full of Kobolds.

I do agree though that 4e was more transparent about how it’s encounter design worked (something 5e playtesters actually railed against!) and harder to mess up thanks to the 5-minute short rest. Which also appeared in 5e playtesting, and got shot down. Playesters didn’t want players to be able to count on being able to get a short rest (for some reason).

They railed against transparent encounter design?! A thing meant to make it easier to DM? What, did they get annoyed at the XP budget formulas and expected wealth per level tables too? It's probably their fault Monsters cast spells from the PC spell list instead of just having info in their stat block. I swear, the more I hear about those 5e play testers, the more I feel they went out of their way to pick the angriest grognardiest grognards who wanted to destroy 4e and hated anything that gave them even a single whiff of 4e.

I also don't like the homogeneity of all the books, inclusive of the art style and (terrible, imo) layout/formatting, and the way that everyone on dms guild copies their formatting.

The layout and formatting in 5e could be better (for one thing, I can think of 3 major improvements I could make to the Spell Section alone...) but I think homogeneity in formatting is good for the identity of a brand and for ease of use. It's not as exciting if you just want to LOOK at your D&D books, but it makes them way better to use if you know how to navigate them.

Letting some new artists flex their own styles from time to time would be great. I really like the cover for the FLGS version of Tasha's, for exemple, and I think Xanathar's also had au unique style? And I know they let Acquisition Inc. have its own art style.

That's honestly what I want to happen, so here's hoping.

You mean sticking to the edition for as long as possible? Yeah, as long as it doesn't become unwieldy. So far they've been good at keeping the crunch content (painfully) low so they can just keep selling settings for years.

But when (not if) the edition DOES change, I really hope they're not affraid of some radical change. We could have had an interesting Sorcerer who transforms and manifest more and more of their heritage the more sorcery point they spend, but instead we got the boring 'CHA Wizard without a book' instead.