D&D 5E The Mainstreaming of D&D

[Parmandur]

Ravenloft first came out in 1983, though. They're still rehashing the old.

Have you read the new book? Because it does not do that thing.

 

[Enevhar Aldarion]

'm not afraid of people playing the game, I'm afraid of WotC stagnating in nostalgia and becoming scared of innovating.

Considering they announced they are working on not one, but two brand-new settings, that are not MtG settings, I don't think this will be a problem. And aside from that, they seem to be doing some innovating within each MtG setting book as well.

 

[Charlaquin]

The dmg lists several different styles of play and adventure creation. I would argue, as others have done, that dungeon-crawling is more heritage at this point, and not really indicative of how people play, which is why this issues comes up so much (I would wager it's the most common gripe with the mechanics of this edition from what I've seen).

I agree that dungeon crawling is not how the game is typically played any more. But it is what 5e was designed around. 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.

Now, to bring this back around to the topic, 5e’s explosion in popularity brought in new players who weren’t as interested in this old-school delve style of play, which is what has lead to this disconnect people experience between the way the game was designed and the way they want to use it.

Dnd has this wide open narrative framework in which anything can happen and then says, you must do 6-8 of this very particular thing, which is tied to in-game units (short and long rests).

That’s not what it says at all. It says a party of 3-5 characters can handle about 6-8 medium or hard encounters with 2 short rests in-between. If you want to push the characters to the point where they’re at risk of dying, then yeah, you’ve got to give them about as much as they can handle, and maybe even a bit more. Of course, if you’re not looking to run a super deadly challenge, the game works absolutely fine with different parameters.

So if short rests aren't possible in the dungeon you've created, the game "breaks."

Not at all! If the players can’t find (or make) an opportunity to get the rest they need, that just forces them into a difficult position where they have to make some tough choices. That’s… kind of the hallmark of this style of play.

At least a game like 13th age is more honest about how it approaches resource recovery, and 4e more honest in encounter design, though neither is my cup of tea.

Making resource recovery a meta-game resource like 13A does certainly foolproofs resource recovery. That’s actually a drawback in my opinion, as it takes the agency to break those expectations away from the players and the GM. 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).

fwiw, this style of play (6-8 discrete medium and hard encounters with exactly 2 rests) isn't really a "dungeon crawl" in the bx/1e sense.

It’s also not really what 5e recommends. 6-8 discrete medium and hard encounters with exactly 2 short rests is an overly literal and rigid interpretation of what’s written as a general guideline of how much the average party can handle.

 

[jmartkdr2]

Have you read the new book? Because it does not do that thing.

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

 

[Malmuria]

Having been in a band in the same town as Live (if anyone else remembers them from the 90s), I can understand that instant avoidance response.



In my experience, D&D 5e has been plenty deadly. As a DM, I've had one character die, and countless reduced to making death saves, and I am by no means a hardcase of a DM. I've been at a D&D Epic that ended in a TPK (and was still a blast).

While we're talking old school deadliness, after a certain point in an adventurer's career it's not like death was little more than an inconvenience and a GP siphon back in the AD&D days.

D&D has always run the gamut of tonalities, often within a single adventure.

Yes, 5e has some cutesy art, but so did 1e:

View attachment 140114

Love the wizard's eye-roll. And in turn, 5e has some darker art:

View attachment 140113

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.

 

[Charlaquin]

Grinding is the right word. Anytime I've been in a 6-8 encounter adventuring day, either as player or dm, it was tedious and took multiple sessions. It was not exciting. Obviously ymmv. But if that's the dmg-approved "base game," it's not a very interesting one.

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.

Is the swinginess of deadlier encounters (and higher level play) intentional?

I’d say it’s just a result of how math works. The more encounters you have, the more dice get rolled, the closer the aggregate results trend towards the mean.

 

[Undrave]

Neither book we know about coming later this year is nostalgia, they cover new themes.

Considering they announced they are working on not one, but two brand-new settings, that are not MtG settings, I don't think this will be a problem. And aside from that, they seem to be doing some innovating within each MtG setting book as well.

Oh for sure. I'm actually glad that, for once, corporate synergy is leading to new stuff like the Magic setting and that they're willing to create new settings as well. I meant more in a general far flung 'future' sense if the current popularity continue to increase... especially if the movie ends up being a hit too. It's not a 'now' problem.

Even a after the 2007 movie, Transformers Animated happened (but they switched Hot Shot for Bumblebee and then in Transformers Prime, Bumblebee couldn't speak like his movie counterpart...) so it's not like a it was a sudden hard stop on innovation, more of a progressive slow down?

I could see WotC being really affraid of any significant edition change even after 20 years of 5e. And even if they do make a new edition, I expect a lot of mechanic being grand-fathered in just for the sakee of continuing from 5e, regardless if new ideas would fit better.

 

[Parmandur]

I could see WotC being really affraid of any significant edition change even after 20 years of 5e. And even if they do make a new edition, I expect a lot of mechanic being grand-fathered in just for the sakee of continuing from 5e, regardless if new ideas would fit better.

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

 

[Umbran]

It isn't that I don't think people should enjoy D&D, or that WotC shouldn't try to broaden its appeal. I just don't like the way it feels in this context. That's all.

I find this... a little confusing. How does, for example, some person not at your table doing cutsey tieflings impact how the game feels to you?

I actually worry about a couple of the conventions I attend that seem to be getting grayer and fatter every year along with me, without a lot of new blood coming in.

Yeah, well, we should not expect new, young blood to come into conventions filled with older people. They will find and establish their own spaces, not move into yours.

In Boston, long ago, there was one sci-fi convention. For reasons, it split into two. One of them remained focused on written science fiction, the other became more of a general genre media convention. The first retained the old guard science fiction fans - mostly older, and continued on with content focused on printed works. The other picked up new media, and got the attention of all the anime fans, cosplayers, TV fandoms, and so on, which trend much younger. The first has largely aged itself into oblivion, the latter has been having a better time of it.

But once it gets mainstream it is made for the lowest common denominator to please as many people as possible at least a bit, resulting in a watered down product.

(bold mine)

So, here we have it - the base anti-populist stance. That which is broadly popular is assumed to be of lower quality. This is a great way to render yourself obsolete.

 

[Parmandur]

I agree that dungeon crawling is not how the game is typically played any more. But it is what 5e was designed around. 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.

Now, to bring this back around to the topic, 5e’s explosion in popularity brought in new players who weren’t as interested in this old-school delve style of play, which is what has lead to this disconnect people experience between the way the game was designed and the way they want to use it.

That’s not what it says at all. It says a party of 3-5 characters can handle about 6-8 medium or hard encounters with 2 short rests in-between. If you want to push the characters to the point where they’re at risk of dying, then yeah, you’ve got to give them about as much as they can handle, and maybe even a bit more. Of course, if you’re not looking to run a super deadly challenge, the game works absolutely fine with different parameters.

Not at all! If the players can’t find (or make) an opportunity to get the rest they need, that just forces them into a difficult position where they have to make some tough choices. That’s… kind of the hallmark of this style of play.

Making resource recovery a meta-game resource like 13A does certainly foolproofs resource recovery. That’s actually a drawback in my opinion, as it takes the agency to break those expectations away from the players and the GM. 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).

It’s also not really what 5e recommends. 6-8 discrete medium and hard encounters with exactly 2 short rests is an overly literal and rigid interpretation of what’s written as a general guideline of how much the average party can handle.

Yeah, they are guidelines for a maximal experience, not the only way the game functions. Matt Mercer essentially never throws fights at the Critical Role crew that aren't cakewalks, because 7 PCs with no resource grind are basically unbeatable: but he still gives his players a fun time. He puts the fear of God into them with theatrics, rather than pushing the characters to their actual mechanical limits. The game plays fine that way, but yes without grinding PCs resources it will be hard to kill them.

I see no particular reason to suspect one or another about what newer players are doing with the grindiness: I see these complaints more on forums where more experienced players who like involved wargame scenarios are talking about the game. I think newbies are doing fine, whether they are pushing the resource limits or not.