D&D 5E (2024) This Feels Like 4E

[Marc17]

I certainly think that wasn't the original goal for early D&D; the original group was focused on creating a houseruled version of a wargame. Those aren't the type of people who do casual!

Being able to onboard new players is almost certainly a design goal for modern D&D like 5e, but D&D has too much legacy cruft to be able to make an actual easy onboard for new players.

Well, my opinion is that the original goal was to focus on the Braunstien game of "What does your character do?" and the DM adjudicating that and then falling back on wargame rules for when that fails. Actually, I'd say there is more new cruft complicating onboarding new players than old. Even 1E AD&D it was pretty dead simple to make a character and understand themeager abilities, especially in the case of a fighter. Now, people are wanting to start at third level which immediately requires understanding and deciding the different paths of their single character class. Futher more, I'd say that if there was any intended design goal, it would be for the game to be played as desired at the table it was being played at, rather than as written or by some ambiguous intention of the authors (who could easily have made lots of things clearer if they really intended anything).

 

[tetrasodium]

Are people actually weapon juggling or is at online theorycrafting?

Actually doing it & I'm not the only one who has complained about it, the question is dismissive and unreasonable. Your question is kinda demonstrating why "my players don't do that [so I won't even consider them doing it for discussion purposes] must be a you/your player problem the thing is amazing and without flaw for me" without even engaging the stated problem is such a toxic and dismissive defense of design.

 

[tetrasodium]

D&D is a group fun activity. If it’s not fun for the group you are doing something wrong. If something is making your game not fun it generally falls to the DM, in the leadership position, to take the lead in sorting it out. But everyone will be glad that they did.

As Doctor Malcom would point out, just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should do something. And I get the impression the your problem is caused by your players cheesing the free weapon swap rule (which is intended for something completely different).

That's where the not a single player game distinction is so important. Something can be fun for a subset of players because they are actively involved in doing something while the others are totally uninvolved not impacted and are just sitting around twiddling their thumbs waiting for half the group to slowly & poorly but good enough add their own contribution (ie caster debuff/control) for free on top of the one already being performed (martial defense & high reliable stable damage output). The fact that it takes so much longer than "I cast web/slow/repelling blast/etc" only serves as the cherry on top of the badly incentivized design that fails to properly hook into the action economy

If that division were a player specific thing it would be as you say, but it's based on class.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Actually doing it & I'm not the only one who has complained about it, the question is dismissive and unreasonable

No it’s not. It shows what I’ve been saying - it’s your players who are the problem, not the rules. You are the one being dismissive of the people trying to give you helpful suggestions. You prefer to blame the rules than accept your game might have a problem.

 

[tetrasodium]

No it’s not. It shows what I’ve been saying - it’s your players who are the problem, not the rules. You are the one being dismissive of the people trying to give you helpful suggestions. You prefer to blame the rules than accept your game might have a problem.

This from the poster who thinks their own personal circle is more "mass market" than multiple tables assembled from folks pulled from multiple tables at an flgs AL night. I've also tried to point out a few times to you that the first time I saw it I was a player who obviously wouldn't have players to call theirs so others can call them "your players".

Not everyone plays exclusively with a closed circle of friends. Some of my tables are a close circle. Others are a close circle plus ransoms. Still more are a bunch of unknowns.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Others are a close circle plus ransoms. Still more are a bunch of unknowns.

No one is forcing you to do that. Better to not play at all than play with horrible people. It's supposed to be fun.