D&D 5E To much 5th edition content?

[Parmandur]

Is the Blood Hunter a good class? Has anyone played one or allowed one in their campaign?

I haven't played one, but it seems relatively popular. The gist is that the Blood Hunter is a martial pseudocaster thst uses their own HP and hit dice as a resource to do special moves, similar to Ki except more dangerous.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Is the Blood Hunter a good class? Has anyone played one or allowed one in their campaign?

To put it bluntly, no it isn't. It's basically a spell-less ranger that hasn't quite got the flexibility of the PHB ranger (and I don't think has the damage of it), never mind the Tasha's one.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't watch CR, so I'm wondering what direction CR specifically is pushing D&D? The short clips of CR I have watched seemed fairly 'normal D&D' to me, my impression was even a bit old school in places (restricted resurrection, GM fiated falling damage...) whereas something like the recent 'Strixhaven Barristas Adventure' seems way out there. Players who have come to my table (real or VTT) via CR tend to be more into in-character acting than the others, but their expectations don't seem wildly out of whack.

Mercer's basically as good at 90s style DMing as it's possible to be. Using the Six Cultures of Play I'd call him very much a trad DM working well with a mixed trad and neo-trad/OC group that's again as reasonably good as it's possible to be (for one they are all professional voice actors).

 

[S'mon]

Mercer's basically as good at 90s style DMing as it's possible to be. Using the Six Cultures of Play I'd call him very much a trad DM working well with a mixed trad and neo-trad/OC group that's again as reasonably good as it's possible to be (for one they are all professional voice actors).

That's my impression thanks. So is CR pushing D&D in a neo-Trad/OC direction? If so it seems more about audience demand than what Mercer does as a DM? I do have the impression 5e is moving towards being centred more on OC style play - what I call "Ginny D&D" - but I'm not sure if CR is in itself much of a major factor. It seems more about the new player (or fan) base the game began attracting even before CR; they tend to be fans of CR but I don't think CR is making them into OC-type players, rather OC style is what they like, and CR fits what they like well enough.

Edit: I think one of my player groups would like it if I was more of an OC style GM, Kimberly Pauley especially makes these lovely, beautifully realised PCs worthy of a novel protagonist, and I always feel bad when I brutally murderise them.

 

[Parmandur]

That's my impression thanks. So is CR pushing D&D in a neo-Trad/OC direction? If so it seems more about audience demand than what Mercer does as a DM? I do have the impression 5e is moving towards being centred more on OC style play - what I call "Ginny D&D" - but I'm not sure if CR is in itself much of a major factor. It seems more about the new player (or fan) base the game began attracting even before CR; they tend to be fans of CR but I don't think CR is making them into OC-type players, rather OC style is what they like, and CR fits what they like well enough.

Edit: I think one of my player groups would like it if I was more of an OC style GM, Kimberly Pauley especially makes these lovely, beautifully realised PCs worthy of a novel protagonist, and I always feel bad when I brutally murderise them.

I'm not really sure what "OC" means here, but I'd definitely say that CR is riding the wave of what is already popular rather than driving the demand. Same as WotC themselves.

 

[S'mon]

I'm not really sure what "OC" means here, but I'd definitely say that CR is riding the wave of what is already popular rather than driving the demand. Same as WotC themselves.

'Original Character' - the essay Neonchameleon linked explains it. I first saw "OC" in 'looking for game' posts on the UK D&D Facebook group, where it seems to be the dominant culture among new players.

 

[Charlaquin]

Mercer's basically as good at 90s style DMing as it's possible to be. Using the Six Cultures of Play I'd call him very much a trad DM working well with a mixed trad and neo-trad/OC group that's again as reasonably good as it's possible to be (for one they are all professional voice actors).

Wow, what a great article! It’s funny, I’ve never considered myself an OSR person or associated with the OSR crowd, but put this way, it seems like my play preferences are very well aligned with the norms of the OSR play culture as described here; though with a lot of influence from story game culture as well.

 

[Neonchameleon]

That's my impression thanks. So is CR pushing D&D in a neo-Trad/OC direction? If so it seems more about audience demand than what Mercer does as a DM? I do have the impression 5e is moving towards being centred more on OC style play - what I call "Ginny D&D"

groans

- but I'm not sure if CR is in itself much of a major factor. It seems more about the new player (or fan) base the game began attracting even before CR; they tend to be fans of CR but I don't think CR is making them into OC-type players, rather OC style is what they like, and CR fits what they like well enough.

Honestly the combination of Neo-Trad GM and OC players is what I've been seeing as the largest group for as long as I've had much to do with the wider RPG community (i.e. since the 90s in my case). The problem is that there has historically been some truly bad advice for this.

D&D pulled that audience in massively with the Dragonlance saga and novels in the 80s and playing through such an epic scripted set of nonsense but in the 90s White Wolf were, in part, able to challenge D&D because "Angsty superpowered vampires" appealed massively to the OC crowd. Of course I could say things about Storyteller as a system and in specific the advice given to Storytellers. For that matter the Big Model is largely irrelevant to Storygames (it became a model big enough to explain everything including impossibilities). Storygames grew out, more than anything, of the impulse "We want to do what White Wolf promises but is unable to deliver on; the biggest thing they get wrong is the role of the Storyteller and the second is expecting indefinite length to stories as not everything should be a soap opera".

Edit: I think one of my player groups would like it if I was more of an OC style GM, Kimberly Pauley especially makes these lovely, beautifully realised PCs worthy of a novel protagonist, and I always feel bad when I brutally murderise them.

To quote D. Vincent Baker "Treat your NPCs like stolen cars". Soft trad GMs can get on really well with OC players as long as they remember "Be a fan of the player characters" (more Vincent Baker advice - and something Matt Mercer is excellent at) and remember the PCs are the stars of the show. And Soft Classic DMs can get on really well with OC players; when do you get a better chance to really see who your character is than when they're put through hell and have to decide what to do without knowing they'll survive? (This depends on the player).

When I refer to soft I'm not referring to levels of difficulty. If a trad GM sticks to Their Vision and Their Story at the obvious expense of the PCs they'll lose the reason the OC players are playing. And OC gamers are often there to see their characters challenged (and sometimes put through hell) but they mostly aren't here for number crunching let alone knowing their encumbrance to the nearest copper piece.

And now I come to think about it 5e works really well for OC players. You've got multi layered archetypes, and there aren't too many to remember but the subclasses work really well for further diversification and making your OC feel distinctive.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Wow, what a great article! It’s funny, I’ve never considered myself an OSR person or associated with the OSR crowd, but put this way, it seems like my play preferences are very well aligned with the norms of the OSR play culture as described here; though with a lot of influence from story game culture as well.

The overlap seems to go one way. IME a lot of Storygames people find the OSR's ideas interesting and worth borrowing. But there doesn't seem to be anything like the willingness from the other side to look at Storygames - indeed many of them seem to treat it as a culture war thing.

 

[S'mon]

And Soft Classic DMs can get on really well with OC players; when do you get a better chance to really see who your character is than when they're put through hell and have to decide what to do without knowing they'll survive? (This depends on the player).

Yes, that's pretty much my situation I'd say. "Soft Classic" describes my style pretty well I think.