Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana:Are they revealing limitations in the 5th edition system?

[Corpsetaker]

UA is a classic example of "darned if you do, darned if you don't" People want options, so they place unofficial playtest options out there, and then people complain there are too many options, even though they are unofficial, or the wrong unofficial options to playtest. All the while we see a post a week decrying the lack of official options, or official options that are not up to the standards of the people complaining.

Nobody has complained about this. Care to explain?

 

[Leatherhead]

Could this be a limitation with the system as a whole? Could it be a creativity limitation? It really reminds me of 4th edition where the only thing separated some powers was a shift instead of a push etc....

Have you perchance heard of A/B testing?

Because that's totally what's happening in the UA articles.

 

[pkt77242]

Nobody has complained about this. Care to explain?

Are you serious? What part of that isn't true?

People constantly create threads saying we don't have enough options
People complain the UA isn't usable in AL or "official".
People complain that they don't like these UA options and they want different ones that WoTC isn't doing.

It is very similar to the AP complaints. People complained that the APs were too long and they want shorter adventures. Then when WoTC announced TFTYP, people complain that they didn't want those specific shorter adventures. I believe that you were one of them, so it should sound familiar.

I refer to it as the Goldilocks syndrome.

 

[Jer]

If I was Mike and the gang, I'd be all like "You know what? F- ALL Y'ALL, YOU UNGRATEFUL LITTLE..."

Meh. The guys at Wizards shouldn't be paying attention to us in the peanut gallery at all, except in the aggregate. And even that should be supplemented with some more market research outside of "randos on the Internet who are obsessive enough about the game that they often post multiple times a day to a forum about it".

As for the question at hand, I think the answer is "no". It seems pretty clear that at some point the D&D team decided that they wanted to provide more player options in the form of sub-classes and so they started working on sub-classes. The amount of overlap in the design might point to a barrier being hit in what the game can handle in subclass design, or it might point to the same people being tasked with designing multiple subclasses and so they're hitting a creative barrier instead. Or maybe they're intentionally trying out overlapping themes across classes to try to see where particular concepts fit best. Or it could be something else entirely. (You only have to look at DMsGuild to realize that the game is wide open to mechanical expansion - it may not be the kind of mechanical expansion that Wizards wants to delve into, but the idea that they're hitting a barrier other than one of their own making I just can't buy).

And honestly even if it were then so what? If they do find a point where the game mechanically the game can't be expanded then that just means "no more mechanical expansion" and the team can focus on putting out more content on the story side of things and not worry about introducing new mechanics at all. I don't think that will happen, but if it did then it is what it is. It wouldn't affect the playability of the game if no new mechanical supplements came out for it. After all, I can still run games out of my Rules Cyclopedia when no new mechanics have been produced for it since the 90s.

 

[Hathorym]

Nobody has complained about this. Care to explain?

Certainly

Something I've noticed with most of the Unearthed Arcana's is they seem to running out of design room. We are getting several classes doing essentially the same thing but only in very minor ways.

People want options.

I'm seeing a less class system and a more broad system coming into play because class niche is slowly being taken away with each new Arcana. I think I've noticed it more with the martial classes than the spellcasters.

People don't want the wrong options.

I would like to see them experiment more with "new" mechanics than giving us 5 different ways to make the same character.

Options

Why haven't they done more with the fighter's maneuver system? I mean they are playtest articles so I want to see some bold new mechanics being tested instead of the same old boring "safe" stuff we keep getting?

Wrong Options

Could this be a limitation with the system as a whole? Could it be a creativity limitation?

Options

It really reminds me of 4th edition where the only thing separated some powers was a shift instead of a push etc....

Wrong options

What I believe we are seeing here is someone going from one chocolate bar to the next without even finishing the first. I want to see some actually expansion on the current mechanics.

Options

We are getting bombarded with Subclasses like 3rd edition did with PrC's.

Wrong options

Also, you've stated you want new mechanics, and in the same breath have stated you want them to play around with old mechanics. Essentially, I feel you posts are diametrically opposed to themselves.

 

[Corpsetaker]

Are you serious? What part of that isn't true? People constantly create threads saying we don't have enough options People complain the UA isn't usable in AL or "official". People complain that they don't like these UA options and they want different ones that WoTC isn't doing. It is very similar to the AP complaints. People complained that the APs were too long and they want shorter adventures. Then when WoTC announced TFTYP, people complain that they didn't want those shorter adventures. I believe that you were one of them, so it should sound familiar. I refer to it as the Goldilocks syndrome.

Okay let's take a crack at this.

I think some people on these boards are acting a little "naive" on purpose.

1: When people say they want shorter adventures that means they want "new" shorter adventures. The old ones have already been out for years and loads of people have already converted them to 5th edition.

2: UA isn't available in AL and on a lot of home games which is a legitimate complaint but I'm not sure what that has to do with thread. Nobody has asked that UA stop.

3: What Wizards is doing at the moment is giving us mainly one thing over and over. It's like having chocolate ice cream, you love chocolate ice cream but you also like non chocolate flavours. Well you tell them you want more ice cream but you want something different so they give you double and triple chocolate. You complain that you wanted something that was non chocolate and you get shouted at because you asked for more ice cream.

There is such a thing as having too much of something which is what we are getting. How many scouts do we really need? People want more but they want something different.

 

[Celtavian]

The advantage mechanic is inherently limited as once you have it, it doesn't stack. With Bounded Accuracy you can't hand out many numerical bonuses or you break the system. 5E is a more limited system than even 4E in my opinion due to its core mechanical design. It very much is a game meant to be for role-playing with less of a concern about mechanics. The most fun can be derived through story-telling in 5E and not stacking mechanical rules for maximum effect (pure powergaming). At least that is how I see it.

 

[Willie the Duck]

What I believe we are seeing here is someone going from one chocolate bar to the next without even finishing the first. I want to see some actually expansion on the current mechanics. We are getting bombarded with Subclasses like 3rd edition did with PrC's.

As playtest material, I would say it is more like getting bombarded with new classes, prestige classes, and/or kits like we did in Dragon magazine in 3e, 2e, 1e, OD&D, so pretty much all the time. At least this time they've very clearly demarked it as experimental.


Overall, I do think that they will either have to do something (or more things) big and bold (I'd say mystic counts, not sure about artificer) and risk stepping on toes or else they will eventually realize that they've made every possible combination of the widgets they've already used.

I have a theory (I think I've touched on it before) that this (no-longer) new plan of one UA a week and getting weekly feedback is them feeling around for where they want to poke their heads out into a new space. We will see, I suppose.

 

[Corpsetaker]

The advantage mechanic is inherently limited as once you have it, it doesn't stack. With Bounded Accuracy you can't hand out many numerical bonuses or you break the system. 5E is a more limited system than even 4E in my opinion due to its core mechanical design. It very much is a game meant to be for role-playing with less of a concern about mechanics. The most fun can be derived through story-telling in 5E and not stacking mechanical rules for maximum effect (pure powergaming). At least that is how I see it.

I used to be a powergamer but quickly grew out of it because it just wasn't fun anymore, but I do like options because sometimes I like having mechanics fit some of my concepts. I was really excited by the maneuvers mechanic of the BM and I feel like that's something that was never finished. I wanted to see more, higher level maneuvers that for instance would use up more dice etc....

 

[Corpsetaker]

As playtest material, I would say it is more like getting bombarded with new classes, prestige classes, and/or kits like we did in Dragon magazine in 3e, 2e, 1e, OD&D, so pretty much all the time. At least this time they've very clearly demarked it as experimental.


Overall, I do think that they will either have to do something (or more things) big and bold (I'd say mystic counts, not sure about artificer) and risk stepping on toes or else they will eventually realize that they've made every possible combination of the widgets they've already used.

I have a theory (I think I've touched on it before) that this (no-longer) new plan of one UA a week and getting weekly feedback is them feeling around for where they want to poke their heads out into a new space. We will see, I suppose.

Well since they have made it well known that this stuff is playtest material then I would expect to them branching out from the norm, sometimes even going a little crazy if need be.

I would love to see a bit more distinction between the Wizard, Sorcerer, and Warlock to be honest.