Unearthed Arcana Unearthed Arcana Fighter: Samurai, Sharpshooter, Arcane Archer & Knight

I'm getting, like, unhealthy amounts of mad, clicking on that broken link.

 

[Sacrosanct]

And people always seem to think that their preferences are the popular ones. They are often wrong. And, popularity is fickle. Defend the rights of the minority, because you never know when you might end up part of one.
They are, if the game is to be inclusive.
.

D&D is not Civil Rights Tony, where every playstyle needs to be protected and included. It's a business. It's a game. If certain parts of the game are not popular, then the game will either fail, or it will move on without them. No one is forcing anyone else to play D&D; there are hundreds of games out there that fit peoples' desires if D&D doesn't do it for them. You can be sure that 4e was a lesson to WotC, so no, everyone is not entitled to their particular favorite mechanic if that mechanic isn't also enjoyed by the majority. And lucky for us, we CAN see whose favorite mechanics are the most popular. It's called sales #s and continued player base. And it doesn't lie.

 

[MechaPilot]

D&D is not Civil Rights Tony, where every playstyle needs to be protected and included. It's a business. It's a game. If certain parts of the game are not popular, then the game will either fail, or it will move on without them. No one is forcing anyone else to play D&D; there are hundreds of games out there that fit peoples' desires if D&D doesn't do it for them. You can be sure that 4e was a lesson to WotC, so no, everyone is not entitled to their particular favorite mechanic if that mechanic isn't also enjoyed by the majority. And lucky for us, we CAN see whose favorite mechanics are the most popular. It's called sales #s and continued player base. And it doesn't lie.

You are objecting awfully hard to optional material. Wasn't 5e supposed to be the modular D&D game for fans of all editions of D&D? When did they change the sign from "welcome in D&D fans, 5e wants you" to "if you became a fan from 2007 - 2011 go screw yourself?"

 

[Corwin]

Not reading this whole thread, so pardon if this has been mentioned, but I find it funny that you can now play a Knight with the Knight background or a Sharpshooter with the Sharpshooter feat.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Virtually everything is optional, no matter where it's printed.

Elves? Optional.
Battlemaster subclass? Optional.
Teleport spells? Optional.
etc. . . .

You are objecting awfully hard to optional material. Always mystifying, that.

There's an emotional and practical difference between opt-in optional and opt-out optional. Feats, MCing, UA, SCAG and all future content is opt-in optional. PH content not called out as optional is opt-out optional. It's very easy to find a game that uses op-out optional content, not so hard to find one that that excludes some or all opt-in optional content, harder to find one that includes specific opt-in optional content and devilishly hard to find one that excludes opt-out optional content, let alone includes specific unofficial content.

Wasn't 5e supposed to be the modular D&D game for fans of all editions of D&D?

Yes it was, and its succeed to no small extent, being ideal for fans of 2e, evocative of even early editions, and readily adaptable to most expectations of 3e fans.

D&D is not Civil Rights Tony, where every playstyle needs to be protected and included.

The rationale for 5e smacked of similar concerns. It was so tragic and unjust that 4e supposedly excluded certain playstyles that we just had to have an all-inclusive new edition. Sure, the context of the edition war was trivial compared to RL, but the issues were and are similar in kind, none the less.

And lucky for us, we CAN see whose favorite mechanics are the most popular. It's called sales #s and continued player base. And it doesn't lie.

The sales of D&D are so trivial compared to those of it's other properties that WotC, were they to follow the advice in your screed, would have dropped D&D entirely a decade ago. As RPG fans we /are/ a tiny minority.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

With that said, I think it's very easy for designers to identify gamey dissonant mechanics and make them optional.

I'm a dissonance hawk who thinks 4E's fetish for giving every character exactly the same resource system, regardless of whether they tapped into the arcane power of the cosmos or swung a sword like a boss, was the stupidest thing ever.

Marking is fine.

 

[Bitbrain]

Not reading this whole thread, so pardon if this has been mentioned, but I find it funny that you can now play a Knight with the Knight background or a Sharpshooter with the Sharpshooter feat.

Yeah, it kind of is.

 

[Sacrosanct]

You are objecting awfully hard to optional material. Wasn't 5e supposed to be the modular D&D game for fans of all editions of D&D? When did they change the sign from "welcome in D&D fans, 5e wants you" to "if you became a fan from 2007 - 2011 go screw yourself?"

Never said that. I only said that not all preferences are equal. And they're not.

. It was so tragic and unjust that 4e supposedly excluded certain playstyles that we just had to have an all-inclusive new edition. Sure, the context of the edition war was trivial compared to RL, but the issues were and are similar in kind, none the less.

I suppose it's awfully convenient for you both to always look for an opportunity to paint yourself as the victim, but the facts don't support that. For one, I never said the strawman you're claiming I'm making. Secondly, it grossly ignores how literally everyone has been affected, and not just 4e fans.

I like THAC0, save or die, and level drain. Guess that means 5e completely thumbed its nose at us old school players then, doesn't it? Of course not, but that's the logic you're using. I mean, there aren't even optional rules for those things, so clearly we're being discarded as players and it must mean that 5e's inclusiveness was all BS....

Or maybe, it means when 5e's team said they would be inclusive, didn't mean they would pull every rule from every edition into it, but took inspiration from every edition. Which they did. Even 4e, with it's prominent non-magical healing, at-wills, and AEDU mechanics (which short vs long rest ability recharge is clearly pulled from).

No Tony, they didn't put out 5e because 4e was so unjust it excluded playstyles. They put out 5e because people were leaving 4e in droves to play PF, and WotC realized that 4e's mechanics only appealed to a minority of they player base. The success of 5e has just proven that in droves. Those are the facts. D&D is a business, whether you care to admit it or not, and thus is driven by business factors.

 

[MechaPilot]

There's an emotional and practical difference between opt-in optional and opt-out optional. Feats, MCing, UA, SCAG and all future content is opt-in optional. PH content not called out as optional is opt-out optional. It's very easy to find a game that uses op-out optional content, not so hard to find one that that excludes some or all opt-in optional content, harder to find one that includes specific opt-in optional content and devilishly hard to find one that excludes opt-out optional content, let alone includes specific unofficial content.

Certainly, there's a difference in method (opt-in v opt-out), and in how frequently opt-in material is allowed.

Some of that frequency difference is due to market forces: putting opt-in material in other books requires a greater fiscal investment if one wants to play the game with those options, and that inherently means it's likely to see less use. The rest opt-in options in the DMG or the feats in the PHB would certainly see less use than they currently do if they were presented in another book that had to be bought in addition to the DMG/PHB/MM.

However, the ultimate truth is that elves and hobb. . . er, halflings, are entirely optional material. I know, because I play the game without halflings and the game hasn't broken down. I likewise disallow long-range teleport magic, and the game hasn't broken down. Both are optional, despite being printed in the PHB.

 

[MechaPilot]

Never said that. I only said that not all preferences are equal. And they're not.

That's why not all preferences were represented at launch. The game has been out for a while now. It's doing quite well (though the movie will probably suck), and it has a wealth of options for people with non-4e preferences. It's time now to actually live up to the claim of being for fans of all editions by adding some appeal for fans who were left out at launch. 4e should have offered a vancian option, and they probably should have done it in the PHB (though the PHB2 would not have been too far out of line). 5e should learn from the mistake of excluding a loyal part of the fanbase and offer real options for those whose preferences were ignored or given only lip-service at launch.

 

[MechaPilot]

I suppose it's awfully convenient for you both to always look for an opportunity to paint yourself as the victim. . . .

Can you please remain civil and not make this personal? I am NOT on some never-ending quest for victimhood. I come here to discuss D&D, to read some of the latest news about the game (because I think Twitter is BS, and I refuse to participate in it), and to get inspiration for running my own game. I do NOT come here to cry and demand sympathy or attention.