WotC Unpopular Opinion: WotC is the Bethesda of RPG Companies

[doctorbadwolf]

As an examples: the CR system in its entirety, and the associated treasure reward system (with nothing to use it for). Most of the adventures are buggy messes that require a lot of care to make useful in my experience -- I mean, there's a masive amount of material on the DMs Guild solely aimed at fixing the 5E adventures. And how many patches has the Ranger had?

None. The ranger has had no patches. They’ve tested out some alternate ways of handling the Ranger to fix some dissatisfaction, but there is nothing “bugged” in the ranger. It just functions based on assumptions that ended up not being realistic.

As for the treasure system, there is plenty to spend the money on. Downtime Training, Research, Hirelings, mounts, etc are all explicit, while things like physical buildings, titles, etc are just part of the world. That’s working as intended, it’s just something a lot of players want to see more explicit content on.

Equivalent to mods for housing. Adding housing isn’t a patch, it’s just an addition.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The mechanics are mostly good I find with a few exceptions, but its increasingly the Lore that is getting bugged, look at the confusing Elves section of MTOFs. They need to start play testing major lore changes.

I rarely agree with you, but yes. That.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Oofta]

LOL. Is this trash D&D week? This is what, the third (fourth) thread explicitly or implicitly critical of the hobby and what WOTC is doing or has done? Maybe it's just a symptom of year-in-review.

I don't buy a lot of supplements, but I've been satisfied with the ones I have. As far as D&D needing tweaking, I would say that the simplicity of tweaking 5E is one of it's strengths. No game can ever be a good fit for everyone, at least this version is easy to modify so it can be close.

 

[TwoSix]

I think they're more the GameFreak of RPG, not pushing the material as far as they could but still satisfying the vast majority enough to be successful.

(and I say that as someone who really enjoyed Pokémon Shield, BTW).

Damn, that's a really good comparison. (Also as someone who enjoys Sword/Shield.)

 

[TwoSix]

Here's the thing. Computer games are very different than TTRPGs. Once we get away from, say, Eamon and the like (or, perhaps, text-based MUDs written in C), you quickly get to the point where individuals cannot make, add, subtract, or otherwise truly alter a computer game. Even Eamon and the like required some additional coding ability. Other than systems that explicitly allow you to "build" and "create" within them (world-building apps with a game, or minecraft and the like), you are left with what they have. So, sure, there are iterations (versions) as they patch bugs, fix things, release additional content (DLCs) and so on. But that isn't user-created.

Say again? The mindboggling amount of mods that exist for computer games contradicts your argument. I mean, arguably the most popular game genre of the decade (the MOBA) was developed off of a mod. There are total conversion mods that are pretty much the equivalent to comparing 4e to 1e.

 

[DEFCON 1]

This is NOT a dig. I love Fallout and The Elder Scrolls.

That said, more and more I see WotC putting out buggy, slightly underwhelming material and then encouraging the fan community to patch it, expand on it and tweak it. The awesome experiences we have with D&D are actually as much the result of that fan/indie effort as they are WotC output.

The DM's Guild is the most obvious element of this, but even message boards like this one, Facebook groups and Reddit are filled with "mods" for D&D 5E. Like I said, it is a good thing IMO, but also striking.

Disagree.

D&D is World of Warcraft. The world's most popular games of their genre, both of which are playable as-is, and beloved by the people playing.

That being said... both games welcome their mod communities to take on duties they themselves do not have time to fiddle with. And almost all the people who play the game "seriously" will load up and use all manner of mods to get the game to run and play exactly how they prefer it. But if you ask them to ever just go back and play the game as the company designed it without any of the mods... it always feels weird and oftentimes not that pleasant. And those players will never not complain about it.

And then on occasion, both WotC and Blizzard will take some of the most popular and widely-used mods and actually incorporate them in some fashion into the base game. Not usually to the detailed extent the original mod person made... they are meant for the general gaming populace and not the hardcore who have gone all-in on it after all... but at least to a baseline entry. But that is enough to get the hardcore to then complain about the company not going all-in, and they take it as a personal affront that they are still required to use the community mod. And they'll make sure to let the rest of us know about how the company has screwed the pooch.

But in both cases... the company actually has all the details of what most people actually think, and it does not in any way match the ill-conceived ideas of certain "hardcores" who can't believe people could stand to play the game without the stuff they consider practically a requirement. Which is why both companies are able to ignore the caterwauling and still maintain the level of interest and community they have garnered over the years.

 

[Phazonfish]

I also disagree, and I think ChaosOS highlighted the most relevant point. The PHB is nearly bulletproof in how well made it is, and IMO the PHB is all you really need to play. The fact that there are so many house rules people post is not indicative of the completeness of the official rules so much as that people have different preferences; heck, a lot of the rules in 5e are intentionally vague to encourage this. Even as a harsh critic of the Ranger, I would never say the Ranger is not at least perfectly functional, it just has a LOT of room for improvement. I will concede that a lot of their other material can be a little spotty if you look too hard, but Bethesda puts out games with faults in their foundation, so it does not seem to be an accurate comparison to me. Like others, I'm not taking a jab at Bethesda, their buggy nature is kinda endearing until you hit the one that hard locks the game, and even then their games tend to be fun enough to justify starting over (and over, and over, and maybe just one more character, and oh hey I need a clean save for this mod, and maybe one more since I forget what I was doing last time anyway, and I still haven't gotten that one ending in NV).

 

[pukunui]

I’ve been calling 5e the DIY Edition since it first came out.

 

[Umbran]

As far as third party, we had Dragon Magazine rules and crazy classes back in the day (albeit at a much slower pace)

I think it is reasonable to compare Dragon back in the day to UA articles today. There is no real comparison for third party, what with the difference in licensing.