D&D 5E Volo's 5e vs Tasha's 5e where do you see 5e heading?

[Parmandur]

There lies the problem in that bolded bit. It would be an absurd claim to suggest that players do not massively outnumber GMs. Even if you count tables where some of the players sometimes GM or have GM'd before it's still going to be an avalanche of what players want completely dominating any differences from DM PoV. It was not until recently that wotc even started bothering to ask if someone is a dm & what percentage they are a dm/player. Prior to that it was not even a datapoint to consider if there was statistically different leanings about something between players & those who DM more than a given percentage. Combine that with the 70% rule and you could have topics where a hypothetical 100% of DMs feel strongly in one direction while even a mere majority* of players are mildly in favor of the other direction and that hypothetical unified DM position would be completely shut out from consideration under the 70% rule.

Also you misrepresent the other side by panning everything as something that would slow down or somehow unwind wotc's "objective" of faster combat. Wotc's own decision to simplify combat down to little more than a damage die with a near certain hitrate resulted in everything being a giant bag of HP that slows combat. Some of these changes allow room for changing the design defect that unquestionably contradicts with that goal of "faster combat".

likely even just some plurality

I see no reason to suspect any such plurality, let alone call it "likely." Most people I see are intimidated by how complex and involved 5E combat is already, even if they like it.

 

[tetrasodium]

I see no reason to suspect any such plurality, let alone call it "likely." Most people I see are intimidated by how complex and involved 5E combat is already, even if they like it.

That would require you to be claiming both A: that 5e combat is intimidating, complex, & involved along with B: that out of wotc's 50 million or so customers 30% or more are GMs. Those two claims are very much at odds. The point of the hypothetical was to show how even the most extreme case the voice of GMs is going to be little more than a meaningless blip in the fact of the 70% rule. Less extreme splits by extension won't even shift the dial.

There are all sorts of examples of that silencing problem in 5e's rules. Why did they replace body slots & affinities with 3 attunement slots & not even try to use them for limiting stacking?... Easy, the number of players who want a +3 weapon +3 armor & +3 shield all at once massively outnumbers the number of DMs who realize the problem such a thing would cause so wotc listened to the majority. The same holds true of things like the optional tactical components in the dmg that are written as if such things are not even acceptable within a ttrpg along with many others within 5e.

 

[Parmandur]

That would require you to be claiming both A: that 5e combat is intimidating, complex, & involved along with B: that out of wotc's 50 million or so customers 30% or more are GMs. Those two claims are very much at odds. The point of the hypothetical was to show how even the most extreme case the voice of GMs is going to be little more than a meaningless blip in the fact of the 70% rule. Less extreme splits by extension won't even shift the dial.

There are all sorts of examples of that silencing problem in 5e's rules. Why did they replace body slots & affinities with 3 attunement slots & not even try to use them for limiting stacking?... Easy, the number of players who want a +3 weapon +3 armor & +3 shield all at once massively outnumbers the number of DMs who realize the problem such a thing would cause so wotc listened to the majority. The same holds true of things like the optional tactical components in the dmg that are written as if such things are not even acceptable within a ttrpg along with many others within 5e.

Yes, even to many people who like D&D, 5E combat is intimidating, long, and involved. Obviously, in broader gaming terms, it is pretty streamlined and straightforward...but that's not where everyone is at.

You seem to be misinterpreting the point of the 70% rule: if nobody really wants to play a truenamer, that is somrthimthat WotC wants to know before they publish it. UA is about gauging broad interest in an option, and if somehow every single player wants a Genie Warlock but every single DM doesn't, WotC still has an interest in putting the option out there.

 

[tetrasodium]

Yes, to many people who want like D&D, 5E combat is intimidating, long, and involved. Obviously, in broader gaming terms, it is pretty streamlined and straightforward...but that's not where everyone is at.

You seem to be misinterpreting the point of the 70% rule: if nobody really wants to play a truenamer, that is somrthimthat WotC wants to know before they publish it. UA is about gauging broad interest in an option, and if somehow every single player wants a Genie Warlock but every single DM doesn't, WotC still has an interest in putting the option out there.

Yes 5e combat is long because Wotc shifted from a lower chance of hitting opponents with fewer Hp to near certain chance of hitting a gigantic bag of hp the attacker is near certain to hit. Being a GM is intimidating, always has been, except by failing to include the kind of insights into understanding the system & RAI previously present in much of past edition dmg pagecounts wotc made 5e even more intimidating.
You needed to use archetypes in that polling example because wotc's not even trying to fill the desires of GMs when it comes to gm specific options & such to choose. If that were not the case you could point at the multiple tactical &alternate weapon/armor systems as an example but they haven't been bothering with that kinda stuff since it was called next

 

[Parmandur]

Yes 5e combat is long because Wotc shifted from a lower chance of hitting opponents with fewer Hp to near certain chance of hitting a gigantic bag of hp the attacker is near certain to hit. Being a GM is intimidating, always has been, except by failing to include the kind of insights into understanding the system & RAI previously present in much of past edition dmg pagecounts wotc made 5e even more intimidating.
You needed to use archetypes in that polling example because wotc's not even trying to fill the desires of GMs when it comes to gm specific options & such to choose. If that were not the case you could point at the multiple tactical &alternate weapon/armor systems as an example but they haven't been bothering with that kinda stuff since it was called next

I'm sure that if there was significant interest in such complexities, they would have put something out: from what is in the final rules, and what was in Next, it's clear that they removed modular rules for more complexity with wrapons & armor. If there was a significant audience, it would be supported.

 

[Hussar]

even if frustrated ignored gm's only make up 5-10% sized chunks. Take 2-3 frustrated ignored groups of them each with 4-6 payers & you get 20-60% sized groups when they move their players. I've mentioned a few 5e forks coming out recently & in the near future. I'm even in the process of moving 4 players to one released to backers about a week ago that's going to print in july with 6 pages on weapon properties & creating weapons in it... Given the last 6 pages were largely about wotc's unwillingness to provide even a single page of that kind of stuff it seemed like a good choice of the many improvements in it. There is another one starting around october that seems to be targeting more/different areas wotc has decided are unacceptable elements of gameplay

This sounds an awful lot more like confirmation bias. YOU are switching to a new game, therefore, everyone else must be unhappy too.

Again, there is zero evidence of this. It's not like any other game is rocketing up the charts. Even the #2 game out there, Pathfinder, is barely a blip on the radar. Anything else? I doubt the majority of gamers out there have even the slightest idea that these games exist. Nor, do they care.

Remember, the vast majority of 5e gamers are first time gamers. For them, it's all new. Did you switch to different systems after your first D&D campaign? Were you disillusioned with D&D after a year and a half of play? Exactly how long was it before you started playing a different system? Now, ask your current players the same question. Heck, I presume, you've stuck with D&D for six years. That's probably four years longer than you stuck with any other edition before at least trying out different games.

So long as we're seeing this massive influx of new gamers, there is zero chance that WotC gives the slightest fig newton what you or I want.

 

[THEMNGMNT]

This thread got kind of weird. As I recall, WotC has been very clear they want to get off the edition treadmill. They built their entire product plan around slow, incremental expansions to the rule set. It has resulted in the most successful version of D&D ever. Why would they jeopardize that by releasing 6E?

I'm not saying they won't.

But...why?

 

[Hussar]

Yes 5e combat is long because Wotc shifted from a lower chance of hitting opponents with fewer Hp to near certain chance of hitting a gigantic bag of hp the attacker is near certain to hit. Being a GM is intimidating, always has been, except by failing to include the kind of insights into understanding the system & RAI previously present in much of past edition dmg pagecounts wotc made 5e even more intimidating.
You needed to use archetypes in that polling example because wotc's not even trying to fill the desires of GMs when it comes to gm specific options & such to choose. If that were not the case you could point at the multiple tactical &alternate weapon/armor systems as an example but they haven't been bothering with that kinda stuff since it was called next

You keep repeating this like it's true. It most certainly isn't my experience.

A 5e character, after 5th level, averages about 25 points of damage/round. Give or take (and you certainly can do more, but, you can also do less as well). Given a 5 PC party, they can generally dump in about 125 points of damage/round. That means that most combats are going to take about 3-5 rounds.

What is this "big bag of HP"? Where are you even remotely getting that? This isn't 4e where combat often took 8-10 rounds by design. And, it's not 3e's rocket tag either. It's a nice blend of the two where you have fairly predictable results telling the DM that if you tally the HP of the encounter, you can, by and large, predict pretty closely how long an encounter will take.

Oh, and just to b e clear, the "lower chance lower HP" thing is very much a myth. AD&D characters, by fairly low levels - say around 6th - basically never missed. It just mean that your 9th level party was into killing multiple very large creatures and the only real lethality was in save or die effects.

 

[tetrasodium]

This sounds an awful lot more like confirmation bias. YOU are switching to a new game, therefore, everyone else must be unhappy too.

Again, there is zero evidence of this. It's not like any other game is rocketing up the charts. Even the #2 game out there, Pathfinder, is barely a blip on the radar. Anything else? I doubt the majority of gamers out there have even the slightest idea that these games exist. Nor, do they care.

Remember, the vast majority of 5e gamers are first time gamers. For them, it's all new. Did you switch to different systems after your first D&D campaign? Were you disillusioned with D&D after a year and a half of play? Exactly how long was it before you started playing a different system? Now, ask your current players the same question. Heck, I presume, you've stuck with D&D for six years. That's probably four years longer than you stuck with any other edition before at least trying out different games.

So long as we're seeing this massive influx of new gamers, there is zero chance that WotC gives the slightest fig newton what you or I want.

Not at all,. The forks of 5e are not something 5e has had to compete with since it came out. AIME is about the closest you get & it's barely more than a reskin due to 5e being designed for no feats no magic items to make it an easy reskin. Now that those forks are coming along it would be strange indeed for products not even running through printing presses yet in order to beon shelves to be making any impact that could be tracked.

That also was not my point. The point was that whatever fraction of GMs feel like their needs are unmet is a much larger slice of the playerbase due to how a gm generally has more influence over what the table does than any one player.

You keep repeating this like it's true. It most certainly isn't my experience.

A 5e character, after 5th level, averages about 25 points of damage/round. Give or take (and you certainly can do more, but, you can also do less as well). Given a 5 PC party, they can generally dump in about 125 points of damage/round. That means that most combats are going to take about 3-5 rounds.

What is this "big bag of HP"? Where are you even remotely getting that? This isn't 4e where combat often took 8-10 rounds by design. And, it's not 3e's rocket tag either. It's a nice blend of the two where you have fairly predictable results telling the DM that if you tally the HP of the encounter, you can, by and large, predict pretty closely how long an encounter will take.

Oh, and just to b e clear, the "lower chance lower HP" thing is very much a myth. AD&D characters, by fairly low levels - say around 6th - basically never missed. It just mean that your 9th level party was into killing multiple very large creatures and the only real lethality was in save or die effects.

It's an objective fact. every attack is made with a full attack bonus rather than -5/-10/etc. Bounded accuracy locks the curve so magic weapons shift the already low AC to an even less meaningful value Generally lower ac monsters need to compensate with higher HP. hitting is more fun than missing so things were tuned to hit more often while overlooking how it just becomes the norm rather than exciting when it becomes common enough. 2e is extremely different from 5e in so many ways that it's barely a reasonable comparison. It takes a lot longer to roll calculate& track damage on an attack than it does to miss & move on to the next attack or player.

 

[Parmandur]

You keep repeating this like it's true. It most certainly isn't my experience.

A 5e character, after 5th level, averages about 25 points of damage/round. Give or take (and you certainly can do more, but, you can also do less as well). Given a 5 PC party, they can generally dump in about 125 points of damage/round. That means that most combats are going to take about 3-5 rounds.

What is this "big bag of HP"? Where are you even remotely getting that? This isn't 4e where combat often took 8-10 rounds by design. And, it's not 3e's rocket tag either. It's a nice blend of the two where you have fairly predictable results telling the DM that if you tally the HP of the encounter, you can, by and large, predict pretty closely how long an encounter will take.

Oh, and just to b e clear, the "lower chance lower HP" thing is very much a myth. AD&D characters, by fairly low levels - say around 6th - basically never missed. It just mean that your 9th level party was into killing multiple very large creatures and the only real lethality was in save or die effects.

The precise assumption of the design team is that combats should be about 2-3 rounds, so 12-18 seconds of time.