D&D 5E What are the "True Issues" with 5e?

[pemerton]

But the same people have no problem with the game being completely silent about the details of mundane equipment.

Another, more serious, though about this.

Over the past 18 months or so I've GMed around a dozen sessions of Torchbearer. This game has a strong survival element - the PC equipment lists include food, and cloaks, and woollen sweaters, and shoes - except 3 of the 4 PCs in the game don't have shoes, because they wore them out trudging through the wilds and haven't been able to afford to replace them.

Part of how the game works is that it uses slots for inventory (head, neck, 3 torso slots, hands, feet, 3 belt slots, 2 carried slots), and has simple but effective mechanics for overloading (the Labourer skill).

It also has a uniform resolution system, and it's easy for gear to factor into that (having appropriate gear adds +1D to your pool).

Its weather rules take up half-a-dozen or so pages: you roll on a season-appropriate chart, and then look up the effects of the result. In our last session there was rain, and as per the rules for rain I required the players to roll Health checks for their PCs. One got +1D because his PC was wearing his sweater (1 torso slot).

Journey generate easily-calculated "toll", which has to be bought off (a little like 4e D&D Dark Sun's "survival days") - that's why three PCs have no shoes, because they sacrificed their shoes to buy off toll last time they went hiking, rather than take debilitating conditions instead. And they have not been able to replace them since (there is no cobbler in the village about the Wizard's Tower to sell them shoes, and they haven't tried to buy any direct from a peasant or villager).

Another thing that happened in our last session was that the sweater-wearing PC preserved 5 portions of fresh rations (mechanically, the player succeeded on a fairly challenging Cook test). This reduces the number of inventory slots they take up, and means they do not spoil and require discarding when the PCs return to town.

The Cook PC is also the toughest fighter in the group (a Dwarven Outcast, for anyone who knows the system). Generally fighting is more exciting than cooking, but the system doesn't make the latter inherently less interesting or mechanically weightier than the former. They both sit within a consistent, more-or-less uniform system of PC build and action resolution.

I've set all this out in a bit of detail to make the point that it is perfectly possible to have a wonderful RPG that makes exploration, inventory, trekking, and the like key to play (though Torchbearer doesn't track ammunition - the quiver is just another piece of gear that takes up a belt or torso slot, and running out of arrows/bolts/stones is something the GM would narrate as an equipment-related complication, like having your tinderbox spill out of your satchel and fall through an upper-storey window during a struggle, which is also a thing that happened in our last session). And I do think Torchbearer is a wonderful, brilliant RPG.

But it's not the only one. I love Agon 2nd ed too, and Agon is at absolutely the other end of the spectrum. PCs have a "look", but no equipment list.

And there are great systems that use gear, but not equipment lists - eg Marvel Heroic RP. And systems that have equipment lists but don't really care about personal logistics at all, like Prince Valiant.

The issue for WotC, with 5e and its revision, is not a shortage of possible approaches to RPG design in this space. I agree with @Composer99 that the problems for WotC are reconciling D&D tradition (which has used weight rather than "slots" to handle inventory) with the fact that most people don't want logistics to matter, but do want magical equipment to matter, while there are a small handful who want something more low-level-Gygaxian.

It's a customer satisfaction problem rather than a design problem in the abstract sense.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Then I guess you're right then. D&D should just re-invent itself again as a high-octane thrill-seeking adventure romp, since anyone who cares about anything else is too few to matter.

You really haven't looked at the modern gaming landscape have you. D&D is an open world action adventure game with light RPG mechanics and mid-heavy combat without being too twitch heavy, and a strong story element with limited area claiming. If it had towers I'd call it an Ubisoft Game (with an attempt at microtransactions - and at least a better working culture than Ubisoft). 5e in particular is designed to provide a little something to everyone without leaning hard enough into that to put most people off. And this is a decent place for the industry leader to be, while other games can provide more niche and targeted experiences.

 

[Neonchameleon]

So far what I have seen the most complains about 5e is the opposite. Not to much chore but it being to easy and boring.

This is slightly missing the point. Chores are easy and boring. They just take time that feels pointless. This is relevant for 5e in two ways.

• 5e might have fewer mechanics than other D&Ds - but still has multiple rulebooks that fill hundreds of pages and characters are complex. This can feel like a chore.
• Knowing which mundane resources to bring is just a checklist which you continue to develop. It only becomes fun rather than a chore IME when you get to the test-your-luck part and you are improvising because there are problems. The more work you put in to avoiding chaos the less fun it gets.

Players think, that they want it easie4. That they don't want a challenge. But the moment they turn on the cheat codes and get unlimited money in Fallout and maximum Stats in skyrim, they quit the game because it got boring.

The thing here is that not all the difficulties are the same. There are types of difficulty that most find a lot more fun than others do. I might find it a challenge to compare two lists of 200 numbers and find the two that are different - but that's not a fun type of difficulty. And it's this sort of difficulty that basic encumbrance and basic kit lists cover.

Every time you tick of an arrow from your equipment list it puts you into the world it makes the game world a little bit more real.

YMMV and everything comes with a cost. Every time you need to focus on the mechanics or mark your character sheet the more it pulls you out of the gameworld and into the game mechanics. Every time you tick off an arrow from your equipment list it forces you to acknowledge that you are a person sitting at a table holding a pencil or a tablet and playing a game, breaking immersion and making the game world a little bit less real.

The question is whether the cost is worth the benefit. In the case of tracking arrows I (and others) think the answer is "under very rare circumstances". I (and others) think that the cost to immersion thanks to a gratuitous character sheet interaction is higher than the benefit here. Especially when arrows are reusable.

Immersion into the world is broken, when this halfling would run around with 10 battleaxes on their back.

Which is an entirely different issue to tracking the number of arrows you have - and other than people walking off with ludicrous amounts of loot to sell I've not seen this. The way to avoid the golf bag of weapons is stop making it beneficial to carry so many.

If you remove the mundane stuff it becomes harder to immerse the players into the world.

And if you make the players focus on the character sheets it becomes harder to immerse the players into the game world. Everything is a balance.

 

[Oofta]

No financial sense, certainly. I remain unconvinced that WotC cares about literally anything else.

Last time I checked these are people who make a living selling a game. Caring about sales is hardly a negative.

Why would catering to the demands of a small minority be better than creating and supporting a larger number of people? Yhe more people that enjoy the hobby, the more people having fun sure seems like a good thing to me.

There are other niche TTRPGs out there. D&D is and pretty much always has been the market leader because they aren't hyper focused on one small subset of players.

You can say you want something else. Just like I can say that I, and the dozen or so people I play with, like the direction they've taken.

 

[FrozenNorth]

For some of this stuff there's 3PP, but WOTC has clearly picked a lane here and detailed simulation isn't in that lane. I understand some people may want other things but I'm also pragmatic enough to know that they aren't going to revisit the TSR days of a gazillion supplements. It didn't really work then, I see no reason it would work now.

That’s not quite accurate. Part of the complaint is that while the effects of having a tent are left up to DM discretion, the effects of Leomund’s Tiny Hut are set out in great detail.

 

[FrozenNorth]

The real problem here is not dumping STR.

The problem is too much stuff is DEX-only in 5E, and the single-stat save system is blitheringly stupid, and I don't think anyone on these boards even particularly likes it and I know D&D players in general don't. It's just an outright bad design.

Also, while Str can’t be used to replace Dex, there are a lot of times where Dex can be used to replace Str. You’re a one-handed weapon user? A rapier does the same damage as a longsword. You’re grappled by an opponent? Use your high Acrobatics instead of your mediocre Athletics to escape. A lot of spells give you a choice between an Athletics or an Acrobatics check to get out of them.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Its weather rules take up half-a-dozen or so pages: you roll on a season-appropriate chart, and then look up the effects of the result. In our last session there was rain, and as per the rules for rain I required the players to roll Health checks for their PCs. One got +1D because his PC was wearing his sweater (1 torso slot).
...
I've set all this out in a bit of detail to make the point that it is perfectly possible to have a wonderful RPG that makes exploration, inventory, trekking, and the like key to play (though Torchbearer doesn't track ammunition - the quiver is just another piece of gear that takes up a belt or torso slot, and running out of arrows/bolts/stones is something the GM would narrate as an equipment-related complication, like having your tinderbox spill out of your satchel and fall through an upper-storey window during a struggle, which is also a thing that happened in our last session). And I do think Torchbearer is a wonderful, brilliant RPG.

I just thought I'd add that this feels like a massive improvement over D&D. If you actually care about survival then caring about whether you wear a sweater (and how well your cooking preserves rations) are to me things that enhance the experience massively beyond anything I've ever seen in D&D, especially tracking the number of arrows you have when arrows are inherently reusable.

Journey generate easily-calculated "toll", which has to be bought off (a little like 4e D&D Dark Sun's "survival days") - that's why three PCs have no shoes, because they sacrificed their shoes to buy off toll last time they went hiking, rather than take debilitating conditions instead. And they have not been able to replace them since (there is no cobbler in the village about the Wizard's Tower to sell them shoes, and they haven't tried to buy any direct from a peasant or villager).

And this is a far more interesting and visceral trade-off over anything I've seen D&D offer. Shoes matter and add to the realism of the game world - and while the shoes are in some ways effectively hit points (you lose them rather than take other consequences) they make the world more rather than less comprehensible.

And this is why the request for old school D&D survival mechanics really confuse me. Not only are they a niche play style - they aren't very good at what they are trying to do. Torchbearer, of course, started out by the designer going back to really old school D&D, playing it a lot, then trying to build a game based on the parts that had been lost.

 

[FrozenNorth]

See, I'm of the apparently aberrant opinion that D&D the game does not need to reinvent itself regularly to conform to what its current designers and marketing team think "today's" players want. No other RPG does this, and being popular does not make D&D special.

Pathfinder is on its 2nd edition and Call of Crhulhu is on its 7th. Savage worlds is 2 or 3, and Fate is at least 2. That’s just off the top of my head.

 

[Oofta]

That’s not quite accurate. Part of the complaint is that while the effects of having a tent are left up to DM discretion, the effects of Leomund’s Tiny Hut are set out in great detail.

But a tent is real. Tents exist, magic does not. They can't give details on every mundane topic in the book. What's next? Capacity of a cooking pot? Details on how to use a flint and steel in order to start a fire?

They have to make some basic assumptions. Telling people that it's a canvas tent for 2 is enough information, people can look up details if it matters to their campaign. I've never seen anyone get that detailed and I can't imagine why anyone would expect that level of detail for a D&D game, there are a thousand other details to truly simulate a survival situation if you need that kind of information.

 

[Oofta]

Also, while Str can’t be used to replace Dex, there are a lot of times where Dex can be used to replace Str. You’re a one-handed weapon user? A rapier does the same damage as a longsword. You’re grappled by an opponent? Use your high Acrobatics instead of your mediocre Athletics to escape. A lot of spells give you a choice between an Athletics or an Acrobatics check to get out of them.

Then you get people who want to use acrobatics to climb, etc. Occasionally I'll allow acrobatics to swing from a chandelier, but climbing a wall? Athletics.