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

[Micah Sweet]

I don't have exemple on hand but it's a tip any aspiring game designer has to know: don't get attached to anything. Now, this is mostly a tip for board game design but I think it should apply to the tabletop space as well. Sometimes it's best to just cut out a rule or mechanic and recycle it later than it is to force it into your current project.

But who determines that? When do you know?

 

[Micah Sweet]

I think this obliquely gets at one of the real and fundamental problems with the game, which is that success is taken for granted. Running into a monster that is out of your league should be fun and thrilling, but a combination of play culture, linear adventures, and rules that don't really inject much surprise or nuance into proceedings, all mean that the game isn't really able to handle situations like that.

If you go back to 'classic' editions, stuff like reaction tables, encounter distance rolls, and rules for escape and pursuit meant that running into a manticore at level 1 wasn't necessarily a TPK. It doesn't need to be in 5e, either, but I think most players have been conditioned to assume they should fight every monster and win every fight, and there aren't any rules to guide them toward other outcomes. It doesn't help that 5e puts a huge emphasis on every PC being an important and special hero, but doesn't offer any stakes for a loss other than death.

Skilled groups can overcome most of this, but it's a terrible introduction to the hobby.

Agreed. The TSR editions were much better about this.

 

[Oofta]

Whilst your statement is true, the Fighter is often beaten back into place all too often by those dual wielding the sticks of "realism" and "verisimilitude". It happens so often many believe that as soon as you use one of those two words you are trying to halt any change to the Fighter. The only two words that have ruined Fighter design more are "simple" and "Easy".

Some of us don't want to play a game that's modeled after anime or wire-fu. If you want an explicitly supernatural PC there are plenty of options.

 

[Vaalingrade]

Nah, we need more DM empowerment to bring order and consistency.

That's what rules do, not DMs.

 

[Raiztt]

That's what rules do, not DMs.

DMs are like the supreme court - they interpret what the rules actually say.

 

[MuhVerisimilitude]

Some of us don't want to play a game that's modeled after anime or wire-fu. If you want an explicitly supernatural PC there are plenty of options.

I can sense contempt in the wording there. I mean if we're talking anime, which series are we talking about specifically? Berserk? Hajime No Ippo? Dungeon Meshi? Monster? Mushishi? Neon Genesis Evangelion? Heavenly Delusion? Card Captor Sakura? Paranoia Agent? Millennium Actress? Perfect Blue? Tokyo Godfathers? Mononoke?

No. Anime as the boogeyman. Invoke it whenever the supremacy of casters is ever questioned.

And I think it's interesting how you're using "wire-fu" rather than wuxia.

 

[Oofta]

I can sense contempt in the wording there. I mean if we're talking anime, which series are we talking about specifically? Berserk? Hajime No Ippo? Dungeon Meshi? Monster? Mushishi? Neon Genesis Evangelion? Heavenly Delusion? Card Captor Sakura? Paranoia Agent? Millennium Actress? Perfect Blue? Tokyo Godfathers? Mononoke?

No. Anime as the boogeyman. Invoke it whenever the supremacy of casters is ever questioned.

And I think it's interesting how you're using "wire-fu" rather than wuxia.

Sorry, I'm not sorry that I'm not familiar with the "correct" terms. I've never found those genres interesting. I don't want fighters to be overly supernatural. If I want an overtly supernatural fighter I have plenty of options.

That's not contempt, it's just a preference. No game can be everything for everyone and I'm glad D&D 5E isn't trying to be something else.

 

[Raiztt]

Sorry, I'm not sorry that I'm not familiar with the "correct" terms. I've never found those genres interesting. I don't want fighters to be overly supernatural. If I want an overtly supernatural fighter I have plenty of options.

That's not contempt, it's just a preference. No game can be everything for everyone and I'm glad D&D 5E isn't trying to be something else.

fighter is arguably one of the best classes in PF2e full stop and they don't have any inherent supernatural powers. just say'n.

 

[Plaguescarred]

I think a lot of this comes down to a late edit. There are various forum posts where people compare the 5e playtest encounter rules with the final print. All the playtests were essentially one tier higher. (I.e. playtest "easy" became published "moderate")

I suspect there was feedback that encounters were too hard so they nerfed it, but the real reason they were too hard is the rules for encounter design were vague crap so newbies who didn't have a decade of experience were throwing 2nd level characters at white dragons (see post above re "Dragon of Icespire Peak"). They should have improved the DMG instead of making the encounters wussier, and thus necessitating more encounters.

So quick fix. If you want fewer encounters, make most of them Hard difficulty. Then when your players are somewhat acclimatized to this new environment, make Deadly encounters a common, if not frequent, event. The fights will take a little longer but needing fewer of them to deplete resources actually reduces the overall combat time.

It may also drive players to mmmmaaaayyyybeee not throw themselves into fights willy nilly, resulting in more non-combat activity. (I know, crazy concept that if combat has risk, players may avoid it)

I hear you but the model isn't well suited when running published adventures with encounters already set. Running 6-8 encounters be it combat, roleplay or exploration is not always fitting in a proper Adventuring Day and most difficulty is already set.

When i run hombrew stuff, i scale up so there's fewer harder encounters. Then the feedback i often get from players is that encounters all feel somewhat hard to deadly, no easy in between. I prefer this mind you, but some players prefer when there's more variation.

And the're also the 5MWD syndrome that often carry over.

 

[Velderan]

DMs are like the supreme court - they interpret what the rules actually say.

That's incredibly hard to respond to without getting into politics, but I'll take a stab at it.

You pretty much never see a 9-0 ruling on anything so clearly opinions can vary wildly on different issues. Also as the members of the court leave, they can be replaced by people with different viewpoints to the point where some settled cases get looked at again years later and the court overturns a previous ruling because reasons. That's not exactly the order and consistency you were mentioning.

Then you get into the possibility that an extremely wealthy player can just pay for a DM's vacation to buy favor in that decision making process. Just glad that has never ever happened in the court, no sir.