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

[Vaalingrade]

Slowly coming to the realization that 'superhero' is the new 'anime' or 'WoW': a dogwhistle mean to invoke negative feelings for people who have no idea what the thing is, only that they're supposed to hate it.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Here’s another true issue:

Lack of trust for non-WotC sources.

Almost all the stuff talked about - mundane fighters, etc- has a solution on Dms Guild. They’re right there. You want ship combat systems? There’s at least four on dms guild. I know because I own them.

The biggest problem with 5e is that everyone wants WotC to “fix” their particular issue while completely ignoring the many existing solutions.

I can tell you that I want WotC to do it because I want to sell that more complete, better version of D&D. And play it. And while you're right that a perfect world would have everyone happy to play with 3PP, the one we live in unfortunately gives "Real" D&D a HUGE leg-up over everything else when it comes to popularity and player buy-in.

Heck, my after-hours group plays at my store, and my players are happy to play other non-D&D RPGs, but they won't touch a 3PP rule or rulebook. (Little do they know that I slip Level-Up & @Nixlord's MME monsters into their D&D games when I DM, mwhaahaha).

 

[Micah Sweet]

Then they shouldn't be playing D&D, because no edition of D&D in the previous 50 years features that unless strictly keep things below level 7 or so, and are very careful about what elements you allow in the game.

Whereas there are plenty of RPGs about exactly that.

B/X, BECMI, and OSR games based on them tend to be pretty grounded. In terms of capabilities, 1e and and even 2e weren't bad either, although 2e certainly moved farther away.

WotC is the problem here.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

@Hussar - actually let me clarify slightly more - I will say where I've seen products which were more thorough, i.e. large books where a lot of work and detail had been put in, those tended to be pretty good quality, and if not quite on par with WotC, definitely within shouting distance, which is good.

It's more the individual classes and small collections of subclasses and so on that I've seen that tend to be wonky as heck.

I don't think WotC has the same definition of hero that you do, and I don't agree with theirs.

I'm very confident they do lol. Absolutely nothing in 5E contra-indicates it. But yes I get that you disagree with it. That's why stuff like DCC exists. Or even my beloved Worlds Without Number.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

B/X, BECMI, and OSR games based on them tend to be pretty grounded. In terms of capabilities, 1e and and even 2e weren't bad either, although 2e certainly moved farther away.

WotC is the problem here.

I mean WotC absolutely did double down on 2E's push towards heroic characters but we're like 25-35 years deep in that "problem". It ain't gonna change, for better or worse, and it's not a "problem" for many RPGers under 45 or so, I'd suggest.

Also sorry but BECMI absolutely features heroic characters even more outrageous than 2E or 3E, are you forgetting the CMI of BECMI all of a sudden? BE sure, that's pretty grounded. CMI absolutely not lol. RC D&D essentially summarizes BECMI and is one of the most heroic editions of D&D and actually really helps out martials in some ways.

OSR games go both ways. Really cool OSR games intentionally give rules for both ways. Worlds Without Number has what, at least three "tiers" of player-character, the ones who just use the basic, free rules-as-written, and the other two require the paid WWN, one of them being kinda-powerful, the sort of Gestalt characters, and the other ones being really seriously powerful, the Legates.

 

[Micah Sweet]

It's not just lack of trust, but that is a big part of it, it's also because of lack of integration into things like D&D Beyond.

But personally lack of trust is primary, because for all WotC's flaws, far less of their work is a terribly-balanced, poorly-conceived disasters which breaks basic principles of how 5E's math and systems work than 3PPs.

Even good 3PPs, like Critical Role/Darrington have absolute trash-tier balancing and mediocre rules understandings in most of their products.

You do occasionally see a 3PP which is just brilliant or shows real understanding of the rules (A5E is the latter, for example), but even looking high-end 3PP products, it's the exception not the rule when it comes to classes, species, and so on.

I should point out I own quite a few 3PP class/subclass/species products for 5E, and I like that. There is not a single one of them that I would consider well-balanced nor add to my game without modifying or severely caveating (except A5E maybe, but that's really a different-but-related game). Not even one.

Whereas there are bunch of 3PP adventures which I would run unmodified (or with only lore/story mods), and weirdly a bunch of spells which are just fine (though there are other spells from the same books I would just disallow).

Quite frankly, your opinion of the quality of 3pp is just that, and no more valid than anyone else's.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Quite frankly, your opinion of the quality of 3pp is just that, and no more valid than anyone else's.

I thought that was clear from the way I kept mentioning I'd only seen a tiny proportion of the 3PP that's out there.

 

[Micah Sweet]

@Hussar - actually let me clarify slightly more - I will say where I've seen products which were more thorough, i.e. large books where a lot of work and detail had been put in, those tended to be pretty good quality, and if not quite on par with WotC, definitely within shouting distance, which is good.

It's more the individual classes and small collections of subclasses and so on that I've seen that tend to be wonky as heck.


I'm very confident they do lol. Absolutely nothing in 5E contra-indicates it. But yes I get that you disagree with it. That's why stuff like DCC exists. Or even my beloved Worlds Without Number.

Both great games. Both games I'd rather play than 5e if I could.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I mean WotC absolutely did double down on 2E's push towards heroic characters but we're like 25-35 years deep in that "problem". It ain't gonna change, for better or worse, and it's not a "problem" for many RPGers under 45 or so, I'd suggest.

Also sorry but BECMI absolutely features heroic characters even more outrageous than 2E or 3E, are you forgetting the CMI of BECMI all of a sudden? BE sure, that's pretty grounded. CMI absolutely not lol. RC D&D essentially summarizes BECMI and is one of the most heroic editions of D&D and actually really helps out martials in some ways.

OSR games go both ways. Really cool OSR games intentionally give rules for both ways. Worlds Without Number has what, at least three "tiers" of player-character, the ones who just use the basic, free rules-as-written, and the other two require the paid WWN, one of them being kinda-powerful, the sort of Gestalt characters, and the other ones being really seriously powerful, the Legates.

It was also pretty clear about what it was doing and how the game changed. Modern D&D is not.

 

[mamba]

Slowly coming to the realization that 'superhero' is the new 'anime' or 'WoW': a dogwhistle mean to invoke negative feelings for people who have no idea what the thing is, only that they're supposed to hate it.

didn’t realize that superhero comes with negative connotations, the last 10+ years of movies must have fooled me there…

Yeah, I’d hate to play a game you like, we are absolutely at opposite ends, that does not mean anything is a dogwhistle, wouldn’t even know what dog would show up…