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

[Mannahnin]

1e and 2e are much more different than is generally acknowledged because the XP system is so different. 2e cleaned up 1e - but if you're playing them relatively purely then 1e has the XP for GP rule meaning that it's a game about exploration, heists, and where combat is a failure mode. 2e's default XP rules are XP for killing and XP for acting like a stereotypical member of your class meaning that it's a game about slaughter and acting like stereotypes.

But if you switched then you at the time probably saw it as an improvement because you had either ditched the old XP rules or you kept them.

2E also had the GP = XP rule. It's right there in the DMG. That fewer people chose to use it doesn't make it not exist.

It was switched to being an optional rule, as contrasted with 1E and earlier, in which treasure was the core and main source of XP.

This was part of what some folks nickname the Hickman Revolution, the transition from Gygaxian original dungeoneering to much more story and narrative-focused heroic play, exemplified by Dragonlance and Ravenloft. As Peterson showed in the Elusive Shift, in the 70s D&D had two main cultures of play- wargaming and sci-fi fan non-wargamers, the latter of whom cared more about story and drama and heroism and less about maximizing gold pieces and loot. The style some folks label Trad. But pre-1989 D&D made treasure the core and essential goal of adventuring, which always clashed with a mode of play where your Shining Heroes don't really care about money.

2E made the two main sources of XP 1) defeating monsters (quantified with hard charts) and 2) achieving story goals/completing an adventure (ad hoc, but recommended at no greater points than those available for defeating monsters in that adventure). Thus marking within the rules the ascendency of Trad over Classic (using the terms from that Six Cultures of Play article) as the style supported within official D&D.

 

[Oofta]

What you're still not taking seriously is that a lot of people kind of don't. Including a significant fraction of DMs.

I don't know if you're from a more rural or citified background, but I'm from a citified one, but had a wealthy enough upbringing to get a lot of outdoors experience, and interested enough in the middle ages and renaissance to know a lot of the details of how things worked. But my long experience playing with players and DMs also from a citified background is that a lot of them genuinely don't have the level of functional knowledge that you're assuming.

I guess you had a ton of this knowledge, because you out-of-hand dismissed the value of Aurora's for example (which even for me was educational), but that doesn't mean that's the norm, and I think there's a genuine point to be made about either having detailed or very abstract equipment lists as workable, but ones that are kind of in a wibbly-wobbly in-between aren't worth much.

Re: soap, sure we can all come up with examples of stuff that needs less explanation than other things, but most survival, including tents? That could do with a bit more - at the very least an illustration if no description. I think you'd be genuinely shocked by some of the discussion I've had with players over the years about equipment items and what they actually were - not a single one of them was the player acting in bad faith - they just had, to my mind, somewhat wacky ideas about a thing, but based on the limited information they had, those ideas were not dismissed until we discussed it.

(As an aside, I should point out I absolutely love equipment. I'm one of the two people in my main group who actually wants to play Torchbearer, for example. But a number of RPGs have equipment lists that are pretty worthless, for the most part, and current 5E is absolutely one of them. I rather hope 2024 does better.)

I don't out of hand dismiss. How things work are easy to google and will answer questions no rule book is going to cover. It's also details I've never seen have any importance over decades of play. The rules simply cannot explain how everything works, it would be a waste of page count that would likely just engender more arguments.

On the other hand if you don't know how soap works, it may explain a lack of visitors.

 

[Gammadoodler]

The assumption of the game is that other than magic or exceptions for simplification the world works just like ours. They don't need to explain how a blanket keeps you warm or how a flint and steel works. We may not know exact details, but we know how such things work in reality. We can't know how spells work in reality because they don't exist. Shovels, tents, pots, flutes, drums are all their real world counterparts.

What rules would you need for (random item) "soap"? We know what soap is. There's no reason to have more than a sentence or two for mundane items, the game can't include every possible use and implementation. I wouldn't want it to because then my PC couldn't use soap to create a wet and slippery surface or write something on a window that can easily be removed or added to a soup to make the soup terrible tasting or some other wacky idea I could come up with that makes sense in the moment.

If a particular piece of equipment needs no explanation and has no discernible mechanical benefit, then it does not need to be in the rulebook.

It'd be better to just have a "camp supplies" (maybe even at differing levels of luxury) that could provide explicit benefits and/or drawbacks to the downtime spent camping, whether that's stealth checks, watch perception rolls, long/short rest durations, etc. and roll all the b.s. undefined equipment into that or other similarly defined tool sets.

 

[Oofta]

If a particular piece of equipment needs no explanation and has no discernible mechanical benefit, then it does not need to be in the rulebook.

It'd be better to just have a "camp supplies" (maybe even at differing levels of luxury) that could provide explicit benefits and/or drawbacks to the downtime spent camping, whether that's stealth checks, watch perception rolls, long/short rest durations, etc. and roll all the b.s. undefined equipment into that or other similarly defined tool sets.

We disagree and there's no point on continuing to go back and forth.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

If a particular piece of equipment needs no explanation and has no discernible mechanical benefit, then it does not need to be in the rulebook.

It'd be better to just have a "camp supplies" (maybe even at differing levels of luxury) that could provide explicit benefits and/or drawbacks to the downtime spent camping, whether that's stealth checks, watch perception rolls, long/short rest durations, etc. and roll all the b.s. undefined equipment into that or other similarly defined tool sets.

You're right - equipment (and the entire pillar of exploration) doesn't need to be complicated or even particularly detailed. It just ought to be its own minigame (IMO) that people can chose to play or not to play, and it needs to work. ATM, again IMO, it doesn't really provide much either way. It's not cumbersome, which would be bad, but it doesn't really do anything for those who want it to.

 

[nevin]

I agree it's just that there needs to be some explanation for newbs what qualifies as "survival gear" for different classes. A person who has taken a wilderness survival class or been through military equivilant training. (who I'd equate with survival knowledge of say ranger or druid) could survive for a long time with just a knive and an appropriate set of clothes. Far better than most people think. A pile of leaves and anything to stop the wind will keep you warm in freezing weather, quite warm and cozy if done right I can attest. Every tool from knife and clothes on just makes it that much easier. Tthese type of rules always run head on into some DM who wants thier players to 'Feel the pain and reality" of thier world and to suffer to over come the challenges that they themselves do not understand. I'm ok with a Generic "survival kit" description as long as it's description covers what types of extreme weather it should protect the players in. The GOT type DM's have to have that or the go into the swamp of misery with these discussions.

Id say for instance a ranger with thier leather armor , clothes and a weapon could survive down to some very cold weather for quite some time and probably with far less issues than most would expect because they'd know how to make a snow cave, lean-toos, pack a bush with leaves and crate an insulated cuby, dig a hole and bury thier coals from the fire to sleep on etc. all without tents or other survival gear. There does need to be some sort of baseline for certain classes and even primitive cultures, so they can function in thier roles properly.

 

[Gammadoodler]

We disagree and there's no point on continuing to go back and forth.

Fine. I do have one final set questions, because you haven't actually addressed it yet.

What, to you, is the benefit of having shovels, tents, bedrolls, mess kits, and the like in the rulebook?

Does anyone reference their entries in the rulebook for anything beyond cost and weight?

I won't debate your response. I just want to know what you think people are getting out of these things.

 

[nevin]

while I hate record keeping games as much as anyone I do see more DM fights over not having them than having them. I can easily see the arguments. "my sword is broke I pull out my shovel and ready an action." ,<DM> "who said you had a shovel?" <player> "i've got camping Gear?" Table explodes. especially if you have detail oriented people who are going to argue over the details <shoot me now> of the unimportant whether or not you have a shovel with the DM who's pissed they didn't account for it because it's not a listed item. to be fair usually the same person who has a problem with you cutting a sapling and making your own quarter staff. <Your not a carpenter or a weaponsmith. why would you think you could do that?> makes you wonder how cave men didn't die out. LOL

 

[Micah Sweet]

while I hate record keeping games as much as anyone I do see more DM fights over not having them than having them. I can easily see the arguments. "my sword is broke I pull out my shovel and ready an action." ,<DM> "who said you had a shovel?" <player> "i've got camping Gear?" Table explodes. especially if you have detail oriented people who are going to argue over the details <shoot me now> of the unimportant whether or not you have a shovel with the DM who's pissed they didn't account for it because it's not a listed item. to be fair usually the same person who has a problem with you cutting a sapling and making your own quarter staff. <Your not a carpenter or a weaponsmith. why would you think you could do that?> makes you wonder how cave men didn't die out. LOL

I don't appreciate the assumption that nobody cares about logistics, or is right to do so.

 

[Gammadoodler]

while I hate record keeping games as much as anyone I do see more DM fights over not having them than having them. I can easily see the arguments. "my sword is broke I pull out my shovel and ready an action." ,<DM> "who said you had a shovel?" <player> "i've got camping Gear?" Table explodes. especially if you have detail oriented people who are going to argue over the details <shoot me now> of the unimportant whether or not you have a shovel with the DM who's pissed they didn't account for it because it's not a listed item. to be fair usually the same person who has a problem with you cutting a sapling and making your own quarter staff. <Your not a carpenter or a weaponsmith. why would you think you could do that?> makes you wonder how cave men didn't die out. LOL

On the one hand I see how this kind of fight could happen.

On the other, isn't there a whole "improvised weapons" thing in 5e specifically built for this kind of stuff.

Either way it sounds like more of a DM/player social dynamic issue than an equipment system issue.

The same player who pulls out a shovel from "camp supplies" could pull a shovel or some other amechanical object from their character sheet (or just a rock off the ground) to use as a weapon. And the same DM who questions the presence of a shovel in the "camp supplies" is just as likely to quibble about retrieving it from the pack, or whether the shovel or other amechanical object is big enough or the right shape to use as a weapon, etc.

Thar said, I can sympathize with a certain amount of discomfort with using a "Schrodinger's satchel" approach to equipment rather than a detailed inventory.

It's the same discomfort I feel whenever I think about how a caster's materials pouch actually works.