D&D General What D&D reflects today, media wise...

[Yora]

All that talk about basing RPG character classes on tournament videogames sounds absolutely awful to me.
When players are encouraged to think of their moves in game mechanic terms instead of narrative terms, there's something gone completely wrong.

 

[Aldarc]

It's not "vs" or at least it shouldn't be. They should work together to achieve the desired experience.

Hard agree. For many players it comes from a simple desire of "I want to emulate [X] from [media Y]. How can I do that in [TTRPG Z]?"

X is often entails a combined sense of fiction and/or mechanics, particularly if it involves another game, typically computer or video game.

For example, I recall a number of my friends throughout my years of tabletop gaming who said that they wanted to play a necromancer like in Diablo 2-3, Guild Wars 1-2, or some other game (e.g., Elder Scrolls/Skyrim, etc.). Then they find out that being a necromancer in D&D is more akin to playing an accountant who is managing summons. Or they find out that half the necromancer stuff is in the cleric and the other half is in the necromancer wizard.

I often say D&D's class design mentality is decades behind at this point.

It did advance a bit in 2008, but the backlash against the edition set us back another decade, for better or worse.

All that talk about basing RPG character classes on tournament videogames sounds absolutely awful to me.
When players are encouraged to think of their moves in game mechanic terms instead of narrative terms, there's something gone completely wrong.

Then you should be thankful that you have no shortage of TTRPGs out there on the market that cater to your preferences.

 

[Minigiant]

All that talk about basing RPG character classes on tournament videogames sounds absolutely awful to me.
When players are encouraged to think of their moves in game mechanic terms instead of narrative terms, there's something gone completely wrong.

I think the main modern philosophy is not of just mechanics but making the characters mechanically look like the narrative.Even if it makes the class or race a lot more complex.

A Major D&Dism is making a class or race using easy mechanics or via refluffing rather than designing mechanics that match the narrative. D&D is built on "Eh close enough" as the default.

 

[Aldarc]

I think the main modern philosophy is not of just mechanics but making the characters mechanically look like the narrative.Even if it makes the class or race a lot more complex.

A Major D&Dism is making a class or race using easy mechanics or via refluffing rather than designing mechanics that match the narrative. D&D is built on "Eh close enough" as the default.

Yeah, modern computer/video game design philosophy leans more into the playstyle of the class/archetype fantasy so that simply playing the game means that classes feel different in play. As you say, D&D (and its heartbreakers) tend to lean more into "fluff it up, buttercup" or "eh close enough."

 

[Paul Farquhar]

I often say D&D's class design mentality is decades behind at this point.

Like most of us here, the WotC staffers are much older than the core demographic.

 

[Dragonsbane]

Personally, I cannot stand the direction D&D has taken. Although it was for kids when I started in the 80s, it was Conan. LotR. Swords and Sorcery. Great posters of monsters and warriors and a little more skin... now it is Pokemon and Harry Potter, with some Care Bears thrown in and a PG-13 rating at best, sometimes G.

My two groups still have tons of fun with TTRPGs, but we switched to Cypher System and now PF2 after a while. No new D&D products interest my players (they are the butt of some jokes heh), and they certainly don't like some of the vague mechanics of 5E, let alone trends like it being so hard to die (a reflection on the new generation? You decide ), all the races being the same mostly (no real differences between the many races with tails and fur), and the nature of the newer generation of RAW fundamentalists.

A shame 5E doesn't have lines of products based on interest or age. Harry Potter for the younger ones, and perhaps something gritty for the grognards. Ahh well, us grognards have so many old books I can make new campaigns for decades!

 

[Aldarc]

Personally, I cannot stand the direction D&D has taken. Although it was for kids when I started in the 80s, it was Conan. LotR. Swords and Sorcery. Great posters of monsters and warriors and a little more skin... now it is Pokemon and Harry Potter, with some Care Bears thrown in and a PG-13 rating at best, sometimes G.

With a rant like this, I'm surprised you're not complaining about kids today liking their tinker toys, hula hoops, and hip-hopping wraps.

My two groups still have tons of fun with TTRPGs, but we switched to Cypher System and now PF2 after a while. No new D&D products interest my players (they are the butt of some jokes heh), and they certainly don't like some of the vague mechanics of 5E, let alone trends like it being so hard to die (a reflection on the new generation? You decide ), all the races being the same mostly (no real differences between the many races with tails and fur), and the nature of the newer generation of RAW fundamentalists.

I've seen more player characters die in 5e than I ever seen die in the Cypher System. And could you remind how races are typically done in the Cypher System again? Isn't it mostly picking a Descriptor like everyone else, which entails adjusting your pools a bit and maybe a skill training/deficiency without much real impact?

A shame 5E doesn't have lines of products based on interest or age. Harry Potter for the younger ones, and perhaps something gritty for the grognards. Ahh well, us grognards have so many old books I can make new campaigns for decades!

I suspect that "gritty" in this context means something closer to "a false history rooted in nostalgia" more than anything else.

 

[Dragonsbane]

Sorry it felt like a rant. People have different opinions, is that ok? I hope so!

Not doing the reply to every sentence in the post thing like you. My view is just an opinion. Sorry it does not go with yours.

This is a discussion forum, and I answered the OP. Be well.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Now it is Pokemon and Harry Potter, with some Care Bears thrown in.

I mean, it isn't though.

That's just inaccurate. There's pretty much no Pokemon at all in D&D 5E. In fact, if anything, you could complain about the severe lack of Pokemon or indeed any kind of real "monster-tamer" class in D&D. All the pet-oriented classes in D&D tend to have dull, ineffective pets, or very simple ones, and those pets tend to be very fixed and just scale a bit in terms of what they can do. There's none of the main draw of Pokemon - which is hunting new Pokemon.

Harry Potter isn't part of 5E's design. It's not something you could say 5E was significantly influenced by. There is an obviously HP-influenced setting (which is very recent), but claiming that's the "direction" of D&D would be liking claiming 2E's "direction" was Planetary Romance because Dark Sun existed or something equally laughable.

And Care Bears? "Kids today" are barely even aware of them (despite a number of largely unsuccessful attempts to reboot them). What possible influence can you see there from D&D? The over-40 crowd is only 13% of D&D players, and they're the only people who really have any opinions about Care Bears, in either direction. That's a weird and beyond-inaccurate insult which says more about the culture of the complainer than the object of the complaint.

I mean, it seems more like, instead of "hating the direction" 5E is taking, you just don't know much about 5E or the direction its taking. Which is kind of sad really. I mean, there is actually a ton you could criticise about 5E's direction without even getting into silly stuff (particularly that it's increasingly bland), but your approach is just one that says you're not actually familiar with what you're complaining about - neither the actual product, nor the influences.

let alone trends like it being so hard to die (a reflection on the new generation? You decide )

I find it really weird as well that you went Cypher and PF2. Neither system is remotely "gritty". Neither system is remotely like earlier editions of D&D. I haven't played PF2 yet, just read the rules, but the death rules seem to be nigh-identical to 5E D&D, except you make a "recovery check" instead of a "death save", and if you make even one recovery check, you stabilize (rather than needing outside help or a 20 like 5E). Just like 5E, if you're healed for even 1HP, you're immediately back on your feet.

It seems like if you really wanted gritty, there are a large number of well-supported OSR-type games, which is why I'm particularly confused by this.

Sorry it felt like a rant. People have different opinions, is that ok?

There are "different opinions" like, "Alignment is useful" or "Alignment is terrible" or "Full HP regain on long rest is too much" or whatever. Or even "I don't like any edition of D&D after 3E", but then there are also really ill-informed or unreasonable opinions, which aren't helpful to anyone, except maybe to illustrate the folly of certain positions.

Your "rant" seems to be largely inaccurate assertions about the influences of 5E, which seem to be based on misapprehensions about both 5E and the claimed influences, and a really strange assertion that it's too hard to die in 5E, and thus you're playing PF2, a game with nigh-identical and possibly more generous death rules.

 

[Aldarc]

Sorry it felt like a rant. People have different opinions, is that ok? I hope so!

Not doing the reply to every sentence in the post thing like you. My view is just an opinion. Sorry it does not go with yours.

This is a discussion forum, and I answered the OP. Be well.

"Just an opinion" is the motte to your earlier bailey post. You decided to voice your opinion in a grossly inaccurate manner that was clearly meant to denigrate younger people than yourself. That seems to have exceeded the respectful bounds of a harmless difference of opinion.