D&D 5E What does 5E do well?

[Parmandur]

Part of the reason, I think, that it works so well for streaming as it doesn't concentrate on numbers so much. And by that I mean, there is close to no "I get a +2 from here and a -2 from here and a +1 from here" etc., etc. I find watching people add up their modifiers extremely boring as a GM and a Player. I can only suspect that I'd find it doubly mind-numbing as an observer.

While some others may poopoo Advantage/Disadvantage and others malign Bounded Accuracy, the combination of the two reeeeally wacks that sort of thing in the head. Plus, whether you like this or not, it makes rolling more important and more like, I guess, gambling. It's fun to see IF something is going to happen.

I don't think I'm wording this well. That's been my curse today.

Heh.

I remember watching a stream of 4E that was done to show off the game. It was pretty terrible. I think the biggest issue was it so disrupted the flow of play to have everyone constantly looking at and reading their powers and all the details. Powers were often read out loud because no DM could know every possible option. It really broke up the easy flow and give-and-take I find that we generally have in 5E.

With the structure of 4E (and wouldn't be surprised to see it more often with 3.x), people were more focused on the game and rules details than the flow of the combat. Add in the structure of skill challenges with reliance (right or wrong) on dice rolls being of utmost importance to resolution in most games and the game just lacked spontaneity and flow.

What I like about these suggestions is that they also point to why other games I've seen work for streaming, even very different games, worked as well.

 

[Malmuria]

I never played 4e, but I wonder if the difference can be tracked by looking at the Acquisitions Incorporated game, which started off as a 4e game and then moved to 5e as it became this 4 hour show that would only happen 3-4 times a year to a live audience. Those games are really light hearted and silly; basically every character is a vehicle for the player to make jokes, and this makes it entertaining. There's nothing specifically "medieval" about it except maybe in a ren faire sort of way, and in fact every time a new product comes out they take the whole game and move to to a different setting without too much difficulty. It is very self referential (the whole idea of an adventuring group as having a "brand" and "interns"and what not). The players don't really need to know the rules, and it seems that the dm can know the rules but should often ignore them and hold on very lightly in general. Similarly, the dice camera action game: I listened to it a little bit, and it seemed the players were running a bakery with their pet owlbear and would occasionally have a huge combat where they would win and if someone died they were resurrected by the next session. Again, they were playing one of the official adventures, but in a very hand-wavey way that focused on the characters.

So, is "goofiness" a style of play? I think when you start to take any element of 5e too seriously--the mechanics, encounter building, world building/lore, character creation, etc--it becomes less and less interesting as a game. It works best when yes, half the players don't know the rules but its ok because you can just make it up and it works out fine, your party is an half elf, a tiefling, a tabaxi, and a kenku, they have patrons and gods that they barely think about, they can't really die, and they are teleporting and plane shifting around to different settings in a story full of plot holes; don't worry about it, says the game. Also, you're not going to play for another two months because of scheduling issues and by then everyone will have forgotten everything about the campaign.

fwiw, I tried to watch some of the mcdm actual play and it was extremely boring.

 

[Minigiant]

I'm not sure if 5E does any genre or storytelling particularly well. What it does do well, though, is marry the old and the new. It also does a great job of bundling options and story together in such a way to make character build options into roleplaying options too, which MIGHT make it especially good for role-playing.

The simplification of the rules (everything is a d20 plus modifiers), the smoothing of numbers (bonuses ranging from -1 to +11 before expertise), and the ease of advantage/disadvantage over adding/subtracting bonuses/penalties makes the system easier to teach new players, too.

I agree with this.

What 5e excels at is you can slightly tweak it easily. You can up the combat a bit or up the social mechanics a bit. You can add a little Ancient Rome, Romantic China, or Wild West in it. You can go to Mystery, Politics, or War a little bit.

As long as your tweaks aren't the focus, 5e does it very well will so few braincells a DM on their 2nd shot of tequila can handle it. Maybe 1st shot. I don't know you guys and gals and beholders tolerances. Past the 3rd shot is Monty Haul TPK time for me.

Where was I? Oh yes. I agree. 5e doesn't do anything but hardcore basic D&D very well. But it does tweaks good enough. And if you get a WOTC book or DMGuid off you might get to do two tweaks.

So yeah.
"5e is Chicken McNuggets."

 

[Rhenny]

5E is easier to DM. Eliminating little modifiers and making the core lean, using rulings not rules simplifies the DMs job. I find it much easier to let the narrative and story, and roleplaying take front stage in my campaigns and it seems much easier for me to prep. I can use the dice when it seems necessary for decision making and settling uncertain outcomes without having to memorize rules or look up anything in game. That makes my games run smoother and quicker.

I’ve played and DM’d all versions of D&D and I find that I don’t want to go back to any other version.

Making it easier to DM has helped the game proliferate too.

 

[Yaarel]

5e is easy to tweak.

As a DM, to create a distinctive setting, I have created new feats, backgrounds, spells, and items, all with little or no problems for balance.

Relatedly, there are few if any class options that can break a game. For a power gamer there are trap options that system mastery must learn to avoid. Yet a storyteller gamer cant go too wrong if only focusing on flavor.

As a player, most of my needs for character customization are now in place, when including Handbook, Xanathars, and Tashas. Some clarifications can help. I want more lineage feats to choose from for Tashas custom lineage, and more official options with regard to class power sources, but for now these are something a DM can tweak without too much trouble. I am still hoping for a Psion class that I like.

As DM, for official settings like Dark Sun and Eberron, I want no Forgotten-Realms/Planescape cosmology, and only opt-in options for DMs who want to link the setting to FR/PS cosmology. But again, these are tweaks that 5e makes easy.

In sum, 5e is solid for settings and characters, including options to tweak them.

 

[pming]

Hiya!

"I said 4E is great for Heroic Fantasy: you're already a hero at level 1 with several dope powers! And it's not super good for dungeon crawling or survival? But it is great for "Save the world" adventures! Someone asked "What is 5E good for?" And...I did not have...a good answer?"

Going STRICTLY BY THE CORE THREE BOOKS ONLY...

I'd say that 5e allows for a large range of power-level and play styles... IF the DM puts in even a mediocre amount of work to bring his/her Campaign World to life. Straight, core, RAW, no-imagination-added 5e is pretty boring. I guess you could say it is a "great vanilla flavour game". Not going to wow anyone, but not going to really turn anyone off either.

But, with a DM that spends an hour thinking about his/her world, and makes some interesting notes, then presents these to his players during the game? I think 5e is a GREAT game system for that. Basically, the DM is adding all the "sprinkles n' fixin's n' whatnot".

That's what 5e does wall; gives a very solid, vanilla base that any DM can add to in order to create the game they want and the world they envision.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Weiley31]

Judging by a couple of really good examples, like Adventures in Middle Earth and Beowulf: Age of Heroes, 5E is pretty damn hackable/modular. Advantage/Disadvantage is probably one of the best ideas that has come in DND as it does its job and reinforces aspects of character roleplaying, such as Elves not as being easily enchanted(charmed). You can easily have a nice rp scene that allows the elf character to show off or get a scene.

You can pretty much do that with a lot of other racial or class features as well.

As an inverse, a number of 5Eisms, as others have mentioned, seem like you can reverse engineer them into past editions without TOO much issues of it breaking said prior editions. (In fact I totally fully endorse having Advantage/Disadvantage in 2E or even 1E.)

Refluffing is actually, despite being a simple idea, pretty cool notion. I loved the Warblade from 3.5, and I pretty much just changed the name of my Fighter's Subclass, Battle Master, to Warblade. That's it. No homebrewing or testing out said homebrew and worrying about balance. Just went with a simple name swap due to similar Mechanics/Ideas between the two classes of two editions.

Capstones: LIke it or lump it and despite a number of them not being so hot, this edition actually gives you a reason to stick with a class all the way through. As much as people may have loved System Mastery(You showoff), I want to play DND to roleplay/enjoy the story/hilarious hijinxes and NOT showing off a degree in math to make an unholy rip-off Yugi-oh style Ur-Priest Ranger Paladin of the Abjure Champions Jade Pheonix Crusader Swordsage and be an absolute useless sack/tool because I chose some crappy options in an attempt to Multi-Class like some kind of Algebra Math Tutor. The 5E Paladin/Warlock Multi-class combo is probably the only exception to the 5E Single Class rule as its supposedly Kittens, Milk, and Monster Girls in goodness/desirability.

The Skill System isn't stupid/redundant/trap optioned: The 3.0/3.5 Skill system with Skills/Cross Class Skills was something. To the point where if I were to ever play 3.0/3.5, we're importing over Pathfinder 1E's Skill System into it as it isn't as quite punishing as making you having to pump extra skill points into a skill that you weren't skilled in. Add to that the staggering numbers of skills(IIRC) In 5E, its either your Proficient in a skills and get a +1 to +6 bonus on top of their Ability Modifier or not. That's it. AAAAAnnnnd said skills aren't a huge hassle of a grocery list.

Subclasses. Subclasses are cool. As I've said before, Subclasses remind of a modern/better take on 2E's Kit system for classes.

It took some good ideas from previous editions and pretty much added em in.

5E also has a number of banger looking covers to their books. True, a majority of said covers are the Hydro Alternative covers, but they look great. Tyranny of Dragons 2019, Icewind Dale: Rime of The Frostmaiden, Mythic Odyssey of Theros, and Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft are some great looking covers. Tyranny of Dragon and Rime of The Frostmaiden being my two absolute favorites.

 

[Stalker0]

Do you think other editions have faster combat than 5e?

3.5 and 4e had about the slowest combat on the planet outside of 1980's/1990's Rolemaster. 5e is not a lot faster, but it is a tiny bit faster. Both, in my opinion, come to a crawl once you reach 5th or 6th level.

4e combats are longer but I think that's because they average more rounds. In terms of time per round, I think 4e is pretty fast.

5e is faster than 3e pretty much across the board, and once your at the 8-9th level its night and day faster....3e just has so much to track at that point.

 

[Oofta]

4e combats are longer but I think that's because they average more rounds. In terms of time per round, I think 4e is pretty fast.

All I can say is that in my experience combat ground to a practical halt after the lowest levels. High level combat? An hour or more per round was typical; my high level campaign got to the point where if I did little else I could still only get in two combats per 6 hour session.

 

[cmad1977]

It apparently does D&D really well.