D&D 5E What (if anything) do you find "wrong" with 5E?


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Is there any evidence of significant dissatisfaction on the part of the gaming community other than anecdotes or personal preferenxe.
Anecdota is all we ever have LOL. The plethora of attempts to create homebrew always implied dissatisfaction the very first thing homebrewed in 1e, I always saw was the magic system (vancian is now all but vanished 4e had the default flavor of its system as vancian by the way). See that is an anecdote too. The 5e magic system its not vancian but slots are very weird a lot players I have seen do not seem to grok them.
 
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I think an important thing that has to be said is that not even WotC always knows what will be popular, nor do the consumers themselves. This is seen at the very root of 5E, which without a doubt exceeded any and all expectations, and was almost a shot in the dark to see if they could make something popular. And even then, not everything in the PHB or published by WotC has remained widely popular. The Saltmarsh rules for naval combat, the Four Elements Monk and Beast Master Ranger, the absolute minimal space background currently takes up, the ideals/bonds/flaws in backgrounds seemingly being dropped in all modern additions — what is popular cannot always be predicted. That means, at some point, when discussing new ideas, you have to accept that not every single idea needs to be provably extremely popular. First, you prove that it is good. Then, you try and see how it might effect the game at large for different tables.

I agree, to a point.

I think that there are some that try to move to where the market is. Apple, famously, does this (or tries to), and makes a point of "surprising" consumers. Just one more thing ...

But WoTC has made a point of surveys and marketing- they are playing it as safe as possible. While anything can happen, based on what we've seen of their behavior since 5e was originally tested ... I would be utterly shocked if they made any substantial revisions to the system (something that we would consider a 6e) prior to significant playtesting and feedback.

But while I agree that "not every single idea needs to be provably extremely popular" (and, personally, I ABHOR design by committee), WoTC has made no secret of the fact that when designing, they make sure that only designs that do not produce any significant negative reaction are included.

At a certain point, this could come back to bite them. But ... that point is not now.


ETA- the problem with always following what consumer want in surveys is that people don't always report their own wants and desires very well; this is especially true when it comes to things that are novel or poorly understood.
 







At a certain point, this could come back to bite them. But ... that point is not now.
Like the other thread states, the overall change of attitude of the D&D community and the resources they provide mostly covered WOTC's butt on 5e.

However this doesn't make it not a flaw of 5e.
 

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