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

[James Gasik]

Being someone who took part in every step of the playtest and followed every commentary, I am sure they actually did take the feedback into account. If you look at the first playtest, you still see more 4e in it (starting hp, dwarven cleric attack+heal). Sadly so much was rejected because of 4e's (undeserved*) bad reputation.
Calling it a pure marketing scam is most probably wrong.
I do agree, that it was also creating interest and most importantly good will from their former audience who was lost during 4e.

I also do agree that pulling the plug of 4e tools showed what made 4e cumbersome: the reliance of tool to even be able to play the game.
I am sure with some more consolidation as in 4essentials, the game would have been playable. Actually I still have all the essentials rulebooks and probably you could play it from the books with no problems.

*bad reputation was undeserved, because many people rejected it untested.

It's really just a gut feeling, unfounded by real data (which is sorely lacking), but there were some really neat things in the playtest that never saw the light of day, like the playtest Sorcerer.

It's not impossible that people actually wanted the PHB Sorcerer to be the way it is...I guess. But I don't understand why if so.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Reread what I said,


It's not good at supporting fantasy tropes and archetypes popular with new players.

yeah, I find that the players in there teens and early 20s don't want to play conan... they want to play Ang, and potter, and jackson. I am just starting to get back 'out' into the world and my first new player I met was upset that they could not make a summoner that ONLY had summoning spells. (I didn't get the anime refrence it wasn't pokemon or yugioh)

Here's an example

The "Way of the Four Elements" Monk.

2) The designer didn't care enough about recreating benders by including elemental cantrips, low level elemental effects,and designing a monk subclass that can do elemental feats frequently over other things int the PHB.

yeah... some early subclasses were real flops

The question is if 5e is failing to replicate the fantasy tropes popular with the new players, will many of these new player stick with 5th edition once they become veteran and have other options. Will they stop buying official 5e books and WOTC only get the 50% profit off the DM Guild?

DMs guild and homebrew are more popular with the new players I know then the old veterans...

 

[GMforPowergamers]

If they put down 5e for a little while and went and played the game specifically designed around the concepts (and IP) of Avatar, both these players and the hobby would be in a better place, I think.

I am pretty sure WotC doesn't want them putting 5e down... I may be wrong

 

[James Gasik]

I am pretty sure WotC doesn't want them putting 5e down... I may be wrong

Yeah remember, the end goal is to have as many people playing 5e as possible. Which is why the game is in the state that it is, where rather than trying to line up with one ideal of fantasy well, it attempts to do all of them to varying degrees of success.

 

[UngeheuerLich]

It's really just a gut feeling, unfounded by real data (which is sorely lacking), but there were some really neat things in the playtest that never saw the light of day, like the playtest Sorcerer.

It's not impossible that people actually wanted the PHB Sorcerer to be the way it is...I guess. But I don't understand why if so.

You are totally right about gut feeling. But with the sorcerer as example, I fear the more probable explanation was rejection from the playtesters. Why introduce such a cool concept and just throw it away if not for this reason...

edit: except... the hidden designer could have been GRR Martin: "here is a cool sorceror everyone likes... and it is dead..."

 

[GMforPowergamers]

Yeah remember, the end goal is to have as many people playing 5e as possible. Which is why the game is in the state that it is, where rather than trying to line up with one ideal of fantasy well, it attempts to do all of them to varying degrees of success.

yeah I don't know when it happened but some time around 2000-2002 D&D became THE generic fantasy game. (most likely due to OGL) the very idea that someone would need to go to rifts or vampire or GI Joe even for those VERY different styles of game became a harder sell.

However D&D still tries to kitchen sink everything... and some players and DMs don't (in my experience) limit the game enough... some great games I have run have had martial only with the middle earth games with those classes

 

[James Gasik]

You are totally right about gut feeling. But with the sorcerer as example, I fear the more probable explanation was rejection from the playtesters. Why introduce such a cool concept and just throw it away if not for this reason...

edit: except... the hidden designer could have been GRR Martin: "here is a cool sorceror everyone likes... and it is dead..."

Ugh. It's like all the cool UA things that people seemed to think were cool, but then vanished without a trace...(RIP UA Ranger).

 

[James Gasik]

yeah I don't know when it happened but some time around 2000-2002 D&D became THE generic fantasy game. (most likely due to OGL) the very idea that someone would need to go to rifts or vampire or GI Joe even for those VERY different styles of game became a harder sell.

However D&D still tries to kitchen sink everything... and some players and DMs don't (in my experience) limit the game enough... some great games I have run have had martial only with the middle earth games with those classes

A lot of people tell me that no magic games run perfectly fine in 5e (and I hope to one day play in such a game to see for myself). It hasn't been my experience- there's a lot of things you can encounter that the game fully expects a spellcaster to be on hand for. Which means I'd have to do extra work to make sure players can remove curses or petrification (as examples) without needing a wonder worker around (or just avoid letting them get exposed to such things).

 

[Jacob Lewis]

All I can say is that 5e failed to gain my interest since it came out. So while I cannot pinpoint anything specific, I can honestly say that there is an underlying confluence of several factors that continue to push me towards every other system or edition.

 

[James Gasik]

A specialized game that has mechanics that reinforce it's setting is superior to a generalized game, IMO. Unfortunately, specialized games aren't going to sell as well as generalized games.

Like, it would be better if, instead of just "D&D" we had "Low Magic Fantasy RPG", "Moderate Magic Fantasy RPG", "High Magic Fantasy RPG", and "What the Hell, Space Hippos with guns?! RPG".

But you'd need a lot of niche books that only a few people would buy, a larger development staff for the different game lines, and the strange scenario of competing with yourself and splitting your market base.

Oh and you'd need to spend more money on marketing I imagine.