D&D 5E (2024) What Improvements Would You Want with 6E?

[Tony Vargas]

play well when followed,

Well, through the ~4-11 "Sweet Spot," anyway.

while pulling the near trick of working fine if people undershoot the expectation

You're really whistl'n past the graveyard on that one. I applaud your optimism and facility for positive spin, though.

But, no, failing to deliver challenge without overcranking the encounter guidelines, and distorting class balance is not "working fine..."

... and it's not a helpful (or even entirely neccessary) "defense" of the game, either. When someone complains that 5e is "too easy," we helpfully point out that a longer 'day' will increase the challenge posed without dialing up the individual encounters or resorting to 'gotchyas.' That's helpful advice.

 

[Parmandur]

Well, through the ~4-11 "Sweet Spot," anyway.
You're really whistl'n past the graveyard on that one. I applaud your optimism and facility for positive spin, though.

But, no, failing to deliver challenge without overcranking the encounter guidelines, and distorting class balance is not "working fine..."

... and it's not a helpful (or even entirely neccessary) "defense" of the game, either. When someone complains that 5e is "too easy," we helpfully point out that a longer 'day' will increase the challenge posed without dialing up the individual encounters or resorting to 'gotchyas.' That's helpful advice.

Not really my point, so I'll put it this way. I see four logical groupings for how people relate to the adventure day:

A. People who play the published adventures and/or follow the DMG and/or XGtE guidelines close enough for government work, and are satisfied.

B. People like Critical Role who do not (often) push the full adventure day, but have fun anyways because strict combat equivalence and challenge are not important to the flow of their game, and are satisfied. (I would put myself and most of my experience outside of the official modules here)

C. People who would regularly want to push past the guidelines, but find them limiting.

D. People who want a game balanced around a smaller adventure day economy, and are dissatisfied.

Group C I won't say doesn't exist in actuality, but it is fringe. The game right is tuned properly for groups A & B. Group D is dissatisfied, but...how big is it compared to either A or B? Tuning the game for D would make people in A dissatisfied, though B would be unaffected. I would posit that since WotC has built a publishing schedule aimed primarily at A, and not changed course after five years, suggests that group A is, in fact, the primary market for the game.

 

[Zardnaar]

I think the encounter guidelines are crap, it's just not a deal breaker for most people.

And if you have fun steamrolling everything who cares? I more or less ignore the encounter guidelines just eyeball it. A large horde of crud isn't worth the numbers multiplier.

My last DM was new and he couldn't get the encounter rules working. He only ran 10 sessions or so, 6 person party high default array.
The default is easy mode but it doesn't really tell you that and a "deadly" fight is often easy.

 

[Parmandur]

I think the encounter guidelines are crap, it's just not a deal breaker for most people.

And if you have fun steamrolling everything who cares? I more or less ignore the encounter guidelines just eyeball it. A large horde of crud isn't worth the numbers multiplier.

My last DM was new and he couldn't get the encounter rules working. He only ran 10 sessions or so, 6 person party high default array.
The default is easy mode but it doesn't really tell you that and a "deadly" fight is often easy.

Group B.

 

[Zardnaar]

Group B.

Probably C for myself.

No D&D's perfect, it's mostly if the positives outweigh the negatives.

Why I think guideline rules keep failing is they make assumptions most people don't use.

They did do a survey but that was a while ago and we don't know the exact results.

Since then a huge amount of new players have turned up and they didn't vote in the playtest. So they might be struggling.

The encounter rules are really only good for a sweet spot dungeon crawl.

There's to many variables that any written rule can account for. Party size, ability scores, optimization etc.

Good encounter design is an artfirm, and takes years to pick up and you generally only learn from experience or prepublished modules.

I started 93 it was probably 98 before I could do really complex and interactive encounters using tactics, terrain, elevation, houserules etc.

With my new players they immediately noticed session 1 I use more traps than other DMs they've had. I was running a Pathfinder conversion just ran it more or less as is.

 

[Parmandur]

Probably C for myself.

No D&D's perfect, it's mostly if the positives outweigh the negatives.

Why I think guideline rules keep failing is they make assumptions most people don't use.

They did do a survey but that was a while ago and we don't know the exact results.

Since then a huge amount of new players have turned up and they didn't vote in the playtest. So they might be struggling.

The encounter rules are really only good for a sweet spot dungeon crawl.

There's to many variables that any written rule can account for. Party size, ability scores, optimization etc.

Good encounter design is an artfirm, and takes years to pick up and you generally only learn from experience or prepublished modules.

I started 93 it was probably 98 before I could do really complex and interactive encounters using tactics, terrain, elevation, houserules etc.

With my new players they immediately noticed session 1 I use more traps than other DMs they've had. I was running a Pathfinder conversion just ran it more or less as is.

Sure, but that's precisely why the game is tuned around maximal adventure days: just winging it works better when that will primarily result in players creaming any opposition.

The adventure products are huge sellers: new DMs are going to look for them for more concrete examples when forming their ideas about how to manage an adventure day.

 

[Tony Vargas]

Not really my point, so I'll put it this way. I see four logical groupings for how people relate to the adventure day:

I see no value to such speculation.
If your point is, "yeah, but the game sells well, so it doesn't matter," fine - at a sales meeting.

But this isn't "how would you sell D&D?"
... though, y'know, topic drift: nothing stops you from going there.

 

[Zardnaar]

Sure, but that's precisely why the game is tuned around maximal adventure days: just winging it works better when that will primarily result in players creaming any opposition.

The adventure products are huge sellers: new DMs are going to look for them for more concrete examples when forming their ideas about how to manage an adventure day.

The new adventures often don't get completed and there's not the variety.

I learnt on the old B/X series and Dungeon magazine. Shorter adventures may not get the money but I imagine they're easier to learn from.

Yes I know they exist but you're not going to find them in the shop shelf.

 

[Parmandur]

I see no value to such speculation.
If your point is, "yeah, but the game sells well, so it doesn't matter," fine - at a sales meeting.

But this isn't "how would you sell D&D?"
... though, y'know, topic drift: nothing stops you from going there.

How would one design D&D and how would one sell D&D are identical propositions.

The point is, the game is tuned properly now, for the goal of entertaining as wide a range of people as possible: an alternative basis for tuning isn't probable.

 

[Parmandur]

The new adventures often don't get completed and there's not the variety.

I learnt on the old B/X series and Dungeon magazine. Shorter adventures may not get the money but I imagine they're easier to learn from.

Yes I know they exist but you're not going to find them in the shop shelf.

I have no data on whether people finish the adventures, but they sell and get read.